Podcasts about laura yeah

Is sobriety an all-or-nothing proposition in dentistry? In today's Monday Morning Episode, we've brought on Laura Nelson to uncover the nuanced conversation around alcohol use in the dental industry. Laura challenges the common perception that only those classified as "alcoholics" need to consider sobriety. Through personal insights, she stresses the importance of making conscious, sober decisions and explains how even social drinking can impact professional performance and practice culture. Dive deep into the pressures dentists face that often push them towards alcohol, and learn why open conversations about this topic need to happen more frequently and with less stigma.As the discussion unfolds, Laura passionately advocates for a supportive work environment, highlighting how unaddressed stress can erode a team's ability to thrive. She sheds light on the critical role leadership plays in maintaining mental well-being by demonstrating vulnerability. By setting the stage for honest, stigma-free dialogues, leaders can foster a space that encourages healthier lifestyle choices. The episode wraps up with actionable insights, including how individuals can connect with Laura and her community at Sober Life Rocks, to access peer support and resources for alcohol-related challenges.What You'll Learn in This Episode:Understanding the spectrum of alcohol use beyond alcoholism.The impact of alcohol use on dental practice culture and performance.How to cultivate a supportive environment for discussing mental health.The role of leadership vulnerability in promoting workplace well-being.Strategies for addressing stress and burnout in the dental industry.Ways to engage with communities focused on sober living.Tune in to uncover empowering perspectives that can redefine your approach to sobriety and well-being in dentistry!‍‍Sponsors:‍CareStack: Modern, Secure, Cloud-Based Dental Software for Growing Your Practice! With state-of-the-art features including Online Appointments, Integrated Payments, Text Reminders and more. Click the link here for a special offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/carestack/‍You can reach out to Laura Nelson here:Website: https://soberliferocks.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soberliferocksprofessionalsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/soberliferocksdental/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@soberliferocks‍Mentions and Links: ‍People:Dr. Brett Kessler‍If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Episodes, ask me on these platforms:My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)‍Michael: Hey, Laura. So talk to us. What's one piece of advice you can give us this Monday morning. Laura: You don't have to be an alcoholic to stop drinking. Michael: Interesting. Can you expand a little bit more on that? Laura: Yes, for sure. I was one who was the typical casual drinker through my life, conferences, events, mommy wine culture, growing up, the whole thing.And couldn't see life without alcohol because I thought to stop drinking, first of all, I wouldn't have fun. Second of all, I had to hit rock bottom. Like I would, didn't consider myself an alcoholic. And I think there's a lot of people who are in that same space that I was in. But I wasn't educated in this area, and so it's important for me to talk about this because I want to make a difference in dental because there's a lot of people who choose not to drink, who feel the pressure to drink alcohol, and don't realize that you can choose not to drink, and it's okay.We can normalize sober choices in our industry. So. Alcoholism is not a yes or no. it's a spectrum. And if we understand wherever you are on the spectrum, it's your decision, what you want to do with your life and it's everybody else's decision. And we need to stop peer pressuring each other into the need to drink alcohol.Michael: Interesting. So on the spectrum here, where do you kind of see most in the industry as far as when it comes to like events and things like that? Laura: Sure. Yeah. So, Alcohol use disorder, if you've ever drank for the wrong reason, drank too much, or woke up in the morning and regretted drinking, you are on the spectrum, because alcohol is an addictive substance and it doesn't usually serve us well.long term, right? So if you ever regretted drinking at any point or drink for the wrong reason, you're on the spectrum. Now, where is everybody in our industry all over? But the thing about alcohol is it is the number one self prescribed way to celebrate or numb feelings or emotions.And it is the most standardized use of drugs that we use our life. we celebrate with wine, we go out for champagne, we have beer tours, we go on wine tours, we go to conferences, it's all about alcohol. So it's so prevalent in our life that when somebody is questioning their use their,relationship with alcohol, or they're at events and they feel the pressure to drink, that's where it goes too far in the spectrum where we're really pushing in on each other.So, In our industry specifically we have an issue in the sense that we have lots of people who are licensed professionals who worry about their license who Have a lot of stress in their lives running practices and alcohol is where we tend to lean When we're dealing with the hard stuff and so, you know, I would say for that regard.There's probably a few who are secretly having the discussion in their head, based off of what they have in their life Michael: What psychological barriers do you think prevent? Practice owners or dentists from admitting to or seeking help alcohol use as a coping mechanism And how can leaders effectively dismantle those barriers?Laura: Yeah So the number one reason isas a society for a long time, it's been something that you hide if you have concerns about your relationship with an addictive substance, with alcohol specifically, in the past, there was a stigma around if you were in recoveryit was real, but it's not like that anymore, Overcoming an addiction, especially with alcohol, it is a personal battle that many people do privately, and we're already shaming ourselves enough when you are like, I don't understand why other people can drink and don't have a problem, but I do, and it's already something you're beating yourself up about.And then as a society and in our industry and with people in our circle. there's the shame of like, what are people going to think about me? What are people going to question? and so it's just, prevalent and everywhere. it's such a personal decision and conversation and a lot has to do with the shame around it and the fear.Michael: Okay. So then when it comes to that, especially when it comes to the burnout and stress and your experience, how does unaddressed stress and burnout. Silently erode the culture and performance of a practice over time. Laura: Oh, the fact that we can and we do go to other ways to forget about or numb the bad stuff Doesn't have us deal with the actual issue at hand. So stress depression suicidal thoughts Yeah. you know, All of the things that we deal with as humans, because at the end of the day, whether you're a dentist, a hygienist or a receptionist, you're human. And if we are using a substance to numb the pain, what ultimately happens is we're not dealing with the true issue and we're not dealing with the real emotion.And because we're numbing the pain with a substance that is addictive. Everybody will get addicted to alcohol at one point or another. When do you get addicted? Depends on so many variables. But when we know that we're leaning in to using the alcohol for the wrong reason and not actually dealing with the true stuff going on, that's when it becomes a problem.Michael: What would be using alcohol for the right reason then? Laura: well, To be honest I could sit on a soapbox now and tell you how alcohol is not good for us, but there are people who are in their head right now, they're like, Oh gosh Laura's, reading my mind, right?Having a glass of champagne to celebrate a wedding, you know, having a one glass of wine with a friend, once in a while, alcohol is it's been in our society forever. It's not going away. But if you start with one and now you're, instead of one glass of wine, you're a bottle of wine.Instead of one glass of champagne, you did drinks before you went to the wedding and at the wedding, and then you're post drinking, like there's lots of, we all have stories, right? But research shows the first 20 minutes of alcohol is fun. The first 20 minutes of alcohol, you have the endorphins, you have the dopamine.It's great. But then your body suffers for the next two to three hours. if you're drinking for the 20 minutes and you recognize the next two to three hours and your body is recovering from every glass of alcohol that you have, right? So I could talk about where alcohol is not actually serving you.But if you're using it to numb the pain, if you're using it to get away from true emotions, then that's where I would question why you're drinking the alcohol. Michael: Yeah. Cause I've always understood it in the sense of nutrition, right? Protein is, one gram is four carbs. One gram is four fats.One gram is nine calories, right? But alcohol, one gram is seven and our body doesn't utilize it, right? It doesn't need it for any building blocks or anything like that. So we're just literally poisoning our body, uh, to the sense of that But now we're talking about the psychological part and mental health part, which is increasingly important.Laura: Now, when it comes to this, What are the long term psychological and cultural implications, maybe in a practice that ignores mental health issues, particularly around burnout and depression? Alcohol use. not to get extreme, but we know suicide is a significant issue in our industry.Depression is a significant issue in our industry. And alcohol is usually tied to, a lot of the problems that people have. And soWhen you're suffering, people have a glass of wine when you're upset, let's have a drink.Let's meet over the bar and talk about it and have a drink. And so it's just that it's used so much, and that it's pushed so much. It's just our societal norm to lean into alcohol. I mean, I went to the doctor recently and he's like, how much are you drinking before I stopped? And, I told him what I was drinking.He's like, that's normal. That's not normal. Like we shouldn't normalize that alcohol is our friend. And so when it comes to the stress in the practice, the realities of what's going on, we need to recognize that that is an issue in itself, working on the depression, the stress, the financial issues, your relationships, your whatever it is.if you're band aiding it with alcohol, using that as the crutch to get through life, that is the problem, and the longer you do that, the higher chance you have of bigger problems in the long run. Michael: Interesting. So then how do you ensure. That discussions about alcohol use in the workplace go beyond surface level awareness and truly shift the mindset and behaviors of your team and leaders.Laura: Yep. My bandwagon, my thing I talk about is alcohol others. It's, suicidal thoughts. It's depression. It's divorce. It's financial problems. Like we all have life things. We all have our own dark places, whatever it is. What we need to build and can build is an environment where people can just be okay with what they have.we know our own secrets. We know what's going on in our head. We know the things that have happened in our life, the things we've done. And we always compare the worstof us to the best of other people. Right. The Instagram side of what other people are.If we could actually just build an environment, build a team where people can just have the space to be okay, to communicate their issue, to be allowed to feel, we are humans, you know, no matter who's on your team, we all have real things going on. And if you can build a space that it's okay to Be transparent, be vulnerable and allow somebody to be able to talk about their thing, whatever it is.And so like for me with alcohol, my whole goal in this conversation is just to get people talking. Because if we can't get people talking, we're not going to help people. And so normalizing the okayness to talk about whatever your issue is. Find people who have dealt with what you're dealing with and lean into that because The more we can fill the gap between people who need help and the people who can give help By getting rid of that gap of shame and fear and allowing people to just be vulnerable and be real will change lives and change your practice Michael: Yeah, I agree getting people to talk about it is huge, then I feel like there's that fact of like vulnerability, especially if you're a leader.So I guess, in addressing alcohol use and burnout, do you balance vulnerability and leadership strength, especially when,you may be struggling with similar issues Laura: as a leader. Your team is going to follow you if you set examples, right? So being vulnerable is a completely agreat leadership skill to be able to say, I don't know.Now, I'm not saying that as a doctor, you need to tell everything going on in your private life and in your brain and all of the stress that you have, but To be vulnerable with your team to say, you know, I have some mental health issues. I have some personal concerns I'm dealing with. I have some things and be real with your team.They're going to respect you follow you that much more than trying to fake. that you have it all together because nobody has it all together. And then going and getting the help that you need. Like again, when you can lean into getting help, you can see how it improves in your life as a doctor and as a leaderand then be able to offer that to your team, talk about turnover that we have if your team knows that you really trust and believe in them and you're vulnerable and you're real and you care about them, they're not going anywhere, They're going to be on your team forever.So just be real. It's all we really want. Michael: Yeah. And so that shows strength. Okay. Gotcha. So then, in your work, Laura, how have you seen unresolved personal struggles with alcohol among dentists affect their ability to deliver patient care and are there any interventions or what interventions have proven most effective in these situations?Laura: Yeah, the reality is when I started this journey of sharing my storymy story is a little bit easier than a dentist and a hygienist, cause I'm not licensed. So I can stand on the mountaintops and say, I'm happy to be sober. And this is why I chose it for my life. but for a dentist, there's a real reality of, your team.Your license your patients. And so, the reality is there's a lot of licensed professionals in our industry struggling, struggling with mental health issues, struggling with addiction issues, and they're not getting the help they need. I actually have a hygienist that I'm affiliated with. she was more worried about losing her hygiene license than she was about getting a DUI when she was actively drinking because.That's her livelihood. Many team members are dentists. We know that they're suffering and that's our livelihood. If our dentist has to go to recovery or rehabilitation or, take time out of the practice, what about our jobs? Right. And so it's the reality of what's going on. Luckily I've become really good friends with the incoming ADA president, Brett Kessler, Dr.Kessler, who that is what he wants to change for our industry isto allow and have support for. Licensed professionals. They're bringing in a third party company where you can actually call and get help. You can have real conversations because our jobs are our jobs, but our life is way more important, right?So I'm hoping that the worst cases that I know and the things I've seen, we can make a difference by just starting the conversation. Michael: Awesome. Laura, thank you so much for your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her on the dental marketer Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?Laura: Sober life rocks that is our new Community and group sober life rocks find me on all the social channels or just come to our website sober life rocks Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below and laura Thank you so much for being with me on this monday morning episode.Laura: Thank you

In today's episode, I'm speaking to writer and parent educator Eloise Rickman. Eloise's work focuses mainly on challenging adultism, championing children's rights, and helping parents and educators rethink how they see children. In this episode, we touch on how diet culture shows up in gentle parenting spaces and how mainstream ideas of gentle parenting don't always challenge where power comes from and how it's leveraged. We'll also talk about kids' embodied resistance and Elosie's new book, It's Not Fair.Don't forget to leave a review in your podcast player if you enjoy this episode - or let me know what you think in the comments below.Find out more about Eloise's work here.Pre-order Eloise's new book here.Follow her on Instagram here.Follow here on Substack - Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura's newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here. Here's the transcript in full:INTRO:Laura: Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where we talk about appetite, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter.Today we're talking to . Eloise is a writer ( ) and parent educator. Her work focuses on challenging adultism, championing children's rights, and helping parents and educators rethink how they see children. Today we're going to talk about how diet culture shows up in gentle parenting spaces and how mainstream ideas of gentle parenting don't always challenge where power comes from and how it's leveraged. We'll also talk about kids' embodied resistance and Elosie's new book, It's Not Fair.But first - just a quick reminder that Can I Have Another Snack is entirely reader and listener supported. If you get something from the newsletter or podcast, please consider a paid subscription - it's £5/month or £50/ year which helps cover the cost of the podcast,  gives you access to our weekly subscriber only discussion threads, the monthly Dear Laura column, and the entire CIHAS archive. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to subscribe now. And thank you to everyone who is already a paid subscriber.Alright team, here's this week's conversation with Eloise Rickman. MAIN EPISODE:Laura: Alright Eloise, can you start by telling us a bit about you and your work?Eloise: Yeah, of course. And whenever I do these, I'm always absolutely terrified, that I'm gonna forget something really big , like “I'm a writer” or “I work with parents”. So yeah, I'm a writer and I work with parents. I write books about children and about children's rights.And I've just finished writing my second book, which is on the idea of children's liberation. which looks at all different sorts of topics from parenting to education to children's bodies. And alongside my writing work, I also work with parents running courses on home education and on rights-based parenting and on workshops as well.I'm also – at the same time as doing this – home educating my daughter, who at the time of recording is eight, which also kind of feels like a full time job and just because life is not complicated enough, I'm also doing a Masters in children's rights at the moment, which is brilliant.Laura: Okay, I have no idea how you find the time in the day to do all of those different things, but I am in awe. And you mentioned that you just finished writing your second book, but you didn't say what it's called.Eloise: Sorry, I didn't, you're right! So it's called It's Not Fair. Which is a title we deliberated over for a really long time, but I really like it because it's something which we hear so often from our children's mouths.It's not fair, this isn't fair. So it's called It's Not Fair: Why it's Time for a Grown Up Conversation About How Adults Treat Children. And that really does sum it up. It's really looking at how we treat children in all different aspects of life. And why a lot of that treatment isn't fair and why we need to rethink it as adults who have more power than children.Laura: Yeah, and I mean, that's really what I want us..we're going to explore these ideas a little bit in a second. But yeah, I've had a little sneaky peek of the book so far. And what I read is incredible. And I'm so excited for this book to be in people's hands because – we'll talk about this a bit more as well – but unlike a lot of just, you know, gentle parenting, like, more prescriptive books, I think that just tell you how to parent, what I really appreciate about your work is that you bring in the kind of socio-political lens, which I feel often gets missed out of a lot of these conversations. So, yeah, I'm really excited about your book coming out and we'll pop a pre-order link to it in the show notes so that people can have that little happy surprise delivered to their doorstep. There's nothing better than, just like, a book showing up that you've forgotten…  Eloise: Oh, I love it. Laura: …that you ordered six months ago! Okay. A lot of your work centers on the idea of dismantling adultism. I'm not sure that people will be completely familiar with that term, so for anyone who is just coming across it, can you explain what even is that and where do we see it show up in our kids' lives?Eloise: Absolutely, and I think you're totally right that it's not a term that most of us are familiar with at all, and I think that's a huge problem actually.You know, we are now, I think, generally, as a society, getting better at spotting things like sexism or racism or ableism, and that is really important, you know, being able to name injustice when you see it is the first step to dismantling it, to tackling it. Otherwise, how do you really know what it is that you're dealing with and why it's a problem?But yet, when we think about some of the treatment which children experience at the hands of adults, whether that's the fact that in England, at the time of recording, it's still legal to hit your child, even though we would never dream of women being allowed to be hit by their partners, or the fact that, you know, it's still really normal in so many school settings for children to be publicly humiliated, to be losing their break times and so on.All of these seem to be quite disconnected from one another because we don't have the language to join them up. And I think that's why having a word like adultism is the first step in kind of joining those dots and being able to see that children as a social group are marginalised and discriminated against vis-à-vis adults.And I think that term probably feels quite uncomfortable for a lot of us, especially if our children are relatively privileged. You know, if you have a wealthy white child who is not disabled, the idea that your child is discriminated against or is somehow marginalised might feel really shocking. Like, whoa, what do you mean?You know, our child is so lucky, but again, as we've seen with times, like with racism, we talk about white supremacy. The idea isn't that if you have white privilege, you don't have any other problems. You know, you can still be poor or disabled and still have white privilege. And I think in the same way we can see that adults have it easier in a lot of different aspects of their lives.And that doesn't mean being a child is always terrible. It just means they're discriminated against because they're children. So the idea of adultism is really just a way of referencing this age based discrimination, which children face. And I think it really encapsulates this idea that in so many of our societies, adults are seen as the kind of default position, and they are seen as more competent, more capable, more rational, more sensible than children are. And there's a wonderful academic called Manfred Liebel, who talks about these four conditions of adultism. And one of them is that children are just seen as less capable, less competent, less rational, and that they're seen as sort of unfinished. So there's this idea that you're not really a proper person until you become an adult. And that justifies a lot of adult control.Laura: Yeah. Sorry. I was just going to say, there's like this sense that, okay, well, you don't really know what you're talking about. You don't really have any kind of, like, say in what's going on until you turn 18.And, and it's almost like this idea that, yeah, your life is..it doesn't matter, anything that happens to you before 18. It's kind of like a write off somehow. Yeah. Anyway, that was just what was coming to my mind. And I'm sorry for interrupting you. I'm curious to hear more about these conditions of adultism!Eloise: Yeah, but I think that absolutely is true. And that's a really big part of it or where we don't see children's lives as important or their experience as important. And I think we're getting better now as a society at noticing when things are traumatic or when things are adverse childhood experiences, but often those are described in terms of: this has an impact when they become adults.So they have poorer earning potential or it harms their future intimate relationships, but it's not…so much of it is not focused on children's lives in the here and now, and under adultism, it's very frequent, I think, whether it's in policy documents or whether it's in the language that schools use, or whether it's in parenting manuals, this idea that childhood is this sort of preparation or training ground for when you're a real person, for when you're an adult, and that parenting, education, all of these different things, thus, should be you know, optimising the child's future life without really thinking very much about children's experiences right now. So, and some other examples of adultism as well are, that tied to this, we often think that because parents know best, parents can protect their children from things that we see as harmful. And I think this probably links quite a lot also to diet culture and the way that we see that, you know, oh, I must protect my child from ultra processed food or from sweets because I know best, but actually these things can end up being quite harmful to children because they're not given the opportunity to take risks or make mistakes or to figure out their own body's needs, decide what's best for themselves. And I think there is this real assumption that adults know best and that if a child makes a decision, which is against what adults believe is best, then the child must not be capable of making that decision yet. They must be incompetent. So even if we're saying to a child, okay, you choose. And then the child says, well, I'm going to eat all of my Hallowe'en sweets in one go, or I'm going to eat all of the, you know, chocolates out of my Christmas stocking in one go. And then the adult says, well, actually that shows they can't be trusted. And next time we'll have to, you know, divvy them out or give them more slowly. And I think that sense that children cannot make good decisions if they vary from what we as adults believe are good decisions, also have a wider consequence in that children are really excluded from political decision making.And I think this is twofold, both in terms of the fact that children can't vote, which as you're listening to this, you might think, ‘well, of course children can't vote, you know, why would they be able to vote? They're only children.' But yet, this is exactly the kind of argument which used to be made for women not being able to vote.And actually, over the course of history, we've seen huge changes in which populations were seen to be considered sort of capable and sound of mind and able to take part in the very scary business of voting and putting a cross in a box. And again, there are lots of people now challenging this, but I think just the very fact that we have a whole section of society who we say ‘you don't have a voice' is really important to grapple with.I think there could be an argument made for this if our politicians were genuinely taking children's voices, views, concerns into account. But as we've seen with things like education funding, childcare funding, the complete lack of any sort of meaningful action on the climate crisis, children's priorities and futures aren't being safeguarded by those in power. And we tend to have very short termist political structures. Which again, exacerbates this sort of, you know, serving adult populations, but actually the things that children need, the things that are important to children get completely left out of the conversation.Laura: Yeah. Oh, I mean, I don't even really know where, where to kind of go from there. I think you've just…Eloise: Sorry, it's a lot!Laura: It is, it's a lot. And you summed it up. And I think, like, what I kept thinking about as you were speaking is, I think, there is this, like, notion or fantasy that we're not living in Victorian workhouse era, kind of, you know, we're not putting kids into workhouses anymore.And there's this sort of sense that, like, childhood is held in such high esteem, such high regard, like…But what you're saying is there's a real disconnect, right, between this kind of, like, fantasy of childhood versus the reality of how we're treating our children. Do you know what I mean?Eloise: Absolutely. Yeah, totally. And I think that's exactly right.And I think, again, to a lot of people, it will seem strange to talk about children being discriminated against because we're spending, you know, hundreds of pounds on Christmas presents for the children in our families or because we are seeing that children now have access to all these cool opportunities that we didn't when we were their age. And we tend to think that childhood is generally getting better. And in some ways it is, you know, in terms of things like corporal punishment, we are actually getting better as a society. Fewer children are being smacked. It's becoming less normalised, but there is still this real disconnect between the fact that children are…in some circumstances have better material goods, except we're definitely not seeing that for everyone. And actually, you know, as we know in the UK, one in three children more or less lives in poverty, which is a huge political issue in terms of adultism, actually. And it is a real…it's a political choice rather than just a side effect.And, you know, we might not need to get into it now, but there have been lots and lots of policy decisions over the last decade or so, which have pushed families deeper and deeper into poverty. But even for those of us living in very privileged households, we might see, oh yes, well, my child now has an iPad or my child has this, that or the other.But actually in terms of the things that really matter to children, having a safe, healthy environment, having the freedom to be able to go out and see their friends without being overly controlled, having privacy, having independence. We're not really doing much better on any of those sort of key indicators, really. And that power discrepancy. And I think that power is probably the main word in all of this, that adults still have the say, adults still have a final decision. Adults still have more power in our families…hasn't changed since those times. And I think that's what we're really needing to grapple with now.Laura: And I think that that is shifting a little bit in terms of kind of the explosion of gentle parenting, which I think is a concept that probably most of the listeners are familiar with. But just for anyone who isn't, do you think that you could maybe just, like, give your…because I know there's no, like, one set definition of gentle or respectful parenting, but can you tell us a bit about what that concept means to you?Eloise: Yeah, of course. So I think the way that gentle parenting, in a kind of mainstream definition of books like…well, I'm not going to name a lot, but you know, any kind of gentle parenting book you might walk into Waterstones and pick up off the shelf will tend to be much more child focused than, you know, Gina Ford type parenting books.So it will focus on, you know, how is your child feeling, validating their emotions, listening to them, not making them feel bad for crying or for having strong feelings, for trying to work together with them to fix problems rather than just doling out punishments, you know, not putting children in timeouts, really listening to them, having a very warm, nurturing relationship with children.It doesn't necessarily have to go into attachment parenting, but I think there is a sense in gentle parenting that the real aim is trying to have this loving relationship with your child, where they feel heard, they feel listened to, they feel seen. For me, that feels like such a positive move forward collectively as a society.I know that my mum for example feels that she might have parented in a different way had she had more options around at the time. I'm sure my grandparents would have also parented in a very different way if they had had access to some of these ideas. So I think as a society we're definitely moving in the right way.I think the piece for me that feels still sort of missing from gentle parenting, is a lot of it still doesn't question this fundamental aspect of child-parent relationships, which is that it is a fundamentally unequal power dynamic. So what traditional gentle parenting will do, I don't know if you or anyone listening has heard of this idea of these different sort of parenting styles from someone called Diana Baumrind, who talked about. On the one hand you have the authoritarian parenting. She's very strict, very cold, has very high expectations of children's behaviour. On the other side, she talked about permissive parenting. Which is very warm, but has very low expectations of children. So, you know, you might imagine a kind of warm chaos where the kids are kind of running around doing whatever.Laura: Right. There's no, there are very few boundaries. It's a bit more of a…Eloise: Very few boundaries.Laura: Free for all.Eloise: Free for all. It's chaos. Yeah. Kids are in charge kind of idea. Then she posited for actually the middle ground, which I think is what a lot of gentle parenting writers will refer to, is that in the middle you have what she kind of called authoritative parenting, which is both very warm, seeks to understand the child, seeks to not have too many rules, but yet still has those expectations in terms of behaviour.So, you know, you're going to step in if you see your child drawing on the walls or going to hit their sibling, you know, you're going to have expectations, for example, of how dinner times might be held or how you greet other people. And I think this is where a lot of gentle parenting books sit, in this idea that you have power as a parent, but you use it benevolently to try and do your best for your child.And I have a lot of sympathy for that. You know, I think as parents we're under so much pressure to do well, to do right, especially when we're told from so much developmental psychology, but the impact of these early years on children is so important and it's going to ruin your child's life. But I think for me, what feels like perhaps the next step, and I think we're already starting to see more and more conversations doing this, is being able to step outside of that sort of traditional view that you're either very authoritarian or permissive or you're kind of somewhere in between and remove ourselves from that entirely and say, well, what about the power dynamics?What if parents weren't the ones in charge, but actually we were in partnership with children, making decisions collectively and aiming for respectful relationships just as we would do in our romantic partnerships, in our friendships, in our work relationships of just being humans in the world, trying to figure out how to get along together in as respectful a way as possible.And obviously this is much, much easier said than done. I am absolutely not doing this all the time in my own parenting, let's be really clear. But for me, that feels like the conversation we need to be having more of. And alongside that, it needs to be not just looking at the parent child relationship.Which I think again, a lot of traditional parenting books will do, but really trying to understand that your parenting is impacted by so many things. You know, we live in a capitalist society and the fact that so much of our society is based on getting parents away from their children, separating families out, trying to put children into often very underfunded childcare systems, school systems, making it almost impossible for parents to be relaxed when they're having to work sometimes two, three jobs where they're dealing with poverty, where they're worried about the climate crisis, you know, these things don't happen in a vacuum. And I think it is completely unrealistic to be talking about having this beautiful, you know, egalitarian, no power differentiation relationship with our children, when we're not also trying to dismantle the many, many, many structural issues which are keeping us stressed and exhausted and, you know, kind of triggered by our children as well.Laura: Yeah. As I was preparing to speak to you, I was thinking about a couple of New York Times articles that came out, I think it was last year, that really pushed back on gentle parenting.And then I also saw something in Romper yesterday that was like, you know, here are 10 reasons why gentle parenting doesn't work for my family. And to me, I have a lot of, like, sympathy for parents who are trying out these tools, these ideas, these suggestions, which, you know, may or may not be helpful for them. But, you know, like maybe they buy into the idea sort of cognitively and emotionally, but then when they, when they put it into practice, like it all kind of falls apart for them. And it seems like with those NYT articles and, and with the Romper piece, it really was just missing the lens of like all the systemic and social stuff that we're kind of dealing with that makes it so much more difficult to have a kind of equal distribution of power in those relationships and and not, not sort of a certain power over but but you know giving power to our children to have some autonomy to have some say in their their day and over their bodies and what they want to do it all just feels so impossible when we have yeah like capitalism breathing down our neck, colonialism breathing down our neck, racism, ableism, anti-fat bias, like all of these systems that are, are making our lives so much more difficult.They have an impact on gentle parenting or our ability to parent, but it's not, it's not the, the gentle parenting in and of itself. That's the problem, right? It's all the other shit that we're dealing with.Eloise: Absolutely. Yeah. And like you say, I think there is a fundamental sometimes misread of gentle parenting, but it's just another tool. You know, you do this because you want your child to be more empathetic to their peers, or because you want them to learn more moderation in the long run, or because you want them to be able to self regulate their emotions. And some children absolutely will do all of those things. So there's lots of research showing that actually, if you want children who do tend to have more pro social behaviors, as they're called, that being very controlling, being authoritarian is not the way to do that. And the more we punish children, the more there are lots of different outcomes, all of which are pretty negative. But I think that still misses this wider picture that fundamentally we don't, for example, decide to not punish our daughter or not shout at her or not put her in timeout because we think that's the best way to create a good, happy person. Laura: Compliant child. Eloise: Yeah, we do it because it feels really fucking unfair. Like, I wouldn't want it if my husband was like, ‘Hey, I don't like the way you just spoke to me. So I'm going to remove your debit card for two days'. You know, that would be abuse. We would call that abuse.He, you know, I wouldn't like it if one of my friends was like, ‘Oh, you replied to my text a bit late'. Or like, ‘I didn't like that you didn't, you know, you, you missed something out. So I'm just going to ghost you for a while.' You know, that's not how we have relationships with people we care about, but yet we have completely normalised this way of treating children.And I think that, yeah, there's a missing piece, which so many of those big New York Times and so on articles seem to miss is that this is not about having another method. This is just about fundamentally treating children like fellow human beings in a respectful way.Laura: Yeah, you're so right, that oftentimes we're kind of weaponising gentle parenting as a, like as a ‘nice' way, inverted commas, a ‘kind' way, caring way to try and control and manipulate our children. Eloise: Yes, totally. Laura:  Like, again, I get that. I get why, like, you know, having some tools in your toolkit so that your kid will put their fucking socks on or brush their teeth in the morning so you can get out the door, like why that's helpful. And yeah, if we're doing it solely for the purposes of compliance, that in and of itself can become problematic because it's another way that you're kind of leveraging power, I think.It's a complicated, kind of topic to discuss. Sorry, I'm having like a few different thoughts of where to go! I think maybe I'll stick with gentle parenting just because we've kind of been on that topic. And I was saying to you off mic that I have a feeling that gentle parenting has a diet culture problem.And what sort of spurred this was a reel that I saw, I think just before Hallowe'en. So we're recording this at the beginning of November. We've just had Hallowe'en a couple of weeks ago and there was a kind of quite well known, like, I guess they're gentle parenting influencer coach? I don't know what you would, you would call them.And they basically were talking about how they only let their kid have, I think it was like a cake pop or something on special occasions, which turned out to be like three times a year. And I was like, I was just waiting for people to send me this reel and be like, what, what do you think of this? And the first person to send it to me was Molly Forbes from Body Happy Org. And she was like, gentle parenting has a diet culture problem. And I wanted to get your take on that. Is this something you've seen in, not necessarily gentle parenting, I'm sort of picking on that, but like in children's liberation spaces where there's kind of like a, we want to change the power structures so much. But when it comes to food, and policing bodies, there seems to be like a bit of a disconnect there.Eloise: So I think there are two different strands to this. And I think maybe first we can talk about the kind of more, I guess, like mainstream Instagram version of sort of gentle parenting, which I think absolutely does have a diet culture problem. And then maybe we can talk a bit about this idea of children's liberation, which I think to me feels much less…you know, a lot of the people I know who are talking about children's liberation are also talking about fat liberation, around black liberation, around disability liberation.Laura: Right. They have that intersectional lens on. Yeah. And I think that's a really important distinction. So I'm glad, I'm glad that you made that. Cause like my next question is, was going to be, could you tell us more about, you know, children's liberation. So yeah, I'm really glad that you kind of separated out those two strands.So maybe start with the, like, Instagram…which I can see, just like, I can see the despair in your face. I think it seems like how I feel a lot about, like, a lot of kids feeding stuff online is probably how you feel about a lot of parenting stuff.Eloise: Yeah. Again, I think so much of it means well, but I think there is quite a big intersection between sort of like gentle parenting influencers on the one hand and wellness culture. And I think that often goes really hand in hand. So this idea of kind of like crunchy parenting, you see it a lot as well in homeschool spaces. So obviously I home educate my daughter. I follow home ed accounts. I often get shown stuff in my, like, what is it, like, ‘Explore' section of my Instagram. And I think depending on where you hang out online, there is a really strong mix of, you know, I home educate my children and I gentle parent, and I also use essential oils. And I also don't ever buy processed food and all of these things coming together in a very aesthetically beautiful and pleasing package, which doesn't…  Laura: Ballerina Farm effect. Eloise: Totally. Yeah. I'd love to know if Ballerina Farm has a, like a secret snack cupboard with her kids. It's just like a munching on dandelions.Laura: Sourdough and yeah, dandelion butter.Eloise: Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think that is this sense from people who maybe were raised, you know, lots of us were raised in the eighties, the eighties, especially in the UK, didn't have great culinary vibes. Sure, like I get that we want to do better.Laura: I grew up in Scotland, we had battered Mars bars. I don't know what you're talking about.Eloise: That sounds great, sign me up. Yeah, I think that sometimes we can maybe go too far or not go far enough. So a great example of this for me feels like the division of responsibility approach to family meals, which I think for so many people feels like, yes, this is kind of different to how I was raised, you know, this isn't about children finishing their plates or being reserved the same meal until they finished it.You know, you really do hear some horror stories when it comes to people and their relationships with food, which started, as so many things do, when they were children. Yeah. And so I totally get that there is this searching for something better. And I think for some people, this idea of division of responsibility, which I'm sure people will be familiar with as they're listening to your podcast, but this idea that I choose what to serve and I choose when to serve it, but you choose what to eat. It looks nice on the surface, but again, it doesn't have any of that interrogation of a power again, like I'm going to sound like a broken record, but imagine if my husband was like, ‘right, I've planned out all of our meals for the week, all of the snacks, all of our meal times, but like you can choose. It's up to you, babe. You know, if you want it, you can have it. If not, have shit.' And I feel like, again, we wouldn't do this to people who were not children. You know, we might do it to people at institutions, but again, is that really what we want to be going for? And I think a lot of this is done with real love. You know, we want our children to be healthy. We want our children to be happy. We're constantly told in every aspect of our lives, if you have a fat child, they will be miserable and unhappy and unhealthy. And that's the worst possible thing you can do as a parent. And I think that unless you have really engaged with anti-diet culture, fat liberation culture, I can see the appeal of this quite like wellness, you know, Deliciously Ella style approach to feeding children, which I think goes really hand in hand with this idea of wooden toys and gentle parenting and kind of slightly alternative living, but which is packaged up in a very kind of consumerist way. Laura: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I've talked before about not being a division of responsibility purist and kind of going back to what you were talking about before about authoritarian versus permissive, is that right? And then, yeah, I always get confused, authoritative is kind of in this, in the middle.  And I think a lot of people do position the division of responsibility as being that middle ground. And in a lot of ways, I think, especially when kids are really little, it can be like a really helpful way to kind of parse out and, and help kids kind of understand like hunger and fullness cues, for example, and things like that. But yeah, like as kids get older, they, like, want to have a bit more autonomy over what they're eating. They want to have some decision making power. Why, why wouldn't they, right? Like you say, we make decisions about what we're eating all the time. And if somebody tried to stop us from doing that, we would like, yeah, throw a conniptions. So yeah, I think this is where the, the responsive feeding piece comes in, where it can be really helpful, is that it can be containing for a child to have sort of set meal times, you know, to know like, okay, I will always provide breakfast. I will always provide lunch. I will always provide dinner and, you know, snacks are maybe sort of like somewhere in the middle there. Yeah. I think having that, like a bit of structure can. In the same way that boundaries can be helpful, that that can be helpful. But yeah, if we are then, especially as kids get older and start socialising with people outside of our families and you know, are going to like, you know, outside of primary school, going into secondary school and have more, you know, have their own money to buy things, for example, if we are then still trying to like micromanage every single aspect of what they're eating. Then, yeah, that's really, really unhelpful. And I guess I never really thought of it so much as through the sort of like lens of power dynamics, but I think that that's a really important piece that you're, you're bringing to that conversation. What do you see in terms of, like, in those same spaces around like conversations about sweets and restriction and that kind of thing? I'd love to hear, yeah, what you see around that.Eloise: Yeah, I mean, you can probably imagine, I think. And again, I think there is a real diversity. So I'm kind of caricaturing a bit here. And I think it's also important to say that, like, with all of these conversations…you know, we were just talking about division of responsibility.I think that is quite a big gulf between, say, a wealthy influencer who is talking about this stuff and someone who genuinely has no choice about just serving three meals a day because they've just been to a food bank. So I think all of these questions around, like, giving children choice and being able to be very child led still do come with quite a privileged lens.I have to say again, you know, in terms of sweets and things, I have seen people being like, here's how to make your own fruit flavoured gummies and switch these out instead. And, you know, look, I have no problem with any of this. I enjoy cooking. So that's something…like, I've never made my own gummies, but I would absolutely, you know, I sometimes make our own cakes or biscuits or bread.It's fun. It's part of, like, eating nice food. I enjoy doing it. But I think this idea that to be a kind of good parent, you have to restrict…often the discourse is around, like, refined sugars…seed oil. That's a new thing that I haven't really engaged with. Laura: Don't, don't, don't.Eloise: E numbers, red dye, all of this stuff. And again, look, I get it. I get that you want to give your child a healthy diet. And, you know, I think I would be hypocritical…like we also try and give our daughter a pretty balanced diet where she has access to lots of vegetables and fruits alongside things typically kind of coded as unhealthy, like chocolate or crisps. But for me, it just feels like it makes such a big issue out of these foods.And then…you know, I say this as someone who, as a child, had quite restricted food. So I had really bad eczema as a young child, and my parents were also on a very low income, and so we didn't just have a snack drawer with loads of like pre-packaged snacks, you know, that wouldn't have been in my parents budget, and also with terrible eczema, my mum… She was quite a young parent.She, you know, she didn't know what to do with it. And she went to lots of doctors. They couldn't help. We tried all sorts of different things. And one of the things she tried was cutting out refined sugar, for example, because people had told her this might help. So for a lot of different reasons, I had quite, like, a restricted upbringing in terms of, again, things typically coded as like ‘junk food'. And I really saw the impact that that had on me as I grew older and had access to my own money or had access to, you know, food choices at school. And I remember being absolutely mystified going to friends' houses that they could have cupboards with, like, chocolate and crisps in and not just want to sit and eat the whole thing because like, ‘Oh my God, you have chocolate and crisps. Why wouldn't you want to eat the whole thing?' And I think for me that has served as quite a powerful reminder of so many of the brilliant conversations I see, like the ones you have had around not overly restricting certain types of food. And I've really seen it in action with my daughter as well, where we're pretty chill about what she wants to eat.It's her body, you know, we might have some conversations if she was wanting to eat doughnuts for every meal. What has been really fascinating is just seeing that because this stuff has never been separated out from other foods. She isn't hugely fussed. And again, you know, sometimes she is. Hallowe'en, it's really exciting to have access to all these new different chocolates.Laura: Totally. The goal is not to take the pleasure out of food like that, right? Like, I think that's sometimes what parents…the interpretation of sort of the message that I'm trying to communicate and other people in this space are trying to communicate is that we want to, like, burn kids out on sweets so that they never eat them again.That's not it. Like, food is joyful and pleasurable and like, that's, you know, especially in the context of kids not having any, like, any autonomy or any power over anything. Like, can we just throw them a fucking bone and give them some chocolate, right? I really appreciate what you were saying Eloise about, well, there were just a couple of things that I think, are really important to highlight, you know, in these conversations that a lot of people don't have the choice, right, to offer their kids a more liberal access to sweets and chocolates and crisps and things. And, and the restriction is born out of poverty and deprivation rather than what I think we see in a lot of sort of more privileged well to do spaces where, you know, people may have, can afford plenty of, I don't know, Oreos, but they're not providing their kids access to them. And yeah, I think also the piece around having complex medical needs where you might have no choice, even if there's an allergy or something where it's also really difficult to provide kids the things that you would like to provide them all of the time.So it's not a straightforward conversation and I'm glad that you kind of brought in that complexity. Something else that you mentioned was, you know, if you separate out the kind of like Instagram aesthetic approach to gentle parenting versus kind of more of a radical approach to parenting that is rooted in children's liberation. Can you tell me more about that and yeah, how, how things feel different in that space?Eloise: Definitely. So a very potted history is that people started talking about children's liberation with that language in the 1970s with writers like John Holt, who some people will be familiar with. He writes a lot about alternative education…wrote. And people like A.S. Neill, who founded the Summerhill School, which again is like a big radical school in the UK. But the children's liberation of the time – as many of the writing in the 70s was – was very radical, so it was sort of based on this idea that children should be given the exact same rights as adults, even when it came to things like sexual relationships or information in terms of, you know, children should be allowed to watch whatever movies they wanted to.I think some of these ideas are still absolutely worth exploring and engaging with today, but obviously some of them will be very radical. And I think what he missed…this was before the UN declaration on the rights of a child. And I think what that did is for the first time brought together this idea that children have lots of different rights. They have rights to be protected as well, as well as being able to participate fully in society and to be provided with basic levels of, you know, healthcare and decent quality of living and so on. And I think children's liberation now has to be able to grapple with these things. So the idea that yes, children…we should be fundamentally trying to rethink these power differences, but they do need to be also rooted in the understanding that children's needs are a bit different from adults and that we can still assume that children are competent and still listen to children's voices and involve them in every aspect of society without having to go as far as absolute like legal equality. So we can still give them equality in their rights and equality and just dignity in how they're treated. So for me, this is what Children's Liberation is really trying to do. It's this idea that it's a way to sort of combat adultism that we talked about earlier and really trying to see children as complete people who are able to have a say in every aspect of their lives and where they're really trusted. But that goes alongside having adults around who are also willing to provide support and care too. And I think that then when you start looking at things like food from this perspective, you really see it as just a wider aspect of children's bodily autonomy of being able to choose what happens to their bodies and for children to be able to learn and make mistakes. And yes, have it within these really loving, supportive relationships, either with parents or with other people where, you know, if your child is routinely eating so much chocolate that they're making themselves sick. Then of course, you know, I'm not saying, well, you just ignore it and you think, well, this is a great learning experience. Although it might be if they did it once, you know, this is about sitting down and having a conversation just like we would do with any other thing. And saying, how are you feeling? This is what I'm noticing. Do you want to talk about different strategies? You know, we can also have these just really being in relationship with our children and trying to figure these things out as a team. I think it's fine to have conversations with children around, okay, we don't buy this food because X, Y, Z, or as a family we prioritise X, Y, Z. Does that feel cool with you? You know, is this working for you? It's not about making sure that…you know, sometimes I see the opposite position as well. Like, you know, mothers are already so stressed. Do you expect us to be short order chefs? Of course not. But it can be as much as checking in when you're doing the grocery shop and just being like, ‘Hey, are there any meals you especially want to eat over the coming week? Is there anything, this was what I was thinking, is there anything here you really don't like the sound of?'And you know, sometimes I cook stuff that my daughter doesn't like and that's fine. But I just have the assumption then that she can eat something else and I'm not going to be cross at her for doing that. Again, just as I would with my partner, I'd be like…I know the kind of foods he likes. I will sometimes prioritise those and I'll sometimes prioritise the stuff that I like. You know, it's just about being in relationship together. But I think we are getting better at highlighting where children are able to consent, for example. And I think that food is such an important part of that. And it's also such an important part of children's sort of embodied resistance when they feel that they don't have enough power.You know, we tend to see a child pushing their plate away and being like, I don't like it. I don't want it, as bad behaviour or being overtired and maybe they are overtired, but also maybe they're really fed up of having their meals controlled all the time, and that's something we should at least be exploring.Laura: Yeah, I love that in your book you have a chapter on, I forget what the title is, but it's sort of the intersection of children's liberation and body liberation. What's the title of the chapter?Eloise: It's called Body PoliticsLaura: Body Politics. There you go. And I love the way that you talk about embodied resistance and how children literally will protest with their bodies, like things that don't feel good, that things that don't feel uncomfortable.And I think like you say, so often that's written off as they're tired or they're hungry or, or something like that. But oftentimes they're like really giving us a clue as to how they're feeling. ‘No, I don't want more food, like, forced into my body. No, I don't want to eat that particular thing. I don't want to… whatever it is. Like I'm fed up. I'm feeling like I don't have any agency or autonomy in any of these situations.' And the only way that I can exert that is through, like, stiffening my body and going, like turning it into a plank so that you can't get me in the bath or whatever it is. I really love that section in that chapter where you talk about that.Is there anything else that you wanted to say? Because again, like the intersection of children's liberation and body liberation or body politics is like, it's so much more than just food, right? That's kind of my, like, bias, but you talk about a lot of other intersections. in the book, and I'm wondering if there's anything else that you wanted to say, anything that feels really pertinent right now.Eloise: Yeah, I mean, I think we're getting really good as women at noticing how things to do with our bodies are actually deeply political, whether that's diet culture, whether that's the way that we're marketed anti-ageing products too, whether that's abortion rights. There are so many different aspects to this, but we tend to see that these are political and that they can be engaged with in these political ways.But again, I think we miss the nuance of this when we're talking about children's bodies, whereas actually even from the tiniest age, the way that we manage, measure, control, discipline children's bodies are all so deeply political and are all tied into all of these different ideas. And I think what we really see with diet culture is it becomes yet another thing that adults do to children from a young age and then children inevitably will often learn to do this to themselves and we see this in other things too, you know, and not all of it is bad. For example, many of us will teach our children table manners because we know that eventually it will help them later on in life because, I don't know, people will treat them better because they'll see that oh, my child is not speaking with the mouth full or whatever.And that's part of that is just the social norms of whatever society you live in. And as we can see, table manners look radically different across the world. But sometimes, you know, and we can see, I think there are really strong parallels with diet culture and with the way that we treat neurodivergent children in terms of kind of masking.And, you know, when you talk to lots of autistic adults or adults who are neurodivergent in other ways. They talk about how as children, they really had to learn to mask. And so much of that would have been adult led, you know, telling your child, don't wriggle, don't do that. Don't make that noise or your teachers at school…don't do that.And then as adults, they've kind of internalised those things. And they don't do it and they mask so much and then, you know, so many autistic adults now will talk about this process of unmasking and de-masking and learning how to sit in yourself in a way that to me feels very much in parallel with people who as adults come to this idea of being anti-diet culture, of fat liberation, of trying to slowly unlearn these habits of how we look at our bodies and how we feed ourselves and so on.And I mean, you can see in other aspects too, but to me, they feel, like, so strongly linked. And once we start recognising this, you know, so much of it is about how – and you've written beautifully about this in the past – how as children, we are so embodied, you know, we make sense of the world through our bodies.We often…most children, unless children are very unwell, will find joy in their bodies. They'll move their bodies, they'll make noises, they'll explore things. And gradually as they get older, and sometimes from a really quite heartbreakingly young age, they will learn to start being critical around their bodies, judging their bodies, comparing their bodies to other people.And I think that, again, if we are thinking about this in terms of adultism and how we can start to dismantle it, I think thinking about this lens of what does society expect of children? In my book, I use the term, we have this sort of normative view of children or what a ‘normal' child should be, whether that's in terms of our physical development, what their body looks like, their emotional development, their intellectual development, and at every stage of children's lives, starting before children are even born, you know, we're ranking them, we're plotting their centiles.Laura: Fundal height! Yeah. Eloise: Yeah, absolutely. And we're figuring out, you know, what “abnormalities” our children might have, you know, I've put that in scare quotes. And as parents. Or educators, if you've got teachers listening, we're so used to now viewing children through this deficit lens of, ‘oh, you're too fat. You're too noisy. You're not smart enough'. Rather than just seeing children as these glorious individuals who all have differences and who all bring different stuff to the table. Laura: Yeah, I love that. And I really, really love the parallels that you drew between unmasking and kind of unlearning a lot of the things that we have internalised around diet-culture, around policing our bodies. I'd never made that connection in quite that way before. And I think it's, it's really powerful. And particularly when you think about it through the lens of adultism and, and how so much of, so much masking is learned because of adults expectations and the power that adults hold over children. Likewise, you know, so much of the healing from diet culture involves unlearning the messages that we internalise from our, you know – and again, well meaning most of the time – caregivers that in a lot of ways we're probably trying to keep us safe, but in a sort of misplaced kind of way. So yeah, I appreciate that and I love that final sentiment that you had there around just embracing the differences that children have and, and the unique qualities that they bring and, and sort of…yeah, just kind of going back to what we talked about earlier, just really like having an appreciation for who they are right now, even if they're not adults, but the things that they have to bring to the table and that, that they have to offer, like in the here and now rather than waiting until they like ripen and mature or whatever. They're kind of bad analogies people use. I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you so much Eloise. Before I let you go though I would like for you to share your snack. So at the end of every episode my guest and I share something that they've been snacking on can be anything, a literal snack, a book, a podcast, a TV show, something you're wearing, whatever.What do you have for us today?Eloise: So I've got a great book, which fits actually really nicely and kind of accidentally with the theme of this conversation today, which is called Trust Kids. And it's edited by someone called Carla Joy Bergman. And it is this wonderful collection of, she's got some essays in there, interviews. Some of the interviews are between parents and their children. They've also got young people writing some of the essays. There's poetry in there, so it's kind of something for everyone and it deals with lots of different themes, including lots of themes around bodies as well. And it is great. And because of its format, you know, no piece is more than I would say four or five pages, so it is perfect to snack on. And especially as a parent or caregiver, you know how it is. Your kid is engaged in something, so you grab a book for two minutes and it's perfect to read while the kettle is boiling, whatever else you've got going on. And it is brilliant. So I can really recommend it.Laura: Oh, I've heard of that book. It's been kind of on my, like, to read list, but I haven't got around to it yet. So thank you for the little nudge there. I'll link to it in the show notes so other people can check it out. And I really, I've been struggling to read lately. So the thought of, like, dipping in and out of something is really appealing.Okay. So my snack is, well, today is actually my husband's birthday. So I guess my snack is birthdays in general. We've got our birthday tree up, which I've talked about before. It's a big bright pink Christmas tree, basically that we decorate with like happy birthday lights. There's balloons everywhere. And this morning we had a delivery from Flavourtown.Do you know Flavourtown Bakery? Yeah, Eloise knows. So we've got chocolate sprinkle cupcakes. They look amazing. I'm very excited about them. And we're going out for dinner tonight as well. So like, yeah, just the whole like birthdays, but specifically Flavourtown cake. If you haven't had it, they do like vegan options. They do gluten free options and just like regular. And they're like American style, like loads of frosting. You can get, like, rainbow cakes. You can get ones with Biscoff. Like if you like a really saccharine, sweet, indulgent cake, then these are the ones for you. All right, Eloise, before I let you go, could you let everyone know where they can find out more about you and remember to say the name of your book one more time, uh, so that people can pre order.Eloise: So yes, my book, It's Not Fair: Why it's Time to Have a Grown Up Conversation About How Adults Treat Children. You can pre order it. It's out in June. It's very exciting. I can't wait for you all to read it. And then I'm also on Instagram @mightymother_. And I also have a Substack called Small Places, which is probably the best place to kind of find out more broadly about my work and find links to ongoing things as well. So yeah, those are the best places.Laura: We will link to all of those in the show notes so that people can find you. I really appreciate this conversation. Thanks so much for coming on. Eloise: Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a joy.OUTRO:Laura: Thanks so much for listening to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. You can support the show by subscribing in your podcast player and leaving a rating and review. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack? universe, you can become a paid subscriber.It's just £5 a month or £50 for the year. As well as getting tons of cool perks you help make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas. Our sound engineer is Lucy Dearlove. Fiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure that they're out on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser, and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks so much for listening. ICYMI this week: What Are You Eating Right Now?* How are you flipping gender scripts for your kids?* Nourishing Full Bodied Awareness with Hillary McBride* Let's Talk About Snacks, Baby This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Table of contentsNote: links take you to the corresponding section below; links to the original episode can be found there.* Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]* Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]* Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]* Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]* Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]* Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54]* Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]* Max Alexander and I solve ethics, philosophy of mind, and cancel culture once and for all [01:24:43]* Sarah Woodhouse on discovering AI x-risk, Twitter, and more [01:30:56] * Pigeon Hour x Consistently Candid pod-crossover: I debate moral realism with Max Alexander and Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse [01:41:08]Intro [00:00:00]To wrap up the year of Pigeon Hour, the podcast, I put together some clips from each episode to create a best-of compilation. This was inspired by 80,000 Hours, a podcast that did the same with their episodes, and I thought it was pretty cool and tractable enough.It's important to note that the clips I chose range in length significantly. This does not represent the quality or amount of interesting content in the episode. Sometimes there was a natural place to break the episode into a five-minute chunk, and other times it wouldn't have made sense to take a five-minute chunk out of what really needed to be a 20-minute segment. I promise I'm not just saying that.So without further ado, please enjoy.#1: Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]In this first segment, Laura, Duffy, and I discuss the significance and interpretation of Aristotle's philosophical works in relation to modern ethics and virtue theory.AARON: Econ is like more interesting. I don't know. I don't even remember of all the things. I don't know, it seems like kind of cool. Philosophy. Probably would have majored in philosophy if signaling wasn't an issue. Actually, maybe I'm not sure if that's true. Okay. I didn't want to do the old stuff though, so I'm actually not sure. But if I could aristotle it's all wrong. Didn't you say you got a lot out of Nicomachi or however you pronounce that?LAURA: Nicomachian ethics guide to how you should live your life. About ethics as applied to your life because you can't be perfect. Utilitarians. There's no way to be that.AARON: But he wasn't even responding to utilitarianism. I'm sure it was a good work given the time, but like, there's like no other discipline in which we care. So people care so much about like, what people thought 2000 years ago because like the presumption, I think the justified presumption is that things have iterated and improved since then. And I think that's true. It's like not just a presumption.LAURA: Humans are still rather the same and what our needs are for living amongst each other in political society are kind of the same. I think America's founding is very influenced by what people thought 2000 years ago.AARON: Yeah, descriptively that's probably true. But I don't know, it seems like all the whole body of philosophers have they've already done the work of, like, compressing the good stuff. Like the entire academy since like, 1400 or whatever has like, compressed the good stuff and like, gotten rid of the bad stuff. Not in like a high fidelity way, but like a better than chance way. And so the stuff that remains if you just take the state of I don't know if you read the Oxford Handbook of whatever it is, like ethics or something, the takeaways you're going to get from that are just better than the takeaways you're going to get from a summary of the state of the knowledge in any prior year. At least. Unless something weird happened. And I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense.LAURA: I think we're talking about two different things, though. Okay. In terms of knowledge about logic or something or, I don't know, argumentation about trying to derive the correct moral theory or something, versus how should we think about our own lives. I don't see any reason as to why the framework of virtue theory is incorrect and just because it's old. There's many virtue theorists now who are like, oh yeah, they were really on to something and we need to adapt it for the times in which we live and the kind of societies we live in now. But it's still like there was a huge kernel of truth in at least the way of thinking that Aristotle put forth in terms of balancing the different virtues that you care about and trying to find. I think this is true. Right? Like take one virtue of his humor. You don't want to be on one extreme where you're just basically a meme your entire life. Everybody thinks you're funny, but that's just not very serious. But you don't want to be a boar and so you want to find somewhere in the middle where it's like you have a good sense of humor, but you can still function and be respected by other people.AARON: Yeah. Once again, I agree. Well, I don't agree with everything. I agree with a lot of what you just said. I think there was like two main points of either confusion or disagreement. And like, the first one is that I definitely think, no, Aristotle shouldn't be discounted or like his ideas or virtue ethics or anything like that shouldn't be discounted because they were canonical texts or something were written a long time ago. I guess it's just like a presumption that I have a pretty strong presumption that conditional on them being good, they would also be written about today. And so you don't actually need to go back to the founding texts and then in fact, you probably shouldn't because the good stuff will be explained better and not in weird it looks like weird terms. The terms are used differently and they're like translations from Aramaic or whatever. Probably not Aramaic, probably something else. And yeah, I'm not sure if you.LAURA: Agree with this because we have certain assumptions about what words like purpose mean now that we're probably a bit richer in the old conception of them like telos or happiness. Right. Udaimnia is much better concept and to read the original text and see how those different concepts work together is actually quite enriching compared to how do people use these words now. And it would take like I don't know, I think there just is a lot of value of looking at how these were originally conceived because popularizers of the works now or people who are seriously doing philosophy using these concepts. You just don't have the background knowledge that's necessary to understand them fully if you don't read the canonical text.AARON: Yeah, I think that would be true. If you are a native speaker. Do you know Greek? If you know Greek, this is like dumb because then you're just right.LAURA: I did take a quarter of it.AARON: Oh God. Oh my God. I don't know if that counts, but that's like more than anybody should ever take. No, I'm just kidding. That's very cool. No, because I was going to say if you're a native speaker of Greek and you have the connotations of the word eudaimonia and you were like living in the temper shuttle, I would say. Yeah, that's true actually. That's a lot of nuanced, connotation and context that definitely gets lost with translation. But once you take the jump of reading English translations of the texts, not you may as well but there's nothing super special. You're not getting any privileged knowledge from saying the word eudaimonia as opposed to just saying some other term as a reference to that concept or something. You're absorbing the connotation in the context via English, I guess, via the mind of literally the translators who have like.LAURA: Yeah, well see, I tried to learn virtue theory by any other route than reading Aristotle.AARON: Oh God.LAURA: I took a course specifically on Plato and Aristotle.AARON: Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just like the opposite type of philosophy person.LAURA: But keep going. Fair. But she had us read his physics before we read Nicomachi.AARON: Think he was wrong about all that.LAURA: Stuff, but it made you understand what he meant by his teleology theory so much better in a way that I could not get if I was reading some modern thing.AARON: I don't know, I feel like you probably could. No, sorry, that's not true. I don't think you could get what Aristotle the man truly believed as well via a modern text. But is that what you? Depends. If you're trying to be a scholar of Aristotle, maybe that's important. If you're trying to find the best or truest ethics and learn the lessons of how to live, that's like a different type of task. I don't think Aristotle the man should be all that privileged in that.LAURA: If all of the modern people who are talking about virtue theory are basically Aristotle, then I don't see the difference.AARON: Oh, yeah, I guess. Fair enough. And then I would say, like, oh, well, they should probably start. Is that in fact the state of the things in virtue theory? I don't even know.LAURA: I don't know either.#2 Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]All right, next, Arjun Panixery and I explore the effectiveness of reading books in retaining and incorporating knowledge, discussing the value of long form content and the impact of great literary works on understanding and shaping personal worldviews.ARJUN: Oh, you were in the book chat, though. The book rant group chat, right?AARON: Yeah, I think I might have just not read any of it. So do you want to fill me in on what I should have read?ARJUN: Yeah, it's group chat of a bunch of people where we were arguing about a bunch of claims related to books. One of them is that most people don't remember pretty much anything from books that they read, right? They read a book and then, like, a few months later, if you ask them about it, they'll just say one page's worth of information or maybe like, a few paragraphs. The other is that what is it exactly? It's that if you read a lot of books, it could be that you just incorporate the information that's important into your existing models and then just forget the information. So it's actually fine. Isn't this what you wrote in your blog post or whatever? I think that's why I added you to that.AARON: Oh, thank you. I'm sorry I'm such a bad group chat participant. Yeah, honestly, I wrote that a while ago. I don't fully remember exactly what it says, but at least one of the things that it said was and that I still basically stand by, is that it's basically just like it's increasing the salience of a set of ideas more so than just filling your brain with more facts. And I think this is probably true insofar as the facts support a set of common themes or ideas that are kind of like the intellectual core of it. It would be really hard. Okay, so this is not a book, but okay. I've talked about how much I love an 80,000 hours podcast, and I've listened to, I don't think every episode, but at least 100 of the episodes. And no, you're just, like, not going to definitely I've forgotten most of the actual almost all of the actual propositional pieces of information said, but you're just not going to convince me that it's completely not affecting either model of the world or stuff that I know or whatever. I mean, there are facts that I could list. I think maybe I should try.ARJUN: Sure.AARON: Yeah. So what's your take on book other long form?ARJUN: Oh, I don't know. I'm still quite confused or I think the impetus for the group chat's creation was actually Hanania's post where he wrote the case against most books or most was in parentheses or something. I mean, there's a lot of things going on in that post. He just goes off against a bunch of different categories of books that are sort of not closely related. Like, he goes off against great. I mean, this is not the exact take he gives, but it's something like the books that are considered great are considered great literature for some sort of contingent reason, not because they're the best at getting you information that you want.AARON: This is, like, another topic. But I'm, like, anti great books. In fact, I'm anti great usually just means old and famous. So insofar as that's what we mean by I'm like, I think this is a bad thing, or, like, I don't know, aristotle is basically wrong about everything and stuff like that.ARJUN: Right, yeah. Wait, we could return to this. I guess this could also be divided into its component categories. He spends more time, though, I think, attacking a certain kind of nonfiction book that he describes as the kind of book that somebody pitches to a publisher and basically expands a single essay's worth of content into with a bunch of anecdotes and stuff. He's like, most of these books are just not very useful to read, I guess. I agree with that.AARON: Yeah. Is there one that comes to mind as, like, an? Mean, I think of Malcolm Gladwell as, like, the kind of I haven't actually read any of his stuff in a while, but I did, I think, when I started reading nonfiction or with any sort of intent, I read. A bunch of his stuff or whatever and vaguely remember that this is basically what he like for better or.ARJUN: Um yeah, I guess so. But he's almost, like, trying to do it on purpose. This is the experience that you're getting by reading a Malcolm Gladwell book. It's like talib. Right? It's just him just ranting. I'm thinking, I guess, of books that are about something. So, like, if you have a book that's know negotiation or something, it'll be filled with a bunch of anecdotes that are of dubious usefulness. Or if you get a book that's just about some sort of topic, there'll be historical trivia that's irrelevant. Maybe I can think of an example.AARON: Yeah. So the last thing I tried to read, maybe I am but haven't in a couple of weeks or whatever, is like, the Derek Parfit biography. And part of this is motivated because I don't even like biographies in general for some reason, I don't know. But I don't know. He's, like, an important guy. Some of the anecdotes that I heard were shockingly close to home for me, or not close to home, but close to my brain or something. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll see if this guy's like the smarter version of Aaron Bergman. And it's not totally true.ARJUN: Sure, I haven't read the book, but I saw tweet threads about it, as one does, and I saw things that are obviously false. Right. It's the claims that he read, like, a certain number of pages while brushing his teeth. That's, like, anatomically impossible or whatever. Did you get to that part? Or I assumed no, I also saw.AARON: That tweet and this is not something that I do, but I don't know if it's anatomically impossible. Yeah, it takes a little bit of effort to figure out how to do that, I guess. I don't think that's necessarily false or whatever, but this is probably not the most important.ARJUN: Maybe it takes long time to brush his teeth.#3: Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]In this next segment, Nathan Barnard and I dive into the complexities of AI regulation, including potential challenges and outcomes of governing AI in relation to economic growth and existential security. And we compare it to banking regulation as well.AARON: Yeah, I don't know. I just get gloomy for, I think justified reasons when people talk about, oh yeah, here's the nine step process that has to take place and then maybe there's like a 20% chance that we'll be able to regulate AI effectively. I'm being facetious or exaggerating, something like that, but not by a gigantic amount.NATHAN: I think this is pretty radically different to my mainline expectation.AARON: What's your mainline expectation?NATHAN: I suppose I expect like AI to come with an increasing importance past economy and to come up to really like a very large fraction of the economy before really crazy stuff starts happening and this world is going very anonymous. Anonymous, anonymous, anonymous. I know the word is it'd be very unusual if this extremely large sector economy which was impacted like a very large number of people's lives remains like broadly unregulated.AARON: It'll be regulated, but just maybe in a stupid way.NATHAN: Sure, yes, maybe in a stupid way. I suppose critically, do you expect the stupid way to be like too conservative or too like the specific question of AI accenture it's basically too conservative or too lenient or I just won't be able to interact with this.AARON: I guess generally too lenient, but also mostly on a different axis where just like I don't actually know enough. I don't feel like I've read learned about various governance proposals to have a good object level take on this. But my broad prior is that there are just a lot of ways to for anything. There's a lot of ways to regulate something poorly. And the reason insofar as anything isn't regulated poorly it's because of a lot of trial and error.NATHAN: Maybe.AARON: I mean, there's probably exceptions, right? I don't know. Tax Americana is like maybe we didn't just kept winning wars starting with World War II. I guess just like maybe like a counterexample or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think I still mostly disagree with this. Oh, cool. Yeah. I suppose I see a much like broader spectrum between bad regulation and good regulation. I agree it's like very small amount. The space of optimal regulation is very small. But I think we have to hit that space for regulation to be helpful. Especially in this especially if you consider that if you sort of buy the AI extension safety risk then the downsides of it's not this quite fine balancing act between too much whether consumer protection and siphoning competition and cycling innovation too much. It's like trying to end this quite specific, very bad outcome which is maybe much worse than going somewhat slowering economic growth, at least somewhat particularly if we think we're going to get something. This is very explosive rates for economic growth really quite soon. And the cost of slowing down economic growth by weather even by quite a large percentage, very small compared to the cost of sort of an accidental catastrophe. I sort of think of Sony iconic growth as the main cost of main way regulation goes wrong currently.AARON: I think in an actual sense that is correct. There's the question of like okay, Congress in the states like it's better than nothing. I'm glad it's not anarchy in terms of like I'm glad we have a legislature.NATHAN: I'm also glad the United States.AARON: How reasons responsive is Congress? I don't think reasons responsive enough to make it so that the first big law that gets passed insofar as there is one or if there is one is on the pareto frontier trading off between economic growth and existential security. It's going to be way inside of that production frontier or whatever. It's going to suck on every action, maybe not every act but at least like some relevant actions.NATHAN: Yeah that doesn't seem like obviously true to me. I think Dodge Frank was quite a good law.AARON: That came after 2008, right?NATHAN: Yeah correct. Yeah there you go. No, I agree. I'm not especially confident about doing regulation before there's some quite bad before there's a quite bad warning shot and yes, if we're in world where we have no warning shots and we're just like blindsided by everyone getting turned into everyone getting stripped their Athens within 3 seconds, this is not good. Both in law we do have one of those shots and I think Glass Seagull is good law. Not good law is a technical term. I think Glass Steagall was a good piece of legislation. I think DoD Frank was a good piece of legislation. I think the 2008 Seamless Bill was good piece of legislation. I think the Troubled Assets Relief Program is a good piece of piece of legislation.AARON: I recognize these terms and I know some of them and others I do not know the contents of.NATHAN: Yeah so Glass Eagle was the financial regulation passed in 1933 after Great Depression. The Tropical Asset Relief Program was passed in I think 2008, moved 2009 to help recapitalize banks. Dodge Frank was the sort of landmark post financial cris piece of legislation passed in 2011. I think these are all good pieces of legislation now. I think like financial regulation is probably unusually good amongst US legislation. This is like a quite weak take, I guess. It's unusually.AARON: So. I don't actually know the pre depression financial history at all but I feel like the more relevant comparison to the 21st century era is what was the regulatory regime in 1925 or something? I just don't know.NATHAN: Yeah, I know a bit. I haven't read this stuff especially deeply and so I don't want to don't want to be so overcompensant here but sort of the core pieces which were sort of important for the sort of the Great Depression going very badly was yeah, no distinction between commercial banks and investment banks. Yes, such a bank could take much riskier. Much riskier. Things with like custom deposits than they could from 1933 until the Peel Glass Eagle. And combine that with no deposit insurance and if you sort of have the combination of banks being able to do quite risky things with depositors money and no deposit insurance, this is quite dangerously known. And glassy repeal.AARON: I'm an expert in the sense that I have the Wikipedia page up. Well, yeah, there was a bunch of things. Basically. There's the first bank of the United States. There's the second bank of the United States. There's the free banking era. There was the era of national banks. Yada, yada, yada. It looks like 19. Seven was there was some panic. I vaguely remember this from like, AP US history, like seven years ago or.NATHAN: Yes, I suppose in short, I sort of agree that the record of sort of non post Cris legislation is like, not very good, but I think record of post Cris legislation really, at least in the financial sector, really is quite good. I'm sure lots of people disagree with this, but this is my take.#4 Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]Up next, Winston Oswald Drummond and I talk about the effectiveness and impact of donating to various research organizations, such as suffering-focused S-risk organizations. We discuss tractability, expected value, and essentially where we should give our money.AARON: Okay, nice. Yeah. Where to go from here? I feel like largely we're on the same page, I feel like.WINSTON: Yeah. Is your disagreement mostly tractability? Then? Maybe we should get into the disagreement.AARON: Yeah. I don't even know if I've specified, but insofar as I have one, yes, it's trapped ability. This is the reason why I haven't donated very much to anywhere for money reasons. But insofar as I have, I have not donated to Clrcrs because I don't see a theory of change that connects the research currently being done to actually reducing s risks. And I feel like there must be something because there's a lot of extremely smart people at both of these orgs or whatever, and clearly they thought about this and maybe the answer is it's very general and the outcome is just so big in magnitude that anything kind.WINSTON: Of that is part of it, I think. Yeah, part of it is like an expected value thing and also it's just very neglected. So it's like you want some people working on this, I think, at least. Even if it's unlikely to work. Yeah, even that might be underselling it, though. I mean, I do think there's people at CRS and Clr, like talking to people at AI labs and some people in politics and these types of things. And hopefully the research is a way to know what to try to get done at these places. You want to have some concrete recommendations and I think obviously people have to also be willing to listen to you, but I think there is some work being done on that and research is partially just like a community building thing as well. It's a credible signal that you were smart and have thought about this, and so it gives people reason to listen to you and maybe that mostly pays off later on in the future.AARON: Yeah, that all sounds like reasonable. And I guess one thing is that I just don't there's definitely things I mean, first of all, I haven't really stayed up to date on what's going on, so I haven't even done I've done zero research for this podcast episode, for example. Very responsible and insofar as I've know things about these. Orgs. It's just based on what's on their website at some given time. So insofar as there's outreach going on, not like behind the scenes, but just not in a super public way, or I guess you could call that behind the scenes. I just don't have reason to, I guess, know about that. And I guess, yeah, I'm pretty comfortable. I don't even know if this is considered biting a bullet for the crowd that will be listening to this, if that's anybody but with just like yeah, saying a very small change for a very large magnitude, just, like, checks out. You can just do expected value reasoning and that's basically correct, like a correct way of thinking about ethics. But even I don't know how much you know specifically or, like, how much you're allowed want to reveal, but if there was a particular alignment agenda that I guess you in a broad sense, like the suffering focused research community thought was particularly promising and relative to other tractable, I guess, generic alignment recommendations. And you were doing research on that and trying to push that into the alignment mainstream, which is not very mainstream. And then with the hope that that jumps into the AI mainstream. Even if that's kind of a long chain of events. I think I would be a lot more enthusiastic about I don't know that type of agenda, because it feels like there's like a particular story you're telling where it cashes out in the end. You know what I mean?WINSTON: Yeah, I'm not the expert on this stuff, but I do think you just mean I think there's some things about influencing alignment and powerful AI for sure. Maybe not like a full on, like, this is our alignment proposal and it also handles Sris. But some things we could ask AI labs that are already building, like AGI, we could say, can you also implement these sort of, like, safeguards so if you failed alignment, you fail sort of gracefully and don't cause lots of suffering.AARON: Right?WINSTON: Yeah. Or maybe there are other things too, which also seem potentially more tractable. Even if you solve alignment in some sense, like aligning with whatever the human operator tells the AI to do, then you can also get the issue that malevolent actors can take control of the AI and then what they want also causes lots of suffering that type of alignment wouldn't. Yeah, and I guess I tend to be somewhat skeptical of coherent extrapolated volition and things like this, where the idea is sort of like it'll just figure out our values and do the right thing. So, yeah, there's some ways to push on this without having a full alignment plan, but I'm not sure if that counts as what you were saying.AARON: No, I guess it does. Yeah, it sounds like it does. And it could be that I'm just kind of mistaken about the degree to which that type of research and outreach is going on. That sounds like it's at least partially true.#5: Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]Up next, Nathan Barnard is back for his second episode. And we talked about the nature of general intelligence, its relationship with language and the implications of specialized brain functions on the understanding of human cognitive abilities.NATHAN: Yes. This like symbolic like symbolic, symbolic reasoning stuff. Yeah. So I think if I was, like, making the if I was, like, making the case for general intelligence being real, I wouldn't have symbolic reasoning, but I would have language stuff. I'd have this hierarchical structure thing, which.AARON: I would probably so I think of at least most uses of language and central examples as a type of symbolic reasoning because words mean things. They're like yeah. Pointers to objects or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think it's like, pretty confidence isn't where this isn't a good enough description of general intelligence. So, for instance so if you bit in your brain called, I'm using a checklist, I don't fuck this up vernacular, I'm not making this cool. Lots of connects to use words like pointers as these arbitrary signs happens mostly in this area of the brain called Berkeley's area. But very famously, you can have Berkeley's epaxics who lose the ability to do language comprehension and use the ability to consistently use words as pointers, as signs to point to things, but still have perfect good spatial reasoning abilities. And so, conversely, people with brokers of fascia who fuck up, who have the broker's reason their brain fucks up will not be able to form fluent sentences and have some problems like unsigned syntax, and they'll still be able to have very good spatial reasoning. It could still, for instance, be like, good engineers. Would you like many problems which, like, cost engineering?AARON: Yeah, I totally buy that. I don't think language is the central thing. I think it's like an outgrowth of, like I don't know, there's like a simplified model I could make, which is like it's like an outgrowth of whatever general intelligence really is. But whatever the best spatial or graphical model is, I don't think language is cognition.NATHAN: Yes, this is a really big debate in psycholinguistics as to whether language is like an outgrowth of other abilities like the brain has, whether language whether there's very specialized language modules. Yeah, this is just like a very live debate in psycholinguistics moments. I actually do lean towards the reason I've been talking about this actually just going to explain this hierarchical structure thing? Yeah, I keep talking about it. So one theory for how you can comprehend new sentences, like, the dominant theory in linguistics, how you can comprehend new sentences, um, is you break them up into, like you break them up into, like, chunks, and you form these chunks together in this, like, tree structure. So something like, if you hear, like, a totally novel sentence like the pit bull mastiff flopped around deliciously or something, you can comprehend what the sentence means despite the fact you've never heard it. Theory behind this is you saw yes, this can be broken up into this tree structure, where the different, like, ah, like like bits of the sentence. So, like like the mastiff would be like, one bit, and then you have, like, another bit, which is like, the mastiff I can't remember I said rolled around, so that'd be like, another bit, and then you'd have connectors to our heart.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: So the massive rolling around one theory of one of the sort of distinctive things that humans have disabilities is like, this quite general ability to break things up into these these tree structures. This is controversial within psycholinguistics, but it's broadly an area which I broadly buy it because we do see harms to other areas of intelligence. You get much worse at, like, Ravens Progressive Matrices, for instance, when you have, like, an injury to brokers area, but, like, not worse at, like, tests like tests of space, of, like, spatial reasoning, for instance.AARON: So what is like, is there, like, a main alternative to, like, how humans.NATHAN: Understand language as far as this specificity of how we pass completely novel sentences, as far as where this is just like this is just like the the academic consensus. Okay.AARON: I mean, it sounds totally like right? I don't know.NATHAN: Yeah. But yeah, I suppose going back to saying, how far is language like an outgrowth of general intelligence? An outgrowth like general intelligence versus having much more specialized language modules? Yeah, I lean towards the latter, despite yeah, I still don't want to give too strong of a personal opinion here because I'm not a linguistic this is a podcast.AARON: You're allowed to give takes. No one's going to say this is like the academic we want takes.NATHAN: We want takes. Well, gone to my head is.AARON: I.NATHAN: Think language is not growth of other abilities. I think the main justification for this, I think, is that the loss of other abilities we see when you have damage to broker's area and verca's area.AARON: Okay, cool. So I think we basically agree on that. And also, I guess one thing to highlight is I think outgrowth can mean a couple of different things. I definitely think it's plausible. I haven't read about this. I think I did at some point, but not in a while. But outgrowth could mean temporarily or whatever. I think I'm kind of inclined to think it's not that straightforward. You could have coevolution where language per se encourages both its own development and the development of some general underlying trait or something.NATHAN: Yeah. Which seems likely.AARON: Okay, cool. So why don't humans have general intelligence?NATHAN: Right. Yeah. As I was sort of talking about previously.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: I think I think I'd like to use go back to like a high level like a high level argument is there appears to be very surprised, like, much higher levels of functional specialization in brains than you expect. You can lose much more specific abilities than you expect to be able to lose. You can lose specifically the ability a famous example is like facebindness, actually. You probably lose the ability to specifically recognize things which you're, like, an expert in.AARON: Who does it or who loses this ability.NATHAN: If you've damaged your fuse inform area, you'll lose the ability to recognize faces, but nothing else.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And there's this general pattern that your brain is much more you can lose much more specific abilities than you expect. So, for instance, if you sort of have damage to your ventral, medial, prefrontal cortex, you can say the reasoning for why you shouldn't compulsively gamble but still compulsively gamble.AARON: For instance okay, I understand this not gambling per se, but like executive function stuff at a visceral level. Okay, keep going.NATHAN: Yeah. Some other nice examples of this. I think memory is quite intuitive. So there's like, a very famous patient called patient HM who had his hippocampus removed and so as a result, lost all declarative memory. So all memory of specific facts and things which happened in his life. He just couldn't remember any of these things, but still perfectly functioning otherwise. I think at a really high level, I think this functional specialization is probably the strongest piece of evidence against the general intelligence hypothesis. I think fundamentally, general intelligence hypothesis implies that, like, if you, like yeah, if you was, like, harm a piece of your brain, if you have some brain injury, you might like generically get worse at tasks you like, generically get worse at, like at like all task groups use general intelligence. But I think suggesting people, including general intelligence, like the ability to write, the ability to speak, maybe not speak, the ability to do math, you do have.AARON: This it's just not as easy to analyze in a Cogsy paper which IQ or whatever. So there is something where if somebody has a particular cubic centimeter of their brain taken out, that's really excellent evidence about what that cubic centimeter does or whatever, but that non spatial modification is just harder to study and analyze. I guess we'll give people drugs, right? Suppose that set aside the psychometric stuff. But suppose that general intelligence is mostly a thing or whatever and you actually can ratchet it up and down. This is probably just true, right? You can probably give somebody different doses of, like, various drugs. I don't know, like laughing gas, like like, yeah, like probably, probably weed. Like I don't know.NATHAN: So I think this just probably isn't true. Your working memory corrects quite strongly with G and having better working memory generic can make you much better at lots of tasks if you have like.AARON: Yeah.NATHAN: Sorry, but this is just like a specific ability. It's like just specifically your working memory, which is improved if you go memory to a drugs. Improved working memory. I think it's like a few things like memory attention, maybe something like decision making, which are all like extremely useful abilities and improve how well other cognitive abilities work. But they're all separate things. If you improved your attention abilities, your working memory, but you sort of had some brain injury, which sort of meant you sort of had lost ability to pass syntax, you would not get better at passing syntax. And you can also use things separately. You can also improve attention and improve working memory separately, which just it's not just this one dial which you can turn up.AARON: There's good reason to expect that we can't turn it up because evolution is already sort of like maximizing, given the relevant constraints. Right. So you would need to be looking just like injuries. Maybe there are studies where they try to increase people's, they try to add a cubic centimeter to someone's brain, but normally it's like the opposite. You start from some high baseline and then see what faculties you lose. Just to clarify, I guess.NATHAN: Yeah, sorry, I think I've lost the you still think there probably is some general intelligence ability to turn up?AARON: Honestly, I think I haven't thought about this nearly as much as you. I kind of don't know what I think at some level. If I could just write down all of the different components and there are like 74 of them and what I think of a general intelligence consists of does that make it I guess in some sense, yeah, that does make it less of an ontologically legit thing or something. I think I think the thing I want to get the motivating thing here is that with humans yet you can like we know humans range in IQ, and there's, like, setting aside a very tiny subset of people with severe brain injuries or development disorders or whatever. Almost everybody has some sort of symbolic reasoning that they can do to some degree. Whereas the smartest maybe I'm wrong about this, but as far as I know, the smartest squirrel is not going to be able to have something semantically represent something else. And that's what I intuitively want to appeal to, you know what I mean?NATHAN: Yeah, I know what you're guessing at. So I think there's like two interesting things here. So I think one is, could a squirrel do this? I'm guessing a squirrel couldn't do this, but a dog can, or like a dog probably can. A chimpanzee definitely can.AARON: Do what?NATHAN: Chimpanzees can definitely learn to associate arbitrary signs, things in the world with arbitrary signs.AARON: Yes, but maybe I'm just adding on epicentercles here, but I feel like correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that maybe I'm just wrong about this, but I would assume that Chicken Tees cannot use that sign in a domain that is qualitatively different from the ones they've been in. Right. So, like, a dog will know that a certain sign means sit or whatever, but maybe that's not a good I.NATHAN: Don'T know think this is basically not true.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And we sort of know this from teaching.AARON: Teaching.NATHAN: There's like a famously cocoa de guerrilla. Also a bonobo whose name I can't remember were taught sign language. And the thing they were consistently bad at was, like, putting together sentences they could learn quite large vocabularies learning to associate by large, I mean in the hundreds of words, in the low hundreds of words which they could consistently use consistently use correctly.AARON: What do you mean by, like, in what sense? What is bonobo using?NATHAN: A very famous and quite controversial example is like, coco gorilla was like, saw a swan outside and signed water bird. That's like, a controversial example. But other things, I think, which are controversial here is like, the syntax part of putting water and bird together is the controversial part, but it's not the controversial part that she could see a swan and call that a bird.AARON: Yeah, I mean, this is kind of just making me think, okay, maybe the threshold for D is just like at the chimp level or something. We are like or whatever the most like that. Sure. If a species really can generate from a prefix and a suffix or whatever, a concept that they hadn't learned before.NATHAN: Yeah, this is a controversial this is like a controversial example of that the addition to is the controversial part. Yeah, I suppose maybe brings back to why I think this matters is will there be this threshold which AIS cross such that their reasoning after this is qualitatively different to their reasoning previously? And this is like two things. One, like a much faster increase in AI capabilities and two, alignment techniques which worked on systems which didn't have g will no longer work. Systems which do have g. Brings back to why I think this actually matters. But I think if we're sort of accepting it, I think elephants probably also if you think that if we're saying, like, g is like a level of chimpanzees, chimpanzees just, like, don't don't look like quantitatively different to, like, don't look like that qualitatively different to, like, other animals. Now, lots of other animals live in similar complex social groups. Lots of other animals use tools.AARON: Yeah, sure. For one thing, I don't think there's not going to be a discontinuity in the same way that there wasn't a discontinuity at any point between humans evolution from the first prokaryotic cells or whatever are eukaryotic one of those two or both, I guess. My train of thought. Yes, I know it's controversial, but let's just suppose that the sign language thing was legit with the waterbird and that's not like a random one off fluke or something. Then maybe this is just some sort of weird vestigial evolutionary accident that actually isn't very beneficial for chimpanzees and they just stumbled their way into and then it just enabled them to it enables evolution to bootstrap Shimp genomes into human genomes. Because at some the smartest or whatever actually, I don't know. Honestly, I don't have a great grasp of evolutionary biology or evolution at all. But, yeah, it could just be not that helpful for chimps and helpful for an extremely smart chimp that looks kind of different or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah. So I suppose just like the other thing she's going on here, I don't want to keep banging on about this, but you can lose the language. You can lose linguistic ability. And it's just, like, happens this happens in stroke victims, for instance. It's not that rare. Just, like, lose linguistic ability, but still have all the other abilities which we sort of think of as like, general intelligence, which I think would be including the general intelligence, like, hypothesis.AARON: I agree that's, like, evidence against it. I just don't think it's very strong evidence, partially because I think there is a real school of thought that says that language is fundamental. Like, language drives thought. Language is, like, primary to thought or something. And I don't buy that. If you did buy that, I think this would be, like, more damning evidence.#6 Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54][Note: I forgot to record an intro segment here. Sorry!]AARON: Yeah. Yes. I'm also anti scam. Right, thank you. Okay, so I think that thing that we were talking about last time we talked, which is like the thing I think we actually both know stuff about instead of just like, repeating New York Times articles is my nuanced ethics takes and why you think about talk about that and then we can just also branch off from there.DANIEL: Yeah, we can talk about that.AARON: Maybe see where that did. I luckily I have a split screen up, so I can pull up things. Maybe this is kind of like egotistical or something to center my particular view, but you've definitely given me some of the better pushback or whatever that I haven't gotten that much feedback of any kind, I guess, but it's still interesting to hear your take. So basically my ethical position or the thing that I think is true is that which I think is not the default view. I think most people think this is wrong is that total utilitarianism does not imply that for some amount of suffering that could be created there exists some other extremely large arbitrarily, large amount of happiness that could also be created which would morally justify the former. Basically.DANIEL: So you think that even under total utilitarianism there can be big amounts of suffering such that there's no way to morally tip the calculus. However much pleasure you can create, it's just not going to outweigh the fact that you inflicted that much suffering on some people.AARON: Yeah, and I'd highlight the word inflicted if something's already there and you can't do anything about it, that's kind of neither here nor there as it pertains to your actions or something. So it's really about you increasing, you creating suffering that wouldn't have otherwise been created. Yeah. It's also been a couple of months since I've thought about this in extreme detail, although I thought about it quite a bit. Yeah.DANIEL: Maybe I should say my contrary view, I guess, when you say that, I don't know, does total utilitarianism imply something or not? I'm like, well, presumably it depends on what we mean by total utilitarianism. Right. So setting that aside, I think that thesis is probably false. I think that yeah. You can offset great amounts of suffering with great amounts of pleasure, even for arbitrary amounts of suffering.AARON: Okay. I do think that position is like the much more common and even, I'd say default view. Do you agree with that? It's sort of like the implicit position of people who are of self described total utilitarians who haven't thought a ton about this particular question.DANIEL: Yeah, I think it's probably the implicit default. I think it's the implicit default in ethical theory or something. I think that in practice, when you're being a utilitarian, I don't know, normally, if you're trying to be a utilitarian and you see yourself inflicting a large amount of suffering, I don't know. I do think there's some instinct to be like, is there any way we can get around this?AARON: Yeah, for sure. And to be clear, I don't think this would look like a thought experiment. I think what it looks like in practice and also I will throw in caveats as I see necessary, but I think what it looks like in practice is like, spreading either wild animals or humans or even sentient digital life through the universe. That's in a non as risky way, but that's still just maybe like, say, making the earth, making multiple copies of humanity or something like that. That would be an example that's probably not like an example of what an example of creating suffering would be. For example, just creating another duplicate of earth. Okay.DANIEL: Anything that would be like so much suffering that we shouldn't even the pleasures of earth outweighs.AARON: Not necessarily, which is kind of a cop out. But my inclination is that if you include wild animals, the answer is yes, that creating another earth especially. Yeah, but I'm much more committed to some amount. It's like some amount than this particular time and place in human industry is like that or whatever.DANIEL: Okay, can I get a feel of some other concrete cases to see?AARON: Yeah.DANIEL: So one example that's on my mind is, like, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? So the standard case for this is, like, yeah, what? A hundred OD thousand people died? Like, quite terrible, quite awful. And a lot of them died, I guess a lot of them were sort of some people were sort of instantly vaporized, but a lot of people died in extremely painful ways. But the countercase is like, well, the alternative to that would have been like, an incredibly grueling land invasion of Japan, where many more people would have died or know regardless of what the actual alternatives were. If you think about the atomic bombings, do you think that's like the kind of infliction of suffering where there's just not an offsetting amount of pleasure that could make that okay?AARON: My intuition is no, that it is offsettable, but I would also emphasize that given the actual historical contingencies, the alternative, the implicit case for the bombing includes reducing suffering elsewhere rather than merely creating happiness. There can definitely be two bad choices that you have to make or something. And my claim doesn't really pertain to that, at least not directly.#7: Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]Up next, Holly Elmore and I discuss the complexities and implications of AI development and open sourcing. We talk about protests and ethical considerations around her, um, uh, campaign to pause the development of frontier AI systems until, until we can tell that they're safe.AARON: So what's the plan? Do you have a plan? You don't have to have a plan. I don't have plans very much.HOLLY: Well, right now I'm hopeful about the UK AI summit. Pause AI and I have planned a multi city protest on the 21 October to encourage the UK AI Safety Summit to focus on safety first and to have as a topic arranging a pause or that of negotiation. There's a lot of a little bit upsetting advertising for that thing that's like, we need to keep up capabilities too. And I just think that's really a secondary objective. And that's how I wanted to be focused on safety. So I'm hopeful about the level of global coordination that we're already seeing. It's going so much faster than we thought. Already the UN Secretary General has been talking about this and there have been meetings about this. It's happened so much faster at the beginning of this year. Nobody thought we could talk about nobody was thinking we'd be talking about this as a mainstream topic. And then actually governments have been very receptive anyway. So right now I'm focused on other than just influencing opinion, the targets I'm focused on, or things like encouraging these international like, I have a protest on Friday, my first protest that I'm leading and kind of nervous that's against Meta. It's at the Meta building in San Francisco about their sharing of model weights. They call it open source. It's like not exactly open source, but I'm probably not going to repeat that message because it's pretty complicated to explain. I really love the pause message because it's just so hard to misinterpret and it conveys pretty clearly what we want very quickly. And you don't have a lot of bandwidth and advocacy. You write a lot of materials for a protest, but mostly what people see is the title.AARON: That's interesting because I sort of have the opposite sense. I agree that in terms of how many informational bits you're conveying in a particular phrase, pause AI is simpler, but in some sense it's not nearly as obvious. At least maybe I'm more of a tech brain person or whatever. But why that is good, as opposed to don't give extremely powerful thing to the worst people in the world. That's like a longer everyone.HOLLY: Maybe I'm just weird. I've gotten the feedback from open source ML people is the number one thing is like, it's too late, there's already super powerful models. There's nothing you can do to stop us, which sounds so villainous, I don't know if that's what they mean. Well, actually the number one message is you're stupid, you're not an ML engineer. Which like, okay, number two is like, it's too late, there's nothing you can do. There's all of these other and Meta is not even the most powerful generator of models that it share of open source models. I was like, okay, fine. And I don't know, I don't think that protesting too much is really the best in these situations. I just mostly kind of let that lie. I could give my theory of change on this and why I'm focusing on Meta. Meta is a large company I'm hoping to have influence on. There is a Meta building in San Francisco near where yeah, Meta is the biggest company that is doing this and I think there should be a norm against model weight sharing. I was hoping it would be something that other employees of other labs would be comfortable attending and that is a policy that is not shared across the labs. Obviously the biggest labs don't do it. So OpenAI is called OpenAI but very quickly decided not to do that. Yeah, I kind of wanted to start in a way that made it more clear than pause AI. Does that anybody's welcome something? I thought a one off issue like this that a lot of people could agree and form a coalition around would be good. A lot of people think that this is like a lot of the open source ML people think know this is like a secret. What I'm saying is secretly an argument for tyranny. I just want centralization of power. I just think that there are elites that are better qualified to run everything. It was even suggested I didn't mention China. It even suggested that I was racist because I didn't think that foreign people could make better AIS than Meta.AARON: I'm grimacing here. The intellectual disagreeableness, if that's an appropriate term or something like that. Good on you for standing up to some pretty bad arguments.HOLLY: Yeah, it's not like that worth it. I'm lucky that I truly am curious about what people think about stuff like that. I just find it really interesting. I spent way too much time understanding the alt. Right. For instance, I'm kind of like sure I'm on list somewhere because of the forums I was on just because I was interested and it is something that serves me well with my adversaries. I've enjoyed some conversations with people where I kind of like because my position on all this is that look, I need to be convinced and the public needs to be convinced that this is safe before we go ahead. So I kind of like not having to be the smart person making the arguments. I kind of like being like, can you explain like I'm five. I still don't get it. How does this work?AARON: Yeah, no, I was thinking actually not long ago about open source. Like the phrase has such a positive connotation and in a lot of contexts it really is good. I don't know. I'm glad that random tech I don't know, things from 2004 or whatever, like the reddit source code is like all right, seems cool that it's open source. I don't actually know if that was how that right. But yeah, I feel like maybe even just breaking down what the positive connotation comes from and why it's in people's self. This is really what I was thinking about, is like, why is it in people's self interest to open source things that they made and that might break apart the allure or sort of ethical halo that it has around it? And I was thinking it probably has something to do with, oh, this is like how if you're a tech person who makes some cool product, you could try to put a gate around it by keeping it closed source and maybe trying to get intellectual property or something. But probably you're extremely talented already, or pretty wealthy. Definitely can be hired in the future. And if you're not wealthy yet I don't mean to put things in just materialist terms, but basically it could easily be just like in a yeah, I think I'll probably take that bit out because I didn't mean to put it in strictly like monetary terms, but basically it just seems like pretty plausibly in an arbitrary tech person's self interest, broadly construed to, in fact, open source their thing, which is totally fine and normal.HOLLY: I think that's like 99 it's like a way of showing magnanimity showing, but.AARON: I don't make this sound so like, I think 99.9% of human behavior is like this. I'm not saying it's like, oh, it's some secret, terrible self interested thing, but just making it more mechanistic. Okay, it's like it's like a status thing. It's like an advertising thing. It's like, okay, you're not really in need of direct economic rewards, or sort of makes sense to play the long game in some sense, and this is totally normal and fine, but at the end of the day, there's reasons why it makes sense, why it's in people's self interest to open source.HOLLY: Literally, the culture of open source has been able to bully people into, like, oh, it's immoral to keep it for yourself. You have to release those. So it's just, like, set the norms in a lot of ways, I'm not the bully. Sounds bad, but I mean, it's just like there is a lot of pressure. It looks bad if something is closed source.AARON: Yeah, it's kind of weird that Meta I don't know, does Meta really think it's in their I don't know. Most economic take on this would be like, oh, they somehow think it's in their shareholders interest to open source.HOLLY: There are a lot of speculations on why they're doing this. One is that? Yeah, their models aren't as good as the top labs, but if it's open source, then open source quote, unquote then people will integrate it llama Two into their apps. Or People Will Use It And Become I don't know, it's a little weird because I don't know why using llama Two commits you to using llama Three or something, but it just ways for their models to get in in places where if you just had to pay for their models too, people would go for better ones. That's one thing. Another is, yeah, I guess these are too speculative. I don't want to be seen repeating them since I'm about to do this purchase. But there's speculation that it's in best interests in various ways to do this. I think it's possible also that just like so what happened with the release of Llama One is they were going to allow approved people to download the weights, but then within four days somebody had leaked Llama One on four chan and then they just were like, well, whatever, we'll just release the weights. And then they released Llama Two with the weights from the beginning. And it's not like 100% clear that they intended to do full open source or what they call Open source. And I keep saying it's not open source because this is like a little bit of a tricky point to make. So I'm not emphasizing it too much. So they say that they're open source, but they're not. The algorithms are not open source. There are open source ML models that have everything open sourced and I don't think that that's good. I think that's worse. So I don't want to criticize them for that. But they're saying it's open source because there's all this goodwill associated with open source. But actually what they're doing is releasing the product for free or like trade secrets even you could say like things that should be trade secrets. And yeah, they're telling people how to make it themselves. So it's like a little bit of a they're intentionally using this label that has a lot of positive connotations but probably according to Open Source Initiative, which makes the open Source license, it should be called something else or there should just be like a new category for LLMs being but I don't want things to be more open. It could easily sound like a rebuke that it should be more open to make that point. But I also don't want to call it Open source because I think Open source software should probably does deserve a lot of its positive connotation, but they're not releasing the part, that the software part because that would cut into their business. I think it would be much worse. I think they shouldn't do it. But I also am not clear on this because the Open Source ML critics say that everyone does have access to the same data set as Llama Two. But I don't know. Llama Two had 7 billion tokens and that's more than GPT Four. And I don't understand all of the details here. It's possible that the tokenization process was different or something and that's why there were more. But Meta didn't say what was in the longitude data set and usually there's some description given of what's in the data set that led some people to speculate that maybe they're using private data. They do have access to a lot of private data that shouldn't be. It's not just like the common crawl backup of the Internet. Everybody's basing their training on that and then maybe some works of literature they're not supposed to. There's like a data set there that is in question, but metas is bigger than bigger than I think well, sorry, I don't have a list in front of me. I'm not going to get stuff wrong, but it's bigger than kind of similar models and I thought that they have access to extra stuff that's not public. And it seems like people are asking if maybe that's part of the training set. But yeah, the ML people would have or the open source ML people that I've been talking to would have believed that anybody who's decent can just access all of the training sets that they've all used.AARON: Aside, I tried to download in case I'm guessing, I don't know, it depends how many people listen to this. But in one sense, for a competent ML engineer, I'm sure open source really does mean that. But then there's people like me. I don't know. I knew a little bit of R, I think. I feel like I caught on the very last boat where I could know just barely enough programming to try to learn more, I guess. Coming out of college, I don't know, a couple of months ago, I tried to do the thing where you download Llama too, but I tried it all and now I just have like it didn't work. I have like a bunch of empty folders and I forget got some error message or whatever. Then I tried to train my own tried to train my own model on my MacBook. It just printed. That's like the only thing that a language model would do because that was like the most common token in the training set. So anyway, I'm just like, sorry, this is not important whatsoever.HOLLY: Yeah, I feel like torn about this because I used to be a genomicist and I used to do computational biology and it was not machine learning, but I used a highly parallel GPU cluster. And so I know some stuff about it and part of me wants to mess around with it, but part of me feels like I shouldn't get seduced by this. I am kind of worried that this has happened in the AI safety community. It's always been people who are interested in from the beginning, it was people who are interested in singularity and then realized there was this problem. And so it's always been like people really interested in tech and wanting to be close to it. And I think we've been really influenced by our direction, has been really influenced by wanting to be where the action is with AI development. And I don't know that that was right.AARON: Not personal, but I guess individual level I'm not super worried about people like you and me losing the plot by learning more about ML on their personal.HOLLY: You know what I mean? But it does just feel sort of like I guess, yeah, this is maybe more of like a confession than, like a point. But it does feel a little bit like it's hard for me to enjoy in good conscience, like, the cool stuff.AARON: Okay. Yeah.HOLLY: I just see people be so attached to this as their identity. They really don't want to go in a direction of not pursuing tech because this is kind of their whole thing. And what would they do if we weren't working toward AI? This is a big fear that people express to me with they don't say it in so many words usually, but they say things like, well, I don't want AI to never get built about a pause. Which, by the way, just to clear up, my assumption is that a pause would be unless society ends for some other reason, that a pause would eventually be lifted. It couldn't be forever. But some people are worried that if you stop the momentum now, people are just so luddite in their insides that we would just never pick it up again. Or something like that. And, yeah, there's some identity stuff that's been expressed. Again, not in so many words to me about who will we be if we're just sort of like activists instead of working on.AARON: Maybe one thing that we might actually disagree on. It's kind of important is whether so I think we both agree that Aipause is better than the status quo, at least broadly, whatever. I know that can mean different things, but yeah, maybe I'm not super convinced, actually, that if I could just, like what am I trying to say? Maybe at least right now, if I could just imagine the world where open eye and Anthropic had a couple more years to do stuff and nobody else did, that would be better. I kind of think that they are reasonably responsible actors. And so I don't k

Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast where we talk about food, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter.Today I'm sharing part 2 of my conversation with Professor Karen Throsby, author of Sugar Rush.  If you're just joining us then make sure you go back and listen to part 1 of this episode before you jump into this one. We talk about mortified mothers, how removing sugar from the diet is gendered work that falls on women, and how the certainty around the ‘badness' of sugar belies a lot more doubt and ambiguity coming from the scientific community. So go back and check out part 1 if you haven't listened already. Today we're getting into why the so-called ‘war on ob*sity' has to constantly reinvent itself to stay relevant, and how it fails to meet its own objectives. We also talk about how ultra-processed foods are quickly becoming the new sugar and how that conversation fails to acknowledge the role that convenience foods play in offering immediate care or the privilege in being able to eat for some nebulous future health. And we couldn't talk about sugar and not talk about Jamie Oliver and the sugar tax.INTROBefore we get to Karen, a super quick reminder that all the work we do here is entirely reader and listener supported and the podcast is my biggest operating cost. I will do everything I can to keep it free and accessible to everyone, and you can help by becoming a paid subscriber - it's £5/month or £50 for the year (and you can pay that in your local currency wherever you are in the world). Paid subscribers get access to the extended CIHAS universe including our weekly discussion threads, my monthly column Dear Laura and the whole back archive. You also support the people who work on the podcast, and help ensure we can keep the lights on around here. You can sign up at laurathomasphd.co.uk and the link is in your show notes. As always, if you're experiencing financial hardship, comp subscriptions are available, please email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk and put the work ‘snacks' in the subject line and we'll hook you up. Thank you as always for your support and for making this work possible.Alright team, I know you're going to love the second installment of this episode so let's get straight to it - here's part two of my conversations with professor Karen Throsby.  Here's the transcript in full:MAIN EPISODELaura: Karen, I want to come back to this idea that you articulate so well in the book. You say that “the so-called war on ob*sity has been unable to warrant its core empirical claims” – I'm quoting you now, “and has been a notable failure when measured against its own goals of sustained population level weight loss.”Can you explain how in order to sustain itself, the war on ob*sity had to reinvent itself like Madonna? By casting a new villain…and kind of talk about that arc a little bit? Karen: Yeah. So if we think about, I mean, obviously the sort of attack on fat bodies has, has a very long history, but if we think about its most recent history in, in the form of the war on ob*sity, which dates to around the turn of the millennium as a new kind of intensified attack where dietary fat was seen as the core problem.Sugar has always been seen as a problem. We can even go back to the 1960s and the rise of artificial sweeteners. and their take up in the diet industry. So it's always been there as a problem, but it was really fat, fat, fat, fat, fat. And that's why, when I looked at the newspaper articles, sugar was hardly talked about because the focus was different.And I think what we get is then with that repeated failure, where there has been a base, I mean, there's…in the UK, there's been a leveling off of ob*sity rates, but it doesn't meet the aspirations of the attack on ob*sity. It has been a failure. And I think it runs out of steam because it's not achieving the change.And, and yet you get this kind of constant hectoring and sort of constant renewal. I can't…there's been…I can't remember. It's like 17 policies or something, you know, in the last 20 years. And it's, you know, none of them are successful, have been successful. And then, so we get to about 2012, and one of the things that happened in the UK, of course, was the Olympics, where there was a lot of anti-ob*sity talk.It was seen as a way of refreshing the war on ob*sity, and I think that partly opened the door. Laura: Yeah. I'm sort of smirking, because I was in the States at that point doing my PhD, so I kind of, like, missed a lot of what was going on here, around 2012 in the Olympics. So yeah, it's really interesting that you're, you're not, you noted that, that that kind of anti…Karen: Like a core, a core justification for the, for funding, you know, a mega event like the Olympics was that it would boost sport, which would boost attempts to reduce ob*sity. And so you've got that in the background, you've got the fact that it is losing steam, you know, and so it needs to find another, another enemy, something to pick it back up again. And sugar, I think…because at the same time, as I mentioned earlier, we've got austerity measures being consolidated through the Welfare Reform Act in 2012, all of those welfare cuts in place. So then the idea of sugar, and the kind of an austerity worked really well together, the idea that individuals should make small economies to get by to manage their own consumption, that you shouldn't over consume because it costs the state, it costs other people money. And so those narratives came together perfectly and sugar just became this, this model enemy for the moment.And then what we see then is the rise of interest in the sugar tax. which was announced in 2016, which is the peak in the newspaper coverage, and then was launched in 2018. So in a, in a sense, the history of the social life of sugar during this moment is an arc that sort of covers the rise to the sugar tax and then its implementation.But all of the expectation that had been laid on fat is then laid onto sugar as the problem. If only we can solve this problem. And so again, as I said before, it creates this erasure of the absolute complexity of food and eating. The idea that food is only ever swallowing and metabolising, it's, you know, it's so social, it forms so many social functions around love, care, comfort, you know, all of those things that it's just completely inadequate.And then what we've got now is a tailing off. And actually it tailed off during the pandemic, there was a little peak at the beginning, if you can remember when Boris Johnson launched an anti-obesity policy, when he came out of hospital, he was blaming his own body size on the fact that he'd been very unwell. And so we saw a little peak then, but it's basically dropped off now.So in sort of 10 years, we've had a sort of complete focus on sugar and then this tailing off of interest in it. And I think now what's coming in instead is ultra processed food is now filling that gap, but it's folded sugar into it because obviously ultra processed food is, as almost all, I mean, has always got sugar in it. And so it's picked up the sugar as it's gone. So it's, all of that is still there, but it's now being talked about in terms of ultra processed food.[SMALL PREVIEW OF FIRST UPF ARTICLE]Laura: I imagine that what you, you might say about kind of almost this like third phase of the, the ‘war on ob*sity' in terms of who or what is responsible, because there almost has to be this singular entity that we can point at.And at the same time, I think it's so interesting that ultra processed food has just kind of subsumed every kind of nutritional villain that we could have. Fat, sugar, sweeteners, and just the complexity within the concept of ultra processed food in terms of just from a lay perspective, right? To try and wrap your head around what is and isn't.I mean, I have a PhD in nutrition and I struggled to get through the NOVA documentation on ultra processed food. And to bring it back to the sort of gendered aspect of this for a second, something that I noted that…so Carlos Monteiro is the guy, right, that developed the NOVA classification. I'm not sure if you've read much around this.I don't know if this is a book that's in the works for the future, but one of the things he said is that ultra processed food is the undoing, basically of the family meal. I mean, there's…there's a lot that we could unpack there in terms of, like, the sort of putting a family meal on a pedestal and how that even has sort of classed and, you know, all kinds of connotations.But, I mean, as a mother of a small child, to my thinking, actually, ultra processed food saves our family meals, right? Like, it makes it feasible to get something on the table while you have, you know, a child kind of hanging around your legs begging you to play with them. All of the, kind of, the rhetoric from Carlos Monteiro and the men of science, it kind of, it misses the piece of labour, around labour, which we've talked about, but it also misses this piece of just how we're all just struggling to survive in late stage capitalism, and how none of us in our lives have the conditions available to us where, you know, we have affordable childcare or family close by because we're living in these like hyper isolated, splintered, you know, individual houses, and we have no community and I think there's this a piece that gets missed out of this conversation about the bigger, broader social structures that we're living within, which I suppose, you know, speaks to the thesis of your book.So yeah, I was just tying it back to some of my observations around ultra processed food, so it's really interesting that you've gone there and I'm curious to hear what additional thoughts you have about that?Karen: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, the, the alarm that goes off for me when I hear this talk about ultraprocessed food is very similar to my alarm around the way the sugar, that sugar is talked about. It's carrying a lot of weight that it's, it's being now framed as again, the problem. But now it's a very different kind of problem to sugar. So we know that sugar is in a lot of foods. If you go to a supermarket, it's, you know, there's a considerable proportion of the foods will have added sugar.But there's a real difference there between, say, observing that, where you could, for example, purchase lower sugar items and so on. But to say that, I mean, what is it, 60 to 80 percent of, of food that we eat – this is the figure that we get, I mean again, who is we? – is ultra processed food and we shouldn't eat it. What, what do they expect people to eat?Are they seriously suggesting that people take out 60 to 80 percent of their habitual diet?Laura: Well, I have an answer to that actually, Karen. So Gyorgy Scrinis, who I know you reference a lot in your book, he thinks that we should all… well, he had two recommendations from one podcast I listened to. One was that we should all, there should be lots of markets everywhere that people can just pick up food, fresh food, right?And secondly, he also thinks we should all be able to go into our garden and pick a salad. Karen: Right. I mean, it's a lovely fantasy. It's a lovely fantasy. Promised on the labour of women, again.Laura: I would love to have a garden, first of all, that I could be able to do that. Karen: Lots of people don't have those gardens. They don't have farmer's markets.It's a lovely fantasy. It's probably not a bad idea, but realistically, people can't do that for all kinds of complicated reasons. And I think what gets lost there is, I think, the idea of health in the present. So, for example, we know that, when I talk about the, we, you know, the, we are eating this, what's often meant there is they are eating this, right?We know that a lot of the people, the, the big figures in the anti UPF field are not and yeah, they're not eating it. So they are eating it and there is this complete lack of understanding around, for example, if you have no money, if you really have no money, if you're very poor, if you're poor in every way, which many, many people are in this country, to feed your child a processed meal that is highly palatable, calorific, that you know they'll finish and not be hungry, is an act of care in the present, that your kid's not going to be hungry. They'll be able to concentrate at school, get a good night's sleep, those things. Whereas those…that act is not credited. So if you were to cook food from scratch or buy an unfamiliar food, for example, and give it to a child. Now I've never raised a child, but from what I kind of understand, children are incredibly conservative and it takes many, many goes at a new food before they will eat it. So if you have no money and you give your child an apple that they won't eat, you can't give them anything else. And so the cost of experimentation is very, very high for people with nothing to fall back on. And so there's lots of reasons. And then we talk about time poverty. It's better to, you know, sit down and grab something that is processed rather than not having the time to cook anything. And so lots of those reasons why people might eat this food. And until you address, I think, the inequalities that are absolutely central to food choice, it makes no sense to actually dictate food choice unless you are prepared to entrench those very same inequalities.Laura: Yeah, thank you for that. I think you articulated it so beautifully with that example around the opportunity cost of feeding a child or, you know, exposing them..we would use the language of ‘exposure' in nutritional science in terms of, you need 15 to 20 exposures before a child will accept a food and even that's horseshit, right?We know that it can take a lot more than that and, and, and even then, you know, the…say they do eat the green beans or the broccoli or whatever it is, that's unlikely to fill them up and stave off hunger for, for that child. So, yeah, I think framing it as an act of care is such a beautiful way to, to put it because, you know, the, the alternative that's being peddled by these, UPF sort of evangelists is that that you're doing something harmful for your child and setting up that binary is so problematic because again, you're just flattening down so much nuance there.Karen: Yeah, exactly that. This idea that food is either good or bad and sugar is…is bad. And if you say it's good, then you must work for the sugar industry. And if you make, if you make a set of claims, as I have, a kind of critical claim where I, I refuse the idea that it's either good or bad, I've never said that it's good or bad, I just get accused of working for Coca Cola.You know, which I'm not, by the way.Laura: Yeah, no, you're, you're an academic and what you're doing is complicating a lot of these things that, that seem….are, I suppose, where the, the rhetoric around them is so, um, binarised and flattened and yeah, just, just, uh, you're, you're asking questions, which I think we need to do a lot more of.Speaking of questions, there is one, one more thing, little topic that I'd like to – I say, little topic, it's not a little topic at all, but one of the things that you, or one of the threads that felt really important in your book that I feel often gets obscured from any conversations about sugar is the really troubling history stemming from colonialism and enslavement of sugar.Can you speak to how nutrition and public health sort of washed their hands of this history and maybe tell us a little bit about that history and, and what happens when we erase it?Karen: Yeah, I mean a lot of people are aware, even though it doesn't come to the fore as much as it should, that there is a terrible history, and in many ways present, attached to sugar.Obviously it was, you know, a central product in, in the slavery, in the slavery trade. It was, um…you know, millions of people were enslaved in the interests of sugar production, um, the murder of, of uncountable people, the dislocation of uncountable people to get sugar. And this kind of partly relates to its, its, its kind of history as a, firstly as a luxury item, and then as a kind of everyday in, in sort of, you know, the, the 20th century, it becomes a, um, it becomes a more everyday item that you know that workers would put in their tea to get to get energy. But also we can even see more recently in, in, say, Australia, for example, there's a really terrible history of indentured labour…so post slavery. At the end of slavery, there was a use of indentured labor so Pacific Island people, for example in Australia, under absolutely horrific conditions, working conditions, of profound racism as well. And these things leave a long legacy. And we know, the legacy of slavery, you know, has led to the marginalisation of people of colour, you know, into the present. And so I think it's an important point. One of the things that bothers me a little bit about the ways it does get talked about is that it gets, there's a couple of books that talk about it as a kind of essentially evil product. Look, it was connected with slavery and now it's killing everybody. Um, as if it's sort of in itself, it was contaminated, whereas in fact, of course, it was colonialism, it was capitalism, that was the problem, not sugar, because we saw things with cotton and tobacco and so on as well. So it's an interesting thing, because in some ways it gets talked about as, well, it's clearly a kind of terrible product, look at its history, and yet at the same time, we don't talk about its history and what the legacy is of that in terms of racism, the legacies of colonialism and also we should also think as well about the present environmental damage of the sugar industry, which, you know, is incredibly greedy of water, for example, and causes a great deal of environmental damage.Which is also always through the lens of colonialism in the sense of who bears the weight of that damage, which areas, which places?Laura: Absolutely. I thought there was a really…I mean, there were lots of really illuminating examples in the book, but one thing – maybe you could speak more to this – is the kind of voyeuristic aspect of Jamie Oliver's Sugar documentary where he acts…he is almost behaving like the coloniser in, or embodying the coloniser by going to Mexico and sort of, you know, as he claims, seeing the damage that has been caused by companies like Coca Cola, but that that is missing a lot of the, the historical context. Can you just describe that probably a bit better than I can?Karen: Yeah, sure. I mean, Mexico has got this, this kind of, sort of unique status in the anti-sugar world as a place where sugar consumption is very high, but was also one of the first places to introduce a sugar tax.And so it's, it's seen as, as a sort of model site – and sort of everybody references Mexico and all the policy papers and things. And what Jamie Oliver did is in this, his documentary about sugar, he went to Mexico and went to the area of Chiapas, which has a very troubled history of conflict and profound poverty, and he actually goes to a family, a family dinner, a family event. It's actually a memorial event for a family member who died and they have, and they cook up a big dinner. And he looks on very approvingly at the food that they're cooking. They're sort of, you know, frying up all these great vegetables and spices. And he, he keeps saying how authentic it is and how, what a great job they're doing.And then we, he starts seeing what they're drinking and they're drinking pop. They're drinking fizzy drinks from the bottles. And also we see, we see several shots of women feeding babies, or toddlers, giving them pop, uh, to drink. And he sort of..his disapproval is so palpable and he sort of looks at the camera like, ‘why would they do this? Don't they know?'.You know, and he seems to have forgotten that earlier he's spoken to an activist in the area who tells him that there is, there is very little drinkable water in the region. And so actually, again, we can see the pop as an act of care, that the kids are being given, you know, something safe to drink.He never asks the next question. And he's got this very colonial gaze, which is…if only these people knew they would make different choices.Laura: Yeah, that's, it's so interesting. And there was another moment, again, that there, I think there were children drinking Coca Cola and with a similar sort of like, Oh my God, don't they know any better sort of stance? It was a dentist! Who said that they saw a lot of children who had been drinking high amounts of, of, like fizzy drinks, sweetened drinks, and that that they…the dentist started asking questions and the one of the, I think it was the mother maybe, or someone in the family had said that they were giving the child a fizzy drink to help keep them quiet. And then the dentist said, well, why do you need to keep them quiet? And they had said, well, because otherwise they will be beaten by their extended family. Karen: Yeah, I think it's the case from, from Alaska actually, that particular case. But what I think what's in…but yes, the point is that the mother giving the baby fizzy drinks was again performing an act of care to protect the child, in terms of present health, the child wouldn't be beaten for crying and so on. But this, this kind of trope of babies being given pop to drink runs right the way through the anti-sugar field as like the worst, the most egregious example. And of course, it's another version of mother blaming. And of kind of…and then it goes through this colonial lens of ignorance. If only they knew…Laura: And then they need these white male chef saviours to come in and…Karen: Exactly. So again, it's about…it's not, I'm not saying that, you know, giving the babies pop is, is a good thing or a bad thing.It's performing a particular function for the people caring for that child. And then it's, it's framed through this colonial lens of: if only these people knew better, and we are the ones who can teach them. Rather than asking, what is it in your life that influences your food choices? How could we make your lives better?Laura: Yeah, that makes giving our children a sweetened drink, you know, a necessity in the first place, what necessitates that. So then, we've talked a lot about this Jamie Oliver character, and I was telling you before we started recording that I now inextricably have the image of Jamie Oliver dancing outside of Parliament playing in my mind whenever I think about the sugar tax.I don't know if you intended your book to be funny, but I found it hilarious, the way that you were just name dropping all these people who I ,like, know through nutrition, but that's that's an aside! But I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about the sugar tax and specifically the ways that the sugar tax is constructed so that it cannot fail.Karen: So the sugar tax is… if sugar is a problem about which something must be done, then sugar tax was the something, in the UK context. And the promise of the sugar tax was that it would reduce consumption of sugar, which in turn would a) produce more money to use for health projects and b) create health benefits. It would lead to a reduction in ob*sity, diabetes, all kinds of chronic diseases. Okay.But it's set up in such a way that…so its ultimate goal is to reduce illness, right? So to reduce ob*sity – which I don't consider as being illness – but to reduce ob*sity and to improve measures…make measurable health improvements at population level. That's the target. But actually, it doesn't have to do that to succeed. So the first thing it needs to do, the first way it can succeed is by reducing consumption, which is taken as a proxy for expected benefits. So, the sugar tax did reduce consumption of sugar. A lot of drinks were reformulated in advance of the tax to have less sugar. It did reduce purchasing of the high sugar drinks to some extent. Uh, it's a fairly modest reduction, but it is a reduction and that's been mapped fairly, you know, across the board globally in these taxes, right? But there is no evidence of the measurable health impacts that were assumed to follow. And instead what happens is they get pushed into the future. Ah, ‘we haven't seen them yet, but we will see them, especially if we have more taxes'. So the problem is not that the tax hasn't worked, but that there aren't enough of them, so we need to tax sweets and, and other, you know, cereals and things. So there's that way that as long as it reduces consumption, it can't fail. Even if it doesn't produce measurable health effects. The second is financial. So it will produce money, revenue, which can then be invested into, I mean, in our case, it was, they said it would go towards breakfast clubs and sporting facilities. Although when you look across the documents, the number of times over that the money is spent is amazing. And the idea is that you get, then you get health gains by other means. So you'll have breakfast clubs, so kids will have a healthy breakfast. So it doesn't matter if the sugar reduction doesn't lead to health gains because there's a revenue gain that will lead to health benefits.What's interesting is that also can't lose because if, if the tax doesn't raise very much money, it means that the tax has worked to reduce consumption. And if the tax raises a lot of money, you can say, well, it's worked because we can now compensate for the high consumption by investing in health benefits. So…and actually, I mean, there's, there's a whole other set of questions about what actually happened to the money.Laura: Well, that was what I was wondering, because I'm still seeing that there are 4 million children in England who are food insecure. Where are the free school meals for the 800,000 children that…whose parents are on Universal Credit that aren't eligible for free school meals, like…?Karen: And Sustain, the organisation Sustain actually raised some very specific questions about money that they knew had been raised in revenue that hadn't been…that had just been drawn into the sort of, into the wealth of the country. And so there's that. And then the final way that the sugar tax can succeed is its best way…it's the most nebulous way, is that it's seen as raising awareness. That simply by the fact of its existence, it's alerting people to the dangers of sugar. And so in a sense, it doesn't have to produce any of the other benefits because it's raised awareness. And what's interesting about this to me is that that then flings it straight back onto the individual. “Well, we told you, we've signaled it through the sugar tax. You're still not eating appropriately. You're still not feeding your children appropriately.” So it's a kind of abnegation of political responsibility, even while claiming to be taking responsibility by having the tax. So this is my concern about the tax is that it can't fail. And actually it ends up throwing responsibility back onto individuals and. As always, particularly women, where food is concerned. Laura: Yeah, well, that's exactly what Matt Hancock wanted, so he's got his way. But I do, I think it's really interesting that, especially that first part that you talked about, the sort of constantly moving goalposts and, you know, oh yes, we'll see these these benefits in the future. And it just all feels so nebulous. And, and then that being used as justification for us needing more and additional, you know, taxation, again, sort of obfuscating from all of the social and structural things over here going that, that nobody is addressing. Karen: I mean, you can think about the attack on sugar and, really on the, on the war on ob*sity more generally, as it's a very future oriented project. The benefits all lie in the future. If I give up sugar now, I will experience these, these benefits in the future, which is in itself a profound active privilege. And that's why I kind of mentioned the, the healthcare in the present of giving your child a bag of chips or something that will fill them up is being an active healthcare in the present because they don't have the luxury to invest in the future in the way that is being determined, um, in these prescriptions to give up sugar.Laura: And simultaneously you see this sense of urgency on the political side of things, even though these alleged benefits to people aren't going to be seen for years and years in the future, but the sense of urgency in terms of policymaking and you get these very off the cuff, ill thought-out, you know, not thinking about the potential collateral damage of these policies just for political gain.Yeah, we're all just collateral damage in this.Karen: I mean, interestingly we're not all collateral damage, it's particular groups of people are collateral damage. Laura: Well, that's true.Karen:…is the really salient point – I agree with you – but that's the really salient point that the weight of this damage does not fall evenly. And that's where my concern, that's kind of where the book really tries to focus, is where the weight of those exclusions falls. Laura: Yeah. No, absolutely. That's so on the point. So thank you for that. Karen, before I let you go, I would love to hear what your snack is. So at the end of every episode, my guest and I share what they've been snacking on. So it could be anything, a show, a podcast, a literal snack, whatever you have been snacking on lately. So what have you got to share with the listeners? Karen: Okay. So, so mine is a…it's an activity, really. So I love to swim and I swim in an outdoor pool, which is unusual in the UK, at a health club. And just, just recently…I swim in the evening and it's got very dark, but it's been very autumnal and the leaves have been kind of falling while, and the, the, the pool is surrounded by trees and it is the most peaceful and delicious space at the end of a very busy day to just go into the pool and be surrounded by this. It's very cold. The pool is warm, but the air is very cold. And it's a very particular moment that happens in the autumn where you get this beautiful colour and the sort of mist is rising off the pool. And it's the most peaceful, relaxing space at the end of a difficult day or a long day and I just look forward to it all day and then I just love…the first 10 minutes of that swim is just, is the best moment ever. So that would, that's my, that's my snack.Laura: So I'm sitting here so envious of you right now because I know exactly what you're talking about. I live, like, a five minute walk from a Lido. here in London. It's very close, but I'm navigating some pelvic pain. I haven't been able to go for a swim for such a long time, but I know exactly that moment that you're referring to, which, um, yeah, it's so lovely when… apart from when you get to the stage in autumn where they, like, leave out baskets and with the idea that you gather up leaves as you're going. Karen: But I love the leaves being in the water. I love having the leaves in the water and it's just, it's such a comforting space for me.Laura: I agree. There's something really holding, containing about being in the water. So my snack is…it's an actual, literal snack. But it's an anticipatory snack because every year…so my brother lives in the States, and every year we do like an exchange of like, I send him a bunch of, like, Dairy Milk and all these like chocolates, and he sends me stuff from from the US, so I've sent him with a list of stuff from Trader Joe's. So I'm vegan, which I believe you are as well. I just ask him to, like, clear the shelves of any, like, vegan shelf stable snacks and just box them all up and send them to me. So I know I have, like, peanut butter pretzels and the almond butter pretzel. They're like these little nuggets filled with peanut butter and almond butter, but like a pretzel casing. So I know that they're coming and they're so salty on the outside. Public Health England…I can see Susan Jebb is just, like, screaming at me right now. But it's okay. So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting that. By the time that this episode comes out in January, I will have had my snacks.Karen: You will have had your snacks. That is fantastic. Laura: Karen, before I let you go, can you please tell everyone where they can find your book? Actually say the title of it! And where they can get it and where they can find more of your work.Karen: Yep. So the book is called Sugar Rush: Science, Politics, and the Demonisation of Fatness. And it's published by Manchester University Press and you can buy it through their website. And if you want to learn more about the work that I'm doing, you can find me at the University of Leeds. If you put my name, Karen Throsby, into the search engine, or into Google, I'll pop up. And there's a list of sort of publications that I've done there and how you can get hold of me as well.Laura: Well, I will definitely link to the book and to your part on Leeds website in the show notes that everyone can find you and learn more about your work. Karen, this has been such a treat. Thank you so much for coming and speaking with us and thank you so much for your really brilliant and important work.Karen: Thank you so much for having me on. OUTRO​Thanks so much for listening to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. You can support the show by subscribing in your podcast player and leaving a rating and review. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack? universe, you can become a paid subscriber.It's just £5 a month or £50 for the year. As well as getting tons of cool perks you help make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today.  Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas. Our sound engineer is Lucy Dearlove. Fiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure that they're out on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser, and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks so much for listening. ICYMI this week: “Why Do You Wear Makeup??”* Dear Laura... how do I stop fat shaming my partner's kid?* Rapid Response: Actually, Maybe Don't Say That to Your Kid* Why Are We So Obsessed With Hiding Vegetables in Our Kids' Food? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com

Hey everyone! Happy New Year and welcome back to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we talk about food, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter.I am really excited to share this week's conversation; it is the perfect antidote to the January diet culture hellscape that we're all living through. My guest today is gender studies professor and author Dr. Karen Throsby, whose book Sugar Rush (affiliate link) was an absolute highlight for me in 2023. I have been recommending it to everyone. Karen's thesis in the book is essentially how the public health and popular science discourse around sugar obscures the social and structural inequality responsible for health disparities and by doing so, actively embeds it further into the fabric of society. I've split this conversation into two parts - so you'll get the second half of the conversation in two weeks. But today we talk about how the conversation around sugar being bad for you is framed with so much certainty, whereas the science holds a lot more doubt and ambiguity. We talk about how nostalgic fantasies of a past where nobody ate sugar and everyone climbed trees all day long erases the unpaid labour of women, and how even modern day efforts to eliminate sugar are dependent on unequal distribution of household labour and are framed as work that is pleasurable, or else women get scapegoated as bad mothers. So much great stuff in this episode and like I said, I'll share part two soon, where we get into the rhetoric around ultra-processed food, how the so-called war on ‘obes*ty' fails to live up to it's own aims and loads more. Before we get to Karen just a quick reminder that the entire CIHAS universe is reader and listener supported, meaning I literally can't do this work without your support. If you like what we do here and want to help keep the lights on then you can upgrade your account to become a paying subscriber - it's £5/month or £50/year. Not only do you support the time and labour that goes into producing the newsletter and podcast, but you get access to our weekly community discussion thread Snacky Bits. You can comment on posts, and you get access to my monthly Dear Laura column and the full archive. You'll also see a bit more bonus content on free essays that's just for paid subscribers in the coming months, so make sure you're signed up to get in on that action. Head to laurathomas.substack.com or check out the show notes for that link. Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura's newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here's the transcript in full:Laura: Karen, I'd love if you could begin by sharing a bit about you and the work that you do.Karen: Yes, thank you. So I'm a sociologist, I'm a professor of gender studies at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. And throughout my 20 plus years of career, I've been looking at issues of gender, bodies, technology and health.So I've done work on reproductive technology, on surgical weight management, I've done work on endurance sports and what you do to a body when you engage in endurance sports socially, what does that mean? And then most recently, I've been working on what I've been calling the social life of sugar. How can we think about sugar in a moment when sugar is being attacked as a kind of health demon, the constant in my career has been this idea about bodies and how we try and change bodies or how bodies change and then most recently in relation to food and particularly sugar,Laura: Tell us a little bit more about that because, you know, you kind of say this almost quite flippantly. “Oh yeah, I've been doing sugar”, but that's like a whole like undertaking in terms of research and then the book that came out of that. So, could you maybe tell us a little bit about the research that you did that went into, you know, studying the social life of sugar and, and maybe a little bit about the process of writing the book as well?Karen: Yes, of course. So, it started from observation, which is where a lot of research comes from – of noticing just a lot of sugar talk in the media, for example. And so, I decided to look at it more formally. So, I actually did a, I started with newspapers and I looked at newspaper coverage from 2000. So I ended up looking to 2020 when I searched for newspaper articles in nine UK newspapers. So across the political spectrum and broadsheet, tabloids as well, looking for articles of quite substantive articles like sort of 500 words or more with the word sugar in the title.And then I filtered those. So I took out all of the irrelevant things. So there's lots of mentions of Alan Sugar, uh, for example, lots of sugar metaphors, like a ‘spoonful of sugar' that you get in business reporting. And I took all those out. And then I kind of looked at the pattern and what you see from 2000 to about 2012, it's very, a very low level of coverage, just trickling along very low.And then in 2013, it starts to shoot up. And then by 2016, it's really high and it peaks there. And then it drops off a little bit, picks up again at 2018 and then slowly falls away. And so I took 2013 through to towards the end of 2020 as the period of study, and that ended up with about 550 newspaper articles that then became my objective analysis of what's happening with sugar.And then I dug out anything else I could find. So policy documents and newspaper, medical articles, self-help books, popular science tracks – anything I could find about sugar. And that became the body of data that I then was analyzing just to see: how is sugar being talked about? Who is being excluded when we talk about sugar?Trying to see it, not literally, but thinking about what is sugar doing socially when we talk about it.Laura: Yeah. It's, it's an, I'm just thinking of this from a research perspective. It's a huge undertaking. I'm just imagining you going through your Nvivo now, it's just like, Karen: exactly. You're right there. I mean, it was an unusual project for me, because all my other projects have been broadly ethnographic. So I've actually gone and observed groups, a social, social organization, and so on, um, or done interviews and things like that. So this was a departure for me that it's very text based. It's looking at how it's reproduced and represented in text, in different kinds of text.But you ask the same questions, what is a newspaper trying to achieve in writing in this particular way? What is a popular science track trying to achieve in writing about sugar in a particular way? And then you can start thinking about, so what does sugar mean in different contexts, but also what kind of work does sugar enable us to do socially?Laura: Mm hmm. So can you tell us a little bit more about the sort of, maybe just like the headline conclusions that you drew out with this and then and we can kind of get into some of the more specifics in a second. Karen: Yeah, I mean the bottom line for me was that sugar and what I'm calling the attack on sugar, this targeting that happens quite suddenly around this time and and taking over from fat in that sense as being the enemy that this talk around sugar appears to be in relation to everyone. It's seen as a problem, a problem that we all have. So you'll see the opening line of, there's a Public Health England document in 2015. And the opening line is ‘we're eating too much sugar', and it's bad for our health. Right? So it seems like it's everybody's problem.But actually, what happens when you do that is that you ignore social inequality. And so the core argument of the book is that actually by focusing on a single nutrient – like sugar – as the cause of multiple problems, you actually make inequalities worse rather than better. Because it actually relies on erasing inequality from the start to say, we eat too much sugar.So a sociologist would always want to ask, well, who is ‘we' here? And in fact, what we see by looking at the newspaper coverage and so on, is those who are deemed to be eating ‘too much sugar' are also those who are already the most marginalized in society. So it provides cover for actually an intensification of attacks on marginalized groups in society. And I argue in the book that that rise that happens in 2012, 2013, is actually related to the implementation of austerity measures in the UK, which is the retrenchment of benefits, the cutting welfare and so on, and targeting particular groups as somehow as ‘over consumers' of public resources.And therefore they're easily translated as ‘over consumers' in other ways. And so that this figure of the kind of poor, fat, irresponsible, individual as a caricature comes up as kind of someone who can be blamed and targeted. So the argument in the book is really that by focusing on a single nutrient, you not only ignore those groups, but you actually compound the inequalities that they're already experiencing.Laura: Yeah, you're furthering the marginalization and the stigmatization of those groups. There are a few things within what you've just said there that I wanted to kind of come back and revisit if it's okay. And the first is this idea of certainty. You know, you say at the beginning of those Public Health England documents, and I think throughout the headlines and the media reporting and some of the documentaries that you discuss, there's this thread of certainty.Certainty that sugar is bad for us. Certainty that sugar makes us fat. Certainty that fat is even a bad thing in the first place. Can you talk to us a bit more about how certainty is used in this way as a sort of political device to drive discourse in a specific direction?Karen: Yeah, that's a really good question.And what we can see with these certainty claims, I mean, that sugar is bad for you. That's the core claim is that it's bad for us. But actually, when you look at the arguments against sugar, there isn't very much agreement over what kind of problem it is in the first place. There's two core ways that this plays out.The first is that it's bad for you because it makes you fat. Because it's empty calories. It's more calories than you need. So that's why it's bad for you. It could be anything, but it just happens to be something that is very calorie dense without bringing other nutritional benefit. The other version of the problem of sugar is that it is actively toxic.So not just a source of calories as much as any other, but that it's actively disrupting; it's creating a metabolic dysfunction and disruption. That it creates this chaos around your management of blood sugar and brain chemistry and everything. And they seem to be in opposition to each other, but in fact have managed to coalesce around the certainty that sugar is bad; almost as if it doesn't really matter why it's bad, but it just is.And it's created a kind of lowest common denominator platform that brings everyone together. And so it's provided a space where multiple vested interests can meet. So politicians, for example, have a vested interest in this kind of narrative because it provides targets of blame. It provides a site where you can appear to be doing something about a problem.And people who are writing books saying that it's toxic are invested in that because they have a kind of a brand that is then created. And then there's a whole diet industry that is invested in the idea of empty calories and, you know, and, and so on. And so I'm not suggesting it's a terrible plot. Right.I'm just saying it provides an opportunity for multiple interests to come together. And I think there's a number of ways this is facilitated. So, for example, around the idea that ‘ob*sity' is a disaster. Is an awful thing. Tthat ‘ob*sity' is terrible. Around the idea that sugar is ‘addictive'. Yeah. Which is a very common thing that's used.Again, what constitutes addiction is extremely vague. And then there's a nostalgia that comes back. We didn't use to eat like this. Sort of in the 1950s, post war rationing. Although we didn't eat like this. We all just ran around all day and we never ate sugar and we were all fit and healthy. And so those things kind of tie these together to create the certainty that sugar is bad.And that we eat too much of it and it's bad for our health. And so certainty for me, this certainty is manufactured and it is providing political cover for doubt. Which, actually, when you look at the science, science is always much more riddled with doubt and uncertainty than the claims that are made for it.Um, and often that doubt is in the journal articles and so on, but then it gets sort of extracted as a certainty. And so we get this, this sense of certainty that creates an imperative to act. A sense of urgency. For example, and sugar by sort of, as its proxy, is framed as a problem about which something must be done.And so in a sense, then, the need is to be seen to act. And so you could have an intervention, say, like the sugar tax, um, which I would argue is much more about being seen to do something that actually achieving its stated goal. And so I think what this sense of certainty does is it provides cover, and it also erases the inconvenient uncertainties around why do some people eat in particular ways? What are the social reasons? What are the inequalities and the other factors that determine how people choose to eat? And I think those get erased by that certainty. So it's very functional in that way.Laura: Mm hmm. Everything just gets flattened down and collapsed in this, yeah, really problematic way.I mean, there's, there was so much that we could kind of get into what you just said there. But I suppose one section of the book, I mean, I enjoyed all of your book, but I really enjoyed the section where you talked about nostalgia as well, that you just mentioned there in this kind of like going back to a time where we didn't have much sugar in our diet and we, you know, we had all these home cooked meals, everything was, you know, freshly pulled from the ground and we could just climb trees all day.First of all, what kind of utopia were these men living in anyway? But secondly, I think the part that I really appreciated there was how you talked about the erasure of women's labor in making that a reality in the first place. Do you want to just say a little bit about that? Because I want to come back to gender in a bigger, more expansive sense in a second, but I would just be interested while we're there.Karen: In that particular context, you know, there is this vision that it's never, it's never located strictly in time, but it clearly speaks to some kind of post war, sort of immediate post war imagination – fantasy really – that rests, if we were to accept that this vision is true, that everyone was running around, burning off calories, never snacking, coming home to splendid, home cooked, home grown meals.What isn't discussed, of course, is who cooked these meals? How does this food appear? You know, this, this handcrafted food. And of course, that is the completely unrecognized and largely unpaid labor of women. That a lot of these fantasies around the sugar free life are built on this idea. That food just somehow happens that what's often referred to as real food.It just sort of happens. And then the labor of women is completely written out. Which of course then leaves standing that expectation that women should do that work because it doesn't even count as work because; it's just kind of what's done. I mean, interestingly, the other, the other dimension to the nostalgia is a much longer view, which is this idea of a kind of paleolithic past, but again, is never located strictly in time, but definitely pre-agricultural revolution, where we were hunter gatherers and basically it was based on times of plenty. So you would only eat fruit when the berries came out and that would be it. But of course, again, what gets written out here is there's a great focus on hunting and on meat consumption, but actually it erases the work of women who would have been doing the gathering and the preparing of food.And there's, there's interesting archaeological research that points out that actually We find bones from hunting and tools that were used to hunt. But a lot of the preparation of vegetables and fruit and so on leaves no trace. And so the work of women is literally erased in these stories.Yeah. And, and it just disappears.Laura: And presumably as well, there's a lot of embodied wisdom that gets kind of passed through generations to know like, which berries are safe to eat. And there's another layer to it, it feels like there, that that's also being erased.Karen: Yes. Who are the bearers of knowledge? Who teaches? The next generation and so on is lost in the celebrations of hunting cultures, just as much as it's lost in this, this kind of post-war fantasy. Laura: Yeah. Well, actually, since, since we're here, let's maybe let's stay on the topic of, of gender and, and labor, because I think it has implications, right, for the conversations that we're having in this moment around whether it's eliminating sugar from the diet or ultra processed foods from the diet or whatever it is that I think a lot of that rests on women's unpaid labor to make that come to fruition.Again, that's something that I think is completely left out of this conversation on, generally in nutrition, it's left out of the conversation in terms of who's actually doing this work. And I wrote a series about ultra processed foods a little while ago. And that was my central question; who's growing grains and soaking beans? And, uh, you know, like planning menus and doing the shopping? And, you know, even things like who is making sure that this fresh food is being eaten before it gets spoiled?And, you know, that there is a lot of labor there that just kind of gets kind glossed over. And so I wondered if you could tell us some of your thoughts on the work of eradicating sugar and how that's gendered and specifically how mothers shoulder that additional reproductive labor. Karen: No, it's a really important point.I think, so there's, there's a genre of newspaper story that I call the mortified mother story. Laura: I love this. Karen: Which is when the mother, it's always the mother, and it is always households with children. Sort of heterosexual households with children. And what the woman does is she records all the food that the family members eat.Sometimes it's just the children. Sometimes it's the whole family including the male partner. She records everything that they eat and then the sugar is calculated and then a nutritionist or some kind of sort of dietary expert will come in and basically correct her and sort of tell her where she's going wrong and it's always a kind of shock story.‘I had no idea I was giving them so much sugar and often, you know, I thought this was a I thought cereal bars were really healthy'. But actually they're loaded with sugar. And so those kind of revelations. And then she has a kind of confessional moment where she sort of says, ‘oh, you know, this is terrible.I've done all of these things wrong. And now I'm going to do, I'm going to calculate everything online. I'm going to cook their breakfast from scratch. I'm going to do this, that, and the other.' And what's really striking about the story. Well, first of all, it's always women. The very kind of deliberate harnessing of guilt and shame that's cultivated. I haven't seen a single story of this kind or in any of the self help books that I looked at or any source that I looked at where a redistribution of household labor was part of the recommendations, right? So it's never there. It's about her doing it. But what's clever about it in a way is that it's done in such a way as to make it not work.It's not a kind of work because it's seen as pleasure. As leisure. So she, she is being a mother and therefore, you know, she, it's meant to be, she's gaining pleasure from acquiring these new skills, from being a better mother and so on. Learning these new cooking techniques and things. And so it ends up being not coded as work, which is, uh, you know, like the perfect patriarchal fantasy and do it because they love it so much.And so it's never even, ‘oh dear, I'm really sorry. You have to do all this extra work'. It's ‘lucky you'. Like having to get even more pleasure from cooking and but it's not just cooking. This is the thing that you alluded to as well. It's the planning; it's the shopping; it's the knowing; the remembering.And often in the case of men, actually, one of the responsibilities of women is actually to change their tastes, if you like, without them noticing. So they're not inconvenienced by it. They don't even have to be on board. So they kind of sneak lower sugar things in so that it won't be noticed, so that they never have to actually engage with the process, but it still gets done.And so the guilt and shame and responsibility of this also then makes it impossible to refuse it or hard to refuse it in the sense of, you know, if a good mother does this, what does it mean for someone who doesn't? Can't do it for whatever reason. And of course, all of these things that are recommended, um, in terms of sugar reduction are really oriented towards a middle class set of tastes and dispositions.They assume that you have the money to keep a stock store cupboard of what can often be quite expensive items. That you have a fridge and freezer that you can afford to run. That you have a stove that you can run, that you, you know, that you can have on. And all of these things that you have the time, you're not working three jobs for very little money. But you have the time to cook and prepare and soak the beans and do all these things. And so the gendering of it, then it also ties to a whole set of class expectations about what a good mother is.Laura: I think it's really interesting in the context of sort of, I don't know, third wave feminism and all the rhetoric around how, you know, women are liberated in so many different ways and, and all the, everything that you're talking about.It sort of, I guess, covers up the, the sort of the double burden of work that women now face inside and outside of the home. And how women, particularly mothers, are still scapegoated for a lot of society's problems. Which, you know, we could debate whether or not ‘obesity' is a problem in the first place. And sugar consumption, is a problem in the first place. But I'm just thinking about how much we still blame mothers. You know, there was um, a whole sort of theory of, well there's, there's many different mother blame theories, isn't there? Sort of ‘refrigerator mums' causing autism. The, you know, the sort of sexist and fatphobic and racist sort of narrative around black mothers causing high levels of, of, um, unemployment in black, in black men. There's the, um, the mother blame for, you know, anorexia, that was, that was a big one. And then sort of in the mid-century, we see ‘ob*sity' start to become blamed on mothers, which was kind of, it seems like a, a reaction to undernutrition being the issue then moving to so called ‘overnutrition'. So it feels like on one hand it's something that's very like confined to history, like it's something in the past. It's actually still going on, it's alive and well. There's academic papers being published by reputable institutions, like there was a paper I found from 2019 that blamed working mothers for higher weight children.There was 2022 paper, saying that children's weight was dependent not on how much ultra processed food they ate, but on how much ultra processed foods their mothers ate. So then indicating this sort of butterfly effect, right? That the smallest flap of a wing can cause, you know, ‘catastrophe', again, in inverted commas, for your child.So that was just a bit of a download of my brain. I'm curious to hear what it kind of like, for you. I mean,Karen: I think, I think that's a really good point. I mean, for me, this kind of raises what we could think of as a dilemma, the dilemma of femininity in itself, that you can never get it right. Right. You're either too focused on your body or not enough, not focused enough on your body.You know, there's, there's always that fine line that women have to walk in so many ways. And I think this comes out in the food. So one of the things I was looking for when I was looking at these stories, the, the, um, these mortified mother stories was to find one, see if I could find one where the mother was doing okay.And I found, I found one where actually the, the, the expert couldn't really find anything wrong with the diet. They ate lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. A lot of home cooking. Um, you know, they had this, this, what would count as a healthy diet in normative terms. But then there's just this moment at the end where they say, ‘aha'. And because she had a daughter, the nutritionist said, but you don't want her to become obsessed.You don't want the daughter to become obsessed because she'll get an eating disorder. So you need to relax. And not be over strict on sugar, you've got to give them treats sometimes, otherwise she'll go down this very dangerous path. So, again, you can control sugar for others, but not too much because you don't want to become obsessed and risk eating disorders.And so, she literally can't ever, and so her confession is, yeah, you're right, I have been a bit strict, I'll make sure we have some treats. And so you, there's really no, no winning. I think the other thing that I thought about as you were talking, was the fact that women themselves are seen as hyper vulnerable to sugar.Yeah. They themselves are seen as having no control over sugar. And a bit like children, actually. They're seen as being kind of incontinent in the face of sugar. And I found quite a few studies that aimed to show how women just have no kind of…couldn't do anything in the face of, in the face of sugar.And there's, um, uh, David Gillespie, who writes about giving up sugar. He, writes about this and kind of says, you know, ‘you need to go cold turkey'. You've got to, you know, just get it out of your system. And that for men, this can happen quite quickly, but for women, it can take several months. And then doesn't really explain it.It's sort of, there's a mention about hormones. Because that's, you know, when, you know, that's like the go to for everything. But there's no real explanation. And so there is this idea of women as needing to exercise control over the family's diet. But also of being quite dangerous in the sense that they're, they're seen as always perpetually out of control as well. And so kind of not to be trusted in that. Laura: We are the witches witches, Karen: Exactly. And so it's another dimension of the not being able to win. Like, for women in the field of diet and body, body management, it's very hard to find a position where women could be said to be kind of safe.Laura: Absolutely. I have kind of, you know, conversations with friends about this push and pull that we experience particularly as mothers, but women broadly.And you know, the thing I would say to my friend is like, the game is rigged, right? We cannot win. We can't win at all. So we have to figure out something that, that feels authentic to our values.​Alright team. That is where we're leaving off for part 1 of this episode. I'll share part 2 in two weeks' time where we're talking about the sugar tax we have in the UK, how the so-called war on ‘ob*sity' has to constantly renew itself like Madonna to make itself relevant and how ultra-processed foods are becoming the new sugar. Plus you'll hear our snacks so make sure you're subscribed, either on Substack at laurathomas.substack.com or on your podcast player. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack universe, you can become a paid subscriber. It's just £5/ month or £50 for the year. As well as tons of cool perks you make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today! Can I Have Another Snack is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, Our sound engineer is Lucy DearloveFiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure they're on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks for listening. ICYMI this week: The ‘Do Diet'* Kitchen joy, making the table a safe space, and trusting kids bodies* Fundamentals: Why Teaching Kids That Food is ‘Healthy' Can Backfire* What Are Your Fave Size-Inclusive Swimwear Brands? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Laura Nolan, Principal Software Engineer at Stanza, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to offer insights on how to use SRE to avoid disastrous and lengthy production delays. Laura gives a rich history of her work with SREcon, why her approach to SRE is about first identifying the biggest fire instead of toiling with day-to-day issues, and why the lack of transparency in systems today actually hurts new engineers entering the space. Plus, Laura explains to Corey why she dedicates time to work against companies like Google who are building systems to help the government (inefficiently) select targets during wars and conflicts.About LauraLaura Nolan is a software engineer and SRE. She has contributed to several books on SRE, such as the Site Reliability Engineering book, Seeking SRE, and 97 Things Every SRE Should Know. Laura is a Principal Engineer at Stanza, where she is building software to help humans understand and control their production systems. Laura also serves as a member of the USENIX Association board of directors. In her copious spare time after that, she volunteers for the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and is half-way through the MSc in Human Factors and Systems Safety at Lund University. She lives in rural Ireland in a small village full of medieval ruins.Links Referenced: Company Website: https://www.stanza.systems/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lauralifts LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-nolan-bb7429/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. My guest today is someone that I have been low-key annoying to come onto this show for years, and finally, I have managed to wear her down. Lauren Nolan is a Principal Software Engineer over at Stanza. At least that's what you're up to today, last I've heard. Is that right?Laura: That is correct. I'm working at Stanza, and I don't want to go on and on about my startup, but I'm working with Niall Murphy and Joseph Bironas and Matthew Girard and a bunch of other people who more recently joined us. We are trying to build a load management SaaS service. So, we're interested in service observability out of the box, knowing if your critical user journeys are good or bad out of the box, being able to prioritize your incoming requests by what's most critical in terms of visibility to your customers. So, an emerging space. Not in the Gartner Group Magic Circle yet, but I'm sure at some point [laugh].Corey: It is surreal to me to hear you talk about your day job because for, it feels like, the better part of a decade now, “Laura, Laura… oh, you mean USENIX Laura?” Because you are on the USENIX board of directors, and in my mind, that is what is always short-handed to what you do. It's, “Oh, right. I guess that isn't your actual full-time job.” It's weird. It's almost like seeing your teacher outside of the elementary school. You just figure that they fold themselves up in the closet there when you're not paying attention. I don't know what you do when SREcon is not in process. I assume you just sit there and wait for the next one, right?Laura: Well, no. We've run four of them in the last year, so there hasn't been very much waiting. I'm afraid. Everything got a little bit smooshed up together during the pandemic, so we've had a lot of events coming quite close together. But no, I do have a full-time day job. But the work I do with USENIX is just as a volunteer. So, I'm on the board of directors, as you say, and I'm on the steering committee for all of the global SREcon events, and typically is often served by the program committee as well. And I'm sort of there, annoying the chairs to, “Hey, do your thing on time,” very much like an elementary school teacher, as you say.Corey: I've been a big fan of USENIX for a while. One of the best interview processes I ever saw was closely aligned with evaluating candidates along with USENIX SAGE levels to figure out what level of seniority are they in different areas. And it was always viewed through the lens of in what types of consulting engagements will the candidate shine within, not the idea of, “Oh, are you good or are you crap? And spoiler, if I'm asking the question, I'm of course defaulting myself to goading you to crap.” Like the terrible bespoke artisanal job interview process that so many companies do. I love how this company had built this out, and I asked them about it, and, “Oh, yeah, it comes—that dates back to the USENIX SAGE things.” That was one of my first encounters with what USENIX actually did. And the more I learned, the more I liked. How long have you been involved with the group?Laura: A relatively short period of time. I think I first got involved with USENIX in around 2015, going to [Lisa 00:03:29] and then going on to SREcon. And it was all by accident, of course. I fell onto the SREcon program committee somehow because I was around. And then because I was still around and doing stuff, I got eventually—you know, got co-opted into chairing and onto the steering committee and so forth.And you know, it's like everything volunteer. I mean, people who stick around and do stuff tend to be kept around. But USENIX is quite important to me. We have an open access policy, which is something that I would like to see a whole lot more of, you know, we put everything right out there for free as soon as it is ready. And we are constantly plagued by people saying, “Hey, where's my SREcon video? The conference was like two weeks ago.” And we're like, “No, no, we're still processing the videos. We'll be there; they'll be there.”We've had people, like, literally offer to pay extra money to get the videos sooner, but [laugh] we're, like, we are open access. We are not keeping the videos away from you. We just aren't ready yet. So, I love the open access policy and I think what I like about it more than anything else is the fact that it's… we are staunchly non-vendor. We're non-technology specific and non-vendor.So, it's not, like, say, AWS re:Invent for example or any of the big cloud vendor conferences. You know, we are picking vendor-neutral content by quality. And as well, as anyone who's ever sponsored SREcon or any of the other events will also tell you that that does not get you a talk in the conference program. So, the content selection is completely independent, and in fact, we have a complete Chinese wall between the sponsorship organization and the content organization. So, I mean, I really like how we've done that.I think, as well, it's for a long time been one of the family of conferences that our organizations have conferences that has had the best diversity. Not perfect, but certainly better than it was, although very, very unfortunately, I see conference diversity everywhere going down after the pandemic, which is—particularly gender diversity—which is a real shame.Corey: I've been a fan of the SREcon conferences for a while before someone—presumably you; I'm not sure—screwed up before the pandemic and apparently thought they were talking about someone else, and I was invited to give a keynote at SREcon in EMEA that I co-presented with John Looney. Which was fun because he and I met in person for the first time three hours beforehand, beat together our talk, then showed up an hour beforehand, found there will be no confidence monitor, went away for the next 45 minutes and basically loaded it all into short term cash and gave a talk that we could not repeat if we had to for a million dollars, just because it was so… you're throwing the ball to your partner on stage and really hoping they're going to be able to catch it. And it worked out. It was an anger subtext translator skit for a bit, which was fun. All the things that your manager says but actually means, you know, the fun sort of approach. It was zany, ideally had some useful takeaways to it.But I loved the conference. That was one of the only SREcons that I found myself not surprised to discover was coming to town the next week because for whatever reason, there's presumably a mailing list that I'm not on somewhere where I get blindsided by, “Oh, yeah, hey, didn't you know SREcon is coming up?” There's probably a notice somewhere that I really should be paying attention to, but on the plus side, I get to be delightfully surprised every time.Laura: Indeed. And hopefully, you'll be delightfully surprised in March 2024. I believe it's the 18th to the 20th, when SREcon will be coming to town in San Francisco, where you live.Corey: So historically, in addition to, you know, the work with USENIX, which is, again, not your primary occupation most days, you spent over five years at Google, which of course means that you have strong opinions on SRE. I know that that is a bit dated, where the gag was always, it's only called SRE if it comes from the Mountain View region of California, otherwise it's just sparkling DevOps. But for the initial take of a lot of the SRE stuff was, “Here's how to work at Google.” It has progressed significantly beyond that to the point where companies who have SRE groups are no longer perceived incorrectly as, “Oh, we just want to be like Google,” or, “We hired a bunch of former Google people.”But you clearly have opinions to this. You've contributed to multiple books on SRE, you have spoken on it at length. You have enabled others to speak on it at length, which in many ways, is by far the better contribution. You can only go so far scaling yourself, but scaling other people, that has a much better multiplier on it, which feels almost like something an SRE might observe.Laura: It is indeed something an SRE might observe. And also, you know, good catch because I really felt you were implying there that you didn't like my book contributions. Oh, the shock.Corey: No. And to be clear, I meant [unintelligible 00:08:13], strictly to speaking.Laura: [laugh].Corey: Books are also a great one-to-many multiplier because it turns out, you can only shove so many people into a conference hall, but books have this ability to just carry your words beyond the room that you're in a way that video just doesn't seem to.Laura: Ah, but open access video that was published on YouTube, like, six weeks ahead [laugh]. That scales.Corey: I wish. People say they want to write a book and I think they're all lying. I think they want to have written the book. That's my philosophy on it. I do not understand people who've written a book. Like, “So, what are you going to do now?” “I'm going to write another book.” “Okay.” I'm going to smile, not take my eyes off you for a second and back away slowly because I do not understand your philosophy on that. But you've worked on multiple books with people.Laura: I actually enjoy writing. I enjoy the process of it because I always learn something when I write. In fact, I learn a lot of things when I write, and I enjoy that crafting. I will say I do not enjoy having written things because for me, any achievement once I have achieved it is completely dead. I will never think of it again, and I will think only of my excessively lengthy-to do list, so I clearly have problems here. But nevertheless. It's exactly the same with programming projects, by the way. But back to SRE we were talking about SRE. SRE is 20 now. SRE can almost drink alcohol in the US, and that is crazy.Corey: So, 2003 was the founding of it, then.Laura: Yes.Corey: Yay, I can do simple arithmetic in my head, still. I wondered how far my math skills had atrophied.Laura: Yes. Good job. Yes, apparently invented in roughly 2003. So, the—I mean, from what I understand Google's publishing of the, “20 years of SRE at Google,” they have, in the absence of an actual definite start date, they've simply picked. Ben Treynor's start date at Google as the start date of SRE.But nevertheless, [unintelligible 00:09:58] about 20 years old. So, is it all grown up? I mean, I think it's become heavily commodified. My feeling about SRE is that it's always been this—I mean, you said it earlier, like, it's about, you know, how do I scale things? How do I optimize my systems? How do I intervene in systems to solve problems to make them better, to see where we're going to be in pain and six months, and work to prevent that?That's kind of SRE work to me is, figure out where the problems are, figure out good ways to intervene and to improve. But there's a lot of SRE as bureaucracy around at the moment where people are like, “Well, we're an SRE team, so you know, you will have your SLO Golden Signals, and you will have your Production Readiness Checklists, which will be the things that we say, no matter how different your system is from what we designed this checklist for, and that's it. We're doing SRE now. It's great.” So, I think we miss a lot there.My personal way of doing SRE is very much more about thinking, not so much about the day-to-day SLO [excursion-type 00:10:56] things because—not that they're not important; they are important, but they will always be there. I always tend to spend more time thinking about how do we avoid the risk of, you know, a giant production fire that will take you down for days, or God forbid, more than days, you know? The sort of, big Roblox fire or the time that Meta nearly took down the internet in late-2021, that kind of thing. So, I think that modern SRE misses quite a lot of that. It's a little bit like… so when BP, when they had the Deepwater Horizon disaster on that very same day, they received an award for minimizing occupational safety risks in their environment. So, you know, [unintelligible 00:11:41] things like people tripping and—Corey: Must have been fun the next day. “Yeah, we're going to need that back.”Laura: [laugh] people tripping and falling, and you know, hitting themselves with a hammer, they got an award because it was so safe, they had very little of that. And then this thing goes boom.Corey: And now they've tried to pivot into an optimization award for efficiency, like, we just decided to flash fry half the sea life in the Gulf at once.Laura: Yes. Extremely efficient. So, you know, I worry that we're doing SRE a little bit like BP. We're doing it back before Deepwater Horizon.Corey: I should disclose that I started my technical career as a grumpy old Unix sysadmin—because it's not like you ever see one of those who's happy or young; didn't matter that I was 23 years old, I was grumpy and old—and I have viewed the evolution since then have going from calling myself a sysadmin to a DevOps engineer to an SRE to a platform engineer to whatever we're calling it this week, I still view it as fundamentally the same job, in the sense that the responsibility has not changed, and that is keep the site or environment up. But the tools, the processes and the techniques we apply to it have evolved. Is that accurate? Does it sound like I'm spouting nonsense? You're far closer to the SRE world than I ever was, but I'm curious to get your take on that perspective. And please feel free to tell me I'm wrong.Laura: No, no. I think you're completely right. And I think one of the ways that I think is shifted, and it's really interesting, but when you and I were, when we were young, we could see everything that was happening. We were deploying on some sort of Linux box or other sort of Unix box somewhere, most likely, and if we wanted, we could go and see the entire source code of everything that our software was running on. And kids these days, they're coming up, and they are deploying their stuff on RDS and ECS and, you know, how many layers of abstraction are sitting between them and—Corey: “I run Kubernetes. That means I don't know where it runs, and neither does anyone else.” It's great.Laura: Yeah. So, there's no transparency anymore in what's happening. So, it's very easy, you get to a point where sometimes you hit a problem, and you just can't figure it out because you do not have a way to get into that system and see what's happening. You know, even at work, we ran into a problem with Amazon-hosted Prometheus. We were like, “This will be great. We'll just do that.” And we could not get some particular type of remote write operation to work. We just could not. Okay, so we'll have to do something else.So, one of the many, many things I do when I'm not, you know, trying to run the SREcon conference or do actual work or definitely not write a book, I'm studying at Lund University at the moment. I'm doing this master's degree in human factors and system safety. And one of the things I've realized since doing that program is, in tech, we missed this whole 1980s and 1990s discipline of cognitive systems theory, cognitive systems engineering. This is what people were doing. They were like, how can people in the control room in nuclear plants and in the cockpit in the airplane, how can they get along with their systems and build a good mental model of the automation and understand what's going on?We missed all that. We came of age when safety science was asking questions like how can we stop organizational failures like Challenger and Columbia, where people are just not making the correct decisions? And that was a whole different sort of focus. So, we've missed all of this 1980s and 1990s cognitive system stuff. And there's this really interesting idea there where you can build two types of systems: you can build a prosthesis which does all your interaction with a system for you, and you can see nothing, feel nothing, do nothing, it's just this black box, or you can have an amplifier, which lets you do more stuff than you could do just by yourself, but lets you still get into the details.And we build mostly prostheses. We do not build amplifiers. We're hiding all the details; we're building these very, very opaque abstractions. And I think it's to the detriment of—I mean, it makes our life harder in a bunch of ways, but I think it also makes life really hard for systems engineers coming up because they just can't get into the systems as easily anymore unless they're running them themselves.Corey: I have to confess that I have a certain aversion to aspects of SRE, and I'm feeling echoes of it around a lot of the human factor stuff that's coming out of that Lund program. And I think I know what it is, and it's not a problem with either of those things, but rather a problem with me. I have never been a good academic. I have an eighth grade education because school is not really for me. And what I loved about being a systems administrator for years was the fact that it was like solving puzzles every day.I got to do interesting things, I got to chase down problems, and firefight all the time. And what SRE is represented is a step away from that to being more methodical, to taking on keeping the site up as a discipline rather than an occupation or a task that you're working on. And I think that a lot of the human factors stuff plays directly into it. It feels like the field is becoming a lot more academic, which is a luxury we never had, when holy crap, the site is down, we're going to go out of business if it isn't back up immediately: panic mode.Laura: I got to confess here, I have three master's degrees. Three. I have problems, like I said before. I got what you mean. You don't like when people are speaking in generalizations and sort of being all theoretical rather than looking at the actual messy details that we need to deal with to get things done, right? I know. I know what you mean, I feel it too.And I've talked about the human factors stuff and theoretical stuff a fair bit at conferences, and what I always try to do is I always try and illustrate with the details. Because I think it's very easy to get away from the actual problems and, you know, spend too much time in the models and in the theory. And I like to do both. I will confess, I like to do both. And that means that the luxury I miss out on is mostly sleep. But here we are.Corey: I am curious as far as what you've seen as far as the human factors adoption in this space because every company for a while claimed to be focused on blameless postmortems. But then there would be issues that quickly turned into a blame Steve postmortem instead. And it really feels, at least from a certain point of view, that there was a time where it seemed to be gaining traction, but that may have been a zero interest rate phenomenon, as weird as that sounds. Do you think that the idea of human factors being tied to keeping systems running in a computer sense has demonstrated staying power or are you seeing a recession? It could be I'm just looking at headlines too much.Laura: It's a good question. There's still a lot of people interested in it. There was a conference in Denver last February that was decently well attended for, you know, a first initial conference that was focusing on this issue, and this very vibrant Slack community, the LFI and the Learning from Incidents in Software community. I will say, everything is a little bit stretched at the moment in industry, as you know, with all the layoffs, and a lot of people are just… there's definitely a feeling that people want to hunker down and do the basics to make sure that they're not seen as doing useless stuff and on the line for layoffs.But the question is, is this stuff actually useful or not? I mean, I contend that it is. I contend that we can learn from failures, we can learn from what we're doing day-to-day, and we can do things better. Sometimes you don't need a lot of learning because what's the biggest problem is obvious, right [laugh]? You know, in that case, yeah, your focus should just be on solving your big obvious problem, for sure.Corey: If there was a hierarchy of needs here, on some level, okay, step one, is the building—Laura: Yes.Corey: Currently on fire? Maybe solve that before thinking about the longer-term context of what this does to corporate culture.Laura: Yes, absolutely. And I've gone into teams before where people are like, “Oh, well, you're an SRE, so obviously, you wish to immediately introduce SLOs.” And I can look around and go, “Nope. Not the biggest problem right now. Actually, I can see a bunch of things are on fire. We should fix those specific things.”I actually personally think that if you want to go in and start improving reliability in a system, the best thing to do is to start a weekly production meeting if the team doesn't have that, actually create a dedicated space and time for everyone to be able to get together, discuss what's been happening, discuss concerns and risks, and get all that stuff out in the open. I think that's very useful, and you don't need to spend however long it takes to formally sit down and start creating a bunch of SLOs. Because if you're not dealing with a perfectly spherical web service where you can just use the Golden Signals and if you start getting into any sorts of thinking about data integrity, or backups, or any sorts of asynchronous processing, these sorts of things, they need SLOs that are a lot more interesting than your standard error rate and latency. Error rate and latency gets you so far, but it's really just very cookie-cutter stuff. But people know what's wrong with their systems, by and large. They may not know everything that's wrong with their systems, but they'll know the big things, for sure. Give them space to talk about it.Corey: Speaking of bigger things and turning into the idea of these things escaping beyond pure tech, you have been doing some rather interesting work in an area that I don't see a whole lot of people that I talked to communicating about. Specifically, you're volunteering for the campaign to stop killer robots, which ten years ago would have made you sound ridiculous, and now it makes you sound like someone who is very rationally and reasonably calling an alarm on something that is on our doorstep. What are you doing over there?Laura: Well, I mean, let's be real, it sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous. I mean, who would let a computer fly around to the sky and choose what to shoot at? But it turns out that there are, in fact, a bunch of people who are building systems like that. So yeah, I've been volunteering with the campaign for about the last five years, since roughly around the time that I left Google, in fact, because I got interested in that around about the time that Google was doing the Project Maven work, which was when Google said, “Hey, wouldn't it be super cool if we took all of this DoD video footage of drone video footage, and, you know, did a whole bunch of machine-learning analysis on it and figured out where people are going all the time? Maybe we could click on this house and see, like, a whole timeline of people's comings and goings and which other people they are sort of in a social network with.”So, I kind of said, “Ahh… maybe I don't want to be involved in that.” And I left Google. And I found out that there was this campaign. And this campaign was largely lawyers and disarmament experts, people of that nature—philosophers—but also a few technologists. And for me, having run computer systems for a large number of years at this point, the idea that you would want to rely on a big distributed system running over some janky network with a bunch of 18-year-old kids running it to actually make good decisions about who should be targeted in a conflict seems outrageous.And I think almost every [laugh] software operations person, or in fact, software engineer that I've spoken to, tends to feel the same way. And yet there is this big practical debate about this in international relations circles. But luckily, there has just been a resolution in the UN just in the last day or two as we record this, the first committee has, by a very large majority, voted to try and do something about this. So hopefully, we'll get some international law. The specific interventions that most of us in this field think would be good would be to limit the amount of force that autonomous weapon, or in fact, an entire set of autonomous weapons in a region would be able to wield because there's a concern that should there be some bug or problem or a sort of weird factor that triggers these systems to—Corey: It's an inevitability that there will be. Like, that is not up for debate. Of course, it's going to break in 2020, the template slide deck that AWS sent out for re:Invent speakers had a bunch of clip art, and one of them was a line art drawing of a ham with a bone in it. So, I wound up taking that image, slapping it on a t-shirt, captioning it “AWS Hambone,” and selling that as a fundraiser for 826 National.Laura: [laugh].Corey: Now, what happened next is that for a while, anyone who tweeted the phrase “AWS Hambone” would find themselves banned from Twitter for the next 12 hours due to some weird algorithmic thing where it thought that was doxxing or harassment or something. And people on the other side of the issue that you're talking about are straight face-idly suggesting that we give that algorithm [unintelligible 00:24:32] tool a gun.Laura: Or many guns. Many guns.Corey: I'm sorry, what?Laura: Absolutely.Corey: Yes, or missiles or, heck, let's build a whole bunch of them and turn them loose with no supervision, just like we do with junior developers.Laura: Exactly. Yes, so many people think this is a great idea, or at least they purport to think this is a great idea, which is not always the same thing. I mean, there's lots of different vested interests here. Some people who are proponents of this will say, well, actually, we think that this will make targeting more accurate, less civilians will actually will die as a result of this. And the question there that you have to ask is—there's a really good book called Drone by Chamayou, Grégoire Chamayou, and he says that there's actually three meanings to accuracy.So, are you hitting what you're aiming at is one of it—one thing. And that's a solved problem in military circles for quite some time. You got, you know, laser targeting, very accurate. Then the other question is, how big is the blast radius? So, that's just a matter of, you know, how big an explosion are you going to get? That's not something that autonomy can help with.The only thing that autonomy could even conceivably help with in terms of accuracy is better target selection. So, instead of selecting targets that are not valid targets, selecting more valid targets. But I don't think there's any good reason to think that computers can solve that problem. I mean, in fact, if you read stuff that military experts write on this, and I've got, you know, lots of academic handbooks on military targeting processes, they will tell you, it's very hard and there's a lot of gray areas, a lot of judgment. And that's exactly what computers are pretty bad at. Although mind you, I'm amused by your Hambone story and I want to ask if AWS Hambone is a database?Corey: Anything is a database, if you hold it wrong.Laura: [laugh].Corey: It's fun. I went through a period of time where, just for fun, I would ask people to name an AWS service and I would talk about how you could use it incorrectly as a database. And then someone mentioned, “What about AWS Neptune,” which is their graph database, which absolutely no one understands, and the answer there is, “I give up. It's impossible to use that thing as a database.” But everything else can be. Like, you know, the tagging system. Great, that has keys and values; it's a database now. Welcome aboard. And I didn't say it was a great database, but it is a free one, and it scales to a point. Have fun with it.Laura: All I'll say is this: you can put labels on anything.Corey: Exactly.Laura: We missed you at the most recent SREcon EMEA. There was a talk about Google's internal Chubby system and how people started using it as a database. And I did summon you in Slack, but you didn't show up.Corey: No. Sadly, I've gotten a bit out of the SRE space. And also, frankly, I've gotten out of the community space for a little while, when it comes to conferences. And I have a focused effort at the start of 2024 to start changing that. I am submitting CFPs left and right.My biggest fear is that a conference will accept one of these because a couple of them are aspirational. “Here's how I built the thing with generative AI,” which spoiler, I have done no such thing yet, but by God, I will by the time I get there. I have something similar around Kubernetes, which I've never used in anger, but soon will if someone accepts the right conference talk. This is how I learned Git: I shot my mouth off in a CFP, and I had four months to learn the thing. It was effective, but I wouldn't say it was the best approach.Laura: [laugh]. You shouldn't feel bad about lying about having built things in Kubernetes, and with LLMs because everyone has, right?Corey: Exactly. It'll be true enough by the time I get there. Why not? I'm not submitting for a conference next week. We're good. Yeah, Future Corey is going to hate me.Laura: Have it build you a database system.Corey: I like that. I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you these days?Laura: Ohh, I'm sort of homeless on social media since the whole Twitter implosion, but you can still find me there. I'm @lauralifts on Twitter and I have the same tag on BlueSky, but haven't started to use it yet. Yeah, socials are hard at the moment. I'm on LinkedIn. Please feel free to follow me there if you wish to message me as well.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:28:31]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.Laura: Thank you for having me.Corey: Laura Nolan, Principal Software Engineer at Stanza. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry, insulting comment that soon—due to me screwing up a database system—will be transmogrified into a CFP submission for an upcoming SREcon.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business, and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.

In this podcast episode, guest Laura Lawrence shares her powerful journey of finding purpose within pain. Through heartbreak and betrayal, she has experienced profound personal growth and resilience. Laura, an author, speaker, educator, and mental health advocate, opens up about enduring a heartbreaking and life-altering breakup. From the moment she heard the words 'I don't love you anymore,' she navigated a rollercoaster of emotions and started over as a single mother. Despite the overwhelming challenges, she recognized the need for professional support and sought help for herself and her children. Through alternative modalities like Body Talk, she was able to release stored emotions and heal her mind, body, and spirit. Laura's dedication to mental health led her to become a mental health advocate for youth. Her passion for working with young people inspired her to establish the nonprofit organization Youth Matter Canada, empowering thousands of kids to speak up about their mental health. Through her book 'Behind Closed Doors' and upcoming podcast, Laura continues to share her story and empower others to overcome adversity and embrace resilience. Laura's Links: www.lauralawrence.ca/shop (link to purchase book) www.instagram.com/lauralawrence.author (IG account) .................................................................. Rising Strong LINKS: FREE resource: Create More ME Time: bit.ly/metimeresource Get all the podcast updates and notifications of new episodes: bit.ly/risingstrongupdates Support this podcast by purchasing a Calming Journal: bit.ly/calmingjournals Follow us on Instagram: @risingstrongpodcast Facebook page: send your a screenshot of your podcast reviews via the 'comment' button here: @Risingstrongpodcast WIN SWAG: Screenshot your 5-star review for a chance to win some Rising Strong swag! then send it to Lisa@LisaKBoehm.com Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode .................................................................. TRANSCRIPT: HOST/Lisa: In the journey through heartbreak and betrayal, many find themselves lost in the chaos of emotions. How is it that some people find the purpose within the pain and experience profound personal growth? Today's guest, Laura Lawrence, is going to tell you exactly that. Laura is an author, speaker, educator, and mental health advocate who has shared the stage with powerful female voices like Dr. Jody Carrington and Jess Tatu. Hi, I'm Lisa, and this is Rising strong mental health and resilience. On this podcast, we dive into different kinds of adversity and the resilience required to rise above. Make sure to follow or subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Now, let's get started. All right. Today I have Laura Lawrence in studio with me. I met Laura about a year and a half ago, and I was in awe of her inner strength and confidence the moment I met her. She has weathered some storms that some of you will relate to, and her resilience is inspiring. Welcome to the show, Laura. Laura: Thank you for having me, and thank you for those kind words, Host/Lisa: all truths. Laura, you have endured a heartbreaking and life altering breakup. Tell us about the events that unfolded when you heard the words, I don't love you anymore. Laura: Wow. Well, gosh, so many events unfolded after those words, and at the time, it was absolutely the hardest thing I had ever had to navigate in my life. There were so many emotions, so many layers to it, and starting over in life at the age of 32 with two children under the age of six was absolutely terrifying. But I'll take you back a little bit and tell you kind of where it all began. So I met my ex husband when we were 16 years old. We were high school sweethearts. We got married when I was 22. And in our 17 year journey together, we walked side by side through so many things. We had two children together. We grieved the loss of a child through a miscarriage together. We grieved the loss of loved ones together. We embarked on new career paths, new journeys. But it was about at the ten year marriage mark that we found ourselves in the depths of conflict that really had started many years prior. Both of us were carrying our own inner child wounds, over, committed to work, chaotic schedules, stresses of life work, raising children, really all the things that two people in a relationship or a marriage face. And we were facing them with two different mindsets, two different belief systems, two different sets of upbringing in our families. But it was after one fateful argument that we had that was the tipping point. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I would say he was emotionally depleted, and so was I. But he was done. Like, actually done. So from that night of that argument to today, almost, oh, gosh, twelve years later, there has always been four sides to this multilayered love story and separation story. There's my side, there's his. Of course, there's our children's side and the outside world, who always had their view from what I like to call the cheap seats. Host/Lisa: Wow, that's really interesting. You always hear there's two sides to every story, which I agree with. I'd never thought about those other two dimensions that you mentioned. Yeah, that's really powerful. And did you find that the cheap seats were giving you some difficult times as well, on top of everything else that you were dealing with? Laura: Oh, yes, they certainly were. It was a very public and painful separation divorce. It's interesting. Just a couple of weeks ago, I heard yet another rumor, honestly, a decade later. So, yeah, living in a small community, being in the public eye, as at the time, I was a teacher, an educator in the community. We lived a block from the school. We ran a business together. We were often in the public's eye through community service organizations. So it was definitely a journey. Host/Lisa: How did this all make you feel? Laura: It was gutting. It was heart wrenching. There were so many days and nights where I felt hopeless. It felt like my entire world and the ideals that I and many of us cling on to since we're children, imagining what a marriage would look like and feel like I mean, all of it came crashing down at once. And now when I say that, I say that kind of tongue in cheek because of course, it didn't all come crashing down in a day. It was years in the making. But it felt like a shattered ceiling, a crumbling floor. There's so many ways I could describe it, and I often describe that time as if it felt similar to falling into a deep, dark well and that I could see the light just out of the distance of the top of the well. But it was cold, it was lonely, it was dark. Every time I tried to kind of clamor up the sides of the well, I would fall back down again. And I, to that point, had never experienced depression. It was even hard for me to understand seeing loved ones or friends go through depression because I just had never been there in my own mind and body. But if you've ever been through a breakup or a separation or divorce, you know very well that gut punching feeling of hearing somebody tell you that they're done or they just don't love you anymore, or that's it, there's really no going back from that moment. Host/Lisa: Do you think it was harder for you to navigate the path forward, or do you think it was harder for you to watch your children navigate the path forward? Laura: Wow, that's an interesting question. I would say that both were very difficult in different ways where, I mean, I definitely felt helpless. There were things that were within my control that I could have done leading up to that point and then also in trying to find resolution. But for children who are involved in separation and divorce, they really are helpless. They really are the collateral damage, so to speak. And I wanted to ensure that as much as I could have the power over ensuring that my children didn't feel like collateral damage, it's almost inevitable, just with all of the layers that kind of ensue following a separation and divorce. Host/Lisa: Did you seek professional support for yourself or for yourself and your children? Laura: Yeah, I mean, 100%. I know. I think when you had sent me the show notes, you had asked, how did this affect your mental health? And when I was thinking about it, the very first thing that came to my mind was the easier question would be, like, how didn't it affect my mental health? It affected absolutely every aspect of my wellness. I could not sleep. I could not eat. I could not focus or concentrate at work. I cried for hours and hours daily. I fixated became obsessed with trying to solve it, work it out, make it work. I was anxious. I was depressed. And although I never made a formal plan to take my life and I don't think I've ever publicly spoken about this as a speaker and an author, I'm not even sure this is in my book. Actually, I'm pretty sure it isn't. But I do remember one evening that I was driving home late and the thought had crossed my mind what would happen if I just allowed my car to slip across the solid yellow line? And it was just for a fraction of a minute that that thought was there. But I clearly remember that. And I couldn't show up as my best self for my children or my students. I really was an empty shell. I lost 30 pounds so quickly, many people asked and wondered if I was sick. There were even questions whether I had a terminal illness because I had to hide so much for quite a few months, as we hadn't told our children or our families for a while. And the act of hiding the truth really took its toll, I think, not on me, but on all of us. I mean, on my ex husband as well, and on the children. So absolutely I needed to seek professional help. And this part I write extensively about in my book. It started with an intervention weekend. And that's how it goes for many of us, especially when we're in the depths of that well of depression and we really can't see the light at all, it often takes somebody in our inner circle, our loved ones, who reach down and pull us up or pull us out. And I'm very thankful to two very good friends who are concerned, deeply concerned for me. And so they had planned an intervention weekend. It was that weekend that I was introduced to the psychologist who would become like a grandmother to me later and who would stand beside me in this dance of healing. Over the next decade, I was introduced to two very powerful alternative modalities called Reiki and Body Talk during that weekend, and I sought medical help with my doctor, was prescribed medications to help with my sleep and help with my anxiety. So it was like full force after that intervention weekend and kind of throwing all the tools that I could at trying to rebuild so many things that felt broken. Host/Lisa; Now, I know you fairly well, and I also know you to be a very strong woman. And I think anybody who's been through difficult times ultimately knows that the work comes from us. I absolutely think that a therapist, a counselor, is so important when you're going through difficult times, but ultimately that work has to come from within us. Do you remember a turning point when you kind of pulled up your bootstraps and really thought, okay, what do I have to do now to take myself forward and my kids forward? Or was it very evolutionary for you? Laura: No, I mean, I knew that right from the beginning, of course, as I mentioned that. And anybody listening to this, who's ever been any type of conflict in a relationship or a marriage knows that the tension, the conflict builds. And often two people are very different. They have different belief systems, they different subconscious programming. They solve problems differently, they love differently, they communicate differently. And so finding that dance with a partner and finding what works for you and what works for them, it's a tumultuous dance. And I remember taking so much responsibility for so many things and being really hard on myself about how I made so many mistakes or I could have done this better, or I could have done this different. And when it was time for my healing journey, I just knew there was nobody else that was going to do it except for me. And I hadn't been studying any alternative modalities at that point yet, but I had been doing a lot of reading in Conscious Living and Consciousness, and I had been reading books by authors like Deepak Chopra. It's very interesting. Looking back now, it was almost as if my subconscious was preparing me or my psyche was preparing me for what was to come. And then, of course, the path that it led me down, and exploring more of the complementary alternative methods of healing, I absolutely then learned the power of healing yourself and working on that which you can control and the only thing you control which is yourself. Host/Lisa: So true. So how has Body Talk helped you on your journey? Laura: As I mentioned, it was one of those modalities that I was introduced to in that intervention weekend. I had never heard of it before, which is the story that most people will say when it crosses their path. I didn't know what it was. I had no idea what to expect. And I remember after I had that first session on that intervention weekend, I was not impressed, I was not enthused. I thought, I don't know what that was. Didn't really work for me, but cool, thanks. Turns out it kept coming back into my life. And I think that the things that are meant for us always do. They always keep doorknocking. Right? And it turned out to be life changing. The most powerful transformations in my mind, my body and my spirit were all because of this amazing modality. And I would say so for many of my family members as well who have experienced it, including my own children. Like I said after my first session, I was so skeptical and I would even say that didn't work. But I kept being called back to it. And what I tell people about Body Talk is you don't find it, it finds you. That was really cool that it just kept coming back into my awareness. And what it allowed me to do was explore how deeply I was attached to belief systems that were formed very early, before I even knew, in my subconscious between zero to seven, in my own experiences with my family and how I was parented and all the things that happen in that core formation period between age zero to seven. And I realized how so many of those belief systems that I would attach to were wreaking havoc not just in my mental wellness, but really trickling down into the physical manifestation of pain and illness in my body. Body Talk allowed me to release stored emotion from years of experiences and conflict that I was carrying, whether it be inner conflict or conflict that I had had with people in my past or family members in my past. It really was life changing. I just felt like it was the next thing for me to do. It was the next step. It was really what I needed to explore for my full path of healing. So when I left the teaching profession, I began to study Body Talk and I became a certified practitioner and I took all of my advanced classes and I started a business in a community where there were no Body Talk practitioners. Nobody had ever heard of it. I am so grateful for every client who's trusted me sitting beside them and walking beside them in their healing journey. It has been not only healing for them, but also for myself. Host/Lisa: I know we've had this conversation before, but isn't it interesting how when we can get to that space where we can help other people with their healing, that we also benefit from the healing that comes from that work? Laura: Yeah, it's a two way street. It's very reciprocal in nature and forever. As long as I'm living, I will practice Body Talk in some aspect. So let's talk a little bit about the work that you do as a mental health advocate for our youth. Yeah, that's something that I just have always been really passionate about working with youth. So I'm the oldest grandchild on both sides, and I've always been surrounded by kids and always the oldest one in the group. I've been drawn to working with youth since I was a child. I had a vision of becoming a doctor when I was in my last few years of high school, and I changed lanes at the last minute and became a teacher. So I went into the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan and finished my degree as a high school science teacher. I spent over 15 years in a rural school setting teaching high school sciences and biology and chemistry. I was a coach. I was a mentor. I worked with kids outside of the classroom for many, many hours. I really loved my job and the kids I got to work with, and I had a front row seat, seeing many youth struggle with their own mental health. And this was again, I've been out of the classroom for ten years. Even ten years ago, we did not talk about mental health the way we do now. And so often, kids struggled in silence. But I always had that innate kind of intuitive gut feeling when a kid didn't look okay or when I noticed something that had changed in their demeanor or their attitude or their motivation or their behavior. After certifying as a Body Talk practitioner, after I'd left the classroom, I began creating Mindfulness in the Classroom workshops and professional development opportunities for schools and students, and found myself being hired back into schools, into classrooms, but from a different lens. And I created Mindfulness for Kids camps and workshops that I hosted in my local area. I just absolutely love engaging in youth that way. And then in 2019, I had this wild and crazy idea one day while taking a road trip with my husband, that I thought it would be just so incredible to host a mental health conference day for kids. I had been to so many conferences in my professional career, and they always motivated me and uplifted me and just gave me that extra spark that I needed. And I thought, how cool would that be to do for kids? And that was the beginning of starting my nonprofit organization, youth Matter Canada. And thanks to the help of many passionate individuals in my volunteer team working with Youth Matter, we have been able to help thousands of kids all across the province of Saskatchewan and beyond reach out and speak up for their mental health. Host/Lisa: So important. I think every year that goes by, we're seeing more and more of a crisis, and what a better place to start than with our youth? I love that. Laura: Yeah, I think it's the only place to start, really, for me. It's all I know to do is to help the youth because they're our future. I guess when I say the only place to start, it doesn't mean that we write the rest of us off who are midlife. But I think that when we're taking a real serious look on how we're going to change our approach, we need to start looking at how we spend time with engaging youth in conversations about mental wellness. Host/Lisa: What an incredible gift to give kids all these tools and coping skills that they can use all through life. Laura: Yeah. And it's been incredible working with thousands of kids and talking to them about mental health and having just heart to heart conversations, teaching them some different strategies for self regulation and self awareness. They're not as attached to rigid belief systems, so they are willing to think about things and look at things from a different perspective than adults. And I just think that's just the coolest mindset when you're approaching something like mental wellness. When we travel around the province with our Be Kind to Your Mind team, going into different schools, we have the absolute best conversations with these kids. When we ask them, what does mental health look like? When we talk about the stigmas, when we talk about how just because somebody looks a certain way, we can't assume that they're not struggling, we have this really cool practice we do with them called the imaginary backpack practice. Where we talk about. Every one of us is born with this invisible backpack. And it all starts fairly empty from the time we're born. But then everything that happens to us, every experience that we have with our families, with the outside world, loads into the backpack. So emotions and conflict and trauma and that backpack gets so heavy if we don't learn ways to unpack it, if we don't get a team of people who love us to help us unpack it. And we actually do this visually with the kids by getting them to put a really heavy backpack on their back and then a really light backpack. And it's just incredible, the conversations that come from that so powerful. Host/Lisa: So it just seems like a natural progression, really, that you've gone from the kind of work that you're explaining to us with youth matter and have rolled that really into your speaking career and on stage. I know you talk about lots of things, including Adversity, struggles, challenges, mental health, all kinds of things. Why do you think it's important that you talk about mental health? Laura: Well, mental health is the root of everything. It's the root of absolutely everything. We cannot have any conversation about anything affecting our lives without having a conversation about the state of our mental health. It is the foundation and root of our families, our communities, our work. For me, there's no division. Yeah, like, it's all mental health related. It's just immersed in our everyday life, in the way we talk, the conversations we have. It's so cool. The other day my five year old said to me he could really sense that I was having a bad morning. He could sense that my emotions were starting to become very overwhelming for me. And he looked at me and he said, mom, you should just try that rainbow breathing that you teach us. And when I was subbing for him today in their class, their kindergarten class, I could see him from the corner of my eye engaging in a little bit of meditative breath work because he was feeling very overwhelmed. And I mean, that's the power of immersing all of our conversations, our life, our relationships with mental health. Host/Lisa: I couldn't agree more. I think that is where we need to begin with everything. So when you and I met, you were just getting ready to start editing and publishing your book, Behind Closed Doors. Why did you write this book? Laura: It's another loaded question. Well, sharing stories changes and saves lives. And I think that when I have felt, seen, heard, valued and loved, it felt so much easier for me to get through the hard things. And when we're reminded that we're not alone, that we don't need to struggle in silence, that we're not a failure, but rather just human, it gives us the courage to keep going. And I had never imagined years ago that I'd spiral into the deep depression that I did. I had never imagined that I would be navigating a Divorce, a Separation, Coparenting, which is a whole other podcast in and of itself. But I thought if I could help others with tools and mind shifts and practices to help decrease the impact of stress on their minds and bodies, I would continue to do that for the rest of my days. And for me, writing was always such a big part of my own ability to release stored emotion, to cathartically move through hard things that I had been experiencing. And five years ago I founded a mental health movement called Strong as a Mother. And it was a coffee and conversation series that brought women together in the spirit of connection and real conversation. And why I founded it was because I was a mother who was struggling with so many things silently, because that was the strong thing to do. And I knew that I wasn't alone, I couldn't be alone. And that other women have had to have experienced similar things that I had been experiencing behind closed doors and not talking about them. And so I wanted to create a platform, a community, a movement that brought women together to talk about these things. And it morphed into this really beautiful community of courageous and resilient and everyday normal women who shared their vulnerability, their stories, their laughter, their tears with one another at every event that I hosted. And from that journey I just knew that I wanted every woman out there to experience the magic of the stronger as a mother community that we had created, even though they couldn't get to it in person or I'd never experienced it. So I chose 13 women from that movement that had sat heart to heart with me and with other women and bravely shared their stories of navigating some of the lowest of lows and highest of highs from their journeys of marriage and motherhood and mental health. And I wrote a book about it and I wove pieces of my own story in between those little mini memoirs that ended up being a collection of true heart work that I'm really proud of. And I'm so grateful to those women who sat heart to heart with me because it has created an incredible ripple effect of love and support and the messages and emails I get from readers whom I've never met who just said the book changed their life. Just to be able to read a story and see a version of themselves in that story is just so powerful for their own healing and they're really a gentle way that we can learn from one another and to really help understand different things. Host/Lisa: And that's exactly what your book does. You could pick it up. You don't even have to start at the beginning. You can read each memoir on its own. And there is definitely something in your book for everybody. Well done. Laura: Thank you. What's next for you? I feel like every time I talk to you, you've got something new coming up on the horizon. Tell us what's going on. Laura: Well, there's always something next. My busy brain is both a blessing and a curse. And I have quite a creative mind, so I'm always thinking about the next thing. So I have already written three children's books, all under the niche of mental wellness. They are published and available on my website and through Amazon. But I have two more children's books that have been edited and are ready to release, so those will be coming out in 2024. And I have had this dream to actually host my own podcast since 2018. In fact, the graphic designer who did my website back in 2018, I had her put in the corner on the bottom coming soon podcast. But turns out Coming soon was five years. So that'll be coming in early 2024 as well. Well, I'm so excited to hear the first episode when it comes out in the new year. Congratulations on that. Thank you. And I think that what it stems from, and I write about this in the book, is that there are two things that every soul on this planet will experience in life, and those two things are love and pain. And the degree to which we love someone or something is very synonymous to the degree of which we experience pain when that someone or something leaves us or dies or becomes ill. And I think that creating a platform or a movement where you can allow people to feel vulnerable enough to share that love, to share that pain is so cathartic and so healing. I am really excited, but a podcast is not for the faint of heart. So I want to congratulate you as well. Your episodes have been phenomenal. I absolutely love tuning in and I think that many people don't know what goes behind all of the work in creating these platforms. It's hard work. Host/Lisa: It's hard work for sure. Definitely hard work and heart work, as you say. Just for our listeners, I will be listing Laura's books and where you can find them and also the links to connect with Laura if you have any questions for her. But Laura, I would love to know. Now this is a surprise question. She doesn't know that. I'm going to ask this. What does resilience mean to you? Laura: Resilience means picking yourself back up again after you've fallen in that deep, dark well and reaching out to those who love you, who support you to get back up again. I really, truly believe that we can't experience resilience or have resilience on our own. It's not a one woman or one man show. It really comes from our support systems, from those we love, from those that encourage us to get back up again. And for me, resilience meant restarting. The paths that we take are very different from what we thought life would look like. And so resilience is just navigating those paths again in new ways. host/Lisa: Yeah, I agree. And I'm also going to add to that, and this is just my spin on things, but I also think we can't have resilience without having had Adversity first. Laura: Oh, for sure. I just don't think we can truly understand what resilience is until we have fallen flat on our face, unfortunately. Host/Lisa: So how do you think you've become resilient? Sometimes I think I have had to fake it until I actually made it. To be honest. I think that my resilience has really come from my ability to be open minded, but also to build community. I say without doubt, the divorce, the separation led me to today, which I am incredibly grateful for. I have had the most beautiful opportunities to develop rich, abundant and grateful moments and relationships with people that would have never come my way had that frying pan moment not happened in my life. Host/Lisa: Right. It's so true. And I think that when we fall flat on our face and we have to get back up and usually it's not just one time getting up and it's all good, right? We're falling down, getting up, falling down, getting up a whole bunch of times. Every time we get back up, we gain a little bit of confidence. Oh yeah, I was down here before. I remember this place. Okay. And I've got this tool. Belt and it's getting more tools in it. I know how to get up, and I think that that's very powerful as well on our journey, because life is not easy, but we have to just keep going. Laura: We are always one moment away from a different trajectory in life. And so having those tools, having that team, having that community so that they can help pick you up when you go through those lowest of lows is imperative. And I think that we can't get comfortable in thinking that we've arrived at a certain healing space, because healing is just not a linear journey. It is messy, you know, my friend, it is messy. Host/Lisa: It is very messy. Laura, you're a very wise woman, and I am so grateful that you took some time out to spend time with me today. And I know that your message is going to resonate with many of our listeners. So thank you so much for coming today. And to our listeners, be well and stay resilient. Laura: Thanks, Lisa. Host/Lisa

Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast. This week I'm talking to specialist diabetes dietitian Erin Phillips about all things insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Erin shares some background on what happens in the body that leads to type 2 diabetes, why ‘prediabetes' is a dubious diagnosis and the things the keto-bros often leave out this conversation. We talk about why sugar and higher weight aren't the cause of type 2 diabetes, and how there is so much more we can do to care for diabetes outside of cutting carbs and losing weight, especially if you have a background of an ED or disordered eating. Lots of you have requested more content around this topic - let me know what questions you still have after listening to this episode!Find out more about Erin's work here.Follow her on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura's newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here's the transcript in full:INTROErin: I think sometimes a diagnosis of prediabetes or type 2 diabetes can be a traumatic event, especially when it's not in the presence of someone caring and that you trust. Or especially if you have a family history of diabetes where you've seen…maybe some scary things. Which I will – now that I said that – I will add that it's, that's not a definite outcome either, those scary things, yeah.But it can be, that can be really stressful, and that's the opposite of what is helpful for blood sugars.Laura: Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where we talk about appetite, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter.Today's guest is registered dietitian Erin Phillips. Erin's work is grounded in health at every size and fat positive nutrition. She has an advanced certification as a diabetes specialist and has spent most of her career working with people living with all types of diabetes. She has a private practice that focuses primarily on the intersection of diabetes and eating disorders. She works with people living with diabetes through individual counselling, as well as providing consultation to clinicians looking to be more grounded and confident in supporting their clients and patients with co-occurring diagnoses of diabetes and eating disorders. So I've had a lot of feedback from newsletter readers and people who listen to the podcast saying that you'd like more information about weight-inclusive approaches to so-called prediabetes – which we'll get into in a minute – insulin resistance and elevated glucose levels as well as type 2 diabetes. Most of the advice out there centers on carbs. So I was excited to talk to Erin about why these approaches are not only unhelpful for a lot of folks, but how they can be harmful. And why you don't need to get sucked into diet culture to care for yourself. In this episode, we discuss why type 2 diabetes isn't caused by too much sugar or having a bigger body, why pre-diabetes is a fake diagnosis, and why you don't need to cut out carbs to manage your blood sugar. I'm so excited for you to hear this episode. But before we get to Erin, I want to remind you that the Can I Have Another Snack? universe is entirely listener and reader supported. If you get something out of the work that we do here, please help support us by becoming a paid subscriber. It's £5 a month or £50 for the year. And as well as getting you loads of cool perks, you help guarantee the sustainability of this newsletter, have a say in the work that we do here and help ensure I can keep delivering deeply researched pieces that provide a diet culture-free take on hot nutrition topics like ultra processed foods, the Zoe app, and the deep dive on folic acid and folate that I just did recently.All of those you can read at laurathomas.substack.com if you haven't already. And if you're not totally sold yet then maybe this lovely review that I got recently will help convince you. So one reader wrote: “I feel so lucky that I found your work around the same time I started feeding my kid real food. It saved me so much angst and has allowed me to relax and really enjoy seeing him explore eating. Your essays on sugar especially was a game changer. I'm sure it won't always be plain sailing, but I feel so much more prepared to ride the waves of his changing appetite. and tastes as he grows, accepting them as a feature and not a bug.So hopefully he can have a much more relaxed relationship to food than I had for a long time. And I pay my £5 a month because I so value the work you put into your writing and think it's worth paying for. There's a lot of free advice out there, but I never know what I can trust. This is such a safe haven.”So yeah, it's £5 a month or £50 for the year. You can sign up at laurathomas.substack.com or check out the show notes for this episode. And if you can't stretch to a paid subscription right now, you can email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk for a comp subscription. No questions asked. You don't need to justify yourself. Just put ‘Snacks' in the subject line. This is actually going to be our last podcast of the year. I'll be back in your ears in January with brand new guests. Paid subscribers will continue to hear from me in your inboxes and in the group chat, where I'm going to be holding space for all the venting and screaming at diet culture shit that gets dredged up over the holidays and into January. If you'd like to join us, you can sign up at LauraThomas.substack.com. Otherwise I'll speak to you in January. Okay, team. Over to Erin. MAIN EPISODE:Alright, Erin. Can you please start by telling us a bit more about you and the work that you do?Erin: Yeah. I am a registered dietitian. Well, in the United States, based in, um, the Seattle, Washington…I was gonna say, the ‘state of Washington'! And I'm also a certified diabetes care and education specialist. It used to be a certified diabetes educator and they wanted to add more letters. So I'm in private practice and I focus on working with people with diabetes and eating disorders at the same time, or people who had a history of an eating disorder and then were recently diagnosed with diabetes but don't want like It wouldn't be helpful or safe for them to go to just any diabetes educator.So those are the folks that I work with.Laura: Okay, so you're kind of working at that intersection between eating disorder care and diabetes care. And I think, like, what's important to highlight, which people might not be...aware of or familiar with is the idea that people who have type 2 diabetes, I would say in particular, but all forms of diabetes are at a heightened risk of disordered eating and eating disorders. And does that relationship…? No, it doesn't go the other way, does it?Erin: I think it does.Laura: You think it does?Erin: I think it does. There isn't a lot of research on it, but clinically, I absolutely see that.Laura: Okay. That's interesting. Erin: And eating disorders and gestational diabetes. I was talking with a colleague about this, that we see people with a history of, of an eating disorder, it feels like are at much higher risk of gestational diabetes.But the research…I don't, I haven't looked into the research on that, but we definitely see it clinically.Laura: Yeah, that's an interesting observation that you've noticed. So, you use this term diabetes educator. We don't have that here so it might be helpful to just kind of explain a little bit about what that is and then maybe we can unpack what exactly we're talking about here when we talk about diabetes and sort of associated terms.Erin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for clarifying that. I love talking to people in other countries to learn about like, what do things look like there? So, a diabetes educator, I know they have them in the States and in Canada, maybe Australia, but basically what it is, is...Laura: Just to clarify, like, okay, in case my, like...dietetics colleagues are all like yelling at me right now. We do have dieticians that specialise in diabetes, but it's like the diabetes educator title is kind of a, like a bolt on right to your, your like baseline nutrition training. Is that right?Erin: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So here to become a. a certified diabetes care and education specialist – that's such a mouthful! You, yeah, you need, I think it's 2000 hours of working with people with diabetes after you've become, become a dietitian or you can be a social worker, you can be a pharmacist, you can be a nurse. There's lots of nurses that are diabetes educators. So you get those practice hours, you get continuing, I don't know how many hours of continuing education a lot. And then you take an exam, right? Then it's like, well, at least here, like the dietitian renewal where every five years you renew by getting enough continuing education credits.Laura: Okay, so it's safe to say you know a lot of stuff about diabetes.Erin: Yes, I think so, yeah.Laura: It's kind of your thing. So, I really wanted to talk to you specifically about type 2 diabetes today because, 1) there seems to be a lot of confusion about it. 2) It kind of gets bundled up with a lot of anti-fat bias and carb-phobia and diet culture. And then 3), it's something that listeners of the podcast and readers of the newsletter have requested that we talk about. Would you mind starting by just telling us what exactly type 2 diabetes is, and how it relates to concepts like prediabetes and insulin resistance? So that's a big question. Where feels like the best place to start?Erin: I think actually starting with insulin resistance, because I think of that as kind of an umbrella and then prediabetes and type 2 diabetes fall underneath that umbrella. Yeah. So, insulin resistance is a term that means…so all humans have glucose floating around in their blood at all times. That is the main source of fuel. It's so funny to look at you while I'm talking about this because I'm like, you know this! But anyway, all humans have glucose floating around in the blood. It's our main source of fuel for the body. And then for glucose to get into our cells, we need insulin. And I always use the analogy of: insulin is the key that unlocks the cell to let the glucose in. And so insulin resistance is where that key gets a little, like, sticky or…kind of like the key to my car right now that I have to wriggle it the just the right way. So it can take a little bit longer for the glucose to get into the cell. It still happens but it just takes a little bit longer.So that is insulin resistance and that is one of the key features of both ‘prediabetes' and type 2 diabetes. Often, when I say ‘prediabetes', I do bunny ears or air quotes because it's a misunderstood term and we can totally get into that later. But so type 2 diabetes is where a body has either lived with insulin resistance long enough or something else has happened that has made, in addition to insulin resistance, glucose levels get high enough in the blood to meet this diagnostic criteria.And we've actually…this is something I love sharing with people because often type 2 diabetes is just like, all we focus on is insulin resistance, but there's actually at least 10 other changes in the body that lead to elevated glucose levels that are going on in addition to insulin resistance.Laura: Okay, before we go on, I want to actually reverse and back up a little bit here, because…so you talked about how we have glucose in our bloodstreams that needs to get into our cells all the time.That's like everybody, always – even if you're like a keto bro. What I just wanted to make really clear for anyone who's totally new to these conversations is that glucose…it gets into our bloodstream from the food that we eat and it's a sugar, right? So I think those are two important points to clarify, that we consume food, it gets broken down and digested and absorbed across the gut lumen. And that's what raises our blood glucose levels. And then insulin is the hormone that's secreted by the pancreas that unlocks the door to the cell, to let glucose move into the cell, so we have energy, so we can do things, so we can go about our business as being humans. Sometimes what can happen is that the door gets a little rusty, or the key gets a little rusty, and it's harder for that insulin to get into the cell. Is that like a fair summary of... Wow. What's going on? Erin: That was beautiful. I was nodding furiously.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like I know something about this! Right. So then can you tell us a little, like – I think you alluded to this – but maybe speak to it a little more to how the kind of the cells get rusty and how it's harder to shift insulin into the cells.Can you talk to us about what happens next? Maybe some of the symptoms people might experience and then what's going on physiologically as well.Erin: Yeah. So when a body is experiencing those like rusty cell doors, there's a lot of different hormones that are actually involved in not only glucose regulation or blood sugar regulation, but just metabolism.So glucose regulation is just one part of metabolism. And when I say metabolism, I mean using energy from food and turning that energy into energy for the body and then using energy to the body.Laura: Yeah, thank you for clarifying that because this is something I come up against a lot where like metabolism is used as this kind of catch-all phrase to mean how quickly your body burns energy or it's like this really diet culture-y kind of thing.But when you and I are talking about it... I think we're talking about all the biochemical processes that are going on inside your body, all these cascades of reactions and like how a nutrient that we ingest in food or in a supplement winds its way into our body and becomes part of these chemical reactions that are going on, like, deep inside our tissues.Erin: Yep. Yeah, that good old Krebs cycle. So when the cell door gets rusty, that's a big kind of flag for the body, I guess you could say, for the metabolic process. So, I think you mentioned the pancreas already. So the pancreas is the organ in the body that produces the hormone insulin, along with other hormones. When the pancreas notices the cell doors getting rusty, the pancreas will say, Oh, that's cool. I got this. And we'll start producing more and more insulin because the signal that the pancreas is getting is from the cells. The cells are saying, we're not getting the glucose that we're wanting, that we need, that we need to survive or not getting it as quickly or as much. And so then the pancreas starts producing more and more insulin.Laura: So it's trying to, it's getting the message that there's not enough insulin to, to get the glucose from the bloodstream into the cell so it starts to produce more. And can you maybe speak to the impact that this can have on the pancreas? Is it helpful to explain that a little bit?Erin: Yeah, yeah, I think so, because I think that's also something that people don't think about or aren't explained. Yeah. So the beta cells are the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, and as they produce more and more insulin, they start to, after... I should say after decades of producing more and more insulin, those beta cells start to kind of poop out.Laura: Yeah, they get exhausted.Erin: Yeah. That's a better word.Laura: Crap out, poop out, exhaustion. Yeah, like ultimately they're working really hard for a really long time and that takes a toll, I think is what we're saying.Erin: Yeah, they start to go on strike, like they're doing the work of more…Laura: Like the teachers and the nurses and the doctors and the train drivers and yeah, we're having a lot of strikes here at the moment.So yeah, it's almost as though governments are failing globally, right? Almost.Erin: Yeah, you have to laugh because otherwise you cry! So the pancreas starts to get exhausted, in the research that's called beta cell exhaustion or beta cell failure. So the pancreas isn't able to produce quite as much insulin anymore.And after decades and decades and decades, the pancreas will not be able to produce enough insulin to meet the needs of the body. And that's when I say, store bought insulin works really well for that.Laura: Store bought! I love it. I love it because to me that just feels like a much kinder non-judgmental framing of what I think is…often a condition that is attached with a lot of shame and judgment. Like, yeah, there's, there's a real narrative that if you get to the point where you need the store bought insulin, that that's a failure.And there's a lot of research and a lot of conversations at the moment about this idea around ‘remission' and, you know, ‘reversing diabetes' and, and all of those kinds of things, which we're going to speak to a little bit in a minute, but I think that just adds so much to the shame of needing the store bought insulin. So yeah, that just feels like a really kind kind of framing around that. So let's see, we've talked a little bit about the mechanisms whereby we find it harder to get glucose into the cells over a long, long, long period of time that can kind of exhaust the pancreas, which means that we might need to get that store bought insulin. But there's kind of a wide spectrum between, like, the cells starting to get rusty and getting to the point where you might need insulin...endogenous? Exogenous! Exogenous insulin.Erin: That's why I say store bought!Laura: Store bought, yes. And I think that's where maybe this idea of like prediabetes comes in. And we've, you've talked about how that's maybe not the most helpful label.I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there's a period where somebody might have some insulin resistance, might have elevated blood glucose levels. But it's not considered high enough for a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. So could you explain what's going on there and why that's a contested term?Erin: Yeah, yeah. So if we think about a timeline of a body experiencing insulin resistance, the first thing that will happen is the insulin resistance And then the next thing that will happen…I shouldn't say will, that's the biggest thing that I don't like about the term pr diabetes is this, that it, it makes us think that it will happen.So what could happen, a body experiences insulin resistance. What could happen is that their glucose levels start to increase to a level where they meet the prediabetes diagnostic criteria. And then, the assumption with the term prediabetes is that that means eventually, unless you do something, like in big, bold, scary letters, that eventually, your body will meet the diagnostic criteria for type 2 diabetes.But what research shows is that that's not, that's not the case. I'm maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.Laura: No, I know. That's absolutely…I think it's a really important point. And so I have, and Erin, you can tell me if this isn't quite right, but my understanding is that progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes is less than 2% per year or less than 10% in 5 years.And I also have another statistic that 59% of people with prediabetes return to normal blood glucose values between 1 and 11 years with no treatment at all. Does that corroborate with your understanding? .Erin: Yeah, yeah, I recently was looking into this research and that sounds like exactly what I found. And it really depends on where you look and what study you look at and what population they were looking at. But the, the biggest takeaway for me was that it's not…Laura: It's not a done deal.Erin: Yeah, someone's body can just be in that prediabetes range forever or um, either forever or they can go back to below the prediabetes range that it…by focusing on the blood glucose values, we're looking at a symptom and we're not really looking at what's going on underneath.And so it's, I find that less, less helpful for that reason.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. So I think what we're saying is that prediabetes is somewhat of a dubious diagnosis, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this too, but my sense is that like, giving that label can create a lot of shame and create stigma.It freaks people out, is my... experience of working with clients who their doctors have flagged that they have elevated blood sugar levels, let's say, and then….we know that stress and anxiety is not great for blood sugar management, so like, I mean, yeah, do you have anything to add to that? Like, what are your thoughts on that?Erin: That's exactly what I see in my practice and what I saw when I worked in a GP's office as well, that people are freaked out by either, either one of those labels and…yeah, stress and worry and anxiety and trauma. I think sometimes a diagnosis of prediabetes or type 2 diabetes can be a traumatic event, especially when it's not in the presence of someone caring and that you trust, or especially if you have a family history of diabetes where you've seen maybe some scary things, which I will – now that I said that – I will add that it's, that's not a, what's the word? That's not like a definite outcome either of those scary things. But it can be, yeah, it can be really stressful and that's the opposite of what is helpful for blood sugars.Laura: Yeah. Tell us a little about what the difference between a ‘prediabetes' diagnosis is versus a type 2 diabetes diagnosis? Is it just a difference of the level of sugar in the blood?Is it, is there a factor of time or like, is time factored into that? Like how long it's elevated for? Can you maybe speak to how, you know, you go from ‘prediabetes' as it were to type 2 diabetes?Erin: Yeah, that's a really good question. The way that I think about it is just in the diagnostic criteria, which is for a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, your blood sugar needs to get so high in the States, we usually diagnose it based on an A1c.So an A1c is usually what we use in the States to diagnose both prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. And here a type 2 diabetes is diagnosed at 6.5 and prediabetes is diagnosed at 5.7 up to 6.4. So ours is actually lower than yours in the UK and lower than Canada and lower than the rest of the world, basically.Laura: I feel like that's probably a really important and intentional thing, and we could probably go off on some conspiracy theories there. Erin: I have many. Yeah. Laura: Yeah, maybe it would be helpful to just briefly explain what HbA1c is, or A1c, and how it's measured and, like, what, what it's measuring. Erin: Yeah. A1c, I call it A1c, but you guys call it HbA1c. Should I say HbA1c?Laura: No, it's, it's fine. And I don't, I don't know why I call it that because I did my dietetics training in the US but I, I dunno, who knows, who knows?Erin: I've noticed everybody calls it something a little bit different.Laura: So, because I guess the HB refers to it being the hemoglobin is the hemoglobin one. But it's the same thing. A1c is easier, so let's just go with that. Erin: Okay, okay, cool. So A1c is a measurement of average glucose levels over the past two to three months. And the reason that it's average and two to three months is that as hemoglobin, so hemoglobin A1c is the full name of the lab value.As hemoglobin is part of our red blood cells, so in our veins and arteries, our red blood cells are floating around and glucose is also floating around. And so as glucose is bumping up against those red blood cells, it leaves a little bit of stickiness of glucose on the red blood cells. And then red blood cells live for 60 to 90 days, so that's 2 to 3 months.So then when they draw blood to check an A1C, they measure what percentage of the red blood cells are…kind of have this glucose levels on them or glucose on them. And then they can give us that A1C measurement in percentage form. So like 5.7 means... That according to the United States, we're classifying that as prediabetes and then 6.5 is type 2 diabetes. And the reason that we diagnose type 2 diabetes or all diabetes at a 6.5 is that long, long, long term research…or we followed, not we, I'm not part of it, the fancy researchers have followed thousands of people for decades and found that if blood sugar stays kind of in that 6.5 to 6.9 range, risk of those scary things like blindness or kidney disease or circulation problems is very, very, very, very, very, very low, basically the same as people without diabetes. So that's why we diagnose it at that, what I think of as like a pretty conservative level, because we want to keep people from experiencing those scary things.Laura: Absolutely. HbA1c is a sort of medium-ish term measurement of your average blood glucose levels, whereas if we were to just do a blood test randomly at any point in the day, there are like a bajillion different factors that could influence, you know, whether it's a high reading or a low reading, like how recently you ate, it can, you know, it can vary according to a whole bunch of different things.So a better way of measuring blood glucose is to look at that value over a slightly longer period of time and get that average, even though there are still some issues with looking at that number, but it's, it's a better number than, than just doing a random blood glucose test. So we've talked a little bit about insulin resistances, what prediabetes is and what type 2 diabetes is. There is this really pervasive myth that type 2 diabetes is caused by eating too much sugar. What do we know about that? Is that true?Erin: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.Laura: That was such a leading question, right?Erin: Is that true? Tell us! The way I think of that is that it's a real, just a misunderstanding of, of the complicated nature of type 2 diabetes – and when I say complicated, I mean, like referring back to those 11 different changes in the body that I mentioned earlier.Laura: Oh, so tell us about that because you, we said we were going to come back to this. What are the different changes?Erin: I can't even remember them all off the top of my head, but some of them are…the insulin resistance is one, the kidneys are responsible for filtering out our glucose when there's too much. And in type 2 diabetes, the kidneys start holding on to more glucose than we would want them to.Another is a decreased level of incretin hormones. So, GLP 1 is an incretin hormone. GIP is another incretin hormone, and those hormones are responsible for helping regulate glucose levels. And, and many people with type 2 diabetes and someone with prediabetes, they have a decreased level of those hormones.Laura: Okay, so I guess what, what you're saying here is that we often just focus on the changes to the pancreas and insulin, which is what I was asking you about before, but actually there are systemic changes that are going on throughout the whole body, right? Is that what we're saying? Erin: Yeah. Laura: Okay.Erin: Yeah. And those are absolutely not caused by eating, quote, too much sugar or eating sugar.Laura: Right, right, right, but because what we're dealing with is elevated blood glucose levels, the sort of obvious, or what people think of is the obvious pathway, as well…it's too much sugar in the diet, therefore your blood sugar level is too high. But what I'm hearing you say is it's just not as straightforward as that.Erin: Absolutely, yeah.Laura: Okay. Anything else that you wanted to add about, like, that particular myth, or?Erin: I wish I had more, like, definitive, like, it, that is not true because X, Y, Z, but you can't disprove a myth with research, you know what I mean?Laura: Yeah, yeah.Erin: Like, if somebody was like, yeah, unicorns exist, I'd be like, I don't know how to prove that to you. Because I can't show you, like, there is not a unicorn here.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear you. But I guess, like, what I would want people to take away from this and understand is that, like, you didn't cause your type 2 diabetes, like, you're not to blame. And, you know, similarly to how there are all different changes in the body that take place when somebody has type 2 diabetes, there are all sorts of factors that contribute to and help explain why somebody might develop type 2 diabetes. And they are everything from, you know, stress and sleep and things that, you know, often get called like lifestyle variables, even though that in and of itself is problematic, all the way through to experiencing racism, homophobia, transphobia, anti fat bias, you know, all of these like discrimination and prejudiceracism, homophobia, transphobia, anti fat bias, you know, all of these like discrimination and prejudice. Those things are also going to play a part in our blood glucose regulation, but we don't think of that. We don't think about the social determinants of health. We just think about like, well, you ate too many carbs. Therefore you need to cut out carbs. And this is the advice that people are given, we hear this idea that like carbohydrates cause, in inverted commas, type 2 diabetes, but we've…we also hear that it's caused by being a higher body weight.So, I'd love to hear you unpack that a little bit and, and kind of…yeah, is it a similar thing to what I just said about carbohydrates or is there anything else that you would add to that?Erin: So the thing that I go back to a lot with that, I guess, argument is that there's a really big difference between a correlation and a causation.So the example that I give with that is that as soon as ice cream sales go up, there's also an increase in shark attacks. Like, those things are correlated, but we can't say, we can't draw from that that correlation.Laura: Yeah, that ice cream causes shark attacks.Erin: Shark attacks, yeah. Right. And with that one, there's a really obvious, you know, third factor, which is weather, that contributes to both of those things going up, and it's not quite so clear with weight and, and type 2 diabetes.But there's one theory, which is that weight gain can be a symptom of type 2 diabetes. Another problem with that argument is that it really ignores just the natural body diversity that exists and occurs in the world. There are plenty, plenty of people in higher weight bodies who don't have diabetes and If it were true that higher weight causes type 2 diabetes, then all people in larger bodies would, would have type 2 diabetes, and that is...absolutely not true at all and the research shows thatLaura: And I guess the inverse is also true, right, that people who have a lower body weight, a lower BMI also get type 2 diabetes. And so it's, it's again, not looking at the, the correlation and drawing kind of the cause and effect conclusion, but also thinking about, okay, what other factors are going on that we're not seeing?And I think, to my mind, at least, it goes back to some of the things that I talked about before, some of the things that are, well, a lot of things that are outside of our control, like again, how we are treated in society, and how that, you know, that has been shown to like..even things like the Whitehall studies.Are you familiar with the Whitehall studies? Erin: No.Laura: So the Whitehall studies are kind of what I think Michael Marmot's work on the social determinants of health are based on, whereby they studied like civil servants who worked in Whitehall, which is like part of the government in the UK. And basically they stratified, I think it was mostly on men. Whitehall 1 was mostly done on men, because, of course, we need to know more about men, but this was, this was, these studies were done, done a while back and they have since added women. But effectively they stratified people by like their pay grade essentially, and they found that people who were in a lower pay grade, you know, they all worked in the same place. There was a lot of factors that were very similar about these men. But one of the key aspects was how much like autonomy they had in their job and what their income was. And they found that the people who hadl ess autonomy, so they were like a lower pay grade, basically, even though they had sort of overall similar working conditions, that the people in the lower pay grades had, I think, higher risk of cardiovascular disease compared to upper management and that kind of thing.And so it's a similar sort of effect here. And we also see it with like racism and anti-fat bias that there are all these structural things that contribute to our health in really, really complex ways. So I feel like that is a big part of what happens with type 2 diabetes that again, like kind of just seems to get overlooked by the keto bros.Hopefully some of that rambling made sense, but I'd like to maybe now think about...For anyone who has received this prediabetes diagnosis or a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, like, one of the first line pieces of advice that a GP or even a dietitian might give is around weight loss and around limiting carbohydrates in the diet.Where to start, really, Erin? Like, in terms of both of those. But basically, I would be interested to hear from you. Is that where you would start with someone? Or like, even putting it another way, are those helpful places to start? I mean, again, a leading question.Erin: The short answer is no, I do not find that to be a helpful place to start.You know, I'm really looking at this from the perspective of the population that I work with, who are people who have, who have restricted their eating many, many, many times throughout their life, or engaged in intentional weight loss many, many, many times in their life.Laura: Sorry, I just wanted to clarify as well for anyone who's like newer to the podcast that you say intentional weight loss and when you say that someone who has restricted their food for whatever, like, who has restricted their food, that doesn't necessarily mean someone who has an eating disorder, right? Like, like, what I'm trying to get at that people might not immediately realise is that that applies to people who have been chronic dieters, like people who have been dieting their whole life, right? That also kind of falls under that umbrella, right?Erin: Yeah, absolutely. And most people fall under that umbrella versus the, like, the full eating disorder umbrella. So yeah, it really applies to…most people who have been socialised as female, I would be so bold as to say that most, most people who have been socialised as female and many others have, have restricted their eating or dieted or gone on a lifestyle change, many, many times.And. So, because…I'm trying to think of how to say this without getting too into the weeds of, of, um, like clinical weeds…but because the body is hardwired against famine, what will happen if someone tries this again or says like, okay, I've been told to lose weight and restrict carbs or eat less carbs because I've had this diagnosis of prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, what will happen is things will look, quote, better for a little while. And so that's why, that's why the research shows like, oh, yeah, that's the thing that we need to do is because for 12 to 24 months, things are gonna get better. And when I say better, I mean, glucose levels will go lower.Laura: I was just gonna say because research in this area is generally done over like a fairly short term period where maybe If you're really, like, persistent, you can diet for that length of time, but yeah, so that's kind of, I guess what I'm trying to say is that over that shorter time frame, people, especially if they're given lots of support, like in a research study setting, might be able to continue with a restrictive diet for a bit longer, right? But then what happens?Erin: Yeah, but then the body…since the body's hardwired against famine, the body will start to engage in all of these compensatory mechanisms. Yeah. Basically like that, that carb restriction or yeah, any kind of caloric restriction, but especially carb restriction will kind of start the spring loading effect for the body to protect against that famine at all costs, which means that glucose levels will go up higher than they were before, and weight does the same thing, insulin level, same thing. So If we follow people longer than that 12 to 24 months, what we see is that these metabolic health markers are worse than they were at the beginning.Laura: Interesting. Yeah. So, I guess what, what you're saying is... And I see this in practice as well, is that people, yeah, in the shorter term, they might be able to restrict their eating, they may even lose a little bit of weight, or maybe even a lot of weight in some instances, and then in the short term, those biomarkers might seem as though they're improving.But then, because the body is, as you said, hardwired to, yeah, to protect itself, to move, like, protect itself against starvation, and the body can't really tell the difference between, you know, famine. And self imposed or medically imposed dieting and restriction, it eventually fights back against that in the form of like, it dials up cravings for these foods.It might also…like your metabolism, like all of that, those metabolic functions that we talked about right at the beginning, they start to slow down, which means that you start to maintain your weight or, or even put weight on. And what I see – and I'm, I'm curious if you see this as well – is that that degree of restriction that is often asked of people in these very low carb diets that sometimes get prescribed, certainly here in the UK on the NHS or that a lot that are sort of endorsed by a lot of diabetes organizations even, they cause people to fall into a binge restrict cycle. So rather than having kind of a more…moderate's not the right word, but like having a healthier relationship with food where you maybe are eating more regularly, but maybe in a way that feels more attuned to your body and also caring for yourself in all of these other ways that are really important. I don't want to just put that emphasis on food, but we're talking about food here. That what you end up happening is people restrict, restrict, restrict, but then they can't maintain that restriction forever. And so they end up in a blowout, right? Like where they're eating past the point of comfortable fullness, which can send their blood glucose levels sky fucking high, and I don't mean that in like a shaming way. I'm not blaming any individual person who has been caught in this cycle because it's not your fault. But just to illustrate like how kind of messed up that advice is that it can send people sort of, yeah, into this, this downward spiral of binge restrict, binge restrict.And I think what's kind of important to note here is that you could have someone who has what looks like on paper, perfect A1C, right? But they are binging and restricting, binging and restricting, and that the average blood glucose level over time looks like…you know, on paper, it looks great. But if you were to actually look at what was happening to that person and their relationship with food and how they were feeling, you might see a different picture.Erin: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's a really good point. A really good point. And to add on to what you were saying about it not being someone's fault, that binge restrict cycle is, is a very predictable result of the exact recommendations that people are being given. People are being given these recommendations to restrict calories, restrict carbs, and that is…the most predictable outcome of that is weight gain, higher glucose, and that binge restrict cycle when we look at the long, in the long term.Laura: Yeah, and I think that there's, there's something kind of psychological that goes on here as well when we ask people to really focus on the minutiae of detail around carbohydrates, around what they're eating, that that in and of itself, like that mental restriction can create, like, what I call the fuck it effect, like, or, yeah, just even the threat of restriction and deprivation can kind of trip a switch for people who have had an experience or had a history of disordered eating or chronic dieting or, you know, even, even people who have just tried to maintain a quote, a healthy lifestyle or wellness lifestyle and it really lead to problems for them.So, Erin, for anyone who's listening to this, who is like, well, my doctor has told me to lose weight. My doctor has told me that I need to cut out carbs or my diabetes nurse or my dietitian. But you're telling me, and actually my lived experience is that that's not a great option for me. Where can people start? Like, or more specifically, like, where do you start with people who come to you with this exact?Erin: The first place I start is by repeating over and over that you did not cause your diabetes. This is absolutely not your fault. You did all the things right, quote, right. Like there's nothing that you could have done differently to make this different, to make this not happen. Because like you were saying, Laura, that's most of the, the biggest factors here are stress, trauma, marginalisation. Those, those are the biggest factors and you don't, those are things are completely out of – and genetics! I didn't, we haven't even mentioned…Laura: Yeah, there's the genetic thing too.Erin: So, I think that's really hard for people to believe because it's the opposite of what they've been told for so long. There's so much of like, if you don't blah blah blah, you're gonna get diabetes. And so I repeat that over and over, that you did not cause your diabetes, it's not your fault. And then the next thing that we talk about is actually eating enough. So making sure that you're nourishing your body enough. Mm hmm. There's a lot of, like, biochemical metabolic processes that we can talk about about the why behind that. But I think we've, we've talked a lot about that today so we can take our words for it. That eating enough is just really, really important.Laura: Yeah, I think there's something there about sort of, you know, if it's available to you, like doing some work maybe around figuring out what your hunger and fullness cues look like, feel like. Because, again, just purely anecdotally, I've noticed that people who are, you know, not so attuned to those signals might, you know, put off, not eat enough throughout the day, so that then it does leave them feeling a bit more vulnerable to bingeing or, you know, like eating in a way that that feels like out of control or chaotic.Not that eating has to be this like super controlled thing, but also just recognising how unsettling and disturbing it can feel, if it feels like you have no say in what's going on as well. So yeah, I love that that's kind of like your, your starting point is like, hold up, are you actually eating enough?Erin: Mm hmm. And I say this in, you know, in this blanket way, talking to you today, because way more often than not, I see that people are not eating enough. And people are shocked at like, wait, I eat that much?Laura: Yeah. And, and I just want to, like, underscore that point. Especially for my clients who are fat or in bigger bodies, plus size, whatever language you feel comfortable using there. When I've said to clients in bigger bodies before, like, I don't think you're eating enough. There is just like a…I don't know, like, just this complete disbelief because it's so counter to what they've always been told, which is like you're eating too much. So, yeah, I just wanted to like flag that as well that like this is not just a thin people thing. That's for everyone.Erin: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for highlighting that.Laura: Are there any other like, kind of like, I suppose what I'm thinking of is like low hanging fruit, like things that are like, maybe not easy for people, but like, that might feel more accessible. That's maybe the right word.Erin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think it, you know, really, really depends on the person and their, their experiences with food and movement and the medical system and their body, but some other things that may or may not be low hanging fruit are finding a doctor or a, or a medical team that you really vibe with, or at least that you hate less, we can say, like that feels less terrible. Because one of the biggest, most helpful things you can do with any type of diabetes is monitoring. And when I say monitoring, that can be anything from, well, mostly that's just like checking in with your medical team like quarterly or a few times a year, depending on what's going on for you. And if, if you absolutely dread it, that's not going to happen, right? Like you're not going to be able to be monitored.So finding somewhere that is less terrible, or maybe even someone you vibe with is really important.Laura: Yeah. That's really good advice. And I'm just…I'm thinking about the pathways that we have here in the UK and as far as I know, and it will probably depend slightly on different NHS trusts, but as far as I know you get an annual diabetes review for type 2 diabetes and I'm just thinking like about that in relation to the point that you're making which is that, yeah, having that check in that support just…you know not necessarily like a full review but like just to, yeah, see how things are going and, and see like what you might need, like that might not be available to everyone, certainly in this country. And I'm sure it depends on things like insurance and stuff in other countries, but I guess what I'm learning is just how fucking atrocious a lot of medical…or like not atrocious, that's not what I mean. But like, how under-resourced a lot of medical systems are in terms of like giving people the things that would be most useful, which is again why we're like, here's a diet sheet off you go, and that's not helpful.Erin: Yeah. No. Yeah. Not helpful at all. Gosh, that's, that's so maddening. t's really easy for us here in the U. S. to be like, uh, everywhere else has it better with healthcare, but it's really grounding to hear that not everybody's figured it out.Laura: It's like, what, 13 years of a Tory government? So. It's not surprising that our healthcare system has been absolutely obliterated.And again, it will depend on the area that you're in as to how good that care is. And that's not a reflection on any, like, individual practitioner within that system. Like, we all know how hard they are working and how kind of up against it they are. But what I'm hearing you say, really, Erin, is that, like, the going in hard with, like, weight loss and restricting carbohydrates, that is probably counterproductive to the overall aim of, like, caring for yourself, and that there are some other things that we can, like, think about and incorporate that might…Okay, they're maybe not such a like, go hard or go home approach, but that maybe they're more sustainable. Maybe they're like, kinder and gentler. And I think that reminds me of something that I will say to people if they come to me and they're like, you know, my doctor has flagged this, I'm feeling really stressed is…this is not an emergency. Right, like this is your arm is not hanging off or whatever it is. We can take a beat. And if there's other stuff that you just need to like, get a handle on, like life stuff or whatever it is, like, maybe this isn't your top top priority right now. Like, what are some like, small things that we can do to help you feel like you're caring for yourself or are being cared for that don't sort of, are maybe not going like full throttle, like, you know, what the common narrative is that we should be like cutting out carbs and losing all of this weight. But what are maybe some like softer things that we can start with? Yeah. Oh, well, Erin, thank you so much. This has been really helpful. And I know that you have a ton of resources on your website, on your Instagram that people can dig into. And I'll link to all of that in, in the show notes. I also want to mention that a while back at LCIE, we produced a guide, a weight inclusive guide to insulin resistance, and it has some more information about things like medication, supplementation, and again, some of those like lower hanging fruit things that might be helpful if this is something you're navigating and it has, you know, information about what we talked about today, Erin, the lock and key thing and like the how ‘prediabetes' is a dubious diagnosis. So I'll also link to that for anyone who's interested in the show notes. Okay, Erin, before I let you go, At the end of every episode, my guest and I share what they've been snacking on. So it can be anything, you know, a show, a podcast, a literal snack, whatever it is. I'd love to hear what recommendation you have for the listeners.Erin: Can I share a couple? Laura: Of course! Yeah. Erin: Okay, cool. Well, I'm literally snacking on all things peanut butter, which I don't know if you guys like peanut butter, but I. Just had some peanut butter pretzels again recently and I was like, gosh… Laura: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, are they the Trader Joe's ones? Erin: Yes. Laura: Okay. So last Christmas, my brother sent me like a huge ass box of stuff 'cause he lives in Oklahoma. From Trader Joe's. And it had those peanut butter pretzels in them and I hadn't had them before. And we don't have good snacks here. I'm just gonna say like the snack game in the States is just like…it's so much better than it is here, but I know those pretzels and they're so good. They're so good, yeah.We're gonna do a, like a snack box exchange again this year. So I sent him like, he loves chocolate, so I sent him like a ton of like Dairy Milk and like chocolates from... the UK and he sends me stuff from the US. So like, that's, that's fun. But I'm going to add them to the list because they are so good.Erin: They are so good. And you can, if you're in the States, you can also get them at Costco. Very similar ones.Laura: Okay.Erin: In bulk. Yeah. Big ol thing. So that's what I'm snacking on. My other thing is the podcast Normal Gossip.Laura: Oh yeah! I have heard a couple of episodes of that. And like, for anyone who hasn't heard it, can you explain the premise?Erin: Yeah, they get a story sent in from someone, like a true story, and then they share the story, like they're gossiping with a guest on, and they'll pause a lot in the story where they're like, okay, so this is what's going on, what would you do next? And so there's a little bit of like, choose your own adventure that I think is really fun.And then it's just so silly, but it's really nice to like, have some silliness.Laura: Oh, 100%. In the mess of everything. Do you have, like, a favourite episode that you would... Is there like a standout?Erin: Well, I just listened to one that was a live episode that I think it was like the plant story or something like that.And it was fun because they had a guest where they would ask them what they'd do. And then they'd have people raise their hands if they like absolutely disagreed in the audience. And then. So you just got a lot…there was even more choose your own adventure.Laura: There's like, yeah, more back and forth. Okay. Yeah. Like the plant story. I'm going to get you to send me the link and I will include it in the show notes because yeah, I am deep down a research rabbit hole at the moment looking at folic acid and folate and I'm like digesting all this biochemistry and I find that that happens a lot that I listen to a lot of like podcasts that are related to my work in some way and I forget the podcast can be fun.Erin: Uh huh!Laura: Yeah, I need to get back into that. All right, real quick, mine. So this is just like a fun, festive thing that I came across the other day, which I was looking for some new shoes and I came across gold sparkly converse high tops. Erin: Oh my God. Laura: And they are so cool. So I bought a pair. I don't know if I'm going to…they haven't arrived yet. I'm gonna try them on, but I feel like gold is a neutral, right? Like, it will go with everything.Erin: Oh, that's true. When I first heard you said neutral, I was like, are they? Is gold neutral? But it does go with anything.Laura: Yeah, so I'm gonna try them on, see what they're like, but I will, I will include a link in the show notes because, yeah, from the picture, I haven't seen them in real life yet, but from the picture, they don't look like they're too over the top and I feel like…if you know if like depending on what you're wearing like you probably get away with them at the playground, right?Erin: Totally. Totally. Laura: This is what I'm telling myself anyway. I kind of text them to all of my friends. I was like, what do you think of this? And there was like a lukewarm reception, but I think, I think I need new friends is really…with better taste is what, is kind of where I've come down on it! Maybe I'll put them on my Instagram stories and see what people think. Erin: There you go. Laura: All right, Erin. This was…uh, I was gonna say this was really fun, that little bit at the end was really fun. Like, all the bullshit around weight loss and low carb diets, not so fun, but I'm glad that we got to unpack, unpack that a little bit.For anyone who wants to dig into your work and your resources a little bit more, where can they find you and more about your work?Erin: My website is a good place. I have some free resources there and I try to update my blog with some kind of my push, my pushing back beliefs on kind of diabetes diet culture. And that is ErinPhillips.com. No, erinphillipsnutrition.com. Laura: Should we fact check your website?! Erin: I tried to buy erinphillips.com, but it wasn't available. So, erinphillipsnutrition.com. And then my Instagram, I think it's @ErinPhillipsNutrition.Laura: Okay, well we…just make sure you click on the link in the show notes because Erin's not a reliable resource on her own social media! So we'll make sure people get there in the end.All right, thank you so much, I really appreciate it Erin. Erin: Yeah, thank you, Laura. Thanks so much for having me.OUTRO:Laura: Thanks so much for listening to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. You can support the show by subscribing in your podcast player and leaving a rating and review. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack? universe, you can become a paid subscriber.It's just £5 a month or £50 for the year. As well as getting tons of cool perks you help make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today.  Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas. Our sound engineer is Lucy Dearlove. Fiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure that they're out on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser, and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks so much for listening. ICYMI this week: Gift Concierge + Mini Gift Guide* Fundamentals: Helping Kids build a Good Relationship with Sugar* Here's Why You Might Want to Pass On Getting Your Kid Weighed in School* The One-upMUMship of Kid Food Instagram This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Hey and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast. I have been so excited to share this week's episode with you. Our guest today is Kirstie Beaven from Sonshine magazine - a publication dedicated to raising boys for a more equal world. Kirstie and I talk about how seemingly innocuous things like dinosaur t-shirts and shark pants send a message to our kids about who they can and can't be, how they should expect to be treated, and how they should treat others. Kirstie gives us a fascinating history lesson on how kids' clothes became gendered (spoiler, colonialism and capitalism have a lot to do with it) and why these have massive repercussions for gender equality. We also talk about why Kirstie is low-key obsessed with pants (the underwear kind), and why we can't just empower girls in a vacuum; we also need to be teaching boys emotional literacy and allowing them to have an identity outside of the ‘big boy', or the sporty one. Just a heads up that we talk about some distressing statistics around sexual harassment, suicide, and violence towards women and girls, but not in explicit detail.This is without a doubt one of my favourite episodes we've done on the CIHAS pod - if you've never listened before then this is a great place to start, even if you don't have kids. Don't forget to leave a review in your podcast player if you enjoy this episode - or let me know what you think in the comments below. Find out more about Kirstie's work here.Follow her on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura's newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here's the transcript in full:INTROKirstie: That's one of the things I really want to do, is just gently point out the things that we take for granted that we say are normal or natural, but they're not. They're totally constructed. Many of the things that we just take for…oh yeah, pink and blue. Pink is a girls' colour, blue is a boys' colour. We think of that as completely normal and it's totally made up and it's so recent.Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we talk about appetite, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter. Today I'm talking to Kirstie Beavan.Kirstie is the founder and editor of Sonshine Magazine, raising boys for a more equal world. Sonshine is a print and digital quarterly, as well as a social profile for parents who want to change the way we talk to and about our sons, to create a better society for all children.I've been so excited to share this episode. We recorded it a while back and I'm really glad that you're able to finally listen to it. It's such a great discussion about gender inequality and why seemingly innocuous things like how we dress our kids have really long term implications for their emotional development and the roles that they learn to occupy in society. Kirstie is a wealth of knowledge about the gendered history of kids clothing, which you won't be surprised to hear is entirely rooted in capitalism, rather than any real biological or physical differences between sexes. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation, and if you don't already, you need to get your hands on a copy of Sonshine Magazine, which is available in print and digitally. I'll link to it in the show notes so you can order yours. It would make a really lovely holiday gift for your co-parent or some other parents that you have in your life, maybe even for yourself. But before we get to today's episode, I'd love to tell you all about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter. And of course there are cool perks like being able to comment on posts, our Thursday threads, Snacky Bits, and exclusive posts on intuitive eating, weight inclusive health, and responsive feeding. But more than all of that, being reader and listener supported means I can better control who comes into this space. In other words, we can keep the trolls and the fatphobes out. And if they do sneak in, at least they've had to pay for the privilege, and I can still boot them out. Having control over who comes into the space is essential for creating a safe, nurturing space away from diet culture where we can discuss difficult topics like how we deal with diet-y friends, gender division of labour, and body shame. All the way through to more light hearted stuff like the weird shit that mummy influencers say. If you're still not convinced, then here's a recent testimonial from someone in the CIHAS community. So they wrote: “I wish I had access to the advice and information you share when my kids were little, but it's still valuable now that they're nearly adults for a couple of reasons at least. Firstly, having only been diagnosed as autistic in middle age, I have had a complicated relationship with food for most of my life. From childhood fussy eating, through stigma over my higher body weight and internalised fat phobia, to temporary success with dieting, followed by the inevitable return to my previous size. Your writing has helped me cast off many of my own hang ups about food, weight, and health, making me a better role model for my kids. Secondly, your advice helps me to support and advise my kids with their own food, health, and body image issues, and to advocate for them to family and friends. I believe in showing my appreciation for people who provide me with help and support, at least by saying thank you, and where possible, with feedback and or financially. I can't financially support everyone I'd like to all of the time. But I do what I can when I can. Thank you for all you do Laura.”So what are you waiting for? You can sign up today at laurathomas.substack.com or find the link in your show notes. It's £5 a month or £5 for the year and if you can't stretch that right now just email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk with the word “Snacks” in the subject line and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription. No questions asked. You can also gift a subscription to a friend for the holidays to give them unfettered access to the CIHAS community. I can even send you a gift certificate. Just email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk and we'll hook you up.  Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.All right team, let's get to today's conversation with Kirstie Beavan from Sonshine Magazine. MAIN EPISODEAll right, Kirstie, to start with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?Kirstie: I'm Kirstie and I run Sonshine Magazine, which is a quarterly print and digital magazine and a social profile and community looking at raising.Laura: You said that with sort of like eyes rolled so we'll come back to that!Kirstie: I'm looking at raising boys for a more equal world so specifically it's parenting, thinking about parenting through the lens really of how we talk to and about our boys.Laura: Okay, and I'm curious to know, like, where this interest in gender equality comes from and like what spurred you to start a magazine about it?Kirstie: I think…so I've got two children and when my daughter was born, I think I felt more confident about how I was going to break down gender stereotypes for…I felt like, you know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, which is a time of real flux in terms of how women were portrayed and expected to behave. It's a real…there's lots of progress and lots of backlash. And I think I felt – by the time I had my first child who happened to be a daughter – I felt quite confident about the things that I wasn't going to do and the stereotypes that I wasn't going to inflict on her and how I was going to help her navigate the world that I had already grown into womanhood through. And then two years later I had my son and I started to see that there were a lot of negative stereotypes associated with raising boys. And I felt like I had absolutely no model for managing that as a mother, not as a father, obviously. I just felt like, Oh, this is something I hadn't really considered or thought about. So I went to look for…where are the resources to help me parent a boy who I want to be able to grow up in a way that's free of the strictures of sort of gender stereotyping, but also who is going to be what we might now call a good man? You know, where are the resources for that? And I couldn't find any.Laura: Right. There wasn't a playbook.Kirstie: No, there's really few and far between. There weren't websites talking about it at the time. There weren't Facebook groups dedicated to this. There wasn't something that sort of scratched the itch that I had.And I had been working in content. I work mainly in the museums and gallery sector, working on the stuff that you see on the walls when you go into a gallery, like labels. Laura: I always wondered who wrote that stuff!Kirstie: Yeah, it was me. So that sort of stuff. So like presenting information for a general audience, that's been my job for a long time.So I was like, well, I'm a writer. I'm going to write one. I'm going to write the things that people needed, or that I needed really. And that's how I started.Laura: So you found that there weren't the resources that you as a new parent to a boy needed to help you navigate parenting that child in, so that they didn't grow up to be an asshole, basically. I think?Kirstie: Yes, exactly. I mean, yeah, partly that, but also partly because I noticed a lot of things about how my children interacted. Having an elder daughter and a younger son, I mean, I think it's the same if you…for many children, if you have an older sibling and a younger sibling quite close in age, that the younger one, is desperate to do all the things that the older ones do.So they're like, because, and I get it, like there's this person who's so close to you, but they're just better at everything than you are. So you're like, I just want to be them. Like that looks so good. And so she was like the leader. She was, you know, he was following her around, wanted to be just like her, wanted to wear her clothes, do the things that she liked doing, all of this stuff.And I sort of came to realise that I was really happy with this idea of my daughter. breaking stereotypes. I was really confident with this, like, Oh yeah, she's, you know…dress her in blues and darks and comfy clothes and all of that sort of stuff. And that seemed…that sat very easily with me. But when my son is saying, well, I actually want to wear a pink tutu, yeah, a dress and we're going to the shops. And I'm actually feeling a bit uncomfortable about that. Oh right, why am I feeling uncomfortable? I'm not uncomfortable about my daughter wearing trousers. I'm uncomfortable about my son wearing a dress. What is it in me? Because there's no problem for either of them. What is it in me that is the problem here?And having to confront that I have a problem with boys doing things that are feminine or coded as feminine. And what does that mean about how I feel about things being girly? Basically made me feel like, actually, that's not okay. That is something that I need to think about because the message I give to both my son and my daughter, if I don't want someone to be girly is because I think being girly is not aspirational because I think being a girl is not enough.So that is something that I felt like, Oh, that's work I have to do. That's work I have to unpick. And I'm the sort of person who likes information to unpick that stuff. And so there just wasn't that information out there to help me with that.  Laura:Yeah, that's so interesting that you, I guess, noticed that tension in yourself, because you're absolutely right.There's social acceptance of, for want of a better phrase, maybe like ‘tomboyishness', where girls can, you know, have names that are traditionally masculine names and they can wear trousers and they can climb trees and that's all very well, but we don't have the same leniency for boys who want to do things that are perceived as being ‘more feminine'.And I have the same thing. I have a three year old boy, you know, assigned male at birth, but you know, we try, we like…we let him wear the tutu to the shop and it is, there is a discomfort that I've noticed in myself that I have to work through and kind of push through and I just haven't gone to the lengths of creating an entire magazine about it!But I, I'm really impressed that you have to kind of work through your shit. You made a whole magazine about it. But I'm curious, like, why a magazine and not, say, a podcast or, you know, and I know you do a lot of stuff on social media, which we can also talk about, but why did that feel like the medium for you?Kirstie: I think it's partly because of the way my brain works. So I prefer to organize things. In a way where I, I'm thematically grouping things.Laura: Okay, yes. I just... I get that instinct very much.Kirstie: I just wanted it to feel like, I didn't want to write a diary, I didn't want to write a straight up blog. And I wanted it to be written content, that's where I feel most confident expressing my ideas.But I didn't want to share too much actually about my children. Because, because... My experience as a parent is my experience, but their experience of being a child is their experience and that felt like that's…their private. It's not for me to talk about that for them. Laura: Right. You don't want to commodify your child, you know, to make money and capital.Kirstie: That's not for me. That's not for me. And I didn't want to feel like I was sharing their lives without their permission, but also telling a story about their lives, which maybe isn't the story that they would tell later on. Yeah. So I wanted to sort of use what I'd noticed in my own experience of parenting to give me a jumping off point to think about lots of other things.And so it made sense to me to work it like a magazine. I started online. So I would publish a series of articles grouped around a theme: clothes, books, screen time, whatever it is. You know, looking at these things, but through this idea of what have I noticed in this space about gender stereotyping and the constraints placed on children time after time, but through lots of different themes.Laura: Yeah. So it becomes a lens to explore a particular topic.Kirstie: Exactly. And the magazine lends itself to that. So each magazine now has a theme and I collate articles around that theme. Yeah. But all with that thread that runs through them, thinking about how you might just. poke at the things that we take for granted.I think that's one of the things I really want to do is just gently point out the things that we take for granted that we say are normal or natural, but they're not. They're totally constructed. Many of the things that we just take for…oh yeah, pink and blue. Pink is a girl's colour. Blue is a boy's colour. We think of that as completely normal and it's totally made up and it's so recent that that has come into being.Laura: Oh, really? Do you know the history of that?Kirstie: Yeah, so basically up until the sort of 1800s, a bit later, all children are wearing white because...Laura: Why? That's, that's a terrible idea!Kirstie: Well, I guess it was probably grey, right? Laura: Yeah. Kirstie: But they're basically wearing stuff they can wash easily. You can produce it and wash it easily. So they're wearing simple, plain colours, stuff you can pass down. All children are wearing dresses until seven, five to seven.Laura: It sounds like it's really, like, utilitarian, right? Like is that the right word? Kirstie: Yes. Yes. It is a bit. So there's this idea that children's clothing is, well, there's lots of things at play and I'm not a fashion historian.Laura: For the purposes of this podcast, you are.Kirstie: So children are wearing clothes that can be washed easily, that are good for toilet training. They're good for, you know, being out and about, right? There is a movement to make children's clothes less constrictive. Particularly for boys, and that's sort of in the 1800s and French ideas around children should be allowed to be outside more and, you know, changing parenting ideals. What happens is that there's a boom in fabric production, which is obviously based on plantations of cotton and exploitation of enslaved people. It's also based on the industrial revolution in places like the UK, which means that using child labour and industrial processes. Cotton can be produced on a huge scale. So there's a lot of exploitation that goes into mass producing fabrics. And then simultaneously there's a movement in chemical production of pigments. So you can start to make colours for clothes. And once you can mass produce fabrics and you can actually cheaply produce colours, for clothes, for the fabric to make clothes on, you know, you can have a boom in fashion for men, for women, and also for children, kids. There's a sort of like, Oh, actually. As a marketer, you know, as a producer of cloth, I want to sell more of this stuff. So as a marketer, what tools have I got at my disposal for that? So one of the things is, you don't want people to hand clothes down. So you don't want people to pass clothes just down and down and down. You want to make them so that they can't be passed on and they have to buy a whole new outfit every time their child grows. So it's building consumption into the processes. And so you come up with reasons for people to buy different things. So by the 1930s, 1940s, people are sort of thinking, Oh, how can we sell more of this stuff? So by the 1940s, there were catalogues going round the department stores and stuff like that saying, ‘these are the clothes that you should buy', ‘this is our new season,' ‘this is what everyone is wearing this season'. And it's the same for children's clothes. And they're looking at ways at dividing the children's clothes market by colour. So some of the catalogues produced around that time are saying pink is for brown eyed infants, because that's better for their complexion. And blue, you know…so all of these like weird things, but pinks and blues, but the idea was: pastels were the best ones for the children. And then someone comes up with it…there's a, I forget what it's called, but you can find a pamphlet, if someone comes up with the idea that pink should be for the girls and blue should be for the boys, though you can find other ones, other catalogues and fashion plates that suggest that pink is a stronger colour because it's associated with the red coats that men would have worn in battle, blah, blah, blah, that that should have been the colour for boys. Just made up, basically. Just all made up. Pink and blue is all made up. But it's stuck. And it's stuck with us. And pink got cemented as a feminine colour. By…now I don't want to get it wrong, but I'm going to say Mamie Eisenhower, who was the first lady in the 1940s, and she redecorated the White House and with all these special pink bathrooms and was her favorite colour. And it became sort of cemented, this idea of baby pink as being really feminine, definitely coded girly colour. And ties in with lots of other ideas around femininity that come in through the 1950s.Laura: Yeah, well, you may not be a fashion historian, but I really enjoyed that little foray into understanding, yeah, the, I mean, just the super problematic history that that what we feel is so ‘normal', was built on.Like, you didn't have to scratch the surface, barely at all, to find the colonialism, the violence, the capitalism, like, the effects of all of these things on. Yeah, how we end up ultimately dressing our kids today and what is coded as feminine, what is coded as masculine…and yeah, I remember when, when Avery was born just me and my husband like eye rolling anytime we got a blue card in the post, you know, like there was just like a sea of blue and we really appreciated our friends who'd like, who knew us really well and went out of the way to, to find a card that wasn't blue.And that's just, that's just such a small, like, meaningless thing in the grand scheme of things, like the colour of your baby card, but you know, there are repercussions to how we dress kids and I think this is something that you talk about so well, not just in terms of like the colour of the clothes – although that I think is, is important as well – but also just like the practicalities of dressing our kids. Maybe practicality isn't the right word, but I guess the functionality of how we dress our kids. And I think you've kind of got a bit of a reputation on Instagram for being the ‘pants lady'.So I'd love you to talk a little bit about that, like what your research has found when it comes to, not just pants, but just generally the discrepancies between clothing for girls and clothing for boys.Kirstie: Yeah. I mean, it's a dubious claim to fame, isn't it? The ‘pants lady'.Laura: I would take it. It's a great moniker to have.Kirstie: I mean, that is…some of the stuff that I've talked about is, that's one of the key things, I think, because people really notice it. It started because my daughter asked for a pair of pants with dinosaurs on them. And this is when we were potty training and I thought, great, dinosaurs, that should be easy. And then she'll want to wear them. And then potty training would be much easier. Yeah. And I went looking for them and I couldn't find any girls pants that had dinosaurs on them. Laura: It doesn't surprise me, but… Kirstie: No, I mean it is a bit better now. This is eight, nine years ago. Yeah, so I couldn't find any, and then I found some boys ones and I thought, oh, well she doesn't know.And then I got them home and I was so shocked to get them out of the packet and find that they were bigger, roomier. They were beautifully…they had these incredible overlocked seams, all the elastic was covered. I noticed that they were about, they were two centimeters bigger in the waistband, basically, than the girls pants, same brand, and were made of a thicker, higher grade cotton. They just were better. They just were loads better. And so I thought, well, maybe that's just the, this is just an anomaly that I've picked up. Because you know, often when you go to a shop, you can pick up two things that are the same size, but actually when you try them on, they're not quite the same. They're different. So there's all of that. So I thought, well, maybe this is it. But actually having looked into it now over the last eight years, that is across the board that the girls' pants in particular are cut to a smaller pattern than the boys pants, and they're made with flimsier fabric. They're more badly made. They're itchy. They've got this lacy trim. They're made with a lighter weight cotton, which has less stretch and give. They're cut shorter in the backside, so they don't come up as high. So this is comparing girls briefs with boys briefs. They have a narrower gusset. So they're more likely to ride up your backside, basically, give you a wedgie.Laura: Ah, is that why that happens? Because of the size of the...Kirstie: Yes, because of how it's cut across the bottom.Laura: Yeah, yeah. No, I can, I can imagine it. As someone who has, like, a lot of problems finding... Like decent underwear. Yeah, like don't get me started on how far downhill M&S underwear has gone over the past few years.Kirstie: Totally agree.Laura: But yeah, I guess I just, I hadn't thought of it…because that was going to be my next question for you was like, so what, right? What's the big deal here? And I think you've already kind of answered it, but it looks like you've got more to say, so…Kirstie: Yeah, I have got more to say. Because the big deal, actually, what it made me realise is that a significant proportion of our children are going to school wearing an uncomfortable piece of underwear. So many people, when I post about this on Instagram, so many people say to me, ‘Oh, my daughter is always getting a wedgie'. ‘My daughter is always complaining that her pants are uncomfortable'.I find it myself, I find the seams and labels inside clothing can be really irritating. Yeah. Giving this advice to oh, just wear them inside out, blah, blah, blah. No! Just let's make..Laura: Buy the boys ones, Kirstie: Kids deserve to be comfortable and it made me think how different my life would have been if I had been wearing clothes that were comfortable, if I'd been wearing clothes that weren't for looking at but were for playing in.It's not just pants actually, it comes across all areas of children's clothing. So you see it in girls' trousers versus boys' trousers. You're more likely to find a knee reinforcement in a boy's trouser than you are in a girl's trouser because the expectation is that boys are harder on their trousers than girls.Well, yeah, I mean, obviously you are if your pants aren't riding up your bum all the time. And also, if your shoes…so if you look at the difference between girls' shoes and boys' shoes, you'll see that boy's shoes tend to have a thicker sole. They tend to be waterproof. They tend to be made with a toe cover so that you can climb or run more easily.And if you look at girls' shoes, particularly noticeable in very, very little toddler shoes and school shoes. You'll see that the girl's shoes come with really thin soles, no grip. They often have holes in the top, so they're not really waterproof. They're often made of patent leather, so they're shiny, so they…you can't scuff them up. I mean, you will scuff them up and then you'll be in trouble. So what is what you say? So what? The thing is, it's all based on our expectations of children, our expectations as adults on children. It's nothing to do with whether they, as individuals…what they like doing. You know, if you've got a child that likes running, they like running. It's not whether they're a boy or a girl, it's whether they like running. If you've got a kid that feels more regulated, if they've climbed something and swung on something, it's not because they're a boy or a girl, it's just who they are. That's what their bodies are asking for. But we are channeling them societally down these routes, down these expected routes of you should be more active and you shouldn't be more active just simply based on your genitalia. And it does actually have impact on children. You can see it if you go to any primary school, you can see who's taking up the space in the playground and it is 90% likely to be the boys.Laura: And that wasn't a…in case it came across this way, it wasn't an accusatory…it was meant to be a provocative question because I am 100% with you on this.And I think you articulated it so beautifully when you said, you know, we're setting a precedent, we're setting an expectation that girls clothes are to be looked at and are there to be pretty, whereas boys clothes are designed to be functional and for movement and yeah, to let them really be…engage in a full variety of experiences that we're inadvertently excluding girls from, right?Movement, getting messy, getting scuffed up, getting dirty, whatever, whatever it is.Kirstie: Yeah, it's two sides of the same coin, actually, because you see it with girls that the expectation is that their clothes will be pretty and good to look at. And I particularly don't want to have…in my children's underwear, I particularly don't want to have my daughter thinking that her underwear needs to be good to look at, right? It's gross.Laura: It's a really disturbing thought when you, like, think about the kind of the implications there.Kirstie: Yeah, yeah. It's actually like, what in the world? Children's underwear should just be functional. It should cover up their genitalia.Laura: Maybe it should have days of the week on it. It could, yeah, I'm up for that.Kirstie: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm up for that. I'm up for patterns. I'm up for that. I'm up for, like, things on the front so you know which side to get into. Yeah, that's all of that. But it doesn't need to be cut small. It doesn't need to be low rise. It doesn't need to be... skimpy in the gusset. Like none of that is necessary for children's clothing. Laura: It needs to be functional. Kirstie: It needs to, it just needs to do its job. Yeah. And I…and you could even argue that the people most likely to be wearing a skirt are girls. So the children who really need the big pants are the girls. So why is it, when I go to the shops, that the girl's pants are miniscule? Laura: Well I wonder if it goes back to capitalism, because if you've got skimpy pants…you know I'm thinking of this from the perspective of a marketer, if I've got skimpy pants, then I can also sell a pair of shorts to go under the dress. Yeah. This is the only explanation that I could come up with.Kirstie: I mean I have been and interviewed some people who've worked in childrenswear, and a lot of them were like….Oh. We've never thought of this because childrenswear is not a thing conceived of in many big shops. It's not conceived of as childrenswear. It's conceived of as girls and boys and they take their cues from womenswear and menswear. And so they're taking maybe what is the best selling hoodie, jersey weight in the menswear and then they're scaling that down for the boys. And then they're taking what is the best selling hoodie weight, say we're talking about sweaters, jersey for the women's and scaling that down for the girls.And they're not talking to each other necessarily. So it's a sort of vicious circle or a chicken and egg thing where menswear is generally heavier weight and more comfortable and womenswear is generally lighter weight and less comfortable. And the styles from menswear are going to come down into boyswear and the styles from womenswear....And that's the same for underwear. So when you look at women's underwear, that's actually what's going to be started to scale down. Lace trims, bows, the types of patterns that you'll see, crop tops, that sort of stuff is going to be scaled down for the girls underwear. And men's underwear is going to be scaled down for the boys. And I see that, but the fact is that children's bodies are not like men's and women's bodies.That is not... Clothes for children can be clothes for children. Until, really, a long way through their childhood. There's no reason to be making them different. Often when I post about this, and I say, here's a pair of jeans and the jeans for the boys, jeans in the boys' section, maybe are two inches bigger in the waist than the girls. And maybe they are…they've got more flex in the leg, and maybe they're also an inch or two longer in the leg than the girls. It's particularly noticeable in shorts, so when summer comes around, you'll see that the girls' shorts are tiny. And that starts from toddler age, so the toddler girls' shorts, which are often really nice, like they come in nice colours and nice prints and all of that sort of stuff, but they are cut inches shorter.Laura: They're teeny tiny. I remember you posted a reel about this over the summer and I'll link to it in the show notes because yeah, it's…yeah, you're basically dressing toddlers in hot pants.Kirstie: Yeah. The flip of the coin is that if you go into the boys section often you can only find things that are khaki, navy, black, burgundy, what I call sludge. Like you just get sludge colour, so you can't find the pretty prints or the…you can't find florals or butterflies or rabbits. My son loves rabbit, love rabbits for years and it's rabbits and cats…you can't have a rabbit if you're a boy. Because you can only have a shark. And then you think, oh, it's fine. I'll go and buy the rabbit top. It's in the girl's section. What does it matter? And then you get the rabbit top and it's cropped or it's got a cap sleeve or a boat neck, you know, so it's not so sun safe. It's not so easy. You know, it doesn't wash as well. It's very easy, I think, to say, this is obviously bad for girls. This is obviously bad for girls. It's obviously bad to create children's clothes that make girls feel that they are too big for their age. That is obviously bad. I can't see why we are doing this. I've had messages from people who've got boy girl twins who are the same size and if they buy a pair of joggers in the boys' section, so two pairs of joggers in the boys' section, they're enormous in the waist, age five to six. And if they go to the girls section and buy the similar joggers. They can't pull them up and these children are the same age and the same size and what does it do to you if by the time you're old enough to understand it, say you're seven, you can see the labels in your own clothes. What does it do to you to know that the age seven jeans are too tight for you? What does that do to you as a girl? What does it conversely do to you as a boy, if you're a slim boy? And you buy the age seven joggers and they're like a tent on you. And the expectation is that you ought to be bigger and you ought to be broader and you ought to be wider or taller. The expectations that this places on our children based only on their gender, you don't have to follow it very far to see how harmful it is.Laura: Yeah. I mean, there's so much to unpack there as well. Like I'm thinking of it through my lens as well, which is thinking about body image and these pretty arbitrary sizes do to kids' sort of body esteem, if they are, you know, maybe at the lower end of the growth curve or the higher end of the growth curve and they don't fit into that seven to eight, like maybe they're in 10 to 11 and the like the mismatch, I think, between ages and sizes of clothes. And I don't know what the workaround is, it's, it seems kind of like it's all wound up in this, it's a similar problem, right?Kirstie: I think so. I think so. I mean, I think the workaround is what they do in a lot of European countries is…it's not, it's not done by age. It's done by height.Laura: Oh, height. Okay. Yeah.Kirstie: It's a measurement. And I think it's really telling, that if you ask a man what size he is, he'll give you a measurement. Yeah. So if you want to buy a pair of jeans as a man, you're buying a size, an actual size.Laura: X centimetres or inches.Kirstie: 32 inch waist, whatever it is, right? That's a measurement. And if you know what your measurement is, you can buy the right size. But as women, you ask what size we are, we have to give a random number. It doesn't equate to any measurement. Except to make you feel bad. And I think that sort of permeates the landscape of children's clothing.This idea of functionality, that actually clothes are made for comfort and what they can do for you. And what they…they'll just be made to whatever size that you need. That your clothes actually…comfort is the least important thing on the list for women's clothes, often. I mean, I feel like underwear in particular.I'm starting to enter into the preteen world. Yeah. It's really made me question a lot of things. Like this idea that when I was a kid, I guess I was 12, 11 or 12, and we went to get a training bra. And I thought about this… training bra? I thought, what's it being trained for? And I thought I was being trained because bras are really uncomfortable.So to get you used to wearing a thing makes your body more palatable to society's view of what women's bodies should look like. It's not on my horizon yet, but it's something that I've got to have a thought aboout. Laura: How do you have that conversation? Kirstie: Yeah, I don't actually know how I feel about that.Laura: Yeah, I mean, that's a really tricky one.I don't know. I don't know if I've added an unanswerable question to that. Yeah, no, but it is, it's, it's just not something that I've ever given any consideration to. And I think what feels probably really sticky about it is that, you know, you can have these conversations with your kid about, you know, whatever, like some man invented a bra to make our bodies more palatable.I don't actually know if it was a man. I'm making this up, but you probably do know the history of bras as well. I think I read, I read like a really interesting article about it once before, and I, and I really can't remember now, but the list of questions that I was going to ask you is completely gone out of the window. But no, it's great. But yeah, you know, you can have these conversations and you can, like, help your kid feel really empowered to not wear a bra or to wear a bra or to like make their own choice or, you know, about the type of bra that they wear if they choose to wear one. And, but then, you know, they go to school and all their friends are wearing, you know, these cutesy little training bras that probably actually do nothing. Yeah. Really. And so then you have to navigate, like, the social piece, with lining that up with, with your values and their values and it's their body. They ultimately…I think probably what we want to promote in our kids is body autonomy. Also that totally backfired on me the other day when my three year old was like, ‘I'm the boss of my body!' when he didn't want to get in the bath. Yeah, I mean, this is... I wasn't prepared for that. But, like, in general, you know, like, it backfires a lot when they're three and they don't want to get in the bath, but hopefully by the time they're, you know, 11, 12, and they're thinking about training bras, maybe a bit younger than that, even, that they...have a better sense of what their boundaries are around their bodies?Kirstie: Yes, I think so. I think they do. But I think there is, I think also the, the influence of peer pressure becomes so much greater then like…actually, you see that you see your influence declines as a parent, you know, you can lay them foundations, but they're coming to the point where what their peers are doing and thinking is really important.And they actually are going to have to navigate this like the foundation that you've laid in terms of what your family values are around bodies and body autonomy, but also, I hope, you know, like that word you used about body esteem. I think that's really great. But I also really like the idea that perhaps they don't think a lot about their bodies.Like, that's what I would really love for them. Laura: That's the dream. Kirstie: Yeah, but there's just a…that's not something that occupies their thoughts all the time. And I, we talked a lot about girls, but it is, it's really important for boys as well. The reason that I want to talk about boys is because it's like the missing piece of the puzzle.We want things to change for our daughters. You can see that the effects of gender stereotyping is,are really bad for women and girls. We have to have actual tasks…well, let's try that again, task force in government, exactly, for violence against women and girls. That's how big of a problem that is. 90% of the perpetrators of violence against women and girls are men. So we have to also be looking at men in that equation. This is not a women's problem. This is a societal problem, a problem across all, everywhere in society about how we treat men and women. And if we're not talking to the boys about equality, If we're only talking to the girls, we're only going to get half of the population changing.It has to be holistically talking to all of our children. And for me, it feels like that means we have to unpick some of that stuff where, you know, the boys are getting a bit of a privilege. You know, we're talking about clothes. That is a privilege for boys that their clothes are made for playing. But it's also, how do you treat a child if their clothes tell you something about them?So if you see a child and they're wearing a top, which has got a bunny wearing a flower crown, what do you, as an adult, think of that child, as opposed to seeing a kid standing next to them, that's wearing a T-Rex with blood dripping from its fangs, right? As adults, how do we treat those children? What are the expectations that we have? Oh, you're big, you're strong, man up, don't cry. You know, the expectations that…that just tiny little cue might give us the emotional connections that we might allow a boy or a girl. These things seem tiny, but they are played out in all sorts of places through society. And unless we allow boys to be warm, be empathetic, to be vulnerable, to be…wrong. You know, to get things wrong and not always be the best at something, you know, we have to allow them some of the things that we're happy to allow girls and the same way that we have to allow the girls some of the things that we're happy to allow the boys. And that's what leads to a more equal distribution as they get older.Laura: I'm really glad that you brought it back there. And I think what I appreciate the most is how you basically connected the dinosaur T-shirt, shark underpants to the toxic masculinity pipeline, right? Like that's, I think what…because I think it's all very well for us to sit here and be like, ‘Oh, girls pants are too small and dah, dah, dah, dah'. But if we can't frame that within the context of, you know, the bigger issues, which I think you do such a great job of bringing it back to, you know, the gender pay gap, for example, like you just did there, like…Well, you didn't say this, but I'm thinking about how male suicide rates are really, really high. Because, and maybe you have some better insight into, like, the statistics around this, but I know especially there was a big conversation about it a few years ago about, yeah, just just like the gender norms that we foist upon men and boys means that they can't express their emotions. They can't tell us when they're struggling, they can't be vulnerable.And I think a consequence of that is that they end up either taking it out on their own lives and ending their own lives, or they take it out on the women around them in the form of things like domestic violence, for example. Can you maybe speak just briefly to, like, yes, it's about pants, but it's about all these other things? You know, like the bigger picture things? Kirstie: Yeah. I mean, it is about pants in, in one way because it sort of lays the baseline. If you are comfortable in your clothes, perhaps you are running a bit faster at school, perhaps you do have a slight advantage in the playground, that sort of thing. Yeah.If your T-shirt says on it, ‘I'm a genius'. Perhaps someone says that to you every time you wear it. Perhaps someone says, ‘Oh yeah, you're a little genius'. And perhaps that's just popping into your head drip, drip, drip day after day. And if your sister's T-shirt says, ‘Isn't she lovely?' on it? LAURA: ‘I'm a princess'. ‘I'm a princess' or just even, I mean, it can be so subtle, you know, ‘Always Happy”'.If your T-shirt says “Always Happy” on it – I see that on so many T-shirts – what's that telling you about how you have to present yourself? So these just little drip drip drip messages, they make a difference. And it makes a difference in how we as adults therefore treat them. And then that gap between how they feel about themselves widens.And what they…they get this idea that they are opposites, instead of things that are really similar: humans. Yeah, humans. You get this idea that you're super, super different. Instead of this idea that everybody here has similarities and differences. And this is just one of them, being a boy and a girl. That's just one of the differences. And we don't separate children by any other characteristics. We don't go to the park and say, Come on brown haired children, time to go home from the park. Like, we just don't do it. There's no other characteristic that we yell out. In the playground. ‘Come on, boys!' So, you know, we make these binary distinctions really, really important.And then by the time they get into secondary school, there's all sorts of things going on. Like, 45% of girls in mixed sex secondary schools have experienced some sort of sexual harassment at school.Laura: I saw this on your Instagram the other day, and I just... It's, it's horrendous. I cannot, like…I mean, I can believe that, but also what?!Kirstie: Yeah, I mean, I…it gives me the fear so badly. Like, what world are we throwing our daughters into? But what world are we throwing our sons into where they think – well, there's a significant proportion of boys in the school that think it's okay to treat women in that way. And it comes back to this idea. This is, that's why this stuff matters. Because it comes back to this idea that if girls are there to be looked at and boys are there to do things. That's how it plays itself out there. So, girls are for looking at. They're not full humans. Boys are the ones that do things. So it doesn't matter if I stick my hand up your skirt, ping a bra strap, whatever it is.That's one pathway, but…as you call it, the toxic masculinity pathway. But the other one is actually...but you can see right through – this is unrelated to clothes really – but you can see right through that the way we talk about, or the way we talk to them, it differs. So studies show that if you know the sex of your baby before it's born, you're more likely to say that they're very active in utero. So you're more likely to use words like ‘active' or say, ‘Oh, got a little footballer in there. So much kicking'. So colours, your expectation colours, your experience of what you're seeing. And then you have a confirmation bias. So when your child does something that chimes with your ideas of what you think boys must like, you notice it more. So you see your boy playing with something with wheels and you're like, ‘Oh, he loves wheels'. I've heard that boys love wheels. You give them more wheels, you give them a lot of praise or excitement or interest. And it creates a feedback loop where they therefore, yeah, they are going to be more interested in this thing.You keep giving them and showing that you're really proud of them. But we also find that parents are less likely to use emotional language with sons than they are with daughters. When they read books together, they're more likely to talk about, what do you think this character's feeling with a daughter than they are with a son?And in fact, the National Education Union did a survey where they looked at preschool, what were the activities that parents were more likely to do with their children, and they broke it down by gender. And parents are more likely to do singing, reading, painting, and expressive things with their daughters. And the only thing that they were more likely to do with the son was sport.Laura: You think about how we are inadvertently training girls to do the emotional labour. And by not teaching boys how to do it, we're double burdening girls with it. Kirstie: It's exactly that. That's exactly it. And we are expecting girls to behave prosocially.So girls are more likely to be punished for what we could call anti-social behavior…but not sharing. Not being kind, that sort of thing. We are more likely to punish, but whatever form that takes, you know? I'm not suggesting that…punish always sounds like a corporal punishment. But actually to come down heavily on…you know, you've gotta share, you've gotta do that.And we are less likely to reward boys for the pro-social stuff. So when boys are sharing or being kind, we are less likely to say, ‘Oh, he's so good at sharing'. Yeah. You know, that's just a thing that people are less likely to say. So there's exactly, that we expect…the expectation that girls will do a little bit more of that emotional labour, but it comes into school where they can, they've been able to see that boys come with a more limited emotional vocabulary.So they're less able to name their feelings and therefore, once you can name a feeling, you can process it. And if you haven't got the skills to name it, you haven't got the skills to process it. So then you see a third more boys are excluded from school. The stat you were talking about, about suicide. So suicide is still the biggest killer of men under 50.And that speaks to not just a crisis in mental health, men's mental health, because I would say there was a crisis in mental health in general, but in the way that it is expressed and dealt with, and men and boys are less likely to reach out to ask for help. So Childline counsel more girls than they do boys, though the same number of them may be having suicidal ideation thoughts. They're more likely to talk to girls about it than they are to talk to the boys about it, and that is seen in the suicide rates, the death by suicide rates for boys. It being significantly higher for male than girls.Laura: It's so horrendous, like, yeah, as a parent of a boy and, yeah, married to one as well, like, a man, yeah, just hearing that is, it's heartbreaking.Kirstie: I suppose the only other thing I would think is worth mentioning, I don't want people to go away feeling like it's doom and gloom because I think It only takes tiny changes, I think.Laura: I mean, I struggle with this a bit because ultimately it's a social issue. And so, I don't want to put everything on individual parents, like we need to change school policy, we need to change…God, even before that, preschool! My preschooler came home the other day, or we were playing in the playground, and he was like, no girls allowed in. And I had to like, I had to stop the play and be like, Let's talk about how we don't exclude people from playing. And I've, like…he had been at nursery for, like, two weeks before this happened. I was mortified. Where are you getting this? It's before they even get to school is what I'm trying to say.Kirstie: Yeah, and I think it peaks actually around six or seven, that really binary thinking, because they want to find their groups, that's like developmental science, like they're coming away from their parents, they want to find their groups, they do want to fit in actually, it's really hard to not fit in.Laura: Yeah, no, it's an evolutionarY…what's the word that I'm looking for? Like, it's evolutionary adaptive to be part of the group. If you're excluded from the group, you're more likely to get eaten by a predator, or like……I'm putting it in really, really simplistic terms there. But, you know, it's this conversation I have with my clients who are coming to see me about, you know, problems with, with body image.  I mean, problems with body image...! But I mean, you know, when they're struggling with how they feel about their body and they say, you know, I just want this last diet. I…you know,  can't let go of the idea of losing weight. And I'm like, well, of course not, because you're more likely to be accepted when you have thin privilege.  And all the privilege that that gives you access to. And that has an evolutionary basis, right? To be accepted, …there's safety in that group. So yeah, the exact same thing……sorry, that was just a massive tangent for me to talk about myself and my work, but…Kirstie: No, I mean, it's... but that's really important because it's all the same thing, isn't it?Because it's exactly…it's all tied up. Like you say, it's like a societal thing. It's so hard to fight against that. Like, I don't always want to be the person who steps out, speaks up. I mean, sometimes I can't help it. That is who I am. But you know, when I'm standing at the school gate, I just want to be friends. I want to make friends. I don't want to be giving people an earful about everything all the time. So it's the same for our children, isn't it? They want to slot in. I think the things that we can do that change that is try and reduce those divisions. I think putting our children in very, very different clothes based on their gender tells them that we think it's really important. So I think there's lots of things that we can do that just reduce those barriers. And I do think that it is a question of changing policies within schools. And I do think it is also maybe shielding them as much as you can from books or TV programs or…I mean, it becomes impossible to be honest, but that, yeah, it's really hard things that don't constantly drip those messages into their heads. And it's really, really hard because they are absolutely everywhere. But if you're aware of it, you keep an eye on what you're reading with them or what you're watching with them or what you're seeing in the supermarket. You know, if you've just got that little thing running in the back of your head thinking, ‘would I let both my kids wear this'? That's one of the questions I ask myself. And the answer has to be yes, I would let both of my kids wear this. One of the questions I ask in the back of my head, like, does this paint everybody in a good light? Like when you're watching Peppa Pig, is Daddy Pig painted in a good light? What do you think it does to little boys to see that? Just think about that for a second. Like what is it when you're watching...Laura: I've given a lot of thought to this.Kirstie: Yeah, I'm sure you have.Laura: Yeah, I wrote recently about – it's from a different angle – but the horrendous anti-fatness in Peppa Pig. And just how...harmful that show is but I hadn't thought of it, because I try and avoid it if possible, but like I hadn't thought of it from the gender perspective as well as, like the lens…Kirstie: Daddy Pig is portrayed inevitably as an idiot. Yeah. And I just think that doesn't do anything good. But on that, I mean, I think it's really interesting now to see how the idea of talking about bodies…We watch Strictly as a family and that's one of the things that my kids enjoy watching and it's hard to find things that everybody can watch together. And there is so much good representation now in the past few years in Strictly, you know, in terms of same sex couples, in terms of people who are openly gay, like, in terms of people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities, like, that's doing a great job, I think. But we watched the opening show and two of the men talked about how they were overweight. “A bit squashy,” one of them said, something like that, talked about, Oh, well, this is going to be hard for me because I've got a problem with weight. And I thought, I think if a woman was saying this, we would be listening to this in a different way. And we would be thinking about how we could positively respond. I think the conversation around body positivity, which is something I feel a bit uncomfortable about, but I think that conversation for women is at least happening. And I feel like that conversation is more complicated and perhaps nuanced for men because we've had this thing about the dad bod, but equally, I was interested to see that people were like talking about their bodies in this…the disparaging their own bodies. In this show that I think of as not being a…that sort of thing, and it fell down gender lines.Laura: That…it's a really interesting observation. I haven't paid much attention to Strictly, but I think just more broadly speaking, I think – and it ties into kind of just not being able to express themselves, maybe in the same way or talk about the things that are bothering them, but also the shifting roles of body image pressures, I suppose, for men and boys. But I did – I'll link to this in the transcript as well – but so I spoke with Dr. Scott Griffiths, who's a psychologist and a body image researcher about sort of the shifting way that the male bodies are perceived and, and kind of the growing pressure and expectation of them to have this ripped, shredded body to the point that we are now seeing, in older sort of teens, we're seeing something called muscle dysmorphic disorder, so a body dysmorphic disorder, it sort of sits between a body dysmorphic and eating disorder.Generally, boys who struggle with it consider themselves to be like insufficiently muscled and really lean and scrawny and they, they want to bulk up and, and get big and strong, like, you know, all the messages that they've been receiving since they were one and two and three years old. And so they end up…on the really extreme end of it, they might inject testosterone [I MEAN STEROIDS HERE!]. It can lead to infertility. It can, it can lead to all sorts of really, really. hugely problematic things. And again, if I just wonder about, you know…it's, it's acceptable for women to talk about how they struggle with their bodies for better or worse. And we obviously have a sort of counterbalance to that in the, the body positivity, body acceptance movement, but that doesn't exist for men.There is no body positivity for men or…like, there is, but there's a few, you know, a few people talking about it.Kirstie: You could argue that because it hasn't been necessary till now because it has been less of a concern societally for people to police men's bodies. But now we're finding ourselves in this highly visual culture where people are policing everybody's bodies.And simultaneously, like you say, we're asking little boys to conform to these really rigid rules about what it means to be a man or look like a man.Laura: And we're giving them like, if you think back to like what a Ken doll looks like, to what a G.I. Joe or like…I don't know if kids play with them anymore, but you know what I mean?Kirstie: What they do play with is Spider Man or Hulk or Batman or, you know, all of these figures, they are all hyper muscled. And if you watch those Marvel films, those are idealised bodies and the idealising for boys and men is to have these bulging biceps and to have a six pack and things that actually aren't…you know, if you ever hear a film, a film star talking about what they have to do to look the way they do.You know, if you ever heard Hugh Jackman talking about what it was like to be Wolverine, that is not okay. It's punishing. It's absolutely punishing. He didn't drink for days on end. You know, really, he was at the limits of what you can do and still be alive and turning up for work and doing specific sort of flexes and the pressure then that that could put on you if you were the, you know, if you're susceptible to, like you say, injecting hormones or steroids and the fact that that stuff is very reasonable, you know, very easily available or to be buying protein powders and being told on TikTok that you, you too can bulk up, you could, yeah, but actually your genetics are playing a part in this.You can't. Yeah. Bodies are different.Laura: So, so much playing, playing into that. And Kirstie, I feel like we could talk for hours about this stuff. And I, I'm, I'm really conscious about your time. It's a...Kirstie: Yeah, so I've got to go and pick my children up from school! Laura: Okay. So, okay. There is one burning question that I have for you, which is...I don't know if you have this, like, data, but do dads read your magazine?Kirstie: Well, that's a good question. So I don't have this data. What I can tell you is, from my social media account is that it's like 90% women. That's slightly to do with Instagram. Instagram skews towards women. Yeah. This is a question that I get asked a lot: why don't more men write for you? So men are less likely to pitch me. And I think you'll find that men talking about parenting often have daughters. Yeah. And I do get it because I think when you have a daughter as a man, you have the same experience that I talked about where I suddenly was like, Oh, I don't know what it is like to be a boy in this world. I haven't done that. Oh, I see some of the things that you're going to run up against. I think that realisation for some fathers can be huge. Yeah. I think it can be absolutely massive for them. I think they can realise a lot about their own previous experiences to see that. And I don't like the fact that they have to have a daughter for this to happen to them.But they suddenly realise, Oh, I see how you're going to be treated in this world and I do not like it. And I want to talk about parenting now.Laura: I was just going to say, you have a much more generous interpretation of it than I do, which I think is that, and maybe – and I don't think it's one or the other, it's probably both – but I also think that this just speaks to the point that we were making earlier, which is that so much of the emotional labour of raising children falls on women.Kirstie: Yes, I mean, I think that is true, that basically who buys parenting books is women, who worries and feels mum guilt? It's women. We don't, I, I mean, I haven't, I spend a lot of time on the internet, but I haven't seen loads of men talking about dad guilt. I haven't heard a lot of men saying how hard they find it to manage their children's emotional development throughout, through our difficult society.Like that isn't a thing that a lot of men are talking about. It's not the case that no men are talking about it. So there are some prominent men who talk about this stuff. It doesn't fit with our societal narratives. So, I mean, I would recommend anybody to read, Robert Webb's, How Not to Be a Boy. I've really enjoyed that book. There's a really interesting, it's a half memoir, half…Laura: Like parenting?Kirstie: …musing on, well, yeah, it was useful in parenting, I think, in terms of he talks about how he would like to raise his children, bearing in mind what he's done. I would recommend Grayson Perry's book, The Descent of Man. That's a great small book. And it's, he's just got such a really great way of pinpointing the sort of weirdnesses of gender, like there's so many…and he's funny as well and warm, isn't he? He even made a TV programme that went along with that. Those books are relatively old, but I think they have a lot to say. I mean, Justin Baldoni, I don't know if you know him, he was in Jane the Virgin? If you've ever seen that. He was like the beefcake guy, I can't remember, he was called Raphael I think. He's written a book about how hard it was for him growing up and how much he struggled with his own body image. And the expectations placed on him as a young man and how hard he found it to be vulnerable and when someone showed him pornography when he was 12 or younger, he, you know, how he couldn't tell his parents and didn't know how to deal with this.And, you know, so there are some people talking about this, but they are so few and far between. And also it doesn't fall into the easy categories, I think, that we find it, that marketers find it easy to sell, that book publishers see the obvious opportunities, you know. And I think, you're right, men as a general rule aren't being asked to think about this. How are they going to change the world for their sons? Laura: Oh, well, you've given some really cool resources for us to check out and buy for our baby daddies! Right. For Father's Day or whatever, Christmas, whatever's coming up, where are we, what is time? And I think, you know, the work that you're doing is so critical as well and getting these conversations started and just thinking about, you know, like the little things like pants and how they have these huge repercussions.So Kirstie, before I let you go…at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they have been really into lately. So it can be a book, it can be…which you've just given us lots of books! But it could be something not to do with work. It could be an actual snack. It can be a podcast, anything that you would like to recommend to the listeners.Kirstie: I had a long think about this. And the thing is, I was thinking that in terms of my actual snacks, I do not have a sweet tooth. Oh, I know this is very…but basically I just want savoury things all the time. So the snacks that I have been snacking on is, I mean, I just eat crisps. I just love crisps.Laura: No shame in the crisp game.Kirstie: Just love crisps. But the thing that I've been really snacking on recently is miso soup. Laura: Miso. Oh, yum. Kirstie: Yeah. Because I, what I really crave in the middle of the day. Is like a hit of that salt. Salty, yes. Salty. Tasty. It feels like a hot velvet drink and so I'm always delighted when it's got cold enough. I feel like, yes, it's soup time. And so that's like my hit of salty deliciousness.Laura: Oh my God, that sounds so good. Actually, I never thought of just…I love miso soup, but like usually when I'm eating Japanese food. Yeah. I never thought of just like…cause you can get like, do you make up miso soup like with miso paste or do you do, like, the instant sachet stuff?Kirstie: I do have the paste, which I just stick in everything because I want everything to taste like that basically. But I bought powdered ones. And they are brilliant.Laura: And yeah, you just fill it up with the boiling water and…?Kirstie: Yeah, it's like two o'clock in the afternoon. I've had my lunch. And eat something else that's delicious.Laura: A little miso pick me up.Kirstie: A little pep me up.Laura: Yeah. Oh, yum. Okay, that's making me hungry just thinking about that. So I am going to be your inverse. And I am

Today on the podcast I'm joined by Dr. Molly Moffat - A GP who practices medicine from a weight inclusive, neurodiversity affirming lens, celebrating both diversity of bodies and of minds. In this episode, we are talking about how Molly moved away from recommending diets and weight loss to her patients, towards an anti-diet, weight-inclusive approach, focused on treating individuals with care and compassion. We get into what exactly medical anti-fat bias is and why it's so harmful, and she has some really lovely suggestions for how to talk to patients who come in with the idea that they have to lose weight for medical reasons. Find out more about Molly's work here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura's newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here's the transcript in full:INTRO:Molly: Fat folk don't go and see their doctor when they need to. And you know, I don't need to explain why that is a concern. That is a concern. It means that diagnoses are missed, diagnoses are made late, and it absolutely contributes to stress, mental health, physical health and health inequity in an already marginalised group of people.Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we talk all about appetite, bodies and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter. Today I'm talking to Dr. Molly Moffat. Molly is a GP with a special interest in learning disability and autism. She practices medicine from a weight inclusive, neurodiversity affirming lens, celebrating both diversity of bodies and of minds. She's neurodivergent herself and has three children. In this episode, Molly and I are talking about how she moved away from recommending diets and weight loss to her patients towards an anti diet, weight inclusive approach, focused on treating individuals with care and compassion. We get into what exactly medical anti-fat bias is and why it's so harmful, and she has some really lovely suggestions for how to talk to patients who come in with the idea that they have to lose weight for medical reasons. I really loved talking to Molly and I think you're going to enjoy this episode.But before we get to today's conversation, I want to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter and community. Now, I know we're not used to having to pay for content on the internet. and why would you pay for something where 85% of the content is free anyway?Well, because without paying supporters, this work just wouldn't be possible. None of the newsletter, not the podcast. As well as supporting me in the time it takes to research, interview contributors, and write articles, your support goes towards paying guests for their time and their labour, as well as a podcast and a newsletter editor, so it's a whole team effort.You also help me keep the space ad and sponsor free, so I don't have to sell out to advertisers or exploit my kid for freebies. Plus, keeping the community closed to paying subscribers only means that we keep the trolls and the fatphobes out. I recently asked the CIHAS community why they support the newsletter, and this is what one reader had to say:“I'm a mum of one fairly adventurous, self proclaimed vegetarian and one theoretical omnivore. The latter survives almost exclusively on added sugar and butter, but mostly sugar. I consumed all the picky eating advice, some of it really well meaning and pretty mellow, but by seven years in, I was more frustrated, confused, and full of self doubt than ever.Enter CIHAS. The no nonsense, cut through the bullshit, science backed content is exceptional. The content about sugar is especially helpful to me, and the anti diet lens is an antidote to my extremely anti fat/diet culture conditioning. And as an American, the British references are just an added bonus. To say your work is actively changing my life is not an understatement. Thank you.”Well, thank you to the reader who sent that really lovely review. Becoming a paid subscriber is a fiver a month or £50 for the year. And you get loads of cool perks as well as just my undying gratitude for supporting my work. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to subscribe now.  All right, team, here's my conversation with Dr. Molly Moffatt. MAIN EPISODE:Hey Molly, can you start by telling us a little bit about you and the work that you do? Molly: Sure, yes. So I'm a GP, although I actually only do one day of general practice at the moment. I have a special interest in learning disability and autism. I've been working in that field for a few years, and I've recently started working in paediatrics, doing some neurodevelopmental assessments, and I also do some teaching for medical students. The reason I'm here is because I do my very best to practice in a weight inclusive manner, so I'm not worried about fat bodies, but I'm really worried about the way fat bodies are treated, particularly when they're trying to seek healthcare.Laura: Yeah, that's what you're here to talk about today, but I feel like we could probably have a whole other conversation about neurodivergence and feeding differences and all of that stuff, but I will try and rein myself in because, yeah, like you said, I really wanted to talk to you about how fat bodies are perceived and how they're treated in medical settings.So I'm wondering if you could kind of take us on a bit of a journey with you. Can you set the scene for us? You're a medic, straight out of training, going into your GP specialisation. At that point, what do you believe to be true about the relationship between weight and health?Molly: Okay. So I mean, all of my medical school teaching, all of my junior doctor training, and my GP training was absolutely based in this weight normative approach.So the idea that weight was a marker of health, and that we should be pursuing weight management for our fat patients. And there was never any discussion around where that came from. So, you know, it was just stated as a fact that ‘ob*sity' came with all of these comorbidities and put people at increased risk of X, Y, and Z.And, like I say, I never remember – and I'm really confident it didn't happen – any discussion around where the evidence behind those statements came from, and the fact that actually...it was really complex and that maybe there were some other factors at play that cause that association between body size and certain diseases.And I also never remember any conversation about weight stigma and the impact that that can have on people's health.Laura: Okay. Well, there's so much that I could kind of, like, tease out of what you just said there, but I think the sort of headline for me is just how this information was presented to you as complete certainty. I think if I'm kind of reading between the lines, or what I've even learned in my own training, that as weight goes up, the worse the health outcomes, right? Like in this linear sort of fashion. It sounds as though you learned something similar, but the evidence behind that was never really presented or unpacked or challenged in any way.And that's the part that I find most, like, terrifying because as medics you should be, like, challenging the evidence and not just, like, swallowing it whole and, you know, swallowing information whole and not kind of having any critical thought around it.Molly: I know, I agree. And of course there were things that we critically appraised and we were taught how to critically appraise, but the world of ‘ob*sity' was just something that was presented as a fact.And I feel so sad that I kind of missed out on all of those years of a greater understanding of how complex it was.Laura: You also mentioned weight stigma, which we'll come back to in a second, but coming back to this idea of how complex it is. So what were some of those messages that you received that oversimplified the relationship between weight and health?You know, I've kind of mentioned this idea that as weight goes up, that health invariably goes down. I'm wondering what other kinds of things that you picked up on that sort of reinforced those ideas.Molly: Yeah, I mean, absolutely kind of ‘eat less and move more' was something that we spouted. And, you know, when we were kind of practicing role play scenarios, one of the tick boxes was ‘give lifestyle advice'.Part of that was, you know, absolutely eat less and move more. And, you know, assumptions around a person's lifestyle and diet again was very much part of that message. That people were fat because they didn't exercise and they ate too much.Laura: And then they also lie to you, right, about how much they've eaten?That's…at least, that's the thread that we got in nutrition training, is that people who are higher weight, they're almost always lying about their dietary intake. And so you are already…I mean, think about how problematic that is, that you're already going in with the assumption that this person is lying to you about, you know, their lived experience, like, what does that do from the perspective of forming any kind of therapeutic relationship to go in with that understanding and assumption?Molly: Yeah, no, I agree entirely and, you know, let's think about when people are presenting to a healthcare setting, they're generally a bit nervous and anxious and feeling quite vulnerable and they are essentially quite powerless in that situation. And then imagine that they're also giving you information and telling you about their lifestyle and that's being doubted. It's horrible, isn't it?Laura: Yeah, it's really, really messed up when you slow it down and think about it. I'm wondering if there were any particular moments or specific patients that you remember that started to change that understanding a bit for you? That kind of threw a kink in that really simple narrative of ‘weight equals health', and ‘calories in equals calories out' and you know, we just need to go on a diet and then everyone will be thin?Molly: Yeah, I mean, my path towards kind of health at every size was quite convoluted. And actually it began with an interest in lifestyle medicine. So I was feeling quite…Laura: Oh, a detour into lifestyle medicine! Okay. The plot thickens.Molly: Yeah, the plot thickens. Absolutely. So. You know, I was feeling quite demoralised by the fact I was seeing a lot of chronic disease and that people were not getting any better and they were coming back to see me and I was giving them lots of medications and, you know, often those medications would come with fairly significant side effects. And so I guess what lifestyle medicine offered me, or what I thought it offered me, was the opportunity to really get to the bottom of those problems without the need for medication and the kind of idea that prevention was better than cure.And it appealed to me from a holistic perspective, you know, this was an opportunity to kind of see the person as a whole, rather than just focusing on an individual symptom. So I was actually really excited and really motivated. But what I found with time was that, first of all, I became more uncomfortable with the dynamic that was being played out, which was me as this middle class professional who carried a significant amount of privilege telling people how to live their lives that with time felt more icky.And also that people weren't able to do all the things we were discussing, or if they did do…follow the advice that I was giving them, it wasn't really making them feel any better because, hey, you know, there are these things called social determinants of health, which actually great…you know, carry a greater significance than personal behaviours.Laura: I'm just wondering for people who maybe aren't familiar with like, the world of lifestyle medicine, if you could say a little bit more about that and kind of the type of advice that you were giving people, like when you say lifestyle advice, what exactly does that mean? And I understand it's like a whole range of things, but yeah, I'm curious to hear how you applied that in your practice.Molly: So, I mean, it was looking at kind of core areas. Those core areas were: sleep, stress management, nutrition, and exercise and, you know, within the nutrition arm, I'm really sad to say that weight loss played a part of that. And, you know, whilst I tried to make that as individualised as possible to the person in front of me, inherently, there is an element of elitism really with lifestyle advice, I feel that, again, just didn't really quite sit right with me. And I actually found myself feeling a bit irritated. If I'm honest, I was feeling irritated that people weren't doing what I was asking. And luckily I had the insight to acknowledge that, you know, that was a me problem, not a them problem.What I realised was that I wasn't really irritated with them. I was just really frustrated that, you know, here was what I thought was this chance to really make people's lives better. And actually it wasn't having the impact that I thought it would.Laura: It's almost as though…and this is totally my perspective and my, I think, a little bit of prejudice against lifestyle medicine.But there…it's kind of this underlying assumption that people need you to tell them what to do because they don't know any better.Molly: Yeah, they don't know. Oh, it's so patronising. Laura: Yeah. And it's like a kind of a knowledge deficit. Molly: Absolutely. Laura: When most people, they do understand the importance of sleep and they do understand, like, it's helpful to, like, move their bodies in some way and to eat some vegetables.Molly: Absolutely. That rings true so much with me. You know, I hear these conversations where people are talking about healthy weight management and you know, the suggestions are, well, ‘let's teach people how to cook'. And I just think, oh, for goodness sake. You know, it's so patronising to assume that people don't know how to cook and that you're kind of…it's this kind of saviour complex that, well, let's teach them how to cook because they don't know that and therefore their life's going to be okay.They do know how to cook, but what if they've, you know, got three jobs because they need to work three jobs in order to pay the bills? They don't have time to cook.Laura: What if they just don't like…because they've got their own cultural background, they cook food in a very different way than how you cook food or like there's a whole number of reasons why like that might just not only fall flat but It could be problematic for some people. You know, especially if they're like, well, ‘my doctor is telling me I need to do this, but this doesn't really align with either my values or you know, what I'm able to access or have time for the competing messages that I'm getting from within my family' or whatever it might be.So there's a lot of idealisation I think that goes on in the lifestyle medicine community and not a deep enough understanding of social determinants of health, like you said.Molly: I think that's the big, big part that's missing in lifestyle medicine and the recognition…recognition of the social determinants of health.Laura: Absolutely. And even just like the understanding that even if everybody did eat whatever Rangan Chatterjee is spouting off that we should eat, it doesn't mean that our health will all kind of play out along the same lines. So we were going through your journey.Molly: Yeah, so I was talking about lifestyle medicine and feeling just a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing.And of course at that time I was nurturing a special interest in neurodiversity, kind of recognising my own neurodivergence and my children's neurodivergence. And so eating disorders were kind of very much on my radar. And so intuitively I just didn't like the idea of creating any kind of fear or anxiety around food that just felt wrong.And, you know, that's what we were doing when we were talking about nutrition, the world of nutrition is also extremely confusing. And it was confusing for me. You know, you have all these people giving really compelling arguments as to why their diet is the best. And they're able to give you all this evidence that backs up their claims.But the kind of general theme, yes, is that we are creating this fear and anxiety around, often, whole groups of food.Laura: I mean, wow. There's so much that we could say even about that. Like I got a message from a parent the other day who was like, I feel like I need to have a degree in nutrition to feed my child.I was just like, yeah, that's how fucking convoluted we have made nutrition with all the kind of competing expert voices who are shouting about, you know, their diet as being the best diet and even like among amongst paediatric feeding professionals and, well, just feediatric…did I just invent a new word?! Paediatric dieticians and nutritionists, there's, you know, there's a right and a wrong way.And like you say, it really creates a lot of fear and anxiety about messing up. And it plays into our fears about not being a good enough parent. And yeah, it really, like, tugs on a lot of different parts of us. Where did it go from there then once you had this kind of recognition of like, well, I don't want to be adding fuel to the fire of eating disorders, disordered eating and making food scary for, you know…I'm thinking about patients of yours that might be neurodivergent where food might already be really scary.Where did it go from there?Molly: Where it went from there is that I went on maternity leave.Laura: Get out of there!Molly: Yeah, exactly. So I went on maternity leave with this kind of feeling of disconnect and that something wasn't right and I needed to do something. And of course maternity leave provided me with the opportunity to listen to lots of podcasts and read lots of things while sat feeding a baby. So that's how I actually stumbled across health at every size. You know, the kind of the parenting path that I've chosen to take meant that I was already aware of, you know, division of responsibility and intuitive eating and kind of food neutrality and body neutrality. So I was already, already aware of those. And, you know, I was…again, intuitively the idea of the language that I was using around food and bodies with my children was very important.So I think I actually listened to a podcast. I think it might have been the Full Blooms podcast that I listened to. And I think was being interviewed on that. And that was the first time I heard the words kind of anti diet and health at every size. And yeah, when I have a special interest, I really have a special interest. So, you know, 158 podcasts later, um, yeah, there I was. And, you know, there I was in this state of…a combination of so many feelings of kind of frustration, guilt, sadness, anger, disbelief. Yeah, you know, I kind of had this very strong sense of justice and feel things very deeply and it…I found it very consuming to begin with. This feeling that I'd been getting it wrong and why are more people not talking about this? Why is this not more mainstream? And really, people should be talking about this. And I wanted to tell everybody I knew about this because this is so important.Laura: I've heard a similar version of that story from not just other medical professionals, but also clients of mine who are like, why, why isn't everyone talking about this?And they want to kind of. become these little social justice warriors and really just, like, shout it from the rooftops. But what I really appreciated, Molly, there, was just you talking about all the complexity of the feelings that came up for you, because I think oftentimes, particularly if you're in the medical profession or any kind of allied health profession, because you're in that caring profession, your automatic line of thinking is often, wow, I've caused so much harm.And, and you feel an immense amount of guilt for continuing to prescribe diets when you're learning that diets don't work and you think about all the encounters you've had with patients that might have inadvertently increased their experiences of stigma and harm. And again, we'll come to talk about that more in a bit.I suppose my point is really that…of course you're going to feel that way and that doesn't have to be where it ends being kind of stuck with those feelings of guilt. And so hopefully there was also like a glimmer of hope in there as well? Molly: Oh gosh, yes. Laura: Well, I'm wondering as well, because it sounds like you were quite disenchanted before you went on maternity leave. So did this feel like, okay, this is something that…this is a missing piece of the puzzle for me, for my practice going forward?Molly: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I have complete conviction about it. And I did at the time and I still have now, you know, this is absolutely the way I want to practice. And I do have hope.And I do think that in 20 years time, maybe even 10 years time, we are going to change the way we look at weight and weight management, well, weight management, you know, will not be a thing.Laura: Just abolish weight management. Molly: Yeah, absolutely. Laura: You've used the term health at every size and I'm wondering if you could just give a brief kind of like, explainer of what health at every size is for people who haven't encountered it before. Or weight inclusive healthcare, you know, like whatever feels more comfortable for you.Molly: Yeah, I mean, I guess let's talk about the kind of weight-inclusive, the weight inclusive approach, which is probably what I feel kind of most comfortable with. Laura: Same. Molly: Yeah. So the idea that weight isn't a marker of health, and that people of any size deserve good quality, compassionate, equal access to healthcare, that weight loss isn't possible for most people, and that actually trying to achieve weight loss brings with it lots of concerning things like, a, you know, problematic relationship with food, risk for eating disorders, and weight cycling, so weight going up and down, which again is bad for us, along with stress, and again, stress is not good for us.Laura: Yeah, so there's, there's a lot to even think about within there, but I think that even that first idea is really radical and it shouldn't be, right? That first idea of like, people of all sizes deserve equal access to healthcare and it should all be delivered with compassion and care. And I think most of us, at least those of us who have thin privilege, for us that's more or less a given.Although, you know, I've had plenty of shady encounters with doctors, but in general, you know, I am treated well, whereas, and certainly stories I've heard from clients and, you know, fat activists and people online is that that is…and that's, this is what bears out in the evidence as well, is that that is not guaranteed.That people of a higher body weight can walk into a GP surgery, maybe they're seeking care for, I don't know, a sore throat or a pain in their hand. And to call back to your earlier point about how you have to make these, like, lifestyle recommendations. Patients who are of a higher weight, regardless of what they present for, are almost often given a prescription for weight loss, or they might even be handed a coupon for Slimming World, right?Like the NHS partners with Slimming World too, and some other weight loss companies. But even if that's not what that person came in for, or even if that person said in no uncertain terms, I do not want to talk about weight loss. weight. That's not what I'm here for. I don't want to diet. The doctor generally won't respect that boundary. Um, yeah.Molly: And what's so sad is that I see patients preempting that. So I have patients that come to me who will say, ‘I know I need to lose weight', or ‘I know I'm a bigger girl', you know, it's almost like…because they are so anticipating me saying it and so nervous about that conversation, that they kind of want to say it, so it's out the way.Laura: Yeah. What do you think that's about? What do you think's going on there?Molly: Well, I mean, I think they're feeling vulnerable and anxious. And as I said, they are so used to their doctor saying something about their size that it's almost like they kind of just want to get it out of the way. If I say it, then they won't say it.Laura: Yeah, almost like a defence, it sounds like.Molly: Yeah, absolutely. And it, you know, it's so sad.Laura: And how do you approach that with a patient then if they, if they start a consultation off like that, I'm kind of jumping ahead of myself here a little bit, but thinking about, you know, how from this new perspective of, of being a weight inclusive doctor, do you approach that conversation and start to kind of, you know, take them on a, in a slightly different direction than, than they might have been accustomed to.Molly: So it's not easy and it's something that I'm still kind of trying to work out. And of course, you know, bearing in mind, I have 10-15 minutes with these people. And of course, it's not like they come to me and they say, Oh, you know, tell me what you think about my weight, or do you think I need to lose weight?They come to me with the assumption that I believe they should lose weight, and they, you know, usually they will come about something else like, you know, a chest infection or a sore throat, and their weight will... come up as part of that consultation. You know, that kind of respectful two way dialogue is a really important part for me of the weight inclusive approach.And, you know, in the same way that I feel very strongly that a weight centric consultation is horrible because it's that kind of didactic, this is what you must do. Similarly, you know, me just telling somebody, you don't need to lose weight equally wouldn't sit right with me. And of course, I'm very hyper aware in that scenario of my own thin privilege and how insensitive of me it would be to just kind of, you know, dismiss them and say, you don't need to worry about your weight because that would be really kind of minimising their experience.And of course they have had to worry about their weight because their size has meant that they have faced many obstacles and horrible things happen to them and discrimination and so I think it's really important to kind of acknowledge that. So what I try and do is to actually apologise and say, I'm so sorry that anybody has made you feel that your body is flawed and needs fixing. I don't believe that. And I explain my background and I say, you know, I spent the last few years learning a lot about weight science and reflecting, and as a result of that learning, I now don't see weight as a marker of health and I don't recommend weight loss to my patients and I explain the reasons for that. Laura: Oh my God. I feel kind of emotional hearing you say that just because of just how powerful it would be, I mean, for anyone to hear that who's, you know, had concerns about their weight, but particularly for, for fat folks and, and like, I'm thinking specifically of, of a couple of clients of mine in the past, who've just had horrendous experiences with their GP, even when I have preemptively written to the GP saying, like: ‘this person has a history of disordered eating and we're not pursuing intentional weight loss for these reasons. Here's all this science that you can read to say why this isn't a good idea', and then still had, you know, yeah, just horrendous experiences.  And so yeah, just to have a GP who is so compassionate and understanding. First of all, you're signalling that you're a safe person to them. And secondly, you're signalling that you can come and talk to me about this stuff. Like, even if they're not there about their weight, they want to get their antibiotics for their chest infection and just get out of there. But in the future, if that comes up, they know that they can come to you and approach you. And it's just, it feels like a really powerful thing to me.Molly: People do cry, actually. I've had a few people cry when I've said that.Laura: I bet they do. Yeah. I hope that any other GPs listening are frantically taking notes at this point of a little, a little spiel that they can say to their clients. And, and has that gone on to open up any other conversations with patients? Or kind of, you say that people get emotional, but what besides that is the response?Molly: like I say, emotional that that's not something they've ever heard anybody say before. And I guess kind of relief. I mean, at the same time, you know, I fully recognise that they will have had a lifetime of being told different things. So, you know, it will take a lot of time for them to completely change their thinking. But yeah, people do come back and have come back to speak to me about it.And, you know, normally what I say is, how would you feel about us instead thinking about certain health behaviours and how we can talk about those, but without weight loss being the goal? And I, I give them that to kind of think about really.Laura: And how do you make it so that that doesn't end up feeling like an earlier lifestyle medicine conversation?Molly: And I'm very conscious of that too. And I guess I make sure that I point out that the reason I don't want weight loss to be the goal is because when weight loss does become the goal, actually those behaviours... become quite unhealthy. As I said, I'm not quite sure I've got it right just yet. I'm constantly trying to think in my head how I can script these things in a way that does mean that people are going to come back to see me to talk about it because I want to talk to everybody about it and I want them to come back and see me, and like you say, for them to feel safe.Laura: Yeah. And I mean, fundamentally your job is to help people care for themselves and to offer them care. So yeah, you, you also can't be sort of, you can't completely ignore, you know, health promoting behaviours, but I suppose like, at least for me, it's eliciting from the individual what is important to them and what feels doable for them.So it's like really basic motivational interviewing stuff. Yeah. Yeah. How can we work from where you already are. And again, it speaks to that piece that a lot of times people already know the things that they need to do. And so it's just supporting them with the changes that they already want to make or not make and holding space for that as well. And offering them the medication if that's actually what they need.Molly:  And there being no shame around that, you know? Laura: Absolutely. Yeah. Wow. It's like a whole new way of doing medicine. So we've talked about a little bit around this concept of weight stigma, because there's a sort of very particular experience of weight stigma that happens in medical settings, or we could also use the words anti fatness to, I think, better describe weight stigma.And yeah, just a sort of side note, weight stigma tends to be a very, like, neutered term that is used in academia, whereas I think in, in critical fat studies and, and in fat liberation spaces, they're more and more using the word anti-fat bias, which really speaks to what that is. Can you explain a little bit more of what that means and how it plays out in a medical setting and how it is so harmful and damaging for people's health?Molly: Yeah. I mean, what we're referring to there is, as you say, the anti-fat bias that people who work in healthcare carry. So meaning a preference to thin bodies and kind of prejudice towards fat bodies. And that's experienced by fat people as weight stigma, that's really, really concerning and it can present in many ways, but it's, let's give you some examples of what that can look like in a GP surgery.So that can look like a fat person coming to see their GP and, as you said earlier, having every symptom put down to their weight, weight loss being the answer for everything. It can mean a fat person losing weight and that weight loss being celebrated, rather than that weight loss being considered the red flag that it should be and being investigated correctly. It can look like there not being the right equipment available, so therefore the necessary examination doesn't take place, the right investigations don't take place. It can look like the treatment options that are available for thin people not being available or accessible to fat people. And, you know, all of this means that fat folk don't go and see their doctor when they need to.And, you know, I don't need to explain why that is a concern. That is a concern. It means that diagnoses are missed, diagnoses are made late and it absolutely contributes to stress. Mental health, physical health, and health inequity in an already marginalized group of people. I find it so concerning.Laura: When you list it all out like that, it just puts it into perspective how healthcare for...fat people is anything but care. It's anything but health. It's, yeah, prejudice, and marginalisation and, yeah, violence. I think a lot of times. Yeah. Because it can kind of, I was just thinking of another example of what people have told me that they've had to go for like two or three oral glucose tolerance tests in pregnancy, because their doctors have, are just baffled that these people aren't…Molly: Couldn't possibly be diabetic…Laura: Couldn't possibly be diabetic... Because there's an assumption, I think made about what fat people's health should be. Molly: Absolutely. Laura: You know, I want to caveat this whole conversation by saying that nobody owes anyone health and yeah, health is, is morally neutral, right? Molly: Absolutely. Yeah. Laura: But there is a very pervasive idea that fat people cannot also have, you know, markers that we would traditionally consider to be within normal range or are healthy by virtue of the fact that they're fat. But I think what the evidence shows us over and over again, when we really dig through it, is that independent of your body size, you can have markers of health. Like, cardio respiratory health, low cholesterol, or like within the healthy range, not have type 2 diabetes, not have high blood pressure. But I think the assumption that I hear from medical colleagues is that people will invariably have those things if they're a higher weight.Molly: Yeah. And you know, when we think about children, I see that, that we have a child who, in terms of their kind of metabolic health markers is healthy. And yet because they are a certain weight that's pathologised and they are treated as if they are a pathology, whereas actually there is nothing wrong with them when you look at their blood results and their blood pressure.Laura: Yeah, because I did want to ask you a little bit about, about kids, if that's okay.I realize it's a bit of a detour, but I'm, I'm curious to hear if you were the parent of that child that you mentioned who might be a higher body weight, but you know, otherwise there's nothing there to worry about. Or even if there is something to worry about, you know, do you have any advice for parents of how to navigate health care and, you know, have these approach these conversations with their GP, you know, to say, like, ‘I don't want to focus on their weight. What else can we do to support this child?'Molly: Yeah, I mean, I think that's what you've just said is a really good way of framing it. Laura: I just realised I just answered my own question!Molly: And, you know, I really, really feel for parents in this situation because it must be such a horrible confrontation. To be faced with health care professionals who are telling you that you need to do something about your child's weight, and yet you have a child in front of you and you're worried about how they feel about their body, how they feel about themselves. And I guess, you know, the sad thing is that many parents do believe what a doctor says to them, and so would put their child on a diet, which just horrifies me and breaks my heart of what we're doing to children when we do that. But yeah, I mean, I think as you posed it perfectly, you know…'I'm happy to talk about health behaviours, but I'm not happy to focus on my child's weight and the reasons for that are that I don't want my child to develop an eating disorder and my child's relationship with their body and food is really important to me.'Laura: That's a really brave thing, a really brave thing to have to do as a parent. I mean, I know trying to like stand up to…I remember declining to be weighed at my booking appointment for the maternity pathway, and the nurse was just so aggressive with me. She was just like, ‘computer says no'. And I was like, but I don't have to do this. But I was in such a like, fragile state. Molly: Of course. Of course. Yeah. Laura: Trying to push back on a healthcare professional when they're not receptive to it. And also, like, there's some weird stuff there, but like, if you decline a test, which is basically what I did decline, they should respect that. And they didn't. So that's like a whole other thing. But my point is that pushing back on a, on a healthcare, an authoritative, an authoritative healthcare provider is really, really challenging.So I think to step into that space as a parent is, it's really hard.Molly: Really, really hard. Absolutely. I do not underestimate that at all. You know, I recently got told that I shouldn't be breastfeeding my two and a half year old and. You know, I approached that situation as a doctor with privilege, and I found that very difficult.Laura: Oh, so a healthcare professional told you?Molly: Yeah, yeah. What? That it currently wasn't offering any nutritional value. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not trying to compare that to how it must feel as a parent of a fat child, but, uh, you know, I understand that. Yeah. Confronting somebody in a position of authority is extremely, extremely difficult.And I wish people didn't have to have those conversations.Laura: Well, I hope you told them where to shove it with, with their comments about feeding. Molly: I pulled down my top and latched them. Laura: Love it. Okay. Well. Yes, as a still feeding a preschooler, I totally, totally respect your decision to, to keep feeding. And yes, also if you have any tips for how the fuck to get them to self-wean…! Molly: No, sadly not, no! Laura: Uh, he'll stop one day, I keep telling myself. We were just talking a bit about how anti fatness presents itself in the medical setting and how people are less likely to have their experiences believed, they are less likely to be offered the follow up…what's the word, the medical word, I'm struggling to find the medical word, like the assessments and…Molly: Investigations? Laura: Thank you, that they, they might need. Weight loss is often celebrated when it's a red flag for, you know, if it was a thin person, it would be definitely a red flag, but that just doesn't register. There's, I say ‘avoidance' kind of in quotation marks, avoidance of healthcare and kind of ‘noncompliance' again in inverted commas because they are such loaded problematic terms, because they put the blame on the individual instead of on the medical professional who is often perpetrating violence against that person. And so, yeah, I just want to kind of give that caveat. Yeah. And it can encourage…or it can mean that people die. Like it's, it's often a case of life, life or death because people understandably don't want to go see their GP.There's a really powerful piece, I'm not sure Molly, if you've read it, by Marquisele Mercedes in Pipewrench Magazine, where she's talking about not just the intersection of anti-fatness and medical care, but also anti-blackness because there's a another layer here when someone is racialised about assumptions made about like their pain threshold and, and tolerance. And it's a really eye-opening read if you haven't already read it. So I'm gonna link to that in the show notes just to give people like more, yeah, a kind of deeper understanding of some of these issues. I'm curious to hear, since you've adopted more of a white inclusive approach, if you've had any pushback from your colleagues and if you have, how do you handle that?Molly: So actually, I haven't. Not that I know about, not that anybody has spoken to me about, and actually, I...Laura: You're just keeping it under your hat because you're just alone in that GP room. You don't have to, like, deal with other doctors on a ward.Molly: I mean, that does help, absolutely, that I do have a lot of autonomy. And yes, I'm in my room and I see my patients. I did do a presentation to my colleagues about weight inclusive care, which I was really nervous about. And isn't that funny? Because... You know, I was thinking about the fact I was far more nervous doing that than I would be doing other presentations and, you know, these days I do a fair amount of presenting, and I kind of unpicked that. I thought, let's think about the crux of what I'm saying here and the crux of what I'm saying here is, you know, the point I made earlier that people of all sizes deserve compassionate, good, equal access to health care, which really, I would hope that most, yeah, doctors are on board with, members of the caring profession would be behind.But yeah, so the presentation went well and, you know, people came to speak to me afterwards and said, it kind of made them think, and they'd be really interested in knowing a little bit more. So that was positive. I mean, as GPs, the idea that weight loss isn't sustainable is something that we see day in, day out. And so I don't think that's too difficult for GPs to get behind. Laura: Okay. And just to kind of expand on that point a little bit, because I know we've, we've talked around this idea that diets don't work. And again, I'll link to a piece that I wrote about the diet cycle and, and this sort of why diets don't work, but just to give like a really quick overview of what the weight science literature tells us is essentially there are – and this is simplifying things, and Molly, feel free to jump in and like expand on anything I'm saying, but what happens when we go on a diet is sort of twofold. First of all, so we reduce the amount of food that we're consuming, right? That's the fundamental premise of any diet. They all work the same way, right? ‘Work' initially, at least initially. So you might initially see a little bit of. of weight loss, but then your body starts responding to that by dialling up your hunger and appetite hormones, because what it's trying to do is defend your genetically determined set point weight, right?This blueprint that we have for…I like to think of it as a kind of comfortable zone that our bodies will, like, prefer to be in because there's usually always some fluctuation within that, right? Like our weight just kind of goes up and down on its own through various, you know, stages of life. But overall it likes to stay within a window, shall we say.If we're trying to push it down below that comfortable window, our body will respond by amping up hunger and appetite hormones to drive up our appetite, to get us up off of our asses to go and find some food, right? Like it's an evolutionary mechanism. So that's why you kind of end up diving headfirst into a bread basket or, you know, I always say like you find yourself elbow deep in a tube of Pringles if you're, if you're on a diet, like that, that's what can happen. And it's because there are these biological mechanisms driving that. If for some reason you are able to kind of ride that out, you maybe develop some unhealthy coping mechanisms to sort of essentially ignore your hunger, then what can happen is that your body has another mechanism to try and make up for that, which is to slow down your metabolism. Right, so it can kind of…either you can get more food to defend your set point weight, or all the functions in your body can sort of slow down. It often starts with what are considered non essential functions, like reproduction. So you might notice that you're, if you're menstruating, that your period becomes irregular, your hair might kind of become less thick, your nails might get, I mean, your skin might get a bit dull, but then because your body can't sort of say, okay, turn off this system, but leave all the other ones on, you'll notice it kind of like playing out in, in other areas.So somewhere that I see kind of play out a lot is digestion, which I think we can all agree is an essential function, but you start to notice, you might notice it as like IBS type symptoms, constipation, bloating, diarrhoea, all of these things can be a function of not having enough to eat. So, as your metabolism is slowing down, you will obviously get this plateau in weight loss or your weight might start to increase or you could have both things happening kind of simultaneously where your metabolism is dialling down and then at the same time your hunger hormones are dialling up so you have what I call ‘the fuck it effect' where you know it's like the floodgates open and you're just raiding the fridge. And it's kind of funny but also it's a really distressing experience for people sometimes, if you don't understand what's going on, which is…it's your primal biological urge to eat is kind of overtaking you and you were just trying to meet your needs however you want, but it can feel really chaotic and out of control and oftentimes we label it as like food addiction or comfort eating sometimes, or like, yeah, we pathologise it somehow, even when that's not really what's going on.So that was…more of a detour than I wanted to go on, but I thought it was important to explain a little bit of the mechanics as to why diets don't work. Did you have anything you wanted to add to that, Molly?Molly: No, I think you have summarised that perfectly. My headline would be, bodies are very clever, don't underestimate them.Laura: Absolutely. Yeah, that is a way better way of putting it. But so, medical colleagues, they don't have too much difficulty understanding or kind of appreciating that weight loss is not sustainable. So they see that day to day in their practice. So they…it's an easy sell? Molly: Yes, it's an easy sell. Exactly. Laura: When you kind of go back and fill in, like, some of the stuff that probably should have been taught in medical school, but for whatever reason wasn't…I say probably should have been taught. I mean, definitely should have been taught in medical school, but wasn't. What other kinds of, like, questions or what things did you come up against when having these conversations with colleagues?Molly: So yeah, that is an easy sell. The harder sell is around the idea that, well, ‘ob*sity' being a thing and, you know, it's associated co-morbidities. Also, what is tricky…so even after I'd kind of finished the talk and had a conversation about it, the conversation turned to, but we do need to think about how safe it is to refer somebody with a BMI of over 30 for any replacement.So, you know, the kind of idea that the research that is at the core of, you know, our approaches and the weight centric approach is full of bias and quite frankly, fat phobia. And that's when I start to feel very conspiratorial, which I hate.Laura: I know exactly what you mean. Yeah.Molly: But I think it's a, you know, it's a really important part of the puzzle, and people really need to appreciate that, that actually research, you know, I think Fiona Willer described it as “a persuasive piece of writing”, which I think's a really important way to look at it, because that's what, you know, research really is. And that, you know, people are generally trying to prove a point when they start a piece of research. And because we live in this inherently fat phobic society, people are generally trying to prove that fat is bad.Laura: And so what you're saying is there, and there's a great paper that explores this, there's a BMJ paper that explores all the underlying assumptions in weight research, all these biases that Molly is describing.They filter through into the research that we get. So it becomes this like, circular, like, self fulfilling kind of thing, where we are looking for problems with higher weight and worse health outcomes. So we find them, right? Like it becomes this yeah, very… Molly: Confirmation bias. Laura: Exactly. That's, that's the right word I was looking for.So I'll link to a couple of papers that for anyone, for like medical students or even nutrition, any allied health professionals who are interested in learning more about this, because it's a lot to kind of take in. And we're, I feel like just getting to the tip of the iceberg here. Thank you for reading Can I Have Another Snack?. This post is public so feel free to share it.Molly: And I guess the other point to make about the research as well that people really need to appreciate is that it's, you know, I've said before, but it's really complex.And so, you know, let's take the example of post operative complications of a knee replacement. And by the way, I haven't really done a deep dive on this, so….I'm just kind of using it as an example rather than it being something I know a lot about, but, you know, let's imagine that there is an increased association between post operative complications in somebody with a high BMI after a knee replacement.Is that as simple as a person's fat and therefore they're going to be at risk of post operative complications, or is it that they are really stressed in a hospital because they know that they're going to be made to feel bad about their body size? Is it that they didn't have the right equipment available to carry out the operation or to, you know, anesthetise that person? Is it that anti fat bias has played a part in the treatment that they've received post operatively? We really, really need to be digging deeper and looking at the complexities around these kind of headlines that form the part of, yeah, our management.Laura: So yeah, what you, what you're talking about there is the sort of potential confounding variables that don't get measured for, that help explain the relationship between X and Y.Yeah. But we just…we see the X and the Y and we don't see all the – this is a terrible analogy – all the other letters, but we're looking for cause and effect, but we're not actually looking at all the other complicating factors that might result in that outcome. I think. Because our, like, primal monkey brains love simple explanations for things, right? They don't want things to be complicated, but they are way more complicated than they first seem. So, last thing I want to ask you about is...Whether you have any advice for medical students or even physicians who are bumping up against anti fat bias, either in their training or with their colleagues?Molly: Well, I guess I really hope there are people in the medical profession listening to this who do share our beliefs and, you know, I'd love to hear from you because solidarity is really important. You know, it can feel quite lonely. I guess my advice would be to kind of stick to your guns and hold on to those values and know that you are keeping people safe and you will mean that people feel able to come and see you who wouldn't otherwise have felt safe coming to see you. And that's really important. And you know, when I'm doubting myself or feeling a bit exhausted by swimming against the tide, what I tell myself is, well, let's think about the alternative. And the alternative is not something that I can entertain. In terms of conversations with colleagues, I mean, podcasts, I really find useful as a way of kind of signposting people to snippets of information and also talking about yourself. So, you know, people are more receptive if you kind of critique your own bias as opposed to critiquing theirs.Laura: Yeah, exactly.Molly: So, you know. A conversation like, you know, I'm thinking about a medical student sat in clinic with somebody saying something like, ‘Oh, I've been thinking about my own anti-fat bias, or I've been thinking about weight stigma and how I might be contributing to that and how that's something I'd really like to address'. You know, that kind of thing just plants that seed, doesn't it? And means that, whether they react perfectly in the moment may mean that that person then has to think about it themselves and reflects on it themselves and does a bit of reading.Laura: Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And you can always, you know, if they are open to, to reading more, like, like I said, you could, I'll link to some papers that you could share with them doing a journal club around those papers or like you did, Molly, a presentation that can also be ways to open up conversations within a department or you know, a university setting or something like that, where you can all be kind of working through some of this stuff together, rather than sort of siloed on, on your own. Because I think it can feel really lonely if you're the only little salmon swimming upstream.Molly: It's really hard work, isn't it? Really hard work being the pariah.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. But I'm really grateful for everything that you're doing. And you know, even if we don't change anyone else's minds, just the fact that you're showing up for your patients the way that you are is so important. So yeah, thank you for that work. At the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they have been snacking on. It could be anything you like, a show, a podcast, an actual little snack. So what have you been snacking on lately, Molly?Molly: So I have a television show that I've been watching that I'm actually able to share. I have a very specific criteria when it comes to television shows that I'm willing to watch because I'm such an empath that I can't bear watching anything that involves, you know, people being treated badly or humiliated or murdered, you know, anything like that. No, and it also has to be very relatable. I can't, my brain just cannot, you know, get into kind of wizardry and magicians and stuff. I have been watching Couples Therapy, which is a documentary on BBC iPlayer, which films couples going through therapy. And it's like reality TV, but without the vacuous….Laura: The drama. Yeah, okay.Molly: Yeah. And yeah, without the drama. So, I mean, there is drama, but it's a really kind of measured drama, and I just love watching the process. I love seeing the dynamic and seeing how it all pans out. I think the therapist is amazing. Oh. And it's fascinating. Laura: So these are real, these are real therapy sessions? They've not been staged?Molly: They've not. No. No.Laura: Oh wow. It's wild. It's real. I have no idea how they got that through any kind of ethics, but…Molly: Yeah. Yeah. Good point. But it's, but it's…Laura: I mean, it sounds interesting. Who doesn't want to listen in to other people's therapy sessions? Molly: Yeah. I mean, I didn't watch it thinking, oh gosh, I feel really bad that this person is doing this on didn't, it didn't feel like that. It actually felt really, you know, therapeutic.Laura: Like I did a documentary with BBC. a long time ago now and there was like a clinical psychologist on the support staff team so I figure that there has to be like someone…that person who's, yeah, just like making sure everything is contained and everyone is safe and yeah like, yeah, no one is, like, baring their soul on national TV who is gonna regret that they said those things. So that sounds really interesting. Okay, so my snack is sort of, I think, well, really related to what we have been talking about. So the book that I have been reading at the moment is called Sugar Rush: Science, Politics, and the Demonization of Fatness. It's by Karen Throsby, who is a sociologist and it is a bit more on the academic side, but it is so fascinating.Basically what she's done is a content analysis of like 500 odd different newspaper articles and books from about, I think just before the implementation of the sugar tax, or maybe when the sugar tax was being debated, all the way through to like 2020 with Boris Johnson's latest round of anti ‘ob*sity' policy.She's just tracing kind of like the history of the sugar tax and the way that the media talks about it and some like key anti sugar figures and some of the, like, the rhetoric around sugar and how it has been kind of like socially constructed. And it's also linking it to the demonization of fatness as, yeah, the subtitle suggests.But what I found really interesting is just how she talks a lot about these ideas that are written into policy documents that are so kind of assertive and confident and definitive that are the similar things that you and I have been talking about in this podcast about the relationship between weight and health that are just in all of these policy documents are just like, like, given at face value and there's no further sort of exploration of the science and I'm only kind of the first couple of chapters, but I'm really enjoying it.It's really good. It appeals to my, like, super nerdy nutrition brain where I want to understand the trajectory of all of these policies and how they all kind of interlink and build on one another. And it also has a fair amount of Jamie Oliver bashing. So I'm here for that. So yeah, Sugar Rush by Karen Throsby. So I will link to Couple's Therapy. Is that the name of your show? Couple's Therapy on iPlayer and Sugar Rush in the show notes. All right, Molly, before I let you go, can you let everyone know where they can find out more about you and your work?Molly: So I am on Instagram as @antidietGP, um, similarly on Facebook as Anti Diet GP. Be great to see you there. Laura: All right, I will link to both of those in the show notes so people can come find you and yeah, let us know what you think of this episode and thank you so much again for your work, Molly. It was really good to talk to you. Molly: Oh, thank you.OUTRO:Laura: Thanks so much for listening to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. You can support the show by subscribing in your podcast player and leaving a rating and review. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack? universe, you can become a paid subscriber.It's just £5 a month or £50 for the year. As well as getting tons of cool perks you help make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today.  Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas. Our sound engineer is Lucy Dearlove. Fiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure that they're out on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser, and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks so much for listening. ICYMI last week: When Your Friend Announces They're on a Diet… * Rapid Response: Why I don't like ‘this food does a little/this food does a lot'* Dear Laura... How do I stop wishing for the past and accept myself now?* Bandit Standing on the Scales is Not Even the Worst Part of Bluey This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

In today's CIHAS episode, I'm speaking to online personal trainer and performance nutritionist, Michael Ulloa. Michael is on a mission to make the fitness industry a more welcoming and accepting space for all, which is exactly what we dive into in this ‘sode. We are unpacking some toxic myths about exercise, Michael spills the beans on his feelings about Joe Wicks, and we discuss what really goes into professional fitness models' photo shoots. Plus we answer loads of your questions like how to find a more joyful relationship with movement after a lifetime of using it as punishment for eating. Find out more about Michael's work here.Follow his work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to Laura's newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here's the transcript in full:INTRO:Michael: The way that we're being sold health and fitness just isn't sustainable or achievable in any way and then people blame themselves and feel worse and then therefore they're more likely to spend money on all these other programs repeatedly and it's just a vicious cycle that just doesn't ever end.Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast, where we talk about appetite, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter. Today, I'm talking to Michael Ulloa.Michael is an online personal trainer and performance nutritionist who is on a mission to make the fitness industry a more welcoming and accepting space for all. In today's episode, Michael and I are shooting the shit about the fitness industry, unpacking some toxic myths about exercise, and answering loads of your questions: like how to find a more joyful relationship with movement after a lifetime of using it as punishment for eating.Some of you have been asking for more episodes on movement and fitness, so I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. We'll get to Michael in just a second, but first, I want to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter and community.For just £5 a month, or £50 a year, you get access to the extended CIHAS universe. That means exclusive weekly discussion threads, links and recommendations, you get commenting privileges and access to my monthly Dear Laura column, as well as the whole CIHAS archive and a few other sweet perks, but more than anything, you're supporting independent evidence based nutrition information free from diet culture and anti fatness. I can't do this work without the help of paying subscribers. So if you get something out of being here, then please consider upgrading your subscription today. And if you're still not convinced, then check out this recent review I received from a reader. They said: "Laura's podcast and newsletter are always thought provoking, filled with care and compassion, and a respite from one size fits all health and nutrition advice."So if that sounds good to you, then head to laurathomas.substack.com and become a paying subscriber today. Alright team, let's get to today's episode, here's Michael. MAIN EPISODE:All right, Michael, I need to know what the deal is. Because you're like one of maybe five PTs who isn't pushing aesthetic or weight loss goals on us.Has that always been your deal? Or is this more of an evolution for you? Michael: Yeah, it's definitely an evolution and it's funny you mentioned that because I get a lot of angry messages from personal trainers that don't think that my approach is right, which is always quite funny to me. I don't know, it's, I definitely, when I first started off in the fitness industry... I've been a personal trainer now for nearly 10 years.And in terms of personal training, that kind of makes you a bit of a veteran because a lot of trainers are quite short lived on average. When I first started off, I definitely did have your typical, like, mainstream slightly bro approach to fitness and nutrition. And I know most people that maybe work in the kind of space that, like, you operate in, for example, there tends to usually be a reason or a thing that caused them to go down that path.But I didn't have that at all. It really has just been a really slow evolution of just actually reading the research, working with people on a day to day basis, getting feedback from clients about what is working and what isn't, and then just really tweaking things over a very long period of time. I've also had some very honest clients, which have been great too, who kind of really follow my content on social media and they would message me like, oh, that's not very helpful. How about approaching it like this? And i'm always open to feedback, I always want to improve my practice and my messaging and I was always just quite receptive to that and I don't know... 10 years later I now finally feel like i'm working with people in a way that genuinely helps them long term and i'm actually creating content that is useful for people rather than just almost creating content for other personal trainers, which seems to be what a lot of fitness professionals do.Laura: Tell me about the angry messages. Why are other PTs up in your shit about...? Michael: I really don't know. I wish I knew the answer. I think... I guess if you're attacking someone's entire being and their work and their ethos that they've believed in for so many years, then I guess that a lot of people will react to that in quite a negative way.I really don't understand it at all either. Usually male coaches too, are very angry in the way that I approach social media and some of the names and things I've been called are pretty grim, but I only... I wish I knew the answer to that, but some, for some reason people get very angry in the way that I am approaching fitness and nutrition.But yeah, I really don't mind. Like I, as I said, I feel like I'm really helping people now and I'm happy to keep championing that message. Laura: I mean, I'm just wondering if part of it is because that myth, certain myth of no pain, no gain. And that you need to like, basically punish yourself with exercise in order to achieve a particular body type.You're saying, actually, we don't need to do that. It's okay if you don't kill yourself with exercise. We shouldn't be weaponising it against ourselves. For me, it speaks to how deeply internalised people's anti fat bias is. You're challenging the fundamental sort of premise that their beliefs are resting on, which is that, you can't be fit and fat.Or you...yeah, like I said before, that you have to punish yourself with exercise or like that... it's somehow okay to exist in a body that isn't fulfilling this ideal that we have been told that we should not strive for. Michael: Completely. And I mean, if we're completely honest about it, the way that the fitness industry is set up now is way more profitable for these people too.So if you do start attacking the way that they're approaching their lives or their businesses too, then they're probably going to be a little bit grumpy about that. It's so much easier for me as a personal trainer to make money saying, here we go, come sign up for the six week program and we'll strip body fat off you in such a short space of time, rather than me saying, cool, let's work together for three, six, 12 months. And let's really work on those habits and have you feeling and performing better. Like it's just such a hard sell. I mean, especially for, as I mentioned, like, personal training tends to be quite a short lived career for a lot of people. And I appreciate that when people first start off, the best way to get clients is shock and awe, like showing before and after photos, like having the secrets or whatever it is. And the best way to get clients at the start is by doing that. So people are going to follow that path rather than doing it the right way. That is a bit of a slow burner. I know that a lot of coaches aren't really up for that, sadly. Laura: Yeah, no, I think you make a really good point when you're talking about... the financial aspect of things, because, yeah, there's no money to be made in being like, yeah, take a rest day or go for a gentle walk and look at the sky. Yeah, those like making huge promises of around body transformations and then making people sign up for some sort of like intensive bootcamp situation. Of course, that makes sense from like a business model perspective, but as so often is the case, anything that involves capitalism is probably not great for our health overall. Okay, so I am absolutely not in the fitness space at all. I've purged my social media account. I think I follow you and maybe a couple of other personal trainers, because I find it really annoying, honestly, watching fitness content.Michael: I strongly relate to that. And first of all, thank you for following me, but yeah, I honestly, I feel exactly the same way.  Laura: And I think, especially since having had a baby and because I have some enduring physical stuff going on as a result of my pregnancy in terms of, like, pelvic health, even the stuff that is like geared towards women who have had babies and like postpartum stuff.It's just anyway, so I've just checked out of it. So I have no idea. What is going on in that space, really? So I need you to like, translate it all for me. What are some of the most pervasive and toxic fitness myths that you're seeing at the moment? Michael: Everything. Honestly, every topic is so toxic at the moment.It's really frustrating. And I speak to... There's a few coaches that I'm really good friends with, who I think you probably know as well, that I tend to follow their content, I like engaging with them and talking about the fitness industry, but I have also removed myself from a lot of the mainstream approach because...I don't find it motivating or helpful in any way. Like I think a lot of the... Laura: You don't even hate follow some people just to have like stuff to...? Because I hate feed a lot of big feeding. I hate-feed?! I hate-follow a lot of big accounts. I just have this folder on my Instagram called Ammunition.And I just save posts in there that I want to come back and get angry about at some point. What are you seeing from... I know you do it! But what are you seeing from those folks? Michael: So I do a little bit of that. And I, so I've also, I've got an Instagram account for my dog, but I started up ages ago. I don't post anything to it, but every time I see something pop up on, like, the explore page or I see another trainer share, I'll send it to her account. And then I'll use that as fodder for, like, creating content and coming up with ideas. But I do not, I don't hate follow that many people now because like I spent a lot of time on social media, right?And I know that because of that following these accounts and seeing them on a day to day basis all of the time does massively negatively impact my mental health. And I think if i'm feeling that way as a fitness professional who knows the research, knows what these accounts are doing to us and can see through the nonsense... how are everyday people feeling? When they're seeing this content and they don't really know if it's the truth or not. So I actually don't follow that many trainers. There's probably a lot of trainers who... . Laura: So very evolved of you. Michael: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. There's a few trainers who, like, I know through just from working in gyms or whatever, I'll follow them, but I mute them so that I don't have to see their content.Laura: Yeah, that's smart. Michael: But yeah, I don't know. There's so many myths about every topic. Like you mentioned there about, like, women's health and pelvic health and anything pre and postnatal. The stuff around that is really gross because it's not even just the fact that they're spreading misinformation. They somehow always tie in with just losing weight, like this is pretty much what it all comes down to, right? Laura: Yeah. Yeah. That's the subtext. It's always there. Michael: It's always like improve your pelvic health and slim your waist, like it's everything. It just pushes people down the route of still obsessing about body weight and focusing on body weight rather than focusing on general health and wellbeing and health promotion, and it's infuriating.I guess the same as, like, building muscle. Like it's nearly always advertised by these guys that are absolutely jacked, clearly taking steroids, using images of themselves going... you can look like this if you work out like me and buy my programs and my nutrition plans, and you're just never going to look like these people. So you're always going to fail. Like everything within the fitness space is geared towards repeat sales and having people come back for more because the way that we're being sold health and fitness, just isn't sustainable or achievable in any way. And then people blame themselves and feel worse. And then therefore they're more likely to spend money on all these other programs repeatedly. And it's just a vicious cycle that just doesn't ever end. And that's why with my page, I'm trying to step away from any aesthetic goals. Like you'll probably see through my social media, I don't, I'm not against people having aesthetic goals. I just don't really ever talk about it because I don't think it should ever be the focus of someone's fitness journey. I mean, I think that's the bit that seems to piss people off. Laura: Yeah. And I mean, there's some interesting research that shows that people who exercise for aesthetic goals, they're less likely to engage in something that is sustainable for them.Like, it's more likely that they will give up. And I don't mean that in, like, defeatist kind of way, but it just won't be sustainable for them. Versus for people who are approaching, I don't know, a type of exercise or training or whatever it is from a place of maybe wanting to feel stronger or feel more comfortable in their bodies or because they have mobility stuff that they're working through or something like that.So it's really difficult though, because And we'll get to some of the listener questions in a bit where they're asking this, like, how do you uncouple the aesthetic goals from, those more internally motivated goals from the perspective that we are just constantly being drip fed, idealised images of people all over the internet? And then, like you say, half the time those images aren't even real, right? There's people on ‘roids. There are people who are like starving themselves, like making themselves dehydrated, like posing in particular ways. I don't even know what other tactics people use to stylise these images.But I feel like the sort of falsification of these pictures is huge in the fitness industry. Michael: It's honestly horrific. And I would probably go as far as to say, like, every professional fitness model has taken or is taking steroids of some form. That's like the level of manipulation that the fitness industry...I don't know, I don't think there's any issue with... having aesthetic goals. Like I always like to hammer this point home because I think sometimes with my content, I can... people misconstrue that I'm against anyone having any aesthetic goal at all. I'm not, it's just, I think that the emphasis needs to be elsewhere.For example, when I first started in the fitness industry, I was in that loop of must build muscle, have to build muscle to show that I know what I'm talking about and also to be seen as manly and capable or whatever, and I would do a lot of strength training. I would never do cardio because cardio is bad.It ruins your gains. Laura: It's for girls.Michael: Yeah, it's just exactly that. And it's so frustrating that I would... I spent years just, like, strength training, nothing but strength training, even when I was going through cycles of really hating it. Like I had to do strength training, got to build muscle. When I switched up my training... I still do strength training now. I enjoy building muscle. The challenge of building strength and muscle is really fun, but I also do a lot of cardio because I really enjoy it and it makes me feel great in terms of physical and mental health. And actually since switching up, dropping a bit of strength training that I was doing and doing more cardio, the exercise I really enjoy, I've made so much more progress with my strength building and muscle building gains.And I've just got such a better balance with it all. So if someone listening to this is really struggling of knowing like what they should really be doing, what should they be focusing on? Honestly, just like enjoyment and mental health, that needs to be the priority. And then everything else just tends to fall into line after that.And the fitness industry, just the tactics, as I said, like the trainers use. The one thing that really annoys me is a lot of personal trainers will, anyone who follows any trainers will... I've seen this in the past where a trainer goes through a really extreme cycle of dieting, exercise regime because they're training for a photo shoot - in quotation marks - Where they'll go and get professional photos done that they've dieted down to within an inch of their lives. And they'll get a little snapshot image of look how amazing I look and then they'll use that in all their advertising of promoting healthy behaviour change or whatever other nonsense. It's if you're not using healthy, sustainable habits in achieving your physique, then you should not be allowed to use that in terms of advertising it to say that you're going to help people improve their health and their life, their health and their lives.It's just, it's incredibly infuriating and... Laura: it's false advertising. Michael: Massively. Yeah. Massively. Laura: Need to get that fucking, is it ASA, advertising...? Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Standards Agency. Absolutely. Yeah. Laura: I'm on the case! But two interesting things that I wanted to pick out from what you were saying.First of all, I think there's some complexity and nuance around this idea aesthetic goals, isn't there? Because we are all aesthetically driven, right? We are all, like we're aesthetic creatures in some ways, like when you brush your hair in the morning or I don't know, you trim your beard, Michael, or like I chose clothes that I thought looked somewhat okay together. Like those are all aesthetic goals, right? And so I think it's really, like, hard for people to decouple aesthetic goals from their overall movement, exercise routines, whatever you want to call them. But I think what you're saying, and certainly what I would advocate is that the fitness industry has just blown... yeah, they've blown up aesthetics to be like the sole purpose that people should exercise, right? And that I think is the problem is that yeah, they've just coupled exercise and aesthetics to the point that it's like you were saying, people are engaging in disorderly eating behaviours. They're using illicit drugs, they are, like, punishing themselves to look a particular way, and that's when it becomes problematic, right? Michael: Completely agree. Laura: And you end up on that slippery, slippery slope to disordered eating and eating disorders. Michael: Yeah, it's so true the barometer of success or health or knowledge within the fitness industry is body fat levels. That's pretty much what it all comes down to. Like a trainer who is absolutely jacked and really ripped is seen as being an authority figure without really knowing anything about them. And whereas you'll have a trainer who's in maybe a naturally larger sized body who naturally carries a little bit more body fat, has a much healthier balance of exercise and nutrition, a far better trainer. Just look at the comments under the content that they push out there onto social media and people will criticize them and say they don't know what they're talking about. Like our barometer of success is leanness. I don't know what the answer is to trying to combat that other than just keep churning out content, calling out this nonsense.But unfortunately you feel like you take a few steps forward when it was like two, three years ago, when you see, started to see a lot more body diversity on fitness accounts and kind of big companies like Gymshark and Nike and stuff were using people in larger bodies to advertise clothing.That's now disappearing again because it's no longer.... and it's just toxic. And you just have to go on like TikTok, the latest platform, even though it's been around a few years, I felt like we were maybe making a bit of progress. Then TikTok just flips that again, and you just got to search the hashtag fitness on TikTok.And it's just white, slim, muscular people clearly taking steroids that are the main bulk of the content that you're going to see. It's infuriating. Laura: Everyone in the fitness industry really collectively needs to be speaking out against this, but I think there's a simultaneous thing that has to happen whereby we are amplifying and centering experiences and the work of fat fitness creators, right? And I'm using fat, for anyone who's not listened to the podcast before, fat as a neutral descriptor, as a reclamation of a word that is often used to weaponise and hurt people and harm people. So, yeah, I'm just thinking of some people off the top of my head.Like Intuitive Fatty, Jessamyn Stanley is fantastic for yoga content. Lauren Leavell does a lot of barre stuff, but there's loads. I mean, is there anyone that you would want to give a shout out to like anyone that's doing...? Michael: The Instagram handle Decolonizing Fitness? Ilya. The content is amazing. We're trying to set up a time for Ilya to come into our podcast to chat about this at the moment. And I just... there's so many voices that need to be amplified. And I know that I always have to check my privilege in the content that I'm creating. Like you see very few men within the kind of body neutrality, body positivity, space, whatever you want to call the area I'm working in.So I always like to acknowledge that, okay, I'm creating content for a space that isn't really for me, but I do think that can be really powerful. And we still need more voices of guys, especially within this space, calling it out because I rarely ever see male fitness professionals creating the kind of content that I am.They tend to go down the more mainstream approach. And I like to yes, fitness can look like me. I look how the fitness industry says you're supposed to look, but it doesn't have to look like that, right? This is one way it can look, but it doesn't need to be like that for everyone. And I think that can be really powerful whilst amplifying the voices of those who are marginalised and don't get the airtime that I do.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, yeah, you make a really good point about men in this space. Like just in body neutrality, body positivity and again, there are some really great people doing stuff in that space. I agree like it's still underrepresented, but like the 300 pound runner. I don't know if you've come across his stuff? Michael: yeah, Martinus Evans.Laura: Yeah, His stuff is really cool as well. But yeah, anyway, just wanted to shout out some accounts and I'll link to them in the show notes as well. Yeah, so you mentioned that fitness professionals will embark on this really extreme diet, they will really bulk up, they'll, probably restrict what they're eating for a really long time, and then they'll do all their photos, and they'll probably go back to whatever they were doing before that. And it just reminded me when... and this is it's like really sad, but do you remember when Joe Wicks was talking all about binging? He went to America, and then it ... he just started talking about like he was eating all this chocolate and pizza and like stuff that he obviously was restricting so hard that when he went to the States, he had this like backlash against all of that and his body was just like, fuck this, and he just started eating like all of the food that he'd been denying himself.It just made me think of that and how he's... how disordered like this space is and how normalised that kind of thing is like that just like binge restrict cycle. Michael: Yeah, I mean when your entire business model relies on getting people really lean. If you're not sticking to those rules and keeping your body lean 100 percent of the time, then your business model kind of goes to shit. And I guess that's probably why he was having issues coming to terms with that. Joe Wicks is a really funny one because I don't like his content at all. I'll throw that out there. Some of the nutrition stuff he's spouted has been... I was going to say nonsense, but it's actually just damaging some of the stuff he comes out with.Also, on the other hand, I feel like, maybe this is giving him too much credit, I always feel like his heart is in the right place, but he just goes about it in completely the wrong way. I don't know if you would agree with that. When I hear him being interviewed, I feel like he's a really passionate guy who feels like he's doing the right thing, but he's just absolutely not.Because all of his content is focused on being lean and weight loss. And I just wish that... he's got such a huge platform now. It's terrifying. That if you had someone like him who could start promoting like a balanced and sensible message, it's never going to happen because he makes too much money now, then it would just be so powerful.Laura: But I don't know, like this piece around heart in the right place. I think we say that about a lot of these actually quite problematic white men. Joe Wicks, Jamie Oliver, I'm just gonna say it, don't @ me. But, of course their heart's in the right place, but their heart's also in their fucking bank balance, right?Michael: Completely, 100%. Laura: So that's one part of it, but also, I don't know when we can, when someone is, like you say, promoting harmful messages around food and around nutrition. And I don't. I think it matters where their heart is. Michael: Agreed. I wonder whether this... Laura: A murderer could use that justification to be like, Oh, well, this man is really toxic to women, so I'm just going to kill him.But that's not the solution. Michael: I know. I wonder whether kind of in my head, the reason I use those words is because I think of kind of the fitness industry as like a huge, like a line of like how problematic someone is. And I feel like he feels he's trying to do the right thing despite doing it very badly.Whereas you have a lot of people within the fitness space that go far beyond that, who are intentionally doing the really bad thing, trying to make a lot of money, it's still very bad. And Jamie Oliver is one of those as well, where he's got such a huge platform, thinks he knows what he's doing is the best thing, but it's just not. Like trying to ban the buy one get one free offers when people are really struggling to feed their families right now.It's just, I feel yes, hearts in the right place, but just no, like they need to be more informed and go about it in a better way. Laura: And especially when they are being given this feedback, right? Like it's one thing if you fuck up and you say, I was really wrong about that and I've learned some new information now like you have, right? And like I have. And you hold your hands up and you say, yeah, I was really fucking wrong and I'm sorry that I've caused harm and I don't want to do that anymore. I'm gonna learn and I'm gonna do better. And Michael: that's the sign of a good practitioner, right? And yeah. Laura: But speaking of Joe Wicks... Michael: Oh god!Laura: So, so you are a new ish parent, right? You have a seven month old. Michael: Yes, my son is seven months old, yeah. Laura: How do you feel about the prospect of Joe Wicks teaching your kid PE someday? Michael: Oh, just no, like awful. Yeah it's terrifying, isn't it? And these people do wangle their way into every aspect of our society of fitness.And there's just no getting away from them now. Personally, I never watched any of his school fitness things throughout lockdown. I know they're very popular. What was his wording? Did you watch any of them then with your kids? Laura: I didn't cause my little one was just a newborn at that point. And he's only three now.It just wasn't on my radar. I've seen his books. He has the burpee bears. And I've written a couple of like book reviews. They're super like, just tongue in cheek. But it strikes me as really problematic that he feels that we need to teach specific moves like burpees or other things like that to children, like to young children, like primary school age kids, and I don't really have a good justification for that because I'm not a fitness professional that other than does a five year old need to learn how to plank? Right? Or should we not be focusing on embodied movement that is climbing on play equipment in the playground or running or skipping or jumping or like, all of these things that kids, depending on their level of mobility and ability that they would intuitively do?Michael: I am completely with you there. I don't think we need to be teaching a five year old how to do a burpee. It's a bit ridiculous, to be honest. Yeah, that's the way that movement should be promoted and advertised to kids, if you want to use those kind of technical terms. It should just be about play and fun and movement, and that's... what it should be. Like if a kid sees their parent doing burpees or lifting weights and they want to try a bit out and get involved yeah, absolutely. But it just, it shouldn't be the go to, right? Yeah, absolutely. Laura: Yeah. My kid has seen me do a downward dog and he like gets involved and we do the cosmic kids yoga. I feel like that's a slightly different thing because it's a, it's so gentle and b it's animal poses. I don't know. All right. So I got sent through loads of questions from listeners and I thought they were really fun. So I just thought we could go through them. I think we've touched on a bit of it already, but maybe you can just give me your quick fire answers.Michael: Sure. Yeah. Laura: So this is an interesting question that Gwen from Dieticians for Teachers sent in. She said she would like to know more about the messages in your formal training. I think we can take a good guess, but I guess what she's getting at is, like, what toxic messages were in your formal training?Michael: Unfortunately, when you're learning to become a personal trainer still so much of it is about weight loss, still. You'll get taught, right, this is what we're going to learn about nutrition and this is how you help someone lose weight. So that is still at the core. And I guess a lot of the training for personal trainers, in terms of nutrition anyway, It's still very like basic government guidelines, which you can take those as you will. Some recommendations are maybe okay, others not that helpful. The training for nutrition for personal trainers is so, so, so, so basic that I would encourage any personal trainer who has recently qualified and not done any further nutrition study from there to please sign up to another course and learn more because what you learn as a personal trainer at the basic level is just nowhere near good enough to work with clients in depth.Laura: I have a lot of thoughts about personal trainers and nutrition, but I'm going to keep them to myself! Michael: No, no feel free to talk about it! It terrifies me. And it's very rare now that... a lot of the people I work with have had personal trainers in the past. The large majority of them have had negative experiences, and it's quite scary that's now just the norm.And I'll ask questions of my clients in consultations whilst working together and they'll be like, Oh, I've never been asked that before. I've never even considered that. And it just blows my mind that these things are being missed out or neglected by coaches. But the training is just not there. Laura: It's so interesting that the focus, I mean, it's not surprising, but that the focus is still on body size and not like flexibility or mobility or like rehab or like any of these, which I'm sure they like get touched on, but it sounds like from what you're saying that the real central focus is not mental health or like overall wellbeing. It's here's how you try and get people shredded, which we know is like biogenetically, if not difficult, if not impossible for most people. Michael: Pretty much. Yeah. Like I'm sure... I don't want to call out every personal training course. Like I did qualify a few years ago now, but I know there's some personal training qualifications that are trying to shift that, but it is still a large majority.And that is why a lot of the coaches coming through now, it's still very much before and after photos, weight centric. Yeah, unfortunately. Laura: Well, it's good to know that maybe there are some shifts coming down the pipe a little bit and I guess it just goes to show why again, you need to keep, like, pushing these alternative messages.Okay. This I thought was a really interesting question. And so this person asked, is exercise truly necessary? I don't enjoy exercising, but I do move a lot during the day, running errands and running after a toddler, all while baby wearing a newborn. And then the follow up question is, and if it is necessary to exercise intentionally, what form of exercise is best for someone who wouldn't otherwise prioritise it? Michael: That's such a good question. And it's very nuanced as well, depending on the person's situation. I would say, I mean, no, it's not necessary if you're moving around a lot throughout the day. However, so many health benefits come from incorporating some form of like direct exercise that it would be really sad to not explore all the potential areas that people could incorporate exercise into their life that maybe might not be the mainstream approach, right? If you are someone who moves around a lot throughout your day, if you say running errands and your general movement and step count is actually really high, then you could argue that as long as you get your nutrition, right, you're doing pretty well.However, strength training. Every time someone comes to me, no matter what their fitness goals are, I try and incorporate some form of strength training that I can, but that can take so many different forms. Laura: This person is carrying a baby around! Michael: Right. Yeah, exactly. Which is strength training, right?Exactly. So it's... when I say strength training, a lot of people listening to this episode right now will automatically... they'll think, like, gym, barbells, dumbbells, heavy weights, and it can come in so many different forms and it can be with resistance bands, body weight, dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells at home. It can be like TRX, it can be like so many different ways that you might enjoy at some point. So don't just think, Oh, I'm not an exercise-y person. I've always hated it because there are so many different ways that we can incorporate exercise. That is a very vague answer. without me knowing much more about this person. However, if you can find a form of exercise you enjoy, that should be a priority because the health benefits are huge. Laura: I'm going to push back because this is my opinion, not necessarily based on scientific fact, but it does feel as though there is this tendency, and I'm also conscious of your bias as a fitness professional, that exercise is held up as the pinnacle of health.And it's like the one thing that we need to do in order to be healthy. And I'm not disputing that there are health benefits. I also am like curious about the magnitude of those benefits within the broader context of health and health behaviours, but also nesting that within sort of social determinants of health and like, how do we measure the effect size of exercise individually from, I don't know, sleep, other elements of mental health, community? I guess what I'm maybe trying to temper is like that there are so many, like, variables and factors that contribute to someone's overall picture of health and I appreciate that movement can be an important facet of that.Michael: Yeah, no I really like that point because it is so important and I think that's why it's important to approach exercise and hence why I said without knowing more about this person, it's hard to give an exact answer. I think it's important to look at all of those things in terms of context when you're trying to prescribe or recommend exercise to someone, right?Let's say that this person is, they're likely lacking in sleep right now at the moment, right? Because their life is very busy running around after small humans. If that person is exhausted and they have no free time at all. I'm not then going to say, right, you've got to go and exercise 30 minutes a day for three times a week, because it's just not going to be helpful. There's other areas of your lifestyle that we can focus on to improve your health. However, if there is a bit of wiggle room, if you have a bit of time, then maybe there are things that we could explore that you could quite comfortably fit into your day without it taking over your life like a lot of the fitness industry wants us to do. Laura: Yeah. I think that the, maybe the TL;DR there is you don't have to sweat it when you are running around after a small child and doing other, all these other things. But if it feels like it's something that you want to explore, and you're curious to give something a try, then yeah, you could have a think about some gentle movement or something, see how that feels and how that fits in the context of your life But yeah, it's tricky to prescribe something without knowing, yeah knowing someone's life and what they want to get out of it. Michael: So true and you're never gonna know if it was directly the exercise. It could be so many other things that then, yeah, that then causes the health benefit.I would just say, once again, like anecdotally, rather than looking at research, every person that I've worked with that we've tried to think, right, how can we incorporate exercising today in some format? The large majority of the time, everything else feels better and improves as a result.Laura: Yeah, no , it can, it has a knock on effect on like sleep and pain and like all these other things. So, okay. How can I move my body without shame and guilt driving it? These are two separate questions, but I'm just lumping them together, and then this, another person asked, how to find the joy in movement after a life forcing it?Michael: I think first of all, it's really important to, like, vet where you're getting all of your inspiration and information from is a really important one because a lot of the time, if we're following the kind of general societal recommendations when it comes to exercise and nutrition. It's always going to have quite a prescriptive image focused approach to movement.And if you can shift away, like what we spoke about at the start of this, you don't follow many personal trainers because you don't think that they're motivating or helpful to you. They actually just make you feel worse. I'm the same. When I constantly see gym bros. telling me that I have to lift weights X amount of times a week, and I've got to get shredded and have low body fat levels, it has the complete opposite impact on me. So if you can first of all vet where you're getting your information from, that is absolutely huge. And then, yeah, I guess also once again, it's not beating yourself up for having the more mainstream thoughts that you used to have. I know a lot of people when they're trying to shift into kind of taking a more intuitive eating approach or a more intuitive eating approach with like exercise too, as well as nutrition, we can sometimes feel really guilty when we start slipping back into older habits that maybe are slightly disordered.I'm just... like giving yourself a bit of leeway and a bit of space to grow and learn. I'm still doing that. I still probably get things wrong and have room for improvement, but I think by doing that, removing the pressure on yourself can be really helpful. Laura: Yeah. Two things that I might add to that are something that I've explored with clients as part of working on the relationship with food and body and movement often comes up as part of that, we might explore this idea of, what it feels like in your body where you've had a period where you haven't moved at all, right? Maybe it's because you're recovering from an injury or because you just were so burnt out with exercise that you just really didn't move. How did that feel in your body? Did you get any pain or did it feel nice to rest or what was that experience? And then also thinking about periods of your life where maybe you've been really deeply invested in fitness culture. And maybe doing the punishing exercises, maybe also getting injuries because of that, maybe getting ill a lot of the time, maybe losing your period, like all kinds of different things, like different experiences that you could have in your bodies.If you've got that framing of this is what no exercise feels like in my body, and this is what too much feels like in my body, then it can help you explore what some sort of happy balance might feel like. So that's something that I encourage people to think about. And I also just wanted to shout out Tally Rye's Intuitive Movement Journal.It's her book Intuitive Movement as well. It is isn't it? Clients have found that those are helpful resources for navigating stepping back from exercise and just exploring what rest feels like through kind of the framework of, or a similar framework to intuitive being. So if intuitive being resonates with you, then maybe Tally's work will as well. So I'll link to them in the show notes. All right, this will be our last question. And it is: I cut out all deliberate movement for a while, by which I mean, I walk to get places and that's it. I'd like to try some movement. and see how it makes me feel. But where on earth do I even start? Michael: Okay, once again, without a lot of context, this is very hard to give specific advice.So I would say think about where you would feel most comfortable exercising and start from there. So I know that for a lot of people, the gym environment can be incredibly intense and intimidating for many reasons. So if you think that maybe that feels a bit much and it's going to put you off. Let's write that off. Don't do that. So let's think, okay, maybe we could start some movement at home. Is there a form of exercise that you really enjoy? Do you like dancing? Do you like jump rope? Do you like bodyweight workouts? What is it that kind of you think, Oh, actually that sounds quite fun to me and start there.And then let's say that there's so many decent content creators online, depending on what you like that I could recommend. Feel free to reach out and just start from that point. If you're thinking that kind of back to my earlier point that, okay, strength training doesn't have to look like that in the gym. What can it look like? A set of basic resistance bands from Amazon for 10 quid, you've got a gym at home. Like you don't have to go to a gym. There's so many different ways that it could look start from that start from what gives you that, Oh, that's interesting. I might give it a try, and start really, really small and build from there and that's probably the best place to start. Laura: If someone hasn't done much movement other than, like, incidental daily movements for a while... there's obviously a lot of privilege in this question but I'm wondering if you would recommend like doing a couple of one on one sessions with a trainer, like a safe trainer that could help build up strength or make like a bespoke kind of program for someone or just help them with their form so that they... I'm maybe thinking of myself here, but I know that I have to be really careful what I do at home because I'm more likely to end up injuring myself just because of my like, specific needs and in terms of managing pain. And so what I've ended up doing... and again shitload of privilege in this but, I'm, after three years of pelvic girdle pain, I'm like, at my limit. So I've started seeing a physio one on one who does clinical Pilates. So it's like very much helping me build my strength, which I could do... like I was going to a barre class before that, but I was walking away with more pain, even though it was supposedly like a supervised class, like there were no adjustments. There were no like modifications for my body, like nothing. So I personally, I have found that trying to build my strength and reduce pain, like finding someone who's really specialised has been a game changer for me. Michael: Yeah, I would say... I was gonna say one of the benefits of COVID. That's not what I meant. I was gonna say for the benefits of kind of the lockdown that happened as a result of COVID is the fitness industry got pushed forward by about five to ten years in terms of the way that it can support people, especially on a tighter budget as well. There are now so many... Laura: oh, you mean like online?Michael: Online support, right? Because I know that personal training is an investment for a lot of people. It's not a cheap route to go down. If you can afford it, absolutely, yes. If you can have the support of a professional who's got years of experience, it does speed things up and it makes things a lot more kind of personalised and perhaps more enjoyable.However, the way that the online fitness space works now, it has improved massively. And for, kind of, much cheaper options, monthly options, you can get the support of a trainer online that will be able to do a video call with you to check your form. You can send them videos. Like I speak to people that follow me on Instagram all the time and they'll ask me a question. I'll say, just send me a video of you doing the exercise. I'm happy to give you some pointers. If you find people online that are truly passionate and care. If you send them a video of you doing an exercise, they'll happily help you out. So there are so many different routes that you can go down to get the support that don't cost a huge amount of money.Once again, even the cheaper forms are still an investment, but there are different routes that you can go down now. Yeah, absolutely. Laura: Yeah. Okay. I appreciate that. And then just to add to that, like I've done some sessions with this, like a one on one physio. And now I'm going to, like the group classes as well.So it's, I think, helpful to just... if you have any kind of rehab that needs to be done, or if you just want to feel more confident in the movements. Cause like Pilates can be tricky if you don't know exactly what you're doing to just be thrown into a class situation. So it's helped me at least like doing a few sessions, even though I've done Pilates before, but just having that refresher to then go into a class setting, it's just helped build up my confidence a little bit. And it's also, I'm not going to like this, like a gym. Sorry, I said that with so much disdain, realizing you're a personal trainer! Michael: Ugh, these disgusting personal trainers!Laura: It had, like, a visceral effect. Michael: It's so funny though, isn't it? That it's so sad that's what the fitness industry has become. And especially as a trainer who is one, every time I meet someone and they'll ask oh, what do you do? I have to like preface, Oh, like I'm not like the rest of them, but I'm a personal trainer, like it's really sad.Laura: I do the same thing, but with nutrition, I'm like, I'm a nutritionist, but I'm not that kind of nutritionist. Michael: I'm not going to sell you a cleanse, I promise! Laura: All right, Michael, this has been so fun to have you on and just shoot the shit about fitness culture. But at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they have been snacking on. So it can be a book, a podcast, a TV show. Yeah, just about anything that, that you feel like. So what are you snacking on at the moment? Michael: So one podcast I'm listening to, this is going to be a bit of a curve ball, there's probably quite a few people, especially in the UK listening to it... I don't like politics because in this country, it's so gross the way that politics is at the moment, but I like being well informed in what's going in politics because it has such a huge knock on impact to like societal changes.Laura: I was really glad that you said that, because when you said I don't like politics, I was like, argh where is this going! Michael: no, I do, but I get so infuriated by it because it's so important and I feel like coaches need to be informed because it does directly impact everything we're doing with our clients in terms of like socioeconomic impacts and food access and education and stuff, so I've been listening to The Rest Is Politics podcast. I don't know if you've ever listened to it. It's actually really good. It's Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart, Labour side, Tory side. They chat about all daily topics and I quite like that they disagree and argue. I, depending on what you think about those two individuals, I'm still very mixed on what I think of them.However, I think it's very good to have a nice balanced approach there. So that's the podcast I've been listening to a lot recently. I really like it. In terms of food. So I can't eat eggs and dairy. I'm lactose intolerant and intolerant to eggs as well. Laura: I think you were probably going to wait for like the bummer, yeah, for me to be like, oh, that's such a bummer. But I'm vegan, so I don't eat any of that stuff . Michael: Yeah, I know. I was saying, I'm like the worst gym bro ever. I can't have whey protein shakes and I can't eat like 12 eggs a day. So maybe that's another reason they all hate me. So I found a vegan chocolate bar from Aldi. I don't know if you've ever had it. I don't think so. What? So they do milk, in quotation marks, milk chocolate and a white chocolate. They do a dark chocolate too, but a lot of vegan chocolate is dark. Anyway, so I haven't even tried that but their milk chocolate and their white chocolate is so good .And i'm getting through far too much of this chocolate at the moment but I finally found a chocolate bar that tastes amazing. They're by far the best chocolate you can get that's vegan, hands down Laura: That sounds really good, but we don't have an Aldi near us. We have a Lidl. Michael: So it's worth commuting. Laura: Oh, is it? Michael: Yeah. Yes. Laura: Okay. Might have to go to the dark depths of Dalston too.Okay. So I'm actually going to do a podcast also, and it's Getting Curious with Jonathan van Ness, which everyone knows who JVN is, obviously. He's amazing. Yeah, love them. There was like a bit of a thing a while ago where on their Netflix show they talked about like food addiction and it was just really problematic and icky and fatphobic. But JVN seems to have really been on a bit of a journey with this stuff and the latest, well, at the time that we are recording, they've just come out with a podcast called... well, an episode of their podcast Getting Curious called What's the Cultural History of the Calorie? With Dr. Athia Chaudhry. They're a fat activist and it's immersed in like fat politics. So, yeah. I would recommend going and giving that one a listen, because yeah, JVN has been on a journey, it seems. Michael: That sounds awesome. And that is my afternoon listening. Thank you very much. Laura: I will link to all of those things in the show notes.Michael, before I let you go, can you tell everyone where they can find out more about you and your work? Michael: Of course, so, most of the content I create is through Instagram, so it's just my name, which is very hard to spell, so probably best if you check it in the show notes. Laura: Yeah, I will link to everything.Michael: Thank you very much. So it's @MichaelUlloaPT, and that's on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, TikTok, whatever platform, it's all the same. Laura: All right, Michael, I will make sure that... It's all fully linked in the show notes so that everyone can find you. Thank you so much for coming on and yeah, like I said before, shooting the shit with us about fitness culture was really fun.Michael: Thank you so much for having me.OUTRO:Laura: Thanks so much for listening to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. You can support the show by subscribing in your podcast player and leaving a rating and review. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack? universe, you can become a paid subscriber.It's just £5 a month or £50 for the year. As well as getting tons of cool perks you help make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas. Our sound engineer is Lucy Dearlove. Fiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure that they're out on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser, and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks so much for listening.ICYMI this week: "I'm Not Your Target Audience" - How Do We Get Men To Care?* Reclaiming our Appetites* MORE Teens, TikTok, and some Good News for a Change.* Dear Laura: I'm freaking out about what my kids eat - but is it really about them? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm speaking to Sarah Sproule (she/them), a sex educator, an occupational therapist, as well as a mother of three teens. Sarah uses their skills to ensure that every parent and caring adult knows how to build a deeper connection with their growing kids, and believes that no child should ever feel alone and unable to reach out for help with their body, their boundaries, or their needs. Or their knowledge about sexuality.In this episode, we are talking about ‘sensitive things' with our kids, plus reclaiming the ‘C word'. We dive into the following topics;* The ‘invisible influence of normal'* Showing kids we're a trusted person to talk to about sensitive things* Why we don't want to wait until sex ed classes to start talking about sex* Teaching kids about body boundaries* Answering your Qs about: * How to explain to kids why you do some things in private?* 4 year olds asking BIG questions you're not sure they're ready for* 3 year olds who are resistant to challenging gender stereotypes* How to support your child when someone is asking invasive questions* Plus Sarah shares the unknown history of the C word!Find out more about Sarah's work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Enrol in the Raising Embodied Eaters course here.Here's the transcript in full:Sarah Sproule: I drew analogies between talking about sensitive things and other parts of parenting. So, I don't know a single other parent who waited for their child to ask them for a stem of broccoli before they gave it to them. Right? And we know that broccoli's really great. I don't know a parent who waited for their child to ask them, Can you please show me how to cross the road? Because I want to stay safe. Like, there are so many things we do, we take initiative for, because we know it's important for the health and safety and joy of our child. INTROLaura Thomas: Welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast, where we are talking about appetite, bodies, and identity, especially through the lens of parenting. I'm Laura Thomas, I'm an anti-diet registered nutritionist, and I also write the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter. Today, I'm talking to Sarah Sproule. Sarah, who uses she/them pronouns, is a sex educator, an occupational therapist, as well as a mother of three teens.Sarah uses their skills to ensure that every parent and caring adult knows how to build a deeper connection with their growing kids. She believes that no child should ever feel alone and unable to reach out for help with their body, their boundaries, or their needs. Or their knowledge about sexuality.In this conversation, we talk about what Sarah calls the ‘invisible influence of normal'; all the things, spoken and unspoken, that shape how we think about bodies, sex, pleasure, periods, and more. And we talk about why it's important to approach these conversations with our kids early and in a non-judgmental way that prioritises connection and helps inoculate them against body shame.We talk about supporting kids to trust their body boundaries and how that can help them use their voice when something doesn't feel right. Plus we answer your questions like how to teach kids that maybe it's best not to touch their penis at the dinner table, without inadvertently shrouding them in shame.Obviously this is a conversation about sensitive topics to do with sex, and at one point we do mention rape and other forms of violence. We also use the C word quite liberally towards the end, which Sarah and I are comfortable with, but we understand that it may not be for everyone. So all of that is to say, listen at your discretion and take care of yourself. I will say, though, that Sarah is extremely compassionate and thoughtful in how she approaches these topics. So I hope you'll find this to be a safe and nourishing conversation. Just before we get to Sarah, I wanted to tell you real quick about the benefits of becoming a paid subscriber to the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter and community and whole wider universe.So until the end of September, I'm running a 15% off sale on the cost of annual memberships. So instead of paying £50 a year, you would pay £42.50 and that gets you access to the monthly Dear Laura columns where I answer your questions. It gets you access to the whole CIHAS archive, it gives you commenting privileges, plus weekly discussion threads tackling the big issues like…how clean is your fridge? And who are you dressing for on the school run? It's a really welcoming space where we learn from each other, share with folks who have a similar world view to us, and we have a lot of fun. And of course it's a completely diet, body shame-free space.  I wanted to quickly share what one CIHAS reader said recently. They shared this review saying: “Laura's Substack is a lifeline in a world where diet culture and fatphobia is pervasive in all aspects of our lives including how we feed our children. Every time I start to worry about my toddlers eating and that internalised diet culture mentality starts bubbling up, it's Laura's voice telling me that it's all going to be okay. Through her invaluable work on CIHAS, she's genuinely keeping me sane and empowering me to navigate feeding my child and making the right decisions for my family. The paid subscription is more than worth it. Thanks, Laura.” Well, thank you for that really sweet review. And like I said, we're running a sale for the rest of September and you can sign up at laurathomas.substack.com and I'll drop the link in the show notes so you can find it really easily. And by becoming a paid subscriber, not only do you get the sweet perks that I mentioned earlier, but more importantly, your contributions help make this work sustainable. All right, team, let's get to today's guest. Here's Sarah.  MAIN EPISODEHey, Sarah, can you start by telling us a little bit about you and the work that you do, please? Sarah: I support parents and other adults who are raising children to speak about sensitive things. So that's a euphemism for puberty, genitals, babies, growing up, sex, relationships, all that sort of stuff that might seem a little bit like…eeeeh!...when you think about having conversations about that with kids.And that work is important to me. I'm an occupational therapist, but I do that work because I was one of the kids that would have really benefited from way more open and sort of practical conversations about all that sort of stuff. My mum and dad were missionaries and we grew up in Nigeria for most of my teens, but yeah, even though mum was a nurse and she would have told me how my brother was born and all the bits and bobs and… Laura: Yeah, the gory details.Sarah: Yeah. I think because I had undiagnosed ADHD particularly, it meant that if things weren't repeated and part of everyday life, I just forgot. So I got to be nine years old and I thought sperm flew through the air to get to the egg. So I didn't want the children that I was raising to have that same experience.And so here we are now, Masters in Sexuality Studies. I've been doing this now for a few years, and it just feels like the more I do it, the more I realised that this is the exact sort of work that…all my experiences growing up and being a neurodiverse person…it's all set me up for this. So that's a great sense of joy to feel so aligned with work and with who I am as a person.Laura: For sure. And thank you for sort of walking us through that transition from OT to sexuality studies to what you're doing now. And I think it's so interesting that your background is in OT because – and that's occupational therapy for anyone who isn't familiar with that acronym – because it really shines through in the work that you do.And I think that's the only other allied health professionals, I think, would see that, but definitely you can see the echoes of that. And I think it's such a great foundation for the more coaching-centered work that you're doing. So you sort of alluded to this in what you were saying there, but you talk a lot about this concept of the ‘invisible influence of normal'. Can you unpack that a bit more for us and tell us what that is? Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. So wherever we live, in whatever sort of country or city or family, there are influences on us from those cultures, whether it's family culture, city culture, farm culture, Irish culture, Australian culture, whatever. Those influences or those…the messages we're given subtly show us what normal is.So normal could be being married with children, for example, and not that anyone might have ever said that to us, what's normal is to get married and have kids, but maybe it's an assumption in the way people ask young children or growing people questions about what they want to do in the future, how many kids they want. Like if someone asked someone how many kids you want, there's an invisible assumption there that they want children. So this invisible influence of normal impacts us, not just when we're growing up, but it impacts adults who are raising children as well, because if we lived in a family that didn't use penis and vulva or clitoris as words for genitals with children, then we're going to grow up into adults who…the invisible influence of normal will have said, sort of shaped, you don't use those words with kids. And that's just normal. That's what sort of we grew up to expect. And that's just one example. There are lots of other ways like what is normal just gets sort of embedded into our consciousness, maybe without even our own awareness. So a lot of the times this “normal idea of normal” – and I'm using my fingers in air quotes – we might not realise that it's impacting how we speak to the small people in our life until we have a particular experience. Like it could be something like having a conversation with another parent at the school gate or in childcare, where they speak about, say, walking around nude in their home and all of a sudden you realise, what? Some people think it's normal or okay to walk around nude in front of their kids at home. What? And all of a sudden everything sort of shakes a bit, you know, in our world view. Laura: What I'm hearing you say is that this invisible influence of normal, it shapes our ideas of what is acceptable, what is taboo.And ultimately, I think it shapes whether we have a shame response to something, or whether we can talk openly and transparently about, you know, like you say, sensitive subjects without them becoming, yeah, something that we have to hide or feel shame about. Is that a fair way of kind of putting it? , Sarah: Yeah, that's a beautiful way of saying it.So this story came into my mind and I wanted to share it. So picture me 13 years ago. And I have like a five year old, a three year old and a one year old and it's Saturday. So if any of the people listening are anything like us…Saturdays, we're like, we're just trying to eke out every single minute of sleep, or at least being horizontal in the bed that we can manage, you know, and so our three kids playing around the room, the doors locked so that they can't get into trouble. And you can hear this sort of splashing in the bathroom and I get out of bed and I go in and have a look. There's a five year old has taken some condoms out of the bedside drawer – because condoms were our contraceptive method of choice at the time. And opened up the packet, given one to her brother, one for herself, and they've got them in the basin, they're trying to fill them up like water balloons. And I'm at the door and I'm looking in the door and, like, my breath catches in my throat….cause, like, your kids are touching something that is related to penises.  Laura: Oh it's so dirty! Sarah: So it's sort of like, this is the first time I ever thought of anything related to this work, right? And I call out to my partner. I go, John, the, the kids are playing with condoms…and this is my really traditional Irish Catholic husband sort of says, Yeah, so what?  I'm like, they're condoms! And he goes, So? And it was in that moment that I was like, Oh, hang on a minute. So for me, that was a moment when that invisible influence became visible. It was like, yeah, if he thinks this and I don't think that, what's going on here, what's…what's happening? And so it was a really clear moment in time for me.I was like. Oh, there are things at play here. There's, there is influences at play here that I didn't even realise. Um, and I think it was particularly clear because in my mind, John was sort of very traditional and I was like the uber progressive Australian parent living in Ireland. So it was quite a shock.And that's where this whole process for me of really looking and seeing what I thought was right that was unexamined and how that was really leading me down the same path to treat my kids the same way that I was treated, which was…yes, we can answer questions, but at the end of the day, sex and things related to adults, like life, children had to be protected against because it is in some way dangerous and sort of wrong. And of course there are lots of things about adult sexuality that, yes, are not appropriate for children, but there are a whole stinking lot of things that families can talk about in a way that is educational and supportive and kind and open and connecting. And when we don't allow ourselves access to those topics of conversation, we're losing the chance, not just to inform our children. That, to me, in my work is a secondary thing. The information exchange, that's a secondary thing. What's more important is that we are creating moments over and over again, where we prove and show ourselves to be someone, an adult, a trusted adult, who can talk about pretty much anything and everything. And we do that with understanding and we do it in a way that is respectful of our children and their ability to understand stuff. When that shift happens in an adult's mind that they realise that talking about sensitive things is a bridge over which they build a connection with their child and which will last a lifetime because it will last a lifetime, then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, okay. So this might be awkward and I might not know how to do it, but God damn it. I really want to try because I understand what is possible if I make this effort.  Laura: Yeah, and again, what I'm hearing you say is that you're prioritising the relationship that you have with your child over and above your own comfort and probably other people's comfort, people around you, maybe grandparents, maybe other parents at the school, teachers even, that your, your child might come into contact with. And that kind of leads me to a question that I, I was thinking about for you, which was around why it is so important for us, as parents, as carers, as guardians, to be the people that are starting these conversations with our children, these, like you say, sensitive conversations, and that could, I think, range from calling genitals by their correct names all the way through to puberty and periods.Why does it feel so important for it to be coming from us rather than, you know, waiting until Sex Ed at school or waiting until they hear something in the playground? Sarah: Again, it's about creating connection. I think about it from the perspective of how many years an adult, either a parent or a caregiver in some other capacity, is with their child or their young person, right?So I will often say that, okay, so If our kids stay with us until they're 23, just pick a number. You've got 23 years of meals and negotiations about bathroom time and conversations about going out with friends and all that, where your child has the opportunity to come to tell you something that's difficult or worrying for them or where they can ask you a question that is going to make the difference between them being able to speak up for themselves in a tricky situation or not. So your child is around you lots and lots and lots. Whereas if they first hear something sensitive, like how babies are made or what sex actually is from a teacher at school, that teacher may only be there for, say, 10 months of their life and then they're gone. And so when your child is thinking about the memories of how they learned particular things, a teacher's face will come up, but your face won't. And what that means is when they have a question or a concern or something tough is happening in their world, there's not that sort of memory that connects you and sensitive, awkward, unpleasant, difficult, concerning, but also exciting life events in the head, right? So it's very much about, again, how can we build that connection? How can we demonstrate to a child or a young person that we talk about this stuff. I drew analogies between talking about sensitive things and other parts of parenting. So I don't know a single other parent who waited for their child to ask them for a stem of broccoli before they gave it to them.  And we know that broccoli is really great. I don't know a parent who waited for their child to ask them, can you please show me how to cross the road, because I want to stay safe. Like, there are so many things we do that we take initiative for because we know it's important for the health and safety and joy of our child.And this area of being human, this developing sexual self is no different when you sort of look at it like that. Most of the time people go, oh yeah, I see what you're saying there, I wouldn't wait for my child to ask me to send them to swimming lessons. I mean, some of us might've done that before our child was even one. So it's far more about realising that our parenting approach, if it's different, only in the sensitive conversation section, then that's showing us that there's something behind that, that needs to be examined so that we can show up for our child in the best way. Laura: If you think about it from the perspective of, you know, like a, I don't know, a seven year old saying to another seven year old in the playground, oh duh duh duh, sex, penis, vulva, and that's complete news to your seven year old. I can imagine that that would be attached to, again, shame, embarrassment, of not knowing that information or that completely, like, coming out of the blue, versus if you've already maybe laid some foundations and some groundwork, then your child might have the language to be like…Or maybe they don't have necessarily, like, they can't explain all the ins and outs of it, but they can be like, oh, yeah, that's something I've heard of, and maybe I can go home to this trusted person and get some more details or ask some more questions. I suppose that's the kind of, I would imagine, you know, the ideal way that that scenario plays out rather than a child who just feels so overcome by shame and embarrassment that they don't have anywhere to go with that information.Sarah: Absolutely. And I mean, that scenario that you've pictured, that's probably actually best case scenario for a child that doesn't know anything. A more problematic scenario might be where a child tells another child something that's just completely and utterly wrong. Like one of my kids came home from school, I think they were probably 10, and he came home and he said, mum, Michael at school told us that rape means having sex with someone and then killing them.And I was like, Oh, that's not right, is it? Because we'd had those conversations. So it's not just about setting your child up to not be surprised by things, but actually if you've got there first with the accurate information, inaccurate stuff tends to like, they don't grab onto it and go, Oh, okay.Because…you know, think about that. It's quite damaging for a child or a young person to think that rape is having sex with someone and then killing them because then they don't understand what rape really is, you know, and so there's all sorts of complexity and difficulty that sort of arise from that.And, and I imagine that any…well, I would hope that any young person would go through the education system and very quickly get the correct definition given to them at some point in the curriculum, but nevertheless. It's not a great introduction if they're getting inaccurate information from a peer.Laura: Yeah, because you're completely missing the whole, you know, really important opportunity to talk about consent.And so speaking of consent, I wanted to – and maybe this will help us take some of these more abstract concepts and put them into more concrete terms, but something that I've noticed since becoming a parent is how entitled people feel to kids' bodies, you know, whether it's hugs or kisses or touching them in some way.Like, I was with my three year old the other day and someone from their pre-school, a teacher, ran up behind them and picked them up and scooped them up, and it scared the shit out of me, never mind my three year old. And of course it was coming from a well intentioned, loving place, because I know that they have a good relationship, but it feels like such a tricky one to navigate as a parent.And I have a lot of thoughts about this. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how we begin to teach kids about their body boundaries and what is okay and not okay in terms of people accessing their bodies and, and talking about who they share their bodies with and in what capacity. Sarah: The best way to learn things is through experience.So we could spend, you know, all day, every day saying to our child, you know, your body, your choice, you get to decide what's done to your body. But if we don't create an environment at home where that is lived rather than just spoken, then that makes it difficult. So children who – and I was one of these kids, actually – children who their voices aren't heard, we – I'm going to say, we – we grow up, we lose sense of what our truth is, right? So here's something that I've been thinking about lately. One of the adults in my community asked a question about school refusal. In my world, it's ‘school can't' or ‘school avoidance'. If a child is…said we just have to go to school anyway. You just have to go. That's what we do. We have to go. The message there is it doesn't matter how you feel. There are some things that just have to be done because it's always been done like that, right? You can imagine that if that model is placed on a relationship and our child grows up to be a young adult and is in a relationship with someone who is very clear on the way things should be. So for example, I had a relationship for a time with a person and, in the process of negotiating our physical intimacy, I remember an interaction where I said, we'll need some lube. And this person says, Oh no, we don't need lube. And, now, it was a big deal for me to even say we need lube, but the other person being so clear, like we don't need it. I just completely, like, shut down. That was it. Okay, well then that must be true because what the other person is saying, which is opposite to me must be true because that was something that was demonstrated over and over and over again in my growing up. And I'm bringing up school refusal because it's so…it's really difficult. It presses a lot of buttons in an adult, you know, a child who doesn't want to go to school. That's probably one of the more complicated places where respecting our child's voice and their deep inner knowing of what is right for them is going to be hard, whereas maybe a little bit easier in, if it was, do you want to go to the beach or do you want to, you know, go over to Jimmy's house and jump on his trampoline. Like it won't matter so much what our child says, if they say jump on the trampoline and we would have preferred to go to the beach, we're like, oh, we'll go and jump on the trampoline. But, so there's sort of like a, you know, like a continuum of the places in raising children where it's easier to respect who they are and their interests and what they want, versus the ones that are more difficult. And oftentimes the ones that are more difficult will be the ones where it puts us, as the adult, in a position where we have to go against someone in authority, or someone whose opinion we really value and we're concerned about their response when we're sort of advocating for our child.So it's no easy thing, but it really is about your child's experience of being heard, seen, believed, honoured. Yeah.Laura:  Yeah. You remind me a lot of a conversation I had with the psychologist, Hillary McBride, who is author of the book Wisdom of Your Body, and she talks a lot about embodiment, and we had a conversation about children's embodiment, and it was, you know, there, there are situations, of course, where we can't let our kids stay home because we have to go to work and we don't have any other form of childcare. As much as we would love to stay home with them all day and to let them rest and get all the things that they need, but again, late stage capitalism doesn't allow that. One of the things that she pulled out was just this idea that, even when we have to hold a boundary with our child, that we believe their experience, that we trust them and that we kind of, yeah, validate, I think, their experience because that will enable them to hold on to that seed of being able to trust their own embodied wisdom. You're nodding away there. I don't know if you have anything else that you would like to add to that.  Sarah: Yeah. So in my world, sometimes parents will say, yeah, but like consent is all very well, but what about, I've got a two year old who doesn't want to get into their car seat and we were going to wherever we're going and they have to be in the car seat.I'm like, yeah, yes, they do absolutely have to be in the car seat. And so in my world, I would be talking about informed consent versus like consent. And so a two year old doesn't have enough information and understanding about the implications for what they want to do. They don't understand that that puts them in danger.And so understanding that, while a two year old is very sort of clear on what they need, we have more information. That doesn't mean what they need is wrong. It just means we have more information and we need to facilitate sort of understanding, and that can be really hard when your two year old is doing the banana body and just, there's no way you can get the seatbelt on, you know?And so oftentimes it's about creating a culture when that clash of needs is not happening. So when your two year old is screaming, saying no, about getting in the seat, that's not the time to sit down and explain various things, but maybe there's another time the following day. Where it's possible to say, you know, I love you and my job is to keep you safe.And let's think of all the ways you need to be kept safe, or some of the ways. And you can list off, you know, electricity and fire and other things and then say, and did you know, cars are really dangerous if we don't have seatbelts on, just very like, little drops of knowledge and then I suppose that we can set our two year old up for success.And that could look like…like kids do really well with context, connection and choice, right? So getting to the car, setting context, in half an hour, we're going to need to get in the car. What does your body need to do before we do that? Do you want to run around? What sort of, what busyness? Because you remember, we're going to have to sit in the seat with the belt on.So context, connection, getting down and showing them that you see them. I love you. And I know that your body has a hard time being in the car seat. What can I do to help you out? Like letting them know, we see them, we understand what their experience is like. And then the choice is really offering as much choice as possible.So the seatbelt isn't a non-negotiable thing, but maybe there's other choices. Would you like to take a toy? Or would you like to choose the music? Or would you like to have a special blankie or like try and find all the ways that if your kid, the feeling of at least a little bit of autonomy so that you can keep them safe without too much conflict.And I…like I had three two year olds, I know it's not easy and we're all strapped for time. But if you sort of take a step back and think about it in the broader context, it's not just about that moment where you're trying to put them into the car. Context, connection, and choice are one of those things that's going to help you help your kid. And if you can do that, you feel good. Don't you? As a parent and like, Oh, like, wow. For the first time ever, my two year old got into the car seat without a screaming match. Like that's a win. And that helps me anyway, feel warm and fuzzy.  Laura: Oh, it definitely makes such a difference when you feel like you're maxed out, but then you get that win.And I mean, you're speaking my language, Sarah, and it's the exact same approach that I would take to a child who was struggling to come to the table, or who was really having a hard time eating and getting everything that they needed from food, you know, that connection piece is so important. And I will spare you the TED talk about everything that I see on Instagram that prioritises like these cheap wins over real connection over the feeding relationship. So yeah, I'll rein it back to what we're talking about here. Sarah: You know, when I was thinking about this, that we're going to have this conversation together, I was imagining that you and I at work would probably be that thing where we're holding onto different parts of the elephant. And while my work may look different, it's two parts of exactly the same thing. So I'm pleased to hear that is absolutely the case. Laura: 100%. So I got quite a few questions sent in. I'm not sure if we'll have time to go through them all, but I would really love to get your take on them. So these were sent in on Instagram that, you know, in the Instagram boxes, it's like a really tiny little space. So not all of them have all the context that I think we would need. I'll just shoot anyway. So the first one was “How to explain to kids why some stuff you do in private”. Again, there's no context here, but I'm going to assume that this parent means that their child is touching their vulva or their penis.Maybe…I mean, unless you have any other thoughts as to what might be going on there, but that seemed to be the most obvious thing to my mind. Sarah: Yeah, well, let's assume that. It's like anything else. We can think of other scenarios, that something is right in one context, but not another context. So oftentimes I will say, well, when we're going for a picnic in the park and we're sitting on a blanket. It makes total sense to use our hands, right? Cause we're probably eating a sandwich or a muffin or something, but when we go to granny's house and she served us tomato soup in a bowl, then what makes the most sense is to use a spoon. Or what do we wear when we go to the local swimming pool? Wear our swimmers. What do we do when we go to watch a movie in the cinema? Well, it wouldn't make sense at all to wear our swimmers. We'd get cold in the air conditioning anyway. We need maybe some trousers and a T-shirt. Same thing. With our genitals, depending on where our genitals are or like where our body is, well, there'll be different rules for them.So when we're on our own, when we're in the bathroom, when we're in our room, our genitals are our own. We can touch them and feel them and notice what feels good and what doesn't feel good. And you know, we wash our hands afterwards to make sure we don't spread any germs around the place, but your genitals are yours and you get to touch them and do with them whatever way you want. When we're outside, all the other people, they're allowed to not want to see us playing with our genitals, right? So we don't do it. Because if we didn't have that rule whereby people don't play with their genitals in public, then a lot of people might start playing with their genitals on the bus or in the playground or at school. And then it would be chaos. Not everyone wants to see other people's genitals or their hands down there. So it's just about common courtesy, really. And using analogies for other parts of life, where that same dynamic applies, it tends to ease us adults who are feeling a little bit squeaky about having that conversation in, because it's like, this is the same dynamic that plays out everywhere else in human existence. It just so happens because this is about genitals. Sometimes we're like, eh, I don't know what, help, help. Because maybe we're trying to reduce the likelihood of our child feeling shame, probably because when we were growing up, we were made to feel ashamed by what the adults around us said, and not because they were perhaps doing that on purpose, but because that's what they… Laura: They didn't have it shown to them. Yeah. Sarah: They, they didn't know. And most likely they would've been doing it with good intentions. Yeah. Some of us, you know, the adults that cared for us did not have good intentions. For the most part, though, most adults do, whatever level of ability we have talking about sensitive things is exactly right, depending on what's been in our past.So just because someone in the playground, a parent, is really good at this stuff, and we're not, that doesn't mean they're a better parent. They were just dealt a different hand and that's just the way it is.  Laura: Yeah. I hear you say that it's really important to have some self compassion when you are thinking about these issues.Thinking about having these conversations with your kid, but you kind of get that lump in your throat and you're not really quite sure how exactly to handle them, that just thinking about it, is a really good starting point, isn't it? And then from there, if you notice, Oh, I'm…well, it's checking in with your own bodily experiences, right, and saying, okay, what's coming up for me and where do I need some support or some help or some resources to help me open up these conversations.I really love the analogies that you use because these…yeah, it's a very similar thing, you know, talking about context and what's appropriate – I have some feelings about the word appropriate, but let's not get into that. One question that kind of came to my mind as you were explaining how you might approach that conversation. I'm curious if other parents might have this same thought, is that oftentimes in books around body boundaries and consent, they talk about your genitals as being private. So you know, one of the books that we have talks about how everything that's underneath your bathing suit, you know, it's your body, it's private.Would you use that kind of language, or how might you use that language? Do you find that helpful, or not so much? Sarah: There's a lovely author called Cory Silverberg, and they wrote three books for children of various ages. Laura: They're so good, these books. Sarah: Yeah, they're great. That author coined this idea of middle parts, and so the idea is rather than using private parts, using middle parts to generally describe genitals, because when we talk about private parts, it's just…it makes it complicated to give a child shame-free ownership of those parts of their body, right? One of the shifts in a family culture that can be really useful is this idea that in our family, we talk about everything.So, in a sense, particularly when kids are small, genitals aren't really private in families. Right? Laura: This is the exact thing that I've bumped up against with my three year old who still needs me to wipe his butt. And so there is that confusing thing of like, well, if this is private, but I need help with this or, you know, I still need to bathe him.And even the example that you gave earlier where we walk around our house nude, but we don't go outside nude, right? Like that can be a confusing thing. So I'm sorry to interject, but it just…you're articulating the exact, the exact thing that I have bumped up against. Sarah: Yeah. And so I suppose, again, it's another demonstration of something that manifests in lots of different ways in our parenting, but because it's to do with genitals, it's a bit like, Oh, not quite sure how this works.So the whole dynamic of raising children is that in the beginning, we're having to do a lot of things for them that they will eventually do themselves, feeding, cleaning, dressing, even sort of communicating, like taking the whole burden of communication off them onto us. So we're interpreting sounds and body language and all that sort of thing.So you can explain that dynamic to a child and say that there are certain parts of our body that are more sensitive than others and middle parts or genitals like penis or a vulva or whatever, there's a lot of special skin on those parts. And what that means is that they need special care, right? Now, when you're grown up and when you're, you know, maybe you're 8 or you're 10, you're going to wash those and put your clothes on those parts of your body. And you won't really need an adult's help at all. And you probably definitely won't want an adult's help, but while you're still small and I'm having to help you do a few other things, this is one of the parts of your body that, that you need help with.And my job is to help you eventually do it all on your own. Right. You would need to also say that bit about only trusted people help us with our most sensitive parts of ourselves. Right. And I suppose as a reminder that it's not just genitals we're talking about here. We're also talking about anus and we're talking about mouth because those are parts of the body too that can be used in ways that are really hurtful for people who don't have a child's best interest at heart. So when you're framing it in that way, there's less sense of like…the word private tends to put a shroud over things where, if you're talking about the sensitive special skin and special parts, then it's more like it's an honour and a privilege sort of thing, like to support you in this part of your being human. And to me, it just feels more gentle and collaborative and kind of nurturing. Laura: Yeah, I often thought about, like, the language of private parts as well as being a little bit confusing from the perspective of, like, as in when kids mature into young adults where they might want to start sharing their bodies with other people in a respectful, consensual way.Again, if it's got that sort of private, you know, shroud of shame connotation, then that's going to be a lot harder for them to do that in a way that, that feels safe.Sarah:  I'm laughing because I remember a meme that I saw, it would have been years ago now, but it was like, lies we tell children, number one, we don't lick other people's private parts.And just sort of like this, like head in the hand, like face palm, like, moment where, well, actually, when you get older…And I suppose what it illustrates is, when we're talking to kids, we have all this information and knowledge about where things could go as adults, right? They don't have an understanding of that.And I suppose it's no harm really to allow ourselves as adults to simplify it at a particular point in time, right? Knowing that as our kids get older, that truth that we've told will no longer be true. Right. And so, and that's where resources like Cory Silverberg's book, Sex is a Funny Word or, You Know Sex. Sex is a Funny Word is for around, around seven and eight years, And, You Know Sex is sort of for 10 to 14 year olds where it's really clear, it's a lot about how our bodies are instruments of pleasure, right? Which is often another conversation that adults find hard to have with kids. You know, that classic thing where you have that conversation about how babies are made or well, sperms and eggs get together and a penis goes into a vagina, if those two people want to do that, or you might talk about IVF or artificial insemination, but if it's a penis in a vagina… Laura: It leaves out a whole part of the conversation as to why people have sex. Yeah. Sarah: Exactly. And so oftentimes the kids will come back and say, all right, so I've been thinking about that. So that means you and dad did that twice, right? And parents will go, Oh, which actually just demonstrates that, like you said, a whole section of the conversation that was was left out about pleasure. So I think in these moments, when we're talking to kids about boundaries and safety, it's possible to simplify it a bit, knowing that down the road, one of our important jobs is to bring this whole pleasure and sharing our bodies with other people, and that naturally comes as they grow older and they start cluing in on more things to do with…they see the diversity in relationships around their extended community and family, you know, like if you have a same sex couple in your community, it makes it so much easier. And thank you to all the out gay and bi people, right?Because it makes it so much easier to have the pleasure conversation because it's so clear that if a child has had those conversations that sex really is only a penis and a vagina that all of a sudden you get this beautiful opportunity to talk about, well, actually intimacy is so much more about pleasure and how bodies feel good and how, when we share our body with someone else and we trust them and they trust us, then we get to help another person's body feel really good.There are lots of different ways that that happens. And then remember that in parenting, sometimes you don't have to say everything, like you can…Um, if you have a child who really needs things to be quite concretised, so an autistic child, for example, who really needs very specific communication. I'm autistic, I know what it means when someone's beating around the bush and I have to say, can you just tell me, tell me exactly what you mean by that? What does that mean? And then they're clear. And I'm like, okay, fine. And there are children like that, but some kids, you know, the information layers on over time, so it's far more about just holding your nerve and knowing that over the weeks and the months and the years to come, there'll be lots of opportunity to do and say and read all the things.Laura: And that's exactly what I was going to say is, reminding ourselves that, that this isn't a one and done conversation, that we will be having, if we're lucky and privileged to continue having these conversations with our kids, if they trust us enough to keep coming to us for these conversations, then it will be an iterative, as you say, layering on more information and more nuance as they developmentally can grasp that.So, I'm really curious to hear your answer to this question, because I bet there's a ton that you would love to say, but the person who sent this question in asked, “Four year old is asking questions, I'm not sure she's actually ready to hear the answer about, what do I do?” Sarah: I always say that if a child is asking the question, then they need to know the answer.Oftentimes in parenting advice, you'll hear people say, first of all, you ask them, well, what do you know already? And again, I go back to that old thing about, okay, where else in parenting do we check, well, what do you know already? Like there may be some places where you genuinely want to know, okay, do you know the basics of the solar system, for example? And so then I can just tell you, answer the question based on your knowledge, but oftentimes adults will use that, what do you know already as a way to sort of like create space. Laura: Or deflect. Sarah: Yeah, deflect. That's right. Or create space. And that's not a bad thing if your brain is trying to catch up. But all I would say is, a four year old has huge amounts of capacity for understanding sperms and eggs and uteruses and testicles and lots of things. And as a general rule, if we think a child isn't old enough to get the answer to something, it's probably because there's something in our past or a worry that we have that we don't know is there.So short answer, answer the question and see what happens, and use simple language in a way that you would use for answering any other questions you might ask. Laura: It's interesting, just maybe a point of difference in how we might approach things, because if a, for example, if a child came to me and asked, is this healthy for me? Like this food. Usually, I would be really curious to know, okay, well, I'm interested, what do you think? Do you think this is a healthy food? Just to get a gauge of, like, what information they've picked up or what they've learned so that I'm kind of starting from where they are and then maybe building from there.But I also see, like, how in certain situations it could be, like, Oh, fuck. I'm in too deep here. So let's just get the kid to do the hard work for me. Yeah. Sarah: And I guess, again, it's about how much stigma and shame culturally exists around a topic. There's a lot of stigma and shame that exists around…there is a lot of cultural shit around your topic as well, right? They're both heavily laden. Laura: But I would argue that you probably, uh, win on this, Sarah: Yeah. Yay! My topic's more stigmatised! Laura: You got it, yeah! I think what we're saying is, the point is to have the conversation, right? To think about, and again, what we were saying before, noticing what comes up in us when that question is asked.Sarah: And if you need to buy time, one of the great ways to do it is to say, Oh, I love that question. I'm so glad you asked it. Even if you're lying because you're freaking out, reinforce how great it is that they brought that up. I love that question. I'm so glad you asked it. I want to make sure I give you the best answer I can. So I'll get back to you tomorrow. Now, if you say that. You must get back to them tomorrow, otherwise it's a breach of trust. And remember, we're trying to be askable adults, the people they trust the most to come to them with their worst and best questions and worries. So that's really important. So you, in rugby language, you kick for touch. You tell them you come back tomorrow, you run around and find your most trusted sex educator, or you go to your therapist or ask your best friend who seems to know how to do all these things. And then you go back to your kid the next day.Laura:  Yeah. I did not understand the rugby reference, but everything else you said sounded really good.Sarah: Kicking for touch means, like, you take the ball and you kick it as far down the pitch as you can, hoping that it will bounce in exactly the right way that you can run down and start from that point. Right. Laura: Got it. Okay, I'm with you. Alright, another quick question, just in general: smashing gender stereotypes for a three year old who has turned out like a princess. They love glitter, and dresses, and pink, and does not enjoy wearing pants, despite the parents best efforts to show her a variety of gender roles. And then the same person kind of asked a follow up question, which is, is it okay to just…let her be tacky and think she's a Disney princess, even if I wish it was different.So yeah, questions about gender roles and offering a variety of, not even offering a variety, but challenging gender stereotypes. Sarah: So I'll answer the second part of that question first. It is absolutely okay to allow your three year old to be as tacky and as pink or as glittery as they want. Absolutely.And that goes for a child of any gender. Yeah. Yeah. And I would also say that for some of us, there is a desire, I suppose, to fix everything that's wrong with the world through a small person who's growing up. And really they're one human. Yeah, and they're themselves and they're an individual. And I remember thinking a lot about this when my daughter was, I can't remember what she was, we started to get into YouTube videos about makeup and she loved makeup and I really had to do a lot of soul searching and personal sort of, like, care because I really wanted to fix the whole of the patriarchy when it came to like appearance and that whole makeup culture and everything. But I realized that no, no, that's not my job. And it's definitely not my 11 year old, 10 year old's job. My job is to love her and support her and help her feel like she is the best thing since sliced bread. Even if she is…has interests along sort of gender stereotype lines. And yeah, so remembering that in the moment when we're thinking of, Oh, we want to sort of fix the gender stereotypes and all that stuff. That really our child's body is not the place in which to do that. If you have a desire to create some sort of change, find somewhere else to do it.And look, the person who's asking these questions has already done a really great job of providing diversity and opportunity to see different things in their home. And so, you know, you've done what you can do and you continue to look at yourself and notice, okay, where are some of the ways that I might unthinkingly be following stereotypical lines and maybe then volunteer for some organisation or donate money somewhere else who's doing work related to gender and get on loving your kid and doing all the sparkly, tulle, pink, whatever it is. Unicorns. Yeah. Laura: Yeah. I think that's such a helpful reminder is that, you know, kids are not our like personal projects for righting everything that is wrong in the world and that there are other ways that we can create opportunities for them, show that we will be loving, accepting no matter what they decide they want to be when they grow up or how they want to express themselves or, you know, who they want to be in relationships with or any of that stuff that we can. There…you know, it doesn't have to be this either/or binary because so much of what is problematic about systems in the world is that they're binary, right?And so we…I suppose one thing that we can do is work to not replicate binaries in our, in our own home and in our parenting. And I have a little curveball question for you that I wanted to ask, which is kind of related to, something else we talked about at the very beginning around people feeling entitled to kids' bodies, and I promise I didn't just get you on the podcast to answer my own parenting shit, but I was curious to hear if you had or how you might approach this or if you had any thoughts on this. Something that we come up against quite a lot is people really feeling entitled to explanations from my three year old. You know, that thing, which again can be like very well connected, meaning and people want to connect with him by asking, you know, what's your name? What's your age? But then they always ask, are you a boy or a girl?And It just feels so invasive and I can tell that he feels invaded because he kind of like, you know, curls into me, and it's one of those things where I just want to say. There is no such thing as a girl or a boy. What are you talking about? Like, and just launch into this whole diatribe about gender roles and, and things, but it, you know, the corner shop is not the place to do that.So I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on how you can kind of say to your child, like, it wasn't okay that they asked you that question. And, you know, I could tell that you were uncomfortable with that question while also maybe kind of like deflecting that question, does that make sense what I'm asking?Sarah: In a sense, you've partially answered it already because what you said there about saying to your kid afterwards, that question was, I could see it made you uncomfortable. What you're doing is you're, you're reflecting back their experience of it and reinforcing that that was a valid response, right?And so you're really sort of saying that made sense to me that you felt like that, that felt a bit weird. And you could even be more sort of broad and say, you know, some people ask questions that don't feel comfortable or feel a bit unkind or feel a bit rough. Whatever is the natural language that your, your kid would resonate with.But the other thing would be to – and you may already do this – is in the moment when it's happening and the person in the shop has asked that question, you can see your kid's body language doing what it's doing. You could simply say, Oh, I noticed that that question, it feels, it feels uncomfortable. So how about we talk about what we're buying in the shop, or did you know that apples is our favorite fruit? This is a personal choice. Actually. Some people would choose to deflect in a way that's very sort of gentle and easy going, because in the presence of a child, they're not interested in raising the conflict, elevating the energy. So do that way. Some people are more comfortable saying simply, you know, we don't really talk about gender in our house. We're much more interested in… whatever it is. So like it's finding the balance that feels right to you in being able to redirect…or I had one person just simply ignored questions they thought was stupid, they just like blanked them and went, okay, good to see you and off they went or, okay, we're going off to get the milk now. And just like, just pretended that it hadn't even happened, you know. It's different for everyone. There will be, and I'll speak to this too, there will be some people that don't have the personal capacity to manage any of the options that we've just mentioned here. You know, and there's someone in my community who something similar happened, they were in the park and a dear family friend, I think was about 50, saw them after, it might've been after COVID. So it'd been a few years and, her daughter was probably about 10 and he sort of, he moved in or something and she could see her daughter's whole body. So like, like shrink like this, but in the moment, yeah. Did not have the capacity. Like didn't see it coming. Hadn't thought about any of this stuff before. And so the interaction happened, he left and she hadn't been able to do anything about it, which makes complete sense because there are many of us, we go into a trauma response that reflects what's happened to us in our past, where we also were mute or I didn't have power to, to sort of do anything about that.So also, I suppose, a recognition of that. We all have different capacity when it comes to a situation like this and to reiterate and go back to that thing again about self compassion, whatever you have capacity to do in that moment is exactly right. It is not possible to achieve something if you don't have the underlying ability or experience or knowledge to do that.And so there's no shame, there's no blaming about that. It purely gives you an opportunity to notice. And then maybe at some point you'll have the ability to reach out for help. And for some of us, we don't have the ability to reach out for help for 5 years, 10 years. Some of us never in our life because we don't have the economic advantage or the educational support to do so.So it's just a small reminder that we all start in this area at completely different places on this spectrum of ability. And it doesn't mean you're bad or wrong. It simply means you are who you are with the life that you had. Laura: Sarah, I just want to – before we do our snacks – I just wanted to say, I felt myself get emotional at what you were saying there because it's just…the work that you're doing is so important and I know makes such a difference to the families that you help and I know you put a ton of like free resources and content out there.So I'm just really grateful to all the work that you're doing and yeah, just shining a light on these really difficult, challenging conversations in a way that is so compassionate and so just nuanced and thoughtful and yeah, I just know that you're making a big difference for a ton of people, so I wanted to say thank you.And I want to know what your snack is! At the end of every episode, my guest and I share something they've been snacking on. It can be a show, a podcast, a book, you know, like a literal snack, whatever it is that you've been really into lately. So what have you got for us? Sarah:  Yeah, well, this is actually something quite personal because, you know, I mentioned about being autistic.And that diagnosis came very late in life for me, only last year. So the thing I'm snacking on is noticing when it's possible to truly be myself, as opposed to do something that I've learned to do to make everyone else feel comfortable, you know, and that can be something as simple as, well, this isn't simple. Actually, this is quite challenging for me. I was at a, like a week long training for…a therapy training that I'm doing the other week. And instead of sitting on the chair, I sat on the floor because that's where my body felt the most comfortable. So, and it felt so damn good, you know, like it didn't feel just good to sit on the floor. It felt good to honour who I was. And so in an ideal world, I guess, honouring who I am wouldn't be a snack, but because this is a work in progress. It absolutely is a snack right now, and I'm grateful for it. Laura: Oh, I love that. And a lot of people who are part of the Can I Have Another Snack? community are neurodivergent, and I'm sure will really resonate with that experience of, yeah, unmasking and feeling like really comfortable doing that and how, yeah, just affirming that feels. So yeah, thank you for, for sharing that. Oh, my thing is just going to sound really trite compared to that, but my thing is a show, it's called Deadloch. Have you seen it?Sarah: Is that the Australian show? Oh, it's so good. Laura: Yeah. So, okay. So I'm excited to be able to talk to someone about it because I feel like not a lot of people have come across it.Uh, so it's set in Tasmania. It's all I can describe it as…is like a lesbian detective show. Sarah: That's about it. And like, it's so quirky, isn't it? Like it's just so random and weird and sometimes dark and sometimes hilarious. And it's sort of like, it's, it's wild. I'm so glad you love that. Laura: It is wild. And so there's, there's only one season, which is really disappointing, but it…each episode is an hour, so I feel like it's enough that you can, like, get stuck in. And I am someone who, like, my nervous system cannot handle a lot of stress, anxiety in the shows that I watch, I need to, like, be able to decompress. I do want to say that...it is a murder mystery, like it does ramp up in terms of the suspense across the season I want to say, but there's enough dark humour and comedy and, like, a lot of swearing and ridiculousness that it kind of like tempers it out and yeah, so it's really good. I highly recommend it. Sarah: It's amazing. Can I just say, from the perspective of sensitive conversations to the writers of that show, they had to write a rationale for why the word cunt should be in the script because it's used prolifically. For anyone who doesn't know, in Australian colloquial swearing language, cunt is used for lots of different things and it's important it was in there, culturally. It was super important. So I just loved that. And the other thing I loved was that – this isn't a spoiler – the victims of the crimes are not the gender you think, like you naturally assume them to be based on a lot of other like TV crime you would see.So there's some things that comes out and it just sort of skews your expectation based on what the culture has given you, that invisible influence of normal in crime shows, you know? Laura: There is a lot of cultural stuff that is a kind of cultural critique, I suppose, that around gender, around racism, there's a lot of stuff that it touches on, but there is prolific use of the C word.But it, it's just like the way that it is thrown in, it's just very well done. The whole thing is very well done. So highly recommend. Sarah: And can I just say one thing, because you said “the C word” and I think it's important. Because when I was about 28, I was able to reclaim the word cunt because I was in a relationship with an artist at that point and a poet.And he said to me, because I was like, Ooh, that's a yuck word, he said, did you know like, it comes from the old…Old English or Old Norse or something, something of like, when you're ploughing that there's like, the plough leaves a cunt behind in the soil. And I was sort of like, oh, that actually sort of made me feel like, well, that's sort of nice. Like it's a similar sort of look. And for some reason, it just made me feel like I think I could reclaim that word. Not that other people can't, but from that time on, I was like, yeah, okay, that word and I, we can coexist with relative equanimity. Laura: Do you know what? I don't even know why I censored myself because I say cunt all the time.You're a cunt, you're a cunt, they're a cunt. But I understand that maybe not everybody is as comfortable with that word.Sarah, before I let you go, can you let everybody know where they can find you and learn more about your work? Sarah: Sure. Well, my Instagram is @IAmSarahSproule. And at the moment in the season that I'm in, which is really about unmasking and making sure I rest as much as I can. There's not a lot of new things out there, but there is about three years worth of very detailed content there about how to talk to kids about all sorts of things that all different ages, and it's well worth trawling back through there and, getting your fill of support. So that's where the main place you can find me. Laura: Yeah, I will link to all of that in the show notes and there's some great farting content on there as well, which I really appreciate and enjoy. Sarah, it's been such a delight to talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing everything with us. I know we could have gone on for like another 90 minutes, but I will wrap up there and let you go. Thanks so much, Sarah.OUTROThanks so much for listening to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. You can support the show by subscribing in your podcast player and leaving a rating and review. And if you want to support the show further and get full access to the Can I Have Another Snack? universe, you can become a paid subscriber.It's just £5 a month or £50 for the year. As well as getting tons of cool perks you help make this work sustainable and we couldn't do it without the support of paying subscribers. Head to laurathomas.substack.com to learn more and sign up today.  Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas. Our sound engineer is Lucy Dearlove. Fiona Bray formats and schedules all of our posts and makes sure that they're out on time every week. Our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser, and the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Thanks so much for listening. ICYMI this week: Let's Talk All Things Neurodiversity and Food* How are you flipping gender scripts for your kids?* Nourishing Full Bodied Awareness with Hillary McBride* Let's Talk About Snacks, Baby This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

In last week's episode, Laura Graber shared the story of being molested by her father and the fear and tension that was in their home. Many of those who've been abused struggle with debilitating anxiety and fear, which are exacerbated by hyper-vigilance. Laura struggled with the fear of taking a shower, being alone, and other situations. She turned to the medical community, and at one point she was taking as many as 11 pills a day, none of which helped. In this broadcast, Laura shares how God led her to overcome anxiety and fear. Laura Graber, Part 2 – Overcoming Fear, Anxiety, and Panic Attacks - Transcript ANNOUNCER: This radio program is PG-13. Parents strongly cautioned: some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Jesus's mission was to comfort those who mourn, bind up the broken hearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and open prison doors for those who are bound. For those who want more than status quo Christianity has to offer, Blazing Grace Radio begins now. And here is your host, Mike Genung. MIKE GENUNG, HOST, BLAZING GRACE RADIO: Hey, Mike Genung here. And welcome back to Blazing Grace Radio. Glad to have you along. Last week we talked with Mrs. Laura Graber from James Port, Missouri, and she shared how she grew up with a father who was basically sexually abusing her, and did a lot of horrible, traumatic things growing up. There was fear, and hyper vigilance, and if you've missed that show I'd encourage you to go online and listen to that first one. And before I start talking with Laura again, I want to introduce a question that many believers have when they're suffering. And we can go back to the book of Job for this because God allowed Satan to sift Job like few people in history have been sifted. Where Job lost ten kids in one day - I think it was seven sons and three daughters - killed in one day. He lost his business, and then he was left with the wife saying, "Curse God, and die." And then if you read through the book of Job, a lot of his questions are "God, why? What are you doing? Why'd you allow all this?" And that is a key question in life. So Laura, my friend, welcome back to the program. LAURA GRABER: Thank you, Mike. MIKE: And where we left off last week, as you had said, that you were bitter towards God for the things you grew up with, with your dad, and you mocked Christians. And how did you resolve the why question? "Why, God, did you allow this to happen to me?" LAURA: It took several years of, I mean... okay, so I should back up a bit. Like most of my preteens and teenage years, I was... I was very angry and bitter at God. And I remember, you know, hearing my siblings or different people talk about God. And in my mind, I made fun of them. I viewed Christians as weak. And I always told myself, you know, the moment I can get away from my dad and move out of this house, you know, I would... I would never let anyone hurt me like that again. I would never, you know, live like this again. So it was at the age of 20. I went with my cousin to church... haphazardly. And that day the sermon was on how much God loves us, the love of God, that he gave his son, and just, you know, all the aspects of that. And I remember walking out of church that day and I looked up at this guy and I was like, "I'm going to give you one chance, and you'd better not screw this up." I... it was, yeah. I'm [laughs] not your typical conversion story. MIKE: [chuckles] LAURA: Over the next several years I... my relationship with God grew. I mean, I'd be reading my Bible, I'd be praying, I started going to church. My life started changing. My physical aspects of it. But there was still a part of me that always in the back of my mind, like, I couldn't completely trust God. Because I didn't have an answer to explain the first 17 years of my life. I didn't know how to come to grips with that, like, how... what was in that. So I thought I was a Christian, you know. I thought I was a believer. Life was relatively well. I got married and then we had our struggles in our marriage, and it wasn't until probably, well, the wives retreat 2018 was pivotal. You shared, you spent some time in prayer and you shared a Bible verse with each of us women to take home with us. And this verse, I know it was the Lord, but it's in Deuteronomy 31 where it's, "Be strong and courageous, Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will never leave you or forsake you." And I remember that last night at the retreat, just being in my bed and just sobbing. Because I just had this picture that God was with me all those moments as a little girl. He saw what was happening. And over the next year, like, things kept on coming back to my mind just here or there of, like, "Wow, like, God was there in that." I remember, you know, someone showed up maybe in the middle of one of my dad's angry rants, like a neighbor to visit, or, you know, like, I got away from my dad here, or, you know, this happened that interrupted this from happening. And I just, like... slowly, like, God kept on bringing them to my mind. And even today, sometimes I... it's not as much today but definitely in that next year or two of just like realizing, like, God was there. He hadn't left me. And as an adult, I can see more and more where He did call my dad to repent him, He did send things in my dad's life. You know, my dad faced a close call with death, and different things like that. That should have woke him up, but he kept on choosing to live a life of sin, and be a slave to Satan, through all of that. But God was actually there in those moments. And I had just... I was blaming God for not changing my circumstances, instead of realizing that it was my dad's free will choice to be living in that sin and to rebel against God. And he was the one that... yeah. My anger need to be directed toward him more so than God, because God was there. So that was extremely healing for me to recognize, you know, of all the times that maybe horrible things did happen, but then all the times that God intervened at just the right times, and also sent help and relief, and protected me. He protected me profusely in different areas and instances that there's no way to explain except it was the Hand of God protecting me. MIKE: Mmm. So it sounds like he didn't answer the why, but he said, "I was there and I've always been with you." LAURA: Yeah, yeah. And that to me was like, you know, I... today now, I know that there's been a work done in my heart. And I have giftings, like, through the Holy Spirit working in me that I probably wouldn't have if I wouldn't have lived through all those things. But for me, the biggest thing was understanding that God is sovereign, and He actually has good for me, you know? After so many years of just thinking there's nothing good in this life, much less than God being good, like, understanding today at a much deeper level, like He has good for me and He didn't just, he's not going to let all those years of pain just go to waste. It's not going to just be a, "Oops!" like, "My bad! That shouldn't have happened." He's going to use it somehow. It's going to glorify Him. And I've already seen it glorify him, you know, in different areas in the life of being able to relate with people, or understanding maybe what someone else is going through that I wouldn't be able to if I wouldn't have walked through that. So he has already used it. I still don't know why fully, but I can fully trust that God is good and that He's sovereign and there's going to be good in it. And when I ever, if that day ever comes, that I do understand why completely... yeah, that would be great to know. But I don't battle with it anymore, because it doesn't matter. Because... I mean, it does matter, but it doesn't because God's sovereign. MIKE: Well, a couple pieces there. First off, you're glorifying Him right now by sharing your story in public. So when we share brokenness that's when God shines through the cracks. And so I love what you're doing, and being able to willing to share And so and I also believe that he takes every drop of suffering if we're willing to cooperate with him and he redeems it for his purposes. LAURA: Amen. Amen. MIKE: So it's wonderful to see you come to that place, and you're not even 30 years old, is that right? LAURA: I'm not. I'm 27 [laughs] MIKE: So you figured a lot out at a young age. That's great. LAURA: [laughs] I'm not sure if I figured it out, or have had to learn lessons the hard way, but God has been faithful to just continue to show me His truth. MIKE: Wow. LAURA: Very faithful. MIKE: And I know from my own personal experience we all have our days where we run into a concrete wall and say, "Oops, wasn't supposed to do that!" LAURA: Amen. MIKE: So you talked about transferring your bitterness to your dad. Did you come to a place of being able to forgive him? LAURA: I did. It was... I thought I had forgiven him. I could be around him. I still had this, like, big pit in my stomach when I'd see him at the gas station and, you know, I'd just wait in my car till he was gone, then I'd go inside. But I kept telling myself, "I've forgiven him, and I've read books and forgiveness, and I've talked with counselors about forgiveness," and, you know... like, all of that seemed so... I had done everything I'd been told to do, I guess. And I thought that I had forgiven him. But what really... I don't know, brought it to a deeper forgiveness - if that's the correct way to say it - was when things in my marriage... we started struggling, and the pornography, and the anger and stuff started happening in my marriage. And it was, like, I had to face the very fears of, "What if my life will always be like this?" You know, "What if it's like when I was a child?" Seeing aspects of that become my reality as a wife, as an adult, and having, like, through that God in his great mercy... like I can't even express His great mercy and all of that, to just gently be able to help me relive some of the things as a child and like, fully grieve those things, and being able to say, like... I wrote a letter to my dad. It took me couple months and I just wrote everything that he'd ever done toward me, or had hurt me, or let me down, or betrayed me, or just anything I could possibly think about. All the things I would say to him today if I could. And I remember just I had that letter in my drawer for a long time, and finally, one day - through something that had happened in my marriage - being able to just, like, sit and read that letter out loud. I was alone in my house, and I just read it out loud, and I pretended like I was reading to my dad. And I just sobbed. It was really, extremely painful. But after that, I can honestly say I can meet up with my dad somewhere. I can hear his name and I don't just instantly recoil in my stomach. I... what happens with him is between him and God. I don't need payment for what he did. I don't. He's never even said, "I'm sorry." And that used to be a big thing for me. And today it's like, that's not okay, but it is okay, you know? I don't even need an "I'm sorry," from him. Like, God will deal with him and will take care of him. And I pray for his salvation. I pray for God to have mercy on him because I don't want to see him being punished for the sins that he did commit. But I can genuinely say, yeah, he's free as far as I'm concerned. He doesn't need to pay for what he did and that's huge for me, to be at that place. MIKE: Yeah, we can... we have a choice between, "I'm going to hold on to forgiveness," or, "I'm going to choose to grab on the bitterness again." LAURA: Yeah. MIKE: So let's let's talk about fear, and anxiety, and spiritual warfare. Because those three are bound together often, and the enemy knows how to piggyback on fear or anxiety and attack with fear darts. And you grew up with a lot of hyper vigilance, and fear, and looking over your shoulder. And so what does that journey look like? And what have you been through? What has worked? What has not worked? LAURA: I honestly didn't realize how much fear and hyper vigilance that I lived with till a couple years ago. It was so normal for me. I was a highly active person, I worked a lot, was just busy all the time. And, like, that fear would... I mean, I was... I didn't go outside alone after dark, even as an adult. Like, I didn't even sleep alone in my house as an adult. Like, I just had... I was trapped with a lot of fears and anxieties. Anxieties about things that, you know, like, something as simple as taking a trip to Walmart to buy groceries, you know? I'd be watching people around me, someone watching me as someone following me to my car. Like, just, like, living in constant panic and fear. Showering. You know, there was a week when I had to force myself to shower because... just frozen in fear. Like, I lock all the doors leading back to the bathroom, the front door, the back door. And you know, just I had to shower when I was home alone, and just lots of fears and a lot of different areas. And I always just told myself, you know, "I'm healing, I'm overcoming it." You know, "There's going to be a day when this gets better," you know, "This is going to get better." And it did. And I think I had to walk through that journey of, you know, I did find healing a little bit here, and a little bit there, and all of that. But I did a lot of different counselings and also, like, you know, prayers and rebuke Satan, and then just - and I think all those things were helpful. They were helpful. But it all came to screeching halt in 2022. Or it was '21. It was '21, yeah. My husband left for a nine month program for sexual addicts and I was left alone in my house. So with there was a lot of trauma and things happening before he left. But after he left I completely lost my mind. The next two to three months I had panic attacks all day long throughout the night. I never knew what would trigger them. I couldn't even really work. I had a part-time job at that point. I spent a large part of my days, like hiding at my mom's house or a sister's house and just like my insides just shaking. I had anxiety that was... it was so intense I can't even put it to words. I got a medication, I got on a lot of different pills, I tried everything. I was finally taking like 11 to 12 pills a day, like, morning and evening, and sometimes at noon. Drinking, you know, a lot of, like taking a lot of, like, magnesium. Just things to calm me down. I take a bath before I went to bed at night. For several weeks on the end, I couldn't sleep for more than 20 minutes - MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: - during the night, and I'd wake up - be awake for several hours of panic attacks, and finally be able to sleep again for a little bit. It was, it was horrible. I cried out to God just over and over, like, "Just let me wake up from this nightmare!" Because it was... it was the most horrible thing I think, that I've ever had to walk through my life. And it's, like, somehow in those two to three months does all that fear and anxiety came tumbling out. And there was a pill that helped. I mean, it would help somewhat, but it didn't. There was... I tried to lean on people. I tried to lean on, you know, distracting myself, trying to busy myself. I tried every avenue possible. And once again, in God's grace, he didn't let anything work well. I mean, it worked maybe for an hour or whatever. I mean, I was getting massages. I was doing whatever I could just like calm my body down. Like just calm down. And finally, in all of that, there was only one place that I could go finally at the way end. And that was to trust God completely. And I remember, like, the week that me and God just hashed it out all week it felt like, when things slowly started changing. And I'm not saying that anxiety, and fear, and those things, "Oh, just trust God more." I'm not saying that in a flippant way. I think I had to have that, you know, 15 year journey, 20 year journey, 25 years, whatever number you want to put on it. I was 26 at the time when it happened, to finally... I'd be in my house by myself after dark. Like, being able to sleep peacefully, and just completely trusting that God was the only thing that was keeping me safe. And whatever he desired for me, for my life, I would accept. Whatever glorified him, I would accept. I started showering with all the doors unlocked, and I remember one day I was like, "What?" Like, "This is crazy!" But I was just like, "Whatever happens is in God's hands," like He's here and He's going to be here no matter what happens. And just being able to, like, lay in my bed at night, start having a panic attack, hyperventilating and all that, and just being able to just like... just over and over tell my brain like, "It's okay, you're having anxiety, but God's here. He's going to get you through it. You're going to breathe." Like, you know, all this time thinking I couldn't breathe and I'm going to die because I can't breathe. And just, you know, well, "Even if you die, you're still going to be okay," like just... there was like just this profound knowledge of that God is sovereign that He's here and He's going to take care of me and whatever He desires for my life is good. And is okay with me. Even if it was painful and excruciating and hard. And that, I mean, a year and a half later, I still - don't get me wrong, I still struggle with anxiety and fears coming. But I have never had a panic attack since then. I have not had the amount of fear I'm... the fear in me subsides so much quicker by going to prayer and just, like, spending time with the Lord. And I used to do all of those things before, but it's like somehow the depth of my heart, it needed to be settled that God was in control and nothing and no one could help me but Him. MIKE: Hmm. LAURA: And He was all that I needed. MIKE: I love it. So it sounds like in a way, and this is just kind of a general way of saying it, you went from... maybe a little deeper - and I'm not saying you didn't have a relationship with Him before - but He became more real and more powerful. LAURA: Yeah. MIKE: Is that true? LAURA: Yes, absolutely. He, for the first time in my life, like the past year and a half. But I honestly am completely confident that the Lord is with me, helping me, and is good, and I'm going to be OK. And that's huge. Huge for me to say. MIKE: And it sounds like surrender was a part of that, too. LAURA: It was, it was simply saying, you know, like, "God, even if my worst nightmare were to come true, you would still be God. You would still be here. You would still, you know, I just... I just give you my life, my rights, my... whatever I want, whatever I desire is yours." Like, "Have your way." MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: Yeah. MIKE: Spiritual warfare. What does that look like, and how do you deal with that? Because I know the enemy attacks those pressure points. LAURA: Amen. Today it's still hard for me to recognize sometimes when it's happening. All of a sudden I find myself, I'm doubting my husband, or I find myself doubting the goodness of God, or I find myself, you know, just struggling with, like, being able to relax at night. And then I start recognizing just the attack that Satan has been having on my mind, and my emotions, or my circumstances, and how he's just like trying to get in whatever door that he can. And I think the biggest thing for me, like in the spiritual warfare, is recognizing it is spiritual warfare and fighting it through prayer, and scripture. You know, it may not leave. It may not get better. But still choosing to have faith that God's here with me, He's hearing my prayers and reaching out to other people, it is incredibly powerful to be able to to call other Christians and reach out and say "Hey, I need prayer." Like, "I'm struggling. I'm drowning over here. I need some help with this." But this is bigger than me. Like can you be praying? I have a number of friends that I can call, and just right then and there, like, they'll pray with me and they'll check in and keep praying or, you know, send me messages of a prayer. And just like being covered in prayer has been one of the biggest weapons that I use in fighting spiritual warfare. MIKE: The surveys show that somewhere between 80-90% of US Christians are isolated. Meaning they don't have another believer to turn to. And Laura, we have two minutes left - LAURA: Wow. MIKE: - so take a minute. What goes through your mind when you when you hear that? LAURA: I feel incredibly sad for them. That sounds lonely, and hard, and devastating. Honestly. Because it weren't for other believers in my life, I wouldn't know the Lord as I do today. I mean, obviously God calls us personally. He speaks to us personally. He's personal with us. But having other believers around you to just walk along beside you, holding your arms up, you know, when you're weak. I often think of that battle in the Old Testament. When they hold up - was it Moses or Joshua's arms? - in the battle. And every time his arms would go back down, the Israelites would start losing the battle. So a few people stood on either side of him and held up his arms during the day so the Israelites would win the battle. And I often think of that as a physical form of having believers around you to hold up your arms when your your faith is low. Have, like, lean on other people's faith that their faith can stand in that gap for you and they can fight for you while you can't. MIKE: Amen. Laura, 30 seconds. Anything you want to say? LAURA: Definitely. Anyone who's struggling or, you know, just wondering how they will ever heal or get to the other side of something, there's so much hope. There's so much help for you, and God cares, and He's faithful, and He will get you through this, and get you - not to the other side, because I don't know if there is the other side - but He will continue to help you, and to trust in that. MIKE: I love it. And Laura, thank you for sharing your heart and your struggles the last two shows. I love it. I really appreciate your transparency. LAURA: Well, thank you Mike for what you do. You are appreciated. MIKE: Well, thank you my friends, and we'll see you next time. ANNOUNCER: Blazing Grace is a nonprofit international ministry for the sexually broken and the spouse. Please visit us at blazinggrace.org for information on Mike Genung's books, groups, counseling, or to have Mike speak at your organization. You can email us at e-mail@blazinggrace.org or call our office in Chandler, AZ at (719) 888-5144, Again, visit us at blazinggrace.org, email us at email@blazinggrace.org or call the office at (719) 888-5144.

Growing up, Laura Graber's father was an alcoholic. He was also addicted to pornography and molested his daughters. There was constant tension and the fear of sexually inappropriate behavior of their father in their home, to the point that Laura was afraid of taking a shower. Laura grew up in an Amish family; while many have the perception that the Amish live pristine, peaceful lives, an undercurrent of unspoken sexual abuse is alive in their community. In this first of two interviews, Laura shares her story. Laura Graber on Sexual Abuse - Part 1 - Transcript ANNOUNCER: This radio program is PG-13. Parents strongly cautioned: some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Jesus's mission was to comfort those who mourn, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and open prison doors for those who are bound for those who want more than status quo Christianity has to offer, Blazing Grace Radio begins now. And here is your host, Mike Genung: MIKE GENUNG, HOST, BLAZING GRACE RADIO: Hey, Mike Genung here, and welcome back to Blazing Grace Radio. Glad to have you along. It's a beautiful sunshiny day here in Phoenix, AZ. And before I introduce our guest, a couple of quick announcements. May 5th - 7th I'll be in Italy, the north side, leading a men's retreat there. May 13th I'll be in Vienna, Austria leading an all day conference. On that Saturday, May 20th, we'll be in Finland for several speaking engagements. And then, May 27th, I'll be back to the UK in Frimley Green, which is a little southeast of London, holding an all day conference on that Saturday. And then June 3rd holding another conference - all day conference - in North Wales. So for our listeners there in the UK and Europe, I'd love to see you. Go to the website at blazinggrace.org, there's an events calendar on the homepage. And so today I have back with me at the program, Mrs. Laura Graber from James Port, Missouri, Laura my friend and welcome back to the program. LAURA GRABER: Thanks for having me, Mike. It's an honor. MIKE: Thanks for coming on. And so, Laura's going to be with us the next two weeks, and today we'll be talking about some sexual abuse issues she encountered growing up in her family. And then next week, what she's been through with porn addiction in her marriage. And a common thread that can run through both of those scenarios, is anxiety and fears. So along the way, we'll be picking that conversation up and looking at what recovery looks like. So let's begin, Laura, and go and begin by sharing what you went through growing up. LAURA: Sure, absolutely. So I grew up in a in a Baptist Amish home. So, you know, a lot of people have their opinion of how they think the Amish are [laughs] who they are and how they live their lives. Granted, my home that I grew up in was was an exception. Thankfully there's not many of them in the culture, but my father was an alcoholic. And with that came lots of anger and rage, and, you know, all the aspects of that. And as I grew up there became more and more sexual impurities in his life, became more evident, until it got to the point where he definitely was sexually abusing us through a lot of different forms. For a long time in my life I was able to ignore it, and not, you know, call it for what it was because it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Which is, a lot of times, what sexual impurities and sexual sin... you can lie to yourself for a while, believing that it's not as bad as you perceive it to be. But... so, obviously, growing up with a father that you know was an alcoholic, and angry, there was lots of tension in our home. My parents would fight a lot, and argue a lot, and just always being tense, never knowing when something would tip them off. And he would spank you, per se, but it was much more than disciplining you. It was a way for him to unleash his anger, you know, using a whip or, you know, whatever he had close to his hands to use. So a large part of my childhood was spent, like, just living in constant fear. I remember bumping his chair one Sunday afternoon as a little kid, when he was taking a nap, and getting a beating because I bumped his chair. MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: You know, just instances that were completely crazy, you know? Yeah. Sometimes he would come to the table and I'd have to sit beside him and... because that's how we sat at the table, in that row. And he would be angry because he's looking for an excuse, you know? Someone to take his anger out on. And it was so nerve wracking trying to eat, you know, just fear, just complete fear. So obviously as I got older, you know, in the age of eight, nine, ten years old, I started becoming aware that... I can't necessarily pinpoint, like what happened, that I knew to never be alone with him. But I was always very aware at a young age, you know, if he was in the house and there's no one else in the house, like, don't be in the house with him. Yeah, I just... I spent a large part of my life just not being in the same place as him, alone. So by the age of 8-9 years old, he would make me uncomfortable with staring at me. And that led to, you know, occasionally he would, you know, try to touch me as I walk past him, or depending on where you sat or what you were wearing, he would be staring at you. He would write vulgar things on, you know, papers and leave them laying around where... you know, if I was, if he was out in the shop and I was out there too, he'd be sitting there, you know, looking at, like, magazines that were full of, you know, porn, literally. MIKE: Right in front of his daughter? LAURA: Yes, yes. MIKE: Mhmm. LAURA: I mean, he would sometimes try to hide the cover, but I knew they came in the mail. And, you know, we knew that's what he had in his hands. You know, we walked behind him, you'd see what he had. There was just like... slowly but surely it kept getting worse. And I was very naive, like no one... like, my mom would have never talked to me about sexual things, you know, growing up. So for me it was, it was all foreign. It was disturbing to me, like, disgusting to me. Like, I knew it wasn't right, and yet I had no one to explain to me, like, that this is wrong. So it's kind of, yeah, a lot of confusion mixed in with that. But it kept on going throughout my teenage years. You know, like, if in the morning, if he would hear that you're awake then he would all of a sudden, you know, open the bedroom door in hopes to catch us changing. Or if you were showering, the the lock on the door didn't work very well. Which I'd say it was probably done on purpose. And he would, you know, open the door and pretend he didn't know you were in there. It got to the point where us young little girls would, you know, if one of us were showering, the other one would be hanging around the bathroom door or be inside the bathroom just so he didn't try those things. He would, by the time I was like 13-14 years old, he would, like, in the living room evenings, he would sit on his recliner in front of everyone and be masturbating or something. You just... yeah, lots of very disturbing things. MIKE: In front of the whole family? LAURA: A lot of disturbing things. Yes. Yes. I mean, obviously I had older brothers, and if they were around he never acted out in front of them as much. He definitely hid it from them, because there was a time when some of us younger girls started speaking up a bit, and my brothers were just kind of like "What?", you know? Like they didn't know this stuff was happening. So I think he hid it more from them than what I realized, you know, at the time. But yeah, like, my mom would be sitting there sometimes, so us girls would just, I spent... I remember spending quite a bit of evenings in the bedroom until he went to bed. He'd go to bed fairly early. You know, 8:30, 8:00, something like that. And then coming out in the living room and hanging out with mom after he went to the bedroom. So yeah, that was just reality. And I somewhat knew that other dads maybe weren't like that, but it just felt too much for your brain to even process that, that this isn't completely normal. Because then I would have had to admit that this is wrong and there's something wrong. And that felt terrifying to me. Yeah. I would have much rather just had to live in an alternative reality and not face the actual effect that all of that was having on me at the time. MIKE: Mhmm. LAURA: So yeah, he was very... a vulgar person. I mean he would tell me that I was made to satisfy the other half of the population. Oh, that would that would make me very, very angry. [laughs] Obviously. Yeah. Those things kind of all continued until my parents separated when I was 16 years old. And yeah, so obviously that released me from having to live in the same house as him. The last year before they separated I would be home a lot alone with him and my mom. And that last year was... it was awful. It was completely awful. I know there was other people around on the weekends, a lot to distract him. And yeah, it was just a lot that happened that, sometimes I wonder if I even gathered, you know, mentally, today - years later - you know, what all took place. But yeah, so that obviously left me with a lot of, like, the mindset of, like, anything sexual is disturbing and disgusting. And even viewing men in general, in a very... ungodly way. Just, like, being disgusted by males in general, which in a sense, like, God used for good. Because I didn't have a lot of boy drama in my life [laughs] as a teenager. So that was... that was a little positive in the whole aspect. Yeah. Kind of a small glimpse of of my childhood growing up. MIKE: How many kids in your family? LAURA: There was nine of us, and I was the youngest. MIKE: How many boys? How many girls? LAURA: There was five boys and four girls. Actually, I said that exactly opposite, four girls... five girls and four boys. MIKE: And your brothers had no idea that a chunk of this was going on. LAURA: There was things that they did know. I mean, they were aware of, like the magazines he got in the mail. They were aware of different things because, you know, after he was done with the magazines, he would lay them in on my older brother's bed, you know, gave them to the boys. So he was very, like... entitled, you know, as a male. That was just what males did. This is who they were. So my brothers, you know, he... he tremendously impacted their purity at a young age. And they knew some of the things, but a lot of the things that he did toward us younger girls, we just didn't talk about, not even really that much to each other, nor to my mom. It was kind of something that you just didn't want to talk about because it was hard. And subjects like that in the Amish culture, you don't hear anyone talking about sexual things. They're just like a, yeah, a silent subject. Especially in the community that I grew up in that era... you didn't get taught any of that in school, you know, there was no sex ed classes in school. So there was just a lot of silence on the subject. So I remember, you know, several years after my parents had separated, I was talking to one of my brothers and sharing about the showering and he was just horrified. He was like, you know, he remembers me asking him if he could hang out in the hallway while I'm showering. And he remember just like being like, "Okay, what's wrong with her?" you know, "She's acting strange," you know? But he did and he would do that for me if I asked him. But I guess I always just assumed he knew why I was asking him, and he didn't. That's just how less we talked about it at the time. Now, today, and even, like, you know, by the time I was 17-18 years old, all of that stuff was definitely discussed and very openly talked about. At the time it was just a silent subject, yeah. MIKE: Well, a lot of people, myself included, have or had a perception of the Amish community, of being peaceful. They're living life the way it should be. There's wonderful families and communities. And so our listeners know, I've been to James Port where Laura lives, and you guys have kind of educated me that that's not quite the situation. So is there a lot of sexual abuse... immorality in the Amish community? LAURA: There is, there definitely is. And it greatly saddens me because of how that subject is not discussed. It's not taught. It's not addressed. There's, you know, a lot of young kids, you know, things happen between kids, and adults view it as, "Oh, it's just kids doing things." And that's not just kids doing things, you know? I don't know as far as, like the ratio of, you know, the difference between the Amish culture and the so-called English culture - [laughs] MIKE: [laughs] LAURA: - you know, that if you do statistically the difference between the two. But I would say in the Amish culture there is more, from my personal opinion. For the mere fact that A: it is hidden. Few people bring it to the light, talk about it, actually find healing. And it's, like... the Amish community is a really close knit community. So if one person finds it out, like everyone knows, a large part of the time. So it's something that a lot of shame and fear and just complete terror is associated with, so you don't want anyone to know about it. So it's better just stay silent and shove it to the back of your mind and forget that it exists. MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: So that's definitely, like, a lot of times when, like, instances do come up that you catch, you know, little snippets here or there, that you know something may not be quite right. Or something may have happened, but you never know, like, full details, or people don't just openly talk about it or share, you know, that "Hey, I was sexually abused, and this happened, and this is how I found healing." Those conversations would not be a part of the life and Amish community in James Port where I lived. It's more of a yeah, definitely a very shameful thing that hidden scraped under the rug, you know, covered it up. MIKE: Well, the official numbers are that one out of every four women have been abused or molested and one out of every six men have been abused. But those, those are the official numbers. That doesn't even include all those that had even reported it. So the real numbers are - LAURA: Exactly. MIKE: - probably much higher. So was your family going to church when all this was going on? LAURA: Oh yes, yes. We were in church every Sunday that there was church. My dad was actually looked up as a respected person of the community, at one point, a lot. I think as the years went by, more people... he might have happened to show his anger at the wrong time, and more people got to know that there was definitely, maybe some issues, you know, happening in the background. But there was... like, when we left, when my mom and dad separated, we actually - my dad left for work, and my mom and my brother, me and my sister, we just loaded up in the car and left and left him a note. That's how we separated because that's... we just left. And at that point, you know, I think a lot of people were shocked. And still today there's people in the community that they don't know the full story, you know, they don't know what all happened and they would still view us as being wrong. For having just left because my dad was, I mean, in public, he was a jolly person, he was funny, you know. Still today I hear a comment, you know, oh, you know, his laugh or they so enjoyed talking with my dad or something my dad said or, you know, whatever. And there's still a lot of people today that would not, yeah, would not know the real Jake as I knew him growing up. MIKE: And part of the reason on this program I have people who come on and share stories of being molested, like you've been willing to do, Laura, is because a lot of this gets repressed in the family system, and then people grow up thinking, "I'm the only one that's gone through this," and it's far from the truth. LAURA: Yeah. MIKE: So how did you unwind the idea that men are basically scumbag pervs? [laughs] LAURA: Umm... [laughs] That's a big question, Mike. Do you have a couple hours? [laughs] First of all, my brothers were pivotal in that. I mean, obviously God was in the background, you know, orchestrating all of this, but my brothers played a huge part because they treated me differently than from what my dad did. They cared about me. They were, you know, never sexually... toward me in any form. They advocated for me, did things for me, they loved me, they looked out for me. They, you know, were there. They were vibrant in my life and I could trust them completely. So that was huge. And, like, to hear they might be hanging out with guy friends or they might be hanging out with people. Like, if they were comfortable with them, I was comfortable with them a lot of times. Like, who they liked, I liked because I knew that they they had grown up with the same dad as I did. So that that was huge for me. Definitely my brother's impacting me. And also you know, as I became a Christian in later years, recognizing that there are a lot of men out there who have a heart for God. And, you know, as I started sharing my story, little bits here and there, you know, I barely wouldn't say much, you know, because I'd still be scared. But people's reaction, like men's reaction, the same like, "Wow!" like, "That is so wrong!" Or, you know, like, "That's awful!" And recognizing like, "Oh, they would think it's wrong to do this?" You know, "They wouldn't think that's okay?" You know, "That's not just how males are?" So those are probably the two biggest aspects of, yeah, my brothers, and then, like, hearing other males react to parts of my story - MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: - was huge. MIKE: So when I first met you was in 2018 when I led a wive's retreat in Colorado. So, you and seven or eight other women. So I'm wondering what was going through your mind when you're going to a wive's retreat that a man is leading [chuckles] with your background. LAURA: [laughs] Well, I definitely... I was... most of the reason why I went to the retreat was because I needed to get away from my husband. I was losing my mind, it felt like, and I was just desperate to get away. And my friend invited me and I was like, "Hey, let's go. Who cares?" But when I showed up there and I met you and I realized like, "Whoa, like I'm spending the weekend at a retreat that's being led by this male." And it was... yeah, there was thoughts in my mind, definitely, of like "Who are you?" Like, "Why would you do this?" You know, yeah. "What type of person are you?" And then that first evening we were broke up in groups to share a story, and you just happened to be in my group. And you shared your story, and that... yeah. That instantly, I... through hearing your perception and seeing your love for purity and calling things out for what they were to be wrong. You know, speaking the truth over subjects, not just brushing them under the rug, or making them sound better than what they were. Yeah, you gained a lot of respect for me that first evening and I continued to go on that. MIKE: Well, we've got several minutes left, and so I'm wondering what your healing journey... Can you give us a point or two on what that has looked like? Because that was a lot of damage to recover from. LAURA: That was a lot. In a lot of different areas, you know. A lot of small things that I even today, sometimes something strikes me and I'm like, "Wow," like, yeah, "I didn't recognize that until today." Probably the biggest, obviously the biggest thing was becoming a Christian and having God, like, the Holy Spirit, to walk me through those things. And I did a lot of counseling... have done a lot of counseling. And my siblings. My siblings have been pivotal in my life. And, like, we can sit together and we can talk openly and honestly about our childhood and connect and, like, just talk about the hard stuff. You know, the disturbing stuff that's really hard to talk to other people about openly. We do that with each other. We're not afraid to go there and to talk. We can talk about anything. And that has been majorly healing to have people who understand what it was like, and being able to just share and talk and not people freaking out about what all happened. Yeah. MIKE: And at what age did you become a believer? LAURA: I was 20 years old when I first... Yeah. I happened to go to church, which is kind of a crazy thing because I hadn't been in church for a long time, because all of this, really, I was really bitter toward God. MIKE: Mmm. LAURA: I was. I just had the mindset of "If there is a God and he would allow me to live like this, you know, for close to 17 years, then I don't want anything to do with him," you know. If he... yeah. MIKE: Hmm. LAURA: You know, people would tell me, you know, "God's good," or, you know, I would hear things like that and I'd be like,"Yeah, whatever." I would mock Christians and mock people who believed in Him because to me it was like, "How could he turn a blind eye while we suffered all those years?" I mean, just day after day of complete agony and darkness and just horribleness. I mean, just complete terror and fear, and... yeah. It was awful. MIKE: My friends [clears throat] we're going to continue this conversation with Laura next week, so I would encourage you to join us. And Laura, thank you so much for your honesty and transparency, and I look forward to seeing you next time. ANNOUNCER: Blazing Grace is a nonprofit international ministry for the sexually broken and the spouse. Please visit us at blazinggrace.org for information on Mike Genung's books, groups, counseling, or to have Mike speak at your organization. You can email us at e-mail@blazinggrace.org, or call our office in Chandler, AZ at (719) 888-5144. Again, visit us at blazinggrace.org, email us at email@blazinggrace.org or call the office at (719) 888-5144.

Borys talks with Laura Kremer, an ecommerce consultant, about the interesting challenge why customers and agencies need support of 3rd party consultants. Listen to learn how to do it right and what are benefits for the customer and the agency. Borys We we can start with the with the break hello everybody I usually say we have a special guest but today we have a special guest Lara Kramer it it. is a special hour because we not often have women on podcasts. Yeah. Borys Everything about shopware usually is about guys men discussing about agencies implementations and so on and so on So I'm super happy that you are that you are here. You also work as a freelancer and a consultant. So I think we we might have an interesting topic for for everybody. But I think will be great if you could introduce yourself and say few words, What? exactly you do.   Laura  Yeah, thank you Boris for inviting me and you're so right there are unfortunately and not so many women and ecommerce. Um, so I'm trying to represent today some woman in tech and  Nice to meet you all? Um I'm the founder and Ceo of canlu gi biha based in Germany and um, while trying to explain what I'm doing on one hand I'm working as a consultant ecommerce   Laura I'm advising B Two C and B Two B companies within yeah questions like what kind of shop systems should they use what questions do they have for within ecommerce or within ecommerce landscapes. And on the other hand I'm working as kind of a matchmaker Um, between those companies or clients and suitable um solution for wires. This could be agencies freelances Tech solutions. Everything like that.   Borys - Okay, okay, so so ah, if we look at the typical market. There are agencies. Yeah, who are providing a different type of Services. So How do you see the role of an external consultant like you. You know what are the advantages I Assume for the customer to have an external consultant when someone decides to go with with the implementation shopware or if someone is looking for ah ah for the ecommerce platform. What's better in having consultant versus just going and asking you know 5 different agencies.   Laura  Yeah that's a very good question I think it has benefits for both of them. Um, for me personally I work very independent means I'm using my knowledge or I gain knowledge within the agency side client side and also within. Shopper itself. So um, yeah I'm using all this knowledge from Eight plus years within ecommerce to advice clients. Um independently maybe choosing the right shop system like shopware or maybe a our solution. Whatever fits to their needs and um it could also be a great benefit for agencies because I see myself and um or I like working very close with agencies means I'm maybe a pre-part before their work begins I'm clarifying strategies.   Laura  - I'm helping the client be or to have a more clear vision of what they are needing creating the briefing together and then I can yeah create a perfect match between those requirements and agency who fits very well.   Laura - The client and I think so it has benefits for both sides.   Borys - Yeah, and I see more in the more in general consultants on the market. Yeah why? Why do you think it happens why there is a demand on the market for those type of services or it's more. There is enough knowledge enough skilled people. So they decide to become ah become a consultant.   Laura - Yeah,, that's a good Question. We have a lot of consultants. That's true I Think on one hand we really have great people on the market so they gained experience maybe On. Merchant side or they decided to become self-employed after working for a tech solution Provider. Um, and normally I think there's enough space for all of us on the table and um I Also think could be.   Laura - It's not possible to advise clients within all specific topics within ecommerce because if we are looking at ah ecommerce and total you could advise within strategy within maybe Marketplaces or afterwards performance Marketing. Whatever is. Is needed on client side and so yeah, we have a lot of and consultants. Um I forgot the question forgot what I asking.   Borys - Okay, we we can cut we can cut at the cut up to this point. Okay, 2 seconds break you set. Um you work also as a matchmaker. Yeah, ah between agencies and service providers. Um, and of course the customer. So how does it work this this matchmaker.   Laura - Yeah, so um, within my experience. So I said I started 2016 in ecommerce and I first started in a big agency and after that I worked on software manufacturer side and later on on merchant site. So what I recognize within this years that there's um, there has to be a great fit between all of those parties means um the the softwares of course has to ah fit for the customer requirements while the custom has served.   Laura  - Should know what exactly he wants to implement and um, the perfect fit between the implementing service provider and the client is also crucial. So we have three parties. Um who and needs to work together and um, what I experienced within all those years were that.   Laura - A lot of projects failed because there was not fit between those three parties so in my new role I now try to help all of those three sides um means I sit down to the client I specify the requirements.   Laura - Um I have them find the right system and do this clear. Um, let me say this clear strategyy. Um I can then find a suitable system or take solution for their Needs. Um. And now the next factor will be who is able to implement this solution. So here I'm using my network of strategic partners and which can be agencies Freelancers Software solutions that I recommend those people I recommend to the clients. And had them find the right partner in cases on budget in cases of specific needs. Um, yeah, and that's that's what I'm doing.   Borys - Ah, so from so from that point a typical agency would focus on just selling. Yeah, whatever they want to sell um and if the customer has you as ah as a matchmaker.   Borys - It's easier to find out. You know what are the real expectation and what is the best fit here because there's also a challenge of the agencies Sometimes when I talk to customers. They also get confused. Yeah, they have like I met so many agencies everyone is saying something different I cannot. I Don't know what to do? Yeah, it's ah I cannot make myself a good judgment and a good selection of the of the agency.   Laura - True and I think that's that's quite normal once a 1 hand our the whole topic. Our language everything we both are doing is so complicated I mean it's such a specific field of. Yeah, things we are doing and we are talking in our own language. So I think that's the first problem people just visiting websites of agencies asking them themselves like what what the hell they are doing. You don't get it and um, yeah.   Laura - I Um I had the chance to work with a lot of agencies to really visit them on site to see how they work to talk to their clients and that's exactly the way I'm choosing somehow my partners to see what can what are they able to offer because.   Laura - And know agencies. They are so good in um, in creating B Two B Ecommerce Landscapes or to to um to help clients with um I don't know hosting problems. Whatever. And I think it's it's crucial to really match those two sides.   Borys - And would you agree? Ah that in general e-commerce became way more complicated, especially if you look at the implementation. Ah that there are so many different expectations. So many different platforms. Ah. And new technologies and so on everything is changing also so fast then the need for a customer it would be or it is very hard to to really evaluate it. So then in this way, your service is ah is necessary or in general a service of consultant who is. More experience to it for many many years and as you mentioned have a great connection to really be able to evaluate the differences between agencies becomes like a necessity for for a lot of customers.   Laura - Exactly you know everything is changing so fast. Um, think it's um or let me say I see myself. Um or it's necessary that you say like this. It's necessary that i'm. Um, informed I'm I'm really reading all the time about everything in ecommerce. So um I think we cannot expect our clients or merchants to overlook all those specific topics within ecommerce There's so much as you said was. From strategy to social commerce performance marketing. Whatever is within the whole complex of building up a store and having ah clients recognizing the store and having all the third -party systems integrated. Um so I think it's. Helpful to ask consultants for help and also to find good implementation. Partners um, really fit with the yeah specific um requirements you have as a maybe b two b company.   Laura - As that startup as an Enterprise company. Whatever is um, your challenge.   Borys- Okay, so I have I have a tough question then because if you work with many different agencies then what makes a good e-commerce agency. Ah what are from your perspective those those factors.   Laura - Um, will.   Borys - Some agencies are good in doing something. Ah, and also if the client should should only rely on um on the on the on the agency or maybe there are There are also memory Experience. Um. Freelancers that could do the job and you don't really need to to hire a full like agency with all all this type of different people.   Laura  - Yeah, have just smile right now because I I get asked this question so often of course and now. Yeah.   Borys - I will not ask for the names here. Yeah, which probably would be tempting. Um Ata let's not so let's not ask for a good a ecommerce says a name people can come to you and ask it. Ah ask it directly. But in general if you if you see how do you see those agencies here comparing them. What kind of factors or what kind of specific differentiators say make the agency as ah as a good agency commerce agency.   Laura - Yeah I think to answer the first question it always depends I know clients hate is answered and like you know, true. No, but.   Borys - Yes, you are consultants. Yes, yes you all you you have to answer this wait.   Laura - Um, what I wanted to say is that normally when starting to work with clients I Always get a lot of restrict answers on these questions I have clients who made maybe bad experiences with agencies and or an agency and then afterwards they are so.   Laura  - Sorry to say they're so pissed they they they are coming to me telling me like I would never work with an agency again same with freeances. Um I think both of course has pro and cons if you have an agency or let me be very clear I think when it comes to complex.   Laura  - Maybe complex b two b scenarios big big projects I think it would tend to recommend an agency with a project manager an agency who did that like 100 times while on the other hand freelancers are super flexible. They are not coming with this.   Laura - Project management overhead they they are in my experience they are. There are a lot of very good experts being very very good in their specific field. But.   Laura  - Nevertheless and if you're choosing an agency or a freelancer I think it's very very important that um that they are very transparent about the processes Very honest and um, asking questions in advance I Think that's.   Laura  - It's still a people business you you are working with people and as I said our topic is so complicated if you're not able to um to explain to your customer. What are you doing and why is that so.   Laura - And most cases so expensive what you're doing there. Um that you get a real problem. We have customers who really want to be informed all the time they want to see and which stage is my project. What is going on or going on who is responsible for my project.   Laura  - And you're also experienced customers saying I don't care but that's your topic Just do it I Want to be informed when it's ready and um, this is also a very good factor to match agencies and clients who's able to do it. Borys - Yeah, yeah, true when you when you present it this way that it looks it looks like you know there is a big big space. Yeah in the future also for ah, for such a role as a consultant. Especially that the the systems and the implementations will not get easier in the future. Yeah, they will even become more complicated. We'll have like ah composable commerce. Ah some Mark Mach architectures and so on so it will be even way harder to. To choose the right agency and and find the right. You know the right right? right person for that. So when you when you also work with the agencies. Then? how do you try to identify an agency as you mentioned you visit them, you talk to them you have like ah ah your like. Preset of questions a list or how does this type of interview if we could call it interview looks like.   Laura - Exactly so the core of agencies of freeances and Rica um, um yeah I'm just giving a recommendation to my clients I really worked with them in the last eight years so I had project with them. That's.   Laura - Of course the best factor because then I was kind of their clients too. I can really tell something about their um, kind of work but of course on the other hand I could not work with like 10 plus agencies. What I do is I have a set of questions. So I'm really, it's it's like an interview I'm I'm having video calls then I'm visiting them on site. Really I'm I'm there for full day watching how they work what is this setup. How do they approach clients and then on the other side I'm really talking to the clients.   Laura - Um, asking them and in the best cases those agencies were also recommended to me by maybe also other agencies or freelances work there before um and if I get a good gut feeling I'm I'm totally honest with you. Um.   Laura - And I'm um, yeah, then I think then I can recommend them trying to have first projects to really work with them to see how they proceed. Um, but it's a crucial fact I think all consultants know that your your acting with with your name.   Laura - So I'm giving recommendations I'm really strict about my strategic partners I don't have to tell you how many people writing me with the like Violin that maybe telling me like maybe you can recommend us and yeah, yeah, we will pay you.   Borys - Yeah I can imagine that. Yeah.   Laura  - X Eelon Thousand Euro And even if it sounds a bit romantic I will never do it because I really have the my goal is to really advise my clients I mean.   Borys - Of course, yeah, but this is also also your brand because yeah, if you if you work this way then it's a huge responsibility because if project doesn't go goods. Yeah, then. The customer is not coming to the agency as a first line but. We come to you and say lauraa you recommended those guys and they completely. Yeah they are and they are not a good fi yeah so it's it's a huge It's a huge responsibility on your side also doing a right type of choice. Yeah.   Laura - Yeah, right I think it's necessary that they that they trust you if um, if a client or someone's approaching me didn't get the feeling that I'm really looking for the best solution or really, um.   Laura - Can offer a wide range of experts. Then there is no no way to work together. Of course.   Borys - Yeah, and if you work with some projects as a consultant. Um, do you see like a typical scenarios for hiring a consultant are a certain project more I don't Know. Have more you know predisposition to get ah to to need to need a consultant or you see that there's completely while different ranges of ah of projects that you are working on and and it's more a matter of the of the customer. Yeah who is.   Borys - Ah, enough advanced to be able to say hey I need the help with this.   Laura - Yeah, very very good question I think of course of course it depends on how um, how much knowledge you have with an ecommerce. It's easier for people who are maybe have an enough experience with any ecommerce. But.   Laura - Um, no, there are typical scenarios. Um, mostly when they have the feeling that the whole ecommerce system or processes are kind of stuck they feel like maybe they and there would be um there there are some um possibilities to really.   Laura - I Have more conversion maybe within the store or um, yeah, they often ask for them for shop audits to really see what's the status quo. Um, what kind of systems we are using. Um, maybe we can refresh them and another example would be.   Laura - If they are using um, kind of a shop system and not quite sure if this is still the best solution for them. So when it comes to yeah migration projects. Um, they are often asking for. Um, yeah.   Laura  - Experience with other customers. Um, or they have questions like how how much time will it need how about data data management or data migration within all those projects. Um, yeah I would say that those are.   Laura - To be go to be good questions.   Borys - Okay, yeah, but it also requires you know on the other hand if the customer knows or he's ready doesn't have a problem with asking for help then usually that's that's a very good.. That's a very good symptom. Yeah, um. Ah, for you but also for the agency and for the project Overrolia then it means that someone is really open would like to do it right? Yeah instead of being stubborn and like I know how to do the project and then there is a big big Thing. So is there anything in common with this customers. Do see some some some common think with the customers who are ready mature enough to ask for a consultant help.   Laura  - Um, yeah I think that changed over the years Um, years ago they were um, it was a bit challenging to really advise them because I had a lot of.   Laura - Me personally I and a lot of customers were very strict and their opinions were not that open right now I have a lot of clients being very honest, very honest and with the situation opening up telling me like I have the feeling.   Laura  I cannot overlook the whole ecommerce options we are having. So um I'm relying on you and your expertise your your market view. Um, Nevertheless if it's if it's woman man what kind of ages.   Laura - They are getting them more open nowadays.   Borys - Yeah, okay, and um, because yet for an agency this is or this could be a kind of you know competition or or kind of threat. Yeah. Have a consultant who sometimes not allow agency to do stupid stupid things. So how do you approach you know an agency in such case. Yeah, that to the agency see that there is ah some smart Third -party yeah within all the process who knows what's going on. Um, who can explain many things so how agencies react when they see that there is a customer with the with the consultants. Do they do they take it as a kind of competition threat ah or or they or they like appreciate this. Ah. Ah, the situation that there is someone someone who can also explain the customer you know some that some of the expectations are completely. Yeah useless or there are some other ways to to achieve it. What are your experiences with the agency approach to you with in the project.   Laura  - I had agencies in the beginning who were very concerned about me being a third party as you said and because they thought I'm going to be in competition for them on while talking to them. We could experience that or clarify.   Laura  - And I'm more like an I think additional puzzle piece' I'm I'm even helpful I will say because um I think um, it's easier also for the agency if um, they are talking to a to a customer a potential customer who's.   Laura - Pre-informed who already talk to someone could ask their questions so they are kind of more clear within their goals. They are bringing for the new system for the the solution they want to have and um yeah I'm kind of the lawyer. Maybe for the client because.   Laura  - And normally really if I do this matchmaking thing I'm um, always within the first calls. So I'm bringing them together and sometimes and that's what agencies don't like I'm of course also advising them when it comes to the offer.   Borys p You know? so you you verify the cost and say oh no, no this is too much. Yeah, and then they then they don't like you they're like oh no.   Laura - From the ancient one and they are offering him. Um, yeah I would say sometimes then we have kind of discussions. Let me say like that. But no normally a.   Laura - As I said I know the agencies I know the price range they are operating in and I would never recommend them if I know that it's way over the budget of of my client. But yeah, um, right Now. Um I have very good connection to those agencies. Really appreciating it I think we could. We can be very clear.. There are not only agencies within 50 plus employees. So Some of them are built from people being super super intelligent being technical experts.   Laura - But maybe they're not so much into sales So that's I think that's a good add on to have a consultant who leads potential customers to your agency If that's a good fit.   Borys - So. Yeah, true I mean I agree with you looking from agency perspective to wars type of customer if I could say so yeah is the customer that doesn't have the knowledge and experience. Yeah, because then. You really have to on 1 side spend a lot of time explaining the basis. Yeah, or sometimes yeah it would be so nice to have someone within an experience on the customer side to explain him. Okay, this is how we do the integration. Yeah, it's not like our idea. But this is how in general it should be done that it's ah that it's working properly and if the customer has no experience. No clue then then let's call it like a third -party an independent third party. Ah, who could so. Ah, in some way focus on the the project goals and explain the customer hey it isn't a good idea and the agency is right? Yeah that's how it should be done in many cases I think would help agencies to.   Borys - Solve the problem with how to say a tough customers or or or a complex project for for the customer who doesn't have the the experience. So from my point I Absolutely agree with you. It's ah. For the agency. It's It's a very convenient situation yet that there is someone um, smart who can help customer understand the project who can explain something as being more more trusted. Yeah than an agency where there's always some kind of. Ah, low. Trust that Okay, the agency is trying to sell me more things. Yeah or they're trying to to to convince me to do something which um I might not necessarily need but it will be good for agency because they can charge more for some services.   Laura  - Yes I think they get customers on the silver tray because um I'm not only bringing customers. Okay, bringing customer sounds like yam I'm just giving leads but I guide customers to those agencies with a finished briefing so they know.   Laura  - We know how it is normally you're just really talking one on 2 times with the customer just to really clarify what they maybe want to have and know how it works I have customers approaching me and telling me like I have thirty k budget.   Laura - And my marketing agency said I will now need magenta 2 and then I'm like okay maybe we let's start. Let's start from the beginning so you know where it works and and if this work is done and you really um.   Laura - You can really give some insights to the to the customer and help them to to get a clearer view on the whole system I think then the agency can really concentrate to show their skills to show what they can offer to bring the solution to the customer.   Borys - Yeah, and do you see also looking at the market that there is more and more knowledgeable people on the customer side. Um, because at least what I see is like looking at at least few years back um, in many cases we as an agency start to see the difference. Yeah, that ah, there is more people with the experience on the market in the and in general um like more people understanding. For example. What it means that we are doing an agile project people with with some experience. So overall, the situation is ah is ah is better even though it's not easier. Yeah, because the the overall complexity of the systems is ah is higher. But do you see that the customers are havinging more and more. People with with some experiences and the whole discussions are becoming a little bit easier.   Laura - Yeah, totally agree. So I have customers who are calling me being very um, pre-informed so they know sometimes they are telling me like we Ah, we decided to go with this shop system and in.   Laura  - Right now in a lot of cases I can really agree on their decisions and it's more like really going in detail just um, yeah, guiding them through maybe like third party or the whole the whole project. How can it look to really um, really create the whole project for them.   Laura - Um, but let me be honest I don't know why maybe it is because the shop there at the I'm also talking about this. Um, maybe it's it's because the the shop solution providers or the tech providers. Um, getting more information or they they are providing more information which is easy to consume. Um I think we have a lot of media. Um, also Linkedin is of course a big information platform for a lot of people.   Borys - Yeah, for sure. Yeah there's there's there's small knowledge of course on the other hand if we can imagine even today. Ah yeah, as we are ah probably there are hundreds if not thousands of projects just happening today. Yeah so. So every new project every new day during the implementation that's ah, that's the knowledge that some people are getting it from from what's going on on the progress and so on. So for sure. It's ah it's also it's also that the market is becoming more mature and have and have those experiences. Yeah. If you would look few years back. Not so many people had any experiences about ecommerce implementation now if there's so many shops online someone did this job and some some experiences has been has been achieved.   Borys And yeah, and looking also on the on this consultants. Let's say markets. Do you see like more and more consultants. Um, if you look at Linkedin or some some some other some other location by the way like how people find Julia how how does it work people like just going to Google and try to look like. Ah, good consultants to implement shopware um shop. How do they find you.   Laura - Yeah, more. Um I think I'm very thankful for a broad network I'm just I have a lot of people within an ecommerce. So this. A lot of them. There are a lot of clients coming through word of mouth and still but I'm also trying to put my face in every situation posting myself on Linkedin. So it's just so ah, an important challenge it a channel for me and um I don't like it.   Laura - I don't like saying that but still as you said in the beginning. It's kind of special that I'm a female consultant with an ecommerce especially in Germany. Um, right now I experience you know we both.   Laura - Work for shopping united I'm allowed to see or to visit a lot of european cities and meet people from the ecommerce field and especially when it comes to the Netherlands or Uk I meet a lot of amazing woman working Mecommerce and I feel.   Laura - It's not I don't know why Germany is not that there are not so many women. So um, ah yeah I would never say I feel like how can I say it I feel like um. Mistreated or something I think it's exactly the other way around. It's it's ah if you are smart if you're really interested interested in your topic and you can help clients then it could be even an advantage to be a woman to be a bit more special maybe in the german market.   Laura  That sounds a bit weird. But I think you know what I mean and.   Borys - Yeah I know I mean still if you look at so I believe there is a lot of like women in ecommerce but not necessarily in E-commerce technology. Ah so if you look at ah, most of the fashion shops a lot of of people working there as ah, product owners. Yeah, Or. Or or or working with performance with some campaigns that would be women but you're right if you look at purely technology if you look at the the systems implementations. Ah, that's yeah, That's ah more this I part there is there. There is less woman there. That's that's that's true. And it brings a lot of like you know diversity because I think yeah you you would have probably a little bit different opinion and it would be very valuable think that if there is ah a male team on the customer side and the mail team on the agency side and and. And a new in between that you can have a completely different view completely different. You know, um, experiences to share. So Overall the project value will be way way better.   Laura  - Yeah I think to sum up my superpower and this is that I'm I think I didn't mention I'm I'm not a deaf I didn't delearn I'm I'm not from the technical side. So originally I did my master within marketing communications.   Borys - Okay, yeah.   Laura - And I'm very honest and transparent about this fact I got when I entered the Ecommerce market or the ecommerce topics I felt so lost in the beginning and I'm I'm always very honest about that because I think that brings me closer to my clients.   Borys - Okay, thank you.   Laura - I know how it feels to be within all those specific you know words and situations and every time back then in 2016 when I every time I saw it now I got it the whole system changed so it was like constantly learning.   Laura - And um, yeah to um I think the best factor is that I'm I'm able to talk within or the the tech language and I'm also able to talk to explain that to clients in a very non-technical way This um.   Borys - Yeah, that's that's that's also a great great experience. Yeah, but ah summarizing it as you mentioned I think as me being a kind of a third party in this case. Yeah I truly believe that having ah an external consultant. Ah.   Borys - Who can help customer make some decisions. Ah, who's also helping agency because it's ah it's explaining. Yeah, it's more trusted trusted site in the project explaining customer. Why for example, some test needs to be done and why they need to allocate some budget for. Some quality testing or some some some other type of Testium or most customers says like why would you do any tests So I truly believe in it that a role of role of consultant is is super important I Also truly believe that. It's also the it will grow a lot. Yeah because the the overall ecosystem will become more and the more more and more complex and people with experience who are ready to share who are ready and have this you know, ah, kind of skills to cooperate with. The customer with the agency and help help to make the project Successful. It's also it's also super super important Laurra So Great to have you here I think it's It's a very interesting perspective here for um, for shopper community Also to be aware that. Such a role as a consultant exists and ah it can help with the with the implementation and I think yeah I keep my finger crossed and wish you a good project at good Agencies. You know for the cooperation and and all the success.   Laura  - Thank you Boris and thank you for inviting me to this podcast.    

This week on the CIHAS pod, we're switching things up. I'm joined by Jeanette Thompson Wesson (AKA The Mindset Nutritionist), a fat positive nutritionist who supports people to heal their relationship with food and their body. Jeanette and I will be answering some listener questions, and you lot really came through and asked some great questions, so let's get into it! Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Jeanette's work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to my newsletter here. And I think that's where fat liberation really can come in because, you know, everyone's trying to carve out their own space for them. Whereas actually body liberation and, and fat liberation is all about widening that lens to other people. We are not just trying to carve out the space for ourselves individually.We're trying to carve out spaces and take up space in a way that honors other people's space that they're taking up as well and uplifting the bodies that are the most marginalized and going, okay, these are the people who need this space and we want them to have this space. They deserve unconditionally to have this space as well.INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome back to Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an Anti Diet registered nutritionist, an author of the Can I Have Another snack newsletter. Just a very quick reminder before we get to today's episode that for the month of March I'm running a sale on Can I Have Another Snack paid subscribers to celebrate our half birthday.If you sign up now, you get 20% off, either a monthly or annual subscription. This is a really good deal and I won't be offering it again this year. So head to laurathomas.substack.com to sign up. You get to join in our weekly community discussion threads plus bonus podcast episodes, twice monthly essays, including my Dear Laura column, and more importantly, you're helping making this work possible. And if for any reason you can't afford a subscription right now, you can email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk and put the word “snax” in the header and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription. No questions asked. So today I am joined by the wonderful Jeanette Thompson Wesson, and we are gonna be answering listener questions that you've sent in, and there are some really great questions, but if you don't already know Jeanette, she is a fat positive nutritionist who supports people to heal their relationship with food and their body.And if you want to know more about Jeanette, then I really recommend listening to the episode of Don't Salt My Game that we did together last summer, I'll link to it in the show notes. So go check that out. And how this is gonna work is that we're gonna take it in turns to ask questions and then kind of bounce off of each other to come up with answers.All right, Jeanette, are you ready?Jeanette: I am ready. Should we get into it?Laura: Let's do it. MAIN EPISODELaura: So you're gonna start off with the first question and yeah, let's see where it goes.Jeanette: So here is your first question from Ger. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the connection between diet mentality and gut problems with constipation.Laura: Okay, so Janette and I just had a little back and forth about what exactly this question was getting at, because I think what they're asking is if there is a physiological response in terms of our digestion based on the way we think about food and our relationship with food.Jeanette: Yeah.Laura: And so I think that's my understanding of the question, but just in case, and maybe wanna take a step back and think about what happens.To our gastrointestinal tract when we go on a diet, right? So whether it is, you know, your run of the mill, everyday diet, like a Slimming World or Weight Watchers or whatever, or whether it's, you know, more severe disordered eating or an eating disorder, basically the same thing happens in all of those cases.It's just the degree to which it happens gets more intense, gets worse, the more severe the problems around eating are. So what we could expect to happen is because the total amount of energy available to the body is not enough to support all its basic functioning. A lot of those basic processes like menstruation, like digestion, all of these things that are considered inverted commas non-essential, they slow down so that there's enough energy to divert towards essential functions like primarily your brain. Right? So what happens in our digestive tract is that we have, Jeanette's gonna love how nerdy I'm gonna get, we have what's called delayed gastric emptying. So the contents of our stomach literally emptying, slows down. It's sometimes called, when it gets really severe, it's called gastroparesis, where it's almost like this partial paralysis of the stomach so that contents don't, from the stomach, don't get properly turned around in the stomach.And then when the, and then it's the release into our small, our small intestine is a lot slower. So you get, you have this feeling of fullness for a lot longer after eating a meal. And you might also fill up relatively quickly or feel, feel full quite quickly after eating. What happens in our guts, so in our small, in our small intestine primarily is we have slowed peristalsis.So peristalsis is the action of, um, the muscles along our gastrointestinal tract contracting and pushing food through our guts, right? And basically because there's less, there's less energy available to the body, that process slows down.That's why you get constipated or you might get mixed i b s type symptoms where you alternate between constipation and diarrhea. So that is effectively what is going on in your gastrointestinal tract when you restrict. And it's also why we say a lot in eating disorder recovery and, and when we're working with people with disorder eating, is that the best way to heal your gut is not through going on some sort of low FODMAP diet or some leaky gut protocol or whatever other bullshit is out there, is it's actually having regular, consistent, adequate nutrition and nourishing your body. That's what heals any gut related issues. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't in some cases where people maybe have intolerances or other, you know, have to be mindful of, of what they're eating for other medical reasons, but that broadly speaking, that unless we have enough energy on board and we're eating regularly, then it just sends our guts kind of haywire.Right. Would you have anything to add to that, Jeanette?Jeanette: I mean, have a lot of clients who have experienced that and also I have a lot of personal experience with that. When I did Slimming World, I was, I mean, too much information, I'm gonna say anyway, I was really badly, like really badly constipated, and I knew exactly what was going on in my body. Even as a nutritionist, I was like, I know what's happening.I know exactly why I am constipated right now, and still chose to obviously do what I was doing because of my own internalised fatphobia, because I was working from a place where I thought I had to be thinner.Laura: Mm-hmm.Jeanette: And what it was at the time. And it's, it's really quite, it's really quite horrible to be in that place where you are like, oh my goodness, my body should be doing this. And it doesn't feel comfortable. And but when you really think about it and you tear everything, like you strip everything back, how amazing is our body to basically put ourselves in these like survival modes really?Laura: Mm-hmm.Jeanette: Because actually if we didn't have that delay within our body, um, how would we actually be feeling within ourselves without, with our hunger hormones and stuff, if we didn't have that delay, we'd actually be feeling probably quite ill, reallyLaura: Mm-hmm.Jeanette: Even worse, even more miserable than what we've been, we would, would be feeling.And I think that's the thing that kind of blows my mind with all of these biological processes that go, goes on, is that we forget that when we're actually dieting, we are putting our body in that place of restriction, which our body doesn't actually realize that that's intentional. I mean, it's clever, but it doesn't realize that we are actually choosing to do that.It just goes, oh my goodness, like, what is happening? We are not getting, you know, what, we, we should be getting into our body and these things happen. So it just blows my mind. It's, it's, I always love it. I'm a science nerd myself. So , it's enjoyable.Laura: There's something else that I wanna talk about here, which is what I wonder if the question was kind of getting at, so I've, I feel like I've maybe answered a different question, but I just wanted to give that context because I'm sure a lot of people will wonder like, okay, well what is actually happening inside my body as I'm restricting?Right. Whether it's, like you say through, you know, like legitimate food scarcity in, you know, if someone is food insecure, or you know, from a evolutionary perspective, if there just wasn't enough food around, right? That's why this, this process is there in, in the first place, right? Conservation of the species.But then there's the other side of things, which is this voluntary, and we could argue if it's voluntary or not under diet culture, but you know, like putting ourselves on a diet. What is that doing, both from a physiological perspective, but what is the diet mentality? So just the kind of mindset of restricting ourselves.What does that do to our digestion? And I think this is, I don't know specifically of any literature that connects both of those dots quite as clearly, but I do know that there is something called the nocebo effect. So the effect is essentially the inverse of the placebo effect. So if I tell you this pill has like magic qualities and it's gonna make you feel amazing and you take the pill, you're gonna start feeling amazing.That's the placebo effect. But equally, if I tell you that gluten in your food or like y you know, milk, protein, strawberries, and it could be literally anything if I tell you that that's bad for you, even though it doesn't cause a, you know, even though there's no physiological basis for, um, you to have a reaction to that food, the nocebo effect means that you do have a very real response to that food.Not because there's something, you know, kind of defective in your digestion, but because of the gut brain access and the connection between our brains and our guts. And so that can have major impacts on digestion. And there are studies that have shown that people were given, so there were two groups. They all had self-described lactose intolerance. Both groups were given sugar pills. One group were told that the pills had lactose in them. The other group were told that they didn't have lactose in them.And of course the group that were told that they had lactose in the pills had a physiological response. So they reported increased bouts of diarrhea and constipation. Right. Versus the group that were told that it was just sugar pills, even though they were all receiving sugar pills. But it shows you that there's a real strong physiological impact on our digestion just because the seed has been planted in our brains, which is, that blows my mind that that's even a Jeanette: It's crazy, isn't it? I see There are a lot with people who, um, go for like allergy testing. You know, the kind of ones where you can send like something off on the internet or I don't know, one of, one of those kind of pay 50 pounds and we'll give you a list of all these random things that we think that you are intolerant or allergic to, and you get this list back and they're like, oh my God, how many things are am I supposed to be intolerant to?And you know, people start restricting these things and having exactly the same reaction that you, you know, you said, you know, actually I feel so much better without these being in my body. And when I do have a strawberry, like one of the interesting things is like strawberry comes up quite a lot in my experience when I do eat a strawberry.Oh, I feel awful. I have like diarrhea and this happens and that happens. And, and I think that that gut brain axis is, is so incredibly powerful. And then one of the other things it kind of like takes me to when we are dieting as well, dieting is incredibly stressful. Like really, really stressful.And um, it also makes us feel very miserable. And then when you are coming up to weigh in day, the anxiety, the nervousness of of have I lost weight? Have I not lost weight? And actually having to stand on a scale, the gut-brain axis as well, like axis can actually have a big impact there as well. And cause that constipation and, you know, having diarrhea as well because of that really strong reaction you can have to just actually being on the diet and the men mentality that comes with being on the diet as well.And we, I think we forget about that mental link that we have.Laura: Mm-hmm. . And there are studies that show that that dieting increases your cortisol levels. Right. So your stress, stress hormone. So although there, so I guess what we're saying is, although there's no like, like single study I can point to, there are lots of potential mechanisms by which like, The thought of going on a diet and people know themselves, right?Like how many times have you thought, okay, like diet starts tomorrow, therefore I have to like, eat everything in the cupboards right now. What impact do we think that's gonna have on our digestion if we just like flood our bodies with, with more food than it can handle in one go? Like of course that's gonna have an impact on your, on your digestion.So, okay. Should we head on to the second question?Jeanette: Let'sLaura: This is a question for you Jeanette. This is um, from Monica, and I think it will become clear why I wanted to ask you this question. So, Monica says, I began intuitive eating a few months ago after years and years of heavy restricting and recovering from an eating disorder.I've had problems feeling the fullness and hunger cues, but I feel like I now manage it. Not perfectly, but Okay. And I try not to get too hung up on it. What I most struggle with is noticing my hunger and eating properly during my workday. I work as a teacher and many days I do not have a proper break, maybe like 10 to 15 minutes in total.I'm also often really stressed during the day, and I end up snacking the whole day. Every time I have five minutes by myself at my desk, and I end up never feeling hungry and never feeling satisfied either. Do you have some tips for intuitive eating at work? At home when I manage my time, it's a lot easier.So yeah. Monica, the question totally makes sense and I wanted to ask you that because up until pretty recently you were a teacher. So, what are your thoughts reading this question?Jeanette: My thoughts are like, my heart goes out to you because obviously we know at the moment and just in general that teaching is an incredibly stressful career to be in and you very, very rarely have time to slow down. So I completely understand where actually you say that you can kind of pick up your hunger and fullness cues not perfectly, and not being hung up on that, but then also eating throughout the day as well.I mean, it's no wonder really that you eat the way that you eat because of school. Because like with teaching, you have such little time to yourself and I want to say how important it is to think of intuitive eating as an like, not as like hard and fast rules, cuz we don't want to be approaching intuitive eating like a diet and actually coming from place of imperfection is completely fine, especially in the space that you're in at the.Coming from the teacher point of view as well, I would ask you, is there any way you can try and carve out some time and space during the day, during your break times and your lunch times where you can really take some time out? Is there somewhere you can go to eat that serves you? You know, have you got an office? Have you got a a, a place away for your desk? I think is one of the important things because when we are sitting at a desk and we're trying to do a thousand of one things at the same time as a teacher, we are checking the emails. We are trying to do a detention. We've got kids in front of us. We're trying to answer things. We're trying to create resources. We're trying to lesson plan all throughout our lunchtimes as well. And we don't have that chance to sit back and really have a listen to ourselves and being able to honor our hunger, which is why it makes complete sense why you are going to be eating and snacking throughout the day and that eating and that snacking throughout the day. Also wanna say how normal, that normal that is and how, you know, in the stress of that job job, if you are eating that as almost like an emotional regulator during the day, that is also completely valid to be doing as well. Because if you are in that moment and you are feeling that stress and it's a long time to be under stress from whenever you, you know, head to work like 7 30, 8 and end up leaving like 5, 5 30, then you know you've got loads of work to do in the evening.You know, you've got that anticipation as well. And we also don't have time, with time poor people as teachers, we don't have enough time to be able to be checking in on ourselves and we don't have enough time to be put in other coping mechanisms in place that would actually be really healthy things for us to have in place as teachers as well.Laura: Hmm. Jeanette: I would say at this at the moment, if there's nothing you can change, in the teaching role that you're in right now, to be able to carve out that time away from your desk to be able to honor that hunger when you can honor that hunger is to understand that coming from imperfection in intuitive vision is perfectly fine.And know that hopefully sometimes soon you will be able to listen to those internal cues in a much better way. Maybe when there's less pressure, maybe, um, if and when you want to make a change to the role that you have as well. And also to know that following intuitive eating during your time away from work is also just as important as well, and being able to take that time to honor yourself then,Laura: Yeah. I'm really glad that you said that. You know what you're doing is fine.like if that's what you need to do to get through the day and survive, it's okay that, you know, for you intuitive eating doesn't look like, you know, three perfect meals and however many snacks a day that it, it just means putting something in your mouth when you can Jeanette: Which is intuitive. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes like if it feels better than just drop the label intuitive eating. Right. Because, you know, I think that we associate intuitive eating with looking a particular way Jeanette: Oh my Laura: And yeah. And it doesn't have to be perfect. So, you know, how can, how can you maybe bring a little bit more acceptance to, you know, if you, like you say, if you can't change anything, which like, I feel like if she could, she probably would've by nowJeanette: Exactly. It's hard. It's hard to do that.Laura: So. Yeah. You know, like, how can you maybe even bring a bit more self-compassion to that of like, well, fuck, this is hard and teaching is a really hard job and I have a lot of other pressures, so I don't need to put more pressure on feeding myself. I can just let it be what it is for now. And you know, if it, if it's, I, I appreciate that like, you are not really ever feeling hungry, but never feeling satisfied either. And if that feels like it's more of a problem, then, you know, taking a look at like, what, what are you bringing with you, right? What is it that you know is gonna help you feel more satisfied with what you're eating? So is it that you need to bring a bit more balance to what you've got there?Like have, I don't know, a bit more protein or a bit more carbohydrates or something to help power you through the next like, set of lessons or, or whatever is, do you have, like, I'm thinking, is there anything practical that you can think of, Jeanette, in terms of like helping this person feel a bit more satisfied with what they're eating?Jeanette: I would say what I see from teachers is bring more, have a, I always used to have a whole draw in my desk, literally dedicated to snacks. Because we are up so early in the morning, um, I, you know, I, I have children as well that had to sort out in the morning, so my priority wasn't actually making sure I had enough snacks in my bag when I got to school.So I actually just went out and I'd go out every couple of weeks and I'd buy so many long life snacks that I could just keep in there. And that was a mixture of a whole load of things. It was a mixture of cereal bars and little packets of raisins and nuts and also chocolate and caramel buttons and Oreos.And so just literally have that all available to me. And it was literally in my desk so I could just snack as I went to, like as I went along the day. And that was a really helpful thing for me to put in place for myself as well as bringing a really big bottle of water. Cuz otherwise I would just not drink anything. I just didn't have any time to.Laura: Oh yeah. I think getting, like having a snack drawer. And I was thinking as you were saying, like, I think you said pretzels maybe, and I was like, oh yeah. Like something crunchy. Something that's gonna give you, you know, thinking about like your sensory, like what's going to make help you feel satisfied from a sensory perspective?Is it that you need, you know, something like crisp and crunchy or do you prefer something chewy and soft or you know, what is it that will help you feel satisfied even, you know, with that five minute little snack session that you can have? So, yeah, hopefully Monica, that gives you some ideas to think about.All right. Shall we do this next question? What have we got?Jeanette: Okay. My sister-in-law is, to my mind, extremely extra about her kid, currently two and sugar, whereas we take much more relaxed approach with ours currently. For example, we rent out for coffee last weekend. Both sets of parents and kiddos, they had a massive slice of cheesecake, of which their small was allowed a thumb size piece. Well, that's really sad. While they ate the rest, whilst they ate the rest, we merely let our get stuck into our banana bread and chocolate chips. As they get older what's the best way to explain this disparity in attitudes to our kiddo? And how do we handle it with our nephew if he's, if you ask why his cousin can eat what he wants when he isn't allowed? Oh.Laura: This is so heartbreaking for this little nephew. And I also wanna say like, from this parent's perspective, I get it in a similar boat in terms of like how we feed our family compared to how other families around us feed their kids. And like right now, you know, when they're little, when they're toddlers, it like they don't notice, right?But as they get older, they start to think more and more, they'll start to ask more questions, and you're gonna have to figure out how, how to navigate this. But I also think this is a really interesting place that you could talk about differences and how differences are okay, and that we're all different.And sort of thinking about how we can tolerate differences between ourselves and other people. Because yeah, I feel like the more tolerant we are of other people's differences, like the better we will be just as a society, you know? I think it really depends a lot, you know, how you approach this depends a lot on how, on how much time you feel like you're gonna be spending with them.Like if you're gonna be hanging out most weekends, then it, I wonder if it might be, helpful to have a conversation with your sister-in-law, and say like, this is how we approach food, and I know that this isn't how you do things, but how can we navigate this together? Like can we come up with like an approach that works for both of us or that we can, that we both feel comfortable with?And, and I think that with, yeah, like I said, with your kid, I mean, first of all, your nephew is gonna wanna hang out at your house all the time. If you're like , you know, if you've got the goods, then you know, I think they're, they're gonna be kind of excited about that. I wanna hang out with you all the time, but, but yeah, like how, having those conversations with your kids about how everyone eats differently and that's okay.And, but also maybe as they get older and start asking more questions, like being really curious with them, of like, oh yeah, what do you, yeah. Did you notice that you know, little Charlie can only have two chocolate buttons. What did you think about that? Like, how did you feel? How would you feel if I said that you could only have two chocolate buttons and, and just like get yeah, get them to think about it with you a little bit. What do you think Jeanette?Jeanette: I think well exactly the same. You know, I don't navigate things exactly the same way. You have said, I mean, I've got a six year old who, um, has come back from school and um, you know, asked me like very similar questions, how come I can eat this? And I have this for snacks, but actually my friend so-and-so says that she's not allowed snacks or she's only allowed fruit for a snack and that kind of thing.And I very much like to promote having a really nice talk about it and obviously a nice like age appropriate one and going, okay, well it's because, and having a really lovely, like, chat about it for however her attention span last loss in that moment.Laura: And what does what, what kind of things does your six year old say about, about this? What do they come up with?Jeanette: Um, she looks confused a lot of the time, but not with what I say, as in, I'll kind of turn things on. So, a recent one was, um, one of the, one of her friends isn't allowed to have chocolate at the moment because her mom's not allowed to have chocolate in the house because she's not eating chocolate at the moment because she's on a diet. And she was like, but why, um, why isn't she allowed to have chocolate? And I was like, whoa. Laura: Why isn't she? Yeah.  Jeanette: You, you tell me. And she kind of sits there like scratching her head and she was like, but chocolate's not bad, is it? And I was like, no, because, because she's come back previously saying, is chocolate bad for me?Because that's what school had taught them. And I'd obviously have a conversation neutralizing that as, you know, as we do. And um, and she was like, so it's not bad. And I was like, well, no. How do you feel about chocolate? And she was like, well, it makes me feel, and I think she literally put her arms out. It makes me feel wonderful and put her arms out like this.You can't see when you're listening to it, but my arms areLaura: Jeanette's got her arms up above her head hearing. Jeanette: me feel wonderful. And then she said that she felt really sad for her friend that she couldn't have that same wonderful feeling.Laura: And that like, that's it. Is that if we can get our, like we don't need to tell our kids what to think.Jeanette: Yeah.Laura: Because we can get them to tap into that embodied experience of like, and there's research that shows this as well, that like, kids understand how foods feel in their body and that's how they make sense of their world, is that embodied experience.And so if you can help them, you know, instead of like reflexively being like, oh, well that's ridiculous, why would they think that or do that? Like just probing them and, and getting them to connect with, you know, what feels right and true for them. I feel like that's the best that we can do with thisJeanette: They're so good at it as well. And I think because we've dieted, because we've internalized all these messaging about diets and how food is good and bad as when you start children off really young with just allowing them Laura: mm-hmm. Jeanette: listen to themselves and how they feel. What I've been like, my, my six year old also came out.She really likes iceberg lettuce. Loves it. And I was like, so what? What about the lettuce? Do you really love? And she literally got up from her table and started kind of like dancing. And she was like, it makes me feel like I want to do this cuz it's really crunchy and I really like it cause it's crunchy.And she had like a bit of a jig and I love that because I was like, that sounds like it makes you feel really happy and really joyous. And she was like, yeah, it does. And to be able to have that communication with her body, to be able to know that that's how that food makes her feel. And obviously she has food that doesn't make her feel good.And sometimes she'll say to me, oh, what was it the other day that made her feel sad? I think it was mashed potato or something. She was, I did some lazy mash which had like, I leave the skins of the potatoLaura: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Jeanette: And she really didn't enjoy the sensory quality of having the potato skins in with the mash.Laura: Would be mad at you for that too.Jeanette: Sorry. It was just really lazy and she said it how sad it made her feel and she really did look really sad about this mashed potato. And obviously she didn't have to eat it becauseLaura: Yeah. You don't, you don't force Jeanette: Her. Yeah.Laura: I was thinking about this last night actually. So we had dinner last night and I, Avery had asked for some chocolate, um, with dinner. And so I put. We have like lots of Easter eggs in at the moment because we're just normalizing Easter over here.Easter chocolate. Um, so I put one out on his tray and he had like some fruit and I think he had like some frozen mango and like blueberries and he had like, like the main that we were having and he ate all of his main and he didn't touch his fruit and he didn't touch his chocolate. And at first my mind went to like, oh, that's interesting.He didn't eat his chocolate. It's like, you know his, he's listening to himself, right? Something in him made him listen to himself and think, oh, you know, he didn't want his chocolate. But something also made him listen to himself and say, I don't want my fruit. And I think we often, it made me think about how are more willing to trust our kids when they don't eat the, the so-called bad food according to diet culture. But if they don't want the, you know, the more healthy inverted commas, food, like fruit or their veggies, we are so much quicker to dismiss their experiences. And, and I just thought about that double standard is in absolutely no way related to this question, but I just like, yeah. I don't know. Mm-hmm.Jeanette: I've experienced exactly the same and yeah. It is so much easier, isn't it, to kind of, yeah. no, I'm really like that, pointing that out. Definitely. Yeah.Laura: All right. where are we up to with these questions? Okay. I have a question for you, Jeanette, from Louisa. And just a little content warning here. I'm gonna use the wording that, um, Louisa has put, and it involves the O word, so just skip past this bit if you don't wanna hear that. But Louisa says, I'm overweight, and then she says, I'm not sure best how best to describe myself. My dad was overweight before he died at 65 of heart disease. Are there things I can read slash learn about generational approaches to weight and emotional eating slash being happy in your body, which my dad wasn't. Thanks. So I feel like there's a lot to unpack in this question. Jeanette, where do we start?Jeanette: I'd like to start with, I'm so sorry to hear about your dad and, you know, 65 is actually a really young age at the moment, isn't it? So I can totally understand any fear that has really come from your dad, you know, passing away at this age from heart disease as well. I mean, I'm sure that your brain has automatically gone to, oh my goodness, my weight.What am I eating? Am I eating too much fat, too much salt, you know, am I healthy enough? You know, what can I do within my control? Like, what can I do? And I want to add that because you've actually named yourself as overweight and you know, BMI is like awful. We know that BMI is awful.We know that BMI is a really terrible way to, um, for the healthcare professionals to say how, whether they're assuming someone is healthy or unhealthy, whereas a chart with some numbers can't accurately name us as unhealthy or healthy or accurately say, and what kind of risk we have in our bodies as well, because it's really putting fatness and health kind of together and kind of connecting that together.So I'm going to kind of take that you feel that you are overweight. I don't know if you are in a large body yourself because BMI scale and the size or the level of fatness that you're at, they don't go together. But I know we can talk about a lot of internalized fatphobia and anti-fat in relation to this as well.Laura: Mm.Jeanette: We know that regardless of our weight, we can have healthy behaviors that can really. be protective towards us, can really support our health and support our heart heart's health. None of that means that it's a guarantee, but it means that we can feel supportive um, regardless of what we do in with the size of our body, we know that we don't have the diet to actually reduce our risk of any cardiovascular disease and any, any problems with that.And really good things to read around that is really having a look at, uh, The Fat Doctor UK and their Twitter and their posts as well are really good. Um, who else? Ragen as well. Um, you'll have to put these things in these showLaura: I'll link to it. So Ragen Chastain has a great, uh, newsletter called, um, Weight and Healthcare, and it's basically how to approach the healthcare system in a weight inclusive way. So she unpacks things like you were saying about how BMI is really not a helpful measure of our health. It's just a way of like categorizing bodies and gatekeeping healthcare, which is so fucked up when you think about it.Um, I would also say Aubrey Gordon's work might be a good place to, yeah, so Aubrey has two books, which I will link to in the show notes. So one of them is called What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, and the other one that just came out, um, like a month or so ago is, um, You Just Need to Lose Weight and Other Myths.So I would start there in terms of like an accessible place to learn about internalized weight stigma, medical fat phobia, anti-fat bias in general. I also wanted to offer, you don't say this explicitly but I wondered as well about you know, if what part of what you're looking for here is something around how you can care for yourself and pre prevent, or, I don't wanna say prevent ill health because we also know that a lot of this is out of our control.A lot of our health is determined by the social determinants of health as well as things like our genetics. Um, but what can you do to care for yourself in a weight inclusive, non diet way? And there are things that you can do, like you alluded to Jeanette around how we care for ourselves.And I wanna say as well that you're not obligated to be healthy, but I also understand why you might wanna find things that help you feel better and, and care for yourself. So I wanted to offer that we put together a Weight Inclusive Guide to Dyslipidemia or elevated blood cholesterol.And so if that is something that you're navigating, then that might be a helpful guide because it talks about supportive behaviors and in a kind of like more holistic way than just like lose weight, go on a diet. So I'll link to that in a show notes too. But I think like something for me that that kind of came up was like this idea of not, not sure how best to describe myself.And I wondered if we should like, talk a little bit about language and you know, how we kind of. Yeah. The language that we use around, around fat bodies, like this is something that we were talking before we started recording, and it's like, it's something that I grapple with a lot because like, technically according to my BMI I am the O word, right?And, but at the same time, I'm straight size, right? I can go into most clothes shops and be able to find something, um, I can fit into, you know, normal, not normal. What am I trying to say? I can fit into plane seats without worrying about, um, being really uncomfortable. Like, I don't have to think about access.But at the same time, there are, you know, real material things that I have to navigate. Like, you know, the example that I was giving you that I said to you earlier is like, if I were to get pregnant, I would be obese at my booking appointment, and that would have implications for the type of care that I was, and the type of birth that I was entitled to.And my maternity pathway would be completely different because of that. So there's this, it is kind of, I suppose what I'm grappling with is, you know, the loss of privilege as your body gets bigger while still having a fuck ton of thin privilege. I don't even know if that what my point was there, but what did it bring up for you?Jeanette: For me, it brings up a lot about the conversation to do with mid-size.Laura: Mid-size? Yeah.Jeanette: Yeah. That's what it kind of brings up because you Laura: Do you wanna explain that?Jeanette: Yeah, so mid-size is something that people tend to use and they use it in. This is the thing, this is the tricky thing that I find with mid-size because I find that it, it can be useful and could be useful for a lot of people, but I also feel like it is used for some people to distance themselves away from fatness.So it may be used by people who maybe small fats. So small fats are generally people who, who are like a 18 to 20Laura: So that's like a UK 18 to 20. Yeah. CauseJeanette: A UK.Laura: Most of our listeners are in the US, which I find it really weird, but that whatever. Yeah. So UK 18 to 20 Jeanette: Yes. I'm Laura: Would be. Jeanette: Would be for us, but a UK 18 to 20 a roundabouts. And it's, you know, when we're talking about small fat, we're talking about a person in a body who's just beginning to experience a lot more. Um, well experience quite a big loss of, um, body privilege, but not quite enough that they still, that, you know, they still fit in society.It's just that it's uncomfortable to fit in society. Then you have mid fat, which is, it's more uncomfortable, you know, you, you can fit into most seats, but you might end up, um, getting bruises from them and then you get super fat which is probably won't be able to fit in some of the seats. And you will be getting bruises.You will be hurting from sitting in, you know, so we have this kind of level of body privilege we can talk about. And some mid-size people use the term mid-size to distance themselves because of their own internalized fat phobia from calling themselves a small fat or identifying as fatness. But then also we have a group of people who potentially, you know, like you were saying, who are potentially are still experiencing some form of anti-fat really, and because of the BMI scale and that kind of thing, but aren't fat, but aren't straight sized.So they're trying to carve out a space for them in like a community way to try. But it, it's really difficult I think, and I think it's difficult to find that space, which is why I'm very much of the opinion of you. We need to try and find a way that is honouring our fattest people and trying to find equity and you know, lift up our fattest people whilst at the same time recognizing that there are people who are in smaller bodies who are still experiencing some form of anti-fat as well.Laura: Yeah. And I think there were a couple of different things that you talked about there, Janette, that I just wanna like go back to. So when you use the terms small fats, mid fat, large fat, and then super fat and infini fat, you're talking about what is often referred to as like fat degrees or the fat spectrum, right?And so what that names is how, as our body size gets bigger, we lose more and more privilege and become further and further marginalized.And, Linda from, uh, fluffy Kitten Party has done a great explainer on categories and it would be, I think it's a really helpful resource if this is new to you, like how do you, like what language do we use to describe our bodies?The midsize thing is a whole fucking trip, where I think like in its original inception, it was this really important kind of bridge for people between who were at the top end of the straight size spectrum. So maybe like a 16 to 18Jeanette: Yeah.Laura: Who or like the bottom size of the plus size spectrum when it comes to like, clothing, let's say. Because I think that really the mid-size thing is about clothing a lot of times. And like how it can be, you know, it can be really tricky if, if you're in that spot to like, do I try and shop in straight size stores where it might not quite fit, but then the plus size stuff doesn't always fit either.So like it can be a tricky space to be in and you still have a fuck ton of body privilege. Right. And then, but what it feels like has happened is that like objectively straight size people, like people who are like a UK size 12 have co-opted this term.Jeanette: Mm-hmm.Laura: And just because they're not like stick thin, they are like, oh, they're like, it's, yeah. It's kind of, they're using it to, to, to kind of like take up space basically, when actually they're just like a fraction away from the idealJeanette: Yeah.Laura: and they're still comparing themselves to that thin ideal. And that's where I think the problem is.Jeanette: Yeah. And that's the problem of society, isn't it? That's the problem that if we are not conforming to this really quite strict view of, you know, thinness and beauty, then you know, you've, we've got a whole load of different people trying to find community in the way that best fits them.And I think that's where fat liberation really can come in because, you know, everyone's trying to carve out their own space for them. Whereas actually body liberation and, and fat liberation is all about widening that lens to other people. We are not just trying to carve out the space for ourselves individually.We're trying to carve out spaces and take up space in a way that honors other people's space that they're taking up as well and uplifting the bodies that are the most marginalized and going, okay, these are the people who need this space and we want them to have this space. They deserve unconditionally to have this space as well.And that's when I think it's really unhelpful when we have people who are trying to create community and take up their own space when they're not thinking about their impact on the other people and marginalized bodies around them.Laura: Yeah. And that's, I think the thing about the mid-size trend is that there is no acknowledgement of either thin privilege or of body liberation or of how there are people that are way more oppressed than, you know, struggling to find clothes for your size 12th body. Right. Jeanette: Definitely. Laura: Okay. I think, do we have time for one more question? Should we do one more and then, Jeanette: Let's do this. Okay, so this is a question from Janice. I've been on a disordered eating recovery journey for about three years. My rejection of diet culture and calling out of weight stigma, particularly in the medical profession, has been a dramatic change. My husband is not on this journey with me and is still fully committed to diet and exercise equals health and wellbeing.We've had arguments about it because when I call out weight stigma, he gets defensive. He now says he won't speak to me about body image, food, eating because he feels attacked. He also feels that my views are just subjective opinions and there is no evidence that what I say is true. I get upset and then I can't think objectively either.What is the easiest and quick data I can, or research that backs up our non diet, weight inclusive approach to health? Or should I just accept that this is something we really can't talk about at the moment and I continue my work and get in therapy for support. I really appreciate your advice and obviously love the podcast, and.Laura: Oh, oh, Janice, Janice, Janice, Janice. I felt really sad re when this question came in, we can, and we will give you papers that you can read, that's fine. But that's so far from the point here. It's so far from the point, because even if this is just your subjective experience, that really fucking matters, that's so important and you deserve to have your experiences validated.And so I just wanna do that first and foremost, like your experience of weight stigma, and particularly like you say in the medical profession, that's so valid and it matters and it's important. And I'm really sorry that that has been dismissed or trivialized. It's obviously not just in your head. So yeah, that's the first thing that I wanted to offer is that that really matters and that's really important. And I'm really sorry that you know, someone who you love and care about has dismissed you like that. That must be extremely painful. What are you thinking, Jeanette? Like can see youJeanette: Yeah.Laura: Just looking really sad as well.Jeanette: I just really feel for Janice, and I also think this is something that comes up a fair bit as well, especially if, um, the person themselves is in a large body and a fat body. And especially if the partner is at a fat or large body themselves, because obviously they've got a lot of work to be doing themselves around, you know, rejecting diet culture and working on challenging than internalized fatphobia.But I also, it's difficult doing that journey without a supportive partner. And it's even more difficult doing it with someone who wants to challenge, even if it's something that's subjective, that's hard. But also even if we gave, you know, give researching and show papers, I find it doesn't necessarily always, sometimes it does change people's mind because people need to be in the right place themselves to be able to hear the message.Unfortunately, this is why me and Laura aren't millionaires, because we can't go out and force people into rejecting diet culture. You've almost gotta get to this kind of place where you are ready to step into that space and ready to start doing this work of challenging everything that you've believed and everything you've internalized for pretty much the whole of our lives. And it's difficult. So difficult. Also thinking that the partner, your partner isn't in the same place that you are in relation to that as well. So, I'm sorry that you're experiencing this really.Laura: Yeah. And I don't know that I really have a, a helpful answer or solution. You know, I just wonder if you have like a safe place like that you can talk about these things and it doesn't sound like you necessarily do, but I wonder what like take to get you to be able to have conversations in a way that, you know, neither one of you feels attacked and you both have your experiences held and, and validated.And I don't know if that's like couples counselling or therapy or, you know, even working with like a Jeanette or a Laura or like, you know, somebody to help you process that together. And I'll link to some papers in the show notes, but like you say, Jeanette, I don't know if that's gonna nudge the dial any really, but the, the one that I'm thinking of is the Tracy Tylka paper, the weight inclusive versus weight normative approach to health because it really neatly, sort of lays out the issues and summarizes the evidence. I did a Q&A with a weight inclusive researcher, Lizzy Pope, a couple weeks ago, and she shared some research literature as well that that, um, and I think she includes that, that til paper that she uses when she's trying to convince other researchers that this is the way to approach things. Any other like resources or, or things that you think would be helpful?Jeanette: I think maybe you know, in the long term, something like that you can do as a couple to be able to validate each other. Trying to find that way forward is important. But in the short term, is there any way of you finding, um, your community, you know, have you got someone outside of your partner that you can discuss this with?Can you find someone, can you find someone through like Facebook groups? You know, is there anyone? Cause there's loads of really goods, um, anti-D diet, non-diet approach, Facebook groups that you can find. And although online friendship doesn't replace and obviously shouldn't replace the relationship that you have with your partner. But it could be a really good short-term solution. So you still have someone that you can talk to this, talk about all of your experiences about who can validate you, who can go, well actually yeah, this is what I'm experiencing as well, which might be useful.Laura: Yeah. I'm curious to hear like if you have, you know, if your husband has always been on board with this for you. If that's been like a learning curve. I feel like I'm pretty lucky in that Dave listens to all my podcasts and reads all my shit. Like he's the first person to see anything, to like read any drafts of anything I've written.So he just knows, that if he didn't get on board it would be divorce. Right. But I'm, I'm curious, like, did you have that, you know, because you've been on your own journey and we talked about that in the last podcast we did together, but how was, what was that experience like for you?Jeanette: I've had a very similar experience as you to be honest, I am incredibly lucky that, um, no matter what I have decided to do with my body, my husband has always been supportive, has always championed my own body autonomy. And I'm really, I'm really lucky, like exactly the same as you. He's always the first person to listen to podcasts and the first person to read my posts and, you know, he reads all my emails that he sends out.I dunno why he subscribes to them, but he also reads those, you know. So I'm really lucky. I think the place that I struggle with personally is my family. I have a member of my family who understandably, really understandably for her own personal reasons, is entrenched in diet culture. And I do set boundaries with, with her. And she knows that. And we've, we've had the, we've had the, the talk that, um, she's not allowed to talk about weight loss and diets and food being good and bad around the children especially. But she doesn't necessarily understand what I do. She's still very much, you know, fat equals bad. My family are all people who are in fat bodies.Like when you look at both sides of the, when I wear, I was, I was never just in, in my genetics to have a small body. I am six foot tall and I'm also fat. I am supposed to be taking up a lot of space. And when I look at the you know, the generations before me, they're the same. They're also tall people who are fat as well, which comes with a lot of generational, you know, diet culture. But yeah, it, it's hard. It's hard when you don't have family and you don't have, you know, in this case, a partner who is supportive of, of your own body autonomyLaura: Clearly the answer is you have to become an anti diet nutritionist. Like that's the, and then your husband will get it. All right, easy just do that.Jeanette: We just literally talk at them for so long that they have to listen to us and internalizeLaura: Yeah. They have to, they have to get it, otherwise you threaten them with the divorce. So thank you for sharing that, Jeanette. Really appreciate it. I think it's always like, just so much more helpful to hear people's personal experience. So yeah, I'm so glad that you were here to answer these questions with me.I don't feel like we give Janice a very satisfying answer. I'm sorry, Janice. Hopefully there is something to, to think about in that. But, um, yeah, I think we, we've covered a lot of ground here. There were a couple questions that we didn't get to, so maybe we'll do a part two at some point and finish them up.Should we share our snacks? So at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they're snacking on. So it can be like a podcast or a book, or a movie or a show, or like literal snacks. So what do you have for us?Jeanette: The first thing that came to mind of what I have been snacking on recently is a podcast. And, um, I have been a very busy bee at the moment, so having a podcast, um, that has been away from like anti-diet Laura: Yes. Jeanette: Sort thinking about fatness and stuff has been a really lovely respite to me. And it's, um, my, and it's probably one, it's been out for a while. I think they're finishing up. my dad wrote a porno.Laura: Oh yeah. I haven't listened to that in so long.Jeanette: No, I keep on it. I started listening to it back in 2019 and then I kind of forgot about that. Now, every now and then I kind of pick up, I go, oh my goodness, I need this in my life. And it's usually when I'm really busy. Like usually when I'm really busy, my brain just needsLaura: Something. Yeah.Jeanette: and something really funny.And so that's what I've been snacking on at the moment. How about you?Laura: So funny. We've been watching a lot of Bob's Burgers, which I love, Bob's burgers. Because our kid goes to bed so freaking late these days, so we usually have like, you know, we just wanna watch something mindless for like 20 minutes before we go to bed, have a snack, and then like an, I mean an actual food snack, watch a show. So they, yeah, that's like, that's what we've been watching lately. Um, but also, like the other thing that I had, cuz just cuz it's sitting on my desk, this is super bougie, um, because I was like having a bad day and I went into asip, which is always a mistake. And I bought, what is it? It's, um, like body bam, pink grapefruit, orange rind and lemon rind. And it's in this like paint tube, which I love Jeanette: I love that.Laura: Yeah, it's so, it's not, I wish, like I'm, I'm holding it up to you, like, you can smell it, you can't, but it's like really citrusy and fresh and like Yeah. I just, it's very, it's like a complete indulgence. But I love it. So yeah, that's my snack also.Um, Jeanette, tell us where people can find more about you and your work and a little bit of what you're up to.Jeanette: Okay. Um, you can find me on Instagram, the mindset nutritionist. You can find my freebie, which is great on my website, www dot mindset nutritionist dot co uk.Laura: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, go download Jeanette's freebie. It's all about getting in the picture and yeah, being there for the, the moment and not being like hyperfocused on how you look or your body. Jeanette: Thank you so much for saying that for me,Laura: All right. Thanks for listening everyone, and thank you, Jeanette for being here and helping us answer all those questions.Jeanette: so much for having me.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. 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Today I'm talking with Dr. Scott Griffiths. Scott is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He leads the Physical Appearance Research Team, a multidisciplinary group of researchers and health professionals who investigate body image, appearance related stigmas and discrimination, appearance enhancing substances, appearance enhancement and appearance related psychological disorders such as eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder.I wanted to talk to Scott about the phenomenon of muscle dysmorphia, a disorder that sits somewhere between a body dysmorphic disorder and an eating disorder that tends to impact cis boys and men. It's sometimes characterised as the male anorexia. Of course cis boys and men get anorexia too, but muscle dysmorphia is a bit different. It's sometimes known as Bigorexia. It's when an individual doesn't believe that they're big enough or sufficiently muscular to the point that they devote their lives to gains and progress in the gym. They might follow extremely strict diets which prioritise protein and cut out a lot of carbohydrates, and in some cases men can turn to using anabolic steroids, which have some really serious long-term effects for both physical and mental health as you'll hear us talking about. A lot of Scott's research is about the ways that social media, and particularly TikTok feeds people who are vulnerable to eating disorders or muscle dysmorphia, more and more content that upholds unrealistic body and image based ideals, and actually fuels eating disorders.It's really interesting research to hear about, but as a parent and as someone who works with eating disorders, it's really terrifying.Find out more about Scott's work here.Follow his work on Twitter here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Scott: When you're on your feed and TikTok is delivering videos for you to consume, all of the reference points you are getting from content that it's popular and influential and that people are responding to it. It's so divorced from reality that you've got a greater pool of people comparing and feeling poorly about themselves and now investing in the general necessity of looking better.INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome to Can I Have Another Snack? I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet, registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. We're having conversations about how we nourish ourselves and our kids in all senses of the word in the hellscape that is diet culture.Today I'm talking with Dr. Scott Griffiths. Scott is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He leads the Physical Appearance Research Team, a multidisciplinary group of researchers and health professionals who investigate body image, appearance related stigmas and discrimination, appearance enhancing substances, appearance enhancement and appearance related psychological disorders such as eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder.I wanted to talk to Scott about the phenomenon of muscle dysmorphia, a disorder that sits somewhere between a body dysmorphic disorder and an eating disorder that tends to impact cis boys and men. It's sometimes characterized as the male anorexia, which of course cis boys and men get anorexia too. But muscle dysmorphia is a bit different. It's sometimes known as bigorexia. It's when an individual doesn't believe that they're big enough or sufficiently muscular to the point that they devote their lives to gains and progress in the gym. They might follow extremely strict diets which prioritize protein and cut out a lot of carbohydrates. And in some cases men can turn to using anabolic steroids, which have some really serious long-term effects for both physical and mental health as you'll hear us talking about. A lot of Scott's research is about the ways that social media, and particularly TikTok feeds people who are vulnerable to eating disorders or muscle dysmorphia, more and more content that upholds unrealistic body and image based ideals and actually fuels eating disorders.It's really interesting research to hear about, but as a parent and as someone who works with eating disorders, it's. Really terrifying. So you'll notice that this episode has a slightly different vibe to some of the other episodes this season. I'm asking Scott more about his research on muscle dysmorphia rather than his, you know, personal story. And I'm curious to hear what you think of this episode and get some feedback from you as to whether you'd like more interviews with academics, researchers and practitioners with a particular kind of expertise or on a particular topic like this, in addition to hearing people's lived experience. So if you want, you can drop me a comment over on Substack underneath this episode, um, which you can find at laurathomas.substack.com.And while I have you here, just a reminder that Can I Have Another Snack? is entirely listener and reader supported, but in order to be able to cover the costs of admin and people and pay guests and contributors. A lot of my time is devoted to other work outside of the newsletter. That means I have less time to bring deeply researched essays as well as thoughtful interviews here on the podcast. I'd love to be able to devote most of my time to the work and the community that we're building here, but that means I need a lot more of you to consider becoming a paid subscriber. I also know that that's a big ask right now. So for the month of March, I'm running a one off spring sale on Can I Have another Snack subscriptions. They are 20% off, so for this month only, if you subscribe, you'll pay four pounds a month or 40 pounds for the year instead of five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year, which is a bargain. I'm not going to be running this good a deal for the rest of the year, so now is the time to cash in. If you've been sitting on the fence it's time to make a move. I'll put a subscription link in the show notes. You can also gift a subscription to a friend or family member or a coworker and get that same deal. And remember that if you want to sign up with some pals or like your NCT group from five years ago, you always get 20% off of group subscriptions. So I will also link to group subscriptions in the show notes.Okay, team, I appreciate your support and hopefully one day we can make this work more sustainable, so I can give up my side hustles. Thank you so much for being here. Here is my interview with Scott Griffiths.MAIN EPISODELaura: All right, Scott, I would love it if you could start by telling us a little bit about how you got interested in studying appearance related psychological disorders like body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorders.Scott: When I was a teenager, I worked at a cinema and someone who worked there who was kind of a friend of mine, a young woman, she had anorexia, and I remember at the time being completely mystified by her ailment and predicament. And it's probably quite stigmatizing in retrospect because it seemed to me as a, you know, kind of a fool, that the solution to her problem was readily at hand.Like she was really thin and, and just needed to eat. And that kind of set my thinking in motion about the really complex feelings and beliefs that folks can have about their body and their eating, et cetera. And it was when I was in undergraduate doing a, a Bachelor of Psychology that I had a couple of friends, both young men who would say things to me that would remind me of that young woman who had anorexia in the cinema and things they would say were similar, but the manifestations of them were different. The kinds of eating and, and training and the bodies that they wanted for themselves were all different, but it's core, it seemed like the same kind of issue and disorder. So I think that was what got me interested. And it's developed a lot since then.Laura: Yeah, it's so interesting. I think you know that I work with people with eating disorders and something I often hear from them is like, well, it just, how misunderstood that the disorder is, and from the outside, especially to anyone who knows nothing about eating disorders, it seems like, yeah, it's really simple just to eat more food.But I think you've been on your own learning journey with that and, and come through the other side and realized it's, it's a lot more complicated than that. These people would, you know, if, if it was just, just as easy as eating food, they would do it. But unfortunately that's, that's not the case.Sorry, that was a little tangent cuz I think you were touching on something that I know is really important to those with lived experience of eating disorders. And then kind of moving further along, it's really interesting that you saw the parallels between anorexia nervosa and then what I think you would probably characterize as body dysmorphic disorder. Which is the same but different. And maybe the same is too much of a stretch. But it's similar, but also different. So I'm wondering for people who are unfamiliar with body dysmorphic disorder, can you tell us what exactly it is and maybe some of the, the des describing more of the parallels between something like anorexia nervosa or what we would consider to be a more traditional in inverted commas eating disorder versus what we see in the BDD presentation.Scott: When I was talking with those, those friends, those young men when I was at university the disorder that would best capture what was going on for them is something we call muscle dysmorphia, which is a subtype of body dysmorphia disorder, which kind of sits alongside eating disorders. They are distinct, but they're often comorbid.They both have body image often as a central element. So body dysmorphic disorder, the cardinal symptom is you believing there is a defect in your appearance. It can be completely imaginary or it can be real, but the severity of it in your head is almost always much more severe than it is in actual objective reality.And in the context of muscle dysmorphia, which many people, including myself, see more as an eating disorder than body dysmorphic disorder. The defect in appearance is guys, some girls, but often guys who objectively are, are very large and muscular, but when they look in the mirror, what they see reflected back to them is someone who is scrawny, out of shape or overweight.Just a big difference to how they actually are not at all dissimilar to anorexia where we have people, often young women predominantly, but also some men who look in the mirror and see someone reflected back to them who is very different to how they actually look.Laura: It's interesting that you said that you characterize muscle dysmorphic disorder as more similar to an eating disorder than to true body dysmorphic disorder, and I'm curious to hear a little bit more about why you feel like it fits more into that category.Scott: Yeah. To be fair, when people debate about whether muscle dysmorphia ought to be a body dysmorphic disorder as it currently is classified or an eating disorder, it feels a little bit like a semantic exercise.Laura: Absolutely.Scott: The real push and importance in research as far as I'm concerned, is trying to understand both disorders and develop better treatments and trying to figure out which, which category where there's so much overlap between these two categories already, it belongs to, feels a little like a moot point, but to, to answer the question. For me, it's because when you look at the central pathology that motivates folks with muscle dysmorphia, the low self-esteem, especially around appearance, the kinds of things they believe with respect to why they have to look a certain way in order to have worth and be loved.The attention given to dieting and to exercise and the inability to tolerate deviations from that, the need to constantly progress, the perfectionism, it's all there. It all feels like different sides of the same coin. And when I speak to people, including yourself and your audience, it feels to me like explaining away muscle dysmorphia as one manifestation of an eating disorder, kind of like anorexia, or the reverse of it is just an easy way to see how it is that eating disorders are so much more than just thinness, that they can manifest in all sorts of different ways depending on the types of bodies that people feel compelled to achieve for themselves.Laura: Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. And I'm, I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about sort of, you know, maybe not with going with, without going into tons and tons of detail that might be upsetting to hear, but just tell us a little bit about, a bit more about you know, how would you know if someone had muscle dysmorphic disorder? You know, I'm thinking about parents who, you know, what are the signs and symptoms that someone might want to look out for that are sort of red flags, if you will.Scott: Got you. So, when you're trying to identify red flags, some muscle dysmorphia, a useful starting point is to recognize that almost everything that is common in muscle dysmorphia can exist and be benign. So you can train five, six days a week every day of the week if you want. And it's completely fine, as long as it's working for you.You can diet right, and it can be fine. Not a psychological disorder if it's working for you. It's not encouraging people to go and do it, but it's not a psychological disorder to do it in muscle dysmorphia. It's when there is a preoccupation and that preoccupation is causing impairment. So it could be that your training and dieting have become so strict that when you feel that your training or dieting are about to be compromised in some way, maybe there's an important social occasion that you have to attend, and it means that you don't get to stick to your diet or go to train or something unexpected comes up, and you have to prioritize that other important unexpected thing.If that brings you anxiety and guilt makes you angry at yourself, then you are in the territory of massive dysmorphia as opposed to just behaviors that are otherwise benign with respect to disorder.Laura: Yeah, so you're just highlighting here that you know, the behaviors in and of themselves are not pathological. You know, plenty of people go to the gym, you know, they are super careful with their diet. Where it runs into kind of hot water is when, you know, that becomes almost like all encompassing.It takes over your life. It doesn't allow for any flexibility. It becomes very rigid. You can't go to your mates birthday party or just like, go pick up a pizza after work because it's a mess. So that flexibility in eating, that flexibility in your social life, but also I suppose kind of the feelings of guilt, remorse, stress, that might come up if you do do those things.Scott: That's right. And the deteriorations tend to come from many places. They don't just come from one. So maybe you find that on the days where you have to rest where you can't be in gym training, cuz you've gotta have a couple of rest days to recover, you don't feel so good on those days. Maybe every time you don't progress in the gym, so you're not adding on to the weight, you're not getting stronger, it makes you feel like rubbish.Whereas when you first started out, maybe all of those things made you feel really good. Maybe your relationships are starting to suffer. Maybe your partner has had four or five conversations with you now about how they don't like how it's so challenging to go out to a restaurant, et cetera, etc.There's going to be no one thing, but the things tend to all come. Together. And what's challenging as you would well know in the eating disorder space is that the person who is in the thick of it is sometimes not the best judge of how extreme and rigid what they are doing is, and not uncommon at all to have folks who've come out the other end of these disorders look back and say, oh man, I can't believe I didn't see just how crazy it was for me at that.Laura: And that's a really important point, and I'd like to come back and think a little bit about how particularly a parent might address this or raise their concerns with you know, maybe their teen who they know is becoming super fixated on the gym and really rigid around that.Maybe we could come back to that because I feel I still wanna characterize a little bit more of what might be going on for people with muscle dysmorphic disorder. And a big piece that I feel like we haven't talked about yet is the use of anabolic steroids.So yeah, could you tell us how that and maybe any other kind of diet aids and things fit into the picture of muscle dysmorphic disorder?Scott: Yeah, sure. So, if you wanted to be thin and skinny and you were going to abuse drugs to get there, you might use laxatives and diuretics. If you wanna be big and muscular the drug that will typically be abused is anabolic steroids. So the most basic anabolic steroid is just a synthetic form of testosterone, the sex differentiating hormone that men tend to have more of than women, and it helps to synthesize muscle. So if you wanna be bigger muscular, if you've been influenced by, you know, famous fitness influencers, many of whom are using steroids, it may be something you're tempted to turn to and unlike with laxatives and diuretics, where if you take them, they don't have any substantive impact on the calories that you absorb (another way of saying they don't work very well). anabolic steroids, unfortunately do work very well. It's a bit of a public relations disaster, really.Laura: Can I just put a tiny caveat that for people who abuse laxatives and diuretics, in terms of, I just wanna highlight that they are still really dangerous and they can cause electrolyte imbalances. Just because I know people with eating disorders will listen to this podcast and I've worked with eating disorders for long enough to know that they will hear that and think, oh, okay, that means they're safeSo, I just want to highlight that it can cause problems in terms of your intestines. There can be problems with, I'm forgetting the terminology now, but basically twisting your intestines because it just messes with your digestion so much.I'm thinking about laxatives here, but also it can cause dangerously low electrolyte levels in the body, which can cause fits and seizures. So they're not benign, and I don't want anyone to walk away with the message that they're benign. But that's aside from what you're talking about, which is that yeah, you know that people with muscle dysmorphic disorder are more likely to abuse steroids.So, yeah. Could I pass it back to you now?Scott: Of course, and steroids on top of being effective, which makes them very attractive in terms of, you know, as a temptation they also have rather significant health consequences, especially in the long term. But why I bring up the fact that they are effective for building muscle into such a significant degree that you have outfits like the International Olympics Committee who test for doping.The use of things like steroids in sports is because once you're on them, you will experience the progress that you've been craving and to a very significant degree. So folks will get on them, they will put on a lot of muscle, they might even lose some body fat at the same time, which is incredibly challenging to do if you are not on these substances.And of course, they feel. for a time, but they still have the core beliefs and attitudes and thinking so that high doesn't last for very long. But now not only are they not satisfied with their current size often, but to drop in size by coming off would trigger the kinds of intense feelings and distorted thinking that you also see when folks with anorexia are going through recovery and are, you know, weight restoring.So it's incredibly challenging. And what ends up happening is that you have to then treat both the muscle dysmorphia, which is very much a psychological disorder, and the anabolic steroids and their effects, which is an endocrine impactor. And dealing with these in combos is challenging.Laura: And, I was just wondering if you could talk a little to the, the longer term side effects of of the steroid use.Scott: Sure. So the longer term side effects tend to focus on increased mortality and morbidity from, from cardiovascular events, heart attacks, enlarged hearts. The endocrine effects focus predominantly on the capacity of your endocrine system to resume a normal amount of testosterone production endogenously, so from within, subsequent to stopping steroid use.Because when you flood your system with anabolic steroids or synthetic testosterone, the reason men's testicles shrink is because most of the function of testicles is to make testosterone. So the body says, oh, I'm full of testosterone. Now I'm not gonna make any more myself. But when you doing the injections of the tablets and you don't have that testosterone coming in, the body has to restart that system from scratch. And as we've learned, it is not very reliable at doing that. And it is very unpredictable how well that is gonna happen. And there's many, many, many instances of men as young as 23, 24, who will be on testosterone replacement therapy for their entire life, and who have their fertility are greatly compromised now because their bodies have not resumed normal testosterone production.Laura: Yeah. What you're describing is really similar to what happens when once this women are taking the contraceptive pill and then they come off of it and they might not restart their period for five or six months after, hopefully all going well. But what you're talking about, I think in muscle dysmorphic disorder, where there's an abuse of these drugs that those, as I understand it, the doses are much higher than a typical physiological dose.And so the impact, the effect is much, much greater and could last a lot longer, you know, if function is ever fully regained.Scott: Yeah. To give you some context, a beginner's of anabolic steroids, a beginner steroid cycle, if you will, might prescribe something like 500 milligrams of testosterone enate, a really commonly available steroid. I'd wager a bet that it's most widely available in the UK, certainly is in Australia. That beginner's dose is already five times higher than the maximum that a healthy male would produce on their own. And that much testosterone, flooding a system is beyond the bounds of what the human body is used to dealing with. Laura: Yeah. And, and you mentioned you know, the UK context there and there were headlines a couple of years ago that suggested that first of all, that predominantly steroid users in the UK were were using steroids as an appearance or an aesthetic related, you know, for aesthetic reasons rather than for purely like bodybuilding lifting reasons.Although I, I can imagine those things get kind of murky to tease apart and. At that time, I think this was about 2018 the, the reports were that there were about a million steroid users in the UK for, you know, for aesthetic reasons. Is that an accurate reflection? Do you know? Like, is that likely an underestimation, an overestimation, or do we have any, any real sense of what's going on?Scott: I'd say there's a great chance that's an underestimate. Steroid use is incredibly stigmatized. It's heavily criminalized and users are extremely loath to admit even to health professionals that they use anabolic steroids. And you see these schisms even in fitness communities online. So Instagram, TikTok, where there's this constant accusations that someone is using steroids or is natural or bloody for short. So, it's all very underground and it means that whenever you do get an, an estimate based on data that is credible. So in Australia that would be visits to needle and syringe programs as one example, to get injecting equipment for steroids. You can be almost certain that that's just a fraction of what's actually going on out there. And all the evidence we have, at least in Australia suggests that anabolic steroid use is increasing in prevalence and it's gone from something that used to be the purview of just athletes through to professional weightlifters to now those only being a minority. It's very much an aesthetics driven thing.Laura: So tell us what we know about who Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder impacts. You've alluded to that it's mostly cis men. But can you elaborate any further on that?Scott: Sure. So itt's mostly cis men because cis men are the largest pool who would want to be muscular. But you see certain subpopulations of men who are more vulnerable. Gay men are more vulnerable to muscle dysmorphia and to using anabolic steroids because of the heightened appearance pressures in that space. Younger men. So it does tend to be something that has its onset in younger years similar to anorexia.Laura: Sorry, I was gonna ask you, we know kind of what age do boys start becoming vulnerable? Because we know in anorexia it can be as young as like eight or nine sometimes, and that age is getting younger and younger.Scott: Yeah. And you see the same thing in muscle dysmorphia. So the first vulnerability factors can appear there. Studies have been done with action figurines and you have young boys asked which one do they prefer more? And they're able to, to, they have their preferences in line with what you'd expect, and they'll expect a preference for their own bodies to look certain ways, as you'd expect, given media messaging.So the vulnerability factors are there. In terms of muscle dysmorphia on setting tends to take quite a while. You'd be familiar. It's not the case that you hear a couple of messages, you get a mean comment about your appearance, and then suddenly you have it . It's years of internalizing and a bunch of factors that come along, and then it might strike in your teens or your early adulthood.And we see that in muscle dysmorphia too. Steroids often come into the piece a little later, so early adulthood to mid, and it's because they're expensive and they're hard to access.Laura: Yeah. You need to be kind of savvy also. Yeah. I can imagine kids who have figured out the whole cryptocurrency thing. I'm sure that they, you know, would get in there if they could, if they had the means. So you're saying gay men are more at risk. What, are there any other sort of subpopulations that you know, you're particularly worried about?Scott: Men who are in sports for which body weight or some aesthetic element around body weight is a key part. So not uncommon to have guys with muscle dysmorphia say that a lot of some of these thoughts came about because they had to weigh in for their sports. Maybe they were, they were boxes or fighters, something like that. So it just primed them to be in the space of being anxious about the number on the scale and how their fitness was progressing. Things like that.Laura: Do we know anything about racialized groups and, and who might be most at risk?Scott: There is some evidence though, it's not great in terms of its quality as of yet, that folks in predominantly white countries who are not white themselves may be at greater risk for both muscle dysmorphia and steroid use. Data we produced in Australia that was specific to gay bisexual men of, of various races suggested for example, that, you know, if you were an Asian gay man in Australia, that you might be more likely to use anabolic steroids and to succumb to muscle dysmorphia.And in talking with Asian gay men in interviews in qualitative research, part of it is because, you know, if you are an Asian gay man in Australia, then you are often stereotyped as being more feminine. You're not able to be part of the masc for masc subculture, which is still quite dominant and exclusionary and anabolic steroids are a way to compensate for those other aspects of your appearance that are diminishing your masculine capital. You can see something similar happen for men who are shorter. If you go to spaces online where men are complaining about being short to other men, they'll often see, just hit the gym, just get jacked. It's a way to compensate for those other elements that are not helping you to embody that masculine archetypal, conventionally attractive male.Laura: Hmm. Okay. A while back, you talked about pressures from the media. And that has, you know historically, particularly in anorexia research, been held up as a huge antecedent, I suppose, to eating disorder precipitation, but now there's this whole other layer of social media on top of things. How does, and I'm thinking about the fact that young people in particular hang out on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and maybe less Facebook these days I don't know. I don't go on Facebook. So what do we know about the influence that social media is having on aesthetic and appearance based pressures?Scott: Social media makes people more vulnerable to eating disorders, including muscle dysmorphia. And if you are vulnerable, it can make the transition to having one of these disorders shorter. It can intensify it. And I think it can also assist in maintaining them for longer as well. So the reason why media messaging can be so problematic and damaging in terms of vulnerability for and experiencing eating disorders is because you end up with all these idealized reference points and what social media does is expands that limitlessly so that when you're on your feed and TikTok is delivering videos for you to consume, all of the reference points you are getting from content that is popular and influential and that people are responding to. It's so divorced from reality that you've got a greater pool of people comparing and feeling poorly about themselves and now investing in the general necessity of looking better.Laura: So this is an area that you've been researching. Am I right?Scott: Yeah, that's right.Laura: Can you tell us a little bit more about, you know, specific studies or experiments that you've done, that you're excited to share a bit more about?Scott: So, you know, studies of social media, including of TikTok, generally what they will do is have an experiment and you'll show people some images or videos from social media platforms that you're worried about and see how people respond. Or you have people answer a survey question that will amount to, how often do you use, say, TikTok, Instagram, and you correlate that with some measure like how you feel about your body.And that's all well and fine. But where the real explanatory power is, in my mind, is in big data and getting access into exactly what people are seeing and viewing so you can map their social media experience. So what we've been able to do is to take a group of people with eating disorders and a group of people who, we call it our healthy controls, that don't have eating disorders. And see their entire TikTok algorithm from the day they installed it to the day we requested the data. And that means we can track exactly every video that's being delivered to them, the comments, the likes, all with their consent, I'll just say, of course not being done without that. And we can see what is happening.What it means is we can show things like if you are someone with an eating disorder, your TikTok algorithm that decides what videos you see every time you log in is 50% more likely to deliver you an appearance oriented video for each and every video that you see compared to someone without an eating disorder.And the amount of videos that these folks are seeing, the average is around 2000 a month. So if you are someone in weekly therapy for an eating disorder, If you're a clinician and you have someone who you'reLaura: Oh my God. I'm just sitting here thinking about like some of my clients. I'm like,Scott: That's 500 videos on average that they are seeing between each session. And when we run studies to compliment these on new phones with fresh TikTok accounts that we manage, it only takes three minutes to get an appearance oriented video.You get 17 in the first 20 minutes. So it's not that people are seeking this content out. It happens anyway. And when we look at the rate of liking that folks with eating disorders have for this content versus folks without. It's not that the folks with eating disorders are looking for this content, they're liking it at the same rate because what's algorithm is doing is not taking what you like to determine what you want to see. They're interested in engagement, whether it's Facebook or, or Instagram or TikTok. It's what keeps you looking and what keeps you looking isn't just what makes you happy. It's what makes you anxious or what makes you upset. It's what makes you mad. And if you are someone who is really unhappy or worried about the way you look, it knows which videos will make you look more. And that's exactly what happens. And you can see over time how the algorithm becomes more echo chambery as people get sucked into the vortex of this content.Laura: I think the scariest part for me both as someone who works with eating disorders and as a parent, like my child is obviously not on social media right now, but will be one day I'm sure, is the fact that they know, like the social media companies know exactly what they're doing because wasn't it a couple of years ago, but there was a whistleblower at meta. Who said who, who said, we have all of this information that shows that our algorithms are making body image and eating disorders worse, and yet they're not doing anything about it.Scott: Yeah. And then they downplayed and discredited their own data generated by the star researchers they themselves hired which is absurd. And the reason that they don't wanna do anything about it is because the..Laura: It's capitalism.Sorry, go. Scott: No, you, you're exactly right. The money is made from engagement. And I think the faint that the social media companies do is to imply that what they're doing is giving people what they want, community connectedness. And when it comes to advertising that they're connecting people with the products that they want to buy. And through being able to like things, you can get the sense that, oh, the social media companies are just sitting back and people are doing what they want in there.They're getting what they want, but certainly, the controls that you think you have over what your algorithm, especially on TikTok is sending you is less. And it's about engagement. And engagement doesn't care how you feel, if it's positive or negative, it just cares that you spent the time. Whatever it takes to get you to do more time is what it is going to send you. It's worth noting also that when you look at the proportion of appearance honored content that your algorithm sends you, so how big this echo chamber is, that correlates strongly with the eating disorder symptoms. So the more your algorithm becomes, you know, polluted by appearance, honored content, the worse the eating disorder becomes in tandem. And why wouldn't it?Laura: I have a question, and you might not be able to answer this. One of my clients uses the term recovery porn in eating disorder recovery, which are all of these images of usually women who claim to be in recovery or recovered. Have you looked at the impact that these recovery accounts have on eating disorder recovery?Scott: I've not looked at that specifically, but I'm well aware of the phenomenon your client has described. And unfortunately, lots of social media phenomena and hashtags, like for example eating disorder recovery, body positivity is another good example.Laura: Yeah.Scott: They are not clear paragons, they're not at all as clearly useful as we would like them to be if someone went searching for them. You go looking for ed recovery, you might find an account that is extremely thoughtful in the way that that content is presented right alongside content that is clearly not being very helpful. Just like with body positivity, you might get someone who hearkens back to the, the fat acceptance movement, who's really preaching the fighting the good flight right next to someone who is perhaps well-meaning, but still thin, skinny, and they're pinching a tiny little roll of fat and going body positivity, which as I can tell from your reaction is missing the point.Laura: Yeah. Okay. Maybe, maybe something for a future research agenda then, Scott.Scott: Absolutely. It's a great suggestion.Laura: I'm curious to, because, and I think what it comes, what it comes back to you articulated it there really well. I think something that I tried to unpack with my clients, you know, is thinking about, okay, well, is this image, they might have the message on point, right? But if there's an image that is still highly focused on aesthetics, it's highly focused on their body and, you know, showing off their body in a particular way, then that really completely undermines the message that they might have been sending with the best of intention.So just a little interesting aside, but you know, you've talked about how social media, you know, there might be some benefits to social media. I think there's definitely some work that has shown that coming out of the center of appearance research, but it's murkier and less clearly defined than, than maybe we would like to think.So you painted this really dark picture of social media and, and how it contributes to muscle dysmorphic disorder. So I'm wondering what we can do both from maybe a clinical perspective, or maybe a public health perspective as well as maybe a parenting perspective to protect our kids from internalizing these messages because they're gonna be exposed to them. Right. We know that for sure. So how do we buffer the impact, both maybe at the broader public health level, because this is a public health issue clearly, but also maybe in our own parenting in our own homes. Scott: Yeah. And okay, you're absolutely right. You cannot start from a base of let's not use social media altogether. That's, that's the arena. That's where youth culture is driven in, telling young people not to use it is just not practical. So they're going to use it. Encouraging your child to be a critical consumer of media generally, including on social media, is really useful.I think if you feel confident enough to talk about it, explaining to them that what they see is delivered to them by algorithms can be useful. That's something we're exploring in our own research where we want young people to have a better understanding that what they're seeing in their feed is not a one-to-one reflection of reality to the world as it actually is.And that's beyond the, you know, manipulation of photos and self portrayals that go on, but like the algorithm just feeding you with whatever activates your emotions. Part of that is this tool we're developing that can visualize your algorithm for you so that you can know and compare it to others just how biased it's become. And this can be for clinicians too, because if you have a client walk in the door, you need to know if 70% of their feed is appearance oriented, which is not a number I picked out of thin air. That's an actual number from clients we had with anorexia nervosa. And then you can have a productive conversation with that person around, okay, your algorithm is not only not reflective of reality, it's doing you harm and this is how we can work to remediate it.Laura: I would definitely, like sign me up for that tool. I will test it for you. Whatever you need me to do.Scott: Lovely.Laura: So, so yeah, having conversations that, you know, that there's obviously, the images themselves have been highly altered, stylized, potentially photoshopped, all kinds of different things. But then there's this whole machinery and infrastructure behind that feeding you more and more and more of these idealized images.Scott: Yeah, that's it. And you know, when social media, the way we use it, a lot of the time, like a lot of the time when people are using TikTok, people's guards are down. It's incidental. It's minutes in bed when you first wake up, it's bed when you might be trying to go to sleep. It's when you're on a bus, it's when you're bored, it's when you're tired.It's not active consumption of content. And before you know it, you can have scrolled through or mindlessly watched tens and tens of videos that have appearance oriented content and, just like with how people think that advertising isn't working on them, but the reason that so much money is pumped into it is because it does have cumulative accumulative impacts on, on purchasing decisions. The same thing happens with social media, so it's about getting people to recognize that and to try to minimize what's happening in those spaces because it all adds up.Laura: You know, you said kind of towards the top of the interview that people who are deep in their eating disorder, whether it's anorexia, whether it's muscle dysmorphic disorder, bulimia, orthorexia, whatever form that takes, they are, you know, the least clear in what's going on, right? They're the least easily able to see what's going on. They are definitely aware that there's a problem, but they might not be able to identify exactly what that is. So, with that in mind, I'm wondering for, for parents particularly of teen boys, tweens and teens, it sounds like are both vulnerable and kind of heading into adolescence.If a parent notices more protein powders coming into the house, more you know, concerns about lean protein and less carbohydrates on the plate and more time working out or conversations about being fit, about being healthy, and they're, they're noticing that, that's becoming increasingly rigid and perfectionistic. How might a parent approach this, do you think? Scott: It's a very common question that has never had an answer come easy to me, as I'm sure it wouldn't for many parents because teenage boys are notoriously challenging to talk to and get to open up to, especially about these,Laura: Yeah, but you're a psychologist so you ,Scott: So I'm obliged to have an answer and I I have you. So I think the way we approach folks who we think have muscle dysmorphia, but who are perhaps reluctant to talk about it, is to emphasize those parts of their training and their dieting that aren't working for them. We don't say, “Is it making you sad or anxious?” and, “what's not working for you?” because often whether it's a young boy, a teen, a young adult, they're just thinking about progress. They wanna progress. It's, I want my lifts to get stronger, my body to get better, etc. And the things that we think of as the symptoms of the disorder, the things that we're worried about, they're not worried about them per se. They're worried about their progress. And it's those things on the side that are making it hard, right? So we frame it as, okay. What's, what's getting in the way of you being able to train and diet and be like this and, and that maybe it's, ah, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't train today. I had to go and do this.It's like, oh, okay. So like, how did it make you feel? It's like, you can try to get them to see that it's the rigidity that is being more unhelpful than helpful. We deliberately keep it above the level of feelings for a while until that is more approachable. Often with our young clients, we'll just pitch it as, look we don't want to change your training and your dieting. We're not gonna tell you not to go to the gym. We just want you to be in a space where you can get back to making the progress that you wanna make. Then you've got your foot in the door and you go from thereLaura: You're getting them on side. You're telling them I'm on your team. Yeah.Scott: Yeah. Because whilst you can say the term body image to most young women and they intuitively know what you're thinking about, if I try to say, “are you worried about your body image?” to a young man, even if I know they are, it's so super clear as day, a lot of the time they'll say no.Laura: Yeah,Scott: Like straight up, they'll say no to you. Because it's just not the language that they speakLaura: Yeah, yeah. But if you can talk to them in terms of gains and what's getting in the way of theirScott: What's getting in the way? You know, you're not talking about feelings per se. That's just the best way I can describe it. It's a very tactful and challenging spot to be in, I think.Laura: Yeah. I mean, my hope is that I never have to broach this conversation with my kid, but fuck parenting is hard, man.Scott: Yeah, I certainly empathize.Laura: And I really hope you don't say CBT right now, but what do we know about treatment? What is available to help young people, older people, whoever is impacted by muscle dysmorphia to help them recover?Scott: The evidence-based for effective treatment for muscle dysmorphia is extremely limited. It's nowhere near what we have for the other eating disorders. There is nothing in the way of an RCT or anything like that. I have a PhD student now who is running the first manualised treatment for muscle dysmorphia, so we'll see how that turns out.Generally speaking, the approaches that work for eating disorders will also work for muscle dysmorphia, in my opinion, because again, the core maintaining factors of the disorder and precipitating factors are very, very similar. And what has been encouraging as a first port of call, the major eating disorder charities that run helplines, so certainly the Butterfly Foundation in Australia perhaps BEAT over in the UK, they are increasingly cognizant of muscle dysmorphia and the helpline staff are better equipped to, to talk about it, which is perfect.Laura: I noticed the other day that there's even an NHS page, which, you know, you and I spoke a couple of years ago for Don't Salt My Game, and I'm pretty sure it didn't exist even then. So there is certainly more recognition and awareness, but it sounds like people are more equipped to have these conversations, certainly in the eating disorder space.I worry more about kind of general practice in terms of medicine because there's even and, and don't get, this is not GP bashing . We all know how much pressure GPs are under, but there is a lack of awareness even about more traditional eating disorders in that space. So yeah, I reckon BEAT would be probably the best first port of call there.But in terms of treatment, it sounds like we don't exactly know yet. Your sense is that probably some of the modalities that we use for other eating disorders are probably gonna be successful because of, you know, the same underlying maintaining and precipitating factors. But I guess we need to wait for your student to do their research before we have more clear answers on that.Scott: Yeah. But even then for the really convincing answer that yes, you can confidently send someone for this treatment and there's a great chance they get better years and years away from that. But what I find promising is in talking to eating disorder clinicians, in training them when it comes to muscle dysmorphia, it's not a case of, oh, how am I gonna do this?It's, oh wow. There's all the parallels are all there, which is great because it means that the tools are there, it's just a matter of education both on the part of the clinician and on on people and young men so that they know they can go and seek help and that help will be there to meet them.Laura: Absolutely. And I just wanna go back to the TikTok algorithm thing, which is super disturbing to me, but, but just to kind of close out, I wonder, you know, from your perspective as a researcher, what do we need to be doing both in terms of a research agenda, but maybe also like a public health policy agenda in terms of tackling some of these, like really problematic systems, I suppose, that young people are up against. I don't know if that question makes sense, but like, where do we go from here? What do we do with this?Scott: No, I've thought about this. There's the organizations I'm working with in Singapore, we've been talking about that at length and the broader conversation that needs to be had moving back from TikTok to algorithms and data generally is we need greater oversight and control of how our data is used to deliver us content of all kinds.Because people cannot bat an eyelid when they think of, alright, I wanna clean my house and I'm on Instagram and I got an ad for a cleaning product, cool. And in your ideal world, advertising connects you seamlessly to the things that can make your life easier. What you don't want is for an algorithm to see and know that a young person has been looking at a lot of videos that are around weight loss and now a targeted ad comes up for a weight loss supplement, cause that is how that data gets used also.And we need tools, I think like the one we're developing so that people can see what their algorithms are sending that. You should know. You should know if your algorithm is sending you three times more toxic masculinity content than someone else, if it's sending you more eating disorder content, if it's sending you more plastic surgery content.Because the first step in a battle is knowing what your algorithms are sending to you. And this issue only becomes more important because let's say you or I wanted to find out something factual, we go to Google.Gen Z uses things like TikTok for search. 40% of Gen Z prefers to use TikTok than Google for search, which means you are down the rabbit hole of the algorithm from day dot.So you need to know, but of course that information's never released to you. So it's pushing back against the opaqueness of the data that we provide and how that data is used to send us content because it's not in our, in the service of our health and connectedness and community. Again, it's in the service of, of money, and, and engagement. So I think that's the broader conversation, right? The data collected from us is not benign.Laura: Oh, absolutely. Wow. All right, Scott, on that cherry note, um, at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they have been really excited about lately. Um, So something they've been snacking on, either literally or metaphorically. Do you have something picked out?Scott: I do. So in Singapore, my favorite breakfast to have is kaya toast with some rather runny under soft boiled eggs with soy sauce and white pepper. It's a very common breakfast here, and I love it. It's so, so satisfying. I had it this morning. I'll have it again tomorrow.Laura: Sorry. What is the kind of toast did you say?Scott: It's called Kaya Toast. So it's like thick cuts of toast with butter that's called kaya butter. And it's slightly sweet. I think it has a more fun and complex flavour than regular butter. And you can dip that in eggs that are loaded up with white pepper and soy sauce.Laura: Got it.Scott: I love it.Laura: Oh, it sounds like they have a really amazing food culture over there. Like I've heard from people that they have like, you know, lots of different kinds of street food and stuff like that, so yeah. That sounds awesome. Mine is also a food so it's, I mean, it's only February at the time of recording, but like all the Easter stuff is now showing up in the shops and so I demolished a pack of like Doisy and Dam, which is like a brand of chocolate over here, mini eggs the other day. And they were so good. Like, I don't know if you get mini eggs in Australia, they're like solid chocolate eggs with like a candy kind of coating shell around them. And they're like all different kind of pastel kind of colors. Like yellow and pink and green and like eastery kind of spring colors.Scott: It's possible we do, I can't recall 'em off the top of my head,Laura: You're gonna tell me like you don't like chocolate or something.Scott: No, no, no. I love chocolate I'm not sillyLaura: So I think you would like, I know you would recognise them. So maybe you don't have them. You don't have them over there. All right, Scott, it's been really great to chat to you again. Can you let everybody know where they can find out more about you, your research group, or any of your publications? I will link to the study, the TikTok studies if they're published yet? Scott: They're in the process of being, so the best place to follow along with the research my team does, including the TikTok work, is at my Twitter. It's @Scott1Griffiths. Or just search Google. Scott Griffiths, Scott Griffiths Body Image Research or something like that, and it will come up. That's the easiest way.Laura: I'll link to it so that it saves people the minefield of Googling stuff.Scott: Yeah.Laura: But yeah, so that's the best place to follow along on your Twitter and get updates about your research. I can't wait to read that. Well say. I can't wait to read it. I'm really depressed after talking to you about the state of social media.I mean, I was already bummed out about it, but this has just solidified that for me. So thank you for that. But otherwise, it was really great to talk to you and it's obviously really essential and important research that you're doing. So thank you for taking the time to share it with us.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. 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Today I'm talking to Dr. Hillary McBride. Hillary is a psychologist, a researcher, and podcaster, with expertise that includes working with trauma and trauma therapies, and embodiment. She's the author of two books - ‘Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are', and ‘The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Wholeness, Healing and Connection through Embodied Living'. She is on the teaching faculty at the University of British Columbia and hosts the podcast Other People's Problems. Today, we're speaking about embodiment, healing from trauma and loads of other really cool things!Find out more about Hillary's work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Order Hillary's books here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Sign up to the Raising Embodied Eaters workshop here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Hillary: We could look at how convenient it is to assume that we are an image and then try to control that image when it causes us to forfeit the information that might say, no, I don't wanna participate in the system, or yes, I am hungry and I wanna eat that food even if it means that my body is not gonna appear the way that so and so expects it to. That the information on the inside is costly to stay connected to in a culture that is asking us to forfeit it, in order to belong in this kind of flattened, disembodied, two-dimensional version of, of being an image.INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome back to Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they are nourishing right now, and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti diet registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to Dr. Hillary McBride. Hillary is a psychologist, a researcher, and a podcaster with expertise that includes working with trauma and trauma therapies and embodiment. She's the author of two books: ‘Mothers, Daughters, and Body Image: Learning to Love Ourselves as We Are', and that was published in 2017 and her latest book, ‘The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Wholeness, Healing and Connection Through Embodied Living' came out in Fall 2021.Hillary is on the teaching faculty at the University of British Columbia, and she hosts the podcast, Other People's Problems. Today I'm talking to Hillary about embodiment, healing from trauma, and loads of other really cool things. So stay tuned.Before we get to our conversation with Hillary, just a reminder that Can I Have Another Snack? is entirely reader and listener supported. We don't have sponsors or do adverts or anything like that. I don't make money from affiliate links. I'm not trying to sell you anything you don't need. All I ask is that if you value the space and the community that we're building, then please consider becoming a paid subscriber. 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I'll drop the link to the group subscriptions in the show notes so you can check that out if you and some pals have been on the fence, then this is a great option and it's go time.And last thing if you enjoy this episode or any of the episodes in this season, then please head over to iTunes and drop five stars. And I see in my statistics that you're all listening on Apple Podcasts anyway, so while you're over there, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a review. I might even read some of them out on the show. It just really helps more people find these conversations and become part of the Can I Have Another Snack community.All right, team. Thank you so much for your support. Here's my conversation with Hillary McBride.MAIN EPISODELaura: All right, Hillary, I'd love it if you could start by telling us who or what you are nourishing right now.Hillary: Well, I am nourishing myself and my toddler, and I am so much more attuned to what that means because, I am breastfeeding and I am always ferociously hungry all the time, and there is something about nourishing and kind of the, the literal transmutation of all the food as it comes into my body, out of my body, into her body, that, uh, shows me how deeply connected those two are, both the nourishing and the being nourished.Laura: Yeah, I haven't thought about it in that way that, I like that word that you use transmutation, um, and also breastfeeding a toddler I can relate to that. And yeah, just having to be really in tune with yourself, but also to a toddler and their needs.Hillary: Yes,Laura: It could be a lot.Hillary: You know, it can be a lot. It's wonderful. And I feel so privileged to, through motherhood, see and experience that connection of how much my attunement and my self care to my body actually literally supports her to thrive and be well. And there's something about that, even just the way you pose the question that highlights for me, the, the interdependence between us as bodies that I think we sometimes forget when we're just mulling about our days, thinking of ourselves as individuals. There's actually this inherent connection between all of us as bodies, and I think parenthood really, really brings that right up close to your face.Laura: Mm, yeah. I think a lot about interdependence in parenting. You know, from the perspective that that capitalism keeps us so sort of separate from one another. And prioritizes independence and, you know, trying to parent under late stage capitalism without family and community around is so fucking hard. So really, really hard that, yeah, like it just really for me has hammered home how interdependent we are.Hillary: Uh-huh. Yeah. You said it. That's exactly it.Laura: So Hillary, this is somewhat related, but your area of expertise is in embodiment, and embodiment is a term I've noticed recently, it's kind of buzzy. I'm seeing it show up everywhere, but I'm wondering if you could tell us how you understand and define embodiment.Hillary: Yes, I would be so privileged. So there's a couple different ways of defining it, and I'll give you a couple different definitions and then I'll, I'll tell you what I think is salient about them, but I really like the Merleau-Ponty definition, which is that embodiment is the perceptual experience of engagement of the body in the world. Or another way of describing it is the lived experience of engaging in the world as a body.Laura: Hm.Hillary: What both of those definitions have in common is that there is both a felt sense, experiential kind of body, you know, as it's known and lived and encountered and understood and sensed by me and a sociopolitical, contextual, cultural piece.It is, you know, how is all of that shaped by the landscape that I'm in, by the people that I'm in, by the stories of power and privilege that I encounter? So there's a dialectic between what felt sense is like in and through me, and then the world that I'm in. You know, it's really interesting to look at it through that lens as having both kind of this material, individual quality and a sociocultural and interpersonal quality, because I think it really breaks down the assumptions that we have, that our bodies are in a way, uniquely ours.We can have autonomy and agency over our bodies, but, but we also are in a world that is constantly saying things to us about what bodies are good and how to be, and how to shape movement and how to feed ourselves and what is desirable in terms of our appearance. And those things really get, you know, lodged inside of us in such a way that sometimes we forget that those stories come from culture and they feel like they're our own thoughts or our own identities.So I love thinking about embodiment as including these two pieces and in, in a way actually being the conversation between them.Laura: I love that, that kind of reciprocal relationship between our bodies and the, the context of our bodies. And I love the quote that you use in your book. I think it's, is it Teresa Silo? Is that how you,Hillary: ah-huh.Laura: Is that how you pronounce her name? Where you quote her as saying, or them as saying the body is not a thing we have, but an experience we are. And I always think there's kind of an irony in talking about and trying to define embodiment because as soon as we kind of put words to it, we're sort of, I don't know, what's the word that I'm looking for? Hillary: Like in an abstraction or we're losing something about the felt sense or the quality of it by trying to talk about it or think aboutLaura: Yeah, yeah. No, that's exactly it. We're turning it into this like, academic thing when it's really, like you've said, it's a felt sense, it's an experience, so I just wanted to highlight the sort of, the irony in us talking about embodiment.Hillary: Oh, I'm so glad that you said that because it reminds me of something else that I often say when I'm talking about embodiment, which is to say, you know, instead of me describing it, how about I tell you about, you know, that time 30 minutes ago or two hours ago, when you really knew that you needed a drink of water. And the quality of the sensation and your awareness of that sensation, and then your action to go meet that need to go get yourself a glass of water or not. And all of the stories around you that impacted why you knew what that sensation was like or didn't know and why you did something about it or not.It's like the, you know, sometimes because we get stuck in the academic definitions and we lose the felt sense quality, we actually understand embodiment when we come back to the, the sensory memory, the procedural memory, the qualitative nature of being a body, because that as much, you know, some of us have harder times accessing that, it may actually be a little bit more accessible to us than all of the, you know, the floral or abstracted language that we use to talk about this thing, which is kind of our aliveness and it as it's felt and sensed.Laura: And I love that word that you used, aliveness. And it makes me think of how I think and how I conceptualise embodiment in some of the work that I do around feeding and working with, with children and families is, you know, I think of embodiment a lot about a baby or a toddler who is just so, you know, they're all feeling, they're all in their body. There's no kind of like, they haven't quite internalised messages around shame and, you know, these social scripts that we pick up and, I think of animals as well as, you know, being really, embodied in a very positive way. Obviously, of course, we're all embodied, but you know, as you alluded to our experiences of embodiment can be, can lean more positively or more negatively depending on, again, some of the social scripts that we've been handed, the sociopolitical context that we find ourselves in, but I wondered if it would just, if it was helpful for some of the listeners to, to especially anyone who's parent or been around children or animals to, you know, connect with that idea that, you know, we're born embodied and, and, and we have this really strong sense of, of positive embodiment when, especially when we're little. And then, you know, Niva Piran's research tells us that as we get closer to, um, particularly for girls, as we get closer to puberty, and we start acting on the body instead of being in, you know, acting from the body, that, yeah, that's where the, those ruptures in our embodiment begin.Hillary: Mm-hmm.Laura: I wonder if you could speak to maybe some of the other ways our experiences of embodiment are shaped both at the individual level, but also from that broader sociopolitical context that we've touched on.Hillary: Well, I think that the most obvious things that we could look at have to do with our isms around power, how power is distributed. So, which bodies are considered desirable, which bodies are forgotten socially, and again, that might seem kind of abstract until, until all of a sudden you're in a wheelchair and you realise that city planning didn't necessarily think about all the ways that people who use mobility aids need to get into buildings.That there's something that's communicated there about which bodies and how bodies move through space that's not really considered by those who have the, the most social power. So we think about like ableism and racism and sizeism, sexism and you know, there's just so many isms that are proliferated in our culture that we don't really even think about, especially if we benefit from them in some way.So there's that quality of it. Of course, there's the way that media and parents and peers are vessels for those messages about what is desirable. That's considered the tripartite model. But looking at these three different streams of influence that disseminate messages about ideal bodies, about good bodies, about what is valuable culturally.And whenever I think about the tripartite model, the, you know what's interesting about it if you were to see it visually, is it places you right, the individual at the centre of these streams of information coming at you, there is these arrows of media. You know, parents or caregivers and peers, colleagues, right? Your friends, they're pointing at you, but you are also in one of those categories, likely, if not more, for another person. And so we are handed this information and then we are handing it to each other. Just based on the ways that we use greetings and how we comment on other people's appearance and what we say about their eating and um, their feeding of themselves and their movement, and the kinds of things that we, we praise and the kinds of things that we are silent about or criticise.So there is this really interesting soup that we're in. But if we follow those arrows back from us to where they come from, we see structures around, you know, hierarchies of body that were created many millennia ago based on who was able to leave or control the body the best. Who is seen as actually having the ability to conquer or subdue the body in terms of its animal nature, it's sensory qualities, it's sensuality. In some ways it's mystery. And all of it, it seems, stems back to that, could this one group of people conquer their body better than someone else, and then the assumption or the conferring of power based on that, right? That this is somehow superior.Laura: Yeah, I think a lot about it in terms of, you know, the, the cultures of domination that we live in. But I think the way that you're expanding it, there is almost, you know, the, the genesis of all of this was domination over one group's own bodies before then that ripple effect goes out to dominate other bodies and animals and the natural world.Hillary: Yes, and I would argue that that might even come from before, that the domination of the body of the earth, the sense that the earth is a body in its own way. That is in a way kind of our original mother as a species. And the earth's body needs to be objectified and conquered, which teaches us to objectify and conquer our own bodies, and then consequently punish the people who can't do that as being kind of unruly or somehow lacking status or privilege or power.Laura: Wow. Okay. I wasn't expecting to go there, but we did. Hillary in, your second book, The Wisdom of Your Body, you talk about the ways that we learn to view our bodies as an image. You know, we use the term body image all the time, which when you think about it, is fundamentally objectifying, right?Hillary: Mm-hmm.Laura: I'm wondering if you can share, you know, how this happens. How do we come to view our bodies as objects separate from, from us and, what does this do to our experience of embodiment?Hillary: It is something so funny to think about, hey, when we start actually looking at the language, like body image has been used as shorthand for how we relate to our bodies, but we are not just images. We are not just in relationship with our appearance and we have so much more dimensionality to us than than what is visible to us, visible about us on the outside and how we perceive and relate to that.So my relationship to that term has evolved since, really because of my own journey through eating disorder recovery and feeling like I wanted to leave behind the two-dimensional way of relating to my body as an image and move inside into a kind of interiority of the body. And what's fascinating about the research about that is that it seems that that actually kind of inoculates us against eating disorders.You might think that, you know, not working on eating disorders as an issue would be missing a major construct in a cornerstone of the work. But it seems that there is something about leaving ourselves and seeing ourselves just as an image that is, as a, a kind of pathology in a way, and that there is a, a wholeness that is lacking in our relationship and experience of ourselves unless we include.All of the other qualities, the felt senses, the interoception, really what it's like to live and be us from the inside out. So when I think about body image, I often very closely think about objectification and self-objectification and the way that we learn to see ourselves from the outside.Seeing ourselves through the gaze of the other, but also, I think you could argue, especially if you're familiar with Foucault's work, like looking at the body through the gaze of those who have the power and those who are most interested in subduing and controlling and disciplining the body. But we learn to take the position of those who have the most power, those who could hurt us, those who could approve of us or judge us. And we begin to see ourselves and police our through their eyes, and it is through assuming the position of this external gaze that we lose or leave behind some of that other more subtle, nuanced information that can only be felt and lived through us and consequently actually might serve to disrupt some of those systems of power.We could look at how convenient it is to assume that we are an image and then try to control that image when it causes us to forfeit the information that might say, no, I don't wanna participate in the system, or yes, I am hungry and I wanna eat that food even if it means that my body is not gonna appear the way that so and so expects it to. That the information on the inside is costly to stay connected to in a culture that is asking us to forfeit it, in order to belong in this kind of flattened, disembodied, two-dimensional version of, of being an image.So there is something that I think that's really important here about recognising, again, what you brought up earlier of power and social control, and the way that even receiving ourselves as simply an image is a byproduct of a social context in which we are rewarded for being less of a body because we are often then more compliant. Laura: Yeah, there's a lot to think about there. I think have to like process that a little bit after we finish our call. I suppose what was coming up for me there is, you know, in the age of hyper information and social media and you know, when, when we're so bombarded with our own image, images of other people, that are often presented in these really like one-dimensional ways.Hillary: Mm.Laura: You know, it's so much easier to self objectifyHillary: Yes.Laura: Than it is to be positively embodied or embodied in any sense, really. I'm just curious, you know, how when you're swimming upstream like this, you know, what do you find to be helpful? Because I think, you know, cognitively we can all understand, wow, that's really messed up when you put it in those terms. But again, embodying something different is so much harder. So, you know, where can we even begin with that, do you think?Hillary: Yeah. Well, my discipline will betray me when I say this because, or I should say I will betray my discipline in a way when I say this, but we, you know, we are constantly in development. The idea that development is only something that happens in these critical and sensitive periods of our life is actually just, it's not true scientifically. And I understand why we do it culturally to say, you know, here's where there is so much that is happening. We need to be protective of people who are vulnerable because their systems are, are changing so much and it's setting up so much of the rest of their lives. But we will be in development, we will be experiencing developmental transitions for the rest of our lives, including death.Death is a developmental transition. When we look at Niva Piran's Developmental Theory of Embodiment, there is so much that we can borrow at different phases of the lifespan. And why I think that's hopeful is because it gives us a guide to the places that we can, we can. Intersect with interventions and support and resources and where we can direct our attention to support ourselves, to continue to reclaim some of the aspects of being a body that have been left behind.So that includes looking at the social domain. What are the places where I can experience the freedom to be in my body and to be understood in the challenges of being a body in the social climate? And where do I experience having social power? Right? Who? Who are the people who understand my lived experience and can validate the lived reality of oppression and marginalisation or, you know, can affirm the goodness of my body, even if the larger social narrative and dominant culture is either silent or oppressive to what my experience of my body is like. So there's the social power aspect, there's the mental, mental freedom aspect. You know, negotiating with some of the, the constructs that we carry inside, being critical about the thinking that we have and the places that we learned that thinking, assessing social discourse.Um, you know, the irony with this is, I had an eating disorder therapist for quite some time who said women with eating disorders are philosopher queens. And there are, you know, I am sure lots of places where that does not apply. But in my experience, and I think what she was trying to say to me was not that there was an absence of thought, but that I was really up in my mind.And if we can be curious about what is going on up in our minds, and if we can harness the criticism that is often turned towards our bodies and actually redirect it to the place that it's due, which is these really harmful social constructs and experiences and distributions of power, then the mechanism of being thoughtful and thinking critically does not have to disappear. It can just get redirected to the place that it deserves to be redirected. We can learn to see the social landscape for the problems and the toxicity that it has and build something new instead of directing that energy towards our bodies, thinking our bodies were ever a problem.And then lastly, of course, the physical freedom piece. If we create experiences where we encounter being in a body and can notice that that is pleasurable and is good and we can work on building attunement towards ourselves, I think that that inoculates us against the pervasive image culture. These are all different ways that we bring our attention back into creating experiences both in ourselves and between us and others that make it hospitable to be in our bodies. And help us remember what we knew right from the beginning in our earliest phases of development, which is that our body is full of communication. Our body is us. Our body can be trusted, our body is wise. Our body knows the way. Our body deserves to be safe and is actually ultimately, I think, interested in creating safety for all of us.Laura: I love that. And again, so many threads that we could, we could pull on there, but I loved especially what you, what you were saying about, well, there were two, two pieces that, that really stood out for me. I think one of which was just this idea of where we are so quick to criticise and tear ourselves down. Yeah. How can we externalise that? How can we turn that towards these oppressive systems that exist outside of our bodies that are making us feel a particular way about our bodies? And then the second piece, you said so elegantly, but I kind of was coming back to this idea of community and finding safety in people who can, um, other people who share similar lived experiences to us, who can affirm our experiences, who can show solidarity with us, who can hold us and, and say, you know, there is nothing wrong with your body. There is nothing wrong with the way that you show up in the world. It's everything else outside of of us that's messed up. and yeah, just, just be in community with one, one another. Kind of almost going full circle back to what we talked about at the very beginning, sort of thinking about interdependence and, and how we all kind of fit together in the sort of wider human tapestry,Hillary: Yes. Yes, exactly.Laura: And I mentioned to you off mic, a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are parents or have children in their lives, and I know you're a parent yourself, and I wonder from your perspective, what do you think are the most important things that adults can do to support kids' sense of positive embodiment?You know, we've talked a lot about at the sort of collective level, and there's a lot that needs to change there, but I'm wondering if you have any nuggets for parents, you know, any considerations or anything that they can do to help their kids maintain a sense of being in their bodies, a sense of their bodies as their homes as this place of safety.Hillary: Well, there's a few things that come to mind, and I'm hoping that that means that even if all of them don't feel accessible, then hopefully one, one does for the parents out there. So I think a really important thing to do is to affirm how they are already listen. So when a kid says, “I'm hungry”, you can say, “Wow, you're really listening to your body. Thank you so much for telling me”. You know, that doesn't necessarily mean that we do whatever they want because we live in families and we have limitations, and we have schedules, and we have all sorts of things that we need to fit in and negotiate. But simply saying, “I'm so glad you're listening. Thank you for telling me”. I think what that does is it protects, protects the knowing even if we have to set a boundary and say, you know, “It's gonna be a little while until we can have a snack because we're actually driving, we don't have anything in the car right now. But you know you're hungry and you're doing such a good job. Listening to that and telling me”. What we don't want to have happen is to signal in any way to children that they have to disqualify their bodily knowing to stay in connection with us because that's often what happens in terms of an attachment framework, right? Children are so sensitive to what their caregivers need in order for them to be considered pleasing and when children perceive their caregiver as being disappointed or scared or ashamed or something because of the information they're giving them, they're gonna learn very, very quickly not to give them that information. And it's not a far jump from, I'm not gonna give that information, to I'm suppressing that information, to I don't notice it at all.So simply being able to say to your children, “You do know you're tired. I believe you, that you're hungry. I am so glad you're listening. Ooh. What does it feel like in your tummy when you're hungry? How do you know? What is it like? Is it like a growling?” You know? Right. Even just being in the experience of it with them to thicken their awareness of it is a great way to preserve that and let them know that them paying attention to their bodies will not cut them off from connection to you.Laura: So the other day, so we send Avery, my almost three year old, with a packed lunch to his daycare setting. And the other day he came home and he said to us, “I ate one carrot”. And he was like, so proud of eating this carrot. And of course, I never praise based on, you know, what he has or hasn't eaten and I'm, you know, maintain this very food neutral approach. So I was really surprised by this and I did a little bit of interrogating it and, you know, I've actually had to go and speak to daycare because they are, you know, pressuring him to eat. Which really crosses so many boundaries for me in terms of not respecting his autonomy. Not respecting his voice, you know, he had said no and he was told, well, you just have to eat one carrot. And then obviously this was reinforced with praise before he came home and said, “I ate one carrot”, you know, I had to sit with why this really played on my mind. And it's, you know, for the reasons that you're describing that overriding someone's no, overriding their body autonomy can become a sort of slippery slope to them. You know, not, not being able to recognise their own needs and suppressing their needs and or performing, you know, for adult's praise or adult's validation, and that's so much bigger than respecting their hunger and fullness cues. That's just one tiny part of this work, I think. So yeah, that was just an example that came to mind.Hillary: Thank you so much for sharing that because I think it, you know, where it takes me is into the complexity that parents often bring to the conversation of, you know, there are times I have to override their cues. Like they're saying, no, I don't wanna have my diaper changed and they've got a poopy diaper. You're like, this would actually be negligent if I didn't, like you actually can't make that call right now, but how important it is to say, you know, “I really hear your no, I really hear that you don't want me to change your diaper. I'm so glad you're telling me there's something about that that doesn't feel good for you. You can always, always tell me, and I'm always going to listen to you. And there are some situations where even if something is uncomfortable or hard for you, I have to help you do it because it is for your safety, because it cares for your body, and I want for you to know that even though I'm gonna be caring for your body in this way, I still believe that you don't want me to, and I'm hearing you, and I'm so glad you're telling me”.Because I think what often happens is if we have to, we are in those situations where we do have to override the no that the parenting kind of reaction that we might naturally wanna have is, I'm gonna shut down your, no, then I'm gonna tell you, you shouldn't say no because it's actually kind of uncomfortable for me as a parent to say to you. Yes, you're allowed to disagree with me, but I'm still gonna do what I'm doing. Right? That's a complicated thing to feel and we can feel like it would just be easier for them to not say anything because it's too uncomfortable for us. So being able to say, you can keep telling me no. You can tell me just how much you don't like it. I believe you. I believe you. Tell me what it is as I'm changing your diaper. What is it about it that you really don't like? Like keeping them connected to themselves and keeping them connected to you while you're also prioritising their health and safety? I think it is possible to do it all.Laura: Yeah, no, and thank you for adding that nuance of, you know, there are times where, especially around care tasks, where we can validate what they're expressing about how strongly they don't want to do something and how that feels really uncomfortable or really annoying or, you know, just not what they want to be doing in that moment.And we have to hold a boundary because it's really important for hygiene or, you know, for their safety or, or whatever it is. And so there's definitely that, that piece of it. And you know, something that I've been thinking about with, with Avery, is, you know, in terms of his body boundaries and helping him assert that.Well, there's two things actually. We're practicing saying things like, “I'm the boss of my body”, which I know is gonna backfire at some point when he, you know, when it comes to washing his hair or getting in the bath or something like that. But yeah, just reminding him that, you know, he is in charge of what crosses that body boundary.And another thing that I've come across lately, I don't know if you've discovered this song yet, but it's called The Boundary Song.Hillary: Ooh, I haven't, I'm gonna have to look it up.Laura: Yeah, it's, um, it's called the Boundary Song. I'll link to it. I think it's Hopscotch is like the YouTube video, but it's basically the words, the lyrics are basically, please stop. I don't like that. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I need more space. And then itHillary: Uh, Yeah.Laura: Not around me. Don't take it personally. It's just a boundary. That's a boundary. And my, not even three year old has like memorised this song and, you know, we're trying to practice like different context in which you might say something like that. And again, it could all go horribly wrong and backfire, but, you know, I think what I'm connecting this back to is just, you know, giving them the tools to express their voice to help solidify their body autonomy, to solidify their body boundaries.And, that feels like a really salient piece around maintaining that positive experience of embodiment that connection to their bodies. Not letting their body boundaries be violated, you know, with the caveat that sometimes we have to do that in a caring way, for hygiene and whatever else.So anyway, I went off on a bit of a monologue there. I'm not really sure what my point was, do you wanna bring it back, Hillary?Hillary: I love the place that we're in, in the conversation, which is looking at both how we protect in a few different ways, right? Because there is a way of protecting that is ‘I'm gonna honour your boundary because you said no, I'm gonna stop'. And there's also a kind of protecting, which, you know, like you said, around care practices and just the nuance and complexity of that, and I think it's important that we're making a space where we can talk about how those fit intentionally with each other, what they bring up in us as adults. And also then subsequently what we weren't given as kids.Because many of the times when these things are hard for us as parents, it's because they're new, because we're having to chart a new path and there is something kind of prophetic and transformational in being in the space that's uncomfortable and foreign. So I'm just appreciating, holding the complexity here.I think the last thing that I'll wanna say around embodiment in children is around creating experiences for free play, for being silly, for jumping, for, you know, unrestricted movement, for experiencing sensation and wide ranges of sensation like the, the developmental literature says that the more we encounter in a sensory capacity, the more ways that we learn to have mastery and agency in our bodies, the more autonomy, the more fullness, the more goodness we encounter in our bodies.So a wide range of activities, movement, spaces getting dirty, getting loud, being silly, playing, coordinated movements, right? Even being able to master a task because we practice something over and over and over again and get good at it, but not at the exclusion of free and unrestricted play, like just as many body experiences we can have.I think that that, you know, that's something that serves us well in our lives and so maybe that's a good piece of advice for parents who are really committed to having their kids be in figure skating and they do a lot of figure skating and over and over and over and over again. Like yes, there might be a sense of, um, mastery. But what about the spaces where there is novel movement or what about the spaces where there is unrestricted kind of free unobserved movement? Or maybe for parents who are really good at letting their kids be wild and free and unrestricted, where are the spaces where kids are learning a task and can feel competence in and through their bodies.And so just thinking about the spectrum and trying to create range, I think that that's, that's really important. It takes a little bit of thought on our part, but I think it goes a really long way.Laura: Yeah. I really appreciate that addition. And yeah, I've been thinking about these kids that I see around, they're always with their dad. I think it's their dad, at least I hope it's their dad. And they must be about, I don't know, like 9 and maybe 11, somewhere around there. And I fondly referred to dad as aggressive sports dad,Hillary: Oh, okay. Yes. I know the type. Okay.Laura: He's like, I see them like at the pool. I see them at the tennis court. I see them at the park. And the dad is like super militantly, like focused on like teaching them skills around sports, like, he's clearly really, really passionate about sports, but you can just see the kids like kind of, uh,Hillary: Mm-hmm.Laura: At how restrained and controlled and, um, kind of like meticulous they're being asked to be. And obviously I'm kind of projecting here like, you know, or using conjecture to make assumptions here, but it does feel like they just wanna run around and climb a tree or like jump.Hillary: Yes. Right, right.Laura: But yeah, we all know an aggressive sports dad. But Hillary, I'm really conscious of your time and I just have a couple quick questions I wanna ask you to wrap up. So the first is, I would love it if you could share a practice with us that you personally like or that you found in your work as a therapist that helps people with that sense of embodiment, with that sense of my body as my home.Hillary: Yeah, Yeah. Two really, really quickly. Uh, one, putting my hands on my body and talking to myself, greeting myself in the morning, in the evening, saying I'm so glad to be with you. I wanna care for you. Can you keep talking to me? Right. Whatever it is that we wanna say to build relationship with our bodily selves, like honouring my body as a subject, not just an object. And then the other one is dancing. I just love having music on and moving my body in a way that really helps me discharge excess energy or stress from the day. For anyone who's familiar with trauma work, we know that moving, shaking, activation in our major muscle groups, like that's actually a way to release energy that is lingering from stressful or demanding events.So there's that side of it, but then there's also the freedom and the pleasure and the sense of enjoyment and you know, how it invites me into self-expression and connection and a sense of yeah, just enjoying being a body. So touching my own body and talking to myself and dancing.Laura: Oh, I love both of those things, and they're definitely things that I try and, yeah, check in with as well. My last sort of serious interview question for you is who or what is nourishing you right now?Hillary: Mm. You know, just this week I had some really, really important conversations with my partner and he really listened to me and really tended to me, and there was something about feeling unshakable support and emotional attunement that felt nourishing to me on such a soul level, that I have to think of the relational. Again, that's my new kind of my therapist disposition and my discipline there. But I feel so nourished by deep and rich, attuned connection. It helps me feel seen and known and loved and safe and, um, nourished.Laura: I really love that. That's so special. I'm so glad that you have that.Hillary: Thank you. Me too.Laura: Okay, so just a fun question to wrap up. So, at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something that they're snacking on. So it can be a literal snack, it can be a podcast, a movie, a show, whatever you're into at the moment. Is there something fun you'd like to share with us?Hillary: Ugh. You know what? I'm having a real cake moment in my life right now. I think. I don't know what it is. Yes, I know.Laura: I thought For a second you were using cake as a euphemism, and I was a bit confused, but then I realised you meant actual cake. Okay.Hillary: Cake. Actual cake. I just had so many years where I really missed out and so we've been making up excuses for reasons to get a cake. So, um, you know, we're just having a lot of cake around here and I love it so much.I'm like having breakfast cake and after dinner cake and sometimes cake with lunch and just really, really enjoying all sorts of different kinds and qualities, and no grocery store cheap cake is beneath me, but I'm also, I like some of the fancy ones, so I'm just trying, trying cake.Laura: Oh, I love it. Breakfast cake.Hillary: Yes,Laura: Genius. That's a stroke of genius. Uh, real quick, I'll share mine. So I think yeah, this is really connected to what we have been talking about today, which is that I've recently taken Avery to toddler dance class, like a toddler ballet class, and I am super conscious of how toxic dance spaces can be in general, but this is a very cute, very safe space where they can just move their bodies in whatever way they like. And you know, I've taken him to a few different sort of dance space classes and things like that, and he really hasn't connected to it. But this class in particular, he was just kind of in his element, twirling and jumping and leaping. And he, you know, he asked if he could put on like the tutu skirt and he was just having the best time. So, um, super special to see that.Hillary: Yes, it sounds like it. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. That just brought me so much joy knowing about that and picturing him there.Laura: it's very, very, sweet. Hillary, could you please share with everyone how they can find out more about you and your work and where they can find you?Hillary: Yeah. You can find me online at hillarylmcbride.com,, on social media, Hillary Lianna McBride on Instagram or Hillary L McBride on Twitter, or maybe it's the other way around, I can never remember. Have a look at those names. Some combination of those names will get you somewhere to me and my work.And, then I've got books, wherever books are sold and podcasts, you can always search my name in the search tool in wherever you listen to podcasts. And both the podcasts that I have produced and the ones I've been on will show up.Laura: And we will link to all your social media and where to find your books and your podcast in the show notes so that, yeah, there won't be any confusion over where to find you.Hillary: Thank you.Laura: Hillary, it was so great to talk to you. I love your book, The Wisdom of Your Body. And I really recommend it to all my clients that I'm working with. So thank you so much for spending some time with us today.Hillary: It was my pleasure. I loved every minute of our conversation.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. 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Joining me on the CIHAS pod this week is writer and poet, Amy Key. Amy has a new book coming out in April called Arrangements in Blue, which explores living in the absence of romantic love. She also wrote this incredible essay for the Vittles Substack called In Praise of Cravings which I was a little skeptical of at first, as you'll hear us talk about, but which ended up transforming the way I thought about cravings. Amy subverts the idea that we should pathologise our cravings and invites us to explore how food can be a gateway to satisfying non-food cravings as well. Amy also talks really openly about her own relationship with food and how she experienced an eating disorder as a teen, and how part of that healing now is trying on the word fat and noticing how that feels. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Amy's work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Pre-order Amy's book here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Sign up to the Raising Embodied Eaters workshop here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Amy: And you're sort of doing all this mental gymnastics that, um, for me just became a huge waste of intellectual effort. And I thought to myself, I'm just not prepared give food that bit of my brain anymore and that much time.I'd rather focus it on making delicious food that I enjoy to eat, that I enjoy preparing, that I want to share with other people. And also I'm not prepared to be hungry because if I am hungry, I'm thinking about food all the time. And I, you know, I find that I don't really, don't really have like much snacking type habits because I'm satisfied in a way that I don't think I'd previously been. And it was, that was really liberating for me. Just saying, ah, I'm gonna let, just let all that bit of my brain go, cuz let you know, life's too short for me to devote all this brain power to it and I've got other things I could be doing.INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome to another episode of the Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now, and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas. I'm an anti diet registered nutritionist and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to the writer and poet Amy Key.Amy wrote this incredible essay for the Vittles Substack called In Praise of Cravings, and as you'll hear us talk about, when I first read the essay, I was kind of skeptical about it, but there was this moment in it that transformed the way that I thought about what Amy was saying, and now I can't get the idea of trusting cravings and leaning into cravings out of my head.Amy subverts the idea that we should pathologise our cravings and invites us to explore how food can be a gateway to satisfying non-food cravings as well. So like how creating someone's favourite dish can help us feel connected to someone we miss, and someone who we're longing. Amy also talks really openly about her own relationship with food and how she experienced an eating disorder as a teen, and how part of that healing now is trying on the word fat and noticing how that feels.So we'll get to Amy in just a minute, but first of all, a couple of notes. This is your last shout for my Raising Embodied Eater's Workshop on the 21st of February. It's a 90 minute workshop where we're going to be reflecting on your own relationship with food and your body growing up and thinking about how you want to parent your kids around food and around their bodies.We'll talk about how food rules pressure restriction and trying to micromanage how much and what our kids eat can backfire and harm the relationship with food, and it could also make picky and fussy eating worse. We'll talk about how to support kids innate hunger and fullness cues with flexible structure. We'll think about how to let go of the pressure to feed kids perfectly. We'll talk a lot about embodiment and supporting body autonomy, and also think about ways to respond to food and body shaming comments from family and friends, plus loads and loads more. I'm actually not sure I'm gonna fit it all in. We'll figure it out and there will be some time in the end to ask questions too. So if we don't get to cover absolutely everything we can, you know, answer it in the q and a at the end. And if that sounds good to you, the link to sign up is in the show notes and transcript. Um, it's also on my Instagram bio, so if you're, I don't know, on Instagram, then click click through the link in the bio. It's 15 pounds and the recording will be available for a week after to catch up. You'll also get a copy of my Raising Embodied Eaters download, which is like a 10 page PDF with loads of helpful things that you can share with family and friends. And, um, like I said, there will be some time at the end to answer your questions, so all the links are in the notes, in the transcript and in my Instagram bio.And just before we get to Amy, I wanted to ask a quick favour. If you've been enjoying these episodes, then please think about leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It lets people who are on the fence about listening know that it's worth their time. Just a few sentences would really mean a lot and help us grow the Can I Have Another Snack family. So thank you if you do that. I super appreciate it. It's a really low-key, we low-key way that you can support the podcast and the newsletter without becoming a paid subscriber, if that's not something that's available to you right now.All right, team, I think you're gonna really love this episode. So let's get to today's guest, poet, and writer Amy Key.MAIN EPISODELaura: Amy, I'd love it if you could share with us who or what you're nourishing right now.Amy: So, I am nourishing my garden by planting all the bulbs that I did not manage to plant before Christmas, because I had a really bad case of flu. And one of the things that makes me so happy in the spring is seeing all the spring bulbs come up, and I hate, hate, hate winter, so it's kind of like a little present to myself that says the future has hope and bright colours in it.Um, so I've been doing that and also I've moved some of the plants that were not flourishing in the places I'd originally placed them. I've moved them into the communal spaces of the garden and I really hope that they'll take root there. So that's what I'm nourishing right now.Laura: Oh, I love that. First of all, I'm slightly relieved that I'm not the only person who is only just thinking in January about my bulbs. I literally overwintered my tomatoes this weekend and we're like almost at the end of January. SoAmy: That's amazing. Are they still doing their business?Laura: Yeah. So I discovered that. So I live in a flat in London. My balcony for whatever reason, I think because it's almost like an internal balcony. So like only one side is exposed and it has like a little microclimate going on, which I think is because I'm losing all the heat through my patio door, but it's like five degrees warmer than like what the weather app is telling me the weather is, right.So, um, yeah, I've got like eight strawberry plants. They're not producing anything, but like, they were like runners from last year and I've got a couple of tomato plants that I think I can salvage. I mean, they're looking a bit ropey, but I think I can salvage. But you know what, the best thing that happened to me at the weekend was I found a little like potted plant that I got from M&S last year that was full of daffodils. And I like tied a knot in the dead daffodils, threw them in a Sainsbury's bag. And then this past weekend I saw the little, the little bulbs sprouting so I've replanted those. Happy days,Amy: I love it.Laura: And I've got a whole bunch of bulbs as well. I spent way too much money at the Garden Center, but that's, that's, this is how we get our kicks. Right.Amy: I love that idea that things are just like waiting under the surface to surprise you. We don't know where they're gonna come up.Laura: And this is such a perfect segue because you alluded well, you didn't allude, you outright said , I hate winter. And that you're waiting for that hope, that promise that that spring offers of a new life and activity. And, and I think that's something that you also alluded to in your essay that you wrote for Vittles called In Praise of Cravings.Amy: Yes,Laura: I wonder if you could tell us a bit about that essay and really what you were trying to communicate through idea of cravings.Amy: Yeah. So, um, maybe I'll talk a little bit about where it came from. So I was at a family member's house and there were little prompts posted about their flat on cupboards and on the fridge that interrupted the person before they opened the fridge door or opened the cupboard and said, stop, think about it. Are you depressed? Are you thirsty? Are you angry? Are you bored? And I found, I found these prompts so depressing because they were, you know, basically trying to interrupt this desire from a kind of moral point of view, you know, that the tone of it felt a bit cruel to me. And I thought, oh, I wish those things weren't there.I wish those things, I wish that everyone could just be in their kitchen. You know, might, they might wanna snack, they might want to eat a stick of celery. They might want to open the cupboards and think about something they'd really like to make for dinner. And I feel like if I was always interrupted in this way, it would make me feel very bad about myself.So I, that's why I wanted to write about cravings from the perspective of thinking about it in like much more colourful, pleasurable ways, you know that you can follow an impulse and you can trust your body to tell you what you might need in that moment, and that that should be free of any judgment. Laura: Yeah. Oh, I can imagine the scene like it sounds like this person maybe has a trickier, complicated relationship with food and they're, they're sending these, well, I guess we're, we're sort of instructed right by diet culture that our, our cravings, our appetite, our hunger is unreliable. It's untrustworthy. We shouldn't ever indulge it, God forbid that we trust our bodies. Right? And that they needed this. Yeah this physical reminder or like this physical manifestation of the food police on their cupboards to interrupt, that yeah, their desires, their, their need for pleasure, which, which is exactly how diet culture functions, but it's, I can imagine that that was really confronting.Amy: Yeah, it was, and I think, because it's taken me a long time to break down some of the shame I feel in eating and like, because my body is a fat body, um, you know, there's always that sense that I should be denying myself food nonstop, let alone the food that I would like to eat. Or that, you know, there's an assumption that if you have a fat body, you are greedy, um, or that you are eating the wrong things in the wrong way at the wrong time. And that made me really sad because actually food is such an exciting, like place for expression, for creativity and for like friendship and communication. And just downright pleasure, you know, like taste sensations, , all of those things. So all that was all kind of in my mind and it was almost, I felt almost like, oh God, I just wanna write a manifesto, if you like. That is just about being in search of, of what it is I want and, and owning that.Laura: Hmm. I love that idea and this sense of kind of conviction really comes through in the essay of like, I own my appetite, I own my desires, I own my cravings. And that it felt really self assured and confident. But from what you were saying there, it sounds like that wasn't necessarily always the case in your relationship with food, and I wondered if you'd be comfortable sharing a little bit more about your relationship with food was like maybe growing up and, and later into to adulthood.Amy: Yeah, I think like, as was the case for like lots of women, probably of my generation who were you know, children and teenagers in the eighties and nineties, there was always dieting in the house. There was always this sense of like, uh, having a body that should be taken in hand because it got out of control, um, and that, you know, those cycles of that happening all the time. And, you know, I just had like a quite average body. And then as I got into my later teens I developed an eating disorder, you know, ate as little as I could, became very thin and was rewarded for, for being thin. I was rewarded with attention, you know, concerned attention, and, um, I was rewarded by the sense of being able to wear clothes that were much smaller and having access to all of that, that too. But that period of my life didn't last very long, and I remember as I was like a young adult in, you know, in my early teens and sort of settling back into what was probably just my normal body, which wasn't a thin body, um, feeling like I'd somehow like lost this battle of wills and I'd somehow not mastered the art of having a body that was a respectable body in society, um, if that makes sense. And it, it's taken me a really, really long time to try and, unlearn that, like to try and let go of this goal that I probably had at some point, which was, oh, I know that I can be thin, so I'm gonna try and return to that teenage body again. And it'll probably happen at some point in the future if I just, you know, work, work hard enough. And it was, it was through really making sure that I engaged with content showed fat people, um, and you know, like the body positivity movement for, for all its faults has in some ways been really, really helpful for me. So, replacing the negative images with really positive ones and just making sure that a, I broaden my own scope of what is beautiful, for example, what is good and what is, um, you know, what wellness should mean has really helped me, I think, become a lot more accepting of where my, you know, where my body is and helped me break free of a cycle, I guess, of denial, of contrition of you know, self admonishment that just made me unhappy, but also just was terribly draining on the brain because I found that I filled up so much of my brain with ideas about what I was going to eat, that I sort of lost any enjoyment in eating. So the thing that's changed for me in terms of like how I eat is that previously, and I think for much of my life, cause I wasn't trusting what I felt like I wanted, what I desired, I would be like mentally trying to like problem solve something else that might fix that desire, but it could never, never be fixed.You know, it might be eating several different things as, and then realising that no, no, I'm still hungry. So like you go to the fridge and you get this one thing, and you're like, if I'd just eaten a slice of toast with some butter on it, that probably would've completely fixed that craving that I had.But instead, I ate four raspberries, a handful of nuts, a square of cheese, and it just gets very, very elaborate. And then, and you're sort of doing all this mental gymnastics that, um, for me just became a huge waste of intellectual effort. And I thought to myself, I'm just not prepared give food that bit of my brain anymore and that much time.I'd rather focus it on making delicious food that I enjoy to eat, that I enjoy preparing, that I want to share with other people. And also I'm not prepared to be hungry because if I am hungry, I'm thinking about food all the time. And I, you know, I find that I don't really, don't really have like much snacking type habits because I'm satisfied in a way that I don't think I'd previously been. And it was, that was really liberating for me. Just saying, ah, I'm gonna let, just let all that bit of my brain go, cuz let you know, life's too short for me to devote all this brain power to it and I've got other things I could be doing.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds as though letting go of that anxiety and fear and concern about food and, and not letting it take up as much space in your brain open things up for you is thatAmy: Oh yeah, definitely, I think so. Yeah, you know, it makes me want to say, for example, write, write about food. It makes me want to grow food, or talk to people about it without that sense of it being a problem that I need to resolve.Laura: Yeah.Amy: I do have a fat body and some people think that that's not okay. But I am grateful to live in the body that I live in and I haven't got a perfect reaction to the way in which fatness is perceived like far from it, but I have certainly become a lot more relaxed about other people's opinions about how my own body should look because cuz it's none of their business and it's certainly none of their business what I eat.Laura: Oh, I'm so excited by everything that you've just said there that, um, I'm trying to figure out where I want to dig deeper, and I think one thing that that stood out for me, and it's something that I kind of bump up against quite a lot in, in my clinical work and just through conversations with people who've read my books, is the, the idea that you alluded to where you've attained a thin body. Now in your case it was through, um, an illness and for other people it's through oftentimes disordered eating and the, the head space that is devoted to food being sort of 90% of your brain sometimes. And then being afforded some of the privilege that that confers, right, the thin privilege and then losing that privilege through our bodies changing as bodies are want to do. Right.Amy: Yeah.Laura: And, and then it sounds as though there was this kind of, um, enduring desire to return to that, to maybe return to that privilege. And I just wondered if you could speak, speak to, to that and, and how, you know, a lot of people talk about grieving within ideal or, you know, just having to navigate letting go of what we're told that weAmy: I think it's so hard cuz it's also for me, it's bound up in, in ageing a little bit as well. So I'm 44 now and like the point at which I was thin was like maybe two years between like 17 and 19. And I think it's somehow how you tell yourself that that was the one true you and like how you are supposed to be, even though rationally, I know that it took so much, um, sort of powers of delusion and control for me to be that way. It was never gonna be the same again. It's not something that I know, you know, I know that it's not something that I could just practically maintain, even if I attained it temporarily, and part of me thought, oh God, I don't wanna go through that again.You know, this idea of, because people do, I was thinking about this the other day about, there was a point in my life where some people close to me got very thin and I watched them be praised more than, I'd seen them be praised for anything else in their life. And that really disturbed me because, yeah I found it really disturbing and I also thought, I know that that's bullshit, so I'm not prepared to. I'm not prepared to sort of give that power, because that's one thing I can control. I can say I am not gonna reward people for losing weight. Like, it, it's tricky cuz you want, you want to be supportive of people who want their bodies to be particular ways and, and, I dunno what I'm trying to say here, but. Everyone should be able to be in control of what goes on in their body basically. That's what I think. Um, but I think disengaging from diet talk and disengaging from saying to people things like, oh, you've lost weight, or That is flattering, or talking about myself in derogatory ways has been. It's like a practice that I just need to keep on with because I think if I lose that I could very easily fall into a kind of self-loathing trap again, and I would never be thin again. But I would feel a lot worse about myself. Like it wouldn't matter how many diets I did, I would never be that thin again. I might, you know, and so it, yeah, to me, it feels like, you know, like a black hole that would just take all of my energy and give very little back. Laura: Yeah, and I think you spoke there too, the idea of, of body autonomy, and that's such an important piece of this conversation. I think that, you know, I would never want any individual who was pursuing weight loss, intentional weight loss to feel shamed about that. But it also, we don't exist in, in a vacuum and you know, I think slightly delusional if we think that it's entirely under our own volition this desire to be thinAmy: Oh yeah,Laura: And we're swimming through diet culture, which of course, as we know, and you spoke to there as well, is the nexus of ableism, ageism, patriarchy. White supremacy. You know, it's, it's just kind of a an easily identifiable way of naming all of these ways that we are oppressed.Amy: No, I think it's so interesting cause I was reflecting on how I was talking to somebody about how they wanted to lose weight ahead of a special occasion and they said, oh, you know, I just wanna look nice in the photos. And if you are fat, it's quite hard to hear that and think, ah, Do I mess up photos because I haven't become thin?Uh, you know, and, and I'm somehow unacceptable photographically to the world. But if I were thin, then um, I would look nice and it would be recorded that I once in my life look nice as a thin person in a photograph. And when you start interrogating that more, I think you've go gods this is a load of nonsense that it, but it's so hard to unlearn because it's just everywhere. And I think, yeah, like you say, if you are, you know, I'm lucky because I'm cisgendered, I'm white woman. You know, I've got blonde hair and blue eyes, some, some western beauty ideals. But I am ageing and I am fat. And I am single and all of those things society does not accept or think, you know, they think you, well, you should sort yourself out because you are almost like wasting your body on the world if, if you are gonna allow yourself to be in this way. And that's the way it could feel sometimes.Laura: That's such an interesting idea that you just presented this sense of, of wasting your body.Amy: Yeah. Like, why be fat when you could be better looking? Like, it feels like that that's, that's the kind of choice that, that, um, people think you're making, like this choice to be less attractive. Like why are you being less attractive for me when you could be more attractive to me , if that makes makes senseLaura: Hmm mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I think it's just, it speaks to how fucked up our cultural values are or where we put our values as a society on aesthetics, on appearance, on this outward socially constructed idea of beauty or, yeah, which bodies, which people hold value and, and which don't. And it's, yeah, like when you start to kind of tug at that a little bit, it, it become, it unravels pretty quickly. I don't know how we can defend these ideas.Amy: I don't, I remember like having a conversation with a friend where I was talking about how when my, uh, one of my grandparents died, I was given a thousand pounds, like, which was the money that they'd left in their will, and I spent some of it on a laser hair removal machine, and I remember saying to my friend, , oh yeah you know, I can't cope with having both hairy legs and being fat and you know,Laura: Hmm.Amy: Together, like that's, that's even, that's even worse. Like I can only deal with the kind of emotional armour I have to put up with on one thing without there being another bit of my body that other, that people are gonna be objectionable to, which is kind of cowardly if me, in a way that I felt I needed to do that, but it was almost like, I can't deal with having more things that people will find undesirable about me.Laura: No, I've definitely heard and felt, you know, similarly that, you know, well, I guess it speaks to how we can only, there's only so much that we can deal with as individuals, even when we're kind of well versed in, you know, even when we hold deeply feminist values and we are, you know, committed to body liberation, but there's only so much that we can do on our own there's only so much armour that we can, can continue to, to put up. And so I think for a number of folks, when we come to fat positivity, fat liberation, there is this sense that, okay, I can be fat. And I have to be beautiful. And I have to be young, and I have to be, I have to perform health. I have to, um, you know, in some other way exonerate myself.Amy: Yeah, I've certainly heard a lot about that. You know, like people saying, you know, uh, I'll choose a salad when I'm eating, with some people who feel like inhibited by what other people might think is okay for them to, I mean, I will eat what I want and I'm lucky, I think because the people who surround me, you know, wouldn't be pay that any attention whatsoever.And it must feel so horrible to feel like you've gotta perform this idea of like the perfect fat person who exercising all the time and proving all the time that they eat healthily and all of this kind of stuff. But if you reject those notions of, of healthy ness as we are sold it in like a capitalist society, which is very different really from I think what we would like to embrace as an idea of health then I think we would all be a lot better off.Laura: Mm. But I think what I was kind of searching for before and, and struggling to find was, okay say we accept that bodies change and our body weight tends to track in or trend in one direction, right? And, I think, you know, holding onto these other, you know, whether it's about body hair or beauty or fashion or, um, you know, the fucking cosmetic industrial complex, like what it fundamentally boils down to is safety and keeping ourselves safe in a world that does not value our existence.Amy: Yeah. And that's really tough, isn't it? Particularly I think when you look at how health, healthcare seems to be orientating around, I mean, has for a long time, I guess, but orientating around like this idea that some people deserve to be treated and some don't. I've just realised it's tricky for me to talk about, cause I work in healthcare. Um, I feel like basically if fat phobia becomes, I mean, it's hugely prevalent anyway, but if it also becomes sort of state legislated as an unacceptable practice through laws and guidance and procedures and policies that are enacted through work, through healthcare education and so on. That's, it's just gonna make the lives of fat people so much worse. And it certainly won't make anyone thinner. Laura: Yeah.Amy: you know, if we as a country are serious about mental wellbeing, then we can't be going down that road.Laura: Yeah. I think what you're speaking to is this sort of neoliberal idea of personal responsibility and, and how we are all, You know, it's our duty as good citizens to control and restrict our bodies and to, you know, it's our job, it's our responsibility to stay thin for the good of the country and, you know, this is what is expected of us.Amy: Yeah, so that we are more productive and that we cost the state less and all of this, all of this business.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. something I was thinking about, well, I have, I guess, a confession to make that. When I first started reading your essay, when it got delivered to my inbox, I started reading it and I was really skeptical at first I was a little bit like, okay, where's this going? And then I'm gonna read this back to you. I read the line, “As a fat woman, I can feel inhibited talking about food because the gaze from which I imagine and know I'm perceived is one of greed as though I can't be trusted with my own appetites. Because of my fatness, I'm disallowed hunger. I refuse to be disallowed craving.” Sorry, I'm butchering your writing there. But that changed everything for me because, and I realised I was reflecting on it and I was like, up until that point, I assumed you were a thin person talking about your cravings.Amy: Oh, that's so interesting.Laura: And I think I'm doing this a disservice by assuming that they would've put some sort of like, I don't know. I'm not gonna like name tag anyone here, but you know, there was a very specific image that came to my mind of who you were until I read that line and I was so relieved because I felt like I could trust you. I felt like I could trust what you were saying.Amy: That's so interesting because I was really unsure about putting the fact that I'm fat in the piece. Um, for a couple of reasons. One, because. I'm still dealing with like the internalised shame of saying out loud to the people that I'm fat as though they haven't already noticed.It's almost like, you know, it's like, oh yeah of course other people are gonna see me as a fat person, but you know, sometimes in my head, that's not part of my self-image. I dunno what my self-image is, but, it's maybe my self-image isn't as embodied as it needs to be somehow. Um, so every time I say I'm fat, I'm like practicing becoming comfortable with that, owning it and, and using it as a term that is, is a neutral term. It's like a statement of fact. So like not in the space of, I know, and this is, you know, I'm supportive of this, but like trying to claim it as a word of pride. Just more in the space of this, this is a word we can use and it's okay. It's not gonna hurt me and I'm not gonna hurt myself by using it. So I wondered about that. And then I wondered also about writing about, you know, cravings and pleasure and colour and keeping things in this like very sort of sensory saturated, um, place, which is where the essay is predominantly. I wondered whether it had a place in there, but I realised that. It was so fundamental. The idea of having a fat body was so fundamental to almost like the, the cheekiness I felt in deciding to write about cravings and saying, I'm going to have fun writing about cravings. And I'm not going to be looking over my shoulder for people who think that I am wrong,Laura: yeah.Amy: So, um, it's really interesting that it's something that, it made the essay more persuasive for you. That's quite interesting for me to hear. Laura: It felt subversive. It felt like a fuck you, it felt like, I'm here and I'm owning this and you can't take this away from me. Um, and that, that really sealed, sealed the deal for me, and then I went back and reread it through that lens. And , I'm not trying to say like, you have to be fat to be trustworthy, or you have to be fat. Yeah, to take pleasure in food. But it just, it just shed a different light on it for me. So I was really, um, I think grateful to you for, for disclosing that because there was no picture of you. I didn't know what you looked like untilAmy: I mean, I feel like I totally get it because I, I often start out reading from a point of pure skepticism, particularly personal essays where, you know, say it's, um, somebody writing about, um, how I'm only 28 and I've just bought my first house. And then you get to the end and it's like, oh yeah, it's because you got 30 grand from your parents. And you got to live in granny's attic for two years. So this kind of disclosure is important for credibility of what people say. So I'm, I'm totally with you.Laura: Yeah. Well, there's something else that I wanted to ask you about. Sort of coming back to this essay. At the beginning you talked about food being exciting, being a place for creativity and connection, and I just wondered if you could. This is obviously what you explore in the essay and I'll link to it.It's a paywall piece, I believe, but it's like, if you don't have a subscription to this, what are you doing with your life? Honestly, But I just wondered if you could kind of Yeah. Try and sum up the feeling or feelings that you were connecting to and expressing through food. Subsequently through this essay.Amy: So I live alone. I think, I think I write about this in the essay a little bit. I live alone and I think when you live alone, you're often sort of encouraged. You are not encouraged, but there's a sort of sense that if you are just one person, food doesn't need to have a sense of occasion to. Like you, it's more functional and it's just me so I'll just get this, I'll just eat this ready meal or I don't bother. If it's just me, I'll just have beans on toast or, or whatever. I love, I love beansLaura: I was gonna say, that's a fine food. Don't knock me.Amy: food. And, and you know, I have a very elaborate beans on toast method of course that I cherish. I do want to challenge that and sort of work against it and think what is something that I can make for myself that really sort of vibrates with its meal just for one type intention and, you know, and things like that might be having a steak that is cooked just the way that I want it, that gets the flat all full of smoke and that I can eat with, um, you know, some oven chips and it feels very, very decadent. But I'm not impressing anyone. I'm just going for it on myself. And I think, giving yourself a, a, like a treat, a special treat, and paying attention to yourself as somebody who is deserving of, of pleasure, of decadence, of nourishment, um, even when nobody is looking or there's nobody to share it with.That that is something that's always behind how I think about food. And sometimes, you know, it, it might be like spending hours making a chicken stock and making sure that I've got some soup for myself during the week, or.Laura: Yeah.Amy: or standing over the sink eating a pear, uh, which is something that I write about in that essay and something that I did last night, I sliced it up and then there was just juice everywhere and I was just really enjoying this moment of being alone with my pear. But then there's also doing that for other people and the conversations that that might generate across a dinner table and how, for some reason, at a dinner table, I always feel at home and ready to get to know somebody better. That's really important for me and how I think about what food, the role food is playing in my life.Laura: I think there's something so interesting that I'd never really considered before about the narrative of what it means to, you know, the cooking for one. And yeah, how it's framed as being just really perfunctory and something that you have to do and, and that it's, there's no sense of occasion and the extension of that is that the only reason to kind of make, um, a song and dance about cooking, about preparing food, about sitting down to enjoy a meal is if you're doing it for someone else, but in, but very specifically in the context of a relationship, right? Like,Amy: Yeah, it's all bound in with like romantic love, I think. And it, I kind of write a little bit about this in, in my book. So I've got a book coming out in April called Arrangements in Blue, which explores living in the absence of romantic love.Laura: Hmm.Amy: And one of the things I kind of say in there is, you know, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that making a six pan five hour meal for one person is a radical act, but it kinda is cuz it's kind of saying, you are, you are, you are worth this effort.And if I didn't make any effort for the meals for which I prepare for myself, So many things would be off the menu for me. I'd be like living quite a grueling life. So, it's really important that I kind of push the boat out for myself basically.Laura: Yeah, yeah. No, I love, I love that idea a lot that, you know, in a, and I don't mean this in a like, Bubble bath self-care way, but in a, like, I am actually gonna invest in myself because I deserve the pleasure, the joy, the nourishment, um, the fulfillment that, that comes from not just the process and the act of cooking, but eating and enjoying this food as well.At the end of every episode, I ask my guests, Who or what is nourishing them? So what, what has been nourishing you in this season of, well, shit winter, January season, but also I am gearing up to, to publish a book and.Amy: Yeah, I feel very insecure. It's horrible. It's like I can't tell whether I'm waiting for something great to happen or waiting for something terrible to happen, but it's just this prolonged feeling of anticipation I'm not great with. So I think the, who's nourishing me, so my two cats, Minnie and Bam Bam, have been absolute stalwarts, always there for the scriptures and, you know, stupid faces. And. You know, just general demands on my attention, which is good distraction. My best pal Becky, who has been listening to me have every single neurotic thought that you can havepre publication and probably I should put a special mention in for my agent Ang who, um, has also had to deal with the kind of tremors of, uh, pre-publication. So they've, they've all been fantastic and I, I owe them a lot for their kindness and, and friendship.Laura: I'm glad that you have people caring for you during what is, I know a very, very anxious and yeah, I know that, that pre-publicationAmy: Yeah,Laura: Like black hole. It's a lot. Okay. And very, very last question is what are you snacking on at the moment? So, it can be anything from a literal snack that you are enjoying eating all the way through to something you're watching or reading or listening to. So what do you have for us?Amy: So, I finished reading a couple of weeks ago a book called Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan and is so amazing. It's a kind of novel made out of conversations that, uh, Kathryn had with a horse trainer called Sonya. It sounds like a strange premise for a book, but it's like a, a jolt to the brain.Laura: Ooh, I need one of those.Amy: Yeah, it's really, really fantastic. It's published by Don BooksLaura: Okay. I will link to that in the show notes. I'm very intrigued by that. Um, okay. My thing is definitely not as lofty. So, I, this is an Instagram account that has kind of blown up recently. Uh, you might have come across it. So the person is Lisa Timmons, and she, I think, Or they're a comedian.And, they basically they make these reels where they do a voiceover of celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, like cooking in the kitchen, and then just like voiceover with like, I'm such a privileged fucking white lady and just that, it's just always so on point and like I was just watching one before we got on the call and it was basically, it was Gwyneth Paltrow chopping up some salad and like it probably had like, did not have enough calories to sustain a human being. And the voiceover was basically just like, you know, like, and uh, the idea here is to get as few calories as possible so that you have brittle fucking bones as you grow older.It's just like, yeah, that is what happens when you don't eat enough food. So that's my recommendation, Lisa Timmons Instagram. It's very funny if you, especially if you are navigating, unlearning and unsubscribing diet culture. I will link to that in the show notes. So you briefly mentioned you have a book coming out in April.You wanna tell us, um, how we can pre-order that and where people can find more of your work?Amy: So if you go onto the Penguin website, which I think is penguin.co uk, you can find my book Arrangements in Blue. It's published by Jonathan Cape and there were lots of pre-order links on there. And you can also follow me on Instagram or Twitter.Laura: We will make sure that the links are right there for anyone who wants to go and pre-order Amy's book. And I think you have some more of your writing on your website as well, which I'll link to. And your piece In Praise of Cravings, which we've talked a lot about. I'll link to that in the show notes.Amy, it was such a delight to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here, and I can't wait to read your new book.Amy: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.OUTROLaura: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

*Content warning* - in this episode, we are talking about pregnancy loss and baby loss as well as experiences in the NICU and breastfeeding challenges. So if you're not in the headspace for that right now then please take care of yourself and do whatever you need to to look after yourself.In this episode, journalist, author and fellow Substacker Jennie Agg is joining me on the pod. Jennie has just published her first book, ‘Life, Almost: Miscarriage Misconceptions and a Search for Answers from the Brink of Motherhood' - an exceptional book which brings together her own experiences, along with expert interviews and reports on why we know so little about fertility and reproductive health. In our conversation, we focus on the erosion of trust that can happen in your body as a result of losing a pregnancy, and all the difficult emotions that can get stored in our bodies with nowhere to go to be held safely. We also talk a lot about body image and what has been healing for Jenny as she navigates a new relationship with her body post-partum. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Jennie's work here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Order Jennie's new book here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Sign up to the Raising Embodied Eaters workshop here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Jennie: And piece of that experience is it's, I remember, I mean, it's very difficult to not feel, I remember feeling very angry and very let down by my body. And it's very hard to, to reframe it. I think like I would, this is language that I used internally. It's not language I would use to somebody else or, you know, but you feel like your body has failed you. And I think it's very hard to reframe that as like you, it's very difficult to put a positive spin on that in any way, in the way that sometimes we're encouraged to you with things that are difficult, difficult experiences to do with our, our physical body. INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome to another episode of the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now, and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter? Today I'm talking to author and fellow Subtacker Jennie Agg, who has just written an exceptional book called ‘Life, Almost'.It weaves together Jennie's own experience with miscarriage and pregnancy loss with expert interviews and impeccable reporting on why we know so very little about fertility and reproductive health. In our conversation today, we're really focused on the erosion of trust that can happen in your body as a result of losing a pregnancy and all the difficult emotions that can get stored in our bodies with nowhere to go to be held safely.And this is in part because of how isolating the experience can be and how the healthcare system is not at all set up to adequately support people who experience baby loss either in the moment or going forward into a new pregnancy after loss. We also talk a lot about body image and what has been healing for Jennie as she navigates a new relationship with her body postpartum.I think it's a really lovely conversation and a really important one, but it goes with the content warning that we are talking about pregnancy loss and baby loss as well experiences in the NICU and breastfeeding challenges. So if you're not in the head space for this right now, then please take care of yourself and do whatever you need to to look after yourself.I know we've had a few authors promoting their books back to back recently. I promise that not all the guests this season will be promoting books. I think maybe we have one more. We will also be hearing from some clinicians and researchers later in the season. Just the way that it worked out with books coming out it ended up that some of those authors are appearing earlier in the season. But I also really wanted to support Jennie because she's been a really supportive cheerleader for me and my work. Some of you might already know that Jennie helps edit some of my essays on the newsletter, and her input is really valuable, and it means that there aren't as many spelling or grammatical mistakes on the copy that Jennie has edited.So even if trying to conceive or miscarriage aren't on your radar at the moment, I think this is a really important book for anyone who cares about reproductive rights and why we know so little about the health of women and folks with a uterus. It's not just about having a baby, but it's also connected to our autonomy and our collective body liberation.So again, that's why I wanted to share Jennie's work. It's really, really important and I hope you will check out the book.We'll get to Jennie in just a minute, but first I wanted to remind you that my Raising Embodied Eaters workshop is on Tuesday, the 21st of February. It's pancake day. Don't worry.It's not going to be just me giving you a bunch of useless tips and tricks. You know, that's not what I'm about. But we will explore your relationship with food a little bit and think about how you can support your kids to have a positive relationship with food and their body. I will give you some practical tools. Um, we will talk about developmental milestones and things like that, but my intention is really to help. You take the pressure off of feeding your kids and help you create a home that supports a healthy relationship to food and bodies. I've linked to the full description in the show notes. So you can check it out. It's 15 pounds, it will be on Zoom, and I'll have the recording available for a week after. So if you can't watch it live, you can watch it on playback. Plus you'll also get a copy of my Raising Embodied Eater's Guide to share it with family, friends, childcare, schools, whoever is responsible for feeding your kids.And the last thing before we get to the episode. Just a quick reminder that Can I Have Another Snack is a reader supported publication. I'd love to bring you more deeply research pieces, but it requires a significant investment in my time, plus the support of an editor, aka Jennie, and behind the scenes admin support, and a podcast editor as well.So if you are in a position to become a paid subscriber, then please consider it is five pounds or 50 pounds for the year, and if that's not accessible for you right now, you can email  hello@laurathomasphd.co uk, putting the word snacks in the subject line, and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription, no questions asked. Please do not feel like you have to explain yourself or your situation. I trust that if you have the means to pay for a subscription and you value my work, then you will. And if you can't afford it right now, then um, maybe some point in the future you will be able to become a fully paid subscriber. But for now, just put snacks in the subject line and we'll hook you up with that comp subscription.All right, everyone. Here is my conversation with Jennie Agg.MAIN EPISODELaura: Jennie, can you start by telling us who or what you're nourishing right now?Jennie: Yeah, I can. So I'm Jennie. I'm a journalist and author, and I am nourishing myself, my husband, my two and a half year old Edward and three cats. And in nourishing, in the, the non-literal sense I am nourishing a writing career and specifically kind of branching out into writing books.Laura: I think you're being extremely modest right now, Jennie, I'm gonna be your, I'm gonna be your hype person for a sec.Jennie: Okay.Laura: So Jennie has a book as we're recording, Jennie's book is coming out in two weeks. Her first book. It's your first book, right?Jennie: Yeah, it's my first book. It's my first book.Laura: And. Yeah. By the time that everyone is listening to this, it will have just come out into the world. I wanna know how you, you know, where are we finding you? How are you feeling about it all? You've, you've been writing and putting your words out into the world for a long time. You've been writing very vulnerably for a long time, but does this feel different or are you just kind of like, oh, it's, it's more words going out into the world?Jennie: It definitely feels different. I mean, I never feel like cavalier or like comfortable with putting anything out, like even like sending out my newsletter, which I do every week. And before that, you know, I was writing a blog every week and I still, you know, pressing send still feels incredibly sort of panic inducing. But yeah, this does feel different. I mean it's a very personal book. And it feels, I guess it feels like the culmination as you said, I've been writing about pregnancy loss and my own experience with recurrent miscarriage and going on to have a baby. Like I've been writing about that for five years, six years now. Laura: I was thinking about this the other day, like way before you interviewed me for my first book, I'd come across your writing, maybe like in The Pool, RIP, or you know, some, something along those lines. And, and it was, it was one of the first pieces I'd ever read about miscarriage. And I remember being kind of like struck by it, obviously, because it's very personal and vulnerable, but also just thinking like, we don't, we don't talk about this.And so I remember, you know, even though babies weren't even on my radar at that point, thinking wow, what you're doing is really, really important work, and it feels like you've taken everything from the past, I dunno, five or six or however many years and you've put it into this new book.Jennie: Yeah. I mean that, and I guess that's what I've, I tried to do. I dunno if this is a really cliche thing to say but I, I wrote the book that I wanted to exist, like when I had my first miscarriage. And like, I wish I could say that the book answers all the questions that I had back then and that I still have now.And sometimes, like in kind of, delving into the, the science and interviewing various doctors and experts and historians about it, often the answer is we still don't know. And so the question is, why don't we know this? We need to do better really is the kind of thrust of the book really.And I think it's difficult for me to know exactly how far and how fast things have changed cuz I, you know, because I write about miscarriage and pregnancy loss and I am now kind of quite immersed in that world and community, it's difficult for me to know exactly how much things have actually changed.So when I had my first miscarriage in 2017 I just didn't, I didn't know anything about it. I really didn't think it was a thing that was going to happen to me. And oh, I should preface this by saying like, my background, I'm a health journalist, so there were lots of things that hadn't happened to me that I knew a little bit about.And okay, you never know exactly what something is like if you haven't been through it. But I really had no idea and I was really shocked when they'd kind of say, oh actually this is really common. And they sort of give you all these leaflets and they quote statistics at you and you're like, but hang on, they didn't tell me this when I went to my booking in appointment with the GP. It's not, you know, I've been reading the NHS website advice saying at eight, nine weeks, or, you know, look into what maternity leave you're entitled to start thinking about, I don't know, when you want to start your leave and you are kind of given things on your next scan and the 20 week scan, like right from the word go. And there's very much this presumption that your pregnancy will continue.Laura: And it's a kind of a linear, straightforward process. And you go from A to B to C.Jennie: Yeah, exactly. And I think miscarriage is kind of there in that it's, you are told don't eat this because there's a, you know, soft cheese and listeria and risk of miscarriage and, you know, there are lot, lots and lots of things that you are told to do or not to do.And perhaps miscarriage risk is mentioned, but it, rightly or wrongly, I think I felt going into that first pregnancy that miscarriage was something they kind of understood. They knew why it happened, and if you followed the rules would be okay. And I, you know, I did follow the rules. Then this, it kind of everything was sort of turned on its head really in that they go, oh, it's just one of those things. It happens sometimes. It happens quite a lot actually. And that was, it just kind of blew everything open for me, really. So I wrote about it for the newspaper where I worked at the time. And then as kind of things unfolded I went on to have two more miscarriages that same year, some medical tests which were inconclusive, and then I had another miscarriage after that. I mean, that's a very, that's a very condensed version. But I wrote about it. I wrote about it in the magazines and newspapers, and then also I, I started blog and yeah. And then I had a kind of period of time off from trying to conceive because it becomes very all consuming particularly when there, perhaps we'll come back to this, but when there were kind of no answers of what, why something has happened or whether it will happen again, or, you, it, it kind of takes over your life because you are, you are sort of looking for lots of things you can do yourself, whether that's your diet or your exercise or life, just sort of lifestyle things.Is it stress? Is it my job? Is it, you know, all those things. The answer to all of those is probably no but it, you kind of feel like it might be, it must be worth trying. Like, you know, you, you feel like you need to try absolutely everything. And actually that becomes quite a difficult way to live.So we kind of took quite a long period out from trying to conceive and when we did feel ready again I got pregnant for a fifth time in 2019. And this again, is a very condensed , a very condensed version. But I did, I did go on to have my son. Yeah. There was a question that, I dunno whether I've answer answered or not.Laura: Well I think I was just reflecting on sort of the, you know, how I first came across your work and, and just, it, it just felt so, I don't want this to sound like really belittling, but it felt really, really brave and courageous to put that out into the world. And, you know, I think I had read your account of your first miscarriage, and this kind of like realisation that, okay, well first of all, I didn't expect this to me, no expect this to happen to me, nobody prepared me for this to be even a possibility. And secondly, the, the recognition that we don't know what, you know, we, we know very little about why this happens to you. And then it sounds as though from there, when you had recurrent miscarriage, you know, you did the, I know that the NHS has this sort of like, what seems to me to be, what's the word that I'm looking for you? The, the rule notJennie: Oh, like it's com-, It's very arbitrary.Laura: the arbitrary, yes.Jennie: Yeah. It's a very arbitrary rule. And basically they will only if it's first trimester miscarriages, they'll only investigate for possible kind of other medical causes after three miscarriages which, like there are reasons for it, which I, which I understand. Although there have been, there have been calls recently, to adopt a slightly more kind of grade, I think it's called a kind of the graded, graded model of care. And so there would be some follow up after one miscarriage, some sort of preliminary tests after two, and then kind of what they do now after three.And like within all of that, the, the recommendation is that there would be kind of some sort of psychological support if people need it, which, and so far kind of the government has not, has not taken up this recommendation from lots of scientists and campaigning groups. Not a surprise. And I, and it's really tricky to talk about this at the moment and to kind of talk about how inadequate the provision is and the kind of support is for people going through miscarriage because, you know, health service is so stretched, so that's not a, you know, that's not a criticism of people working in hospitals or early pregnancy units or gps. It's a, you know, this is a moreLaura: systemicJennie: systemic like criticism. Yeah, I mean, there's so much we could talk about, like, I think, I can't remember the exact figure, but I tried to find out in the book how many early pregnancy units open seven days a week. Like open all hours basically. And I can't remember there, there aren't really any, there might be, it's single, like it's single figures.Laura: MmJennie: Like two or four or something that I could find in the whole of the UK, and so, some are only open like two hours Monday to Friday and it's like yeah.Laura: And I just like, this is the, the sort of feeling that I'm left with is that once something, you know, when you experience a miscarriage, or even if you're just unsure in those early weeks and months, if everything is okay, it's such a lonely, isolating experience because there's nowhere to go. And when we have, you know, when these institutions that are supposed to support us, care for us, look after us, you know, are, when they, when they're literally only open two hours a day, what message does that send about, you know, how much our experiences are valued. And I think that that kind of like, you know, the fact that we don't get any kind of investigation or even really support at all until there have been three recurrent first trimester miscarriages just goes to show again that, you know, that, that, that, that experience, like we're, we're sort of left to deal with it on our own.Jennie: Yeah. And ILaura: No one to help us kind of like yeah. Move through that.Jennie: No, it really invalidates it, I think, and it sort of sets up this hierarchy in that you're like, you are, you'd kind of, well, certainly how I felt was that, I really believed I was, that first time I really believed I was going to have a baby, and, you know, all those kind of things you think about and things you imagine and plan for that was all very real and was happening and was underway. And I was, you know, I'd been pregnant for nearly the first miscarriage happened just before the 12-week scan.So, you know, I'd been pregnant forLaura: Yeah.Jennie: a few months, but at that point like, I knew about it with all that that entails. And then suddenly it was not happening. And the reaction was kind of completely the opposite to how I was feeling in that the reaction was, this happens all the time. And then you are, you are kind of told that they're not gonna. they're not gonna ask you. They, I mean, I was really shocked that they didn't even ask me any questions. Kind of like, what had you been doing when it started? Or like, and that's, you know, that has its own problems in that then that you start to think it must be something I did. And in a way, that's why they don't ask those questions,Laura: Yeah. Yeah.Jennie: but at the same time, you, the lack of interest or curiosity in why this happened to you when on paper there shouldn't have been any issue is really disorienting.And also then it, like you don't know how to frame your experience. So I was like, oh, right. So should I just be, should I just be okay? Should I be bouncing back from this quicker than I am? And I was, you know, it, it was, certainly that first time was very physically traumatic. And thenLaura: Yeah.Jennie: also it felt, it felt like a full on bereavement, really. So I would've struggled to say that in my real life at the time. Like, I would've felt that I shouldn't claim that, that that would, you know, and I think part of that comes from the fact that they don't, they don't and can't investigate until you've had more miscarriages. It's like, well then that's when it's, like quote unquote a proper issue. That's when you are allowed to feel all these complex feelings. And that's when, you know, you can lay claim to grief or a sort of Yeah. Any of those things. And I, it took, it really me, like, I guess what I'm saying is it really messed me up psychologically. And it makes, it kind of encourages you, I think, to push down what you are actually feeling and to kind of minimise your own grief and anger and shock and, and it's completely, it's completely the opposite of what actually now they're starting to learn through scientific studies about how people feel and how that experience affects people.You know, it's a significant proportion. I think it's about one in five people who have an early pregnancy loss. So that might be a first trimester miscarriage it might be ectopic pregnancy, experienced symptoms like PTSD. And it's, it's, and partners as well. Like it's not quite as, as high of proportion. It's like 1 in 12, I think a kind of secondary study to that study found, which is, is shocking. Like this is this huge, that's such a massive finding.Laura: And it sounds as though you know that, that that study was measuring people who met some sort of like clinical threshold for PTSD or PTSD,Jennie: yeah, yeah,Laura: And what about everybody else who is experiencing these really complex, really painful emotions and they just have to go to work the next day?Jennie: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, and they, I think from memory, that study does, does talk as well about how within that there are a lot of people who might not have met that clinical criteria for PTSD but there was, you know, anxiety and depression were really common. Which again, and you are just expected to pick up and, and start again and, you know, try to get pregnant again, which is a whole other. And this is really, I think a large part of my book and what I write in the book is my experience of pregnancy after loss and after miscarriages and how that is actually, it's a completely different experience. Pregnancy without that knowledge. And I, I still don't know that that's something we're really that familiar with. Like outside of very particular support communities.Laura: Yeah. How do you, I mean, there's so many things that my, my brain is going to here but there's, you know, sort of this question of, well, how do you sort of raise awareness of the fact that miscarriage can be a possibility without then creating a lot of fear and anxiety in people trying to conceive? And then also this, this big question of how do you support people through a pregnancy when either they've had, you know, pregnancy complications previously, or experienced baby loss or miscarriage or, you know, god forbid, like the loss of a, a young child, you know, what kind of support needs to be put into place?And, it sounds like. A, it's taking, it's taking science a really long time to catch up with the fact that people might have really difficult feelings and, and feel really ambivalent about, about going into a, another pregnancy. And yeah, the, even, even once we've kind of like identified that that's the case, what then is the support?Jennie: Yeah. What do we actually do about this? Yeah.Laura: Yeah. And the thing that I'm, I'm really curious to talk to you about, because it's kind of a thread that runs through this podcast and the newsletter, which is around, you know, when you experience something like this where you know your body doesn't sort of, it doesn't act in the way that we expect it to and want it to.And, and maybe, you know, we, we feel let down or betrayed by our bodies. And, and I can sort of speak from experience here in terms of like birth not going to, to plan and you know, early experiences with, with feeding that there's, there's a lot of, of grief and you know, that can be a very painful experience.And I'm just, I'm curious to know what, what your experiences were around body trust and maybe body image more broadly. You know, having gone through these recurrent miscarriages.Jennie: It's a really. What's the right word? It's a huge factor, I think. And piece of that experience is, I mean, it's very difficult to not feel, I remember feeling very angry and very let down by my body. And it's very hard to reframe it. I think like I would, this is language that I used internally. It's not language I would use to somebody else or, you know, but you feel like your body has failed you. And I think it's very hard to reframe that as like you, it's very difficult to put a positive spin on that in any way, in the way that sometimes we're encouraged to you with things that are difficult, difficult experiences to do with our physical body. So, you know, and it's, it's hard I think in the, you know, my body, I didn't look pregnant to the outside world, which, you know, for some people that will be their experience of, of pregnancy loss. You know, they will have announced their pregnancy and been visibly pregnant. And then that is, it's a whole other element of this.But for me, other people might not have seen it, but, you know, my body had, had changed and I was, and I think, I mean, maybe it's because it's, you are hyper aware, I think, in pregnancy particularly, or I certainly was in that first trimester with my first pregnancy. I mean, and then certainly in later pregnancies, you are hyper aware of every symptom or twinge that you have or kind of, and, and you feel different anyway, right?Like, you don't feel very well, you feel very tired. There's a lot going on. Like as in, it's a very, it's a very physical experience that first trimester, even though we kind of still have this convention of like not announcing a pregnancy then, so you kind of do all that in private,Laura: Mm-hmm.Jennie: andLaura: And then you emerge in the second trimester as this glowingJennie: Yeah, yeah. Like,Laura: The fantasy that we're sold, isn'tJennie: And it, it's very difficult, I think, and it, you've, what do I mean? I think I felt so resentful. I felt so resentful of, you know, what I perceived as kind of weight gain and changes to my body, which, you know, like I look back now and I think that was, my brain had definitely exaggerated the reality of that. And I think that's, that's complicated, isn't it? It's that sort of idea of like, oh, I, I feel, I feel fat today. It's like, what does that, what does that really mean? Particularly, you know, talking as somebody who is straight sized.Laura: It feels very familiar, I think what you're talking about. You know, that we, we often put all the difficult, raw emotions that we're experiencing, the grief, the trauma, the stress, the anxiety, all of it onto. , you know, we, we distill that because, because it feels really hard to say all of those things, the, the, you know, the resentment as well, which is such a great word.I think we, we reduce it down to a feeling of being fat when, you know, like you said, that's not, that's not a feeling. And our bodies are, are holding all of these complex feelings and emotions that that we sometimes find hard to, especially if, you know, we haven't announced our pregnancies to the world, or especially if we don't have a space to go to, like a therapist or, you know, someone to hold and contain that for us, we, we kinda store it in our bodies and it, and it shows up in these really unwelcome ways.I dunno if that speaks toJennie: Yeah, it, it, it really does. I think, cuz there, something I remember from certainly that first time and then also after subsequent pregnancy losses, the fear of being mistaken for pregnant was huge and if you think about it in a purely rational, like, logical way that it would make sense if somebody thought I, like, I had, you know, in some cases I had literally been pregnant two days previously. Like that was not, and yet somehow that was all really bound up with a sense of kind of, loss of control and kind of moral failing and, and it, you know, it, it, it's almost certainly informed by all the things we're told about postpartum bodies and how women should, you know, you're celebrated for looking pregnant up until the moment you give birth. And then you should, your body should like bear no trace of having carried and birthed a baby, like, you know, in that incredibly unrealistic way. So I'm, you know, there's, that's almost certainly a part of it, but it's that idea of somehow I would feel ashamed to be mistaken for pregnant when I mean, and obviously like that it's just, there's the pure, like that's a painful thing because it's having to admit or reflect on the fact that I wasn't pregnant and I really wanted to be. But at the same time that sort of focus on your body and how you look and particularly like how your stomach looks is it's hard for me. Like, to me it's hard not to see that in the context of all the various narratives around women's bodies and body size and yeah snapback culture, whatever it is. So yeah, that definitely, I can see, I can see that that's probably what was going on there.Laura: Yeah, I mean, I don't mean to directly compare experiences because I know that losing a baby is, is absolutely not the same as the experience that I have. Yet there are, there are some things that feel very relatable to in what you're saying and I'm thinking about a time when Avery was in the NICU and we were getting a taxi up to the hospital and I still looked very, very pregnant cuz I had just given birth and the, there was an assumption by the taxi driver that I was in labor going to the hospital to give birth or that, you know, that I was very close to my due date. And, you know, there was this big smiley face and this reception of like, oh, and, and, and, and it was the same when, when I, you know, when when I give birth, there were all these congratulations being thrown at me. And I was like, but my baby is, look at him like he's really ill. And I'm gonna get, I'm getting really emotional. Sorry Jennie, butJennie: no. It's okay.Laura: I just, there was just this visceral rejection of that congratulations. And at that time I can see it differently now, but at that time it, I was chalk up to the failure of my body, you know, the failure to, you know to have the birth and the labor that I wanted to have and sort of, you know, was blaming myself for effectively putting him in the NICU which is, you know, I've done a birth debrief, that's not the case.Right. like, I can rationally say that now, but you know, there was, there's something there that I think you're speaking to with, you know, the changes in your body and how your body looks and how something is perceived maybe to be this really positive thing like a pregnancy, like giving birth, but that actually something else is concealed behind that something very, very different. And your reality not matching up to what's maybe presenting outwardly, if that makes sense.Jennie: Yes. Yeah, it does make sense. It does make sense. I think that's a really good way of thinking about it. And then for me, I think the kind of, and this has been a sort of then been a thread that's gone through kind of all of my subsequent pregnancies. And then going on to have my son and to be a parent, and those kind of early experiences of parenting is that real fear of kind of something unknown that's wrong with your body because, that's kind of what that experience leads you to because there was never any, and this is the case for, I think it's about 50% of people who have recurrent miscarriages, as in, so people who have medical tests for multiple miscarriages, most, at least half, never, like, there's never any kind of specific diagnosis. And I think, I talk about this in the book, recurrent miscarriage is kind of thrown around as a label, as if it's a diagnosis, but it's not.Laura: And as if it's like a homogenous experience,Jennie: And like actually it's not like there'll be lots of different, potentially lots of different reasons. And most of the time, probably a lot of those reasons we don't know what they are yet. And most of the time you, you won't be given any kind of anything concrete that they're say, well, you know that this blood marker or whatever it is. Absolutely every test I had and there were many, lots of blood tests and then sort of scans of like my pelvic anatomy and the shape of my womb, that sort of thing all came back completely normal.There's nothing in my kind of menstrual cycle history or anything like that would, that would point to anything hormonal or yeah, and I think, so then there's I think quite logical fear of like, but clearly this isn't, clearly this shouldn't be happening.Laura: Mm-hmm.Jennie: Like this is too many in a row. It's too like the, the explanation, which is really what you are, you are sort of encouraged to think, which is that this is just bad luck.Like that doesn't feel very satisfactory. And I mean, it might be true, but I also think we're a little bit over-reliant on that idea that it, that it might, that it, it is true. And so that, that leads you to, there's something in my body that, or in the way that my body works that we don't really understand yet, that they, you know, don't know how to fix was where my brain went.And that that's very difficult to put aside. Even, and so, I mean something coming back to kind of how that's carried through. So when Edward was born and I was trying to feed him and kind of those early days of breastfeeding, which were difficult, not, I don't think in the grand scheme of things, I don't think we had that difficult a time.You know, he wasn't, very glad to say he wasn't in the NICU or anything like that. So we were able to try it right from the beginning. And I know that's not true for everybody. But you know, it's a hard thing. It's a hard thing to doLaura: Yeah. Regardless of, you know, how your baby came into the world, it's, it's hard.Jennie: Like even in the best of circumstances, like I think it's a hard thing to do and it's a new skill to learn all those things.So he, and kind of in spite of feeling like we'd sort of got the hang of it and it was kind of working, like his weight dropped at those kind of first checks that they do with the midwife when he was home. And then so they sort of go through all their things and they say, right, well let me watch you feed him.And they kind of do their observations and they looked at him and they kind of, and again, this is, this is something I write about a little bit in the book, but they said, It's like several midwives and then a feeding consultant said, well, it doesn't, it all seems fine. You're doing everything right. There doesn't seem to be a reason. You know, like positive things that should be like in other circumstances will be very good news. But you're like, but you are telling me his weight is dropping too much. And that really like hit some kind of internal alarm bell for me because it was just that I possibly didn't even realize I had, which was like, there is something wrong with me that can't be fixed.Or there's something wrong with him and you, like we don't know enough to know what it is. And kind of knowing that like being told there's nothing wrong isn't always very comforting news. Like that kind of prior knowledge of that. Made that in an incredibly stressful time. I mean, the, the, like, the punchline to this is the feeding consultant who was very kind and gave me lots of helpful like practical advice said, did you take a picture of the scales at the hospital? And I was like, no, of course I didn't. I was, I was being stitched up. She was like, they, cuz they write, I dunno if this is true for every hospital, but our hospital wrote down the weight in grams, so it's like a, it's that right grams. So it's like a four, it's like a four digit numberLaura: yeah.Jennie: Said sometimes they just, they might have just switched likeLaura: Like a two and a three or,Jennie: Yeah, exactly.And so actually what would've been like a, you know, a couple of percentage drop in weight was actually like 13% or whatever. And like he, you know, there were never any other outward signs that he was struggling. Like,Laura: Yeah.Jennie: So, like, I can kind of laugh about it now, but at the time it really felt, it was a real reminder that, that that runs really deep now that fear of kind of, it's fear of basically it's fear of the unknown, isn't it? But it's, it's so kind of rooted in my body and kind of by extension now Edward's body. Does that make sense?Laura: It makes so much sense and,I mean, I could and maybe one day I will write an entire book about feeding babies in theJennie: oh, I would buyLaura: early daysJennie: that book, Laura. I would buy thatLaura: And kind of like the things we say particularly around, you know, weight loss in those early days and, weight regain and feeding and, ugh, there's so much that happens in that short period of time that can, that can create anxiety and fear that carries through that, you know, that sets the tone for that feeding relationship.Like when I'm working with parents and, you know, there's someone ha-, you know, their child has some challenges around feeding, like I can, you can trace that line back to some horrific thing that uh, you know, a flippant comment that a healthcare professional has said to them about, you know, not gaining enough weight or eating too much is the other, you know, like you can never just get the, the, the perfect balance.Right? Right. And, and, and so the genesis of a lot of parents fears and concerns, like it, it comes back to that point. And I think, you know what a health visitor maybe isn't so cognizant of, is all of your backstory and the, the, you know, all of the challenges and, and the, the pain and the grief and everything that you're carrying into that experience with your child.So they're giving you this, you know, what they think is just a factual thing, which turns out, in your case it wasn't even factual, butJennie: No. No. And he was, and he was fine. Like,Laura: And that's the thing, they don't look at the baby. They don't ever look at the baby. They look at the chart. I mean, I'm doing a disservice to midwives and health. Not all health visitors and midwives, but you look at a number and you don't look at the broader context. Like, oh, you know, how are they feeding?Do they look like, you know, do they have like chubby arms and legs and, you know, what are their parents' statures and body sizes? And like, how does that factor into this? So like, yeah, there's, there's, yeah, I, I could go on and on and on about that, but I think yeah, like not taking into context the broader, you know, like fears and anxieties and pressures and, and feelings.The, the conflicting feelings that you have you know, as a result of, of how, you know, in your case how Edward came into the world and how you feel about your own body. I, I don't know, it just feels like there needs to be a shift in how we are yeah. Like how we are caring for, for people in the whole entire perinatal period.Jennie: Yeah, I mean, definitelyLaura: I think, I mean, yeah, that goes without saying right? But, I feel like I kind of lost the thread and just got up on my soapbox a little bit there. And I'm, I'm curious to know, there are so many other things, Jennie that we, we kind of like said that we would talk about that we're not gonna have time for, but I think what feels important to, to maybe think about is, you know, you've talked about feeling let down by your body and, and the sort of broken trust. You know, I think we, we all kind of go into pregnancy by and large, or going go into trying to conceive with like just this implicit trust that our bodies are gonna do the things that we would like them to do in the way that we would like them to, to do them.And then, you know, what you're talking about is just this bit by bit by bit erosion of that trust, you know, first through recurrent miscarriage, which, you know, in and of itself that's multiple layers of, of erosion of trust and then into, into breastfeeding. And, you know, I'm sure there are other elements of parenting and just being a body in the world.But I'm curious, you know, how, or if, or you know, what regaining trust in your body looks like, feels like, if it even feels possible. Yeah, I'm, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. In the, in the like five minutes we've got, got left.Jennie: Ooh. Yeah. Okay. I have a really pithy easy answer to this. No, I don't. But I do think it is possible. So there are a few things. So I think at least initially there was kind of the, I had the opposite feeling that I'd felt after my miscarriages and being very worried about being mistaken for pregnancy. So kind of getting, first of all, in pregnancy, getting further along.And I, like, I had a very anxious, very difficult pregnancy in lots of ways, like, and I. It was a very difficult time psychologically. But at the same time, there were definitely kind of quite healing, I think is probably the right word, things in, in that sort of physical evidence of pregnancy and kind of seeing my body change and feeling a baby move and going to term. That was really, that was very healing.It might not always have felt like that at the time, but like now I kind of look back and I think I can see that it, it was, and I like, I liked that, like, I liked kind of seeing myself pregnant and I liked kind of when I felt sort of ready, which was quite far on into pregnancy. Like I really liked buying maternity clothes and you know, things that, and even like if the maternity clothes were a bit crap, like , like, I kind of like, that was quite nice in itself.It's like, oh I would not choose this dress in real life. But you know,Laura: It fits. It fits over.Jennie: It fits, it fits and it's comfortable and like it's not too hot or whatever it was. And kind of recognising those feelings that you kind of, I would used to hear other pregnant women complain about and think, I'm so jealous of you.Like, getting to experience those things myself was really kind of, I dunno if that sounds perverse, but that was very healing. I was lucky in that I had a relatively positive birth experience. Like I had an induction, which I know is notLaura: Oh, no, that's not a positive birth experience, Jennie. That's the-Jennie: And like again, I mean God I wish I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it, should I, cuz that'sLaura: It's a whole thing. Yeah.Jennie: like, I mean, and it's literally a chapter in the book.Laura: God, it's so,Jennie: But actually I had a really positive birth experience like in the, possibly in the sense that it exceeded my expectations and that was, you know, that was good. I'm, so, I'm very aware that I'm kind of saying that to somebody who had the opposite experience and I hope that's not,Laura: Oh, no, no, no. I'm honestly, I'm so pleased when people say like, actually it didn't all go tits up and feel okay aboutJennie: Yeah. And, so that was, you know, that was and then, oh, this is what I was going to say. So the other thing was I had, after Edward was born and I was still like visibly very, like I looked what we would consider to be a pregnant body, but really it's just a, like, I had a baby two weeks ago, three months ago body like I, I didn't have that same like, oh God, I hope no one mistakes me from pregnant. Because I was like, I was there, I had Edward with me most of the time, like, and we weren't really going out that much anyway because of lockdown and things. But so that was really nice being like, well, yeah, I looked like I just had a baby cuz I just had a baby.And that was a kind of, that was a nice like it was a kind of, felt like a correction perhaps. It gets more complicated, that relationship with my body as time went on in a sort of more superficial sense and like a, I guess a body image for want of a better phrase sense. You know, like when my body still look different at nine months, like I have a particular loathing for those nineLaura: Yeah.Jennie: nine months out pictures like I.Laura: Well, you knowJennie: I know I know, I know, for some people, I know for some people that's just like fun. And not everybody who shares those pictures is a fitness influencer or whatever, but I, yeah, I dunno. They, I can't, they, they do something to me. And I think, what else do I think? So I think now that I'm kind of two years, two and a half years on from having a baby I think the thing that's been this is, it's perhaps quite a low key thing to say, like helps rebuild that trust. But it's just that it's a little bit of I've had a period of like stability, I guess, in my body. Like I'm not breastfeeding anymore. I haven't been for, for a long time. I'm not actively trying to conceive, I've not, you know, I've not had a miscarriage since Edward was born.Like that just period of letting my body just be and for it not to be not,Laura: I guess there are no expectationsJennie: Yeah, no, expectations is a really, yeah, I was gonna say like, no, like nasty surprises, but yeah, no expectations of it to be doing anything other than like, I don't know, letting me sit at my desk and work and, you know, theLaura: being, yeah.Jennie: plodding run at park run or, you know, whatever. Just like be, exactly just being. And it feels a little bit like, so we had a period of about a year off from trying to conceive. That was a quite a healing time and I'd really resisted it for such a long time. I'd really resisted it because I felt we just needed to kind of get through and, you know, try again and try again.But actually that time to just not be worrying about what I was eating or drinking or, you know, all those things was really it, I was quite skeptical that it, that I would make me feel better like that just, just doing nothing would make me feel better. And actually it did, and it's been the same postpartum as well, like,Laura: Mm.Jennie: But that's not always what you want to hear when you are in the kind of the middle of those, like ruptures in how you relate to your body, which like, that's difficult.Laura: And, and it's interesting that you used the word rupture there because it's, it's what was going through my head as well, that, you know, the these perturbations in our body you know, whether it's because of, you know, trying to conceive or the, the, whether it, you know, it's miscarriage, pregnancy itself, giving birth, breastfeeding, all of these, you know, just yeah perturbations in our body, you know, they can be, not miscarriage obviously, but, you know, pregnancy, breastfeeding can be really positive connecting experiences for our body and they can also really disconnect us and, and, and, and make our bodies feel not not quite as safe. Yeah. We, we've, we've maybe feel more disconnected in those periods and, and also it can be both at the same time.And and I think, yeah, I'm thinking about this from the perspective of, of being embodied, of being in our bodies, of, of not being separate from our bodies that, you know, these milestones, these landmarks, I suppose can, can both take us in and out of our bodies. And usually, and, and I think that's why it's such a head fuck, right?Because,Jennie: yeah, yeah.Laura: You go, you're going back and forth. You're like, do I wanna be in my body? Do I wanna be out? It,Jennie: yeah. Yeah. And like on a almost like hourly basis sometimes, likeLaura: And, and then, and then it sounds like what you're, what you're sort of, where you're at at the moment is like, just letting my body be, or letting your body be has, has helped you kind of come back to it in a sense.And I, and I know it's not, that's a, a nice simple narrative, but, and it's not quite that simple, but, but that there has been some healing, some catharsis, some yeah, reconnecting that, that has taken place for you in just yeah, letting your body be.Jennie: Yeah, definitely, definitely.Laura: Well, Jennie, that feels like a really nice note to wrap this up on. So before we go, I would like to ask you who or what is nourishing you right now?Jennie: So the obvious one is my husband Dan. He, yeah, he just makes sure, particularly at the moment when work stuff and kind of book publicity stuff has been quite overwhelming. Like he's made sure that I'm not staying up until midnight at my computer, and yeah, that I stop and eat my dinner and just basic, boring, basic things like that.But also something I was thinking about, in terms of like bringing this book out into the world is the thing that that's kind of sustained me, I guess, is all the kind of little ways that people have been supportive of it. So whether that's like you inviting me on this podcast or kind of newspaper editors I've worked for before being like, oh, will you write a piece about your book?Or like, so this is, this just happened at the weekend. I gave a copy of the book to one of my very close friends, and he has very deliberately put it on his bookshelf behind like, so he does a lot of meetings from home. He's like, I'm gonna put it on my bookshelf so everyone will see it. And I was like, that's the sweetest thing.Laura: Cute.Jennie: Yeah, exactly. So yeah. And just little things like that are really, really nice. And I've had a couple of messages from people being like I've, I've just found your blog, or I just found your Instagram and I've pre-ordered your book. And yeah, it's just nice. It's not like, it doesn't, it's something about all of those things together is very, like it's a, it's a very vulnerable book.I think I need to kind of accept that that's the case. And I think this has been a nice, like, balancing counterbalance with that is that actually lots of people have been very supportive and yeah, that's nourishing, I think in biggest sense.Laura: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I, I know certainly you and I have talked about vulnerability hangovers before.Jennie: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, they're real. And I, I guess, yeah, I don't know. The one from this book might be horrendous. It's gonna be like a, I dunno, difficult to know how it'll feel, we'll see.Laura: But having those kind of reminders that actually, although it's difficult, it, though it's incredibly difficult subject matter, that this will be really healing and cathartic and supportive for a lot of people who have been through something similar. And it sounds like that's the, the sort of little bits of recognition that you're getting and, and yeah, just the.Jennie: I think that's it. It's those like little moments of, we support this. Like we want, we think this message needs to be out there. Like, we've got you. Like that's really nice. It's just a really nice, it's a nice thing.Laura: Yeah. For anyone who's listening who has found this episode useful or any of Jennie's work useful, please drop us a comment to show a little bit of appreciation for Jennie. Alright. Before I let you go, I need to know what you are snacking on right now, so it can be a literal snack, like my one is this week. Or a podcast, a book, a show. Just something that you're really into at the moment and that you wanna share with the audience. So what are you snacking on right now, Jennie?Jennie: Oh, okay. So I really wanted to have like a good literal snack and I've kind of failed completely, but like, I don't want this to be like one of those like food diaries that go viral and it's like my treat is an almond milk cappuccino. Like that's not what this is intended to be. But for various reasons, I had some leftover chocolate oat milk in my fridge and I was like, I don't know what to do with this. Like the thing I was gonna use it for, I ended up not making. And then the other day I'd run out of other milk of any kind. I was like, I know, I'll put it in my coffee. And it's,Laura: Ooh.Jennie: It's great.Laura: Can I be clear? Are we talking about chocolate Oatly?Jennie: Yes. Do you know if that's controversial?Laura: No, no, no, no, no, no. I was just about to say, I use that to make ice lolls for Avery, blend it up with a bit of banana, a peanut butter,Jennie: That's a very good idea.Laura: Really delicious. So if you ever have, you know, like dregs in the carton and like you are not sure what to do with it, they make good ice lollies too.Jennie: That is a genius, so yeah, I've been having a lot like my kind of accidental homemade mocha. Yeah, so that's good. That's been a good, like, it's not really a snack, is it? It's a drink.Laura: Yes. Let's be clear that is, that is not a meal replacement option. NoJennie: No, no, no. But it is delicious and it has been cheering me up actually as I've been working. It's like so yeah, that's good. And I will have to try and make some ice lollies with it.Laura: That sounds delicious. Mine, mine is also a food related thing. So I, this week I made some vegan millionaire shortbread. Do you know, like Carnation condensed milk?Jennie: Yes.Laura: Okay. So like super retro.Jennie: Yeah. But it makes,Laura: yeah, they've got a vegan version now and they have a recipe on their website for like vegan millionaire shortbread. Like, it's not, it's not a new recipe or anything like that. In fact, my friend Izy Hossack, the cookbook author and food stylist you might have heard of her, she like styled one of their recipes for her Instagram like, ages and ages ago. And that's how I found out about it. And I've been making it like periodically ever since.And then Dave got a bee in his bonnet about having it the other day, like on a Monday night. So I had to like, try, like after I did the childminder pickup, like went to go and get all the ingredients from the shop and yeah, made the whole thing and it was I mean they helped as well, but it was delicious. And we have been enjoying Millionaire Shortbread so I'll link to the recipe in the shownotes.Jennie: Oh yeah, that sounds good.Laura: Jennie, before you go, could you please let everyone know where they can find you and your work, and more importantly, where they can get hold of your book.Jennie: Yes, absolutely I am. I am on social media, mostly on Instagram. I am there as @JennieMonologues, and it's Jennie with an ie. And my book Life Almost: Miscarriage Misconceptions and a Search for Answers from the Brink of Motherhood is out now and it's available, it should be available anywhere that you buy your book. So it's on Amazon, but it's also on Bookshop.org and Waterstones. And yeah. If it's not in a bookshop and you go look for ask them for it. Please. That would be, yeah, thank you.Laura: I will make sure to link to your Substack and links,Jennie: Yes. Thank you. Thank you.Laura: Yeah, I'll link to everything in the show notes and the transcript as well so that people can get ahold of your book. Thank you so much, Jennie, and really appreciate this conversation, and I'm really excited for your book to be out in the world.Jennie: Thank you.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Hey team! Welcome to episode three of the CIHAS pod, season 2. This week, I'm joined by Dr. Emma Svanberg - clinical psychologist, speaker and campaigner with expertise in attachment and perinatal psychology - AKA Mumologist on IG. In this episode, we focus on some of the stories that we bring to parenting, and the socially constructed ideas we have about parenting. We talk about how sometimes looking for all the advice and answers actually takes us farther away from what we're looking for, and I ask Emma why she thinks we're so drawn to advice from so-called parenting experts. Finally, we talk about how we can sift through all the noise of parenting advice, and find what's best for us and for our kids and learn to leave the rest. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Emma's here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Sign up to the Raising Embodied Eaters workshop here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Emma: If we are stuck on that idea that this is, you know, the kinda cognitive, that intellectual idea that this is what should happen, it becomes so hard to see our child's experience of what it is that we're trying to do. So again, you know, being able to base those things on the relationship. You know what, what did it feel like when I have prepared this food for my child and they have refused it, or actually they're disgusted by it? How does that make me feel? what does that touch on for me as a parent? And often there are such complex issues with that.INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome to another episode of Can I Have Another Snack podcast, where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now, and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti diet registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to Dr. Emma Svanberg. You may know her better as Mumologist on Instagram. Emma is a clinical psychologist, speaker and campaigner with expertise in attachment and perinatal psychology. She's co-founder of Make Birth Better and founded the Psychology Collective in 2019, which is a team of practitioners offering psychological support and guidance for the whole family.Today we are gonna be talking about Emma's new book, Parenting for Humans, which is out next month and is available to pre-order now. Now, before you get totally freaked out, this book isn't a book that tells you how to be a better parent or to set up new standards or expectations for how you should parent. Rather, the point of the book is to understand how you were parented and all the experiences that you bring to your parenting with the hope of getting to know yourself better and therefore understand what you are bringing to your relationship with your kid. So Emma and I discuss what some of the stories are that we bring to parenting about what we've learned, about what a parent should be from our own experiences, but also what are socially constructed ideas about parenting.We talk about how sometimes looking for all the advice and answers actually takes us further away from what we're looking for. And I ask Emma why she thinks we're so drawn to advice from so-called parenting experts. Finally, we talk about how we can sift through all the noise of parenting advice and find what's best for us and our kids, and learn to just leave the rest.So we'll get to Emma in just a minute, but first I wanted to remind you that my Raising Embodied Eaters workshop is on Tuesday, the 21st of February. Don't worry, it's not going to be me giving you a bunch of useless tips and tricks, but we will explore your relationship with food and think about how you can support your kids to have a positive relationship with food and their body. I will also give you some practical tools, but my intention is to help you take the pressure off of feeding your kids and help you create a home that supports a healthy relationship to food and bodies. I've linked to the full description in the show notes, so you can check it out. It's 15 pounds. It will be, um, all on Zoom, and I'll have the recording available for a week afterwards that you can watch on catch up if you like. Plus you'll also get a copy of my Raising Embodied Eaters Guide to share with friends, family, childcare, and schools. So click the link in the show notes and you'll get the full details of what we're gonna talk about in that workshop. And lastly, before we get to Emma, just a quick reminder that Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader supported publication. I'd love to bring you more deeply researched pieces, but it requires a significant investment in my time, plus the support of an editor and behind the scenes. Admin support. So if you are in a position to become a paid subscriber, then please consider it. It's five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year. It works out at something like 50 p an article. And if that's not accessible for you right now, you can email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk, putting the word ‘snacks' in the subject line, and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription, no questions asked. You don't have to explain yourself. I trust that if you are able to afford a subscription right now, you will, and if not, then just get in touch. All right, team. Here's my conversation with Dr. Emma Svanberg.MAIN EPISODELaura: All right, Emma, I'd love it if you could start by letting us know who or what you are nourishing right now.Emma: Well, at the moment I am just in the process of nourishing the, I suppose, the next few weeks that are coming up for me, which are all about my new book, that is coming out in March called Parenting for Humans, which is a funny process, right? Because you sort of just dated over a long period of time. And then, uh, you know, as you know yourself, as we get closer to launch date, there are lots of different kinda angles to think about. So at the moment I'm both nourishing trying to, uh, talk about my book, trying to really kind of get to grips with understanding how it's going to resonate with people. I think that's the kinda key thing for me thinking about the ideas that I really want to kind of get out there into the world while at the same time still nourishing myself and my family as best I can.Laura: Yeah. I mean, I remember when I published my first book, I didn't have that same, I didn't have any responsibilities to anyone else except myself. and then when the second book came along, I had a six month old at that point, and it was just a completely different experience and it was such a fine balance to kind of, you know, preserve myself in amongst the chaos of book publishing. So I hope that you're managing to, to find pockets and moments to relax and decompress and, and yeah, tend to yourself because it can be a lot. I don't think people realize that writing the book, editing, fact checking, copy editing, all of the, that whole lengthy, lengthy process is like 50% publishing a book. Maybe? Like there's all of the publicity and everything surrounding that is like, is a huge piece of it.Emma: Yeah, absolutely. I think that what makes it easier is that I'm really excited about this book. I mean, I've also written a previous book that was a very niche specialist book about birth trauma and was also very excited about that one of course, but this book kind of really brings in all of the therapeutic ideas that I've worked with with clients and have done so for many years. So in some ways I think that, you know, in itself, kinda talking about the ideas of the book, um, is something that I'm really enjoying doing and kind trying to figure out, you know, which has always been something that's been really important to me, how do we turn what can feel like really inaccessible, complex psychological concepts into ideas that will make sense to people so that they can very quickly then apply them to their own lives.Laura: So, and you've kind of, you've kind of touched on it a little bit in terms of kind of the, um, maybe more how the book functions, but can you tell us a little bit more about what you are covering in the book, what is the message you're trying to get across?Emma: Um, I think that it started off, the idea came from my experience of working with parents. Um, you know I kind of qualified back in 2009, I qualified but, and the experience that I see parents having over that time has changed so much. So back when I first qualified my role was very much about helping parents, most usually mothers within the NHS and I was seeing people to, you know, kinda really value their role and think about kinda getting support in place, you know, very kinda clear difficulties around, for example, birth trauma or anxiety about bonding with a baby or postnatal depression would be a very common, um, difficulty that I'd see. What's shifted in that time is that there is a whole added layer that has been added on top of that for parents, which is around pressure to do things a certain way, to be a certain way. To parent in a particular way, and that is pressure that is felt by parents, but it's also pressure that then is experienced by children. And what we have then seen kind of come up in, particularly in the last five years or so, is so much advice, so much information about how you can tackle that. You know, try doing it like this. This is a really useful strategy that you could have. These are some really useful words that you can say to your child, but what I then see is parents who've tried that, it's not working for a reason, and then they end up feeling like there's something really wrong with me. I'm a terrible parent, or I'm not doing this well enough, or there's something wrong with my child. My child is broken. Because all of these beautiful strategies are not working. Where we-Laura: I never, sorry. Just that, just like really, that really resonated with, not resonated, but it, it kind of, it struck a nerve that I've thought a lot about how pressure, and I think about this a lot as, as a professional who kind of gives advice and, and shares some of the, the things that you talk about in the book, you know, strategies and advice.Um, I try and be really deliberate and thoughtful and intentional about that. Whether or not that lands is another is, is another thing, but, so I, I think through, you know, at being a parent, think through how that, how much pressure and how much pressure there is on parents in general, how that contributes to anxiety, to guilt, to shame, to all of these things.But I hadn't actually thought about how, what the implication is for our children as well and how they experience that as pressure themselves and how they are embodying some of these ideals and ideas and, and fantasies around, what it means a per, to show up as a parent in a, a person in the world and what that will mean for them as they, as they grow up.So, yeah. Sorry, that just , sorry to interrupt you there, but that just kind of really struck me, what you were saying.Emma: It's so often it's about the dynamic, right? We focus our attentions as professionals onto the parents rather than or onto the child. But actually, I think kinda a really core part of the message of the book is that it's about your dynamic as a family and the relationship that exists between all of the different members of the family.So, you know, you, you as a mother might go off and do loads of reading, loads of research, gather loads of information, try particular strategies, but if they don't click for your child or for your family with your partner or for the context in which you're living in, actually, you can end up feeling like I'm not applying this in the correct way, rather than, actually, maybe that strategy wasn't correct for me and my family and the situation that we're in.Laura: Mm-hmm.Emma: I think for me a lot of that work, cause I, I'm an adult psychologist, I focus on work with kinda adult mental health. You know, for me a lot of that is about us as parents understanding where we're coming from. You know what's important to us, what history we're bringing into our parenting relationship.Once we understand ourselves, it becomes so much easier to understand what will work for our child or for our family, and it also really allows us to see them as the people that they are. That's why it's called Parenting For Humans, right? Cause it's about, you know, how do we parent as the whole humans that we are, not just how we show up as mum or dad, but also then parenting our children for the whole humans that they are, which is, you know, flaws and all. Aside from those kind of idealized stories that we read about or hear about that, you know, kinda describe family life as only fitting a very particular model.Laura: Absolutely. Yeah, you, that's one of the, the main themes that you, you talk about at the beginning of the book, this idea that we hold onto stories about what being a parent means, what it looks like, how we should be as parents, what we should value, and so on, and I'm wondering if you could just say a little more about this idea of stories and the impact that holding so tightly to these fantasies can have on us, on our family life, on those dynamics that you mentioned.Emma: Yeah, absolutely. I think, uh, you know, the book is based on this idea of a map that we kinda bring stories onto a map that we don't even know necessarily, that we have. Now might be stories from our own babyhood and childhood and stories from adulthood, stories from society, but also the stories that we've kinda internalized from previous generations, from the cultures that we live in.So, so many stories that we hold unconsciously, the tricky thing for us as adults is that we often don't even know that we're holding those stories until we come up against something that proves them wrong. And there are so many of them in parenthood, right? Like there's the kinda really basic ones like, I dunno, for example, maybe I hold a story that I should be able to put a baby in a blanket, pop it in a cot and it's going to go to sleep and that's just what babies do. That is a story that is so prevalent in our society.You know, think about what you see on tv, what you see in images. You know, those kinda photos that you see of beautiful babies with, you know, angelic faces, fast asleep. And actually then when you experience an actual baby and babies are full of more emotion, that can just change at any moment, you don't always know what that is, because you have that story or maybe you hold that unconscious story that when I put that baby in a blanket and I put it in a crib, it's gonna go to sleep. We're then coming up against that obstacle straightaway when that doesn't work. Cause we internalize that almost like a should, like this is what should happen. And when it doesn't happen, it can often take us quite a while to then think, well maybe that's because that story actually doesn't apply to me, my child, our situation. We then think I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I need a different blanket, maybe I need a different crib, maybe the room temperature's wrong. Maybe my baby has a sleep problem. You know? So we go down that road rather than go that level down and think, what is the story that I've kind internalized here? Is that a story that actually fits for me and for my baby or for my family?Laura: Yeah. I like that idea of kind of peeling back the layers. Like of, okay, this is what I'm told is, you know, could be wrong. Here are all the, you know, as you were listing all those solutions there, I was like, oh my God, there's so many things that we're told that we should do, so many variables that we should, you know, be well, first of all, aware of, and secondly, be able to manipulate. Um, when actually when we strip that away, asking ourselves, does this advice, does this information that I'm sifting through actually apply to me? And, and what is that background story that I've kind of hung, you know, I'm hanging my ideas about my child on, um, and, and, you know, do they actually hold up to scrutiny when we, when we look at them more closely?Emma: Absolutely. And it's, you know, we have to bring them into consciousness before we can hold them up to scrutiny. And that's the bit that often we don't do. Cause we just have so many of these stories. We have so many of these ideas that, you know, just because they're around us all the time, we don't question them.And then as soon as you start questioning them, what often happens is that people have, you know, multiple light bulb moments, right on that journey of parenthood where you suddenly go, oh, why am I doing that actually? Cause that doesn't really work.Laura: I know exactly what you're talking about with those light bulb moments, and I, I remember having one, maybe even, I don't know, as recently as like six or or nine months ago when kind of just, we just got out of, you know, the really, really intense baby phase. It's still pretty intense. But, looking back and, and like thinking about how many of these, you know, like how many stories I suppose I had collected from, you know, parenting books or podcasts or social media accounts or whatever it was.And then having to like really have a talk with myself about like, this is not, this does not apply to me like this , I don't need any of this. This is making things more difficult, more stressful, more pressured for me. And actually, what I noticed was that it was really undermining my own instincts about how I wanted to parent and, and kind of making me second guess myself a lot.Um, and, and as soon as I kind of got to that, it like made things so much simpler. I was like, okay, but is this, does this, you know, now I can look at something and say, okay, but does this actually align with my values? Is this actually helpful to me?Emma: Absolutely. And does it fit?Laura: Does it fit my child? You know, or is it actually gonna cause us more tension or friction or, or whatever it might be.Um, so yeah, I really resonate with that idea of having, being like a sort of light bulb moment and being like, this is trash. We don't need this . Um, and what, what's actually important and valuable for me? There was a part in the book again that really resonated with me, and I think it kind of relates to, um, to what, what we're talking about here. So I have your book and I've, I've highlighted a little section here and I wondered if it'd be okay if I, if I read it back.Emma: Oh, I'd love that. I haven't heard it out loud. So yes,Laura: Have you, you haven't recorded the audio book then yet?Emma: That's coming.Laura: You have that fun to come. So you, you've written, "because when we find ourselves looking for the answers that will make it all easier we can lose sight of the child right in front of us. We have this idea that if we just find the right strategy, the right label, the right technique, the right line to say, perhaps even the right diagnosis, then everything would be okay. Then we'll have cracked it, whatever it is, sleeping, feeding, eating five portions of fruit and veg, good behavior, a healthy relationship. We keep chasing that magic solution and we never stop and look at what is going on right now in ourselves, in our children, and in our families." And yeah, this is such a fine line that I straddle as a practitioner, someone who works with parents and families, how can I be supportive without making it seem like if you just follow my five point plan or my formula , that um, you know, everything will, you know, will solve all, all your problems.I wonder if you could speak to, you know, why we are so drawn to looking to experts to help us figure out how to parent rather than looking at our own child.Emma: I think that there's, well, there's two parts to it, right. There's kinda the context in which we live. So historically we would've lived closer to our families. We would've been part of communities, you know, even when I was a child, absolutely, there was much more a sense of kinda community there, other neighbors around, or more experienced parents who you might come to a particular guidance.So a lot of that has gone, you know, people are parenting much more in isolation. Um, and also in this country, that kind early intervention, preventative care that used to be very much part of the early parenting experience where you'd have a midwife that you knew well, you'd a health visitor that you knew well.There were community nurses that were around, had school nurses, so you know, all of those professionals that you had easy access to have virtually disappeared in the last kind of 15 years. So that has made a huge difference to people's ability to access information. The research shows that people still do turn to their family and friends, first and foremost, for information above experts.I think then when you have maybe particular issues that you are struggling with, where you might want to speak to a professional like you, if you can't access that for whatever reason, then of course there is this, you know, absolute wealth of information that is now available to you on the internet. So I think that there's just a kind practical reality to how differently we live and how that has meant that lots of people have less access to professional expertise then maybe they would have done in the past.There's also, I think, because there's so much more information out there that is accessible on the internet, for example, um, people tend to feel a bit bombarded. So there can be a pressure to feel like you have to choose a particular camp, you know, I follow the expertise of experts who follow like this line of thinking, for example.And then, you know, you can absolutely go down a rabbit hole finding out so much information about this one particular thing. But if that is a, an idea or um, a set of strategies that doesn't really fit your family, it can feel really hard to then pull yourself out that and shift to different, different model, you know, these things are presented to us as different models or strategies rather than flexible ideas that we might be able to apply in flexible ways. And then I also think the kind of other side of it is, I mean, we know this in a wider sense, that we do live in a society that rises perfection. And often when we come to have children, we might have already felt great sense of achievement and success in other areas of our life.And there can be a sense for lots of parents that they're gonna take same set of principles that I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do this well, and by doing it well I have to follow these particular guidelines. If I do these things, and that means that I'm a good parent, and it's almost like we apply that same sense of achievement, productivity, purpose to the act of parenting.What's difficult, of course, is that they children and ourselves change on a daily basis, you know when they're really little they change almost on an hourly basis, so, when we can feel like we're picking that box, we feel like we've got a strategy or a plan that works, if our child changes or our circumstances change, or we change, you know, and, and actually, you know, again, that kinda idea of flexibility can feel quite hard to hold onto. Think it's a combination of lots of different things and, and then of course, you know, supply and demand. The more that we look for expertise, the more experts will share their knowledge with us.Laura: Mm-hmm.Emma: You know it's so easy to be able to go and find a piece of information that we're looking for. And there can be tremendous benefits to that. And again, the research shows that there is a benefit to that. The cost is for people who have that sense of socially oriented perfectionism, where there might be a sense of shame or judgment, when they don't feel like they're meeting this particular ideal, for example, that might be held up to them by the different things that they're kinda reading or hearing.So again, I think, yeah, lots of different reasons. Some, some of them have kinda huge benefits to us in kinda what we have access to, but that also has to be held in mind with what it's costing us in terms of the pressure that we put on ourselves as parents. But also, like we said before, the pressure that then puts on us as a family, in the relationships within the family if not everybody's on board with that way of doing things. So it's important to kind of hold that in mind too. And sometimes, you know, you can take the bits that you need from experts, but essentially what it comes down to is how am I gonna apply this to my situation or our situation? That can be really hard to do.Laura: Mm-hmm. And, and I want to, to talk to you in a second, just a little bit about how we can sort of sift through the noise and, and figure out what, what is valuable and helpful for us. Because as you say, there are things that you know, might, might make a difference and, and might be really important, um, you know, might be great, helpful information for us. But  really appreciated you naming in the book and, and you've said it again here, just sort of this, what I would conceptualize probably as sort of internalized capitalism. This idea to constantly be producing, to be achieving, to be succeeding. And, and as you pointed out in the book, you know, that's how we are, um, schooled. That's, you know, if we go onto further education, that's how we approach our employment. But do we ever take a step back and, and think about why am a, applying the same tools to my parenting and, and my relationships with other human beings as I am to, you know, a, a achieving, um, you know, a certificate or a degree or whatever, whatever it might be. And I just think that, yeah, capitalism has so much to answer for here, both in terms of that and, and how we just approach our parenting. But also going back to what you were saying before about how we used to be so much more in community and around, you know, we would turn to like our parents or maybe like our older siblings or neighbors or cousins or, or whatever it was that were, you know, in proximity to us. And now it's so much easier to just look at, at, at somebody on our phone than it is to like reach out and have a meaningful conversation with someone. And that's because we're, you know, capitalism thrives right, by keeping us isolated, keeping us away from each other, um, when we are, we are so interdependent especially when it comes to, to parenting. And I think about this a lot in terms of how much easier it would be to feed kids if we were more in community. You know, if your neighbors were like taking round a lasagna cuz like you've had this reciprocal thing where like, you know, you each double batch cooked something and then swapped every week so that you ha-, you know, that you were caring for each other in that way and sharing the load and sharing the burden.And also when we're in community, we can see that, yeah. Oh, look, that toddler also doesn't eat vegetables. Cool. All right. it's a toddler thing. Whereas when we, when we look, log into social media, all we hear is like, oh, let's, you know, try and program our children to love broccoli more than they love cake or you know, whatever, whatever it is. So I'm on my high horse now, Emma, but-Emma: So go for it. Go for it. Love it.Laura: I just, I guess kind of thinking, thinking a little bit more specifically about feeding, um, and like the relationship that our children have, um, with food, which I think is so often, well it's a reflection of our own relationship with our food and we with food and our bodies and we, if we have unresolved things there, then that can, can kind of have a cascade effect.But also, you know, I see a lot of generic feeding advice that gets thrown around without nuance or caveats or, or just even the disclaimer of like, it, you don't have to do this if it doesn't work for you and your family. I think, I feel like if people said that more often, that would be really helpful.But this advice ends up adding more pressure to the feeding relationship, which can be counterproductive for feeding, and perpetuates this narrative about a correct or a best way to feed a child. And I mean, we could extrapolate this to almost any element of parenting. It's just I'm interested in feeding.Can we talk about how we can find a way to like sift through the noise and tune into what works for you and your family?Emma: Um, I obviously would say yes, And one of the things that I talk about in the book is kinda, uh, general parenting tools rather than kinda overarching strategies that there are, you know, few key things if you can hold them in mind, then you can apply different advice to your child and your family situation.And for me, one of the most important ones of them is around collaboration. And I think that, you know, what we were talking about before when you were talking about capitalism and that kinda sense of productivity and purpose, how that applies to feeding, and you know, in the home, how we bring our own histories into that too. I think so often when we're, whether we're talking about feeding, whether we're talking about anything else to do with family life, we come to it in a very intellectual way, we're talking about I'm going to apply this principle or I'm going to do it this way, and that's just going to work.What I focus on a lot in the book is that how do we go down into thinking about this as a relationship, which I know you talk about, you know, feeding is a relationship, that we bring our own relationship with food into that, but also our child will have their own experience with food. When we come at things from a cognitive way, you know, we're thinking about this is what I'm gonna apply to this situation and we're not thinking so much about how it's going to land with that other person. Or what they're bringing to that situation.Laura: Mm.Emma: So let's say you followed some beautiful advice that you've seen on social media around talking broccoli, that we're going to feed children broccoli.If we are stuck on that idea that this is, you know, the kinda cognitive, that intellectual idea that this is what should happen, it becomes so hard to see our child's experience of what it's we're trying to do. So again, you know, being able to base those things on the relationship. You know what, what did it feel like when I have prepared this food for my child and they have refused it, or actually they're disgusted by it?How does that make me feel, what does that touch on for me as a parent? And often there are such complex issues with that. Right? In the book, I kinda start off by thinking about us as, as whole human beings and what we're bringing. And then, you know, it's only when we understand ourselves that we can really think about how can we then relate to our children.So with food for example, you know, so much gets brought up for us as parents, where our children, we feel rejected. We feel like we're not doing, you know, good job, I can't even feed my child. It's one of those basic tasks like how can this be so hard? You know, that basic thing that everyone else seems to be doing ok. I must be doing something wrong. So what touches on for you, you know, those feelings of, let's say rejection or, or you know, conversely, maybe it's fury, you know how, how dare they reject this? I've worked so hard, so we're thinking about our own histories.And once we can think about what does that touch on for us, we can then think about, what do we want to shift so that our experience, our emotions aren't getting in the way of what we're trying to do with our child, which is very much a relational process.Once we understand that and we can think about what we're bringing, then we can think about what are those pieces of information advice that do fit? Where are those things actually that I feel like are still niggling, like actually this makes me so angry, so that maybe I wanna go think about that somewhere outside of this situation or circumstances. And it's only really then once we understand all of that, that we can then think about how does that child actually feel about broccoli? You know, do they actually like broccoli?If they don't, what am I gonna do about that? Am I gonna persevere? Is that worth it for me? Do I have the resources? Maybe it's okay for them not to eat broccoli for a little while, while I just get over all emotions that this broccoli has brought in. You know, it seems so simple these are the things that come up for us as parents, you know, multiple, multiple times a day when these particular situations or events can touch something that can feel so fundamental, so emotional, so raw. What we tend to then do is that we bring in more information, more kinda cognitive information so that we try a different strategy rather than than pause at that point and think, why is it that this is bringing up something that feels so powerful for me that is getting in the way of what I want to happen between me and my child?Does that make sense?Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. And, and I think like, just to maybe put it in slightly more, concrete context, at least this is something I've been thinking a lot about recently when I see a lot of advice about feeding our children. It's, you know, there's like, let's take for example, this idea that you shouldn't offer alternatives, right? If the child doesn't like, you know, doesn't eat what's on the table. By, you know, there's this, there's this school of thought by of, of like, well, if you offer alternatives, then your child is manipulating you and you know, you're getting into this battle of wills with your child and you know, setting aside what's going on with the child's psychology there, you're already setting this up as a sort of,Emma: A battle. Laura: A battle. Yeah. Uh, rather than a relationship where, you know, where you might be able to be like, okay, what, what, what's coming up for me when they refuse their broccoli? And Okay. Then once I've, once I've maybe processed that a little bit and, you know, talk myself down off the edge. What's going on for them?Oh, actually, like they have a sensor processing difference or they, you know, there's not enough safe foods on the table, so they can't actually, it doesn't feel, they don't have that sense of felt safety that allows them to come to the table and, and have a meal with the, the rest of the family if you're even eating at a table in the first place.Basically, it actually prevents us from being responsive to the child that is in front of us. And, and I, I know responsive can be kind of like a loaded term for some people, but what I mean by that is literally just being able to see the, the child and their needs and meet them where they're at rather than kind assuming that actually they're trying to manipulate you and,Emma: Totally. And I think we can often have this idea, right, that we as parents are in control and that if our children are not doing the things that we feel like they should be doing, that they're meant to be doing, that other people's children seem to be doing, then that's our failure as a parent and we just need to try harder or we need to work more, or that there's something wrong with them and so we need to work at kinda fixing them. Actually, you know, the relationship between a parent and child is so complex. You know, it's almost, we have this idea that children are like these malleable objects that, you know, if we're just molding them in the right way, then they're gonna come out, the outcome is gonna be the one that we are, you know, striving for.Rather than actually our children come into the world as these whole human beings who have their own thoughts, feelings, needs, beliefs, tastes, you know, and also then within the, the wider context in which we're living. You know, can I afford broccoli at the moment? How do I feel about broccoli? You know, what happened when I refused broccoli at the kitchen table?And how much is that impacting on how I feel now? So, you know, our history, our current circumstances, the relationships that we're in our work environments, our financial circumstances. You were talking about broccoli, but all of those things can really, um, you know, kinda, yeah. Obviously have a huge impact on these kinda very, what seem like very minor circumstances.Laura: Yeah. What does that broccoli represent?Emma: What does broccoli represent?Laura: What's it really about?Emma: I'm thinking about people listening to this and go, yeah, typical psychologist, right? We're talking about broccoli and now I'm talking about like wider society, but actually, you know, because we so often just see that kind of one idea of it's just, it's just about the broccoli and you know, if, if I tried hard enough then I'd be able to mold my child to eat that broccoli or whatever it might be.But when we can take into account everything that we're bringing, everything that they're bringing, our wider circumstances, then we can kinda, yeah, focus in on that relationship as whole people, right? Like this is who I'm showing up to this, you know, this kitchen table and this is who they're, and this is how they're showing up.And you know, all of those kinda different circumstances, how tired they are, all of those things that can get in the way, that once we let go of that idea of this is how it should be, we can start to see what actually is, you know, what actually is in front of us. And then we can, you know, think about solutions to target what is going on in those moments?Laura: I think there is something, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this as well, Emma, that feels uniquely. kind of, yeah. I think you used the word fundamental earlier or primitive or something that, you know, gets to really the core of, um, you know, survival for humans when it comes to feeding that really kind of just, it kind of, it's like a knife gets dug in in a way that it doesn't with, with some other areas of, of parenting that, yeah. It's just such a, an essential part maybe of parent, feeding your child particularly again, I'm thinking to like those early, um, early weeks and months and, and years when, you know, there is that kind of narrative of like, the first 1000 days are the most important of a child's life and you know, what you feed them now is gonna impact their, you know, cognitive development and da da da da da for the rest of their lives.And so I just wonder if, from a psychologist perspective, if you have any thoughts about just like, you know, what that's kind of touching on for us when feeding isn't going well. Emma: I think you're right. I think it's so primitive, you know, that actually so much of parenting is around these kind of really primitive survival mechanisms.Laura: Yeah.Emma: You know that actually our, our role first and foremost is to keep this child alive you know whatever, at whatever cost. And you know, feeding difficulties, can start, you know, from day one. So thinking about, you know, kinda those who have breastfeeding difficulties or feel judged for their feeding choices, for example. And then that can kinda go on so much through food being a representation of love, you know, how did we experience that when we were growing up?And then how do we wanna kinda translate that for our own family again within the context that we're in. So if we're, you know, two parents are working full-time, for example, how does, how, how do we kinda translate that into, you know, eating together or those kinda idealized family meals that we hold in our minds? So I think it can be very fraught. It can be such a fraught experience. And I think it's also an experience that is so judged, right? You know, thinking about feeding babies, thinking about what kinda food we give our toddlers, thinking about, you know, the, all of the stories that you've spoken about, diet, culture, obesity, all of that kinda, it can get really mixed. Our own relationships with our bodies, our own relationships with food, and how that comes up in our experience of feeding our children, how well supported we are in that, you know, financially. Again, kinda how that, how that can impact on what we're able to offer our children. So, I think, you know, it is the way that we express love, it's the way that we kinda show our children that we care about them. At the same time, there is so much pressure to do it a certain way so it can become so fraught so quickly.Laura: Yeah.Emma: And we also don't talk enough about how boring it can be to feed children day in and day out.Laura: It's so relentless. Three meals, three snacks. Like, oh, you don't like this anymore. Suddenly you like that.Emma: And especially, you know, when, you know, you've kind of been, if you've raised children during lockdowns and you literally, you know, it was almost like a constant rotation of food over lockdowns. So, you know, I think that we don't talk enough about that kinda ambivalence around, you know, not just parenting tasks, but parenting in general.But, you know, again, the idea is that we're have this kinda lovely, you know, food environment that, um, we're gonna share these kinda pleasant meals together where the family are coming together to talk about their day. All of this kinda, again, kinda back to stories, narratives, ideals that we hold when actually for a lot of parents, food is something that can just feel quite boring and quite relentless and, and often very stressful.And, and you know, as soon as we start talking about that side of things too, the more difficult, the more negative side of things. Often we can feel a sense of relief that actually it doesn't have to be this one ideal way that actually all of these experiences can be so complex and varied with individual.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for, for speaking to the, to that point and, and I think naming how Yeah. Tedious feeding a family can be. And we were kind of talking a little bit off mic. I have a piece coming out next week that talks about, um, feeding a child as an aesthetic. Like that's what we see so much of on, on, um, social media when actually if, if we're feeding with that per- like idealized image in our head. Again, it occludes us from seeing the child in front of us and being in relationship with that child and, and food can be, You know, again, without romanticizing it, it can be ti-, a time for connection and for checking in. It can also just be a cluster fuck, sometimes and through nobody else, you know, through no one's fault.Um, just because you, sometimes you have to just get food in their mouths to sustain them to get to the next activity or like, you know, to grandma's house or what, you know, whatever it is. So, um, yeah, I think. I really appreciate that you know, that you're having these conversations where we're looking at the messy, ugly, boring, tiring, exhausting side of it, but not in this like meme-ified way that we often see that that sort of like really trivializes how exhausting and draining and how much hard work all of this is.But yeah, I really appreciate that in your, in the book that you're kind of inviting us to check in with what, what stories and fantasies we're bringing to our parenting that actually might be causing us more suffering and, and, and harming the relationships that we're having with, with our families so that we can kind of, you know, give ourselves permission to take what we need and leave the rest ofEmma: Yeah. Yeah. And you can get really creative then, right? Like once you let go of those ideas and you think about what do I want? What do we need as a family, you can get really creative with the way that you do things.Laura: Yeah.Emma: You know, for example, feeding children in the bath, that is something that somebody that I know does, you know, occasionally when they've had a really tricky day and it's been an absolute shitshow, I'm like, you know we're gonna get in the bath, you can have some sandwiches, that means I don't need to do any cleaning up, and then I'm gonna pop you into bed and I'm going to sit on the sofa and that is not something that you'd ever see on Instagram, I don't think.But you know, just that kinda idea of what, what is gonna work for me? And what do I need right now and what does my child need right now? And maybe they don't need to have this kinda really beautiful aesthetic, aesthetically pleasing, mealtime actually. Maybe they just need to eat something quickly so that you can then move on with your day or have connection in a different way, and if you know, as you know, and you talked about, you know, the stress that can come with feeding can cause such a vicious circle so quickly that actually anything that you can do to kinda nip that in the bud and again bring in ideas around flexibility, creativity. What's gonna work so that you can feed your child but also in a way that feels the least stressful for all of you?Laura: Yeah, absolutely. I fully endorse toast for dinner. If that's like, you know what you need to do to like put something in their bellies and get them to bed. Like as long as they're having enough to eat, then yeah, we're good. Emma, thank you so much. This has been a really great conversation. Before I let you go, I want to ask you who or what is nourishing you right now?Emma: Um, well at the moment I've been really focused on kinda restoration, so I think last year I did a lot of work around kinda reflection over the pandemic experience that parents had and how burnt out so many are, given the experiences of the past few years that are continuing. But at the moment, what I'm really kinda nourishing myself with, so a particular person, Lama Rod, who is an amazing meditation teacher and started to run these Thursday meditation groups, for UK people, cause he's based in the States. So, I've been kind of really consuming a lot of his work and his presence is just incredibly helpful and healing and I really love what he has to say about this particular time that we live in. I think that you'll really like him. He has a lot to say about you know, he calls this the age of apocalypse that we are coming into, we're in dark times at the moment, but there actually is by embracing that darkness that we can start to think about what we wanna shift into the future. So very much about, you know, not being afraid of embracing the dark, messy stuff, which is something that feels, really resonates with me.Laura: I think that, um, it reminds me of Bayo Akomolafe's work. I don't know if you're familiar with their book, um, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences where they talk about that in terms of like climate crisis and, um, but also like racism and parenting. They're a parent. It's like, there's also some like nuclear physics or something in there. It's like, it's a really dense dense book. But, um, I'll, I'll link to that and I'll link to, sorry, what say the name of the, the per-, the,Emma: His name is Lama, Lama Rod Owens, and he's on Instagram, but he also has stuff on the internet and he does a number of courses. He also wrote a book, so.Laura: Okay. I'll link, definitely link to, to them in the, in the show notes. And then the final question I have for you, Emma, is, what are you snacking on right now? So at the end of every episode, my guest and I share something. It's like a recommendation that they have for the audience. It can be an actual snack. I mean, I feel like you've just given us a recommendation, but I want another one. Like what you've been into lately.Emma: I am snacking on rest, which I think, you know, the, again, we can often have this idea that we have to do these things in a perfect way. That you know, what our kind of recovery journey might look like, having a few years where I think things have been so intense, you know so many families... You know that if we talk about kinda how, you know, self healing or wellness journeys, often we're talking about, I'm up and meditate for an hour in morning. You just can't do that when you've got children, or it's hard to do that when you've got children, so I am a big fan of snacking on moments of rest, you know moments during the day to just reset yourself. So even just sitting with your eyes closed, taking a few deep breaths.Or just thinking about the ground beneath your feet or just stopping, you know, so that you're not just going and going and going all day, but when you taking a moment to check in with yourself and just see how you are.Laura: I love that microdosing on rest throughout the day.Emma: Absolutely.Laura: Love it. Okay, so my, I feel like my thing is kind of just silly, but in a, in a good way. So we are recording this in January, 2023. So we're just coming out of like the holiday blah, whatever that was. But I just came across last, at the end of last week, the 2022 Haters Guide to the Williams Sonoma catalog.So I'm not sure if you're familiar with what Williams Sonoma is, but it's this US based brand and it's like if you think about like a John Lewis or like, you know, a higher end department store, but on steroids. Um, that's Williams Sonoma. It's like all these wildly expensive, like, you know, like a countertop pizza oven.Like nobody needs that in a flat in London, you know, like who needs that? Who has the kitchen space for that? And it's like, you know, everything is, like, all the kitchen appliances are like $500 and stuff. But anyway, this guy just goes through a bunch of items in the Williams Sonoma, um, catalog takes like the copy that they've written in there and just rips it a new one, just tears into it and it's hilarious and it's very cathartic, um, and highly enjoyable. So I'll link to that, I know we're like, out of Christmas season and holiday season. But, um, I think it's still worthwhile to have a little look at and, um, you can watch out for the 2023 one if you're listening to this later in the year. All right, Emma, can you tell everyone the name of your amazing new book and where they can find out more information about you?Emma: Uh, yes. So I am Mumologist on Instagram and loads of my kinda links and everything are on there. Or my website is dremmasvanberg.com. The book is called Parenting for Humans, and it's out on March 2nd which is World Book Day, which I love.Laura: Lovely. That's so,Emma: So, you know, I'd again love it if people would pre-order it. That makes a big difference. But yeah, if people do get their hands on it, I'd love to hear what people make of it.Laura: We'll have all of the links for Emma's books and her social media and her website in the transcript and in the show notes for this episode. So check her out. Thank you so much, Emma. This was,Emma: Thank you.Laura: will be really reassuring for a lot of parents to just hear that, Okay we can let go of some of the pressure and expectations and just check in with ourselves and figure out what it is that we need and what we want from our relationships.Emma: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for chatting.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm joined by dietitian and activist Jessica Wilson to discuss her new book It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies - a book that uplifts and celebrates Black women.In the episode we talk all about what drove Jessica to write the book and why we need to re-centre the experiences of Black women in our conversations about bodies and eating disorders. Jessica shares some of her critiques of intuitive eating and body positivity, and why white supremacy isn't the root of diet culture, but the whole damn tree. Plus, lots of Lizzo chat and great Snacks. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Find out more about Jessica here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Sign up to the Raising Embodied Eaters workshop here.Subscribe to my newsletter here.Here's the transcript in full:Jessica: And so, so quickly it became diet culture has racist roots. And that was the concession. Like, we need to talk about both of these things in anti-diet spaces. And the way that we're gonna do it is say that diet culture, you know, make it really like this tree analogy. Uh, and then just happens to have racist roots.Whereas I see white supremacy as the tree, it's what's sticking up out of the ground. It's what we can see. It's what is, you know, ruling and governing and decides, you know, who is able to fit under its branches. And I, you know, shrinking ourselves via, maybe that's the connection to diet culture there, is one way people are trying to seek shelter under this, you know, umbrella, this tree of white supremacy.INTROLaura: Hey team, and welcome to another episode of Season Two of Can I Have Another Snack? Podcast, where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet registered nutritionist and author of the Can I Have Another Snack? Newsletter.I can't wait to share today's conversation with dietician and activist Jessica Wilson, who is also author of the forthcoming book, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies. I've linked to this book in the show notes because you need to go and pre-order it immediately. So in this conversation you'll hear Jessica and I discuss her new book. We'll talk about some of the ideas that she presents in the book, like how the body stories and narratives of Black women are raised and silenced in conversations about health, wellness, and body positivity. Jessica tells us about why if we distill difficulties with food down to just the thin ideal, we end up missing a lot of the complexity of how Black women are told to be figuratively and literally smaller as a matter of survival. We talk about how intuitive eating and rejecting diet culture don't address systemic issues like anti-fatness and anti-blackness. And they perpetuate the idea that we need to find individualistic solutions to systemic and structural violence. We talk about how white supremacy and anti-blackness isn't at the root of diet culture, but how, in Jessica's words, it's the whole damn tree. We talk about Lizzo and respectability, resilience and toxic body positivity, and loads and loads more. I think I'm gonna be unpacking this book for a long time to come, and I'm just so grateful to Jessica for writing it and I think as a white person, I mean, my opinion doesn't really matter here, but I feel like it's important to sit with the discomfort and the critiques and reflect on the ways that I've perpetuated some of these harmful systems and narratives. And if you're a white person in this space, whether for personal or professional reasons, you need to get this book and also sit with that discomfort.So again, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Stories of Black Women's Bodies, and it's available to pre-order now and it will be out on the 7th of February. The pre-order links are in the show notes. It goes without saying that we talk about themes around anti-blackness and enslavement and anti-fatness. So if you're a black person or a fat person, please take care of yourself if you choose to listen to this conversation.All right, before we get to today's conversation with Jessica, I just want to share that I'm gonna be running my Raising Embodied Eaters workshop again in February. It will be a 90 minute workshop. Completely online and you will be sent a copy of the recording afterwards to watch back. We'll talk about how kids' embodiment gets disrupted by diet culture, and what this has to do with feeding. We'll discuss why we need to throw the rule book out of the window and let them have ice cream before broccoli, and how we can help build trust in our kids to get what they need. I'll offer a framework that can help you feel more relaxed about mealtimes, whilst encouraging kids to have autonomy. We'll talk about how providing supportive structure can encourage children to remain in touch with their internal cues for hunger, satisfaction, pleasure, and fullness. And I'll cover how fussy eating develops, and other developmental milestones as well as tools to help support our kids through them. We'll talk about why cutting out sugar and saying things like just another bite can undermine kids' instincts around food, and we'll cover how to talk about food and bodies without harming. You'll be asked to fill out a short questionnaire about your specific situation ahead of time, and I'll try to tailor the content to the audience as much as possible. You'll also get a copy of my Raising Embodied Eaters download. The workshop is suitable for grownups of kids of all ages, but best probably for kids under 12. Parents, whatever that means to your family, grandparents, teachers, nutrition professionals, and anyone else working with kids are more than welcome to join. It'll be on Tuesday, the 21st of February, also pancake day, that's seven o'clock and it's 15 pounds to join. Full details and booking information is in the show notes and the transcript for this episode.And just before we get to Jessica, just a quick reminder that Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader supported publication and podcast. I'd love to bring you more deeply researched pieces like my piece on clean eating and kids from a couple weeks ago, but it requires a significant investment in my time, plus the support of an editor. So if you are in a position to become a paid supplier, then please consider it, it's five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year. And if that's not accessible to you right now, you can email hello@laurathomasphd.co uk, putting the word “snax” in the subject line, and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription, no questions asked. You don't need to justify yourself. Just send that email with “snax” in the subject line and we'll hook you up with a comp subscription.Okay, team, here is my conversation with Jessica Wilson.MAIN EPISODELaura: All right, Jessica. I'd love it if you could tell us who or what you are nourishing right now.Jessica: That will be a big what. Laura, you're the first person that I get to talk to on a podcast and share that my book, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies will be out finally in 2023. So I am putting all of my energy and capacity into taking that book across the finish line.Laura: They don't tell you when you sign that book deal, that the publishing part, like the promoting, the marketing, all of that stuff is like more work than just like the writing part and the editing part, which is also a lot.Jessica: It is and at least you know like where you're going with that. You know where the book ends, begins and is in the middle, but then this nebulous like what is happening afterwards, that is also more work. Yeah. I was not prepared. I recommend somebody write a book about what it's like to write a book.Laura: I know we need that book.Jessica: Yeah. It never ends, it never slows down is the summary.Laura: But that's also a good sign. Like if they're keeping you busy with lots of marketing stuff, that's a good sign. And for good reason because I have been one of the very privileged people to read an advanced copy and I'm just, I'm so excited about this book. I think you've done such an amazing job of like dissecting these, like really difficult to, to digest and process ideas, but you've woven it, interwoven it with like humor, and like historical context and pop culture references and, and like, it just, it's like a pleasure to read it even though it's like really difficult to to read. So tell, can you tell the audience what the book is about and what it is that you're trying to say through this book?Jessica: I think that there were two parts of it, um, in my career as a dietician for, ooh, 15, I don't know, 17 years we'll say. Um, and even before that, the ways that we've talked about eating disorders, the ways that we've talked about eating always centers, like white folks experiences and the ways that eating disorders are supposed to present are how they present in very thin white girls and women.And like I was trained with all of that knowledge and it just was falling flat on its face when I was working with anybody else who wasn't thin, white and a cis woman in my work. And I also didn't have any other Black dietician colleagues, we only make up like 3% of the dietician field. And so I had no one to talk to about it.Um, like very lost reading Carolyn Costin's book, which again, you know, it's not anything new, it's just the same old centering of the same people. Um, so it wasn't like years or decades later that I realized that all of this needed to be in one place. I was having so many conversations, but how can we put all of this and give it context in a place and in a time where, you know, diet, culture and intuitive eating are becoming so much to the lexicon. And it still wasn't as complex as I really needed it to be.Laura: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a lot of nuance missing from those conversations and a lot of people missing from those conversations. Like in the book, you detail, you know how there are a few, like, I mean, it is like a few old white dudes in the eating disorder field that have written all the manuals, all the textbooks, all the protocols, all the psychometric testing everything,Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: to center their ideas about who gets an eating disorder, how it presents, and what the root causes are, which you completely obliterate in like the first couple of chapters.Jessica: The idea that it's all about beauty, right, is one that I for sure, you know, was trained in. It was everybody wanting to be thin and thin for beauty's sake. And because we have very thin models, like that's why people want to shrink themselves. Um, and yeah, just to be prettier and as we, you and I have discussed, and you know, other communities as well. Uh, folks of color, particularly black women in this book, can find a lot of survival and safety by making themselves both, uh, literally and figuratively smaller. So by shrinking, you know, in spaces where we're told we're too much, or even, you know, before we can be told we're too much, shrinking ourselves is one way to find that, you know, survival in white supremacy and then also of course for fat folks mitigating anti-fatness, um, by, you know, starving oneself is one way to find a bit more peace, even if it is not, you know, both sustaining and nourishing, I guess, for them.Laura: Yeah, it's a survival mechanism. It's a way of living in a world that is openly hostile to you and trying to make that as, as easy as possible for yourself. And even then, it's not easy. It's still not easy.Jessica: Yeah. And some people hear, you know, this conversation and I've had comments on Instagram that, you know, say, well, it sounds like you're saying it's okay to have an eating disorderLaura: Jesus fucking Christ.Jessica: And I'm like, no, I understand why you're saying that. I totally see why when I say I understand why you're starving yourself, to somebody who could be triggered to hear, I approve of you having an eating disorder.But yeah, that's not what is going on.Laura: That's a real red herring.Jessica: Yeah. The compassion, the understanding, and then also like eating disorder recovery is not going to make the things that they are, you know, somewhat solving by becoming smaller. They're not gonna make those things go, like magically go away.So how do we have a really, really hard conversation that talks about not just eating intuitively and recovering, but like the harms of society.Laura: Yeah. You're not saying that restriction, deprivation and trying to micromanage everything that you eat and trying to shrink your isn't unpleasant. You're saying, you're, it's not un-Jessica: or differently harmfulLaura: Yeah,  it's one way of trying to survive in a world that's really unsafe. And what you were saying is like these are the options availableJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: The, the options are try and reform, conform through restriction and deprivation and, uh, you know, through effectively self-harm or endure the, you know, more microaggressions or overt aggression um, because you, you're even farther from the white ideal, is that like. Jessica: And what society finds acceptable. There is no easy path. under white supremacy for those whose bodies don't align with what, you know, Puritan culture had in mind. And that we continue to value as a, as a society. So there really is no easy path forward. And all of us are really trying to do the best we can.Laura: And I think you kind of touched on this as well, but you talk about, in the book that, you know, rejecting diet culture and embracing anti-diet, intuitive eating approaches to eating is not the one, it's, it's not gonna save us. That these are oversimplifications of, you know, what, what needs to happen, what needs to change.Do you wanna kind of touch on that a little bit more and, and explain why, why you think that is?Jessica: I think you teed it up really nicely when we talked about the safety and survival that people can find in shrinking themselves. Intuitive eating in all of its, you know, forms, fashion and principles like is not going to make anti-fatness or anti-blackness go away. So even if I, you know, are open to start eating again, if I've been restricting and in deprivation and I want to embrace intuitive eating, the reasons that I had shrunk myself initially, like will arise, and intuitive eating is not going to be like that solution. I will still be experiencing the other things. Again, also, it's an individual solution to a societal problem. And I often find that, you know, me asking you, Laura, to participate in these like rituals, these um, principles, you know, really puts the onus on you as a person that needs to solve a problem that you did not create.Laura: Hmm.Jessica: And as a clinician, you know, that doesn't read well to me. And I also, um, I want people to think less about food because, you know, as you know, as we deprive ourselves, the amount of times and amount of time spent thinking about food goes up exponentially.And so I don't like to really organize people's existence around, you know, always thinking about their food, but also not having like specifics as a, as a field. In the book I talk about talking to three of my white eating disorder specialist, dietician friends, and I said, how are they talking about intuitive eating these days?And I say that all three of them, you know, took their hands like butterfly wings across their chest and like fluttered them a bit. That's how you'll know if you're eating intuitively, was the message. And I was like, what does that mean? What are we doing as a field if a solution to a societal problem involves both like rigidity and fluttering hands.It's just, it's not the solution we need to society.Laura: Look, you know, that I have been an advocate of intuitive eating, have been, you know, I've talked a lot about it. I've written two fucking books about intuitive eating. But as I read that part of your book, I like threw up in my mouth a little bit. I was like, not, not actually like that butJessica: Yes.Laura: But, I was just like, that's gross. That, it was just really upsetting to read that that's, what it's been reduced down to is just like this, like ethereal feeling , that that's what intuitiveJessica: When you know, you'll know . No,Laura: that's fucked up, it's really fucked up and I'm kind of, you know, becoming more and more aware of how, um, sort of evangelical people are about intuitive eating. And I hope that, something that I've kind of gotten across in my books is that if we are, you know, if, if you are trying to practice intuitive eating to the letter and you're so inflexible in those principles, that's a diet and that you are recreating, reproducing the same ways of thinking and patterns of of being as, as, as in a diet. So what, we're not actually achieving anything. And like you, like the goal is, is to not think that much about food apart from like, okay, I need to eat something. What do I have available to me? Or do I need something in like,Jessica: Do I have enough groceries? Have I packed a snack?Laura: This is really important. Like, it's very important to bring snacks.Jessica: But yeah. Um, in the religiosity. I fully agree. And, see the connection again with the idea that we should be only eating for biological reasons, is another way the religiosity flows in there. Because, you know, I made the connection, my boss made the connection between that and the like, only have sex for procreation. Um, and just like wear these, like deny yourself pleasure, deny yourself, you know, so many things unless it's in a religious context and then you're able to have sex or then you're able to enjoy food if it's only for biological reasons. So never, and have pleasure with food or sex. So yeah, I definitely see the evangelism and religiosity forLaura: It is, and there's also just like this, I mean, I was literally shoving toffee in my mouth as I was reading that section, like, which is just funny. But, yeah, there is this distortion and I think that the way that that intuitive eating is, is talked about and how it's been popularized and, and this, because it's, it's come from the intuitive eating book is, as you say, this denial of pleasure, this, um, denial of our appetite and the fact that we eat outside of these very like narrow, very specific, parameters and that it, like, it's fine if you like are passing a window like a bakery and you see something and you're like, that looks good. I wanna eat that. Like, yeah. To, to just reduce hunger down to, or reduce eating down to only, only eating when you're hungry is, is ludicrous. But it, it's also really harmful because, uh, you know, I've, I've been in the room with clients who are like, but I, you know, when do I eat? And like the mental acrobatics of it all is a lot.There's, yeah, there's this other thing that I've seen happening with intuitive eating that makes me so deeply uncomfortable is how it's just become this like, really, it's like girl boss feminism, but for food. Do you know what I mean? Jessica: Tell me more. No, I love this. Where's this going?Laura: I think I maybe got this idea from Toi Smith who, I don't know if you know Toi, a Black woman who, she talks a lot about capitalism and the effects of capitalism on our lives. She has a lot of great things to say, but she talks about the commodification of wisdom that is just innate to humans, right?Jessica: Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah,Laura: Like it's something that we kind of know in our bodies and how white women in particular sort of repackage this and try and sell it you at a premiumJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: and like that's what I feel like intuitive eating has become. And I see this a lot happening with child feeding, right? Like, we're going way off topic. We will come back to your book, I promise, but like, um, like the weaning industrial complex,Jessica: Oh,Laura: right?Jessica: yeah.Laura: I don't need to take a £200 course to teach my child how to eat. Like humans have been doing that since the beginning time, right?Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: And like, what the fuck, what am I paying you to tell me how to like cut up a piece of food? Like that's like innate knowledge and that we have as humans and it should be freely available to everyone, right?Jessica: Yeah. Hmm. The weaning industrial complex. Laura: Don't get me started cuz I have a lot of feelings about it, Jessica. But it's that kind of, you know, like, like eating is something so fundamental and so in, you know, inherent to our existenceJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: Why are we paying to learn how to do that?Jessica: Definitely.Laura: Okay. I've gone way off, off piste here, but let's, let's bring it back to the book and, and I think we've kind of like touched on this a little bit in different ways, but I, I wanna ask you a bit more directly, like, you've talked a lot about this on social media as well, and in fact you gave a really, I think, helpful analogy that I'll ask you to share in just a second. But since the sort of social reckoning that wasn't in 2020 it's become cool, it's become trendy in the anti diet HAES space to talk about how anti-blackness and white supremacy are at the root of diet culture.Jessica: Right?Laura: Let it rip. JessicaJessica: Um, let's see. I'm not sure like chicken or the egg. I don't know if you have that expression in the UK or not. Um,Laura: That one translates.Jessica: Okay. I'm not sure which one came first cuz uh, there was a, it was a very short period of, uh, time during which people all of a sudden, in, you know, eating disorder community and dietician community, um, who were like talking about diet culture. And then all of a sudden in 2020, um, all of a sudden, you know, people are talking about race in ways that have not been done before. And so it was like this, how do we squeeze in this very important conversation about racism into this conversation as a field that we've already been having.And so, what, you know, Black Lives Matter. What Black folks, what our Black colleagues like me and Alicia McCulloch, you know, we're talking about bodies and the harm that white supremacy has caused for,Laura: mm-hmm. Jessica: ever, and anti-diet spaces, we're talking about the harms of dieting forever. I see that the origins of white supremacy, you know, are really what are impacting, like directly impacting both anti-fatness and anti-blackness in the US at least.And so, so quickly it became diet culture has racist roots. And that was the concession. Like, we need to talk about both of these things in anti-diet spaces. And the way that we're gonna do it is say that diet culture, you know, make it really like this tree analogy. Uh, and then just happens to have racist roots.Um, whereas I see white supremacy as the tree, um, it's what's sticking up out of the ground. It's what we can see. It's what is, you know, ruling and governing and decides, you know, who is able to fit under its branches. And I, you know, shrinking ourselves via, maybe that's the connection to diet culture there, is one way people are trying to seek shelter under this, you know, umbrella, this tree of white supremacy.Laura: And you give some examples in your book and I think that they're really helpful for illustrating what you mean because, and I'm speaking for myself here, like when it, it takes a long time to get your head around diet culture as a concept anyway, right? WhenJessica: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.Laura: been coming from like the, the, the weight normative paradigm that you and I were both in. Right? So like that, it's kind of like a head fuck just to even get your head around that begin with, but then take it to the next level, which actually this isn't even diet culture, this is something else entirely.Jessica: Right.Laura: Like, and, and maybe this is just me, being, like this is my ignorance or my privilege showing, but it's taken me a while even after reading, like Fearing the Black Body and reading Deshaun's work to like get to this point.So I'm just wondering if some examples, they were helpful for me reading them in your book. So I'm just wondering if it'd be helpful in other people's books. What am I saying? It would be helpful to illustrate for other people.Jessica: Well, I think people might love to hear the ones that resonated with you, you know? Cause they probably share a lot of your experiences.Laura: I think, I think both the stories of Mia and LexiJessica: Okay.Laura: Were really illustrative. Um, so I don't know. Which one would you like to tell?Jessica: We can talk about Lexi since she's now, you know, a US transplant into the Uk. Laura: I feel like I need to call her up and be like, Hey, should grab a coffee ? Jessica: Maybe she could be on your podcast, you know?Laura: I'm sure she could. I know she's been on your podcast and I need to go back and listen to that. But yeah, get her on the podcast.Jessica: Yeah. So gymnasts from age three, and really enjoy doing all of the gymnastics events. So there's floor, there's the uneven bars, there's beam, and then there's floor. And within the gymnastics community, the idea is that the beam balance beam and the uneven bar bars are like the elegant events. And inherently in gymnastics, you know, uh, only the white gymnasts are able to be elegant.Any and all black gym gymnasts are assumed to be more muscular, more powerful, and they're gonna be great on the floor and great on the vault. And Lexi wanted to do all of the events and was good at them. Uh, but, you know, saw that the thinner, whiter girls were getting higher scores. So being an athlete and very driven, she's like, I know how to be thinner and get, you know, therefore get better scores.So just, you know, started participating, you know, In deprivation, in restriction, in laxative use, um, in the like cleansing, cayenne, lemon water situation and eventually purging. But there was no, like, she was never like, I want to feel better about my body. You know, she was never fat. She just wanted to be metaphorically and physically smaller, to be more palatable to the judges, predominantly white judges who were judging her.She was never like, you know, I'm worried about the thin ideal. It just wasn't about the same stuff, you know, that we are told about diet culture and what diet culture means. Um, it just wasn't that.Laura: Yeah. So, yeah. In the eating disorder literature, all we're ever offered is, you know, people are trying to shrink their bodies because it brings them in closer proximity to the thin ideal. And that's the apex of human being like, that's all we're aiming for.Jessica: It's because they feel bad about their bodies.Laura: Yeah. Which we do get that message to an extent. But what you are saying is it's more than that. It's a lot deeper than that. It's a lot more harmful than that. And it's rooted in the origins of the American, well America as a country and chattels and enslavement, um, of Black people.And, and it goes all the way back to that and the, the, like we were saying at the beginning, the safety that is afforded to people who have closer proximity to whiteness. Is that like a fair summary?Jessica: Yeah, I think that you helped me out, uh, realizing that I had just jumped in with Lexi and gymnasts and not taken it back to enslavement, um, hundreds of years ago. Right? So the depiction of Black women then, you know, as strong as powerful, basically because they were laborers either out in the field or in the house, but just the constant valuation of Black women for their labor, um, continues today.And so, yeah, Black gymnasts are used for their power and their strength in their events. And so like, it's been hundreds of years, but the narratives of Black women are still there and they're ones that we did not ask for. So that's how I say, you know, the body narratives have always been written by white supremacy in a way that Black women will never, you know, have access to, you know, a validating body story unless it's rewritten.Laura: And what you just said there about, um, you know, this, the story of, of Black women's bodies being about power, being about strength. That was, again, if we think, think of it in historical terms because they had no choice, right? That was the, literallyJessica: They were put to work.Laura: But in the book, you kind of bring this into a modern context as well, which, um, and, and you talk about it through the lens of, um, resilience.And, and so if it's okay, I wanna just read a short passage, um, from the book. And so you say Black women often take on the false idea that we have superhuman strength and resilience in the meantime, sacrificing our physical and mental health, trying to make ourselves fit into a society that will never accept us. This replicates centuries of lacking body autonomy for Black women of being denied agency in how we tend to our bodies.Jessica: Yeah.Laura: And I think like this really, like who hit a nerve for me? Um, not hit a nerve in like a negative way, but it likeJessica: Sure.Laura: it made an impression. I really had to think about it. Um, and so sort of, I mean, did you want to speak to this point any? Jessica: Yeah, what stood out to me and then I was able to bring up at other times with the autonomy here and how conforming indeed can bring back some of what has been lost in people's writing our own stories. But at what cost, right? Yeah. So, Indeed it is hard. it was hard to write. It's hard to listen to. But again, knowing it's important, which I think at the beginning you'd said that I, you know, had wrapped in some, uh, humor, often dry humor, pop culture, um, a lot of, you know, really personal stories so that folks could, you know, have some balance and really get to the end of it, the book, rather than, you know, just deciding it's hard and not finishing. Yeah. But did the passage or what stuck out to you in the, in the passage?Laura: Well, I think it was kind of more, I guess I wanna bring it back to another part of the, this same chapter where you're talking about resilience, and you sort of, without like making a song and dance about it, you, you kind of differentiate between resilience that is embodied and innate and inherent versus resilience that is performed as an act of survival through, um, through the, through autonomy being forcibly removed, violently and forcibly removed.And, I think that there, like, it just made me think about how there is a lot of stereotyping about Black wo women being strong and, um, you know, having to as you say in the book, like literally and figuratively, having to clean up everybody else's mess, um, and carrying like so much for the rest of us.I suppose it brought me back to just like, I just felt so, like, I just felt really sad, like really, really sad that that's, um, you know, I was thinking about some of my Black, my friends who are Black women and, um, just yeah, how this, it was just really upsetting to, to, to think about, just everything that's expected of Black women and everything that they're carrying. But then there was also this most, this more kind of optimistic, hopeful piece in like, resilience that's embodied, that's like innate. That's just that, that's something that, um, you know, is developed through community and through, um, Black joy and some of the things that you go on to, you know, some of them were , uplifting things that you talk about in the book. So, yeah. Did you mean to like draw that distinction between the two pieces or is that just, am IJessica: I love how, no, which is great because I have more, um, yeah, language. That's super helpful and a great reflection. I think in that chapter tI alk about like, my needing to have been performing resilience in particular situation, and I just couldn't, and, you know, therefore I was then, you know, disposable to the organization at the time. Um, because as you know, you know, folks with chronic illnesses and other things, like there is just a max. And at some point, like, my body just can't fulfill the demands of society for me to, you know, put everything else, uh, before myself, et cetera. Sometimes I actually have to put myself first. Though yeah, not being able to do that performance is, you know, both like considered and ingrained as a failure for me. You know? And I assume other Black women, like we are known for our strength, you know, you can always rely on us. Um, and when, you know, we cannot be relied upon for Black girl magic, like that's devastating.Laura: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.Jessica: Yeah. But then the other, yes, the innate resilience or the, Hmm. I wouldn't say tools gained through community, but maybe the, maybe it is. A friend of mine called joy as a weapon, the way I was writing about it as like a way to weaponize the, um, assumptions made about us and our bodies, and I loved that. So yes, resilience in two different ways.Laura: Okay. So I mentioned that you weave in some most excellent pop culture references and a piece that I enjoyed reading was your thoughts on Lizzo and respectability and all the shit that went down, around about that. So, summarize what you talk about in that chapter.Jessica: I start the chapter by talking about Lizzo's uh, decision to eat smoothies that she made at home. Uh, apples and peanut butter, protein bars, tea, something, pickles. Yes. That's. So it was smoothies and those snacks for 10 days and she had said, you know, two of us. 2020 had been a really shitty year. And, know, her stomach was real fucked up. And so, you know, she decided to go on what she called a smoothie detox. And the internet lost its mind. It was like when it's like you wake up to like an actual news story on social media, but this was like Lizzo is, is drinking smoothies was the actual news storyLaura: A like slow news day when you think about it, but like theJessica: That's probably why. yeah, that's actually probably true. Uh, it was in the period between Thanksgiving and, and New Year's maybe. Um, so yeah, the internet had big thoughts and it was one of those times where I was able to see those who were, you know, triggered, um, and probably weren't doing so well in their own, you know, mental health and recovery that got very, very triggered. One particularly, um, Jameela Jamil, who's over UK and in US. Yeah. Posted her own story of like engaging in some sort of like detox situationLaura: Oh, is that who it was? I was reading your book and I was like, come on, you coward name herJessica: Well,Laura: But you did on the,Jessica: She, yeah, she's mentioned ambiguously. Um, but yes, a whole cautionary tale of I almost died doing a cleanse. Don't do cleanses. Um, and you know, it was very clear for her, uh, Jameela Jamil that, you know, she had done so in the context of her eating disorder in order to lose weight.And I was like, but wait, did Lizzo say anything about wanting to lose weight? Like, I didn't catch that. Like I went back. Saw what she was eating. There were solid foods. Like, it was like portrayed as this weird, cleansy. I don't know what like the assumptions made about cleanses are, but there was like actual food there.I was watching it, it may have, may have not been, you know, a meal amount of food, but like, I still didn't have anything to say to somebody who's just eating food on a regular basis.Laura: Well, the thing is like, I think this is where you're going anyway, but none of our fucking business, right? It is ultimately, like if you were her, if you were her dietician, you'd probably have some things to say to her, but you're not. And neither am I. Jessica: I'm not, yeah. And my, and it probably even wouldn't, like 10 days of whatever it is that you're doing, it's gonna be like, there's, there's not much that would happen in 10 days that you wouldn't be just very hungry about and need to, you know. Laura: I'm just gonna say if you are in active eating disorder recovery, please do not do this. Like, just to cover our backs, but like for, people who are like, generally fine, it's not gonna do any harm for that length. It's not gonna feel great, but it's not gonna,Jessica: Yeah. I might end up hungry at the end of 10 days is like what I envisioned was gonna happen. But yeah, the people who had big thoughts and big feelings, I could definitely see like them, like they're emotional responses, um, coming from not ever, you know, wanting to see somebody go on a cleanse, but not only anybody go on a cleanse, but Lizzo. Lizzo a fat Black woman who takes up both literal, you know, metaphorical and actual space. Um, who everybody who would, you know, we looked up to Lizzo for her, you know, magical ability to actually love her fat body when you know everybody in America and Western society tells fat Black women that you know, that they should be ashamed of their bodies. Lizzo, was like one person everyone could point to, to feel good about their own bodies, like all of a sudden, yeah. Lizzo became this like body positivity mammy for a lot of people. Something she had never asked for. She is a performer, a musician, a flutist, and she, I assume, did not set out to, you know, have people put things onto her body that she did not ask for. She's not there for anybody but herself. And so by Smoothie Gate, like people are devastated. They, you know, are practicing self-care. They're talking to their therapist about this thing that Lizzo did to them, like it was,Laura: Were taking it as a personal betrayal, weren't,Jessica: Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. posting, like, this is what you can do for self-care during this tough time. And all along, like Lizzo said, nothing about wanting to lose weight. And never did.Laura: And it kind of, it goes back to what we were talking about before around resilience and, and Black women, like people putting everything on Black women that they did not ask to carry. They don't to carry all your trauma responses and, and be your poster child for body positivity whenJessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: you've never claimed that for yourself.Jessica: Right. It really, again, just like you said, is indicative of just something else that goes on, like subconsciously for all of us and the ways that yes, Black women are meant to carry a lot more than just our own body stories and experiences.Laura: And I think it's kind of this like, and this is part of what you're saying in, in the book, and I'm kind of extrapolating a little bit here, but, the, you know, body positivity as it was originally conceived, came out of the fat liberation movement, which was as we are, we all know now, started by fat, Black, Jewish, and queer folks. But it's become this depoliticized movement that has been co-opted and taken over by, as you say in the book, like it could, you know, you've got like, I don't know, shapewear companies using hashtag body positive and like whatever diet companies and yeah, using that moniker. And then just the kind of the, the expectations and the pressures that come with, you know, that, that label that should love yourself, and that there's like, there's this great quote that I think you used for, is it Nicole Byers? That that talks like what, why do we need a name for just existing in our bodies.Jessica: Right. For not hating them.Laura: for not, yeah, yeah.Jessica: Yeah. We don't need to name, yeah, a name for not hating a part. She, I think she says a part of our bodies, because life's already hard. Why do we ? But yeah, that's, she also doesn't identify, yes, as body positive because of that reason.Laura: Yeah.Jessica: Having a name for just not hating yourself seems wild.Laura: Yeah. It, it really is when you stop to think about it in, in those terms. And, and like at the same time, you know, as, as some of the folks that you spoke to through the book, sort of say like, well, it was a gateway to fat liberation. Um, the, the problem is that like 90% of the people, more than that, that engage in body positivity don't go any further. And then becomes this like neoliberal self-improvement project, projectJessica: Yeah. And it that actually, made me think about that. Earlier you said like, wasn't, became less political, but I feel like people think that body politics, like in this, in just body positivity is like political. If you have no politics, like if you're not politically engaged, like this can seem so radical to you, even though it means nothing.It doesn't stand for anything, you know? So it's like, it's like, uh, composting as a politic, but like body from, you know, a politic from body positivity when it doesn't stand for anything. Yes. Neoliberalism and just this like making something out of nothingLaura: Yeah, this individualistic self-care, you know, problem that it's up to you to solve when, like, as we've discussed, the, the roots are social and systemic. The issues are, issues are social and systemic. Yeah.Jessica: But just feel better about your body. That's, that's the goal.Laura: It's all just a big distraction tactic. Though isn't it, likeJessica: Yes. point. Always is.Laura: Always, like it's all of these systems when we, when we strip them to the bare bones, are just to keep us, you know, distracted, to keep us separated, to keep us like out of community with each other. Because if we actually start to talk to each other about these things, we, we will fucking revolt and , um, the ruling class don't want that. So that doesn't serve capitalism we revolt.Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: soJessica: keep us anxious, to keep us buying and spending money on whatever the next beauty industrial complex situation has going for us. Yeah. And just spend spending money onLaura: keep us in scarcity. Yeah.Jessica: not doing enough. Don't have enough,Laura: And feeling like the only way out of that is through dominion of other people.Jessica: Mm-hmm.Laura: Okay. On that fun note, Jessica, I would love to know in amongst all of the media circus and just general chaos that is publishing a book, who or what is nourishing you right now?Jessica: I have been enjoying two different podcasts. Vibe Check from three gay Black guys that, you know, talk about what's keeping their vibes right, politics and pop culture. And I really love the banter between them. It's smart, it's sassy. Another by Britney Luce, It's Been a Minute, also an as an NPR podcast. And I don't know what folks thought the show was going to be, but it is 100% black, 100% black women focused, and I love it. And then I would say 2023, I am really hoping to become a better baker. And so I've just been telling people that I am, uh, somebody was planning an event and I said, I'm a baker, uh, what can I bring? You know, I'm just throwing that out there. Mm-hmm. , Laura: Love, I just love this, like fake it till you make it. AndJessica: Exactly. I'm a baker. What can, what can I bring you? And I mean, I'll still bring it, uh, whether or not it'll be edible, beautiful, it's something else entirely. But you know what, I'm a baker. So,Laura: What are you baking specifically? What have you been baking?Jessica: I think my next, uh, baking attempt will be to construct something. I didn't get to do any, like gingerbread construction situations. So I might find like a castle, um, and make one . I know.Laura: I was expecting you to say some like, but you wouldn't know what this is in in the States, but like Victoria sponge cake or like something really basic.Jessica: Do know those. Um, to make it, I like glitter a lot too. Uh, so, you know, there's a lot of opportunity to decorate a castle with glitter.Laura: That's, I want a picture of that one. I'm sure you'll put it on social media, right? Um, I still have Instagram, deleted at the moment. I reinstalled it on my phone yesterday to check a message. Um, and then immediately deleted. I'm not ready for this. I can't do it yet.Um, but yeah. Okay. So baking is keeping you afloat and so are these podcasts. I think the vibe check one, I just came across that the other day because I think Samantha, um, Erby like, name dropped that in the newsletterr the other day. I think. I think it's that one. But, um, okay. So I dunno if I've maybe confused you by asking you that question because at the end of every episode, I always ask what you are snacking on right now, which is your recommendation thing. Did you just tell me your snacks?Jessica: Yes. The things that I wouldLaura: Your recommendations? Yeah. Okay, so back, wait. First of all, I'll tell you my snacks and then I'll ask you what's nourishing you.Jessica: I love this. We just, Laura: We're just flipping, reversing it here. So my snack is a literal snacks that my brother just sent me a huge box of shit from Trader Joe's, which I know is not like exciting to you.Jessica: It's Trader Joe's!Laura: But we don't have that here.Jessica: It is a primary point of conversation when I'm over there.Laura: I just, okay. I need to compose myself. Cause I'm very excited about this box of snack of snacks. Like the, he sent me the, the Thai chili lime cashews.Jessica: Mm-hmm. Yes.Laura: There's like some chocolate, coconut, granola. There are like cookies in there. There are, okay, this isn't from Trader Joe's, but there are birthday cake Oreos, which are,Jessica: Yes.Laura: Oh my god.You don't understand. They have here, but they're not the same. And they cost like 10 pounds for a packet. I'm not paying 10 pounds for Oreos. That's ridiculous. Um, but I will get my brother to them all the way from America, um, on his dollars. And, um, what else is in there? Oh, like everything but the bagel seasoning the everything the bagel nuts.The, like, there's so much stuff in there. I'm really, oh, the, there's like, um, peanut butter stuffed pretzels.Jessica: Yep. That was gonna be the next one I asked you about. Mm-hmm.Laura: There's so much cool stuff in there. I'm very excited. So yeah, my thing is Trader Joe's snacksJessica: Absolutely.Laura: that you get your brother to shipJessica: Yeah, if he didn't send you cookie butter, um, highly recommend you put that on the next list.Laura: I think I did ask him for that and I haven't seen it there. So yeah, there's gonna a, a follow up, but yes. Oh my And there are nut bars. They're really good as well, and they're like cheap to everywhere else. Everything at Trader Joe's relatively cheap, so that's, I'm very excited to go and dig into that package. I literally got it right before we started recording, so,Jessica: Oh, that's excellent.Laura: Yeah. And if anyone else wants to send me a care package from the States, anyone inJessica: From Trader Joe's, specificallyLaura: Just like, just go in, do a supermarket sweep and send. Um, okay. So now we will go back and I will ask you who or what is nourishing you right now?Like what is keeping you afloat?Jessica: Hmm. I'm like, how long is this list? It's like, is it the acknowledgements in my book right now? That seems, Hmm. Laura: It can just be like, it can be your spouse or your dogs or like,Jessica: Yeah. Um, I know. I'm like, well, definitely.Laura: Just so many people.Jessica: I know 100% dogs. Um, I will say Amy, who made a meal of tater tots, that's something else that I find is not as popular over on,Laura: We don't have them, but I also had like a bad hangover experience with tater tots. So,Jessica: Okay, a meal of tater tots and other things, um, like layered on top, but also a signature cocktail for me and my book that had, oh, let's see. It was Gin and Prosecco and marionberry and rosemary. It was very sweet. So I would say that specifically in that moment of getting together and like recognizing that this book is, you know, being birthed and is coming out, that was a very special moment.So I will hold onto that one for a bit. Laura: Oh, I love that. Since we're talking about the book, do you wanna share the name and like I will link in the show notes, obviously to where people can get it, but do you wanna share the name of the book and then where people can find out more about you and your work?Jessica: Sure. The title is, It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies. And there is a UK Amazon link for it now. You can find more about the book on my personal website. Jessica Wilson, ms r d um, dot com. Instagram has tons about the book and about washing legs. I'm over at Jessica Wilson msr, um, Instagram and Jessica Wilson Rd on Twitter. But most of the fun, the joy and the silliness is, is over on Instagram.Laura: Thank so much Jessica. We'll put all the links to where to find you and how to get ahold of the book in the UK and the US in the show notes for this episode so people can check it out. And congratulations on birthing a book into the world. It's so exciting and I can't wait for people to get it into their hands.Jessica: Thanks so much, Laura. This was really fun.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. 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HEYO. And welcome back to the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast! We took a break back in November after wrapping up Season 1 of the pod with Katie Greenall talking all things Embodiment, so check out that episode if you haven't already. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.We're kicking off Season 2 with Whitney Trotter - Registered Dietitian and nurse, Anti-racism Educator/Consultant and Human Trafficking Activist. Whitney is also mother to a 6 year old who is a selective eater. In this ‘sode, Whitney and I talk about her daughter's eating and what this brings up for her as a dietitian and eating disorder professional. Whitney goes on to talk about her work supporting parents with eating disorders who are really struggling in their relationship with food and their body, looking closely at the underlying anxieties that come up around eating and what they can teach us. We talk about what feeding children can bring up for parents who have eating disorders or disordered eating and how that experience can be so triggering.And Whitney talks about how going to the drive thru is 1) not something you should feel bad about and 2) something that can actually bring more connection when you're feeding a family.Find out more about Whitney here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Here's the transcript in full:Whitney: You know, I always think anxiety can teach us so much, right? Like, we typically treat anxiety as all bad, but I think it's a root of a lot of things. And so really leaning into, okay, what is the anxiety telling us? You know, are we, is there a fear? Right? So for sometimes, it's the meal that we're cooking. The parent or mom really wants their kid to have variety, but they're so worried about how this particular food is gonna show up for them. There's a lot of myths. There's a lot of lies that their eating disorder has told them about certain foods. And so really processing through that, processing okay, what feels safe to eat? What feels safe to share like community wise with our family. Things like that. And maybe even delegating, you know, what is their partner doing? Can the partner help with the meal times and the plating and the cooking, things like that, will that dial down some of that anxiety?INTROLaura: Hey, and welcome to Season Two of Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them? I'm Laura Thomas, an anti diet registered nutritionist and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to Whitney Trotter.Whitney is a registered dietician and nurse, anti-racism consultant and human trafficking activist based in Memphis, Tennessee. And as we'll learn, she's also the parent of a six-year-old who is a selective eater. So Whitney and I talk about her daughter's eating, and what this brings up for her as a dietician and an eating disorder professional. It touches on anxiety, fear, and feelings of failure, especially if you've made your whole career about nourishing people.Whitney goes on to talk about her work supporting parents with eating disorders who are really struggling in the relationship with food and their body, looking closely at the underlying anxieties that come up around eating and what they can teach us. We talk about what feeding children can bring up for parents who have eating disorders or disordered eating, and how that experience can be really triggering.We also talk about renourishing our inner child through eating nostalgic kid foods, and I talk a little bit about that article that I published last week on clean eating orthorexia and kids, which I've linked to in the show notes and the transcript, if you haven't already seen that. And we also talk about how mumfluencer culture and diet culture collide to make it seem like feeding kids is about an aesthetic as opposed to being based on something that's achievable or realistic or practical or even functional.And then Whitney talks, uh, about how going to the drive-through is one, not something that you should feel bad about. And two, something that can actually bring more connection when you're feeding a family. Lots of really cool stuff. We kind of go all over the place, but in a good way. And I really enjoy talking to Whitney, she's someone I've wanted to have on the podcast for a long time, so I'm glad that we finally made it work. I just want to give a content warning. We talk about body image in the context of sexual assault and miscarriage. Not in any detail, but I just wanted to mention that it's there. We also talk about eating disorders and our experiences of having babies in the NICU and breastfeeding challenges. So if those are things that you don't need to hear right now, then please skip ahead. There will be another episode out next week. And before we get to today's episode, I just want to share that I am gonna be running my Raising Embodied Eaters workshop again in February. A lot of you have been asking about this. I kind of took a break from running workshops as I was getting my Substack up and going. Um, but now I'm able to kind of offer, I don't know how often I'm gonna do it, but we're gonna have one in February. It will be a 90 minute workshop completely online, and you'll be sent a copy of the recording afterwards to watch back.So you know, if bedtime goes way later than you're expecting, then um, yeah, you'll be able to catch up with it another time. We'll be talking about how kids' embodiment gets disrupted by diet culture, and what this has to do with feeding and how it can affect the feeding relationship. We'll discuss why we need to throw the rule book out the window and let them have ice cream before broccoli, and we'll talk about how we can build trust in our kids to get what they need.I'll offer a framework that can help you feel more relaxed about mealtimes whilst also encouraging kids to have autonomy. We'll talk about how providing supportive structure can encourage children to remain in touch with their internal cues for hunger satisfaction and pleasure and fullness. And I'll cover how fussy eating develops and talk about some developmental milestones with eating as well as tools to help move through it. We'll also talk about why cutting out sugar and saying things like just another bite can undermine kids' instincts around food. And we'll talk about how we can talk about food and bodies without causing harm. So you'll be asked to fill out a short questionnaire about your specific situation ahead of time, and I'll try and tailor the content to the audience as much as possible.You'll also get a copy of my Raising Embodied Eaters download. The workshop is suitable for grownups of kids of all ages, but I would say it's probably best for kids under 12. Parents, whatever that means to you and your family, grandparents, teachers, nutrition professionals, and anyone else working with kids are all welcome.It will be on Tuesday, the 21st of February, which aptly is pancake day, and it will be at seven o'clock and it's 15 pounds to join and it will be over Zoom. The full details and the booking information is in the show notes and the transcript for this episode. For those of you who are subscribed to the newsletter, you'll get a reminder and a link in an upcoming newsletter as well.And one more thing just before we get to Whitney, just a reminder that Can I Have Another Snack is a reader supportive publication. I'd love to bring you more deeply research pieces like my piece on clean eating and kids, but it requires a significant investment in my time, plus the support of an editor. So, if you are in a position to become a paid subscriber, then please consider it. It's five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year. And if that's not accessible for you right now, you can email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk, putting the word snacks in the subject line and we will hook you up with a comp subscription, no questions asked. Alright, team, here is my conversation with Whitney Trotter.MAIN EPISODELaura: All right, Whitney, I'd love it if you could share with the audience who or what you are nourishing right now.Whitney: Oh my goodness. Okay. Well I am a mom of a feisty six year old, little girl who I just adore. So, we were kind of talking before the thing about some other dieticians that work in pediatrics and feeding and things like that. So I'm exploring the land of working with the selective eater. So our, yeah, so it's really fun.Like our, nourishing times are a bit chaotic right now and so doing that. I'm also, uh, an avid coffee lover, so I have been trying different just flavours of coffee, different roasters and a non beverage food thing that I've been kind of nourishing my soul with lately is I've been listening to the audiobook of Hood Feminism.I love, love it. So.Laura: Yeah, lots of different things. Tell us about your selective eater a little bit more.Whitney: Oh my goodness, so I think any, any mom, but particularly like dietician, nurse, mom, it's, it's so hard to like really kind of step back from our traditional schooling. So she legitimately has like six foods that she'll eat. Um, Mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, bacon, pancakes, strawberries, peanut butter and jelly. And that is it. So we've been really working with, you know, the autonomy piece, but also like, you know, there's also that just like natural worry of parents of it's like, okay, is my kid getting enough? Like, so many times in like our kind of traditional setting, it's like variety, variety, variety. And so really working on trying to let her be autonomous in the variety.So we've been giving her like, you know, three options to choose from and then she gets to choose out of those, like three to four options, what she's willing to try.Laura: Yeah, it's so, it's so interesting hearing from a parent who is, is, you know, has, I don't wanna say legitimately selective eater, because that makes it seem like other forms are illegitimate. But I suppose what I was thinking about there is how from social media, we get a really distorted picture of what kids should eat.And we see them eating like kale and I don't know, mushrooms and all of these, these foods that are really challenging for little kids. And so then when they go through that like normal or like typical food neophobic stage as toddlers and preschoolers and even into like school age, that parents have this sense that they're this, that they're developing feeding differences.And it's not until you hear of a child who is literally only eating six foods that you realize, wow, okay, actually my kid does have a reasonable variety and balance of food. So how are you, are you like, are you getting professional support with that? Like, and, and also like what does that bring up for you as a dietician, as a nurse?Whitney: Well at first you're like did I fail my kid? What am I doing wrong? I mean, you know, cause I work in and I see, I work in the land of eating disorder, so I treat a lot of children and adolescents and adults with disordered eating and eating disorders. So it is interesting. We do a lot of food neutrality, like we do not moralise food. Food is food. So, and she's, she's a spicy six year old, so she's very quick to, you know, to say the same thing that, that I'm teaching her back to me, which is always funny. So she's on the growth chart, like she's growing and so right now we're just kind of, you know, living in the land of offering the choices and not forcing, and then just making sure she's getting enough of the foods that she will eat throughout the day.So the biggest thing is I just wanna make sure she was growing and nourishing. And she is, and our pediatrician is wonderful.She's also Venezuelan, and so I think it's just a, another just added benefit of she's seen kids in from so many different other cultures and countries. And so she was like, you know what? I'm not worried. I don't want you to be worried. I'm like, okay.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And I like, I suppose it is really reassuring to hear from another healthcare professional like it, you know, everything looks good here. But I can also imagine like, as, as a nutritionist being like, holy shit, my kid is only six. Like, it is, it's so, even though I work with that population, like I know it's like really anxiety provoking when, you know, like kind of in the way that doctors make the worst patients like... Whitney: Yes, it's so true, so true. Cuz I mean, you really do, you're like, okay, what do I do? Like, you know, especially again cuz working in the eating disorders, you know what the outcome could be if you say certain things, if you press too hard. You know what I'm saying? So we're very cognizant of that. But we also just, we are, we really do tend to like, let her choose a lot of things. Like we really are those type of parents that like work with her in bodily autonomy and even when it comes to food, you know, so, it, I would be lying if I said it wasn't challenging, cuz it definitely is challenging. So we're kind of just staying the course right now.Laura: Well, and this is a, this is a, a different thing, but I have a two and a half year old and I've, I've spoken about this, loads on the podcast, but he was in the NICU for like two, only like two weeks, which, actually, I say only two weeks now, but at the time it felt like an eternity. And we had a really, really difficult time getting feeding established, breastfeeding established, and yeah.And, and there was something that felt so like, It, it just like really shook the core of my identity as a nutritionist to not be able to feed my child.Whitney: Yes,Laura: There is something that, that like just touched on, something like really deep, like I've made my entire career about nourishing people, yet I can't nourish my own child and that, I don't know if, if that resonates with you at all in your experience of feeding your daughter. Whitney: This is so wild that you're saying this, and thank you for sharing that. We had the exact same thing. She was in NICU and they gave her a, they gave her the wrong nipple. They, for the bottle, it was like a fast,Laura: A fast flow. Yes. That happened to us too.Whitney: Yeah. So then when she went to latch, I couldn't, she, she couldn't latch.And so similar, you go through this period, like you feel like a failure, you know, like you feel like, like you just said, it's like I, I've spent my whole career trying to help others nourish their body and like, I can't even feed my own child. And so she ended up with a really bad gag reflex, like, just really, really bad when she was younger. We would have to like prop her up to sleep. She was on medication. So I mean, it's been, yeah, even now she will kind of sometimes struggle with that, but yeah, that resonates so deeply. And just the trauma of your baby being in NICU, I mean, so, it's so traumatic for you, you know, as a parent. And so, yeah, definitely. It's so interesting. We have similar, uh, similar stories regarding that.Laura: Well, and then I think this is the, the thing that I've kind of discovered, like through having conversations on this podcast is that it it, because it, it happens to so many of us but we're just kind of expected to power on and keep going and, and not, and you know, just like dust it under, under the rug. And yeah, I think there, I'm thinking particularly of a conversation that I had with Christy Harrison. You know, again, sort of her story parallels a lot of my experience as well. And yeah, just how healing and cathartic it is to be able to, to share this more openly. Yeah, because it's, like I said, I think a lot of it, we, we, a lot of us experience, you know, similar things. I'm also really, you know, you've, you've mentioned a couple of times that you work in the eating disorder field and another theme that we touch on a lot in the, on the podcast is, you know, healing our own relationship with food as a parent and sort of supporting our children to have a positive or a healthy, or, you know, like however you wanna frame it, like a, a good relationship with food and bodies.And I'm, I'm really curious to hear more about your experience of working with parents who have either disordered eating or eating disorders and, and yeah, how you hold them and support them in your work.Whitney: Yeah, it's so interesting because I, I'm thinking of a particular session I had last week with a mom and we were really talking about how, you know, her daughter for the first time noticed that she ate dinner and you know, one of the things I told her, I said, your daughter is never gonna thank you for your restriction, but she is gonna remember the memories that you cultivate with her, particularly around meal times. And you know, I think that was really hard for her to hear and we kind of just sat with that and really explored, you know, what is it like for you to be able to sit at the dinner table with your kids and not every night like I know that's not realistic and you know, but two or three nights a week and engage in conversation.Cuz usually as parents and it's hard, right? Like different seasons of life, sometimes dinnertime is the only time you have to like sit and talk with them. There's after school activities, you know, parents are usually working, somebody's cooking, somebody's cleaning, and then you're exhausted. And so sometimes that like 30, 45 minutes is like the only time the family is together.And I think the eating disorder, you know, really can come in and monopolize that time as well. And it makes it very hard for somebody who is struggling, you know, with nourishment of their body, with body image to be able to sit and really holistically be present and be in the moment. So we definitely talk a lot about that.You know, I think too, you know, kind of speaking more generally with moms, we're, we're used to having to do so much, right? Like some of us are working in home, some of us are working outside of the home. Still taking a lot of the responsibility of maybe driving or navigating, dropping kids off to school or daycare, cooking, like I said, cooking, cleaning, there's so much on us that I think also by the time we finally sit down to eat, we're just so exhausted.Laura: Mm-hmm. If, if you have an eating disorder, even just disordered eating, when you're that exhausted, it's those eating disorder thoughts or those, you know, thoughts about weight and body size becomes so much more pronounced,Whitney: Yes,Laura: and that further takes you away from being connected and being present with your family. And I'm, I'm wondering what you offer your clients who are, yeah, really just struggling even to get through a mealtime with their family. Whitney: Yeah. So usually what we'll do is we'll do meal exposures together or we'll do like a snack, something to where there's not as much pressure of eyes kind of on them, so to speak. You know, so, maybe we'll try breakfast or lunch, we'll do some kind of exposures together, really dialing into what is the anxiety.You know, I think anxiety can teach us so much, right? Like, we typically treat anxiety as all bad, but I think it's, it's a root of a lot of things. And so really leaning into, okay, what is the anxiety telling us? You know, are we, is there a fear? Right? Sometimes, it's the meal that we're cooking. The parent or mom really wants their kid to have variety, but they're so worried about how this particular food is gonna show up for them. There's a lot of myths. There's a lot of lies that their eating disorder has told them about certain foods. And so really processing through that, processing okay, what feels safe to eat? What feels safe to share like community wise with our family. Things like that. And maybe even delegating, you know, what is their partner doing? Can the partner help with the meal times and the plating and the cooking, things like that, will that dial down some of that anxiety?So kind of really processing through all of that and trying to figure out, and also too, you know, I think a lot of us tend to treat the eating disorder from an abstinence-based approach, and that's not necessarily my philosophy. And so always trying to figure out, okay, what is the root of this? You know, what is the eating disorder giving us, you know, what is it telling us?What is it, what is it helping you navigate through? You know? And then are there alternative coping things that we can use?Laura: Yeah. So I think what you're, you're naming there is how oftentimes eating disorders manifest as a sort of byproduct of trauma oftentimes, and how, I mean, a, a major part of the reason that they develop is because they felt safe, like safety, they kept us safe in one way, shape or another. And so it's, it's almost kind of understanding, okay, the ways that, that this was helpful and protective at least initially, but how perhaps, you know now that the, the immediate danger has subsided, clinging onto an eating disorder is actually more harmful and destructive.Whitney: Yes.Laura: So what are the other ways of coping, of managing that are not destructive, that are helpful and, yeah, that allow us to have a, a, a quality of life that you know, an eating disorder just does not afford anyone. Is that fair? Is that-Whitney: Yeah, absolutely.Laura: -a decent summary?Whitney: Beautifully said Laura: And I hear from a lot of parents maybe kind of early on in terms of feeding their kids. So when it comes up to the point that they're introducing solids and like in the UK we call that weening. I know that's a different thing in the US, but at the point that they're introducing solids and how that can for people with an eating disorder can be really a really triggering phase of parenting. And I'm curious to hear if you've come across this with any of your clients or had conversations with folks about this and what your thoughts are.Whitney: It can be so triggering. It can be triggering, you know, there's so much of the body that can be triggering that we don't talk about, right? So if you are pregnant and you lose your baby, you will still lactate. You know, you will, your, your milk will still come in which can be so triggering. Um, I also have a lot of expertise and experience working with sexual assault victims, and so definitely wanna do a, a trigger warning on that.But the breastfeeding can be particularly triggering if there was a traumatic, anything traumatizing to the breast. And so really kind of going through that as well. Body image, you know, our body changes so much. And that postpartum, you know, pregnancy and that postpartum, I like to think of postpartum as a year.And so that postpartum,Laura: I'm two and a half years out and I'm still saying I'm postpartum.Whitney: I, you know, yeah, I, it makes me so mad.Laura: You're always postpartum, right,Whitney: Yes. Laura: after you've had a baby?Whitney: You are. You are never, yeah, you are never the same, right? You are never the same. I love that. I love that. So I think all of that really needs to be taken into consideration as well. And then the weaning part. So what we, what I've done before in the past is have met with the partners and have really developed a plan for kind of that postpartum in the perinatal phase and, you know, during pregnancy as well.And really have, having the partner be kind of the eyes and ears. And so then it takes, it kind of takes a pressure off because we want our partner also to be involved with the, with the, you know, we call it baby led weaning too, and, and solid sometimes. Different verbiage, but meaning the same thing. So how can we get the partner involved? Sometimes I'll have parents take pictures too of like, okay, like, what do you think? And then also work with the pediatrician as well. I think it's really, really important that we work with a pediatrician just to make sure that baby is, you know, adequately growing.Particularly too, I've always been so curious of this, of, you know, you and I share similar experiences with the, the trauma of NICU and, and latching. But when you have an eating disorder, particularly in such a vulnerable space and time, how does that affect milk supply? How does that affect latching? Different things like that. If there's a co-occurring mood disorder, right? So how is that showing up as well? And so really just trying to hold space for all of the variables while providing, you know, as much support and how the person wants support. I'm also a nurse and so I work with a lot of nurses that have eating disorders and some of them are like, okay, Whitney, give me like, I just need cognitive things. Like, tell me what to do. I need cognitive resources. I always like to ask like, how do you want to receive information, you know, as well.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And, I think like one thing that I just wanna point out that I've heard from, from parents with eating disorders as well, is that actually sometimes seeing your child have this like real innate embodied wisdom around food and knowing exactly what to do can be so healing for a parent with an eating disorder as well. Like that can really be like, wow, here's this almost role model in a sense of how to have an intuitive relationship with food.Whitney: Yes. And it's almost like reparenting, they get a chance of kind of like to reparent or, or sometimes I like to, maybe not reparent is the best word, but like renourish their inner child. Like they get to reclaim some of that as they're going through the process of, you know, watching the baby-led weaning.And so I try to do things to like make it fun. I, and you know, some parents will side-eye me, but like, also like if your kid is doing chicken nuggets and peas and, mac and cheese, eat chicken nuggets, peas and mac and cheese with them, you know, eat some of those kid foods that maybe.Laura: Oh my God. This is not like, if any parent listening in on this podcast side eyed you for that, then I would put them out personally, because we don't judge or shame food around here. But yeah. Sorry. Your point still stands though. Like get, get in there with them.Whitney: Yes. Make food messy. Make it fun. I've had so many parents be like, oh my goodness, you want me to do what? I'm like, yes, eat those things that you did not necessarily get to eat as a child. You know, because maybe, cuz sometimes too, you gotta think we're, we're dealing generational, right? There was the grandmother that had the eating disorder or the grandfather, which, or a close family member, which directly impacted how the parent, their relationship with food and body and that parent is like, okay, I really wanna break this generational cycle of disordered eating, eating disorder, and some of that is, it gets renourishing, the younger our, our younger inner child too.Laura: Yeah. And that's like a question that I was gonna ask you, you know, for parents who have their own eating disorder, who really are terrified of passing that onto their own kids. You've sort of named there that eating those fun, nostalgic childhood foods is something that they can do to help, like you say, end that intergenerational cycle of dieting, disordered eating, eating disorders. But I'm wondering if there's anything else that you would offer to parents to help, you know, put their mind at ease in terms of, you know, passing on an eating disorder.Whitney: Yeah, you know, we know that there is a genetic vulnerability. It's, you know, we can actually in the bio psychosocial model, like the biology, the psychology, the social environment, and I think the social environment really is key, right? Is how are we creating these safe spaces for you and family members when it comes to eating? And I think too, like taking the pressure off of eating, you know, food is so many different things. It's cultural, it's celebratory you know, it can be, you know, different religions have different food, uh, preferences and things as well. But we can also make it fun. And that's the thing too, is like, I don't think a lot of kids and adolescents are like wanting parents to cook these gourmet meals and make sure they have the salmon, twiced baked potatoes, right? Like, I couldn't, I, I remember some of those things I grew up eating right, but I don't remember every mealtime. But I do remember the, like how I felt as a kid getting to be in that space with my parents. So that's what I tell the parents that I'm working with is how do we create just that safe space where you get to just be with your kid for those 20, 30 minutes. Right? Especially the teenagers, right. I have a lot of parents that are parenting teenagers and it's like just, you know, such a chaotic time. Right?Laura: Yeah.Whitney: So I'm like, go through the drive through. Go through the drive through, turn off the radio, and y'all talk, you know, maybe have 20 minutes a day where there's no stimulation, if you can and just talk and, and see how they're doing. That's the kind of stuff that they remember, you know.Laura: I, yeah. I love that so much. You know, my next question was going to be about sort of the influence of social media in terms of like our, in influencing us to feed our kids perfectly. And as you were saying that, like, I wish that you turned that into like a post for social media. Like take your kids to the fucking drive-through , just go.Whitney: Just go through the drive through. It amazes me, like, yeah, it amazes me. Just like you said, I'm gonna make that a post. That's a great idea. Laura: Do it. Please do it. Because like not only is it subversive in and of itself, but like coming from a dietician who works in eating disorders, like, just like we need that, I'm, I'm working on a piece at the moment, for my newsletter about clean eating and orthorexia and how that is then transmitted to kids and like the fallout on children like, Whitney, I found a case study of a six month old baby. I'm actually gonna cry. A six month old baby who was being fed a homemade formula of sea moss and hemp seed, no supplementation. This child had hypocalcemia, was admitted to hospital with seizures and had rickets. A six month old baby in like, this is like a couple of years ago, right. And so this, yeah, I'm, I guess, You know, we, we all want our kids to be well-nourished, like you were saying at the beginning. Right. That's like, that's a, that's like a, it's a fundamental job of a parent, right? To make sure your kid has like enough to eat and like gets all their, all their nutrition and at the same time, all the, like the fearmongering, the scaremongering around nutrition, around, you know, the quote unquote obesity epidemic. It's driving parents to, and I'm not blaming any individual parent here cuz it's a systemic issue, but it's, you know, promoting a way of eating that is so dangerous for children.Whitney: Yeah.Laura: Anyway, sorry, that was like a major tangent because I've been thinking about it and I find it so disturbing and upsetting. But even in my own practice, I see it happen on like a, not such an acute level, but see the fallout of kind of like this of like healthy eating and clean eating and yeah, this strive for perfection in feeding our kids.Whitney: Yes. And well, and you bring up such a good point too, is I've actually had the parent, the mom, and the, and again, kind of speaking more generally, the mom ended up realizing she had a problem because the kid's teacher was like, you're not packing enough food.Laura: Okay. Yeah.Whitney: So that's when she was like, my relationship, I'm passing on these traits and behaviors. Like I'm, I'm, I'm so, my relationship with food is so distorted that now I'm not even packing enough for my kid. And so even teachers just really, you know, and I'm so grateful. My daughter's kindergarten teacher actually has a son who is in recovery. And so she is so aligned with positive reinforcement. I mean, and like, you know, I told at the beginning, we pack the same lunch. My kid has had the same exact school lunch for three years. I mean, that's, you know, and so I, I just had an honest conversation with her. I was like, you're gonna see the same thing. You know, I, I would love it if she would eat through the line, if she sees something, if she ends up having two lunches, I please support her in that. I want her, you know, we give her free room to try the school lunch if she wants, but we always pack her lunch on field trips. And so, but even teachers, right? Teachers and educators, if we can get them really plugged in on some of these things because you're right, it's, you know, early childhood is such an important time for kids. But it can be so anxiety provoking for parents who are really struggling and are trying to figure out, how do I live with this and it's taking over my life and I don't pass it on.Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it just, I have all the compassion in the world for parents who are in recovery from an eating disorder and, and then having to navigate that layer of feeding their kid. I think it's difficult enough feeding a child with the pressures and expectations that we get from social media anyway without having that layer of, of an eating disorder as well.It's so tricky and like you were sort of suggesting before, there are so many pressure points in terms of conception, pregnancy, baby loss. Infertility is another one. And then the actual, you know, birth and if, if, if it's a traumatic birth in that early postnatal period, and then you go from all of that to then having to, to, to, you know, pick up the reins with baby led weaning or, or whatever else, you know, whatever approach that you're taking. And it just all can be so tricky.Whitney: Yes.Laura: And there's just, there, I feel like there's a lack of anyone having conversations about these things and even less support for these things.Whitney: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Laura: I'm just wondering if, if there's anything that you wanted to add about either navigating feeding kids with an eating disorder or kind of the influence of diet culture, and you know what the like mom influencer culture for want of better word on how we feed our kids and kind of what you are seeing in your clinical practice.Whitney: Yeah. Well you brought up a really good point earlier. We're seeing a lot in the land of orthorexia and so, you know, something I've said before in the past of, uh, clients that I'm like, okay, we, we want to really work on the embodiment. We really wanna work on the variety if we can. The consistent nourishment, you know, without. without engaging orthorexia if we can. And what I mean by that is sometimes there's a tendency, I, I very much treat eating disorders on the spectrum. And so what tends to happen is maybe one, maybe one behavior dials down, but then there's this intense fear anxiety that ramps up and then kind of that obsession with the clean eating, or I don't wanna have like, you know, another co-occurring disease with this. And it's like that hyper fixation emerges. And so really talking about that in a very, just like, non-chain based way. But I definitely see the influence, like you said. I love, I love what you said, the mom culture of this like clean eating smoothie, like whole foods kind of like obsession, which feels so elitist to me. It feels very elitist. Laura: It is because, I mean, this is something I think a lot about is the not only the time, the money, the energy, I don't know. There's so much additional labor that goes into producing that, but it's all hidden, right? Nobody talks about the fact that like, you need someone else to look after your kids while you're doing this right, or you know, the, the labor, like where does that labor fall? Who does that fall on, that labor? And the fact that like it's, you know, it's not necessary from a nutrition perspective, right? You could get like a yogurt drink or a store bought smoothie if that's, you know, available to you. That a lot of what we see on social media is really about aesthetics rather than about nutrition. And I don't know if you know, is it, is it Casey, is it Davis from, from Struggle Care? I don't know if you know that account on social media. I think I've, I've spoken about this before. But she, so she talks about this in terms of your home and, like what's functional versus what is kind of like an aesthetic in terms of your home. And she talks about it through like, through the lens of like laundry. A lot of the times, you know how people have these like pristine laundry rooms and like laundry is kind of a hobby for some people, but that's not necessary in order to have like clean clothes that don't stink, right? You don't like, what is an essential function is like sorting your laundry, putting it in the machine and then like putting it away or putting it in a pile that is, you know, accessible to you. Right. And it's the same thing with feeding, right? This like, I don't even know what the cool, like, super foods are right now, but like the berry nourishing whole foods smoothie.Whitney: Yes,Laura: Like, sure. Give your kids, like, my kid loves berries. My kid would like eat their entire body weight in berries, but I'm not like making a fresh smoothie every morning for him, I'm like throwing some on a tray and being like, here you go.Whitney: Yes, and it's ending up on the wall, on the floor. The fingers are blue. AbsolutelyLaura: So, yeah, and, and I think that that's like a really helpful way to, for us to frame things that we see on social media, like, is this, is this, uh, is this functional or is this an aesthetic? Right. More, more, more often than not on social media, it's an aesthetic, it's a hobby. It's not like a fundamental requirement for feeding our children.Whitney: That's so good. Gosh, I love, okay, it's called struggling. What's the account called? Laura: Struggle Care. Whitney: Struggle Care. That is the most beautiful like metaphor that I have heard in such a while. Like that is,Laura: It's so good. And she did a podcast with you know, like that 10% Happier podcast?Whitney: Yes. Yes.Laura: And she said in that, that she was inspired by like the anti-diet movement to talk about this. She's a therapist. But she kind of took like a lot of the teachings of like the anti diet, like body and body autonomy, and movements like that, and kind of like translated it into home care. So it makes a lot of sense because there are a lot of parallels in terms of like giving yourself permission for your house to be messy. Because what matters is that it's functional and it works for you. Similarly, like eating in a way that works for you rather than all these prescribed rules that diet culture teaches us. I mean, she articulates it a bit better than that, but like, yeah, that's her kind of general,Whitney: I love that so much. I feel like this podcast time was like for me today because I love this so much.Laura: Yeah, she's got, she's got a book. I haven't read it, but I need to get, I need to get on that because yeah, it's clearly she's got a lot of wisdom to share that I think like yeah, we can take for our, you know, to talk about yeah, to, in, in terms of how we can like give ourselves permission to feed our kids in a way that is functional rather than adhering to someone else's unrealistic standards and ideals, which is more about aesthetics than it is about nutrition. Okay.So I'm, I'm curious to know if there's anything else that you wanted to add to that, or if you feel like we've, likeWhitney: I feel like we've talked so about so many things. I love it. I feel like, yeah, so many things today, so far.Laura: Well, given that we have covered a lot of ground, there are, so there are two things that I ask at the end of every episode, and the first thing is that I would love to hear who or what is nourishing you right now.Whitney: Gosh, that's such a good question. So my partner is fabulous and just cannot speak the like enough amazing things. So my partner has been so amazing. Does a lot of the early morning routine , I'm notLaura: Love to see it.Whitney: Yes, I was a night shift nurse for years, and so I, just mornings are still hard for me, so definitely my partner has, has stepped up and I've been getting a lot of nourishment just from a lot of colleagues, you know. I just came back from New York. We were at A Project Heal which is an eating disorder nonprofit in New York City. And so it just felt so nice to be in space with people, you know, I just had really been craving that likeminded people, and so that was just so, just refreshing, like just for my soul, just to be, you know, so many people that I had met honestly over Instagram, right? Like most of the people there I had met and connected with over Instagram. So it was just so nice just to like be in space with them for the first time. So I loved that.Laura: Yeah. Especially like, I don't know how you feel, but if it just feels like, we're still sort of almost in this lockdown mentality of like not really being physically together a lot of times. And a lot of stuff is still like professional stuff is still online, which is great because it makes it really accessible, but at the same time you still miss out on that connection.So yeah. I was watch, I saw some of your stories and posts and stuff from New York and I was like, oh, you looked like you were having the best time.Whitney: It was so fun.Laura: And New York is such a fun city to be in. So yeah, it was like coming across for sure.Whitney: Yeah, I told my, I was telling my husband, I was like, I really wanna go back and take our little one when she's a little older, cuz it's so magical this time of year. And I didn't know that. Like I just, I, you know, I've never been to New York City like, you know, in holiday season and so it is just, it was so, it was cold, but it,Laura: I was just about to say, that's my like memory of New York in like November, December is it's fucking freezingWhitney: It is. It is.Laura: But also spectacular, so yeah. Yeah. Oh, well thank you for sharing that. And then the last, the last question that I have for you is what are you snacking on right now? So, at the end of every episode, my guests and I share something that they've been really into, something that they've been enjoying. Basically a recommendation that you have for the listeners.Whitney: Okay. So I am one of these people that I like to try seasonal things, so I've been trying a lot of mocktails. And we love donuts in our house. So I'm, I, yeah, I, we like love, like, donuts, coffee, chocolate milk, all the things. So I've been trying to do coffee mocktails with like a pastry each morning because it's kind of chilly here, but I just love warmth, just warm things. So that's what I've been doing a lot lately.Laura: So when you're saying a, like a coffee mocktail, is it warm or is it like a, oh, my. Okay. I feel like you need to give a bit more explanation here because like when you said mocktail, I thought you meant like, like an espresso martini, but,Whitney: Yes. So you could do that without the, which. Okay, so how I am, I could drink an espresso martini every day or Bailey's and so I love like a Bailey's Peppermint or like a Bailey liqueor but obviously, you know, at, uh, Laura: It's not, not totally advisable, right?Whitney: I've been doing the hot coffee and I've been exploring with like doing like, so this one dessert that I love to make is, it's cool whip, but I put, uh, okay, so I make, I melt chocolate chips and white chocolate, and then cocoa powder, whip that, let it cool. And then I fold that into like, cool whip or icing, let it freeze. So I'll put that in my hot coffee, let it melt, and then I'll do like a peppermint or a lavender, like simple, like a, a simple syrup thing.Laura: Oh wow.Whitney: And then I'll decorate that with like, and then I'll put more like, whipped cream on top, and I'll decorate that with like, uh, cinnamon or nutmeg or like pecan sprinkle, something like that.Laura: You are doing this for breakfast, like on a weekday.Whitney: Yeah. Yeah.Laura: Oh my God. I can like barely get some oatmeal on the table. That's impressive.Whitney: Yeah, just so I'm, I just finished my semester, so the school year is just so hectic for us because I'm in clinic, I'm getting my, I'm finishing my degree to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and so I usually was in clinic like 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM Tuesday, Wednesday, Laura: Uh,Whitney: So I just finished last week. I was in New York taking exams and so I had three weeks off. So I'm just gonna enjoy and do this.Laura: Okay. So your, yeah. Okay. This is a hobby for you. Then, you've got a little bit of extra time. It's luxurious. You're leaning into the seasonal mocktail drink situation. It sounds amazing. I would love to be at your house for breakfast,Whitney: Gosh. I wish I could make you one. I wish I could make you,Laura: I will take a recipe for one. If you have one to share. I will put it in the links.Whitney: Okay. Okay. I'll have to send you some recipes. So I love drinks, like I love beverages, it's so funny you said the word luxury. I made a mood board. Do you know, like Delina Soto, Nutrition Tea? Okay. So we're all like close friends, all met from Instagram, and we have this like nutrition chat. And so Clara was like, let's do a mood board. And so we all zoomed one night with our beverages and Canva. And did these like online mood boards, which were like, amazing. But like my word was luxury. And I was like, I'm really embracing that end of 2022, 2023,Laura: I love it. I love it. Channeling it for the new year. Clara was on Season One of the podcast, so yes. Yay. Yeah. She is known to us. Yeah, she's great. And yeah, I totally love that luxurious energy that you're bringing into 2023. All right, so real quick, my thing that I've been snacking on, so there is this like little brand in the UK I think it's like an independent female owned clothing brand. And they used to do a lot of kid stuff, but now they're doing grownup stuff, but it's still super cute and funky. And I just bought - I've linked to it in a newsletter, but I'll link to it again in this episode - just like a plain t-shirt, but it's got a cereal box, like a little drawing on the front and it's super cute. I just put it in my stories so you can go check that out afterwards. Whitney: Definitely will. Laura: But yeah, it's by Cub & Pudding and just like the cotton is super soft and it's like, you know, just like comfy on my body. I have no idea how I'm gonna wear it yet, but we're recording this before Christmas, even though it will come out afterwards. And yeah, it was like a little Christmas treat to myself. Whitney: I love that. Laura: And it just like is very on brand for me, so loving it. Whitney, it was such a pleasure to chat to you. And I wondered if you could please share where people can find you and, and hear more about your work.Whitney: Yes. Thank you so much for offering that. So my website is www.whitneytrotter.com. And then my Instagram, which I'm probably most accessible through is @whitneytrotter.rd.Laura: And I'll link to all of that in the show notes so people can find you. But this was such a lovely conversation. So thanks for being here. And yeah, everyone go and check Whitney out.OUTROLaura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Laura Maguire is a Researcher at Jeli.io, the first dedicated instant analysis platform that combines more comprehensive data to deliver more proactive solutions and identify problems. Victoria talks to Laura about incident management, giving companies a powerful tool to learn from their incidents, and what types of customers are ideal for taking on a platform like Jeli.io. Jeli.io (https://www.jeli.io/) Follow Jeli.io on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jeli_io/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/jeli_io) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/jeli-inc/). Follow Laura Maguire on Twitter (https://twitter.com/LauraMDMaguire) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramaguire/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Laura Maguire, Researcher at Jeli, the first dedicated instant analysis platform that combines more comprehensive data to deliver more proactive solutions and identify problems. Laura, thank you for joining me. LAURA: Thanks for having me, Victoria. VICTORIA: This might be a very introductory level question but just right off the bat, what is an incident? LAURA: What we find is a lot of companies define this very differently across the space, but typically, it's where they are seeing an impact, either a customer impact or a degradation of their service. This can be either formally, it kind of impacts their SLOs or their SLAs, or informally it's something that someone on the team notices or someone, you know, one of their users notice as being degraded performance or something not working as intended. VICTORIA: Gotcha. From my background being in IT operations, I'm familiar with incidents, and it's been a practice in IT for a long time. But what brought you to be a part of building this platform and creating a product around incidents? LAURA: I am a, let's say, recovering safety professional. VICTORIA: [chuckles] LAURA: I started my career in the safety and risk management realm within natural resource industries in the physical world. And so I worked with people who were at the sharp end in high-risk, high-consequence type work. And they were really navigating risk and navigating safety in the real world. And as I was working in this domain, I noticed that there was a delta between what was being said, created safety, and helped risk management and what I was actually seeing with the people that I was working with on the front lines. And so I started to pull the thread on this, and I thought, is work as done really the same as work as written or work as prescribed? And what I found was a whole field of research, a whole field of practice around thinking about safety and risk management in the world of cognitive work. And so this is how people think about risk, how they manage risk, and how do they interpret change and events in the world around them. And so as I started to do my master's degree in human factors and system safety and then later my Ph.D. in cognitive systems engineering, I realized that whether you are on the frontlines of a wildland fire or you're on the frontlines of responding to an incident in the software realm, the ways in which people detect, diagnose, and repair the issues that they're facing are quite similar in terms of the cognitive work. And so when I was starting my Ph.D. work, I was working with Dr. David Woods at the Cognitive Systems Engineering Lab at The Ohio State University. And I came into it, and I was thinking I'm going to work with astronauts, or with fighter pilots, or emergency room doctors, these really exciting domains. And he was like, "We're going to have you work with software engineers." And at first, I really failed to see the connection there, but as I started to learn more about site reliability engineering, about DevOps, about the continuous deployment, continuous integration world, I realized software engineers are really at the forefront of managing critical digital infrastructure. They're keeping up the systems that run society, both for recreation and pleasure in the sense of Netflix, for example, as well as the critical functions within society like our 911 call routing systems, our financial markets. And so the ability to study how software engineers detect outages, manage outages, and work together collaboratively across the team was really giving us a way to study this kind of work that could actually feed back into other types of domains like emergency response, like emergency rooms, and even back to the fighter pilots and astronauts. VICTORIA: Wow, that's so interesting. And so is your research that went into your Ph.D. did that help you help define the product strategy and kind of market fit for what you've been building at Jeli? LAURA: Yeah, absolutely. So Nora Jones, who is the founder and CEO of Jeli, reached out to me at a conference and told me a little bit about what she was thinking about, about how she wanted to support software engineers using a lot of this literature and a lot of the learnings from these other domains to build this product to help support incident management in software engineering. So we base a lot of our thinking around how to help support this cognitive work and how to help resilient performance in these very dynamic, these very changing large scale, you know, distributed software systems on this research, as well as the research that we do with our own users and with our own members from learning from incidents in software engineering Slack community that Nora and several other fairly prominent names within the software community started, Lorin Hochstein, John Allspaw Dr. Richard Cook, Jessica DeVita, Ryan Kitchens, and I may be missing someone else but...and myself, oh, Will Galego as well. Yeah, we based a lot of our understandings, really deep qualitative understandings of what is work like for software engineers when they're, you know, in continuous deployment type environments. And we've translated this into building a product that we think helps but not hinders by getting in the way of engineers while they're under time pressure and there's a lot of uncertainty. And there's often quite a bit of stress involved with responding to incidents. VICTORIA: Right. And you mentioned resilience engineering. And for those who don't know, David Woods, who you worked on with your Ph.D., wrote "Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts." So maybe you could talk a little bit about resilience engineering and what that really means, not just in technology but in the people who were running the tools, right? LAURA: Yeah. So resilience engineering is different from how we think about protecting and defending our software systems. And it's different in the sense that we aren't just thinking about how do we prevent incidents from happening again, like, how do we fix things that have happened to us in the past? But how do we better understand the ways in which our systems operate under a wide variety of conditions? So that includes normal operating conditions as well as abnormal or anomalous operating conditions, such as an incident response. And so resilience engineering was kind of this way of thinking differently about predicting failure, about managing failure, and navigating these kinds of worlds. And one of the fundamental differences about it is it sees people as being the most adaptive component within the system of work. So we can have really good processes and practices around deploying code; we can institute things like cross-checking and peer review of code; we can have really good robust backup and failover systems, but ultimately, it's very likely that in these kinds of complex and adaptive always-changing systems that you're going to encounter problems that you weren't able to anticipate. And so this is where the resilience part comes in because if you're faced with a novel problem, if you're faced with an issue you've never seen before, or a hidden dependency within your system, or an unanticipated failure mode, you have to adapt. You have to be able to take all of the information that's available to you in the moment. You have to interpret that in real-time. You have to think of who else might have skills, knowledge, expertise, access to information, or access to certain kinds of systems or software components. And you have to bring all of those people together in real-time to be able to manage the problem at hand. And so this is really quite a different way of thinking about supporting this work than just let's keep the runbooks updated, and let's make sure that we can write prescriptive processes for everything that we're going to encounter. Because this really is the difference that I saw when I was talking about earlier about that work is done versus work is prescribed. The rules don't cover all of the situations. And so you have to think of how do you help people adapt? How do you help people access information in real-time to be able to handle unforeseen failures? VICTORIA: Right. That makes a lot of sense. It's an interesting evolution of site reliability engineering where you're thinking about the users' experience of your site. It's also thinking about the people who are running your site and what their experience is, and what freedom they have to be able to solve the problems that you wouldn't be able to predict, right? LAURA: Yeah, it's a really good point, actually, because there is sort of this double layer in the product that we are building. So, as you mentioned earlier, we are an incident analysis platform, and so what does that mean? Well, it means that we pull in data whenever there's been an incident, and we help you to look at it a little bit more deeply than you may if you're just following a template and sort of reconstructing a timeline. And so we pull in the actual Slack data that, you know, say, an ops channel or an incident channel that's been spun up following a report of a degraded performance or of an outage. And we look very closely at how did people talk to one another? Who did they bring into the incident? What kinds of things did they think were relevant and important at different points in time? And in doing this, it helps us to understand what information was available to people at different points in time. Because after the incident and after it's been resolved, people often look back and say, "Oh, there's nothing we can learn from that. We figured out what it was." But if we go back and we start looking at how people detected it, how they diagnosed it, who they brought into the event, we can start to unpack these patterns and these ways of understanding how do people work together? What information is useful at different points in time? Which helps us get a deeper understanding of how our systems actually work and how they actually fail. VICTORIA: Right. And I see there are a few different ways the platform does that: there's a narrative builder, a people view, and also a visual timeline. So, do you find that combining all those things together really gives companies a powerful tool to learn from their incidents? LAURA: Yeah. So let me talk a little bit about each of those different components. Our MVP of the product we started out with this understanding of the incident analyst and the incident investigator who, you know, was ready to dive in and ready to understand their incident and apply some qualitative analysis techniques to thinking about their incidents. And what we found was there are a number of these people who are really interested in this deep dive within the software industry. But there's a broader subset of folks that they work with who maybe only do these kinds of incident analysis every once in a while, and they're not as interested in going quite as deep. And so the narrative builder is really this kind of bridge between those two types of users. And what it does is helps construct a timeline which is typically what most companies do to help drive the discussion that they might have in a post-mortem or to drive their kind of findings in their summary report. And it helps them take this closer look at the interactions that happened in that slack transcript and raise questions about what kinds of uncertainties there were, point out who was involved, or interesting aspects of the event at that point in time. And it helps them to summarize what was happening. What did people think was happening at this point in time to create this story about the incident? And the story element is really important because we all learn from stories. It helps bring to life some of the details about what was hard, who was involved, how did they get brought in, what the sources of technical failure were, and whether those were easy or difficult to understand and to repair once the source of the failure was actually understood. And so that narrative builder helps reconstruct this timeline in a much richer way but also do it very efficiently. And as you mentioned, the visual timeline is something that we've created to help that lightweight user or that every once in a while user to go a little bit deeper on their analysis. And how we do that is because it lays out the progression of the event in a way that helps you see, oh, this maybe wasn't straightforward. We didn't detect it in the beginning, and then diagnose it, and then repair it at the end. What happened actually was the detection was intermittent. The signals about what was going wrong was intermittent, and so that was going on in parallel with the diagnosis. The diagnosis took a really long time, and that may have been because we can also see the repair was happening concurrently. And so it starts to show these kinds of characteristics about whether the incident was difficult, whether it was challenging and hard, or whether it was simple and straightforward. This helps lend a bit more depth to metrics like MTTR and TTD by saying, oh, there was a lot more going on in this incident than we initially thought. The last thing that you mentioned was the people view, and so that really sets our product apart from other products in that we look at the sociotechnical system. So it's not just about the software that broke; it is about who was involved in managing that system, in repairing that system, and in communicating about that system outwardly. And so the people view this kind of pulls in some HR data. It helps us to understand who was involved. How long have they been in their role? Were they on-call? Were they not on-call? And other kinds of irrelevant details that show us what was their engagement or their interaction with this event. And so when we start to bring in the socio part of the sociotechnical system, we can identify things like what knowledge do we have within the organization? Is that knowledge well-distributed, or is it just isolated in one or two people? And so those people are constantly getting pulled into incidents when they may be not on-call, which can start to show us whether or not these folks are in danger of burning out or whether their knowledge might need to be transferred more broadly throughout the organization. So this is kind of where the resilience piece comes in because it helps us to distribute knowledge. It helps us to identify who is relevant and useful and how do they partner and collaborate with other people, and their knowledge and skill sets to be able to manage some of the outages that they face? VICTORIA: That's wonderful because one of my follow-up questions would be, as a CEO, as a founder, what kind of insights or choices do you get to make now that you have this insight to help make your team more resilient? [laughs] LAURA: So if this is a manager, or a founder, or a CEO that is looking at their data in Jeli, they can start to understand how to resource their teams more appropriately, as I mentioned, how to spread that knowledge around. They can start to see what parts of their system are creating the most problems or what parts of their system do they have maybe less insight into how it works, how it interacts with other parts of the system, and what this actually means for their ability to meet their SLOs or their SLAs. So it gives you a more in-depth understanding of how your business is actually operating on both the technical side of things, as well as on the people side of things. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that overview of the platform. There's the incident analysis platform, and you also have the bot, the response chatbot. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? LAURA: Yeah, absolutely. We think that incident management should be conducted wherever your work actually takes place, and so for most of our customers and a lot of folks that we know about in the industry, that's Slack. And so, if you are communicating in real-time with your team in Slack, we think that you should stay there. And so, we built this incident management bot that is free and will be free for the lifetime of the product. Because we think that this is really the fundamental basis for helping you manage your incidents more efficiently and more effectively. So it's a pretty lightweight bot. It gives kind of some guardrails or some guidance around collaboration by spinning up a new incident channel, helping you to bring the right kinds of responders into that, helping you to communicate to interested stakeholders by broadcasting to channels they might be in. It kind of nudges you to think about how to communicate about what's happening during different stages of the event progression. And so it's prompting you in a very lightweight way; hey, do you have a status update? Do you have a summary of what the current thinking is? What are the hypotheses about what's going on? Who's conducting what kinds of activities right now? So that if I'm a responder that's coming into the event after 20-30 minutes after it started, I can very quickly come up to speed, understand what's going on, who's doing what, and figure out what's useful for me to do to help step in and not disrupt the incident management that's underway right now. Our users can choose to use the bot independently of the incident analysis platform. But of course, being able to ingest that incident into Jeli it helps you understand who's been involved in the incident, if they've been involved in similar incidents in the past, and helps them start to see some patterns and some themes that emerge over time when you start to look at incidents across the organization. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And I love that it's free and that there's something for every type of organization to take advantage of there. And I wonder if at Jeli you have data about what type of customer is it who'd be targeted or really ideal to take on this kind of platform. LAURA: So most organizations...I was actually recently at SREcon EMEA, and there was a really interesting series of talks; one was SRE for Enterprise, and the next talk was SRE for Startups. And so it was a very thought-provoking discussion around is SRE for everyone, so site reliability engineering? Even smaller teams are starting to have to be responsible for reliability and responsible for running their service. And so we kind of have built our platform thinking about how do we help not just big enterprises or organizations that may have dedicated teams for this but also small startups to learn from their incidents. So internally, we actually call incidents opportunities as in they are learning opportunities for checking out how does your system actually work? How do your people work together? What things were difficult and challenging about the incident? And how do you talk about those things as a team to help create more resilient performance in future? So in terms of an ideal customer, it's really folks that are interested in conducting these sort of lightweight but in-depth looks at how their system actually works on both the people side of things and the technical side of things. Those who we found are most successful with our product are interested in not so much figuring out who did the thing and who can they blame for the incident itself but rather how do they learn from what happened? And would another engineer, or another product owner, another customer service representative, whoever the incident may be sort of focused around, would another person in their shoes have taken the same actions that they took or made the same decisions that they made? Which helps us understand from a systems level how do we repair or how do we adjust the system of work surrounding folks so that they are better supported when they're faced with uncertainty, or with that kind of time pressure, or that ambiguity about what's actually going on? VICTORIA: And I love that you said that because part of the reason [laughs] I invited you on to the podcast is that a lot of companies I have experience with don't think about incidents until it happens to them, and then it can be a scramble. It can impact their customer base. It can stress their team out. But if you go about creating...the term obviously you all use is psychological safety on your team, and maybe you use some of the free tools from Jeli like the Post-Incident Guide and the Incident Analysis 101 blog to set your team up for success from the beginning, then you can increase your customer loyalty and your team loyalty as well to the company. Is that your experience? LAURA: Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that I have learned throughout my career, you know, starting way back in forestry and looking at safety and risk in that domain, was as soon as there is an accident or even a serious near miss, right away, everybody gets sweaty palms. Everybody is concerned about, uh-oh, am I going to get blamed for this? Am I going to get fired? Am I going to get publicly shamed for the decisions that I made when I was in this situation? And what that response, that reaction does is it drives a lot of the communication and a lot of the understanding of the conditions that that person was in. It drives that underground. And it's important to allow people to talk about here's what I was seeing, here's what I was experiencing because, in these kinds of complex systems, information is not readily available to people. The signals are not always coming through loud and clear about what's going on or about what the appropriate actions to take are. Instead, it's messy; it's loud, it's noisy. There are usually multiple different demands on that person's attention and on their time, and they're often managing trade-offs: do I keep the system down so that I can gather more information about what's actually going on, or do I just try and bring it up as quickly as I can so that there's less impact to users? Those kinds of decisions are having to be made under pressure. So when we create these conditions of psychological safety, when we say you know what? This happened. We want to learn from it. We've already made this investment. Richard Cook mentioned in the very first SNAFU Catchers Report, which was a report that came out of Ohio State, that incidents are unplanned investments into understanding how your system works. And so you've already had the incident. You've already paid the price of that downtime or of that outage. So you might as well extract some learning from it so that you can help create a safer and more resilient system in the future. So by helping people to reconstruct what was actually happening in real-time, not what they were retrospectively saying, "Oh, I should have done this," well, you didn't do that. So let's understand why you thought at that moment in time that was the right way to respond because, more than likely, other people in that same position would have made that same choice. And so it helps us to think more broadly about ways that we can support decision-making and sense-making under conditions of stress and uncertainty. And ultimately, that helps your system be more resilient and be more reliable for your customers. VICTORIA: What a great reframing: unplanned investment. [laughs] And if you don't learn from it, then you're going to lose out on what you've already invested that time in resolving it, right? LAURA: Absolutely. MID-ROLL AD: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you're tight on time and investment, which is why we've created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product's next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at: tbot.io/entrepreneurs. VICTORIA: Getting more into that psychological safety and how to create that culture where people feel safe telling about what really happened, but how does that relate to...Jeli says that they are a people software. [laughs] Talk to me more about that. Like, what advice do you give founders and CEOs on how to create that psychological safety which makes them be more resilient in these types of incidents? LAURA: So you mentioned the Howie Guide that we published last year, and this is our guidance around how to do incident analysis, how to help your team start to learn from their incidents, and Howie stands for how we got here. And that's really important, that language because what it says is there's a history that led up to this incident. And most teams, when they've had an outage, they'll kind of look backwards from that outage, maybe an hour, maybe a day, maybe to the last deploy. But they don't think about how the decisions got made to use that piece of software in the first place. They don't think about how did engineers actually get on-boarded to being on-call. They don't necessarily think about what kinds of skills, and knowledge, and expertise when we're hiring a DevOps engineer, and I'm using air quotes here or an SRE. What kinds of skills and knowledge do they actually have? Those are very broad terms. And what it means to be a DevOps engineer or an SRE is quite underspecified. And so the knowledge behind the folks that you might hire into the company is going to necessarily be very diverse. It's going to be partial and incomplete in many ways because not everyone can know everything about the system. And so, we need to have multiple diverse perspectives about how the system works, how our customers use that system, what kinds of pressures and constraints exist within our company that allow us some possibilities over others. We need to bring all of those perspectives together to get a more reflective picture of what was actually happening before this incident took place and how we actually got here. This reframing helps a lot of people disarm that initial defensiveness response or that initial, oh, shoot; I'm going to get in trouble for this kind of response. And it says to them, "Hey, you're a part of this bigger system of work. You are only one piece of this puzzle. And what we want to try and do is understand what was happening within the company, not just what you did, what you said, and what you decided." So once people realize that you're not just trying to find fault or place blame, but you're really trying to understand their work, and you're trying to understand their work with other teams and other vendors, and trying to understand their work relative to the competing demands that were going on, so those are some of the things that help create psychological safety. About ten years ago, John Allspaw and the team at Etsy put out The Etsy Debriefing Facilitation Guide, which also poses a number of questions and helps to frame the post-incident learnings in a way that moves it from the individual and looks more collectively at the company as a whole. And so these things are helpful for founders or for CEOs to help bring forward more information about what's really going on, more information about what are the real risks and threats and opportunities within the company, and gives you an opportunity to step back and do what we call microlearning, which is sharing knowledge about how the system works, sharing understandings of what people think is going on, and what people know about the system. We don't typically talk about those things unless there's a reason to, and incidents kind of give us that reason because they're uncomfortable and they can be painful. They can be very public. They can be very disruptive to what we think about how resilient and reliable we actually are. And so if you can kind of step away from this defensiveness and step away from this need to place blame and instead try and understand the conditions, you will get a lot more learning and a lot more resilience and reliability out of your teams and out of your systems. VICTORIA: That makes sense to me. And I'd like to draw a connection between that and some other things you mentioned with The 2022 Accelerate State of DevOps Report that highlights that the people who are often responding to those incidents or in that high-stress situation tend to be historically underrepresented or historically excluded groups. And so do you see that having this insight into both who is actually taking on a lot of the work when these incidents happen and creating that psychological safety can make a better environment for diversity, equity, inclusion at a company as well? LAURA: Well, I think anytime you work to establish trust and transparency, and you focus on recognizing the skills that people do have, the knowledge that they do have, and not over assuming that someone knows something or that they have been involved in the discussions that may have been relevant to an incident, anytime you focus on that trust and transparency you are really signaling to people within your organization that you value their contributions and that you recognize that they've come to work and trying to do a good job. But they have multiple competing demands on their attention and on their time. And so we're not making assumptions about people being complacent, or people being reckless or being sloppy in their work. So that creates an environment where people feel more willing to speak up and to talk about some of the challenges that they might face, to talk about the ways in which it's not clear to them how certain parts of the system work or how certain teams actually operate. So you're just opening the channels for communication, which helps to share more knowledge. It helps to share more information about what teams are doing at different points in time. And this helps people to preemptively anticipate how a change that they might be making in their part of the system could be influencing up or downstream teams. And so this helps create more resilience because now you're thinking laterally about your system and about your involvement across teams and across boundary lines. And an example of this is if a marketing team...this is a story that Nora tells quite a bit; if a marketing team is, say, launching a Super Bowl commercial for their company but they don't actually tell the engineers on-call that that is about to happen, you can create all sorts of breakdowns when all of a sudden you have this surge of traffic to your website because people see the Super Bowl commercial and they want to go to the site. And then you have a single person who's trying to respond to that in real-time. So, instead, when you do start thinking about that trust and transparency, you're helping teams to help each other and to think more broadly about how their work is actually impacting other parts of the system. So from a diversity and inclusion and underrepresented groups perspective, this is creating the conditions for more people to be involved, more people to feel like their voice is going to be heard, and that their perspective actually matters. VICTORIA: That sounds really powerful, and I'm glad we were able to touch on that. Shifting gears a little bit, I wanted to talk about two different questions; so one is if you could travel back in time to when Jeli first started, what advice would you give yourself, your past self? LAURA: I would encourage myself to recognize that our ability to experiment is fundamental to our ability to learn. And learning is what helps us to iterate faster. Learning is what helps us to reflect on the tool that we're building or the feature that we're building and what this actually means to our users. I actually copped that advice to myself from CEO Zoran Perkov of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. They launched a whole new stock market during the pandemic with a fully remote team. And I had interviewed him for an article that I wrote about resilient leadership. And he said to me, like, "My job as a CEO is 100% about protecting our ability to experiment as a company because if we stop learning, we're not going to be able to iterate. We're not going to be able to adapt to the changes that we see in the market and in our users." So I think I would tell myself to continually experiment. One of the things that I talk to our customers about a lot because many of them are implementing new incident management programs or they're trying to level up their engineering teams around incident analysis, and I would say, "This doesn't have to be a fully-fleshed out program where you know all of the ways in which this is going to unfold." It's really about trying experiments, conduct some training, start small. Do one incident analysis on a really particularly spicy incident that you may have had or a really challenging incident where a lot of people were surprised by what happened. Bring together that group and say, "Hey, we're going to try something a little bit different here. We'll use some questions from the Howie Guide. We'll use the format and the structure from the Etsy Debriefing Guide. And we're just going to try and learn what we can about this event. We're not going to try and place blame. We're not going to try and generate corrective actions. We just want to see what we can learn from this." Then ask people that were involved, "How did this go? What did we learn from it? What should we do differently next time?" And continually iterate on those small, little experiments so that you can grow your product and grow your team's capacity. I think it took us a little bit of time to figure that out within the organization, but once we did, we were just able to collaborate more effectively work more effectively by integrating some of the feedback that we were getting from our users. And then the last piece of advice that I would give myself is to really invest in cross-discipline coordination and collaboration. Engineers, designers, researchers, CEOs they all have a different view of the product. They all have a different understanding of what the goals and priorities are. And those mental models of the product and of what the right thing to do is are constantly changing. And they all have different language that they use to talk about the product and to talk about their processes for integrating this understanding of the changing conditions and the changing user into the product. And so I would say invest in establishing common ground across the different disciplines within your team to be able to talk about what people are seeing, to be able to stop and identify when we're making assumptions about what other people know or what other people's orientation towards the problem or towards the product are. And spend a little bit of time saying, "When I say this is important, I'm saying it's important because of XYZ, not just this is important." So spending a little bit of time elaborating on what your mental model is and where you're drawing from can help the teams work more effectively together across those disciplines. VICTORIA: That's pretty powerful advice. You're iterating and experimenting at Jeli. What's on the horizon that you are...what new experiments are you excited about? LAURA: One of the things that has been front and center for us since we started is this idea of cross-incident analysis. And so we've kind of built out a number of different features within the product, being able to help tag the incident with the relevant services and technologies that were involved, being able to identify which teams were involved, and also being able to identify different kinds of themes or patterns that emerge from individual incidents. So all of this data that we can get from mostly just from the ingested incident itself or from the incident that you bring into Jeli but also from the analysis that you do on it this helps us start to be able to see across incidents what's happening not just with the technical side of things. So is it always Travis that is causing a problem? Are there components that work together that kind of have these really hidden and strange interdependencies that are really hard for the team to actually cope with? What kinds of themes are emerging across your suite of opportunities, your suite of incidents that you've ingested? Some of the things that we're starting to see from those experiments is an ability to look at where are your knowledge islands within your organization? Do you have an engineer who, if they were to leave, would take the majority of your systems knowledge about your database, or about your users, or about some critical aspect of your system that would disappear with all of that tacit knowledge? Or are there engineers that work really effectively together during really difficult incidents? And so you can start to unpack what are these characteristics of these people, and of these teams, and of these technologies that offer both opportunities or threats to your organization? So basically, what we're doing is we're helping you to see how your system performs under different kinds of conditions, which I think as a safety and risk professional working in a variety of different domains for the last 15 years, I think this is really where the rubber hits the road in helping teams be more reliable, and be more resilient, and more proactive about where investments in maintenance, or training, or headcount are going to have the biggest bang for your buck. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. In my experience, sometimes those decisions are made more on intuition or on limited data so having a more full picture to rely on probably produces better results. [laughs] LAURA: Yeah, and I think that we all want to be data-driven, thinking about not only the quantitative data is how many incidents do we have around certain parts of the system, or certain teams, or certain services? But also, the qualitative side of things is what does this actually mean? And what does this mean to our ability to grow and change over time and to scale? The partnership of that quantitative data and qualitative data means we're being data-driven on a whole other level. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And it seems like we're getting close to the end of our time here. Is there anything else you want to give as a final takeaway to our listeners? LAURA: Yeah. So I think that we are, you know, as a domain, as a field, software engineering is increasingly becoming responsible for not only critical infrastructure within society, but we have a responsibility to our users and to each other within our companies to help make work better, help make our services more reliable and more resilient over time. And there's a variety of lessons that we can learn from other domains. As I mentioned before, aviation, healthcare, nuclear power all of those kinds of domains have been thinking about supporting cognitive work and supporting frontline operators. And we can learn from this history and this literature that exists out there. There is a GitHub repo that Lorin Hochstein has curated with a number of other folks with the industry that points to some of these resources. And as well, we'll be hosting the first Learning From Incidents in Software Engineering Conference in Denver in February, February 15 and 16th. And one feature of this conference that I'm super excited about is affectionately called CasesConf. And it is going to be an opportunity for software engineers from a variety of organizations to tell real stories about incidents that they had, how they handled them, what was challenging, what went surprisingly well, and just what is actually going on within their organizations. And this is kind of a new thing for the software industry to be talking very publicly about failures and sharing the messy details of our incidents. This won't be a recorded part of the conference. It is going to be conducted under the Chatham House Rule, which is participants who are in the room while these stories are being told can share some of the stories but not any identifying details about the company or the engineers that were involved. And so this kind of real-world situations helps us to, as I talked about before, with that psychological safety, helps us to say this is the reality of operating complex systems. They're going to fail. We're going to have to learn from them. And the more that we can talk at an industry level about what's going on and about what kinds of things are creating problems or opportunities for each other, the more we're going to be able to lift the bar for the industry as a whole. So you can check out register.learningfromincidents.io for more information about the conference. And we can link Lorin's resilience engineering GitHub repo in the notes as well. VICTORIA: Wonderful. Well, I was looking for an excuse to come to Denver in February anyways. LAURA: We would love to have ya. VICTORIA: Thank you. And thank you so much for taking time to share with us today, Laura. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Laura Maguire.

CIHAS pod is on a season break until the new year. But I promised you some fun bonus pods in the meantime, so here goes. Some juicy, unreleased content right here! Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.This week, we're jumping back to my conversation with the fabulous Virgie Tovar from episode 8 (if you haven't listened to that ‘sode yet, now's your chance). This snippet didn't appear in the OG episode, but Virgie shares some really helpful tips on her approach to how to respond to a kid who asks ‘am I fat?'. Virgie sets out seven steps you can take to help you handle this question in an age-appropriate way, and considers things like what if you don't feel OK about your body, and how you can help the kiddo if they are being bullied about their weight. Spoiler - I might have convinced Virgie to join the ‘Stack. And she might have agreed to write a very cool, fat Christmas love story to share on CIHAS in December

Alright folks, here it is! The final episode of Season 1 of the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast (keep an eye out for Season 2 in the new year!) - and we're ending with a bang! This week I'm chatting to Katie Greenall, theatre maker, writer, and performer of the award-winning autobiographical solo show ‘Fatty Fat Fat'. We speak all about Embodiment and disconnection from our body, and discuss how we can handle a funky body image day. They also give us the inside scoop on their upcoming show ‘Blubber'.Find out more about Katie here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here.Here's the transcript in full:Katie: I've had like lots of us have, or on the, on the road to having, I hope, this sort of glass-shattering moment where you are like, Oh, I can live in my body, in my case, in my fat, queer body and be happy. Those things can coexist. I do not have to change the other thing in order to be happy. And I mean, happy in the fullest of sense. I mean, successful in whatever successful looks like, loved, cared for, fed, cherished, admired, like whatever that looks like. And, and that can change. And for the first sort of two decades of my life, I did not realise that I could be fat and any of those things.INTRO:Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter.Today I'm sharing the last episode of Season One of the Can I Have Another Snack? podcast. I'll be back in January with ten brand-new episodes with some incredible guests. And in the meantime you can follow along on the Can I Have Another Snack? Substack where I'm gonna be sharing some really cool features over the holiday period including my emo kid Christmas playlist, an anti-diet gift guide, and some guest holiday pieces from Kristen Scher and Virgie Tovar. You're not going to want to miss them, they're seriously great and I can't wait to share them with you. So make sure that you're signed up to receive those posts at laurathomas.substack.comAlright team, I am so pumped to introduce you to today's guest. Katie Greenall is someone whose work I've followed for a long time, and I'm really excited for you to hear this conversation.For those of you who don't know Katie, they are a facilitator, theatre maker and writer living in London. She makes autobiographical work that often explores fatness, queerness, and community alongside making work with young people and communities across London. Previously, Katie performed her award-winning autobiographical solo show, Fatty, Fat, Fat and is currently developing their new show Blubber, which we're gonna talk about in this episode. We're also gonna talk about embodiment and feeling disconnected from our bodies, and how Katie handles a funky body image day. Before we get to Katie, just a reminder that Can I Have Another Snack? is entirely reader-supported. We don't have sponsors or do adverts or anything like that. I don't make money from affiliate links. I'm not trying to sell you anything that you don't need. All I ask is that if you value the space and the community that we're building, then please consider becoming a paid subscriber.Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Yes, you get perks and bonuses and all of that great stuff. But more than that, you make this work sustainable and accessible for everyone. It's five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year. And if that's unaffordable for you just now, please email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk with the word snacks in the subject line, and we will hook you up with a comp subscription. No questions asked. Also consider gifting a subscription to one of your pals this holiday season, or getting someone to gift it to you. Alright, team, let's get to our last guest of the season, Katie Greenall.MAIN EPISODE:Laura: All right, Katie, can you tell us who or what you are nourishing right now?Katie: I love this question. I would like to think that especially this week, I am nourishing myself. I am really trying to form some new habits this week. I've had a bit of a, I'd say a few big few months of lots of different things, particularly work-wise. And so this week I'm really focusing on building some new habits and just like getting my shit together a little bit.And so, I've really been finding that really nourishing for me. Uh, so I would say top of the list, I'm nourishing myself. That isn't usually the case. That's usually, if I'm being really honest and reflective, that self and nourishment is usually much further down. But I'm really kind of stepping into that this week, which is why having this conversation with you feels like really beautifully timed because, um, yeah, I genuinely for the first time in a long time feel like I'm doing some nourishing of myself.Laura: It sounds like that's kind of unfamiliar to you.Katie: Hmm. Yeah.Laura: I guess I have two questions on that. Like one is what, you know, what is difficult about that for you usually, secondly, you know, what is that, that self nourishment looking like for you at the moment.Katie: I think it's difficult for a number of reasons. It's difficult because, one, I work a lot, um, So a big part of my job is facilitating and holding space for other people. Um, predominantly that's working with young people in different theater settings. Like I run lots of young companies, I work in schools, or with other, in other community settings.So like my literal job is holding space for other people, um, maybe similarly to yourself, uh, or in a, kinda, in a very different way. But that idea of, of a big part of what I do is holding and hopefully nourishing other people, nourishing artists or, um, yeah, like young people, to be able to achieve what they want to achieve, to access new skills and stuff like that.And so often when I get that, a lot of that work happens in evenings and at weekends. And so just stuff like eating meals and going to bed and having any sense of routine, which is something that is really important to me, just gets pushed further and further and down the list. And the more, you know, it was just definitely not revolutionary, but like the more tired you get, the more you feel like you're, it's harder and harder to keep hold of any of those things. So that's one thing. I think secondly is that I've been taught I shouldn't be taking care of myself. That like I, that me and my fat body don't deserve care. And sometimes that is really hard to challenge. Sometimes it's really hard to have the extra energy or capacity to be like, Oh, not only am I gonna give myself the care or the nourishment, Which I think is such a beautiful word, but not, not only am I going to do that, but I'm also, that takes energy in itself. I also have to take the next level of energy, which is to do that in spite of a structure that is trying to stop me from doing that. And so it's really hard and I've spent a long time knowing that, now I've come to realise, understand more about fat liberation and the capitalist structure and diet culture and all of those things, the more I've realised I can't and don't want to go back to having, having those thought cycles. Sometimes I don't have the power or the capacity or the strength to, to challenge them. And so I exist in this sort of no man's land instead. And so yeah, it feels really nice to be able to have the capacity, and time and resource to be able to kind of apply that nourishment to to myself.Laura: Yeah, that's a really, um, there's something quite striking in what you've just said, you know, and I think a lot of us experience this from time to time, like intellectually understanding that we are being oppressed by systems that, you know, that don't care about our lives or don't care about our wellbeing, that only find value in us if we are producing and conforming and looking a certain way and et cetera, et cetera. And, and, and, you know, wanting to, you know, placing value in rejecting those systems. And also there's still being a huge barrier to overcome to access self care, to access self nourishment, to care for ourselves and, and sort of, I don't know, I'm just imagining this kind of liminal space, this no man's land that you were talking about, and I find that a lot of us probably feel stuck in that place quite often.Katie: Yeah, because there's a real resistance, like I'm, I'm resistant to regressing into this, this space that I, you know, I've had like lots of us have, or on the, on the road to having, I hope, this sort of glass shattering moment where you are like, Oh, I can live in my body, in my case, in my fat queer body and be happy. Those things can coexist. I do not have to change the other thing in order to be happy. And I mean, happy in the fullest of sense. I mean, successful in whatever successful looks like, loved, cared for, fed, cherished, admired, like whatever that looks like. And, and that can change. And for the first sort of two decades of my life, I did not realise that I could be fat and any of those things.Laura: Yeah.Katie: I'd have glimmers of it and then be like, but it was so hard to hold onto, and I thought the only way that I could hold onto them more was, was to not be fat anymore.Laura: Yeah.Katie: And so I just, I utterly refute. I completely resist, going back to thinking like that. And so I would much rather sit in this no man's land space. But that being said, it's really difficult and it's meant that I have felt increasingly disconnected to my body in a way because I am reframing it as something that like, doesn't define my existence, or doesn't define my ability to achieve happiness or success or love or any of those things. The multitude of those. But I can't always work out how to achieve them. And so it's really challenging. And so it's felt like it's easier to sort of build some space between me and my body, rather than live that under fear of going back to a place that I don't wanna.Laura: Yeah. So many little, little threads that I want to tug on there. I suppose what I'm thinking about is just this, like the energy required to subvert the system and just say, No, I'm out When still existing and living within those structures, within the, those confines and, and all of the, you know, I suppose what we're talking to is this idea that yes, we can cognitively understand anti-fat bias or racism or capitalism or whatever structure that we're, we're naming, which they're all the same thing really. Let, let's face it, um, that, that, that is the issue, but still not, you know, we still need resources to be able to survive in those systems. And, you know, if we, you know, the less access we have to those resources, the harder our lives are. And so, you know, we can yeah, label something as anti-fat bias, but it still doesn't stop the system from, you know, perpetrating anti-fat bias whenever we need to go to the doctor or buy clothes or fly in an airplane or just, you know, walk down the street.Katie: And I think, you know, there is also a huge privilege in being able to decide when or when I do or don't want to engage with my body. And obviously sometimes I don't have a choice, um, often when then someone else enters my space and, um, Kind of those micro-aggressions or macro-aggressions, either from other people or structure, whether that's like societal structure or like the physical parameters of my space i.e. When I can't help but feel an arm of the chair digging into my side. Like, there are sometimes where I can't help but be faced with that. But I think, you know, it is a privilege to be able in my day to day life, to the moments when I can, to be able to choose whether or not I want to engage with my, with those things each, each day.And I, and I don't take that for granted. I don't necessarily find it easy, but I, I don't, I don't take those for granted. And that was because I am white and, middle class and, not disabled, and, and multitude of other things. But, um, it's really difficult and I guess when I'm making work about my body, I'm opting in to engage with it. And think that's probably why making work about my body is so important to me because I think it's a way for me to opt in and to also in like, to a great extent. I mean, it could definitely be better, but like I've also been paid to do it um, you know, I'm being paid for the labor of, of opting in to engage with those things, as I say, not a lot. And certainly I'm not being paid for every moment that I'm like going through that. But that's why I think it's really important when I'm making work about my body that, that I do make work about my body because otherwise, I, I wonder how much of my life I would just not, not feel embodied.Laura: But it, it's, it's so interesting, like I, I was just thinking as you were talking here about this idea of, you know, no man's land, being in this liminal space with your body and, like it sounds as though for you disconnection, disembodiment is, is a choice almost. And, or maybe that's not quite the right way of, of framing it, cuz I think that's maybe too simplistic a way to describe it. But really what I'm trying to get at is that oftentimes disembodiment and, uh, disconnection, dissociation are, are labeled or framed as this really negative really, you know, maladaptive is the, the word that we would use like in in the body image lingo, right? Like from an academic perspective, Right. But what I'm hearing from you is that it's a survival mechanism. It's a coping mechanism.Katie: Yeah, a hundred percent. And, I think about choice is really interesting. Cause like I definitely don't think it's active choice. I don't get off each day and go, or each week and go like, I'm choosing toLaura: Disembody. Yeah. Yeah.Katie: Um, there's clearly something is, like something within me is making that choice or something that's happening to me.But yeah, it's a hundred percent a survival technique but it's not necessarily one I'm ashamed of. I think I'm, most days I am proud of my fat body and I'm proud that I'm surviving in it. I am proud that I am still fat in spite of it all, that I'm honouring what my body needs and how it wants to exist in this moment. And I will like, whatever it is that I have to do in order to maintain that in a way that like, makes it make sense for me is something that, I'm not going lean away from. And I, and I think I begin to touch on this a bit in, in the show that I'm in the process of making at the moment, Blubber, which is like, I think towards the end of the process of making my last show Fatty, Fat, Fat, I was saying the same thing, you know, as is the nature of things when you perform something a lot or you talk about something a lot or, repeat yourself a lot. I was taking up the same space over and over again, or having the same conversations with journalists or audiences. But I was saying all the right things, but I wasn't, I wasn't connecting to them in the same way. And that's what this show, what Blubber's kind of came rooted in, is finding a way to try and feel more embodied, um, trying to feel more connected to a body that I've, that I'm proud to exist in, I think. And I'm proud to, to nourish and I'm proud to take care of, and I'm proud that still exists. And so it feels, I really want to feel connected to it. In a tangible way. Laura: I just wanna take a step back for a second for people who maybe aren't familiar with your previous show, Fatty, Fat, Fat, could you maybe just like give a just a very quick synopsis and then just so we can contextualise this conversation versus what you were talking about in that show.Katie: Totally. So, Fatty Fat Fat was my first solo autobiographical show. I started making it in 2018 after I just graduated from drama school. Kind of came out of, uh, frustration that lots of people in big bodies who work in the kind of entertainment, theatre, performing arts industry come against, which is like, I wasn't fat enough in inverted commas to be the fat girl in inverted commas um, or thin enough to be the normal girl in inverted commas. And so sort of, there was no castings, there was no jobs, there was, I was the fat, funny friend, etc, etc. And so it came out of, of a want to make work, but not seeing myself or stories or people like me really, um, reflected or, or being cast for. So Fatty Fat Fat was a show based on a series of anecdotes from my life where my relationship with my body changed because of other people's interactions with it.So they span from the age of 5 to 22. And they were micro-aggressions, um, generally either from family, friends or strangers that kind of, yeah, informed my relationship with my body and those were intersected with more kind of poetic movement moments that were rooted in where I was at in that process, present day. And also some kind of interactive moments that were talking about the wider fat liberation and fat acceptance movement. It was my coming out as being fat, I'd never called myself fat before I made that show. It was very much fat activism 1 0 1, and it's, you know, doesn't take away from my pride in that show. But it was time to leave it behind and, and Blubber really picks up from there.Laura: And I wanted to, so I, yeah, I just thought it would be helpful to give that kind of background what that show was versus this, this new show where it, it feels like a, Yeah, like you said before, trying to feel more connected to your body whilst, as we described before, living in systems that want that, you know, benefit from you being disconnected and disembodied. So I'm curious to know and I, I wonder if this kind of connects into this question of, of nourishment that we were talking about at the beginning and, and finding ways to nourish yourself, and that even in and of itself, being subversive as a fat person. What does embodiment mean to you? What does it look like? What does it feel like? You know, like, like we said before, sometimes it's held up as being this, this gold standard way of being in your body. Right? But I don't know that that's necessarily always true, and, and so I'm, I'm curious to hear from you. Yeah. Just tell me all your thoughts on embodiment.Katie: On embodiment. I think the short answer is I don't know what embodiment looks like to me. I think what I'm trying to work out, um, is the shortest and simplest answer. I think that embodiment can look like lots of things. So there is a version of embodiment for me that is being on stage right, I am acutely aware of everything that me and my body are doing that, especially as a solo performer that it is, I'm responsible for everything that's happening in this space. I'm like, whatever I do or say is queuing the next light or sound. I'm having a relationship to the audience. Yeah, they might be looking around the room, but like they've paid money to be there, to be there and watch me, or listen, and so like those moments, I am aware of everything. Like you learn, and like actors training about like this duality, you have to have a sort of outward eye but also an inward eye. So like which is where like, you know, practices like method acting and stuff like that become where you are like fully character all the time become a little dangerous.Um, and so yeah, my training is very much thinking about like, and what I kind of continue to pass on when I'm working with other artists is like working both ways. So, Yes, I'm saying the lines and I'm in my character, but also I'm inside, I'm thinking, Oh, am I connecting to my diaphragm? Can someone hear me? Someone's just dropped a prop over there and I need to make sure I move that out of the way before the big dance number, or whatever it is. You've got to have this duality. And so there's something about embodiment in that moment where you're like, I need to be aware not only of everything that's happening to me, around me, but also what's happening inside of me. And, and I'm really responsible for, for that. And obviously I have team that I definitely couldn't do without the team that work alongside me. But in those moments, you know, you couldn't, can't help but feel embodied. And so for me, that's why live performance is so important rather than working in film or TV or recorded media is, is because that aliveness makes me feel alive in a way that I don't necessarily know how to replicate in other, in other spaces, which comes with other things because it also is terrifying, incredibly anxiety inducing and complicated. And so it's not just as easy as standing up and being like, Here we go. But there are moments of that where you kind, when you're able to move through the fear, and you're not doing the show for the first time or something. You're like, I'm here, I'm feeling this, I'm doing this, and we're doing it together And that feels exciting.Laura: There's something, I mean, I've, I've seen both shows and there is something very like visceral and immersive about your performances. Like you're in this relationship with the audience, you're having this dialogue, this conversation with them, and I think, yeah, the word that you used, was it like, did you say vital? Vitality?Katie: Yeah.Laura: Yeah. You can perceive that from sitting in the audience. So yeah, I can, I can see how that, that that is a moment of, of connection and that's something that I took from Blubber. We were kind of talking about this off mic before that, and, and I don't know that this is necessarily how you were framing things, but, but it's certainly how I interpreted the show was that there is not this big like crescendo moment where you like, make peace with your body and then it's just like, you know, happily ever after, from, from there on out, that there was this real sense of, of moments of joy and comfort and connection in our bodies. And I'm gonna ask you about one of them in just a second. But, um, yeah, like that they were just kind of like peppered all over the place. Almost if we, we go back to that analogy that you used before, where you moved from that no man's land, where your body just kind of almost doesn't exist in a, in a way to being fully immersed and in your body and connected to it in this really positive and vital way.Katie: Yeah, I think that's such a lovely way of putting it. And, and the show doesn't crescendo in the same way. We, we spent a long time thinking about that in development we were like, Oh, where does the crescendo happen? Cause when I initially wrote it, it had about four ones rather than big one. And I think, um, It's a separate conversation to be had about like Western storytelling and what we, what that's, where that's rooted in and, and, and why we feel we need that and blah, blah, blah. That is for a separate, a separate conversation. But I really hear you. And the show has those kind of pockets of, of joy and reflection in amongst stuff that's really knotty and difficult. I think there's something for me in, Fatty Fat Fat ends with the line, I want my body back. Right? And so I sort of imagine that Blubber picks up going, Okay, here you go, imagining someone is going, All right, well there you are, here's the keys, what are you gonna do about it? Like, what happens now? And, and I think that's why this conversation about knowing's life is really pertinent to me because it's like, cool, if someone puts me in the driver's seat of my own body, do I even know where the pedals are anymore? I really know what all the buttons do? Do I know what feels good or what doesn't? Like okay, so yeah, I've got the keys, but how do I take control? How do I drive on the open road with all, Like, how do I make it feel like convertible, uh, with my, you know, the sea air in my hair? Singing to a song. Like driving isn't like that. You might get pockets of that, but other times you're stuck in a traffic jam or you can't start, or you need maintenance, or it's just like you're using it from, gets from A to B. Laura: Yeah,Katie: And I, and I think Blubber is a little bit about reflecting on my body as a vehicle and the times where it works and it feels like it's mine and it feels like I'm in it and I'm, I'm driving it. And other times where it feels like I'm, I'm still learning what it can do and, and what feels safe and, and all of those things sit within the structure of whether or not they're possible or impossible, or I'm allowed in inverted commas or not allowed or, you know, all of those things then have a context that sits around them.Laura: I think it's so important to speak to the messiness, the stickiness, how complicated it is to have a body, because I feel otherwise we, we fall into the trap of presenting binaries around our bodies, like either love your body and always be completely grateful. You know, I've spoken a lot on this series in particular around having a baby and how we're presented with these that very either or options of like, well be grateful cuz your body did this miraculous thing. Right? Or, change your body and get it, you know, get your pre-baby body back or, you know, so these really, like, I want more options than that to, to feel about my body. And I want to have those moments of joy and connection and comfort in my body. And I also want to scream when I'm having those really difficult days in my body and feeling the, the clout of all of those systems that, that really crush us in a metaphorical sense.Katie: Yeah, totally. And I, and I think, I thought for a long time, particularly with Fatty Fat Fat and maybe less so with Blubber, but I think it's, if anything, it's just got deeper, is that like I thought I couldn't make a show about fatness until I was, until I loved my body, until I'd reached that absolute nirvana, um, and I was completely at peace and could run around naked and do a back flip and everyone see all my, you know warts and all and I'd be like, Oh, I don't care. And I thought I couldn't make a show about fatness until I'd felt like that, because I thought it was either where I was currently at or that space and there was nowhere in between.And it was when I kind of realised that there could be some spectrum of that that, that I realised that kind of allowed me to get myself permission to make, to make the work. And, and if anything, Blubber has just got deeper and messier in the complexities of that. And it's really difficult.And I remember we had a time in, uh, the development of the show earlier in the year, in January. We were doing some movement work and I felt really challenged by something and got quite emotional after we'd just done an exercise in the room and we were reflecting on it. And, and I remember sort of sharing with the team that like, I just felt really ugly, I felt like my body didn't look nice and I was having, you know, I'm making something, you know, It was an exercise. It was, it was nothing, like, we were just trying something out and, and I, and I suddenly became really aware of like, why did that find so difficult? Because I, I was like, Oh, Cause I'm, I'm emphasising things that I, that I don't want to, or I'm, I'm feeling, I'm feeling the, the ugliness of, of my body, not because it's fat, just because I'm putting myself in weird positions.I'm screwing myself up. I'm, I'm folding all my chins in, all in on themselves. And like, and like some, some days that stuff doesn't bother you. But like in that moment I was just like, it's all very well, like sharing a lot of yourself with an audience, but then sharing something with a room full of strangers that like is not a version of yourself that you would show it, you would want to show anyone. How, how do we hold those things? How do we hold that messiness and ugliness that we all hold, but in my body it means something so different. And me sharing that and giving that to you means something really different. And that was a really useful learning for me and just being like, Oh, that is a limit. I mean, we've always thought about that whenever we've been making work, but like there is a limit of things that, that I'm comfortable doing without putting myself in danger.Laura: Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah. There's so much to think about there. And I suppose as, as you were talking about all of those parts of yourself that we're taught to conceal and hide and push down, and as, all I was thinking about is just this idea that those are all things that we've been taught to feel shame about.Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. If your body looks, you know, if you have double chins or triple chins or you know, if, if, if you don't, you know, if you turn side on and you have a belly or all of these things, we only ever see these like flat one dimensional representations of bodies that have been, you know, through layers and layers and layers of modification that it's so shocking, it's so shocking to see a real body. In all three dimensions to taking up space. And that shouldn't be shocking, but what I'm hearing you say is that there's something really, really unsafe about, you know, putting your body in those positions.Katie: Because I think there's still stuff that I'm unlearning about, like palatable fatness and being, you know, there's so many people that have said it, you know, say it far more articulately than I will or can about like the, you know, good fatties and bad fatties and how we can navigate the cultures that exist and the, and the barriers in society by demonstrating that we can be feminine or beautiful or graceful or healthy or educated or whatever it is in order to kind of overcompensate, for this like big glaringly obvious thing, which is my fat body and or, or fat bodies generally. And I think there was something that I learned in that moment about like how, how deeply that goes still. And, you know, I don't mind making a fool of myself. I don't mind showing bits of myself in a way that maybe you know, 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago, I might have had more of a challenge with. I don't mind exposing myself. There's some video content in the show, which is like really zoomed in, uh, bits of my body where you see like my bitten fingernails or my, I've got lovely skin, I'm very lucky, but I always get a series of spots underneath one, my right. You know, it's just like, and those things are blown up really big for an audience to make it, you know, because my whole, to show my whole body can be a universe, right? And I don't think a version of me before that, before would've been able to cope with that.And there are things that I'm, that I'm willing to find the imperfections now. I'm willing to share those with the audience. But I'm, I think there is something about like, you know, that initially Blubber came from this idea of wanting to feel beautiful. I don't think I've ever felt beautiful. I still don't.And I think I wanted to make a beautiful show so that some people would watch it and be like, Wow, you are beautiful because you made beautiful work. I've, I've been lots of other things. I am lots of other things, but that's just not something I don't that word specifically I don't think I've ever felt that sensation.And so there was something in that moment of being like, I can be, I can not be that. I can be somewhere in the middle. I can go below the middle two. But I, like, I don't want to show all my deepest insecurities, difficulties, no matter how much I'm learning or challenging or understanding why I feel that way about myself.But like no wants to share the worst stuff with an audience. And I don't think it's fair to an audience either.Laura: I'm, I'm feeling quite emotional listening to you talk particularly about that, that sort of sequence that was projected up onto kind of this like really ethereal netty curtainy sort of situation because like I sitting in the audience found that completely breathtaking. That and the part where there's a lot of kind of like red light projected on you and it felt sort of like you were being held in this like womb. I don't know if that was the vibe you were going for.Katie: Yeah, definitely womb like, because it's, that's sort of inside the body of a whale, so um, womb, internal, all of that sort of stuff. Definitely.Laura: Yeah. Both of those things. Just, um, I don't know. There was something about that. Both of them felt very, very vulnerable, but there was something, so, I don't know that beautiful is the right word, because that feels kind of like that trivialises what it was.Katie: And I think that's why the show is less about beauty now because, I think as we went on it, like actually what it was, was about feeling. And I think as someone that's been socialised as a woman, I've been taught that beauty is the ultimate goal. And or the antidote to my fatness. And like, like so many, people who live in fat bodies, I was, you know, told a lot growing up, you would be so beautiful if you weren't fat. And like, I, again, we don't, there's a not unique experiences and, and there's so many conversations that are, have been had and are being had about like, you know, beautiful being be able to coexist with fatness. And I, and I look at, I, I feel so lucky and grateful that I look at fat bodies, other people's fat bodies now, and I, and I think they are beautiful. But I never felt that in myself and, and really and in reflection, I think it's because I want to feel sensation. And I think it goes back to our previous conversation about embodiment and disembodiment, is I felt like I just wasn't feeling anything either in or around my body or within my body because I was like, feeling was such a big part of who I was. Feeling huge emotions is such a big part of me, particularly being an artist. And I think I was just like making so much space between me and my body that I wasn't feeling any of those things. And so it wasn't really about beauty, it was about feeling held or feeling something monumental or extraordinary or new or astonishing or even awful or trying or terrifying. But like between the onslaught of news, a pandemic, government crisis, a you know, everything else on top of experiencing the world in a, in a marginalised body that intersects different marginalisations, but obviously not all of them. You just, at some point there becomes a disconnect. And so, yeah, I really hear what you're saying about those things and I, and I see and agree with you. And so I think that's why the show wasn't about beauty anymore. It was about sensation, like just being able to feel and connect with something on my body.Laura: Yeah. And, and, and I suppose what you're naming there is also dissociation disconnection. That can be really powerful, really useful. I mean, life saving survivals tools. And they have a cost. They come with this, this huge price, which is, you know, not being able to sense or feel or emote these, you know, these things that you know, to, to bring it back again to embodiment are really vital to you, you know, to feeling that aliveness, that connectedness, that humanness.Katie: Totally. And also to go back to your kind of your first question, nourishment, because it also meant that I wasn't nourishing my body, um, because I was so disconnected from it or disembodied that I wasn't feeding it properly, I wasn't nourishing it in the things it consumed in the media, wasn't nourishing it in, in loads of different ways because, because I wasn't connected enough with it to be able to empathise or to be able to understand what, what it needed. And so I think these things are all, all so connected. Because without that, without that embodiment, it's really hard to make offers of meaningful nourishment. I can kind of know to go to bed or know to eat some toast, but like, or know not to spend 10 hours on TikTok. sometimes, I mean all of those things also their placeLaura: But, But yeah, all of those things can like spending 10 hours on TikTok can be nourishing sometimes when you need But I think what you're speaking to is like the fine tuning of that. And knowing when, Yeah, it's 10 hours in TikTok versus, No, actually I need to like get outside or talk to a, another humanKatie: Or go to sleep. Do you know what I mean? Like, know when to say no. Know what my boundaries are. I've been really thinking about something that, Candice Brathwaite said online, in some point in the last few months about like, laziness and idleness and I think as a fat person you are told you are lazy and I've been called lazy as long as I can remember. And so I'm doing a lot of work at the moment with myself about what are things that I truly believe and what are things that I am thinking, what are things truly exist and what things have I been told? And cuz sometimes they are the, like, those things kind can coexist.And so there's the thing about laziness, I'm thinking at the moment. Cause I do think I'm naturally quite a lazy person. Like I could, I could easily sit on a sofa and, and not move for, for days. I, that's fine. Like I'm, I'm into it. I'm not, I'm not mad at, But part of me's like, is that true or is that just because I've been told that that's true.And I, and I'm something that Candice has said recently online was like about how, um, sometimes the best way to take care of yourself is, is to challenge those instincts.Laura: Mm.Katie: Actually for me, some of the best ways I used to take care of myself, and I'm still trying to work out what that looks like in present day, was kind of before pandemic, um, before 2020, cause the pandemic's still happening. But, um, before 2020 anyway of like, some of the best ways I used to take care of myself was actually saying yes and going out and doing things rather than saying no and staying in.Laura: Mm-hmm.Katie: Because I have chronic FOMO and I love being busy, I love getting my en you know, I get my energy from other people.I love living my life like that. And so there's a version of me now that's like, oh, is that still true? Or do I need to actually stay home and take care of myself or eat, not, you know, go to bed early or whatever, Or am I being lazy? And I, I, I'm really trying to connect with what is true about me. Um, and that's something I'm finding really difficult at the moment, but, I'm really trying to engage with, and I think, again, links to lots of things we've been talking about.Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. And I love, I love that kind of distinction that you made. Like is this something, what, Tell me again what it was. Is this something I'm thinking?Katie: Is this something I'm thinking I've been told or is true?Laura: Yes. Okay. Yeah, and I think that that's such a, a helpful way of, of reframing some of those, those thoughts and beliefs that come to our mind. And I have, I have such a visceral reaction to the word lazy because I like firmly believe that that is just a social construct designed to make us feel bad about rest.Well, on that note, the last question that I had for you, and, you know, given all of the complexities, um, you know, and the, the stuff that you're kind of really in process of, of figuring out at the moment, I would love to know who or what is nourishing you right now?Katie: First of all, my housemate has bought me a really delicious pan aux raisin from the coffee shop up the road, and it is sitting in a paper bag behind the door.Laura: It's waiting for you,Katie: behind meLaura: Your stomach, grumbling stomach knows it's there, it's ready.Katie: That is the thing that is about to nourish me and, um, and she is just, um, being proud of that. I think, the things are nourishing me is routine, trying to find structure and routine in my life.That's something that's really nourishing me at the moment. Something that is also nourishing me is really leaning into my deep love and interest in the Real Housewives, um, That is something that's deeply nourishing me at the moment. And being able to talk in depth with friends about that is really nourishing parts of me that I didn't know I needed.Laura: Okay. And you will not be surprised to learn that this is not the first time that this, that this has come up podcast this season.Katie: Wow.Laura: So I talked to Clara Nosek, aka Your Dietician BFF. Had a great conversation. Highly recommend go back and listening to that. And her, the thing that's nourishing her right now is reality tv, but very specifically Housewives,Katie: Great. So I'm a big reality fan, reality TV fan, but particularly Housewives. So, I could, like, even now, just the thought of being able about it, especially in a public forum is like really make me froth at the mouth. Um, some young people I work with, was working with, uh, like as the sort of present for the end of the project, they very sweetly got me a seal cuddly toy with some like gold hoop earrings and they um, called it the Real Housewife of Shepherd's Bush, which is where we were working together. So, yeah, that's something that's really nourishing me right now. Finding these pockets of sunlight. Um, hopefully if you are, if and when you're listening to this, you might be able to find one of those too, but I dunno, it seems like from behind you, you've got a lovely bit of sunshine, your side.But yeah, there's some beautiful kind of sunlight pouring into my windows and I've got this sort of glitter ball Laura: Is that what it is?Katie: globe.Laura: Oh, okay. I've seen these little like,Katie: Pockets, Yeah. There's, so every now and then my living room, um, if the light is at the right angle, makes these sort of spots of light appear. And so all of those things feel really nourishing, I think for one of the first times in my recent life, like my work isn't nourishing me, uh, at the moment and like I'm looking to other things to hold that with me, and I think that's really exciting.That doesn't mean. It's not satisfying or it's not, not doing what it needs to do or like, it just means it's not the sole focus of that, where that nourishment is coming from. And I feel really excited by the prospect of that and that feels quite new. And finally, I've got a, I'm going to see all being well, I'm going to see, um, Adele in Las Vegas next March. AndLaura: There was like a wry smile, and I was like, I'm desperate to know what it is.Katie: So currently all roads lead to Vegas and that is deeply nourishing me, cuz it's like the end of the winter. It just feels, it's not so far away that it feels impossible, but it feels tangible, but enough time to get excited. So like that is also something me. So like,Laura: focused, you're focused on getting there.Katie: so there's, there's a real mix and I think variety is a spice of life. You know, I'm a freelancer. I'm, although I've just said all that stuff about routine and structure, like, I feel excited when I'm bouncing around and doing multiple different things. And so, trying to find that balance, um, feels exciting and, hopefully nourishing as well.Laura: It's that, I don't know if this like speaks to your experience, but like I've seen a lot of people online and it like resonates with me as well. Like talk about that neurodivergent urge towards chaos, but needing routine and structure like the routine and structure being really helpful and useful, but being the exact opposite thing, like also feeling like suffocating at the same time.Katie: Absolutely.Laura: All right. Before we finish up this episode, I would love to know what you're snacking on. So it can be a literal snack if you want, although we've covered off the pan raises end, so check that box. But it can be a book, a podcast, a movie, a person, anything. So can you share what you're snacking on right now?Katie: I am snacking on, Oh, there's so many things I could say. I had something in mind but I'm changing my mind. I am snacking on, I'm really trying to, I'm gonna go for like a literal thing I'm snacking on.Laura: Go on.Katie: And I'm really reaching back into, um, like childhood foods, the foods that maybe I didn't have growing up or, thought I couldn't. And, and so I'm really leaning into like the cheese string, the fruit winder, the penguin, the Frosty cereal bar. Those are my, like ones of choice, but also, Primula, the cheeseLaura: My God. Yeah. Yeah.Katie: on Ritz crackers.Laura: my God. Love RitzKatie: That is, that is like a real peak school time snack that we used to have at, like, at the end of term.And so, yeah, it's, those are the things I'm stacking on at the moment, just like really trying to find that joy in those little snacks again. Those are the things that I'm loving.Laura: so funny you say that cause I was just in Scotland last week and my friend and I bought a pick and mix and I do not remember the last time I bought a pick and mix and I was just like, chomping on these cola bottles, like the sour sweets. It was amazing. So yeah, I'm right there with you with the like, nostalgic, nostalgic foods.Okay, so my thing is a book, I'm like halfway through reading it, which I'm always a bit like, can I really recommend a book when I'm not completely finished it? But like, I think I know enough to know that it's worth reading. And this is someone that I'm really hoping will come on the podcast next season, but, so the book is called Small Fires. And it's by Rebecca May Johnson. And she is the co-editor of Vittles, which is a great Substack. I really struggle to describe what it's about because basically throughout the course of the book, she cooks the same recipe over a thousand times. And she talks about, she talks about cooking and food through this, like political lens is kind of the only way that I can think, or like I can describe it. But she's talking about appetite and she's talking about how kind of, in the same way that you were talking about that, like duality between the artist and the audience.She's talking about like this sort of reciprocal relationship between a recipe and the person that's cooking it and the food, and it's just such a, like, mind blowing way to think about food and cooking and it's just really cool. I, you just need to read it. Maybe I'll link to like, about review in the show notes, but Yeah, so it's called Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson and it's just like, it would make a great Christmas present for someone.So yeah, that's my snack. All right, Katie, tell us, tell the audience where they can find out more about you and your work.Katie: so you can find out more about me and my work on, um, my Instagram or Twitter, which is @katie_greenall on both, um, or my website, which is www.katiegreenall.com. Those are the best ways to find me.Laura: Perfect. And I will obviously link to all of that in the show notes. And yeah, I have really, really enjoyed this conversation. It's felt really nourishing. And I'm really looking forward to seeing how Blubber sort of evolves in the direction that you take it in. And as soon as you know when and where that's gonna be, I will be sharing about it and let the audience know where they can come and see that show.So, thank you so much for being here and being so candid and honest about your relationship with your body, your relationship with food, and yeah, just all the things that you've been thinking about. It's been really a great conversation. So thank you.Katie: It's been a joy. Thank you so much for having me.OUTRO:Laura Thomas: Thank you for listening to Season 1 of Can I Have Another Snack? If you've enjoyed these conversations, then please rate and review in iTunes and share these episodes with your friends. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This season wouldn't be possible without your support so thank you for being here and valuing my work and I will catch you in January, when we'll be back with a whole host of really cool guests exploring appetites, bodies, and identity. Talk to you then. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

I'm super excited to share this conversation with Anjali Prasertong - writer and registered dietitian, focused on food systems and racial equity. In this episode we talk about Anjali's path towards anti-racism work, why anti-racism work is so badly needed in the field of nutrition and dietetics, and how you can begin to start noticing where white supremacy culture is showing up for you, and how to find places to start unlearning white supremacy, especially if you work in nutrition, but even if you don't this is a really valuable conversation and I hope you learn a lot from it. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Subscribe to Anjali's newsletter hereFollow her work on Instagram hereFollow Laura on Instagram here Here's the transcript in full:Anjali Prasertong: And that was a really just clarifying moment for me where, you know, we're talking about all these systems in the world that we live in, that uphold white supremacy. And I just sat there and realised like, Oh, like I'm falling out of love with dietetics because I've never heard anyone talk about racism and the effect that white supremacy has on nutrition when we all know it has a huge impact. And it's, it's complicit, it's part of the system. And kind of in that moment I was like, I just wanna, like racial equity and anti-racism in food is what I'm interested in and it just doesn't feel like anything else I could do would be as impactful. So that, that was sort of the turning point for me professionally.INTRO:Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter.Today I'm talking to Anjali Prasertong. Anjali is a writer and registered dietitian focused on food systems and racial equity. She's originally from Los Angeles where she was a contributing editor for the award-winning food website, the Kitchen, before moving to New Orleans, Louisiana, and getting her master's of public health degree. In New Orleans, she led an innovative city-funded corner store program that increased fresh food access in low-income neighbourhoods and worked with food entrepreneurs looking to operationalise racial equity in their businesses.She currently lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband and her two children. Her newsletter, anti-racist dietitian, which by the way, hard recommend, is about the intersection of nutrition and racial equity covering history, food systems, land, water, politics, basically everything that lies beyond the individual choices we make about the food that we eat.Anjali writes about what she wishes she had learned as a nutrition student, and she's creating a space that centres honesty, vulnerability, and the lived experiences of people of colour. In this episode, we talk about Anjali's path towards anti-racism work, why anti-racism work is so badly needed in the field of nutrition and dietetics, and how you can begin to start noticing where white supremacy culture is showing up for you and how to find places to start unlearning white supremacy, especially if you work in nutrition.But even if you don't, this is a really valuable conversation and I hope you learn a lot. And while you're here, just a reminder that if you're not a fully paid-up member of the, Can I have another snack community then you're missing out on so many great benefits like our Thursday discussion threads, Snacky Bits, where we're having smart conversations away from the noise and the fat-phobic trolls of social media.You'll also get access to my Dear Laura column where this month I was answering a question from a stepparent about parenting a fat child. Plus you'll get access to my anti-parenting, my anti Diet parenting, not Anti Parenting downloads, bonus podcast episodes and loads more. It's five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year, and your support allows me to pay a podcast editor, a copy editor for my long-form essays, and it pays for the hours and hours of research and other labour that is required to produce thoughtful writing. If you need a comp subscription for any reason, then please just email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk with snacks in the email header and we will hook you up. No questions asked. And one last favour to ask. If you're listening to this in Apple Podcasts, please go and leave a rating and review. We haven't had any reviews yet, which is a total bummer because it really helps more people find this podcast episode and hopefully feel heard and supported by these conversations. All right, team. Here's Anjali.MAIN EPISODE:Laura: So Anjali, I'd love to know who or what you are nourishing right now.Anjali: So I'm nourishing, um, my family who I'm always nourishing, uh, which is my husband Rob, and we have an eight-year-old son and a two-year-old son. But I'm also lately just been really nourishing myself. I have had a pretty big professional change in the last year and within the last two years, a lot of big life changes and it feels like the first time in a long time that I can just sort of enjoy the world around me. I mean, I think a lot of people are probably feeling similarly. And I've really been sort of getting back in touch with creativity, which used to be a big part of my life, um, and just trying to find ways to nurture that, whether it's going to museums or just spending time in nature, reading all sorts of different kinds of books and just yeah, just kind of reconnecting with that side of the world.Laura: Mmmh. That comes through in your newsletter in your Friday post where you're talking about just things that have been bringing you joy lately. And I've so appreciated getting those posts in my inbox because it's a reminder to take stock and notice the things that are bringing us joy. And yeah, as you're sort of alluding to the world has felt really heavy the past two years. I mean, it has been a heavy place, and I think we do need those reminders to connect with joy because it also, you know when you are doing, particularly if you're doing work that is rooted in social justice in some way, it's very easy to get burnt out otherwise.Anjali: Definitely. Yeah, I think. The Friday Joy pieces were sort of like, Oh, you know, I wanna have something else and, and what can be something that I don't need to do a lot of research for. But for me it's, it's been kind of a grounding practice to really think about like, what is bringing me joy, what's keeping me nourished And, I've just, in the last couple years, been able, it feels like I've been able to bring a lot of things into alignment with my life as far as being able to live my values.And, this last piece of just getting back into writing again, which is something that I had done for my entire life, but had sort of stepped away from when I was doing my studies, just getting back to writing is really, I think it feels like just completing the circle for me and, bringing me a lot of happiness and fulfilment that I feel I've been missing for a long time.Laura: I love the expression that you used there, which was kind of bringing things into alignment with your values, and I wondered if you could speak more to that idea.Anjali: Sure. So I lived in, so I'm originally from Southern California, and then I lived in New Orleans for seven years, which was an incredible experience, but it was also just a very shocking experience for this sort of escaping the California bubble and moving to the deep South for, I mean, many reasons it was shocking. But, It didn't, you know, there would be small things that would kind of, I would complain about while living there. Like, why don't I, why can't I recycle glass? Just this feels so strange to just throw this bottle into the trash or, you know, why is the school system all charter schools?So I'm trying to send my kindergartner to a school in a way that's not going to perpetuate these inequities of the educational system and it's almost impossible.Laura: Sorry to interrupt you, but we don't have charter schools here, so would you mind explaining what they are and like why that's an issue?Anjali: Sure. So charter schools are basically, for-profit schools. Usually, they have some sort of, like alternative focus or something that, um, the founders believe that the public school is not offering to students. And sometimes that can be a great fit for people. They do receive public money. So the problem with charter schools, so the problem that some people see is that it funnels children away from the local public schools.And, you know, in the United States, there's not many places where, especially these days where people of different socioeconomic status, different races, different cultures all come together in one place. So, a public school is a great site for being able to interact with all different sorts of people.So in some places, you know, charter schools are funnelling kids away and that's harming, at least I think the fabric, the social fabric of the country. And in New Orleans, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, basically the entire school system became only charter schools. So that means in New Orleans we lived down the street from a public charter school.And there was no guarantee that we would be able to get into that school. There was no guarantee that we would get into any school that was what we preferred. So, just inequitable in so many ways. One of them being like, how do you find out what school to go to? Probably through your networks. Who's in your network? Probably people like you. So it, it really creates this hierarchy of good schools which are disproportionately white because most public schools in New Orleans are almost like 90% or more black students. And then creates a system where, you know, students whose parents don't have time to go to all these open houses and decide what school they wanna send their child to can end up going to these schools that are close to failing.So it, it's just very complicated, frustrating, and inequitable system and really tests your resolve as someone who wants to live by your values of like, okay. I want to, you know, it's a, it's a lottery in the end, so you put your choices and then if, depending on where you're chosen in the lottery, you get placed in a school.So it was just a question of, all right, if he doesn't get into these schools that are, you know, in my top choices, will I send him to like a, a school that's rated a c that is, sort of close to, unable to meet the needs of its students. So we didn't, I wasn't put in that situation.He ended up getting into one of our choices, but, it, it's, yeah, so, so just that whole system and various issues with living in a deep red state in the United States. Just constantly was testing my values of like, how far am I willing to go? How much am I willing to sort of inconvenience myself or push myself to live what I believe?So when we moved to Denver, it was just like a great relief. I just felt like I had been so tired from fighting against these wins for so long that it just felt good to be like, Oh, I can just, just live my life in alignment with what I believe to be true. So, we actually, my son does go to the, the local public school now, and it's amazing.It's such a, a great community and just all these small things that have really brought me a lot of fulfilment in my life. Laura: And the other thing that you touched on was a career change. And I'm wondering if that, if you were talking about the, the sort of path that you've been on the, towards becoming an anti-racist dietician, which I know has, sort of, has seeds sown in your experiences in New Orleans. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about that.Anjali: Sure. So, you know, moving to New Orleans was just a huge wake-up call for me, because I had been in a dietetics program, in near LA and just met amazing students. Had teachers from all over the world just bringing really diverse perspectives and never really felt the, the whiteness of the dietetics field while I was there.And also just very open to kind of alternative, you know, it's California, like alternative, cutting edge ways of approaching nutrition. And then moving to Louisiana, I had to switch to a state school that was kind of in the middle of the Cajun Bayou. So that was a huge culture shock for me.And then also just the approach to nutrition dietetics was completely different, where it was just very much by the book, this is what you're supposed to do, we're just kind of gonna scoff at any sort of alternative viewpoints.Laura: Sorry, can I just before we, before we keep going on, because I think this is important, and again, this is where like a lot of my listeners are based in the UK and Australia, weirdly, um, and, they may not have that context of what the Cajun Bayou is. Like, I know, cuz I lived in Texas for five years, so I get, I know where you're coming from, but I wonder if you could just maybe tell us a little bit more about what exactly you mean by that.Anjali: Sure. So it is like a really, in the Cajun Bayou is a really interesting place because it is so uniquely American and there's no nowhere else like it in the world. So it's sort of the area of Louisiana, close to the Gulf of Mexico. And so, it, you know, has always been a place of very waterways and very like, rich with life.Like there's a, you know, a lot of indigenous cultures that have long history there. And, so it's just an interesting place in that it combines, you know, the, those sort of the indigenous history, and also the French fur trappers that came to that area, like early in the history of the United States, because Louisiana was for a long time, like a French colony. So there's a lot of that influence. And so it's just a very unique place. So if you think about, you know, like a crawfish boil or like alligators, uh, what's the Disney movie Princess and the Frog, Like that sort of, um, swampy, the sort of Cajun accents, a lot of spicy food, um, that, that life is the Cajun Bayou.And it's interesting because it is quite rural. And so people actually do have a very close connection to their ancestor's foodways that I think is really interesting, you know, that, like people are still eating things that their great-great-great grandparents were eating, and the like recipes passed down for generations.So it does have that old, old history.Laura: Yeah. Like it's not uncommon for people to eat things like squirrels right?Anjali: Hunting's very big. Yeah. Every, a lot of people actually live next to like a canal or some other waterway. So it's really common for kids to be like driving boats from a, a young age and, living on houseboats and things like that.Laura: Well, okay, sorry for the, the little detour, but I just thought it would be helpful.Anjali: Yeah. Let me know if there's anything that's too American.Laura: And, and, and I'm wondering as well, and I don't know if this is gonna be important context for the rest of your story, but, and this again may be, uh, an assumption that I have, but I have this sense that, and especially cuz you said that it's quite rural as well, that there's a lot of poverty there. Is that fair to say?Anjali: Yeah, so that was also just a real wake-up call because, I mean, I could just feel it in going from one state school, like the state school in California to a state school in Louisiana. It was just a feeling of like, Oh, this is what happens when you disinvest from education systems and like public service and other, systems to kind of uplift the citizens of a state. I mean, halfway through my semester at school, they were like, well, the, um, we're kind of outta money so we might have to cancel all classes for next semester. So luckily that didn't happen. But, um, there is definitely a lot of poverty, a lot of, a lot of students that I went to school with, they were first-generation college students, which I had experienced in California, but often in that case it would be, you know, like a student whose family had come from Mexico or something like that. At the school in Louisiana, I met a lot of students where their fathers had like, only had, uh, eighth-grade education, had never even gone to high school. And the, a lot of them were like shrimp farmers and things like that. So, um, it was definitely much less educated as far as like receiving formal education than I had experienced before.So that was part of my sort of culture shock of like, Oh, I can't make any assumptions about people's lives, their family's lives, what they believe, what their experiences have been.Laura: So where did you go from there? Like, it sounds like you were in, in a program, and maybe it'd be helpful to explain what that program was and what you were doing there.Anjali: Sure. So I was sort of finishing up for, in order to become a dietician in the US you have to take these specific set of classes that meet sort of, you know, you studied, uh, counselling people, you studied all these things. So I, I had started that in California and had to finish it in Louisiana because, um, we moved rather suddenly due to my husband's job.And, so that, that's what I was studying, but it, uh, was gonna require two years. So after one year, I was like, I can't just do this , because it, I was. I just knew I needed some more stimulation and, and, um, I knew I had wanted to pursue my master's degree. So, I was living in New Orleans and they, they have a great program at Tulane University.And I should say, So the Bayou is, there is like a, a pretty significant black population, and also people that have indigenous, uh, ancestry. But New Orleans itself is a majority black city, so it's about 60% black residents. And, so that was also quite different for me just coming from LA which I didn't realise until later and sort of reflecting on, you know, where I had grown up.But that's really the results of like redlining and segregation where the black communities in Los Angeles are very much clustered in certain parts of the city. And so I grew up in a very racially diverse suburb, but there were not a lot of black people there because, you know, those, once you establish those lines, like they kind of persist over the generations. So New Orleans is not only a majority black city, it's also a city that's really founded on black culture. And there's an artist that had a t-shirt that was like, Everything you love about New Orleans comes from black people. And that's basically true of just all these, you know, the food, the music, all these cultural events are all rooted in, the history of black people in New Orleans. So I, you know, went to Tulane and, and they did a pretty good job of, sort of talking about, I mean, they did an excellent job of talking about the disparities between black and white people in Louisiana, in the south, in New Orleans, and, a pretty good job of, of just sort of, allowing everyone to have a perspective and, and kind of giving you the full picture. There are a lot of tensions between Tulane and the surrounding black communities. Um, just historical. Um, so that's a whole other story. But, just being in the world of public health was really eye-opening for me as far as like, oh, okay, we're not blaming people for the food choices that they make and trying to shame them. Instead, we're talking about these systemic issues of why are these the only foods they're being allowed to choose from? And, you know, what are the upstream causes of these diet-related diseases? So, so that was just felt like a revelation to me to be able to talk about those types of things.And through the program, um, I was able to do a, uh, undoing racism training with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond.And that was a really just clarifying moment for me where, you know, we're talking about all these systems in the world that we live in, that uphold white supremacy. And I just sat there and realized like, Oh, like I'm falling out of love with dietetics because I've never heard anyone talk about racism and the effect that white supremacy has on nutrition when we all know it has a huge impact. And it's, it's complicit, it's part of the system. And kind of in that moment I was like, I just wanna, like racial equity and anti-racism in food is what I'm interested in and it just doesn't feel like anything else I could do would be as impactful. So that, that was sort of the turning point for me professionally.Laura: So it sounds as though, if I'm understanding you correctly, that what was being named in your public health classes around structural and social determinants of health and inequality was not been given the same air time in your nutrition and dietetics classes. So there was like this huge disconnect where in, and I'm putting words into your mouth here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but in, in nutrition and dietetics, it's very focused on the individual and, and we're counselling a single person on what they should or shouldn't eat without the broader context of those social and structural determinants that could be informing things like the amount of money that they have to afford food, the, their access to that food, you know, physical access because of where they're located, which as you've just said could be through generations of.I can't remember the exact terms that you, you used, there were specific terms, so maybe you want to jump in there. The, what was it you said?Anjali: For which part?Laura: I think basically the idea that that, like of segregation essentiallyAnjali: Oh, ohLaura: Yeah. Physical segregation.Anjali: Yeah. I mean, New Orleans has, you can look up maps. Um, I think the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation did a big project where you can actually map how people's like lifespan, expected lifespan changes by neighbourhood in New Orleans. And the neighbourhoods with the highest lifespans are the ones that are disproportionately white. And the ones with the lowest are the ones that are disproportionately black. And it's not, it's not like a, it's like 30 years difference. Like, it's not a small amount of time. And so I feel, I felt that in not addressing these issues, I mean, I still feel this way, I felt this way during my entire dietetic internship.It's like, if you don't name this, which I did not hear it named in my programs in Louisiana, then the conclusion that people might draw is that, oh, it's, it's their fault.Like there's a reason, you know, it's their fault that they're living thirty- Yes. That they're, they're, well, they're not exercising, you know, they're just, they're eating this horrible food.And that was just infuriating to me. I, I just think it's so, I think it's unfair for everyone. I think obviously it's unfair to shame people. And I mean, I saw people openly, I saw black patients openly be shamed and treated differently. But then it's also not fair to the, the dietetic interns and the students who are trying to understand the world that they're about to enter, and you're not giving them all the information that they need. You're not giving them the tools to process it. So it just feels like everybody loses.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that I wanted to ask you about is, you know, through your newsletter and on Instagram, you've taken this position of the anti-racist dietician and I'm, I'm really curious if you could help us understand a little bit more about what that actually means. What is the process towards becoming anti-racist in the context of nutrition and dietetics?Anjali: Yeah. Well first I wanna say I chose anti-racist because to me it felt like the antithesis of what you think of when you think of a dietician. And I wanted it to be a word that was a little bit challenging because I think especially in an overwhelmingly white field like dietetics, it's easy to hide behind words like diversity, equity, inclusion, like things that are more easy to swallow.Laura: They're palatable. Mm-hmm. Anjali: Yes. whereas anti-racist, it's like, no, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about racism and we're all part of it. So that was kind of why I went in that direction with the name And, Sorry, can you repeat the question?Laura: Yeah, no, I, I guess what I'm, I'm curious about, and sorry if I might have worded it kind of weirdly, but I suppose what I'm asking about what, what does it mean to be anti-racist in the context of nutrition and dietetics and, you know, that could be for you personally, but also kind of more broadly speaking as well.Anjali: Yeah. So I, for me, being anti-racist is not only taking a personal stance of I am dedicated to sort of rooting out racism and calling it out when I see it. I am dedicated to the lifelong practice of looking, just always trying to improve the way that I treat people, my understanding of other people's lives and, um, just being vulnerable, admitting mistakes and learning from them.I think that that is the only way to be, uh, truly anti-racist is to admit, like, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to learn things along the way. And, you have to be okay with that vulnerability and maybe even like shame and humiliation about how you made someone else feel. And I think that, I wish that we could bring this into the dietetics education of just that viewpoint.Like, um, getting comfortable with that. Honestly, I think it starts with being in a group of people who aren't like you. And so you can't be assured that what you say is going to be acceptable and understandable by everyone. You need to be challenged by people who are bringing other viewpoints to the table and who feel comfortable, and safe enough to call you on that.And it's when, if the room is 83% white as it is in dietetics in the us, no person of colour or very few will feel comfortable stepping up and speaking up because it is not a safe space for them.Laura: Yeah, so I think it's, you know, safe to say that nutrition and dietetics has a white supremacy problem, both in terms of the makeup and representation of people who actually become dieticians. And we were kind of speaking off mic a little bit before about just the, the barriers of entry to accessing nutrition and dietetics as a profession.But then I think there are also the structural things as well that are upheld by institutions that, that hold power within the profession. So in the US it's the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. In the UK it's the Association for Nutrition in the British Dietetic Association. And I think they form some like mega conglomerate of nutrition associations as well, which is also like really weird power hoarding.But, yeah, so I, I'm wondering, you know, for maybe any, Nutrition students or actual practicing professionals who are newer to this work and, and don't really fully understand like the, the extent of the problem besides just, you know, representation in invert commas. It maybe it would be helpful for us to give some examples of, you know, where it maybe shows up in our counselling and our recommendations and maybe some of the structural side of things as well.Anjali: Sure. Um, well, I can also talk a little bit about I, what I see as the missed opportunities that if, so first, I mean, the first just huge missed opportunity is to just admit mistakes and say we're sorry. You know, dietetics was a field that was established to kind of give white women scientific legitimacy and like many fields established to empower white women, it, it's did that by disempowering women and men of colour. And so I think it starts with that, just admitting, you know, we have made mistakes along the way, but we want to, to do better. You can't really heal and change until you take that first step. And in not taking that step and in sort of doubling down on No, we're, we're making the changes that need to be made, just don't ask too much about what we're doing. They're just missing out on an opportunity to really serve, really like serve dieticians better by giving them the resources they need to more effectively and empathetically work with clients of colour and, and communities of colour, you know, immigrant communities. I was talking to a friend and just talking about like, how amazing would it be if, if we could turn to our professional organization for resources around, you know, like culturally appropriate recommended food lists for different diet-related diseases for, for patients of all different cultures. They have the money to do that, you know, they have money to do so many things, and it seems like that is just a baseline, just very baseline what, what dieticians need in order to better serve the people that they work with.Laura: Just to kind of like, just to go back a, a tiny second, I, I think what we're saying is that the, the roots of the nutrition and dietetic profession were sort of established in the image of white supremacy, I think is maybe one, one way to, to think about it. And for context, for people who, who maybe aren't familiar, didactics is an evolution of home economics as a profession. And at the time of its creation, it was considered to be this like super empowering scientific evolution of that profession. But what Anjali, you are saying is that yes, and it only liberated and empowered white women.And as a result, ended up creating this deep inequity in, not just in the people who could access the profession, but also in the way that we practice nutrition and dietetics. Because it's then not reflective and not inclusive of the folks that we are going, that we are, you know, ostensibly trying to help.Anjali: Yeah. Because if it's only white women deciding what healthy food is, and then, and those white women are the ones that the government are like, oh, they are the ones that are following the latest scientific research and they're the experts. So we're gonna ask them what is healthy food. And now the government is using their ideas around healthy food to inform so many different policies from what we serve in schools, to what's on My Plate, which is what we, we use to kind of talk about the ideal healthy diet.And in just kind of, you know, we talked a little bit about the characteristics earlier off mic, talked about some of the characteristics of white supremacy that show up in dietetics, and there are so many, but, um, just this is making me think about the worship of the written word.And now that, now that it's all about, like, well we're scientific, so you have to take us seriously because we're a scientific profession now. So if it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal, is it true? But so many cultures, you know, nutrition knowledge is passed down. Through oral, through, you know, people who maybe don't have a scientific degree, but have been taking care of members of their community for their entire lives, like at these other alternative ways of passing down important nutrition know knowledge.But because it is not written down in a venue that is deemed, you know, authoritative, then it doesn't, it's not true. It doesn't matter.Laura: Oh, so many things that I just wanna kind of like touch on, you know, that, that you've mentioned there, cuz this is like a really important aspect of what we're talking about. So first of all, you mentioned white supremacy culture and I don't think a lot of people are aware that the, the characteristics of white supremacy culture have been kind of, not that this is like the be all and end almost, you know, comprehensive, there's lots of ways that white supremacy culture shows up. But what we are talking about specifically when we say the characteristics of white supremacy culture is from a piece by Kenneth Jones and Tema Oak Hunt from the Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change text, which I'll link to in the show notes.And I think it's a really important read for people who are like, aren't familiar with what we're talking about when we talk about the characteristics of white supremacy culture. So that's the first thing that I wanted to say. And then, yeah, this, the second thing around what you're naming is epistemologies or, or ways of knowing, that, that are outside the realms of science.And you know, in nutrition and dietetics, we are told, we are taught that science is the be all and end all. And if there isn't any evidence to support a recommendation, then we can't use it. And what ends up happening is, I mean so many things, but we end up weaponising science to gaslight recommendations that, or medicines that, have been passed down through different cultures for, you know, eons and eons. And then I think about what happens there in terms of, of a really creating a really imbalanced power dynamic as well between the, the clinician, the practitioner and the client and, and how that really renders people powerless in that interaction.Anjali: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm also, when, when you're talking about it now, I'm just thinking about it, you know, if you are a nutrition student or an intern coming from a culture that does have these long cultural practices that sort of disagree with, with what your textbook is saying, just that feeling of disconnection and pain that, that causes of, okay well I either have to sort of turn my back on my family, my friends, my ancestors, or be weak in front of my professors and my fellow interns. So we're just putting, we're putting people from other cultures that want to enter the field into a really painful place, I think.Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm wondering, I think that was a helpful way to kind of illustrate what some of you know, why this is something that we need to address in the field of nutrition, not just in field of nutrition and dietetics, but everywhere, but, you know, using the lens of nutrition and dietetics. I wondered, you know, if we could talk maybe a little bit more about something you touched on before, which was about nutrition recommendations in things like, you know, the dietary guidelines that were recommended and something that you wrote about recently, which I'll link to as well, is the recommendation that, you know, everyone should have milk. And this is a very specifically US example, but I think it's a really good one, a really important one. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about, you know, how the, the unbearable whiteness of milk?Anjali: Okay. . Yeah, so, I don't know how it is in the UK but um, the My Plate, which sort of is the consumer-facing ideal plate for people, has a serving of dairy on this side. And It all struck me as interesting, even as a student or just like confusing because, I think something like 60% of the world, 65% of the world actually can't digest lactose as adults.So because of this recommendation for dairy in schools in the US, students have to take a carton of milk with their lunch unless they have a written note from a doctor exempting them, in which case they can take something like soy milk.Laura: So, can I just clarify something? And again, like my, I haven't worked or studied in the US for a long time, but my understanding was that, and I think this is why it's particularly pernicious, is that if you are on, So there's like different tiers of school lunches in the US, there's kids who just pay full price because they can afford it. And so this program is kind of means based. And for, poorer kids, they can either get a reduced cost or free lunch. However, if you're, if you're just buying your lunch, you can just, I think you can just get whatever you want off of the line. But if you are, if you qualify for a reduced or free lunch, you have to take certain components. So you have to take like a fruit, a vegetable, the whole grain, the protein, and this carton of milk. Is that, is that still theAnjali: Thank you for clarifying. So the reason why it needs to be on the tray is so the school can get reimbursed by the federal government for that meal. So it's most relevant for students who are getting the free or reduced-price lunch, because meals...Laura: Sorry, I was just gonna say, those are disproportionately the people who can't drink the milk. Anjali: Oh, yeah, so it's mostly, it varies by like racial background, but the major, like vast majority of people of colour do not have the ability to digest lactose in adulthood. So it doesn't quite, you know, this whole program was set up in the 1940s, so in a lot of ways it doesn't really make sense anymore, just because, you know, that was like a different time when the country had different needs of not only needing to support the dairy system, but also, you know, kids were suffering more from like under nutrition and milk was a very easy way to get a lot of calories, fat, vitamins, things like that. So it's just a different time and place and it's also why are we operating... in the article I talk about if, if, you know, lactose intolerance, only affected 5% of the population, which is the case if you have Northern European ancestry, then it would make sense that it's on those who can't digest lactose to get the note from the doctor exempt, you know, get their alternative drink.But we're operating from a place where public schools in the US are disproportionate and recipients of free and reduced lunch in particular, are disproportionately black and brown students who disproportionately cannot digest lactose. But we aren't starting with their reality as the defaults.Instead, it's sort of the reality of the white students who can drink lactose and, and they're the starting place. Because, you know, if you are studying any sort of like health behaviour you know, anytime you erect a barrier to get to the sort of outcome you're looking for, it's going to, people are gonna drop off. So if it's you have to go, well, first you have to have health insurance and have a doctor for your child. Already a barrier. Then you have to take time off work to bring your child to the doctor in order to get the, get the diagnosis of lactose intolerance and get the note to give to your school. So just all these different barriers that are erected, that are making it harder for families of colour to just get a drink that's not going to cause their child's digestive distress. It just seems really, I don't know, kind of,Laura: Regressive and backwards and yeah, like harmful, violent.Anjali: Mm-hmm.Laura: I mean, and like, I think we could spend all day talking about how this shows up. You know, I'm thinking about it in the, the context of parenting for a second as well, and how these nutrition recommendations kind of filter through to the public, but in a way that becomes like, again, like slow violence where, I'm thinking of it in the context of infant feeding, for example, and I'm not sure how it is in the US now, but in the UK there's this like real push, especially from white nutritionists on Instagram, that you should be pushing green foods first for your child to help them develop a taste for savoury foods.And, there are these like really wild, kind of like two-week feeding schedules with like different savoury tastes for your infant that you need to start them on. You're like nodding, like, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Right? And like I had, you know, I have friends who, we have kids around the same age and they, when they came to weaning, they were coming to me being like really stressed out about this green foods first thing, because that's not the foods, those aren't the foods that they eat culturally. And they were really concerned that they were doing harm or, or like causing this irreparable damage to their child by not giving them these foods and just causing so much stress and anxiety.So it's just like another way that this, this shows up in the world of parenting. And yeah, like I said, we could probably sit and think of examples all day long, I just thought that was a pertinent one as well.Anjali: Yeah. I just have no more patience for making people feel bad about their choices based on these white-centered principles of what is healthy. And it, it's just really frustrating. I think living in a place like New Orleans that has a food culture that is really strong and vibrant and really different from, pretty much every recommendation that is, is given by any sort of nutrition body, I really, I just couldn't stomach telling people, you know, Oh, that dish your grandmother has been making for your entire life that her grandmother made for her entire life, it's just, you just shouldn't be eating it.Laura: Or here's a way to healthify it and completely likeAnjali: Oh yes, Um, and yeah, uh, it was just embarrassing and sad. I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't, I couldn't stomach it anymore.Laura: So, I'm just wondering for students or professionals who are, are listening to this or reading the transcript and resonating with what you're saying, who are feeling that discomfort in their body when they're, you know, their preceptors in their internship are like, You have to recommend brown rice when like this, the person in front of them, all, all their family knows is, is white rice. And that's just like one tiny example obviously, but one of many, yeah, that they're feeling that discomfort and that disconnect and they, they want to kind of, I suppose, interrogate this a little bit more and, and start to make changes in their practice and, and, and have the tools, I suppose to create change more systemically. Aside from your substack, which I will obviously link to, what are the, the resources and, and the places that you are looking to, to help with this work?Anjali: So, I would say just in, just to find a safe person or place, in person to discuss those things. It's really hard and potentially dangerous to your internship to speak up in the moment because there is that power, um, differential between preceptors and the interns. But I also think it's really important to be able to process it. I was lucky in my internship, and I, I don't know if this is always the case, but in, in most of my rotations I had a partner and my car kind of became, or her car were like the places where we just deconstructed what we had seen. You know? Did that give you a weird feeling? Me too. And just being able to talk about that and, you know, if you can't find that in person, then just talking to someone on the phone, just anyone where you can just decompress, get it out and, and walk through it, because I think it is, it just kind of like rocks you from the inside to witness these moments that you know are wrong and harmful and to not be able to speak about them. And then honestly, I, it's kind of been frustrating because I set up my Instagram in 2020 when it was like, Oh, I think dieticians are ready to talk about this.Had to step away because like you had a, had a, an infant and just couldn't, couldn't keep up with it. And came back to it earlier this year to to take a deep dive with my newsletter and was like, Wait, nothing has happened. No other avenues have opened up. I'm in a couple Facebook groups, one called hashtag inclusive dietetics that was, I think, established for some sort of research study, and it's not that active. But that's like one small place where, you know, for example, a student recently posted about a problematic assignment that she got, she or, or they. And then that's kind of it.So honestly, with, with my newsletter, I hope to build up a community where people can gather, that do wanna talk about these issues because I, I myself, I'm kind of like want to create the thing that I have been unable to find. Outside of nutrition, dietetics, I think there are a lot of, places to gather, you know, I find a lot of affinity in my public health groups because racism as a public health problem is something that we study. And I am involved with a couple local food policy councils. That's something I wanna write about, um, upcoming is just like how much opportunity there is to both like support change in the food system through a local food policy council, but also just meet like-minded people.And I very rarely meet dieticians who are part of these councils. But you know, each, each one has a racial equity subcommittee that I'm also a part of. So it's just a place to be able to talk through some of these issues. And a lot of times they can be very localised to where you live. Like what is the history of your town, what kinds of racist systems were established over the years and how can you dismantle them?And to be honest, like it's much easier to pass policy change at the local level and can, can make a huge impact, people that live there. So personally, that's where I find that kind of support.Laura: Yeah. So it's, it sounds like what has been really important to you is, is kind of getting stuck in, into that, like, into the, the work as it were, like doing the work, getting involved at a local kind of policy level, organisational level. And what I might do as well is just link in the show notes to a couple of like books and resources and things if people want to just kind of maybe, you know, and I'm speaking from my experience here, like I don't always feel like I have the language and the tools and that's also white supremacy culture showing like it doesn't have to be perfect, but if you want to have kind of a baseline understanding of like, you know, some of the issues, some of the ways that white supremacy, you know, shows up, then there are definitely a couple of books that might be able to help you with that as you're trying to find your feet. And I'm speaking specifically to white people here. And I think the other thing that I wanted to say is, you know, white nutritionists, dietitians, white students, it's on you to be doing the work that might not be safe for our colleagues of colour whether that's in professional organisations, whether that's in university settings. Like I, I get, like, I get that it's also, you know, when it's your degree, it's, it can also be not safe to, to say anything but where you have some power to push back, please use that, you know, and keep yourself safe also.Anjali: I think it's so important that everyone do some sort of anti-racism training that forces you to confront your own internalised issues. And I, you know, I think reading books and educating yourself is so important, but there's no replacement for that experience of, especially if you can be in a room or in a Zoom space with people from other backgrounds from you and make mistakes. I think that's such an important experience to have, just to know that I can make mistakes and I will bounce back from it. Also, maybe if you're not used to, I'm shouldn't be speaking right now. Like, this isn't my place to speak. No one needs to know my opinion on this right now. And I feel those spaces are places where you will get called out on that. And I think that's a good experience. So I went through the Undergoing Racism Training, through the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Highly recommend that. I believe it's a three day training if you can get your employer to pay for anything like that. I think this type of training is more helpful than say, like an anti-bias training because really talking about the roots of things, after I did the training, I basically felt like sick, like I felt like I had a cold for like three days afterwards because I just really had to go deep into myself, both my own internalised issues about others, and then also realising like how white supremacy had affected me. So I think it's important, you know, BIPOC people, white people, everyone should do that type of really challenging work least once in your life.Laura: Yeah. And, I think what you're naming there is so important. It's something that with, that folks with a lot of privilege especially are not at all used to, which is sitting with discomfort. And I think that's what your invitation is really, is to sit in the discomfort and that's where deep learning and deep growth happens. You know, we can intellectualise things all we want by reading it in a book, but the actual work is in sitting in that discomfort and you're only gonna be put in that discomfort if you're, you know, in a room full of people that will challenge you and, will push you.So yeah, thank you for, for naming that. And, I will link to that training in the show notes. And also I'll include some trainings for UK-based folk as well because there are some great people in the UK doing this work in earlier settings in, you know, other organisational settings. So yeah, please check those out. Before we like wrap up, was there anything else that like, felt really important to say.Anjali: Um, just that, you know, I think that people do have the ability and the opportunity to make change in their individual workplaces. Even if, you know that isn't coming from the higher ups in the nutrition and dietetics world. You can, you can change, you know, how you interact with clients to make it less you know, rooted in paternalism or, do more to create true deep community engagement with the communities that you, you work with.And, until, until we do get that wide-scale change, I think, like, don't feel, don't feel disempowered, don't feel crushed by how much needs to get done. I think there are small changes that people can make, just by changing their mindset and, and taking that step to serve people better.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. I think that's, it can feel, yeah, when you are trying to tackle a huge system that can feel really disempowering. So just thinking about, okay, what are the, what are the little things that I can do to make someone I'm working with feel more comfortable, feel more held and seen and, yeah, not lectured to.At the end of every episode we share something that we've been snacking on. So it can be a literal snack or it can be just something that you recommend and want to share with the audience. So, do you mind sharing what you are snacking on right now?Anjali: Yeah, so my mine is sort of a like a life practice and then with an actual physical product to recommend. So life practice is that on Fridays, in my household we started doing screen-free 24 hours. So starting on Friday when my kids get home from school. And that's been really great just in general cuz I have an eight-year-old and he was getting towards the, like I just wanna be on my iPad all the time. It was really difficult at first. My husband described it as watching train spotting like the first night that he couldn't have his screen after school he was just sort of lying in the snow.We've been doing this for about nine months now. But now, you know, everyone's sort of in a rhythm and after, our two-year-old goes to bed, my husband, eight-year-old, and I play a board game together. That's sort of our wind down thing on Fridays. So, that's been really nice because I love board games, played a lot of them with my family growing up and, my husband and I are kind of into a lot of like indie board games. So one that we've been playing all at lately is called Wingspan and it's very peaceful and soothing. You just have these different habitats and you populate them with birds. So the cards are like really beautiful, these watercolour paintings of birds with different facts about them. It has a lot of components that I won't go into, but it's just, it's very fun. Like you do different rounds, there's these little egg sort of game pieces that are really satisfying in their colour. You know, like I feel like the feeling of a game piece is like 25% of the experience of playing a game. So yeah, it's just a fun, interesting, sort of unique game that is a really good time for the whole family. So we've been into that.Laura: That's really cute. I need to check that out. My husband loves an obscure board game. Our like cupboards are full of things that we can never play because our toddler does not sleep.Anjali: Aw.Laura: I'm also jealous of, of the fact that your child like, goes to bed time that allows you to still have somewhat of an evening.Okay. So my, my snack, if you will, is actually a meal. This is a recipe that has been kind of having like a bit of a moment on Instagram, so people might have seen it, but it's Ruby Tandoh's Chilli Crisp Gnocchi. I don't know if you are familiar with Ruby's work, but like, she just released her cookbook, Cook As You Are, in the US and like she shared this recipe and it's just kind of like taken on a life of its own it seems. But it's the simplest, easiest, quickest like week-time dinner that has like five ingredients, literally takes 15 minutes and is so delicious.So, you basically just cook the gnocchi, then you melt some butter in a fry pan, toss in the chilli crisp oil, add in some capers, and then like coat the gnocchi with that mixture and then add some parmesan and it sounds bonkers, but it's so delicious and I..Anjali: ThatLaura: I keep a couple of gnocchi aside for my two-year-old who probably won't eat anyway because he is two, and like just put some like, but like melted butter and cheese on that for him.And then I just like stir fry some veggies quickly on the side and that's like it, and it's so delicious and so easy. So I'll link to the recipe for that. Her cookbook is really good as well. It's all about like really quick and accessible meals that don't have a ton of ingredients and it's like split into sections of like, I'm really hungry and I wanna eat right now, versus like recipes where you have a bit more time to invest in them. So yeah, that's my thing.Anjali, can you please share where we can find you on the internet?Anjali: Sure. So, um, you. Read and subscribe to my Substack at anjaliruth.substack.com. Um, my first name is A-N-J-A-L-I. My middle name is Ruth, named after my great aunt. And then my Instagram is @antiracistrd - those are the two best ways. Yeah.Laura: Yeah, I'll link to all of that in the show notes. And also like some of the, the pieces that we mentioned you've talked about like sort of your path to becoming anti-racist dietician and also like that whole milk fiasco. So I'll link to both of those. Anjali, it was really great to actually be able to talk to you in real life as opposed to just messaging on the internet. So thank you for being here and I'm excited for everyone to go check out your newsletter cause it really is great.Anjali: Thanks so much, Laura.OUTRO:Laura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

Today's conversation with Laura Hatley about using business as a form of activism fits under the P of Partnership. Laura Hartley is an activist, writer and founder of Public LovEd (pronounced Public Love Ed), an online school empowering changemakers & forward-thinking entrepreneurs to radically reimagine the world, creating the conditions for social healing and collective thriving. Laura's work centres around the three areas of transforming self, business and changemaking. She runs programs on healing burnout culture, business beyond capitalism & the inner work of dismantling capitalism and supremacy culture. Laura lives and works on Gadigal land in Sydney, Australia but can frequently be found travelling the world. In this episode, you'll learn about business as a form of activism as well as...   The problem with capitalism If not this, then what? How can this new form of business look like? Laura's framework, The Business of Revolution Why business is political The difference between human-centered and life-centered How to approach the transition out of capitalism The importance of the inner work And so much more Laura's Resources   Laura's Website The Public Love Project Podcast Download a free guide to Business Beyond Capitalism Connect with Laura on: LinkedIn Facebook Instagram   Sarah's Resources Watch this episode on Youtube (FREE) Sarah's One Page Marketing Plan (FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter (FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto (FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course Marketing Like We're Human - Sarah's book The Humane Marketing Circle Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course Podcast Show Notes We use Descript to edit our episodes and it's fantastic! Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com Thanks for listening!   After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There's no opt-in. Just an instant download. Are you enjoying the podcast?  The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I'd love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers -  a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact.  — I'd love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows and why not sign up for my weekly(ish) "Sarah Suggests Saturdays", a round-up of best practices, tools I use, books I read, podcasts, and other resources. Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution. Warmly, Sarah Imperfect Transcript of the show We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that's an affiliate link. Sarah: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] [00:02:00] [00:03:00] [00:04:00] Hi, Laura. It's so good to speak to you today. I'm so excited for our conversation.  Laura: Oh, thank you. So am I, I'm so excited to be here, so thank you for having me on the show.  Sarah: Yeah, thanks. It's, it's good. We've had a couple of exchanges already, first on LinkedIn where we met, and then I attended your workshop, and then we're like, Oh, we gotta talk about this more. So now you're here and yeah, super excited to talk about business as a form of activism. [00:05:00] So as you know, Kind of organizing the conversations on this podcast around the seven Ps of humane marketing. And I was thinking, well, where does does fit? And to me it really kind of fit under the p for partnership. , in a way we're almost like partnering with activism. We're also partnering, you know, with our clients, but. In a bigger way, we're partnering kind of with our future and, you know, the future paradigm of business. So that's where I felt like it fits best. What do you think about that? Pick? How, how does that sound? Laura: I actually think it's perfect. You know, it is, It's partnering with our future. It's partnering with life, with a different world, with the vision that we want to see born. So I think partnership was the perfect p to put this.  Sarah: Nice. Great. All right, so, we're talking about business as activism. I know, you also talk a lot about, you know, the, postcapitalism world, right? Like that's, that's really what [00:06:00] we're. Talking about here is like, there's something wrong with the way we do business now. And let's face it, the way we do business now is after, is according to this model of capitalism. And, and I just kind of touch upon it in, in my, marketing, like we're human book. I don't go too much into it, but I would love for you, because you talk about this a lot, I would love for you to kind of tell us, well, you know, capitalism maybe served us for a certain amount of time. Now there's definitely something probably wrong with that model, so take us through that. What's broken with capitalism the way we, , use it now.  Laura: Oh gosh. I mean so many things, but I think to start, you know, this answer, it's really I wanna establish a business and capitalism and not the same thing. They're actually two very different things. You know, business is just a form of trade of goods or services, and it's existed for. Thousands of years, right? [00:07:00] It predated capitalism and it will exist after capitalism as well. So business itself is a bit different. Capitalism is the way that we organize wealth and commerce and you know, we tend to think that it's the, just the way the world works or it's the best system we've come up with. But capitalism's only about 500 years. And there are kind of three fundamental problems with capitalism. One is it's based on the pursuit of infinite growth on a finite planet. It's why it is the leading driver of the climate crisis. It's why we have this problem with extractivism with biodiversity loss. The second is the artificial production of scarcity. So capitalism is reliant on scarcity. It is scarcity that drives the growth. And you see that scarcity in a lot of different ways. You see it in marketing, You see it in planned obsolescence where we design products not to last. They're deliberately designed to die in order for us to buy more, and therefore we need to extract more, to have [00:08:00] more. And of course the third problem is the devaluation of complex living systems to lifeless resources. You know, forests, oceans, these beautiful, incredible natural world that we live in. Only has value when we can extract something from it. Mm-hmm. , even if that is tourism, it's still a way that humans can use it and therefore it has value as opposed to having an intrinsic right to have value in and of itself. So these three kind of principles of pursuit of infinite growth, you know, this artificial requirement and production of scar. You know, we're not talking real scarcity here. We're saying scarcity is embedded into the system in order for it to perpetuate. And the devaluation of complex living systems, the devaluation of our living world, is really what leads us to the crises that we see today. So what leads to the climate crisis? The loss of wildlife that we face, and in other forms as well, it perpetuates racial injustice and it perpetuates increasing wealth inequity. [00:09:00] Hmm. So capitalism. Has served us to a point, but we really need to look to go beyond it if we want to create a more beautiful world and if we wanna solve some of the challenges that we're facing as a speciess. Sarah: Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. There's so much in here. sounds like, okay, 1, 2, 3, but. Yeah, there is a lot, , in here that obviously, like you say, 500 years ago, those didn't seem like problems, right? We had no idea that eventually this growth, , oriented attitude would lead to certain problems. We were just like, Yeah. Oblivious to what was coming. But I would say probably even 50 years ago now, we were already, or at least a scientific, , kind of people, they were seeing that, okay, that this is gonna end so, , and, and yet not much was done. But as a marketer and as a kind of marketing [00:10:00] oriented podcast, obviously what really, , speaks to me and, and you know, that, that we have so much things that are aligned There is the second one, The scarcity cuz , yeah, that's, that's the one where, you know, I was also seeing, oh my God, there's something just so wrong with marketing and already we were starting to talk about using business for good and yet, , We didn't look at the marketing piece, that if we do business for good, we can't also still use, , you know, the marketing with the scarcity approach. We still, we also need to change that conversation. So, , yeah, for, for me, , when I started looking at, you know, a marketing revolution, it really, this word, , Anxiety came up so many times in the conversations that people felt marketing gave them anxiety or being the marketer gave them anxiety and, and I believe it had to do with the scarcity, right? Feeling that we are living in scarcity gives us anxiety. Would you agree to that? [00:11:00]  Laura: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that's kind of the point of it. Mm-hmm. Is, you know, when we sell from scarcity is we're actually activating a person's flight or freeze response. Yeah. You know, that kind of panic decision to go, Oh my gosh, there's something wrong. I need to make a decision. If I don't take it like right now, I'm gonna miss out. And then if I miss out, What's gonna happen? You know, we, we insinuate these feelings like, You won't belong, you won't fit in. This is a one time offer. You won't be able to build your business as much. You're not gonna be able to enjoy this product. You won't be as cool, whatever it will be. You know, there are intended consequences that. We don't explicitly say, but are kind of underlying that scarcity tactic. Mm. And so whether it is simply countdown timers or you know, this real like by now there's only two seats left type thing, you know, this artificial and very often, , completely false scarcity that we could try to sell. Is creating this [00:12:00] constant stress and survival response within us. Mm. And of course, if we're then taking that into actually wanting a more beautiful world, none of us are making our best decisions when we're stressed. No. Like when we're in this state of being panicked and anxious. Yeah, we're making poor decisions from that  Sarah: place. Yeah. Because we, we feel like we can't have the energy to look out for future generations or, or even just, you know, other people. We just feel like, Oh, there's not enough for ourselves. So first we need to feel safe ourselves, which is normal. I like totally understandable as well. But like you say, some of the scarcity is actually. Created. It's false. And if we do not always think, Oh, I have to get more and more and more, and kind of live outside of our maybe, comfort zone or, or, you know, realistic, , living what we actually need, then, then yeah, we're in this cons, constant tussle. Oh yeah. So [00:13:00] much. , agree with what you said. Okay. So we know that this is the state of things right now, so I'm curious to hear how you envision a new type of business. So the postcapitalism business, how does that look like? Paint the picture for us.  Laura: You know, I think the beauty of post-capitalism is that it's not actually born yet. We're kind of co-creating it together. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So when people talk about going beyond capitalism, I wanna establish first as well, most people automatically talk about conscious capitalism as the alternative. Mm-hmm. and conscious capitalism. Obviously we had the kind of triple bottom line of like people, planet profit, and it seems like a great alternative to capitalism, but conscious capital. Has kind of added in some values. It's added in like some justice, like we need to care about people, we need to care about the earth. But it hasn't really dealt with the actual issue of looking for infinite growth [00:14:00] and it hasn't dealt with the issue of, , embedded scarcity within the system. It's perhaps dealt with the third issue. It's actually given some value to living systems. So, but it hasn't dealt with the other. Right. So when we're looking to go into post-capitalism, we're looking to kind of create an all new system together, you know, and this is something that's going to arise out of this time. Now, as entrepreneurs, this can mean a lot of different things for us, but really I think it's coming back to the values. Of our business and how we want to embody those values in every area, in our operations, in our marketing, in our sales, in our strategy, and to really bring them to life. So, you know, the first thing that I've mentioned here is this need for infinite growth that we see on the collective scale. And most of us have internalized this as well, to a degree, the sense that there's never enough. There's never enough time [00:15:00] that I'm never good enough that we end up internalizing perfectionism in the same way that, you know, I'm not quite there yet. It needs to be a little bit better. Where the sense that my business needs to grow faster, it needs to grow bigger. You know, I haven't got enough clients yet, and what we lost in this is this ability to know what it feels like to be satisfied, you know, to feel satiated, to feel enough. Right. And so when I'm looking at post capitalist business, it's not saying that growth doesn't have a place, It's not saying that we should all be struggling, that we shouldn't be earning money cause we should, you know, we need to support ourselves. We deserve to live flourishing, abundant lives. But it also means understanding what this feeling of enoughness is. Like, what actually feels good to us? What is the actual vision of the business that we want? And then how do we start to look at some of these other principles like abundance, like justice, like regeneration, and embedding them into all that we do.  Sarah: I think once you [00:16:00] feel that you are enough and you have enough, then you actually get time to look at the other stuff, right? Which you can't, , if you're still struggling with de gotta get more clients and gotta grow and gotta scale and whatnot, then you just, your focus is not on, the other two things. I talk about. You are enough also in the marketing, like we're human bug. And it's, it starts in a way with the definition of success. I think that's where a big, problem lies as well, is like, how do we define success? Because if we never take the time to define it for ourselves, we're chasing after everybody else's definition of success, which, you know, is what we are fed. That it's always more and more and more. , so it sounds to me like. This new business, , as entrepreneurs, especially cuz that's who we we're talking to here is really starting with the, the inner work and starting there rather than always, you know, starting with [00:17:00] the business and who I am as the business owner. Uh, Do I hear that right? Yeah.  Laura: Absolutely. I mean, oh, there's so many places I could go with this, but certainly in terms of success, you know, culturally we have such a narrow definition of success. Like we generally define success as more or growth, and certainly we define it in terms of money. Right. But you know, and this isn't to say that money doesn't make us happy because actually a certain level does. Right. , but we can have a much wider definition of success, right? So I remember. I was really fortunate a number of years ago to visit Bhutan, this tiny country between India and China that's famous for its development philosophy called Gross National Happiness. And you know, they measure the overall happiness of the nation as their primary determinant of success or wellbeing as opposed to countries like Australia where we primarily, , measure and value gdp, right? Or gross domestic product. And you know what I loved about [00:18:00] their model? Was, there were so many, layers and complexities to it, but also so many ideas which we could actually transfer into business. Mm-hmm. into redefining success for us entrepreneurs. You know, let's take time. Use as an example. You know, are we just using our days to fill the nine to five or you know, eight to six much more often or even longer, Or are we doing it to break free? You know, are we still feeling or experiencing that sense of time? Scar. Can we measure success through our health, You know, and how stressed we are, or how relaxed we are, or how relaxed our consumers or customers are when they interact with us, right? You know, we could also look at our working environment, how it makes us feel, or our contribution to the planet and the world around us. So really. Taking the time as an entrepreneur, I think to redefine what success actually means to us and to give it a much more holistic picture. Mm-hmm. of things that actually contribute to our wellbeing is really important. [00:19:00] Yeah. And then of course this inner work comes with that. You can't redefine success and actually understand what it means to you unless you're able to kind of stop and be with yourself for a moment and understand what is most important to you. Sarah: Yeah. And you brought up something that really was also a big aha in my, Personal development journey is this correlation between time and money. You know, you feel like, okay, finally you've dealt with your money story and you kind of detached yourself from this, tight hold on, on the money stuff. And then you realize, Hold on a minute, , I have the same kind of scarcity approach to time as I did to money. Because obviously also there's the saying time is money and all of that, right? and so, I feel like the new business paradigm also values time much more than or to an equal amount, at least as money. and really looking at how do we want to spend our time? And I, we [00:20:00] see that already post pandemic, right? People are like, Well, I don't want to commute two hours anymore. I'd rather spend that time with my family. So time has really gotten a new, Yeah, a new weight in terms of the values that , we, you know, prioritize. So I think this idea of figuring out how do you approach time? Are you still always hustling? and usually yeah, it's linked to money because you wanna. Use your time more efficiently in order to make more money. Right. It's just,  Laura: it's crazy. It's linked to money, but it's also something that I think that I refer to as internalized capitalism. You know, internalized capitalism is the equation of our worth with our productivity, with what we produce. So it's not just about getting more money, it's, it's when we feel guilty, when we. Yeah. It's when we go into work, even when we're sick. Yeah. It's that sense of, you know, we've got a lot to power through in this meeting. We're just gonna squeeze a little bit more in mm-hmm. , [00:21:00] or, you know, I'm gonna like make this phone call while I'm on my run, while I'm like cooking dinner in the microwave or whatever it is. This feeling that there's just not enough time. Mm-hmm. , and it's partly because, you know, We have internalized the cultural systems around us to such a degree that says if I'm not doing enough, if I am not maximizing my time, if I'm not making every ounce of this, you know, which is scarce because everything is scarce. Then I'm not worthy. Right. Then I'm not good enough. Yeah. And so there's a lot of that kind of steeped into it as well.  Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. So good. , let's talk about the transition because you know, as people are listening, they're, they're like, Yeah, that sounds great. You know, Yes, I wanna be feeling more, , at ease and relaxed about my business. And, but how do I make the transition and. I just feel like I'm not there yet, but I'm definitely on a good pass. I feel like , I, you know, I block time now [00:22:00] for, , walks outside, like every day I have an hour, , going for walks either with a dog or with friends. I make that my priority before any kind of business stuff. And, and I do my yoga, so things that matter to me and that I know they're, , Things that matter, , you know, 10 years from now. So it's, it's kind of this longer vision rather than just, you know, what do I do today in order to make my business grow? So, , and yet I do have that, I feel like this internalized capitalism because as a Gen Xer, That's just how we grew up with, right, How we grew up. It's like all these things that we hear in our head and it feels, it feels very challenging to want to do things differently when. Every where you look, people are still talking. You know, the old talk about scaling and hustling and you know, maybe, maybe in the corporate [00:23:00] world there's a bit less of that because you still get paid if you don't, you know, if you don't commute or whatever. But has entrepreneurs, Well, it's still about, you know, how do I make a living and how do I make enough so I feel like. It would be interesting for you, you to share also, how do you take care of yourself while going through this transition knowing that we're not there yet, and so you are probably gonna be one of the few who thinks like that. I think that's the point I'm trying to make because believe me, I feel alone a lot of times when I feel like my week is really easy and I don't. You know, a lot of work and I give myself time to grow the circle, for example, and I feel. Am I doing this right? You know, who, who, who else is out there? Who does it like, like I wanna do it. Laura: Oh, you know, I so get that , few weeks ago, I think I decided to kind of just take a step back from launching anything. I was a bit [00:24:00] overwhelmed. I had a lot happening in my personal life. I wasn't ready with the materials like I wanted to be. And I'll say, Okay, no, like just pause. Take the time. You know, I'm very privileged and fortunate that I was in a position that I didn't have to make money right then and there. You know, that may have been a different story, right? But of course then in taking this time, then this is Pushful of, am I doing enough? You know, am I doing this the way that I should? Because like everything out there says that I need to be doing this now. Mm-hmm. , you know, but there's a part of me that's going, No, it's actually. Everything has a season, everything has a time. And to trust that, Yeah, So there is so many different practices I think in, in taking care of ourselves throughout this, but for me, I think it's about returning back to my body, to what it's really feeling, what it's offering, what its energy level is. Because so often, We override our body. You know, when our body needs rest or it needs pleasure, or it [00:25:00] needs stimulation, or whatever it is. And we go, No, I've gotta work. No, I've gotta do this. I've gotta send this email, I've gotta launch this course. I've gotta put this out into the world. And when we do this, when we override our body enough, when we're so disconnected from it, then we really lead to a state of burnout very easily. Mm-hmm. . So coming back to. What am I really feeling? What is true for me in this moment? And then what do I ac? What are my desires right now? What am I callings right now? And so, yes, I need discipline. Yes, I need structure. These are important things that every entrepreneur needs, but also a little bit of trust of ourselves and trust that there is a. And if it is not the time now, that it will be the time at some point that you need to be ready for that. Right. And you need to trust that you'll know when it is. Mm-hmm. .  Sarah: Yeah. It really sounds like, , this balance between the being and the doing that I talk a lot about on the podcast, you know, this yin and yang, all of this, and. And if you are [00:26:00] struggling in your mind, which we often do when we're thinking about growth and those things, then it's time to come back to the yin, which in what you said is the body, and you know, just the energy and, and give the mind and break and say, Yeah, I know you want to, you know, grow or whatever, but right now we need to focus on on other things. Yeah. This is so good.  Laura: Yeah. I wish there was some nice easy answer for so much of this. Like, you know, you just like, tick this box or like, you know, you take this pill or press X button, whatever it is. Like it doesn't exist. It is this nuanced kind of place between the being and the doing that is like the perfect description. Sarah: Yeah. Do you feel like though, I mean you already are younger than I am, and do you feel like the new generations. It will come easier for them because maybe already they see more people doing it in a different way.  Laura: [00:27:00] I want to say yes. , yes and no. I think it really depends on, The environment in which you have for young people been raised in and what they're coming out of. Mm-hmm. , You know, I think for the younger generations there is already an inherent distrust of the system and a desire to do things differently, and I think that is really powerful. And then it will be how, and I know some amazing young people who are already doing this, but how they choose to challenge those systems, right? It's very easy still to kind of fall into. A, or resistance to systems, or as opposed to, Okay, let's actually build something new. Right? And so my hope for the generation younger than me and also for my own, is that we continue to build something new that we do both. That's a place for resistance, and there is a place for trialing and prototyping and experimenting with a new way to do business and a new form of entrepre. Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I think this is a good segue into your business of Rev [00:28:00] Revolution. So I talk about the Humane marketing revolution. You talk about the revolution, , for business itself, and you have this framework also with the six leaves. Maybe just quickly, , cuz we don't have that much time left, but quickly give us the different leaves and then I wanna dive into the one about choosing life and human centered versus life centered. But give us the tour of the six pillars.  Laura: Yeah. So I run a program called Business for the Revolution, and this is really. I hesitate to use the word anti-capitalist, but it's really about exploring what it is for entrepreneurs and solo entrepreneurs to explore business beyond capitalism using feminist principles and anti-oppressive principles. So there's six pillars upon which the work is based, which is really about using abundance over scarcity. So really looking at what it would mean to feel like there's enough. To know that there's enough and to really market and sell at the speed of trust and relationality. The [00:29:00] second is understanding that everything is relational. Everything is connected. You know, there's so many sayings like it's business not personal, and you know, the ends justify the means, or, you know, it's, it's not, it's not real. It's just what I do here, or leave your personal life at the door, whatever it might be. But recognizing that actually business is an extension of us. It is just another ways we're relating to one another. So understanding everything is relational and we need to come back to everything is connected. Now, the third that you mentioned is choose life. You know, in an age of ecological breakdown, which we are in, it is not enough to be sustainable, like sustainability is too often about maintaining the status quo. We need to be actively regenerating both the earth and our culture. So really exploring this idea of a regenerative culture. Right. The fourth principle is dream deeper. You know that we need to embed our vision, our values, and [00:30:00] our vocation. Those callings into everything that we do. We need to really reimagine the world and then reimagine how we want our business to serve a more beautiful world. So we're kind of widening the scope of what we're trying to picture. Fifth principle is that business is political. , for too long business has upheld and perpetuated, , racism, white supremacy, injustice. It still does, Capitalism does, and a lot of global business does where, where more disconnected from it than perhaps we used to be, but it still exists. So understanding that business is political and that we need to be conscious of how we're embed. Anti oppressive and feminist principles into what we do. Mm-hmm. . And the sixth and final principle is about wide streams of value. So Edward Abbey once said that growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. And you know, I love that because when you think about the natural world, the only thing that grows with [00:31:00] that end is cancer until it kills itself. Mm-hmm. . So what we. Looking defined with this principle is really redefining success away from growth. What are our wide streams of value over our tall mountains of growth? So these six principles are really about reimagining how we do business and how we want to show up in our business. It's about embedding these values into our strategy, into our operations, into our marketing, into our sales, into every aspect. So it's no longer about just what we sell or what we do or what we're offering to customers, but the way in which we run the business. Sarah: Mm. Yeah. I just love that so much, really, resonated with me. And on that workshop we, I was on, I was like, Yep. I gotta talk to you, Laura, and have her on my podcast and, and I learned a lot more having this conversation, so thank you so much. One of the concepts that I also kind of had a big aha around was this idea of [00:32:00] human centered versus life centered, right? , human centered is a term that. Myself and other people in business marketers, , have been using a lot, these past years. And it kind of almost got like, you know, like authentic. It became this buzzword. Oh, if you say human centered, then, then that means you're, you're getting it. And, and so when you, , said, Well, actually we need to extend it to life centered, it really kind of blew my mind a little bit. I. Wait a minute, I thought I'd been having it right. All this, all this time, and now here you are expanding my thinking and saying, Yeah, human centered is good, but let's extend it to life. So maybe just talk to us a little bit about the difference in what life centered really means and how, how that looks like in, in the marketing world, for example. Laura: So for me with this point, I think I was speaking about, you know, when we're [00:33:00] talking about the ideology of how capitalism shows up in business, is that it's very human and and human centered. And when we're looking to go beyond capitalism, what would look different? And we're like, well, actually it would just be life centered. And really what this was about was breaking down the binary that there is a difference between humans and the planet or humans in the natural world. Mm-hmm. as if somehow what is good for humans might be good for the planet, it might not be. Or you know, what's good for the planet probably won't be good for humans and vice versa. They're not. We are of the natural world. We are the natural world. We are intrinsically linked. Right. When we're looking as well at these deeper mindsets that actually influence capitalism that have led to the climate crisis and some of the struggles that we are facing today. So much of that comes from a place of separation or a place of domination that humans are somehow separate from everything else and that humans are somehow. Better than or above. And you know this principle, [00:34:00] it's not about being all airy fairy and like, Oh, we need to just, you know, like save every dolphin. We should all be vegans, or whatever it is. It's really just about widening the sphere of value to go beyond the human and to look at the essence of life, you know, the essence of life that animates all living things on this planet and to understand. Where there might be value for that. Now you can apply this really looking at regenerative culture into our supply chains, you know, and what is happening at the ends of the supply chain that perhaps we don't see, you know, really examining every end in our marketing. I actually am very curious to hear from you, cause I think you are the expert here around what it might mean to have a life centered approach. Yeah.  Sarah: Actually, I'd love to hear from you on that. Mm-hmm. . Yes. So to me, really. I think it, it's a, a different stage, , and maybe, you know, depends on where people [00:35:00] are in their journey. Coming to human centered is the first stage in some kind of development, right? Maybe they have been just. Focused on growth and numbers and scaling and money making. And so coming back to human centered, I feel like that's the first stage maybe in this personal development and kind of seeing the bigger picture. And yet, and once you, you know, got that and you're like, Yes, human connections are important, I think then you are ready to go to the next stage and say, We might have a very limited time here on Earth. It's not enough anymore to just talk about human connections. We really need to extend it. And to me, that brings in this idea of the triple bottom line and doing marketing in a way that involves, yes, our human relations, but then also the win for the planet. And so really, using. [00:36:00] What I talk a lot about in humane marketing is our worldview in our marketing. And that worldview has to do not just with the humans making doing business, but also, , you know, what do we stand for, , in terms of our values and how do we plan to, save this planet somehow. So I feel like it's. a third stage of getting more connected and seeing business as having a role to play in the whole sustainability piece, Right? So,  Laura: human flourishing is tied to ecological, flourishing, Right? You know, this idea that we can flourish when the earth is not, or that we can just go to another planet is, you know, It's not accurate. Yeah. It's part it. It will catch up with us. Yeah. And so it's really bringing it back to, Okay, well actually you're right. As business owners, I think we have a tremendous source of power. Even those of us who are solar printers, like you don't have major global [00:37:00] Fortune 500 companies. I don't think they can lead the way to change because they're too stuck in the old paradigm. Yeah. But when you're looking at small businesses and how we can pivot and how we can use our values and. And embed this idea of regeneration, of embedding life, giving principles into all that we do. So into physical products, into supply chains, into materials, but into our communities, into our cultures, into our interactions is so important. I love that definition and I agree it's this kind of next stage of looking at it beyond the human. Yeah.  Sarah: The other thing that comes up for me is also what we previously discussed of, you know, seeing the new definition of business post-capitalism. , about something that is holistic and it includes our whole life , and how do we want to create this life, and make it life centered and not just maybe business centered or money centered. So to me [00:38:00] it's also this idea of life centered means we want to create a sustainable life for us ourselves without burnout. So beyond the sustainability piece, which is important. I also feel like life centered means well, let's create a life that we can sustain and, and that we enjoy living rather than, you know, going into that hustle mode and, and always making more and more and more. Laura: Yeah, I think it's about flourishing. Mm-hmm. , you know, it's about thriving. Yeah. And too often we don't think of that in our society or in business. You know, we kind of focus on like just getting by or like just being good enough, you know? You know, How are you? ,  Sarah: good. I'm busy. You know, Instead of Yeah. Laura: Yeah. But instead we could be flourishing. We could be thriving, and. Shouldn't we, You know, why not design our lives and design our business to promote human, our own and ecological [00:39:00] flourishing, You know, so they're all live around us. And this doesn't mean you need to be out there working with dolphins or whatever else. No. Yeah. But the essence of what you're doing is embodying the principle. Yeah. And that I think is where the change comes  Sarah: from. Yeah. I. I'm so glad you brought up the, the busy answer cuz that's when I notice my internal capitalism every time somebody, you know tells me, Oh, I'm busy, I'm. I don't know. I'm not that busy , so am I doing something wrong that I'm not that busy, but I just, yeah. I'm not buying into the busy stuff anymore. I'm like, I don't wanna be busy. And even if I'm, you know, working on something that I wanna really get out, then I don't call it busy. I guess I just. College. Yeah. I'm working on something that gives me great joy. I just feel like busy now has a bad after paste Laura: Yeah. You know, this idea, we need to stop the glorification of busy. Yeah. Because again, but it's that link to the fact [00:40:00] that we're always, well, if we're busy, we're doing more, where we're keeping up, we're doing enough. Like, so that sense of scarcity underlying. Busy is really important to notice.  Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. I know we could keep going and we're, we're having a real fun here, but, , I think we need to start wrapping it up, but this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the Humane Marketing Podcast. Please do share, with people where they can find out more about you, your work, your program. Laura: , yes. So you can go to my website. My school is called Public Love Enterprises. So Public Love Do Enterprises. You can find me on Instagram at Laura Do H dot Hartley. I'm also on LinkedIn and Facebook. So please check us out. Google. Laura Hartley, Public love, public love enterprises, and I look forward to, , Working with you further and getting to know your guests and thank you to everyone who is listening. Sarah: Yeah, thanks Laura. I have one last question. , what are you grateful for today or this week? What comes up? Laura: I'm grateful [00:41:00] for my partner. I have an incredibly supportive partner who always brings me back to myself when I start to go somewhere else. Nice. And so she's who I'm grateful for.  Sarah: Nice. Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing and for being here. Thank you.[00:42:00] 

I am SUPER excited to introduce this weeks guest - the fierce and fabulous Virgie Tovar! Virgie is an author of some really amazing books (which you'll find linked in the transcript below), activist, and expert on weight-based discrimination and body image. Virgie also has her own pod called ‘Rebel Eaters Club' and has her own column at Forbes, where she writes about plus size fashion and also how to end weight discrimination at work.This conversation went in a totally different direction than I had expected it to, but in a really interesting way! I'm super excited for you all to hear this one, but we do talk a little about childhood abuse and eating disorders so if you don't think you're up for it right now, maybe shelf this episode for another day. Find out more about Virgie here.Follow her work on Instagram here.Follow Laura on Instagram here. Can I Have Another Snack? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Here's the transcript in full.INTRO:Laura: Hey, and welcome to the Can I Have Another Snack podcast where I'm asking my guests who or what they're nourishing right now and who or what is nourishing them. I'm Laura Thomas, an anti-diet registered nutritionist, and author of the Can I Have Another Snack newsletter. Today I'm talking to Virgie Tovar, and for the 1% of my audience who don't know who Virgie is, she's an author, activist, and expert on weight-based discrimination and body image.She holds a master's degree in sexuality studies with a focus on the intersection of body size, race, and gender, and she's a contributor for Forbes where she covers the plus-size market and how to end weight discrimination at work. Virgie edited the anthology, Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion, and she's the author of You Have The Right to Remain Fat and The Self-Love Revolution, Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color, which I will 100% be featuring when I cover body-affirming books for teens on my newsletter.In this episode, we talk about the work Virgie is doing to heal her inner child. I really love how Virgie contextualizes this work as mothering work as part of her wider project of maternity, as she calls it. And that's where she's exploring whether she wants to be a biological parent and the layers of grief, social conditioning, and reconciling her own childhood that she has to go through in order to process.This is not at all what I thought we were gonna be talking about today. Virgie kind of took this in an unexpected but really interesting direction. I really hope you enjoy it, so much juicy stuff in here, and I think you're gonna love this episode. But just a heads up that there is some mention of childhood abuse and eating disorders. We don't go into lots of detail, but if you're not in a good place today, then maybe sit this one out and come back when you're feeling a bit more up for it. And while you're here, just a reminder that if you're not a fully paid-up member of the Can I Have Another Snack community then you're missing out on so many great benefits like our Thursday discussion threads, Snacky Bits, where we're having smart conversations away from the noise and the fat phobic trolls of social media.You'll also get access to my Dear Laura column where this month I'm answering a question from a stepparent about parenting a fat child. Plus you'll get access to my Anti Parenting Downloads Bonus podcast episodes and lots more. It's five pounds a month or 50 pounds for the year, and your support allows me to pay a podcast editor, a copy editor for my long-form essays, and it pays for the hours and hours of research and other labor that is required to produce thoughtful writing. I figured this out earlier and five pounds a month works out as paying me 55p per article. So if you think that these articles are worth at least 55p, then please consider becoming a fully paid-up member of the Can I Have Another Snack community. And if you already are, thank you so much.And if you fancy gifting a subscription to a friend, I would super appreciate that. Thank you. And if you need a comp subscription for any reason, then just email hello@laurathomasphd.co.uk with ‘snacks' in the email header, and we will hook you up - no questions asked.And one last favour to ask. If you're listening to this in Apple Podcasts, please go and leave a rating and review. We haven't had any reviews yet, which is a total bummer because it really helps more people find the podcast and hopefully feel held and supported by these conversations.And I know you all are listening, so please just drop a quick comment or leave five stars. I would really appreciate it. All right, team. Here's Virgie Tovar.MAIN EPISODELaura: Alright Virgie, can you tell us who or what you are nourishing right now?Virgie: When I think the, I mean, I think I'm nourishing a lot of things, but the first thing that comes to mind is, really nourishing my child self who is, has a, just has a lot of trauma and has a lot of, um, you know, like I, I started therapy about a year ago and it's been this really interesting kind of process of like almost trying to, you know, untangle something or figure out a puzzle or just like learn a whole new way of, of thinking, but it, it's just become really clear that my little Virgie self is super terrified. There's like all of these things that she doesn't like and she's really scared of and so just kind of not only understanding that she deserves and needs a lot of attention and care, but at right now, as, as a 40 year old person who is considering biological maternity, but probably not, not going to be a mother. Um, biologically, certainly. And I think kind of going through the grief process of letting go of that narrative, which is a cultural narrative. And it's also kind of an internal narrative and just recognizing that, you know, I think I learned this from a friend recently, or someone actually someone I follow on the internet who I'm hoping to work with on this topic. But, you know, really understanding that the project of that inner child who didn't really have a childhood, it is a legitimate form of maternity, is a legitimate motherhood project. And so I think it's like, what's what I'm nourishing is that kid, that inner kid. And also the sense that that in fact it is true, that raising her and caring for her is its own maternity project. And it's a legitimate maternity project, even if it's not recognized by the culture.Laura: Oh my God. I feel like I'm gonna cry. I was not expecting you to say any of that, but that is just, it's so beautiful and there's something in there I probably need to take to my own therapy, but it really resonates with me and I just love this idea so much of, of mothering. You know, I, I love any conversation that talks about mothering outside of the parameters that society has dictated for us, which are usually, as we were just talking about, off mic, you know, heteronormative relationships, between a, a cis man and a, a cis woman and, you know, da da da. We all know that story. And so, yeah, just to think about different ways of mothering and tending to, and caring for parts of ourselves as, as being encompassed within that. Like, that's just, I mean, I think that's just a stunning thing to think about regardless of, you know, whether or not you have biological children or, you know, are, are a parent in some other kind of like, however you became. . all of that was just to say, I love his idea. Like, tell me more. What is this work looking like for you? How are you nurturing, you know, little inner child Virgie?Virgie: Yeah, I mean, I, a lot of it is just slowing down, like giving her the time to have a feeling, and to recognize the feeling and to sort of ask like, what do you need right now? So I, I think I, the, the, the temporal piece is the piece that really stands out. I mean obviously we, we sort of, I think that we live in a world, at least I feel like I live in a world in the United States and California, where, time is, you know, time is considered sort of this extremely limited resource. And I think that there's a real, obviously a premium on productivity and things like that, but it's become really clear to me that emotional processes are happening on a totally different timeline. Like even just, I mean, noticing. So for example, the other day, I, this is kind of a, a, an inter, like, it's a bit of an involved story, but I think it's useful in sharing what the nurturing looks like.Laura: Yeah. Let's do it.Virgie: Because it's not exactly like what you'd expect maybe. Okay. So the other day I was out shopping and I ran into a neighbor and I said, Now how are you doing? And she said, You know, I'm honestly not doing really well. She was having a really hard time. Her apartment had gotten flooded and then the landlord was sort of, her landlord was trying to evict her and she takes care of her 81 year old grandmother with a chronic illness and there was a lot going. And so, and so what's happening as this is, um, so for me, like there's two sort of people in the room as I'm listening to my neighbor, there's grownup Virgie who's like having compassion, thinking about, what I can do to help thinking about what resources I can deploy and how I can help her feel comfortable and safe for even just a few minutes as we're together.And then there's little Virgie who is extremely parentified, who grew up with parents who were sort of, you know, essentially like emotionally immature. So I constantly had to take care of them. I constantly had to parent them. I constantly had to sort of worry about their emotional state, and that because it was an inappropriate role reversal, it was very traumatizing.So grownup Virgie is having a totally great, very, you know, I would say like adult appropriate response to hearing this from her neighbor. Little Virgie is like, terrified. Little Virgie is really, really, really scared that an adult is having a really difficult time and that she doesn't have all the resources she needs to save her from her situation, you know?And so I'm just sort of deeply aware of that, that sort of sense of terror is rising within me and so taking care of little Virgie in that moment looked like actually a number of different things. One was sort of being like, you know, recognizing, I know you're afraid. And there's sort of a term called flooding for people who have developmental trauma. It just, like flooding is really when all the emotion, they're just flooding in, you know? And it's really difficult to tell what your boundaries are, to tell what your needs are. And I sort of, you know, can have a difficult time separating myself from the person who's having little Virgie does.Um, so I'm like, Okay, little Virgie, you're totally afraid. And that's okay. And so I'm kind of, you know, as I'm listening to my neighbor and being present for my neighbor, there's also a part of me that's sort of like, Okay, don't worry. We're gonna take care of your boundaries. Let's think about it, cause little Virgie is like, Okay, so I'm terrified, but let's have her move into our apartment can bring her mom and her two dogs and, um, everything's gonna be fine. And you can just cook for her and clean for her and like, comfort her and make sure that she's not afraid. And, you know, and so like little Virgie's just trying to save her. And so, and I'm like, Okay, I know you wanna do that. Um, but actually, right, like let's only offer the resources that we know aren't going to threaten our ability to be okay because, And so I'm just talking to her and being like, What's another, instead of, instead of that little Virgie, like what are some other options?Like maybe we can drive her home, maybe we can check up on her over the phone in the next couple of days. Maybe we can ask our friends what they might do and they have some ideas and some of them work in fields where that might be useful. Um and what if, you know, like you actually have the resources to offer to pay for a hotel or to offer her some gift cards or whatever if she wanted to book an Airbnb, if it gets too rough, like, and little Virgie was like, Ah, yeah, that sounds way better than what I was thinking. Um, and so, and I think the next couple of days, cuz emotionally flooding is so overwhelming, I was like, little Virgie is gonna be exhausted, little Virgie is gonna take longer to do tasks.Like, it's just, she's just really tired because even though it was just like a seemingly small moment, you know, she is, she felt like it was a really big moment. Um, and so it's like, it's like all of those things are kind of, that's how that looks like, you know?Laura: Wow. I'm, yeah, I'm trying to even figure out where to go from here. There was so much in there that I kinda wanna go back to. I thought we were talking, I thought we were gonna talk about ballet, dude, like. But this is good. This is like, this is really good and. So I hear what I'm hearing you say is that little Virgie, because she was so used to having to care for people in a way that was so out of her depth, that was so, you know, beyond anything that should be asked of a child that that ended up becoming a traumatizing experience. And so whenever you encounter someone who's in crisis, or even if it's not crisis crisis, even if it's like things are a bit shit, then like little VIrgie sort of armors up and is like, All right, ready to go into battle, like, what do I need to do? And it takes like, you have to talk her down and remind her that she's safe. It's okay. We have other ways of dealing, like dealing with this that won't compromise yourself, that won't compromise your wellbeing, and your safety.Virgie: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, yeah, that, that's, that's exactly what, what's happening. And I think there's a lot of, you know, I mean, I just, again, going back to the, to the project of maternity, it really is like all of those little moments. I mean, you know, as a mom, like, you know, and that, obviously there's all of these little moments and I think children really do experience the world through, through emotion, you know?And so it's like, you know, just kind of being like, okay, like whenever there's, and again, the stakes sometimes are high, sometimes they're relatively low. And she's perceiving, right? And I think this is all connected to a conversation about food and body and all of this understanding, right, that like, at the end of the day, the stakes to her are acceptance, which is basically, you know, to a child, the difference between life and death.Right? And so I think that the stakes can feel extremely high, especially when you start getting messages about all kinds of things as a kid. Like, I mean, I was recently, this is, this is a little bit of a, of a, of a more, I think more specific to the, to the topic of the podcast. But like, you know, I've, I've had many moments where I'm realizing that the fat phobia that I also learned as a child at the age of like four or five years old, that, uh, you know, I'm, I was always a bigger kid and I'm a bigger adult.And so, you know, like being, being a fat kid and experiencing fat phobia, I still have to nurture that, that part of little Virgie too. Like, you know, I think about like the way that I learned fat phobia was that, you know, if you stop being fat, then you will be saved from other people's abuse.And the way that you become not fat is through restricting food. So to me, restricting food really did become connected to a sense that if I do this correctly or I do this hard enough, then I won't be abused by other people. And really at the end of the day, like this is kind of the dilemma that anybody who's experiencing or afraid of experiencing fat phobia, that's really the, the crux of what the equation and what the decision is really about, you know? And so learning those kinds of messages as a kid that I could, you know, hurt myself in order to be safe for, from people who were abusing me. I mean, it's the, like the, those are lessons that are still, like, even as somebody who's well practiced and anti diet and is more than 10 years into that work, there are still ways in which it kind of rears its head around self-harm essentially.Laura: Oh, again, like, just so many things I wanna, I wanna pick up on there. But I think what was coming up for me there, Virgie, is this idea that I know has been a, a critique of the anti diet space is just how we sometimes overlook, how deeply ingrained, or maybe not even deeply ingrained, but how much dieting is often used to seek out safety, to, because that has been a coping mechanism, from childhood to protect yourself from being vulnerable, from being hurt, from pain, physical, emotional pain. And yeah. So I, I really just wanted to thank you for kind of like pulling that thread out. And also I'm curious to hear, because I, I'm guessing that listeners are gonna be curious to know for you when, you know, when little Virgie is feeling the threat of anti-fat bias of fat phobia, how are you taking care of yourself? Like what again, would you, do you have like an example of what that looks like for you?Virgie: Yeah, I mean, I think, It kind of goes back to the temporality piece, kind of just like slowing way down. I mean, the example that comes to mind is actually, um, the start of the pandemic. And it brought up former anorexic behavior that, and anorexic thoughts in particular, that I thought were gone. I thought that those thoughts were sort of buried in the ground, in the past, whatever. But I mean, right. Like, you know, we don't, like humans don't kind of work like that, right? But obviously we, I think we get better at, practicing things that matter to us. I think that we get better at practicing things that we practice.Um, and I also think that we have realizations and are literally our mind and our spirit changes as we have these, as we do these behaviors, and we have these moments of, Oh wow, I did that thing differently and it really blew my mind. And so, but at the end of the day, right, I'm, I'm having this, I'm in, right, we're in the unknown. So, Right. Like, I'm literally the, the start of the pandemic for, for me and I think for a lot of us was, I'm terrified. I don't know what's going to happen and it doesn't seem that anybody else around me who's an authority person, seems to know what's happening. So I went right back to that child place of seeing food as fear objects. I learned as a child that food and abuse were connected, you know, Visa v fat phobia. And in this moment where there's a lot of the same conditions, right? Like I was being brutally emotionally abused as a kid for being fat. And it was obviously destabilizing, terrifying. And this sense that no point of authority was gonna step in and end it. So it's the same conditions, but it's a pandemic. And so I'm, my child brain was like, we just have to stop eating food. It's gonna contaminate us and it's bad and it's wrong and it's scary.And so I was just like, I allowed myself the time to be like, Okay, wow. I'm really surprised that, I mean, again, like this is all about slowing, slowing, slowing down. So like, I'm really surprised about how I'm reacting to this, but it's okay that I'm reacting like this. And then I was like, Okay, Virgie, what we're gonna do is like, I'm like, I hear you and I know that you're having this feeling and I know that you're scared.And I also know, as grown up Virgie, that if you don't eat food, you're gonna get even more anxious. And I know as adult Virgie and little Virgie, you can trust me when I say that food isn't bad and food isn't scary and food isn't going to contaminate us. It's actually really good and it tastes good and it's good for us.And so I just kind of was like, Okay, cool. So we had that pep talk. Amazing. So let's go into the fridge and Virgie, like pick the things that you love the most. Like only pick the things that are like the most delicious right now. It's like, whatever you're really excited about, that's what we're gonna put on the plate. So I let little, again, time to like do that discerning process, time to go through everything in the fridge and all that. Um, and she's like, Well, I want, you know, I think at that, on that, the day that I'm thinking of it was, I think it was mostly cheese and maybe a couple of other things. And then, and then I sat down. I was like, Great job. And here we go. Like, I'm so excited about this meal. It looks really delicious. So we sit down and little Virgie's having a really hard time eating at a normal pace. Eating at the pace that I'm used to eating at, little Virgie is like really? And so I'm just like, It's okay. We can take as long as we need. Like, if we need to take a few hours, that's okay. If we need to take a break, that's okay. The important thing is that we have food in our body and we're taking care of ourselves. So it took a very long time to eat this plate of food. I would normally eat that food in probably like five minutes, something like that. And it took like two hours or something to eat everything on the plate, just because she was really freaked out, you know? And so I was like, All right, like it again, it's just kind of like that sense of like, I know that you're having all, like, you're having all these feelings and this, but we're just gonna like, take our time and we're gonna do this scary thing together because it's the right thing to do. It's the meaningful thing to do. So I think, like, you know, that, I mean obviously that's a very specific example, but I think it's just kind of that it's like that non-judgmental parenting, you know, instinct or, I mean, and it's not even an instinct, right? I mean, We have to learn respectful parenting or like parenting that's about respecting desire and boundaries and stuff like that. Again, I don't have biological kids or any kids. Um, but I'm aware of the school of thought called Respectful Parenting. And I respectfully parent my inner child who has all this stuff going on. Um, and the respectful parenting thing to do would be like, what do you want? What are your limits? But you know, as the grown-up here, who's like looking out for your safety, you can trust me 'cause I've done the work. and I'm gonna tell you that like we need food to have thoughts and to feel okay to have like, you know, have better thoughts and to feel OKLaura: Yeah.Virgie: And so, you know, anyway, so it's like that, that's kinda like an example of what that looked like in that.Laura: Yeah. And I, I really connected with this idea that you of, of like respectful parenting your inner child, and I think there is something to pull out of that in terms of, How we parent our kids around food and bodies. And I want, I wanna kind of come back and talk about that in a second but before we get to that, I, I wondered if it would be okay to go back to something you said right at the beginning and it's around, you know, what you've called, like, the project of, of motherhood and kind of exploring what that's gonna look like and be like for you. And the word that came up right at the beginning was grief and that you're processing that. And I wondered if you'd be comfortable sharing a little bit more around, you know, where you're at with that.Virgie: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, so I spent most of my life largely sort of like pretty comfortable with like, I'm not having kids. And I think there was, there was always a little part of me that was like, hmm, that was aware that this decision was informed to some degree, and I wasn't sure to what degree, by my own childhood and by how poorly I was mothered. And so, you know, I was like, Okay. I was like, okay, at the end of the day, maybe it doesn't really matter to what degree my experience, my childhood experience impacted this decision. Because at the end of the day, like I either have the desire or not, right? Um, and so, and I'm, I'm a believer in that overall philosophy. But I think that as when I turned 40, you know, as I, I think it probably started to happen, you know, really in my mid-thirties where I was starting to sort of, I, I, I noticed there was sort of a part of me that was looking for around me, like conversations about people who had gotten pregnant later in life. Like I started, I sort of started was I was looking for examples of, you know, let's say that I don't, that I don't wanna do this now, but at some point in the next decade, like, are there, do I have people around me who are getting pregnant when they're in their late thirties or their forties? So I started to notice that opening up in me and then when I turned 40 it was like this really interesting, the grief really came in, in a lot of different sort of ways. Like I think the first grief was, the potential that, uh, you know, that this might not, that bio maternity might not happen. And there's a part of me that's kind of sad because it's just sort of a cultural narrative and it's, it's sort of a gender narrative. And I also think the grief came around like still being a bit of a question mark.And I think, like, again, what was fascinating was my whole life I was like, I'm pretty much, I'm between 80 and 95% sure that this is a no for me. And I think that that varying degree of like 5% of doubt, 15, 20% of doubt, I was really comfortable with that because I thought really 80% is quite, is a quite compelling number, and that's your best day. But as I was turning 40, all of a sudden that margin sort of blew up in my mind. I was like, Wow, you know, that 5%, Like that sort of, it went from, I'm 80 to 95% sure that I'm a no to, like, wow. I'm still fine to 20% question mark. Yes. And think that the, the focus shifted from the yes side of the pie to the no side of the pie at 40, because it just sort of felt like the stakes had changed. Um, and I think, frankly, here's another funny part that I just realized. I'm also, so, yeah, again, it's the, the grief is complex. I'm kind of getting into sort of the texture, the motivation for the grief. So I would say another new part of the, a part of the grief that I just learned how to articulate was the grief of not having the option anymore.Laura: This is something like, I have a couple years until I'm 40, but it is definitely something that I think about, you know, that runs through my mind that like the, the, prospect of having anymore kids to just like shutting down and what, what name do we call that or give to that and yeah, how do we work through, um, yeah, the, the grief associated with that. So all of that was to say, like, I resonate with where you're coming from. Virgie: Yeah. I mean, and I think that going deeper into that specific brand of grief, it was like, I was like, Oh, I'm not, I'm grieving that I don't have, I'm grieving this sort of like the ability to postpone the decision that I had in my twenties and I had in my, in most of my thirties. Um, so it's like a very specific loss of not caring. It's like the grief of, the grief of losing, meh. I have, you know, I have a lot more time to think about it. And I think it was specifically also the grief of losing the sense that it was, it was, that I had the choice, you know, like that grief of like the loss of kind of a very specific kind of freedom that's associated with like bio maternity in particular. And so, there's that, and then I got deeper into like, I was like, What else is in here? Like, what other grief are you feeling? And it was really interesting that another part of the grief was actually specifically around being a fat woman in a fat phobic culture where, um, where like I, you know, for most of my life, I felt like a gender imposter, meaning I felt wasn't a quote unquote real woman.And I think that maternity, like, you know, pregnancy and having biological children is a way in our culture that you can affirm your gender if you are a woman. And so I think there was grief around like, You know, basically, basically like letting go of that really important social marker of femininity, which is a pain point for me as a fat woman. So like there's that component where it's like, okay, like what does it look to kind of stand in this decision and know that it's like yet another moment where you're feeling that sense of gender imposter hood or something like that. And then I think that there's other sort of like other, the other parts of the grief are, you know, a lot of them are really, truly, um, I'm, I'm aware that they're socialized. Like, I'm okay, you're grieving because you've been told this is how the story ends. You find a person. Right. And I think specifically as someone who has a lot of trauma, there is a really interesting, um, narrative journey that I think a lot of straight women around me go through where it's like, okay, you had a horrible childhood. You had this like addictive, you know, you had an eating disorder and you had unresolved addiction issues, unresolved mother wounds in your twenties. You go to therapy in your thirties and then of course you find like an amazing, wonderful, well partner. And then you realise after all this that you actually do want to be a mother. It's a very specific and very alluring narrative. And I think the other, another part of the grief for me, and I'm just, this is just me being really, honestly very vulnerable. But another part of it is like, I, I'm aware that I have a narrative in particular as like a fat woman of color. I've been able to kind of create my own career and a meaningful life and a happy life. And like, you know, I, I've, I've been able to do a lot of things frankly, that the culture really values and also breaking all of the rules, you know, And I think that that's a big part of my identity.And then this whole idea that this, like, this sort of, almost like the crown jewel, right? Of kind of, you know, like you're, you're getting what the culture wants, but not on the culture's terms in many ways. Again, I think if you're a straight, cisgender woman and I, and I am, um, that kind of baby piece is like the ultimate and being like, and then I had a baby and I also broke all the rules. And guess what, being a parent isn't hard. And guess what? I don't have to suffer and it isn't isolating. And all the stuff the culture said, that's not true. And this is obviously very, like, I can hear like, this is like my child, my little bratty child voice, right? And so I can hear it. And so like, it's like the, it's like the wounded part of me that's like you rejected me. Well guess what? I got all the stuff you guys are killing yourselves for and I got it my terms. It's like a very, you know, I mean it's like a very specific narrative around, uh, being marginalized and reacting to being pushed out of society. Right? So anyway, like the whole, the child piece is like kind of, you know, I think there is that, that allure to kind of like, You gotta finish the story. The story finishes with you being some kind of radical woods dwelling fairy mom who's like completely defying stereotype and expectation of motherhood and your kid is thriving and they're so happy and you all are so happy. Look at the pictures of you and this well dude that you met in your journey. You guys are like completing the picture of what the culture says success is, but you did it on your terms. And I think like, we're sort of resisting, resisting the allure of that is, um, really difficult. So like the grief of being like, you know, that whole rebel, hurt, hurt, marginalized person, fantasy, just, just like being like, Yeah, but that part doesn't work for me. Like, there's a lot of, there are culturally normative things that I do that I like, you know, like a meaningful relationship, like having a home that I like. These are also culturally normative things that I also happen to want, but this is one of those things where I'm like, this is not something that I want. And so letting go and, and grieving kind of the fact that that, again, that wounded fantasy isn't going to be complete in that very specific way that I'm not going to, you know, have that moment, um, culturally and I mean, frankly, right? Like, I don't even know, again, as a plus size person, as like a plus size woman of color. I'm not sure how many of those, like cultural touchstone moments around like, you know, being pregnant, being visibly pregnant, you know, having a child where I don't even know how much of that would be, in fact mediated by things like cultural and medical fatphobia. Um, because we don't really get to see much of that narrative in the public.So it's like, you know, all that to say like, I don't even know if, like the cultural piece were really motivating me to the point that I was acting on it. I don't know how much of those fantasy, quote unquote moments would even be happening because of the level of fat phobia and racism in our culture, you know?Laura: Yeah. Oh my God, again. Wow. Just knocking my socks off. I do wanna say for the record, Virgie, if for the fact that it weren't a trauma response, I would very much be here for your particular brand of radical parenting . Cause that is something I think the world would be a better place for because there are, as you know, like we were talking about, toxic mom, mommy culture tropes, before we started recording, there's, there are so few options available to people who want to become parents that aren't just, you know, a rehash of the same old story, the same old, you know, thing that has, has been prescribed to us, which is a very narrow portrayal of what parenting and motherhood is or can be. So yeah, like not that that's a good enough reason for you to go and have a kid, but yeah, that would, so that, that's just kind of a side note. But yeah, I'm hearing that the grief is, it's not one specific kind of grief. It's so layered and so textured as to, you know, all of the things that you're sifting through and unpacking.And what I'm, I'm really hearing as well is just you trying to parse out, okay, what is really for me and what I want and in line with my needs and my values and my wants, versus what is a narrative that I have internalized that actually doesn't belong to me and doesn't fit with the life that I am creating for myself.Virgie: Yes, a hundred percent. I mean, and I, I love that kind of, and I think for me also like. There's like, um, like I, I was telling a friend, I was talking to you with a friend about this the other day and um, you know, I was like, Okay, so, you know, if you have a question about whether or not motherhood is something that, I mean, I'm like, I'm someone who's like, does is bio maternity in line with my values, desires, and also my actual physical capabilities, right? Like my actual body can do. And I kind of, and I was like, you know, it was, it was interesting. I was like, Okay, so let's start the negotiation as we're deciphering whether or not, like, as we're sort of parsing through this question, let's start with the matter, the issue of sleep, right? I'm like, okay, I'm someone who's really, I do think that my ability to be the person I am in the way that I am, and like, I think there's certain, even like, I'm also very aware of, for me, sleeping, I mean for all of us. Like I'm very, I'm hyper aware for me that sleeping is very connected to some of the work my body is doing in healing various traumas, and other things that are going on. So I'm like, okay. I actually, I'm, I'm like a 10 to 11 hour sleeper, like I really do feel like my mental health and my quality of life begins to go down very rapidly after just two daysLaura: You are talking to the parent of a two year old right now.Virgie: Yes. I'm like just on that negotiation point alone, like, I'm like, am I willing to do the work to change that? No. Am I willing to make concessions? No. And I'm like, ok, we don't even need to go to any of the other negotiation points. Like we've already ended the negotiation internally. So it was just kinda, I'm just like, I'm thinking about, you know, specifically for me, I'm like, what do I need to be the person that matters to me? Like one of my values is being my best self and being able to enjoy the world fully in that space. And I'm like, that's probably my highest value. It's a higher value than parenting. And so it's just, it's just one of those things where it's like, it doesn't like, you know, I think there's a lot of, romanticism that gets kind of thrown into, and a lot of this is coming from cultural pressure, the romanticism that's sort of culturally produced about like basically the integral role of like the reproductive heterosexual family, to the reproduction of our society as we know it. Right. This is, this is not to say that like I think there are absolutely people for whom parenting is like a genuine, real desire. And or it's a very highly placed value, and I don't wanna de-legitimize that.I think for a lot of people who are on the fence, that what's thrown into the mix is this cultural pressure that is really like, it's really the romanticization of reproductive heterosexuality. And it's like, I think it's important to kind of like when, when you are on the fence to kind of break it down to its barest place. Where does the motivation to romanticize this very specific kind of existence, like, you know, parenting and bio parenting in particular. It really at its cultural core comes from a very fraught legacy and a very fraught idea of like creating a very specific kind of nation and a very specific kind of world. And so, and I, and I mean really con, I mean for me, contextualizing like, like I, you know, the United States, like I live in a culture in which there's a wage gap, in which there's no subsidized medical care in which, um, there's patriarchal norms that pervade how mothers are treated both by their children and by society and by their partner. I still live in a world in which women are the disproportionate, like food providers and caretakers of children. Like I'm literally, I would be entering this fully knowing that like I would be, this is under the context of capitalist hetero patriarchy, which is like a very, it's a compromise I think, and like obviously, All of us are already in this soup. Like I make decisions already, always in this soup. I think what matters is, like, what I'm thinking about is this for me, and I'm not sure, it's important for me to kind of recognize like, where am I getting gaslit about this issue? Where is the stickiness? Where is my pain point? And really going deep in that, like, why, what am I afraid of? And then just kind of going because, because, because, because I'm afraid of this, because this, I'm afraid of this because this, I'm afraid of this because this, and what really it comes down to, I think for, for me in particular, and my therapist is like, Would you do it if you were on a deserted island? Because if you, if you wouldn't do it on a deserted island, then that means it's cultural influence. It's probably like really in the mix here,Laura: That's such, is such a good like that. It's so simple. But that's such a great way of thinking about it and helping parse this out. And also I want your therapist number.Virgie: Yes. I mean, I love, I love the deserted island test of like all desires. But, yeah, I mean, I think like, and I think that there's a, there's a big question about desire and consent in all of it, right? And I think like, I, I mean, I don't, like, for instance, I don't know that if we lived in a less patriarchal culture or if we lived, if I lived in a country with subsidized medical care, if I wouldn't have a different decision or if I lived in a country that had like, or a world where there was less fat phobia, like all of these things are sort of floating around. And I think it's very specific to say in this very specific context, in this moment in time, considering what I know about the world and myself, this is where I land. And I think that that's a very grounded way to kind of approach a decision that you're not a hundred percent into. You know what I mean?Laura: Yeah, no, I, like, I, I'm, I kind of wish that we'd had this conversation like three years ago, . Not that it, not that it has changed my mind about having a child, but, what feels so kind of vital to me are conversations that kind of reinforce this idea that you can be a whole complete person, you know, with or without a child. Right. In both directions. Because I think there is also, you know, that narrative that when you have a kid. And, and some of it is true because of, of cultural programming that you have to give so much of yourself to the child that you don't get to have your own identity anymore or your identity gets reduced down to mother, which, you know, that's a whole thing in and of, in and of itself. There was something else. I was gonna say Virgie, but I've, I've.Virgie: No, we've covered so much ground. I think the last thing I wanna share that's like, I think just, just like a life tip, um, it's like, it's like, you know, I made the decision a long time ago because I think another big question mark in the conversation of motherhood for people who are, you know, having that questioning moment, um, really is like, will I regret the decision? And I basically, one of my, one of my life rules which I adopted many years ago, is never make decisions based on the anticipation of an emotion in the future that you may or may not have. So never make decisions based on anticipatory regret. That's like one of my, and honestly, right? Like, it has liberated me in so many areas of my life because that's such a cultural trope of like, you're gonna regret if you, if you do that thing, you're gonna regret it. Right? Like, and I, I really feel like there's this kind of almost, I mean, it really is almost like a religious shame induced, like kind of, um, Kind of like, I'm like, you should not be moti, you should not be making major life decisions based on a future self that you don't know, based on an emotion that you may or may not have. And so like that, that's a, that's a big one for me. Like that that one is like, um, I just wanted to put that out there as like, I just don't, don't make decisions based on the anticipation of regret. TheLaura: What you are basically telling is everyone is get the tattoo, dye your hair, do theVirgie: I meanLaura: Do the thing that you are wanting to do. Virgie, this has been incredible. There's, there's one other thing, there's one other like, sneak question, but hopefully it's a fun one to answer. Which is, what are you snacking on right now? And that can be a literal snack. It can be just something that you're really into at the moment. A book, a TV show, a podcast, like a thing, like anything. What are you kind of into right now that, like a recommendation that you wanna share? Virgie: Well, I mean, I'm basically like, I'm in, I'm so into fall and it's October right now, so I'm like snacking on anything fall like, so, like if it has a spice blend that includes like cinnamon or pumpkin or apples. I went apple picking the other day. And what's funny that apple picking is that you end up getting a lot of apples and you have to, and it's like, wow. I'm just like making, it's like, it's like another, another batch of apples, apple cinnamon muffins, you know, like, and so it's been so fun to basically have like this basket full of apples to make like endless amounts of spicy apple muffins. Um, so I feel like that's the thing. I've been snacking on so many muffins and so many like fall inspired muffins.And then I'm excited about something. I'm gonna like give one more thing, which like thing that I'm excited about snacking on is, This week I'm going to a spooky bakes little party. We're gonna watch Halloween Baking Championship and bring our spooky bakes, and I'm making like aLaura: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're going to watch what?Virgie: It's called Halloween Baking Championship. It's so good. It's so fun.Laura: Oh my God. Is it like, is it, Is it on Netflix? Netflix. Do, can I watch it here?Virgie: Well here, it's on Prime.Laura: Oh, Prime. Okay.Virgie: Amazon Prime. Yeah.Laura: I generally don't condone anything to do with Jeff, Jeff Bezos, but I do have Prime.Virgie: Yes. Oh, I know. I mean, maybe you can get it from some other outlet, but it's really fun if you like Halloween and they have like all these creepy cakes and it's so good. So I'm making like a witch hand with like, with like cake pop eyeballs. And I'm going to be snacking on thatLaura: Oh my God. I wanna see pictures of that. First of all, I'm gonna link to that in the show notes if you've made it in time for this episode to come out. That sounds amazing. Okay, so my snack is gonna sound really, gonna sound pretty sad in person. It was also a little snack, but it was, so I don't think you're gonna get these in the US but, I found these, like they're basically honeycomb dipped in chocolate and, um, they're by Doisy and Dam and they're, for anyone who's like, has any allergies or is vegan, then they're a good option cuz they don't have any milk in them. I think they maybe have soy, but apart from that, they don't have any other allergens. And like I, they're just new and I tried them the other day and they were delicious, so that was gonna be my thing. But they, um, cake pop eyeballs sound way better. So let's go with that.Virgie: Ooh. But I love, I love a chocolate dipped honeycomb, this kind of, Yeah, yummy. I mean, I feel like my introduction of this was like in New Zealand where there's just a lot of honey products. Yeah.Laura: Um, yes. Yeah. And what I like about it as well is like, and this is like, just like a thing that I, that I have where, um, I like, like snack bag kind of like, sizes of chocolate. So there's like another one that's like all these like mini peanut butter cups that has just come out, that's a Pip & Nut one.Like this was a very good week for new chocolate in the UK. Um, so that you can like, you know, you can just like grab a couple of pieces, rather than opening a bar and then like dealing with the folding up of the bar and all of that stuff, like, I like the grab bag option and you can just dip in and out of it. That's my vibe.Virgie: Ooh. Yes. I love a snack bag. Yes. Grab bag,Laura: Yes. Okay. Virgie for the, like 1% of listeners who don't know, because really you are an icon in the body liberation space. So, but yes, tell us where we can find you and get more of you.Virgie: Yes, um, I am, I have a website, virgietovar.com. I'm also really active on Instagram @virgietovar. I have a podcast called Rebel Eaters Club, which you can find anywhere you get podcasts. We have three seasons, so you can just sort of do some, like, fun listening for a couple days or spread it out however you want. And we basically talk about, well, it's like a food-positive, fat-positive show about ending patriarchy one corn dog at a time, and I also have a column at forbes.com where I write about plus size fashion and also how to end weight discrimination at work. And I have, there's a few self-guided online classes that I've co-written with some amazing people. If you're interested in any of that, it's all virgietovar.com. You can find all my books and stuff like that. My most recent book came out earlier this year and it's called The Body Positive Journal. It has stickers, it has cute, like larger body people doing cute, fun things. And it's some of my, it's like about developing some of my favourite tools in changing our relationship to food and body.Laura: Yes, and I'm so excited to include that in an upcoming, like I've been doing roundups of books, like Body affirming books for different age groups and I'm, that one is gonna be top of the list for teens, so I can't wait for that. Um, Virgie, I'm gonna link to everything that you talked about in the show notes, like all the places to find you and your social media and all of that stuff. But thank you so much. Like totally unexpected conversation, but loved every second of it. And yeah, just really love you. So thank you for being here.Virgie: Oh, thank you for having me.OUTRO:Laura Thomas: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Can I Have Another Snack? If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review in your podcast player and head over to laurathomas.substack.com for the full transcript of this conversation, plus links we discussed in the episode and how you can find out more about this week's guest. While you're over there, consider signing up for either a free or paid subscription Can I Have Another Snack? newsletter, where I'm exploring topics around bodies, identity and appetite, especially as it relates to parenting. Also, it's totally cool if you're not a parent, you're welcome too. We're building a really awesome community of cool, creative and smart people who are committed to ending the tyranny of body shame and intergenerational transmission of disordered eating. Can I Have Another Snack? is hosted by me, Laura Thomas, edited by Joeli Kelly, our funky artwork is by Caitlin Preyser. And the music is by Jason Barkhouse. And lastly Fiona Bray keeps me on track and makes sure this episode gets out every week. This episode wouldn't be possible without your support. So thank you for being here and valuing my work and I'll catch you next week. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurathomas.substack.com/subscribe

“Being able to immigrate to another country ever. It's very hard. And it's very complicated. And, as an American, I think we just often don't have any concept of it.” - Laura Roeder Watch this episode on YouTubeIn this conversation:Laura Roeder:Laura's Company: PaperbellLaura on Twitter: @lkrBrian Casel:Brian's company, ZipMessageBrian on Twitter: @casjamThanks to ZipMessageZipMessage (today's sponsor) is the video messaging tool that replaces live calls with asynchronous conversations.  Use it free or tune into the episode for an exclusive coupon for Open Threads listeners.Quotes from this episode:Quote 1:Laura: Yeah. It's like once we got here, we just loved it. You know, sometimes a place clicks and you're like, okay, this is. This is the place for us. I mean, I love not living in America.And, you know, Brighton was just an hour south of London. So you can still go to London for events and theater and stuff like that. But Brighton is pretty small, like when you. What I love is if I meet someone in Brighton, I can walk to their house. It's just like it's dense. It's not that big. It's on the seafront, but it's big enough that there's still tons of, like, shops and restaurants and stuff like that.It's known as a kind of, like, creative place Yeah.Brian: Yeah. Super cool. We did, like, around the country, Airbnb thing. We had our first, uh, our second. We were pregnant, like, on our way back. We were like, All right, now we have No. Two. Looks like took it back to Connecticut, but we were sort of like, toying with the idea of, like, settling somewhere else. Maybe Austin and maybe Colorado.We just came back here because, my parents are here and having, like, the local babysitter is so huge.Laura: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean, what once you have kids, you understand why everyone just, like, moves back to their parents?Brian: Yeah, exactly.Quote 2:Brian: I was going to ask about the... This might be super boring but I like the process of moving abroad. I mean, I guess your husband is... is a citizen. Yeah.Laura: Yeah.Brian: And like, getting the visa and everything was like, I probably not. I mean, you don't need a visa.Laura: But. Oh, you are so wrong. It is so hard. So, yeah, I had no idea. I had no idea about this before. A lot of people think that you just, like, marry someone from another country, and then you can just go to their country. That is 0% of how it works. That's not how it works at all. I thought that, too.So one I mean, so you can so if you marry someone from the UK, you can apply to be a British citizen. It's an extremely expensive process. It's an extremely long process. You're not... The way it's designed is actually to have you living in separate countries like we ended up traveling, so we didn't have to do that. But it's like, what?Like, so it's designed that one person has to be there already because the person who's the sponsor has to prove that they can provide an income for the other person, which is also crazy. So like if one of you were a stay-at-home parent, like women often are, right? Like, so if the mom was the British one and you had a baby and the, you know, the guy was the income earner, that wouldn't work, they'd be like, Nope, too bad for you.Like Mom's mum's going to get a job and has to show the W-2 earnings. And that's if you're from like a quote-unquote good country that they like. There are lots of countries, so they're just like, no, we don't like the likes of you. We're not going to let you come or like, God forbid, you have some sort of criminal history.Like if you sold marijuana when you were 20, good luck being able to immigrate to another country ever. It's very hard and it isn't very easy. And yeah, as an American, I think we just often don't have any concept of it.Quote 3:Laura: In America. Schools have started starting really early in the morning. Does your kid's school do that?Brian: They're in kindergarten and then second grade, and they're going to school around the bus, picking them up at like 7:40 a.m.Laura: Yeah, that's so, so 7:40. So, so many kids in America just don't get enough sleep. It's just like literally impossible. The math doesn't work out. I mean, maybe when they're little, they can, but not if they're older and they have to be off the bus, you know, at seven 40. Like, if you get up at seven, it's like a mad dash.Brian: I would imagine it. It's crazy sleeping, though. I mean, they're like sleeping by like 8:30 p.m. So they're getting like 11 almost twice sleep sometimes. But like crazy. I mean, what else about like kids? Well, I guess they're really like growing that have a UK accent. So like they, they, I was going to ask about like being like a foreigner in a country as a, as a child, right?Like I had a friend who had moved to France but like the kids were you know, they grew up part of their lives in America. Anything like that sort of like come into play with was like growing up and.Laura: Well, my kids are not foreigners. I am. Yeah. You know, but they don't really have any kind of identity like that, especially of course with the language being the same. So they're not, of course, having to learn a new language or speak a new language. I did realize the other day that they'll have British accents as adults, which kind of blew my mind like I'm used to it now.Then I was imagining my daughter being like, 25, but I'm like, Oh, she's just going to be like a full-blown English person, which does seem a little bit funny to me. But I mean, the language thing makes it so much easier. It's and this is another thing Americans just don't realize, like, learning another language to the level where you can have friends in that language is literally like a ten-year process.There's a huge difference between being able to go to a shop and having friends that you're like making jokes and cultural references. I mean, even here a lot of things are called different things. And just little things like especially at school, they're like, oh, we're having a tombola, what is a tombola? And then they said, Oh, you bring a bottle.And I was like, Of alcohol, like, I actually I'm still not sure because you bring a bottle of something and it's I think it can be like shower gel or something. And then you like when a bottle. But I'm like, can it be alcohol or is that in poor taste? I don't know. But there's, yeah, there's just a lot of little things like that that like, I'll have to text someone and be like, explain to me how this works.

When we listen to a missionary it often causes us to reflect. Does my life have a larger meaning like there's? Do I see God at work as they do? Listen in to today's show where we hear the story of a couple who changed the trajectory of their lives by leaving the business world to become missionaries. Why this topic at this time? Today's episode is in response to a podcast listener by the name of Patty who said she'd like to hear more interviews with missionaries. I can see why. They are some of the most interesting people around. To talk with a missionary is almost always an interesting conversation. And more than interesting, whenever we truly hear the story of another person, whether they're a missionary or not, it can't help but cause us to reflect upon our own story. For today's show, I interviewed two of my friends, Billy and Laura Borkenhagen, to learn from them and their life-changing missionary story. One thing that's different about today's episode is that I have a word-for-word transcript of my interview in the show notes. It was done using AI - artificial intelligence software. I have been wanting to experiment with this for a while. And if actual transcripts are something you'd like to see more of, please let me know. Okay. Let's get on with it. Interview transcript John: So Laura and Billy, tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming missionaries. I mean, you both had pretty great careers and you left all of that to become missionaries in a camping ministry. Laura, why don't we start with you first? Laura: Sure. So yeah, Billy and I met in college and Billy became an architect and I began working in marketing. We both worked at the Kohler Company for our careers. I even traveled internationally for, a bit of time, which was really fun and fixed up a house. And I, I ran, I started my own photo business and Billy started working downtown in Milwaukee. We had three kids and life was, you know, kind of how I had it planned in my Excel spreadsheet of how I wanted my life to be. Yeah. And so we had taken our family with our three kids up to camp just to attend a winter camp and, just really had a great time. And so the next year we decided to go back and while we were there, I was reading in the dining hall. They have all the missionaries, like a little bio about each one of them and I was reading them. And at the end there was a job posting. I wasn't looking for a job, but I just, in that moment, I knew that that was my job. And that kind of just started a journey of us asking questions. And yeah, it was a bit of a story, but we, we ended up both joining as missionaries at, at Fort wilderness. And now we're here in the north woods. John: Well, tell us a little bit about what camping is at Fort wilderness and what your role is there. Laura: Sure. Fort wilderness is a camping ministry it's in Northern Wisconsin and it really aims to do, do four things. They get people out in God's creation in the outdoors just immersed, in what God's created, gives people God's word. So at all the different camps and retreats, there's always a speaker or, or way for you to hear, hear God's word. And then they use adventure programming. So things like horses and water slides and tubing Hills, and swimming and all sorts of adventure things. And then the fourth one is community. And so, so you're, you're always in Christian community. So it uses those four things and it's year round, summer, winter fall. And then there's camps for families. There are things just for youth where they get dropped off for, for a week or so there's a college age program. And then there's adult programs where it's like, just adults, like a men's retreat or women's retreat. John: So you're doing, you're doing your marketing thing, part-time from your home and Billy's still working in the Milwaukee area as an architect, correct? Laura: Yeah. That's how it started. I, I saw this job posting and I said, Hey, would you consider someone working part-time remote because I'm not moving that was my quote. And funny how, how God, every time I've said I would not do something, I feel like I've done it. John: Yeah. Laura: Yeah. So the, they were like, well, maybe like why? And I was like, well, I'm not interested in moving, but oh, I'd love to like work for Fort. And so they entertained the idea. They're like, sure, like think about it, pray about it. So I applied, I interviewed and I became the first ever remote employee. Working from the Milwaukee area while Billy was working in Milwaukee and the plan, I was willing to raise support as a missionary, but they said, well, we've never had anyone working remotely. So they offered me a six month contract where they paid me and they said at six months, if it works out, then we'll talk about raising support said, okay. So the six month mark comes and, and COVID had hit. And so I, I was not the only remote employee anymore cuz lots of people were working remote at that point. Laura: But the six month mark came and we were up at camp helping out and I was supposed to have this meeting about raising support. But before that meeting Billy's boss approached him and said, Hey,, there's really no job available, but I really need an architect. And you're married to Laura. Like, would you guys consider moving up here and, joining staff. And we were like, um maybe I'm not sure. And so the short story, they sent us home and said pray about it for the next 30 days. And we said yes, after that 30 days, cuz we really felt, felt the Lord every, there was a hundred instances where we felt like, wow, the Lord is just really showing us and opening this door. John: Yeah. And Billy, that was quite a, I mean it was big change for Laura, but, but you actually gave up a pretty great job as an architect. How did, how did that, how did God work in your life to, to do such a thing? Billy: Yeah. I really thought that I would retire at HGA cuz it was a really good firm and my opportunity to work there was pretty unique and through one of my college professors, so I had a good job and I liked it. I think the shortest way I can answer that. The short story is that by a combination of the opportunities at Fort wilderness, the special needs that they had and then some things that God was doing, not only in my life, but in Laura's life, separately, but at the same time. And each of us made it pretty clear to us that this is something that, we should step into. And that was kind of the answer to the prayer that we got. So that's the very short version of that story. I think the longer version is that God had showed me very clearly that we weren't in total control of our lives. Billy: As much as you think you are, as much as you think the way you live or the job you have or the community you're in is giving you some sense of control God had shown us in personal ways that we're actually not in control. And so that put our minds in a place where I think we were willing to consider leaving all of the stuff that we've built up over the years and taking a risk of stepping in, into sort of this unknown role and fulfilling this, what was a, a clear need, but an unknown role for us. And so the timing of that sensation with the open doors and the opportunities and all of that is really what compelled us to seriously pray about it and determined this is where God was leading us. John: Mm yeah. So it's not like you were, you were running away from something that, you know, things are going along pretty well. And, but here is something that was better that God was leading you to. Billy: Yeah,Absolutely. I mean, it's still to be honest, you know, sometimes at our worst we're tempted to think like, man, did we, you know, you get to this point where can't go back and you're like, did we make a mistake? You know, going forward. And yeah. And I think a lot of that is just the enemy tempting us and trying to, you know, keep us from what God's called us into. But yeah, absolutely. It wasn't certainly wasn't running away. In fact it was quite when we came to Fort wilderness, for me personally, I had a lot of support and encouragement from peers and coworkers and even my own supervisor when I left and broke the news to him that I was, you know, gonna be resigning in the next month and talked to him. He this was God's grace. Billy: He had offered that, you know, he is like, he's like, I, I'm not gonna ask you to stay and offer you more money cuz I understand why you're doing this, he's like, but if things don't work out in spring and your support raising, isn't going well, he's like just call me, you know, I could throw some work your way and you could work remotely. Everybody was working remotely at that time. Anyway. So things like that were super helpful and leaving on leaving with good rapport and on good terms is, you know, something you still think about, especially in those moments when you're doubting and you know, wondering, and life is seeming more complicated than it probably should be. John: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting, you know, one definition of a missionary is someone who goes from one culture to another culture to, in some ways spread the good news of Jesus Christ. Now you move from one part of Wisconsin to another part of Wisconsin, but did you notice any cultural differences between where you were living in, in an urban setting compared to ....your smiling ... Um compared to living in the north woods? Tell us about the change in culture. Laura: Yeah, yeah. That's such a good, good question. You know, I think, I think I know that I downplayed this. I was like, and we've, we've had this whole discussion of what is the definition of a missionary and, and there's different ones. You know, at Fort we raise, we raise our support, meaning that our salaries paid to us. We had to talk to our church and friends and family and they support us monthly and that money pays our salary. So you know, that, that was one thought I had and because we were doing that support raising, I was like, yeah, I'm mean, and there isn't really the cultural thing because we're in Wisconsin and we're still gonna be in Wisconsin. And I, I should have, have thought about that more. It's been a drastic cultural change, both from just living in the city to living in the north woods, but also just not being on the corporate world schedule economy. Laura.: It's been challenging. I think mainly because I downplayed it. It was like, it's no, no big deal. We're just moving four hours away. It's no big deal.... And it, it has been a big deal. Mm. And I, you know, John, you told us, you have a lot of people that listen to your podcasts that are missionaries. And so I don't want that to come across as we did something as, as hard as moving to another country. In fact, I'm saying, wow, this has been a struggle. And we moved four hours and I can't imagine someone moved actually to a different our country. Yeah. we, you know didn't have language barriers or, or any of, of those things. So I don't, I don't wanna diminish, I mean yeah. Mm-Hmm, even more strength it must take to, to go to another country. John: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How about for you, Billy? What, how has the cultural change, affected you or did it,? Billy: Yeah, certainly I think, especially cuz we moved from a pretty tight knit community and we had a lot of overlap between our church community and our living community mm-hmm . And so the people that we'd see and bump into at church on Sunday were also people that we'd see and bump into, you know, walking around sidewalks and we're just kind of doing life together. And that's, so it's a little, it's much more spread out up here just physically and logistically to overlap and to kind of get insights into people's lives or invite people into your lives is just logistically more challenging. So that was a, that's a big thing. I think that just drives sort of a different culture in the way. Probably that people are just and this is, I don't like to make general statements, but are just less accustomed to always being around mm-hmm you and other of people, you know, it's just, it's just kind of, there's a different vibe to it. Billy: But I think to add to what Laura was saying one of the challenges, and maybe this is less about culture is just being, feeling unestablished. I think when you go from a place where you feel established or you built a home and a life and you go to another place, whether that's 30 minutes away or on the other side of the world, there's a part of you. I think that I felt that where we feel like foreigners a little bit, like we're not, we, we didn't grow up here. You know, we haven't, our kids weren't raised here. We don't have the history, we don't know the places. We don't know the landmarks, all the, all the things that make you kind of have this sense of home and establishment, we're trying to piece together and, you know, get a grip on a little bit. So in that sense, maybe that amplifies the, what we perceive as like a difference in cultures from one to the other. But I think, that's a big part of it. John: Mm. Yeah. You know, one of those things that, we talk a lot about on the podcast is relationships. Have you noticed any differences in relationships where you're living now compared to where you were living, where you came from? Are they, are they different? Are they the same? How has your move affected the relationship between the two of you and, you know, your children, your parents? Has that been affected in any way? Billy: Yeah, I think , sometimes there might be the sense that if God's calling you to something and you understand that call and you accept that call, that you've arrived and you've, you've kind of done it and accomplished, you know, like the rest of this story is, and they lived happily ever after, you know, and I think that one of the things I've come to recognize, especially with relationships is that God doesn't, you know, call the equipped, but that he calls everybody, especially us to come here to grow. And so we've, I think that Laura and I, you know, between the two of us have had growth in our relationship, even in the past weeks. And some of that, I contribute to God, specifically pushing us and growing us in areas together as a married couple. And a lot of it has to do with, you know, that whole being established thing. I think that maybe he hasn't let us get too established yet because he does want us to not be too dependent on things. He loves us too much to let us get established in maybe bad routines or things like that. Mm-Hmm so he's working on us and you know, would he have done that? Had we not slipped into this fall? I don't probably, I don't know, but it seems like as we're here specifically, you know, making our work, his work, he's been pretty intentional in growing us as a married couple. John: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Laura: I think yeah, our relationships have, have definitely every single one has changed. One thing we were talking about just tonight was so we had this great community where we lived and with our church and our neighborhood and Bible studies, we were in, like, we just, we had this great, great community. Right. And like, lots of people knew we were Christians, but yet we become a missionary. Right. And, so now all these friends know that we did this big thing and moved, right. And like Billy said, like, somehow you can feel like you've arrived. And, and cuz people would say that to you like, oh, I could never do that, but I'm so glad you're doing it. Like as if we're all of sudden somehow elevated, which is just not true, God comes to us in our brokenness. But, the really surprising, you know, the sad change is like, of course, like you don't keep in touch as much as you want because we're here now. Laura: And a lot of our relationships where we lived, like everyone walked places, we only had one car and we almost never used it. Like, so you would just run into people and connect with them. And so that's gone, like, you know, you still can text people and call people, but like that daily interaction it's not there. And so that, that was a great, great loss, but this beautiful thing that's come is people, whether they support us financially or not, we'll text us prayer requests. And it's like, I used to talk to you every day and you never asked me to pray for you. but now I'm a missionary. And like, I get the honor of people reaching out and being like, Hey, this is going on. I know you said that we could reach out for prayer you prayed for this. And I was like, wow, like, so that's been a beautiful change in, in the relationship. Mm-Hmm. That I wasn't expecting to be honest, like I was not expecting that at all. So, yeah. John: Cool. And, tell us about your, kids. You got three young kids. What about your relationship with them and their own individual relationships? Can you comment on that? Laura: You know, it was, it was a really big change for them too. And, and for context, our kids, when we moved were, seven, five and three, when we moved and, and I thought, you know, yeah, they've got friends, but they're super young. You know, they're not gonna, I, I didn't think it would be a huge deal, but there was a lot of factors. They were in public school, COVID hit. Then they were home. Then we decided to homeschool. Then we decided to become missionaries. And so they had like major change after major change, after, or major change. So I, I think there's been highs and lows mm-hmm and I think, I think something God's taught me in it is you can plan all you want and pick out, oh, this community is gonna be best for my kids, or this school is gonna be best, or this church home is gonna be best. But at the end of the day, there's not one perfect place to raise kids. And it's gonna be hard whether we're missionaries in the Northwood of Wisconsin or we're in this perfect picked out community. Mm-Hmm because we had picked out, you know, where we lived was because of the schools and the church and the community and, and there's pros and cons to any place you live. And at the end of the day, you have to put the time into parenting and you've got to rely on the Lord. John: Mm-Hmm Laura: I think the Lord's for sure. Been teaching me that since we've been here. John: Yeah. Yeah. Were there any surprises when you started, when you moved? Laura: Was that a yes, no question? The answer is yes. John: . Can you share one ? Billy: Yeah, I don't want, I don't mean this to sound critical or anything. But I think that for some reason, I thought that I worked in the secular world and that the secular world was very secular. And then you come and where I was going to work , you know, is kind of the church and the ministry. And so I had sort of this ideal in my mind about how that would look and function, and honestly you get into it and you start to discover like, oh, wait a minute. There's actually like, people are still people even here. And there's brokenness mm-hmm and there's challenges. And there's, you know, places where maturity is needed or places where maturity is really strong. And so one surprises that I found myself in moments, like looking back and thinking like, wow, actually in some ways I found my, my company that I worked for to be, you know, in moments could be more empathetic and in moments could be more concerning about, you know, like work life balance or stuff like that. Billy: And, again, I don't mean that to sound like a criticism, especially Fort wilderness is an amazing organization. And, you know, I think we're super blessed and impressed with it, but there's just a, you know, a reckoning of the ideals that we sometimes falsely build up in our mind about how, how ministry is gonna be this perfect place. Everyone's gonna be working hand in hand in community. But like, in fact it is work and , it's called work for a reason because it is difficult and people aren't perfect and we aren't perfect. And, but yet by God's grace we all, you know, so somehow come together and do something. John: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. For each of you, what have you found to be some of the more rewarding things about what you do? Billy: Do you wanna go, Laura: You can go first. Billy: Well, I think it's really cool being like I'm, so I'm a registered architect and I'm an architect by trade and been doing that for years. And I came from a firm of, you know, there are 110 people in it and like 80 architects, people who think and work like I do. And we, you know, we understand the craft that we come together around to do. So being, being the only architect now has on one hand challenges, because you don't have the depth of resources you had and you know, you're always kind of comparing yourself to your, your past or your peers, in the industry. But on the other hand it's really cool cuz you feel like, man, I really matter here. Like I really like I'm bringing the skillset that's unique and prepared us for it. And I matter in this role and I, I really feel like I belong here. And so I think that's been rewarding as we've seen projects come together and as we kind of solidify with our teams and you know, work together really well and actually see stuff get done, it's, it's kind of a cool feeling. You feel like you really had a big impact on it. John: Mm-hmm great. Laura: Yeah. And I'd, I'd say I think our unique area of ministry of, what Fort does, family camps in general, the people coming are all Christians to the family camp. Like you come to family camp to have a certain experience and you likely wouldn't sign up to attend a Christian family camp if you're not Christian in general. Right. So, so that part of the ministry people come and they are expecting and willing to talk about deep things because you're the missionary staff. And so, you know, I worked years at the Kohler company and had maybe one spiritual top discussion with a colleague because it's like taboo in the workplace to talk about anything. Right. Spiritual. Yeah. Yeah. And so if to get on that level with someone took years of working with them and it's like, we're up here at camp. And like our first summer I'm like, I just had this incredible conversation and this camper was talking to me about that. Laura: Right. And it's just like happening all over. And so that was like super encouraging. And then the youth camps and all winter, the youth groups come up all winter and, and so that you've got just all sorts of people. Like they're not, not all Christians and they're seeking and so yeah, I've just been, just touched the whole, the whole year. And I, I guess maybe it, it, after working corporate world for a long time, I hope that I never lose that this first year joy that every time campers are there, there's an opportunity for an incredible conversation. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and the flip side of that, honestly, though, John is like, there are days when I'm doing my marketing stuff that I just feel like I'm doing marketing stuff. Right. And, and I think as someone who, this is our first time working in ministry and I, I cringe at that term because you work as a Christian, I think you're always working in ministry. You're just not always being paid. Right. Like, yeah. So I guess I think, you know, we're one year in living up here and, and I'm still, I'm still wrestling through, I think a lot of that of am I, am I doing ministry when I'm plugging away at my computer? Mm-Hmm you know, or is it only when I'm talking with campers? Billy: Yeah. Laura: And there's a guilt in that right. Of like, and then you have camp is fun. So it's like, I never wanna leave because I might miss out on some incredible conversation. And then I'm like, but wait, like this isn't about me. Like God is actually doing the work. So I can go home like, , I can go rest. Right. Billy: It's a bit of an identity crisis at times, because it's like on one hand, I'm, I'm a professional who came from the corporate world and I'm, for me, I'm an architect and I do architect and we drive projects and I know what to do as an architect. So I've got that title. But on the other hand, I'm sort of this, I guess, cliche, missionary title too, you know, it's like, and so I feel like, like you're saying, if I'm doing my architecture stuff really well, it takes a lot of, you know, time and dedication. And I feel like, okay, I'm, I'm being a good architect, but now I'm not being a good mission area because I'm not doing ministry with people and you know, and so then it's like, all right, now, what is mission? What is ministry then? Billy: Is it designing the projects and, you know, making them successful or is it serving lunch with a camper or having the spiritual conversation or preaching, or, you know, where, when I'm an architect one minute, and the next minute i'm a missionary and, you know, maybe, you know, why doe it gotta be so complicated? but, but there's a bit of that where you feel like you're doing one well, and you're neglecting the other, or you're doing the other well, and you're neglecting the first and mm. It's kind of a strange gray area. Cause you're, yeah. You know, you're compared to professionals on one hand, but also this definition of a missionary on the other hand. John: Yeah. That was interesting. What have you learned about yourself? You've been there now? What a year and a half, two years, is it Billy: Deep questions. You know, I think, I think one thing that I've learned is I didn't think that where I lived and the house I had mattered to me as much as it apparently did. I Billy: Hmm. You know, and I think that we were talking a little bit earlier about, you know, this idea of being established and all that, and it's, it's more uncomfortable than I probably thought it would be. You know, I kind of had this idea that I could live. We could live anywhere. You know, we're pretty flexible. We're nimble all this stuff, but it's just weird how these silly thoughts come to you. You like the neighborhood we live in now, demographically is, is much poor, very different, mostly all rentals. Like, so you have, you know, it's, it's not hard to see that there's like a lot of brokenness and the families and things around here. And, you know, in Wauwatosa I think we lived across the street where our next neighbor's house was a $600,000 house. And now , I think the house across the street from us is probably worth $60,000, you know? Billy: So it's like Uh, starkly different. And so you have these dumb thoughts of like, man, my kids, like, what are they gonna grow up understanding of it? You know, like how is this gonna affect them and all this stuff. So I think God has used our living situation to expose idols in our hearts and in his grace has pushed us to deal with those things and to really understand what, you know, what is, what is important. And so I think that's a way that I've seen, I know I've been growing in that. I think we've both been growing in that. Mm. Laura: Yeah. I think the biggest thing I've learned about myself is that I had a lot of deep rooted pride in, in money and my own achievements. Like, like I went to college and, you know, I was a straight A student. And so then you, you get the job and your paycheck comes and you're like, yeah, I deserve that money. In fact, I probably should be paid more because mm-hmm. , I've worked for this and I'm a hard worker and right. Like it, you can just, I mean, I never said those words out loud, but I definitely thought them in my head. And then the Lord leads us to this thing that we have to raise support. Right. And every time, so how it works when we get a paycheck, every paycheck there, we get a sheet in it with all these names and the amount that that person gave in that two week pay period. Laura: Mm. And it's really hard to be prideful when you get a sheet like that every week. And you're like, no, like the reason I get to do this work is because all these people believed that this ministry was worth it and believed that Billy and I were being called to it and are willing to give the funds so that, so I can get paid. And every time I open those little envelopes, I'm like, oh, it's not about me. Like it, like, I just it's. I mean, we've been getting them for a year. Like, and I still can just feel like I need that reminder every two weeks to not be prideful. And I'm like, wow, I had a way bigger pride issue than I thought I had. John: Mm-Hmm. Laura: Like, like, okay, like, you know, and so it gets back to this like dual purpose. It's like, has the Lord called us here because we're, we have skill sets and we have something to offer that Fort needs. Yes. But has he equally called us here because he's working in us and, and through us, like, because we're broken sinful people, like yes. Like both those things are true. Billy: Yeah. Laura: And, I think that's a good place to be, to have both those being true. John: Yeah. What advice would you have for someone who is where you were a year and a half, two years ago? What advice would you have for someone who would be considering leaving a secular job to be, to become a missionary? Billy: I would say that if, if God is really calling you to that, then you can't go wrong and he, he's not calling you because you're equipped and you may, and you may be, and maybe you have a skillset to offer, but it's like, Laura was just saying, he's calling you to equip you. He will equip you. And in ways that are far reaching beyond the actual work that he's calling you to do, mm-hmm,, he's deeply concerned with you. He's deeply concerned with the condition of your heart and he loves you. And that's why he's calling you into it. So if he's, yeah, if you, if he's calling you then do it, but it doesn't mean that the rest of the story is, and they lived happily ever after mm-hmm John: Yes. Billy: He calls us to grow us. Laura: Yeah. I'd echo that. And, and I would also say if you feel the Lord's leading, you, you know, you need to get on your hands and knees and, and make sure that he's, he's the one leading that it's not something in your own mind. And, and I think you do that in prayer. I think you do that in, in his word, you do that by reaching out to, to some really trusted friends, which, you know, John, that, we did that when we were in our, our discernment time period. And for us, all three of those areas in our individual prayer in our time spent in the word and the trusted friends we met with all three pointed to, to going. And at that point we said, yes, we didn't, we didn't ask about the money. Or we were like, well, we can't say no. Now, like, if God has said yes, in all three of those areas, like, I mean, that that's, I that's how we discerned our decision. And so I, I put that time in that discernment process, for sure. John: Yeah. Yeah. Well, this has been great. It's getting going longer than I told you it would go. So I appreciate your appreciate your time. If people wanted to find out more about Fort wilderness, how could they do that? What's the website and all of that. And I'll have it in the show notes too. Laura: Yeah. So it's, it's fortwilderness.com. It's a new website that I had the privilege of working on. So thanks for asking about that, John. John: That's right. I forgot. Yeah. That's a great website. Laura: That's been my big work for the last like eight months. It's not perfect, but, but we did launch the new website and you can find out about the ministry there. You can see the missionaries that are serving there and many are still raising support. Yeah. And you can, you can get in touch with us. We love praying for people and getting to know people so, yeah, that'd be great. John: Mm-Hmm. Good. Well, thanks again. We love you guys and we, we miss you, but we're just really, really excited to see how God is using you for his glory in Northern Wisconsin and all the people that come from all over to learn more about Jesus and you are important parts of that ministry, important parts of facilitating that kind of activity and advancing God's kingdom. So we applaud what you do, that's for sure. So again, thanks for your time. And we will stay in touch. So what does all this mean for YOU? Some of the questions I asked Billy and Laura I found helpful for all of us to ask ourselves How has God led us to what we are doing now? How are relationships impacting our lives? What are the rewarding things about our jobs, or if we're not employed, what's rewarding in the ways we spend our time? What have we learned about ourselves in the last year or two? Here's the main takeaway I hope you remember from today's episode Taking the time to listen to a missionary, to hear their story of how God has led them and is growing them, can inspire us to listen more deeply to God so that we can grow too. I'd love to hear any thoughts you have about today's episode. Closing In closing, I hope your thinking was stimulated by today's show to think about how you can listen to a missionary, or even your friends, to hear their story of how they got to where they are today. For when you do, it will help you experience the joy of relationships God intends for you. Because after all, You Were Made for This. Well, that's it for today. In the meantime, create a little joy for the people you meet this week. Spread some relational sunshine. And I'll see you next time. To check out Fort Wilderness, go to fortwilderness.com Related episodes you may want to listen to 139: Why Should I Listen to This Podcast? 143: Initiate with People to Enrich Our Life - Part 1 144: Initiate with People to Enrich Our Life - Part 2 Our Sponsor You Were Made for This is sponsored by Caring for Others, a missionary care ministry. We are supported by the generosity of people like you to continue this weekly podcast and other services we provide to missionaries around the world.

About LauraLaura leads the research program at Jeli.io.  She has a Master's degree in Human Factors & Systems Safety and a PhD in Cognitive Systems Engineering. Her doctoral work focused on distributed incident response practices in DevOps teams responsible for critical digital services. She was a researcher with the SNAFU Catchers Consortium from 2017-2020 and her research interests lie in resilience engineering, coordination design and enabling adaptive capacity across distributed work teams. As a backcountry skier and alpine climber, she also studies cognition & resilient performance in high risk, high consequence mountain environments.  Links: Howie: The Post-Incident Guide: https://www.jeli.io/howie-the-post-incident-guide/ Jeli: https://www.jeli.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/lauramdmaguire TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends at MinIO the high-performance Kubernetes native object store that's built for the multi-cloud, creating a consistent data storage layer for your public cloud instances, your private cloud instances, and even your edge instances, depending upon what the heck you're defining those as, which depends probably on where you work. It's getting that unified is one of the greatest challenges facing developers and architects today. It requires S3 compatibility, enterprise-grade security and resiliency, the speed to run any workload, and the footprint to run anywhere, and that's exactly what MinIO offers. With superb read speeds in excess of 360 gigs and 100 megabyte binary that doesn't eat all the data you've gotten on the system, it's exactly what you've been looking for. Check it out today at min.io/download, and see for yourself. That's min.io/download, and be sure to tell them that I sent you.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Sysdig. Sysdig is the solution for securing DevOps. They have a blog post that went up recently about how an insecure AWS Lambda function could be used as a pivot point to get access into your environment. They've also gone deep in-depth with a bunch of other approaches to how DevOps and security are inextricably linked. To learn more, visit sysdig.com and tell them I sent you. That's S-Y-S-D-I-G dot com. My thanks to them for their continued support of this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. One of the things that's always been a treasure and a joy in working in production environments is things breaking. What do you do after the fact? How do you respond to that incident?Now, very often in my experience, you dive directly into the next incident because no one has time to actually fix the problems but just spend their entire careers firefighting. It turns out that there are apparently alternate ways. My guest today is Laura Maguire who leads the research program at Jeli, and her doctoral work focused on distributed incident response in DevOps teams responsible for critical digital services. Laura, thank you for joining me.Laura: Happy to be here, Corey, thanks for having me.Corey: I'm still just trying to wrap my head around the idea of there being a critical digital service, as someone whose primary output is, let's be honest, shitposting. But that's right, people do use the internet for things that are a bit more serious than making jokes that are at least funny only to me. So, what got you down this path? How did you get to be the person that you are in the industry and standing in the position you hold?Laura: Yeah, I have had a long circuitous route to get to where I am today, but one of the common threads is about safety and risk and how do people manage safety and risk? I started off in natural resource industries, in mountain safety, trying to understand how do we stop things from crashing, from breaking, from exploding, from catching fire, and how do we help support the people in those environments? And when I went back to do my PhD, I was tossed into the world of software engineers. And at first I thought, now, what do firefighters, pilots, you know, emergency room physicians have to do with software engineers and risk in software engineering? And it turns out, there's actually a lot, there's a lot in common between the types of people who handle real-time failures that have widespread consequences and the folks who run continuous deployment environments.And so one of the things that the pandemic did for us is it made it immediately apparent that digital service delivery is a critical function in society. Initially, we'd been thinking about these kinds of things as being financial markets, as being availability of electronic health records, communication systems for disaster recovery, and now we're seeing things like communication and collaboration systems for schools, for businesses, this helps keep society functioning.Corey: What makes part of this field so interesting is that the evolution in the space where, back when I first started my career about a decade-and-a-half ago, there was a very real concern in my first Linux admin gig when I accidentally deleted some of the data from the data warehouse that, “Oh, I don't have a job anymore.” And I remember being surprised and grateful that I still did because, “Oh, you just learned something. You going to do it again?” “No. Well, not like that exactly, but probably some other way, yeah.”And we have evolved so far beyond that now, to the point where when that doesn't happen after an incident, it becomes almost noteworthy in its own right and it blows up on social media. So, the Overton window of what is acceptable disaster response and incident management, and how we learn from those things has dramatically shifted even in the relatively brief window of 15 years. And we're starting to see now almost a next-generation approach to this. One thing that you were, I believe the principal author behind is Howie: The Post-Incident Guide, which is a thing that you have up on jeli.io—that's J-E-L-I dot I-O—talking about how to run post-incident investigations. What made you decide to write something like this?Laura: Yeah, so what you described at the beginning there about this kind of shift from blameless—blameful-type approaches to incident response to thinking more broadly about the system of work, thinking about what does it mean to operate in continuous deployment environments is really fundamental. Because working in these kinds of worlds, we don't have an established knowledge base about how these systems work, about how they break because they're continuously changing, the knowledge, the expertise required to manage them is continuously changing. And so that shift towards a blameless or blame-aware post-incident review is really important because it creates this environment where we can actually share knowledge, share expertise, and distribute more of our understandings of how these systems work and how they break. So that, kind of, led us to create the Howie Guide—the how we got here post-incident guide. And it was largely because companies were kind of coming from this position of, we find the person who did the thing that broke the system and then we can all rest easy and move forward. And so it was really a way to provide some foundation, introduce some ideas from the resilience engineering literature, which has been around for, you know, the last 30 or 40 years—Corey: It's kind of amazing, on some level, how tech as an industry has always tried to reinvent things from first principles. I mean, we figured out long before we started caring about computers in the way we do that when there was an incident, the right response to get the learnings from it for things like airline crashes—always a perennial favorite topic in this space for conference talks—is to make sure that everyone can report what happened in a safe way that's non-accusatory, but even in the early-2010s, I was still working in environments where the last person to break production or break the bill had the shame trophy hanging out on their desk, and it would stay there until the next person broke it. And it was just a weird, perverse incentive where it's, “Oh if I broke something, I should hide it.”That is absolutely the most dangerous approach because when things are broken, yes, it's generally a bad thing, so you may as well find the silver lining in it from my point of view and figure out, okay, what have we learned about our systems as a result of the way that these things break? And sometimes the things that we learn are, in fact, not that deep, or there's not a whole lot of learnings about it, such as when the entire county loses power, computers don't work so well. Oh, okay. Great, we have learned that. More often, though, there seem to be deeper learnings.And I guess what I'm trying to understand is, I have a relatively naive approach on what the idea of incident response should look like, but it's basically based on the last time I touched things that were production-looking, which was six or seven years ago. What is the current state of the art that the advanced leaders in the space as they start to really look at how to dive into this? Because I'm reasonably certain it's not still the, “Oh, you know, you can learn things when your computers break.” What is pushing the envelope these days?Laura: Yeah, so it's kind of interesting. You brought up incident response because incident response and incident analysis are the, sort of like, what do we learn from those things are very tightly coupled. What we can see when we look at someone responding in real-time to a failure is, it's difficult to detect all of the signals; they don't pop up and wave a little flag and say, like, “I am what's broken.” There's multiple compounding and interacting factors. So, there's difficulty in the detection phase; diagnosis is always challenging because of how the systems are interrelated, and then the repair is never straightforward.But when we stop and look at these kinds of things after the fact, of really common theme emerges, and that it's not necessarily about a specific technical skill set or understanding about the system, it's about the shared, distributed understanding of that. And so to put that in plain speak, it's what do you know that's important to the problem? What do I know that's important to the problem? And then how do we collectively work together to extract that specific knowledge and expertise, and put that into practice when we're under time pressure, when there's a lot of uncertainty, when we've got the VP DMing us and being like, “When's the system going to be back up?” and Twitter's exploding with unhappy customers?So, when we think about the cutting edge of what's really interesting and relevant, I think organizations are starting to understand that it's how do we coordinate and we collaborate effectively? And so using incident analysis as a way to recognize not only the technical aspects of what went wrong but the social aspects of that as well. And the teamwork aspects of that is really driving some innovation in this space.Corey: It seems to me, on some level, that the increasing sophistication of what environments look like is also potentially driving some of these things. I mean, again, when you have three web servers and one of them's broken, okay, it's a problem; we should definitely jump on that and fix it. But now you have thousands of containers running hundreds of microservices for some Godforsaken reason because what we decided this thing that solves the problem of 500 engineers working on the same repository is a political problem, so now we're going to use microservices for everything because, you know, people. Great. But then it becomes this really difficult to identify problem of what is actually broken?And past a certain point of scale, it's no longer a question of, “Is it broken?” so much as, “How broken is it at any given point in time?” And getting real-time observability into what's going on does pose more than a little bit of a challenge.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. So, the more complexity that you have in the system, the more diversity of knowledge and skill sets that you have. One person is never going to know everything about the system, obviously, and so you need kind of variability in what people know, how current that knowledge is, you need some people who have legacy knowledge, you have some people who have bleeding edge, my fingers were on the keyboard just moments ago, I did the last deploy, that kind of variability in whose knowledge and skill sets you have to be able to bring to bear to the problem in front of you. One of the really interesting aspects, when you step back and you start to look really carefully about how people work in these kinds of incidents, is you have folks that are jumping, get things done, probe a lot of things, they look at a lot of different areas trying to gather information about what's happening, and then you have people who sit back and they kind of take a bit of a broader view, and they're trying to understand where are people trying to find information? Where might our systems not be showing us what's going on?And so it takes this combination of people working in the problem directly and people working on the problem more broadly to be able to get a better sense of how it's broken, how widespread is that problem, what are the implications, what might repair actually look like in this specific context?Corey: Do you suspect that this might be what gives rise, sometimes, to it seems middle management's perennial quest to build the single pane of glass dashboard of, “Wow, it looks like you're poking around through 15 disparate systems trying to figure out what's going on. Why don't we put that all on one page?” It's a, “Great, let's go tilt at that windmill some more.” It feels like it's very aligned with what you're saying. And I just, I don't know where the pattern comes from; I just know I see it all the time, and it drives me up a wall.Laura: Yeah, I would call that pattern pretty common across many different domains that work in very complex, adaptive environments. And that is—like, it's an oversimplification. We want the world to be less messy, less unstructured, less ad hoc than it often is when you're working at the cutting edge of whatever kind of technology or whatever kind of operating environment you're in. There are things that we can know about the problems that we are going to face, and we can defend against those kinds of failure modes effectively, but to your point, these are very largely unstructured problem spaces when you start to have multiple interacting failures happening concurrently. And so Ashby, who back in 1956 started talking about, sort of, control systems really hammered this point home when he was talking about, if you have a world where there's a lot of variability—in this case, how things are going to break—you need a lot of variability in how you're going to cope with those potential types of failures.And so part of it is, yes, trying to find the right dashboard or the right set of metrics that are going to tell us about the system performance, but part of it is also giving the responders the ability to, in real-time, figure out what kinds of things they're going to need to address the problem. So, there's this tension between wanting to structure unstructured problems—put those all in a single pane of glass—and what most folks who work at the frontlines of these kinds of worlds know is, it's actually my ability to be flexible and to be able to adapt and to be able to search very quickly to gather the information and the people that I need, that are what's really going to help me to address those hard problems.Corey: Something I've noticed for my entire career, and I don't know if it's just unfounded arrogance, and I'm very much on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger curve here, but it always struck me that the corporate response to any form of outage has is generally trending toward oh, we need a process around this, where it seems like the entire idea is that every time a thing happens, there should be a documented process and a runbook on how to perform every given task, with the ultimate milestone on the hill that everyone's striving for is, ah, with enough process and enough runbooks, we can then eventually get rid of all the people who know all this stuff works, and basically staff at up with people who'd know how to follow a script and run push the button when told to buy the instruction manual. And that's always rankled, as someone who got into this space because I enjoy creative thinking, I enjoy looking at the relationships between things. Cost and architecture are the same thing; that's how I got into this. It's not due to an undying love of spreadsheets on my part. That's my business partner's problem.But it's this idea of being able to play with the puzzle, and the more you document things with process, the more you become reliant on those things. On some level, it feels like it ossifies things to the point where change is no longer easily attainable. Is that actually what happens, or am I just wildly overstating the case? Either as possible. Or a third option, too. You're the expert; I'm just here asking ridiculous questions.Laura: Yeah, well, I think it's a balance between needing some structure, needing some guidelines around expected actions to take place. This is for a number of reasons. One, we talked about earlier about how we need multiple diverse perspectives. So, you're going to have people from different teams, from different roles in the organization, from different levels of knowledge, participating in an incident response. And so because of that, you need some form of script, some kind of process that creates some predictability, creates some common ground around how is this thing going to go, what kinds of tools do we have at our disposal to be able to either find out what's going on, fix what's going on, get the right kinds of authority to be able to take certain kinds of actions.So, you need some degree of process around that, but I agree with you that too much process and the idea that we can actually apply operational procedures to these kinds of environments is completely counterproductive. And what it ends up doing is it ends up, kind of, saying, “Well, you didn't follow those rules and that's why the incident went the way it did,” as opposed to saying, “Oh, these rules actually didn't apply in ways that really matter, given the problem that was faced, and there was no latitude to be able to adapt in real-time or to be able to improvise, to be creative in how you're thinking about the problem.” And so you've really kind of put the responders into a bit of a box, and not given them productive avenues to, kind of, move forward from. So, having worked in a lot of very highly regulated environments, I recognize there's value in having prescription, but it's also about enabling performance and enabling adaptive performance in real-time when you're working at the speeds and the scales that we are in this kind of world.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance query accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service, although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLAP and OLTP—don't ask me to pronounce those acronyms again—workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time-consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Yeah, and let's be fair, here; I am setting up something of a false dichotomy. I'm not suggesting that the answer is oh, you either are mired in process, or it is the complete Wild West. If you start a new role and, “Great. How do I get started? What's the onboarding process?” Like, “Step one, write those docs for us.”Or how many times have we seen the pattern where day-one onboarding is, “Well, here's the GitHub repo, and there's some docs there. And update it as you go because this stuff is constantly in motion.” That's a terrible first-time experience for a lot of folks, so there has to be something that starts people off in the right direction, a sort of a quick guide to this is what's going on in the environment, and here are some directions for exploration. But also, you aren't going to be able to get that to a level of granularity where it's going to be anything other than woefully out of date in most environments without resorting to draconian measures. I feel like—Laura: Yeah.Corey: —the answer is somewhere in the middle, and where that lives depends upon whether you're running Twitter for Pets or a nuclear reactor control system.Laura: Yeah. And it brings us to a really important point of organizational life, which is that we are always operating under constraints. We are always managing trade-offs in this space. It's very acute when you're in an incident and you're like, “Do I bring the system back up but I still don't know what's wrong or do I leave it down a little bit longer and I can collect more information about the nature of the problem that I'm facing?”But more chronic is the fact that organizations are always facing this need to build the next thing, not focus on what just happened. You talked about the next incident starting and jumping in before we can actually really digest what just happened with the last incident; these kinds of pressures and constraints are a very normal part of organizational life, and we are balancing those trade-offs between time spent on one thing versus another as being innovating, learning, creating change within our environment. The reason why it's important to surface that is that it helps change the conversation when we're doing any kind of post-incident learning session.It's like, oh, it allows us to surface things that we typically can't say in a meeting. “Well, I wasn't able to do that because I know that team has a code freeze going on right now.” Or, “We don't have the right type of, like, service agreement to get our vendor on the phone, so we had to sit and wait for the ticket to get dealt with.” Those kinds of things are very real limiters to how people can act during incidents, and yet, don't typically get brought up because they're just kind of chronic, everyday things that people deal with.Corey: As you look across the industry, what do you think that organizations are getting, I guess, it's the most wrong when it comes to these things today? Because most people are no longer in the era of, “All right. Who's the last person to touch it? Well, they're fired.” But I also don't think that they're necessarily living the envisioned reality that you described in the Howie Guide, as well as the areas of research you're exploring. What's the most common failure mode?Laura: Hmm. I got to tweak that a little bit to make it less about the failure mode and more about the challenges that I see organizations facing because there are many failure modes, but some common issues that we see companies facing is they're like, “Okay, we buy into this idea that we should start looking at the system, that we should start looking beyond the technical thing that broke and more broadly at how did different aspects of our system interact.” And I mean, both people as a part of the system, I mean processes part of the system, as well as the software itself. And so that's a big part of why we wrote the Howie Guide, is because companies are struggling with that gap between, “Okay, we're not entirely sure what this means to our organization, but we're willing to take steps to get there.” But there's a big gap between recognizing that and jumping into the academic literature that's been around for many, many years from other kinds of high-risk, high-consequence type domains.So, I think some of the challenges they face is actually operationalizing some of these ideas, particularly when they already have processes and practices in place. There's ideas that are very common throughout an organization that take a long time to shift people's thinking around, the implicit biases or orientations towards a problem that we as individuals have, all of those kinds of things take time. You mentioned the Overton window, and that's a great example of it is intolerable in some organizations to have a discussion about what do people know and not know about different aspects of the system because there's an assumption that if you're the engineer responsible for that, you should know everything. So, those challenges, I think, are quite limiting to helping organizations move forward. Unfortunately, we see not a lot of time being put into really understanding how an incident was handled, and so typically, reviews get done on the side of the desk, they get done with a minimal amount of effort, and then the learnings that come out of them are quite shallow.Corey: Is there a maturity model, where it makes sense to begin investing in this, whereas if you've do it too quickly, you're not really going to be able to ship your MVP and see what happens; if you go too late, you have a globe-spanning service that winds up being down all the time so no one trusts it. What is the sweet spot for really started to care about incident response? In other words, how do people know that it's time to start taking this stuff more seriously?Laura: Ah. Well… you have kids?Corey: Oh, yes. One and four. Oh yeah.Laura: Right—Corey: Demons. Little demons whom I love very much.Laura: [laugh]. They look angelic, Corey. I don't know what you're talking about. Would you not teach them how to learn or not teach them about the world until they started school?Corey: No, but it would also be considered child abuse at this age to teach them about the AWS bill. So, there is a spectrum as far as what is appropriate learnings at what stage.Laura: Yeah, absolutely. So, that's a really good point is that depending on where you are at in your operation, you might not have the resources to be able to launch full-scale investigations. You may not have the complexity within your system, within your teams, and you don't have the legacy to, sort of, draw through, to pull through, that requires large-scale investigations with multiple investigators. That's really why we were trying to make the Howie Guide very applicable to a broad range of organizations is, here are the tools, here are the techniques that we know can help you understand more about the environment that you're operating in, the people that you're working with, so that you can level up over time, you can draw more and more techniques and resources to be able to go deeper on those kinds of things over time. It might be appropriate at an early stage to say, hey, let's do these really informally, let's pull the team together, talk about how things got set up, why choices were made to use the kinds of components that we use, and talk a little bit more about why someone made a decision they did.That might be low-risk when you're small because y'all know each other, largely you know the decisions, those conversations can be more frank. As you get larger, as more people you don't know are on those types of calls, you might need to handle them differently so that people have psychological safety, to be able to share what they knew and what they didn't know at the time. It can be a graduated process over time, but we've also seen very small, early-stage companies really treat this seriously right from the get-go. At Jeli, I mean, one of our core fundamentals is learning, right, and so we do, we spend time on sharing with each other, “Oh, my mental model about this was X. Is that the same as what you have?” “No.” And then we can kind of parse what's going on between those kinds of things. So, I think it really is an orientation towards learning that is appropriate any size or scale.Corey: I really want to thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, how you view these things and possibly improve their own position on these areas, where can they find you?Laura: So, we have a lot of content on jeli.io. I am also on Twitter at—Corey: Oh, that's always a mistake.Laura: [laugh]. @lauramdmaguire. And I love to talk about this stuff. I love to hear how people are interpreting, kind of, some of the ideas that are in the resilience engineering space. Should I say, “Tweet at me,” or is that dangerous, Corey?Corey: It depends. I find that the listeners to this show are all far more attractive than the average, and good people, through and through. At least that's what I tell the sponsors. So yeah, it should be just fine. And we will of course include links to those in the [show notes 00:27:11].Laura: Sounds good.Corey: Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.Laura: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.Corey: Laura Maguire, researcher at Jeli. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please give a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, insulting comment that I will read just as soon as I get them all to display on my single-pane-of-glass dashboard.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

@lauraracky is a #commerciallawyer in her own firm @LLGold. But her being her knows that's not really enough. She likes to have lots of things going. Her portfolio of interests includes;#cofounder @AllFounders - a business which is more focused on #leadershiptraining and #businessstrategy but has expanded into #podcasting #tickertv#founder @LGlowBeauty - because she just loves all things beauty and skincaremultiple board and advisory roles (past & current) in #nfps and #communityorganisations including @channel31 @hibgrouphug #mazzeifoundationFor Laura these #newbusinesses are a kind of hobby and an outstanding source of constant learning which feeds back into her core role as #commerciallawyer and  #businessowner. She #loveslearning, #newchallenges and #newbusiness. In our discussion we cover;the #businesschallenges thrown up by #covid19#takingstock how #businessowners are adapting and reinventingthe boring but important things to do in the #first100days of a new business a love of learning new things and being challenged becoming a better #businessadviserhow she chooses to do what she does and time management learning that not everything is urgent or important #givingbackgetting involved with #nfps #ecommercewww.kerrcapital.com.auA full transcript is below.Michael Kerr: Hi, it's Michael Kerr here, presenting Small Business Banter. A healthy micro and small business sector means a successful economy and a more vibrant society. Small Business Banter is about helping regional business owners better prepare for current challenges but also for the next stage of business success. I'm Michael Kerr, founder of Kerr Capital, advisors to business owners.Each week, I interview a fellow small business owner or an expert and they share their stories, their lived experiences, the wins and the losses, and their best advice to help you, the listener, get the most you can from your own business. Small Business Banter is brought to you from the studios of 104.7 Gippsland FM and is heard across Australia on the Community Radio Network. And thanks also to Kerr Capital supporters of the show.Okay, so welcome to another edition of Small Business Banter radio. Laura Racky from LL Gold. Laura is in, chatting to us today. Laura's got a really diverse background, and what we're going to focus on today is her experiences as a commercial lawyer but also, as a founder and a business operator, how she manages to fit all that in, and some of the tips and advice she would give to prospective business owners.So Laura, a principal at LL Gold, founder of LGlow Beauty, also a director of All Founders, a host on All Founders Show, you can tell us about that in a minute, Laura. And look, you've got a host of other advisory or board roles that span sort of tech companies, small new businesses, as well as, you had a strong involvement with Channel 31. So firstly, welcome in, Laura.Laura Racky: Thanks, Michael. Great to be here.Michael: Yes. It's really great to have you in. Do you want to just expand a little bit on the sort of major things that you're involved with and why you do that, firstly?Laura: Absolutely. So I suppose my sort of number one career baby is my law firm, LL Gold. And she's nearly 5 years old now. That's probably, I suppose, where my main bread and butter comes from. But me being me, that's not really enough. I like to have lots of things going on. So we've also recently started up the All Founders business. So that's more focused on leadership training and strategy. This year, we kicked off LGlow Beauty. I just love all things beauty and skincare, so I thought why not give it a go. So that's been really fun, getting into e-commerce.Michael: Classic lawyer stuff.Laura: And then, yeah, I'm very lucky and grateful to be working with some excellent not-for-profits at the moment, Big Group Hug and the Mazzei Foundation. So lots of things going on keeps me interested, I guess.Micahel: For sure. Let's start with how you choose what to do and how you manage your time with that extensive portfolio of things.Laura: Yes. I suppose when you do run your own business as your main line of work, so the law firm, that does give me some flexibility in terms of where I spend my time. And I always joke about when you run your own business, you choose which 20 hours a day to work. So really, I've got a funny little timetable.I actually don't start and sit down at the desk until about 10:30. The majority of the working day is on the law firm, and then it's really the evenings that the extracurricular sort of interests and board roles or advisory roles get looking. So it's a bit of a mixed bag, but it just means that my days are very diverse and there are lots of jumping around, which for some reason, just works for my brain.Michael: Yeah. So why get involved in this range of things? Is that your role or purpose to be fully and fully again occupied? Is it because opportunities come your way? Or is it because you just see yourself driven to achieve? I'm really interested in the underpinning motivation for you.Laura: It's funny you ask that because I think many people during, well, this COVID time, it's been the first time in my life I've actually taken stock and ask some of those questions. It's just always been this internal driver for me to load up and be completely sort of overwhelmed, I suppose. But I think the more that I step back and look at it, I really like learning new things. I like being challenged.And as much as being a commercial lawyer throws up new challenges every day because I don't know everything and all of my clients have all different types of businesses, I think that doing this just gives me a great opportunity to work with all different types of people in all different types of capacities. And every day, something different comes up that I have an aha moment or I can learn something from. And it's actually very interesting and rewarding.And obviously, on the not-for-profit side of things, in my view, when you're a professional and you get to a certain stage in your career, it's really important to find ways to give back to the community. And I've got special skills, so that seems to be the most appropriate way to give back.Michael: Yeah. And some people want to give back and others. I think about it and probably, maybe, don't see the benefit of it because it is giving back. But does all that experience make you a better commercial lawyer in the end?Laura: Absolutely. I mean, when you're sitting on not-for-profit boards or advisory boards, especially as a professional consultant, all of a sudden, you're actually involved in a business from that director-level where you can have a real oversight on all of the working parts rather than when you're an advisor, people come to you often with a very sort of small problem or issue and that might be all that you'll see about their business.Whereas, when you get to work as an advisor or a director on a not-for-profit, you see everything. You're involved in operations, partnerships, employment, leasing, the full gamut. And it actually, I think, makes you a much better advisor because you're actually, all of a sudden, exposed to the wide range of things that a not-for-profit or a business face every day rather than this little pocket of problems, I suppose.Michael: Yeah. Yeah, I think as a specialist advisor, often, you can be busy, but the clients already framed their problem. And it's like if I knew this or that, I could have helped you more broadly. So that's kind of what you're saying. You see those same business challenges from a different perspective and you can bring up other advice or other solutions.Laura: Exactly.Michael: Yeah. And look, I do a lot of work with SME owners and a lot busy doing the day-to-day stuff. And it's kind of hard to have the conversation that you need to take time out of the business. And you can learn away from the business and bring things back. But I understand why people just sometimes say, "I'm too busy." But the roles you have with not-for-profits and other organizations, as I say, can be really rich in learning. How do you go from the law to beauty? Like this is in e-commerce and social media and all that goes with that business.Laura: I will admit, it has been a real personal challenge for me. So in my legal career, I have often worked in insolvency, restructuring, and litigation. That sort of work is very, very urgent [corsstalk] and heavy and considered, I think, important.Michael: Heavy.Laura: And so I have this general expectation because my clients are very responsive and they moved quickly and I am the same, that I felt that in this new endeavor, that anything that I wanted to complete or get done or buy would move in the same way and be as easy to navigate. Boy. I know this sounds crazy, but really simple things like ordering stickers for packaging, for someone who's just used to things just going through in a very linear fashion and it being really quick and easy, it's just like, you might send an email to a prospective supplier, and you might get a response like 6 days later. And to someone like me, who's used to things just getting done, it just [inaudible].Michael: How hard is it?Laura: Yes. But again, it's made me realize not everything is urgent or important, and different types of things have different ways that people work in them. So I think just from a personal perspective on patience and navigating a different industry and world, that's been really challenging and interesting. But yeah, just, I think e-commerce, obviously, it's not going away, it's only going to grow. And I feel that being an advisor in this day and age and not really getting into this world and understanding how it works would be a miss. I'll be missing out to try and do it myself.So a lot of learning. We're still growing, changing. I'm still trying to work out what the brand's voice is, what we're about, our mission, all of these things. But I'm now at the point where I say, "You know what, you ran headlong into this. You didn't know what you were doing. You're making it up as you're going along. You don't have to. This is not a Sprint. It can be a marathon." So I really realized I don't have to be turning over a million dollars. Let's just actually use this as this tool taught for learning. So it just so happens it coincides with something I really enjoy, the beauty and skincare industry. And so I'm trying to treat it as something fun.And actually, you talked about business owners feeling like they don't have time. To me, I think you can view all these extra things, if you love business, if you love having autonomy and doing things that interest you, you can actually start seeing all of these things as fun. I know that sounds really lame, maybe, to a lot of people, but I think there's a lot of us who actually get a lot of pleasure out of all this learning and interest. And it so happens that our hobbies and our fun are running businesses and learning things.Michael: Yeah, you're not playing golf.Laura: Yeah.Michael: Not there's anything wrong with those things, but you've got a different interest.Laura: Yeah.Michael: Yeah.Laura: So I stay tuned, LGlow Beauty. I'm going to take over the world, but just not straight away. And that's okay.Michael: I have wondered whether there was any reference to LL Cool J in that.Laura: I actually can't even remember where. I mean, L, my name is Laura, but I don't even know where, when I came up with LL Gold, came from. I didn't want it to be my name. I didn't want the firm to be my name, but yeah, no.Michael: It's a pretty contemporary brand. It's great. But it suits with the energy and the interest you bring to it. With your clients, just to come back to some of the stuff you're dealing with us today, I'm keen to understand what you're seeing your business clients, what are the big challenges they've got at the moment.Laura: It's been a bit cyclical. There was, obviously, March onwards for the first few months, a lot of issues with leases. And they were the clients who literally were shutting their doors, work-from-home wasn't a possibility. So we're talking about hospitality, entertainment. So that was sort of a huge focus at that time, a lot of negotiating with landlords, also employment issues. But now, as we're sort of, I don't know, coming out of it or learning to live with this new normal, yes, there are still leasing issues, but a lot of people are trying to get out of leases, moving to new premises, change the way they work.And also, I think this has been an opportunity for a lot of businesses to take stock and look at the way they interact with their clients, what their employment agreements say. When things are good, we just put our contracts in a drawer and we hope to never look at them. But I think over this last 12 months, this has been the first time maybe a lot of businesses have had to look at employment agreements, have had to look at their leases or their employments with their customers or their clients.Michael: And even, by the sounds of it, their core business model.Laura: Yes.Michael: Why we're in business? How do we do it differently? Can we do it without a lease on a property?Laura: Exactly, exactly. So there are lots of strategic questions. And part of that is flushing out, "Well, where do we sit in our contractual landscape? What leeway do we actually have to make these changes?" I mean, if you're stuck in a 5-year lease, it's pretty hard to get out of it. So these sorts of questions, I think, have been interesting. But then, more from a strategical leadership perspective, a lot of clients have are facing heaps of issues with their employees.And I think this is not new, no one's surprised about this, but people's expectations have changed, people's wants and desires have changed. Things they thought were important 12 Months ago, they don't think are important anymore. Getting people back into the office is tricky. So it's a weird time, a really weird time.Michael: Yeah, it sure is. I want to continue that, but on today's episode of Small Business Banter, we're talking with Laura Rocky from LL Gold. Laura, yeah, this complete rethink, some owners might see that as an opportunity, and maybe not right now but later on. They've kind of been able to completely remodel or being forced to remodel the way they do business. Are you seeing, with your clients, an outflow of people? Getting to the point where they go, "The lease is too challenging. I'm going to reinvent. I'm going to do e-commerce."Laura: Look, a lot of clients who are coming towards the end of their leases and now looking at different spaces, I think co-working spaces, I think, had a very, very difficult time over COVID, but I think they'll find that there'll be a resurgence because a lot of businesses are going to look for more nimble and agile spaces for their staff. I think that physical spaces are still going to be really important. We are human beings and it doesn't matter how comfy it is to work in your UGG boots, we like to be around one another sometimes and to have that choice. But look, a lot of things have changed.And actually, a little pattern that I have noticed in the last couple of months with clients is there is a lot of discussions that clients are having with potential partners or potential sales of their business. There's a lot of movement, a lot of exploratory movement because I don't think people know what's going to happen in the next little while, but there is a lot of, I wouldn't say M&A activity, but just lots of discussions about what if we move into this space or what if we join forces with this partner. And a lot of these discussions are happening because I think, for the first time, like I said, people are facing a shift and the revenue isn't just flowing in without thought anymore.Michael: Yeah.Laura: A lot of businesses have had to stop and think about how they make money.Michael: Yeah, yeah. Look, you said you need to pull out those contracts, employment contracts, lease agreements, others. But underpinning that is just, "How am I going to continue to do business?" And so on that front, alliances and joint ventures and I think you do work with bringing in employees to businesses as well so it's diversifying and collaborating. It's all those kind of nice words, but it's maybe forcing a complete rethink of how we're going to survive. But not just survive, prosper but by maybe getting closer to other businesses and bringing in key employees.Laura: Yes. Yeah, I think when things are good, it's easy not to navel-gaze. But when things start getting tricky, yeah, we've got to be creative and inventive. And that's why this time is actually very, very interesting.Michael: Yeah. Yeah, and look, at the hub of all of that is personal relationships, whether it's with suppliers, partners, customers, employees. And the value of those personal relationships, even in a business context, is so important. You got to put time into them. And entering into business with someone, I mean, you and I have talked about this in the past, you got to have an exit plan from all those sorts of things.Laura: Yeah.Michael: You've got to think through the good and the bad, unfortunately, because sometimes, they don't work.Laura: Absolutely. And I talk about this a lot with clients, especially when we're starting new businesses or entering into new organizations where we've got a group of shareholders. It's always very nice at the start. And everyone's all really excited and everyone puts on their best behavior. And when everyone's making money, everybody gets along great and we never have to look at a shareholder agreement. But when things turn or people's life circumstances change, this is the stuff, this is when the rubber hits the road. So if people have not been thinking about these things early on, it can cause a bit of drama later.Michael: It sure can, yeah. So you launched All Founders.Laura: Yes.Michael: So this is kind of like a further progression of your portfolio, but also a logical extension of running your own business and experiencing just those day-to-day operational things around stickers. So is that the impetus for...?Laura: Well, All Founders came early last year, so this was before COVID and before LGlow Beauty, everything.Michael: Oh, okay.Laura: So Christian Cunningham and I are at the head of All Founders. And where it came from is, I run a legal business, he runs a recruiting M&A business. But what we both realized is that over our careers, we actually had learned so much from the people we work with and from advising that we needed a new brand to offer those types of services. It's very hard to pick up the phone and say to your lawyer, "Can you give me some leadership training?" I just think intellectually, people want to see it in a different bundle. And obviously, the same for him. From a recruitment and acquisition specialist, no one's expecting strategy and leadership training from him.So we bought that all together under the All Founders brand. We set up the All Founders Show, a podcast that then ended up a TV show on Ticker. And that's been really interesting and fun to go and work with clients in a totally different way than as a lawyer or a recruiter because I think, for me, when I walk into the room as a lawyer, people do bristle and they respond differently and they get a bit nervous. And it's good to just sort of come in and say "Yes, I'm that but today, we're going to-"Michael: Switch hats.Laura: Although I do get wheeled out often by Christian to give the governance training, but anyway, that's for another day.Michael: Yeah, yeah.Laura: It's very important. So that's been really fun, to actually work with clients in a different way, to talk about their succession planning, their short and long-term strategy, building up managers. And I think, again, when we talk from the COVID perspective, there's going to be a huge gap in our managers and our leaders who are not being managed and led through COVID because we're all remote.Michael: Right. You see a really big hole getting bigger.Laura: Absolutely. And if you're not around your leader often to have those really quick chats to run things by them, I mean, you're not picking up your phone every 5 minutes to make that call to your manager to ask the question. I remember, even just as a young lawyer, always wanting to sit in the office or the spot outside the partners office because I loved hearing them on the phone. I loved hearing them in meetings with other partners because you learn so much just by listening. And we are losing this. So I think there is this big gap where a lot of these leaders are just going to need a little bit of outside mentorship to get them through, to get their skills up. I think they're a bit at sea at the moment.Michael: Yeah. Look, and it's probably the same as it's always been for those small business owners who have always done it solo.Laura: Yes.Michael: I've always been their own counsel. They've always struggled to find somebody that is a trusted advisor. So yeah, I think it's kind of the same thing, but it's obviously removed from employees in a massive way in the last 12 to 18 months. And it goes to where we started, which is developing broader experience outside of whatever it is you do day-to-day. You sought out a partner to learn. And I mean, there are opportunities everywhere you look. I think there's an explosion of clubs and online networking business things, so the resources are out there.But we've only got a little bit of time left, Laura. There are two things I want to cover. One is there's a lot of energy with businesses recreating or starting afresh. So in the first hundred days, what are the three or four things you're thinking about reinventing your business or starting? What are the three or four things you absolutely must address?Laura: Yes. Look, the really boring thing, I think, is always structure. It always shocks me how many small business owners have no understanding, I guess, of how they exist in the legal space.Michael: So this is in the sense of having a company versus a trust versus a partnership?Laura: Yeah.Michael: Yeah, okay. Yeah.Laura: And what if it's really boring and it is very expensive, but if you're going to do it, I think you need to do it right.Michael: Yup.Laura: Because if you don't get that right, then the next thing, which is contracts with your customers and your suppliers, you're not going to get that right. So if you don't know who you are as a business from a structural perspective, you can't enter into contracts properly. So those two things go quite hand in hand. And then obviously, we've got things like your insurance and your work cover and your employment agreements.Michael: It's very easy as I'm excited, which is going to work and we're going to get on with it, but don't fall for the trap.Laura: Exactly.Michael: Yeah.Laura: I think lots of small business owners get super excited. And I get it, I've done it too, about logos and branding and websites and Instagram. But at the heart of all of that, you still need to have a functional structure in a business because here's hoping you're going to go gangbusters. And rewinding and fixing those structural issues later is very, very difficult.Michael: Hey, Laura Racky, that's fantastic, really enjoyed the discussion with you. Thanks so much for sharing everything. I just wanted to close out, you had an involvement with Channel 31. We're on the Community Radio Network so there's some pretty good news. Just before the end of June, a renewal for 4 years?Laura: Yeah. So I think it's 3.Michael: Three?Laura: Yes.Michael: Yeah.Laura: So really fantastic. I mean, the last couple of renewals have only been for a year, which is not a lot of time.Michael: Yes.Laura: I think the 3 years is a real recognition that one, the spectrum is not going anywhere so we may as well put it to good use.Michael: Yeah.Laura: And two, that these organizations need that time to transition properly. So I'm really thrilled. I think it's wonderful.Michael: Yeah, it's a great result. Hey, Laura Racky from LL Gold, thank you very much for your time today.Laura: Thanks, Michael.Michael: So that is all for today's episode of Small Business Banter. I continue to be inspired, bringing you small business experts and other small business owners and hearing their stories.If you want to listen to any past episode, jump onto your podcast platform of choice and search Small Business Banter. There, you will find a diverse and fascinating collection of small business owners and experts openly discussing and sharing their experiences.For any of the links, resources, or information we've talked about on the show today or to contact me, please head over to smallbusinessbanter.com or you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. And it would be great to have you tuned in the same time next week for another episode of Small Business Banter.[END]

This week we speak to Laura Brady, SEO Manager at NOVOS, about all things e-commerce SEO. Where to find Laura: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-b-578299129/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lauraabrady8 --- Episode Sponsor Massive shout out to NOVOS for sponsoring the full second season of WTSPodcast. NOVOS, the eCommerce SEO agency, has won multiple awards for their SEO campaigns including Best Global SEO Agency of The Year 2 years running. Trusted by over 150 global eCommerce brands including the likes of Bloom & Wild, Patch and Thread, NOVOS provides tech eCommerce SEO expertise with a creative edge. They have been named as one of 2021's best workplaces in the UK and with a diverse, gender-balanced team are a culture-first agency. The great news is that you can join them! They're hiring senior digital PR and SEO strategists. Where to find Novos: Website - https://thisisnovos.com/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/thisisnovos Twitter - https://twitter.com/thisisnovos Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thisisnovos/ --- Episode Transcript: Areej: Hey everyone! Welcome to a new episode of the Women in Tech SEO episode. I'm Areej and I'm the founder of Women in Tech SEO.  Today's episode is all about e-commerce SEO strategy and joining me is the brilliant Laura Brady, SEO Manager at NOVOS. Hey, Laura! Laura: Hi. How are you? Areej: Yeah, I'm good. Thanks. We were just saying that I'm really excited about this episode because I've recently started an in-house ecommerce role. So I think I'm going to learn tons from it.  Laura: Yeah, no, it's really good to talk about it. I previously didn't work in e-commerce either, so they need to have a really just certain last year and a half doing it. So I know how you're feeling. Areej: Awesome. Well, can you tell everyone a little bit about you and how you got started in the world of SEO? Laura: Yeah. Sure. So I'm Laura, I work for NOVOS as an SEO manager focusing on e-commerce strategy. I've been at NOVOS since I joined mid pandemic. So when it just kicked off, so in April 2020, and before that, I worked at Screaming Frog for just under three years. And that was where I kicked off my SEO career. Quite lucky to start there. Areej: Does NOVOS mainly focus on, is it all e-commerce clients that they work with? Laura: I'd say like 98% of replies that e-commerce might have the odd one that, that isn't specifically e-commerce but like, yeah, I would say the vast majority is e-commerce. Areej: I think it's really nice to be able to specialize and have a niche. When I was on the agency side, we kind of worked across so many different things and I can imagine there's definitely a lot of benefits that comes from focusing on that one industry. Laura: Definitely it's very fast-paced as well. So you kind of have to hit the ground running as well. Areej: Awesome. Well, you know, we're part of women in tech SEO and something that I always love to ask all women who, whether they come on the podcast or have one of our workshops or interviews, is just get a bit of an understanding about, you know, what, what empowers you and what keeps you motivated and inspired within the industry? Laura: I think it's just that there are so many different things. I can't really give you one, one example, but I think I've been really lucky to work in two really good workplaces. I've learnt so much from everyone, we get to work with so many different team members. We're not really siloed into one team or anything. So that's been awesome. And like, obviously Screaming Frog was cool too, but like, I guess it was just like, just picking up on everyone else's kind of advice and just, I'm not really afraid to go and ask questions to other people and that kind of throws me into things. So it's more just kind of. Just not saying no to things and just like that, taking the opportunities and projects and I've picked stuff up along...

Failure happens to everyone; we will experience it at some point in our lives. Despite our sacrifices and hard work, we may not achieve what we set out to do. It is, however, important to approach failure not as the end of a journey but as a crucial lesson. And it doesn’t matter how many times you fail—physical, emotional and mental resilience will take us one step forward towards our eventual success and victory.  Laura Penhaul joins us in this episode to share the story of her expedition across the Pacific Ocean. She describes the preparations she undertook, from planning the expedition to gaining financial support. Laura also talks about the importance of breaking down the journey and being clear with team dynamics in the expedition’s success.   If you want to know more about the makings of strength and mental resilience in a person, then this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? 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If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. 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Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Gain valuable insights through Laura’s journey and expedition across the Pacific Ocean. Learn about mental resilience and adaptability in dealing with failure.   Discover the importance of team dynamics in the success of Laura’s expedition.   Resources Gain exclusive access to premium podcast content and bonuses! Become a Pushing the Limits Patron now! Support healthy ageing through the NAD+ boosting supplement, NMN! Visit NMN Bio for more information.  Watch Losing Sight of Shore, a documentary about four brave women rowing across the Pacific Ocean, from America to Australia. The strength of adaptability: achieving the impossible, Laura Penhaul on TEDxTruro What it takes for a team to survive 9 months at sea, Laura Penhaul on TEDxClapham Endurance podcast with Mark Beaumont and Laura Penhaul Endurance: How to Cycle Further by Mark Beaumont Connect with Laura: Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn   Episode Highlights [05:12] Laura’s Background Laura worked in elite sport for the Olympics and Paralympics for more than 14 years. As a physical therapist, she was able to see people through their journeys as athletes.  In the face of adversity, Laura found two types of people: those who bounced back from it and those who gave up because of it.  She was inspired by those who wanted to thrive and make the most out of life.  She never experienced rowing before, but she was searching for a challenge. Ocean rowing was something she found ideal.  The expedition gave her a lot of learnings.  [12:58] Gaining Confidence Reach out to those who have done what you want to do or to those who have expertise.  Laura had to break down the journey and prepare for it: planning the possibility of the route, gaining logistical and structural support, planning out the time frame and preparing the team.  She expected to finish in a year but didn’t. It took four years of planning before they could carry out the expedition.  She had to learn from her failures, figure out her blind spots and reach out to other people for help.  [16:12] Gathering Financial Support and Sponsorships At first, Laura could not ask for money to support her journey. She reached out to people who worked in business and sponsorship. They helped her shape her deck, brand and business model.  She also reached out to Mark Beaumont, an elite expedition athlete. She learned from his experience and failures.  With Mark’s help, Laura could have a structure for the timeline, budget and sponsorship.  [20:06] Physical, Emotional and Mental Resilience  Optimise your own elite performance.  Break down the journey and plan everything. Being prepared makes you feel confident when dealing with the unknown.  Have the courage to step away from comfort and the norms.  Push outside of your comfort bubble to reach your full potential.  [25:40] Going Beyond Your Comfort Zone Laura considers herself a calculated risk-taker.  She does not leap blindly and makes sure not to leave any stone unturned.  It’s not a failure if you learn from it.  Have the physical, emotional and mental resilience and robustness to bounce back and ask where and why you went wrong.  [29:36] Dealing with Failure You can prepare everything and still fail. There are things you can’t control. Be adaptable and flexible in your performance. During difficult times, the strength of Laura’s team was able to support a struggling individual. Different perspectives help you see things you can and cannot control. It can prevent you from being ill or injured. [34:42] Team Dynamics Compared to individual sports, being in a team is difficult.  Expeditions bring out the best and worst in people. You won’t know unless you are in the situation.  Laura wanted her team to be cohesive and transparent. She always confronts an issue and steps forward to speak about it.  A performance psychologist helped them understand the differences in each other's personalities, which helped make their journey a success. [44:05] Keeping Mindfulness in Moments of Struggle Leveraging each member’s strengths and differences can end up holding the team together rather than pulling it apart. When you are struggling, you may show a part of yourself that is cynical and selfish.  Remember: we are all working on our character.  In extreme circumstances, the bad side of ourselves could come out. Dealing with it is part of resilience and teamwork.   7 Powerful Quotes ‘There's people that can go through the same type of thing. And yet one person wakes up, being so thankful that they're alive’ they're now going to make the most of life. And then somebody else that wakes up and they're like, they wish they didn't wake up’. ‘How can I put myself in a situation which is completely unknown, that's kind of gonna make me want to give up? And I want to understand what it is we draw on when we can't give up [and] we've only got one option’. ‘It's all about perspective, isn't it? And it's all about the context that you're in. And this is the thing that I get really passionate about is, I want to optimise people's own elite performance’. ‘It is not a failure unless you don’t learn from it. And leaping sometimes is exactly what you need to do, and it's just not being scared to fall, like just knowing that, you know what, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. It's got you one step further. And one step closer to finding what the next thing might be’. ‘You kind of just got to crack on and then there's no going back, you can't row backwards, sort of, it's only about having the confidence to step into taking on the Pacific’. ‘You've got to understand that there are things you can't control. So you've done everything you can control. And now the rest is up to the gods, basically. And you're going to have to be able to be adaptable and flexible’. ‘The girls hated confrontation. They weren't used to giving and receiving feedback. That was always felt like a personal threat. I just had to put myself in the barrier first. I be like, “Right, cool, okay, if you're not going to give it and you're going to say everything's rosy when it's not, I’ll pull it out”’.   About Laura Laura Penhaul is one of the world's most respected physiotherapists. She helps train many of the top athletes in Olympic sailing and the Paralympics.  Laura is known for her nine-month, 9000-mile crossing of the Pacific in a rowboat. She managed a team of four women known as the Coxless Crew; she was the expedition's team leader and organiser. The expedition is featured in a documentary called Losing Sight of Shore. Connect with Laura through Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn more about stories of strength and mental resilience. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa    Full Transcript Of The Podcast!  Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Hi everyone, and welcome back to Pushing the Limits once again. Today, I have another world-leading, actually world-record-holding, superwoman. Now, this lady is Laura Penhaul from England, and Laura is one of the world's most respected physiotherapists. She helps train many of the top athletes in Olympic sailing and in Paralympics with people with disabilities. She's done an awful lot in high-performance sport. But what Laura is really known for is that Laura did a 9,000-mile crossing of the Pacific in a rowboat, you heard that right. Right across the Pacific. Nine months it took and she was the team leader and organiser of this whole expedition. She got four women together to do this epic event. And there is a documentary out called Losing Sight of Shore. And today we discuss this mammoth expedition that Laura undertook. The funny thing is that Laura hadn't even been a rower before she took this on. But because she had worked so much with high-performance athletes, people pushing the limits of endurance, and people with disabilities doing crazy things. She wanted to understand what is it that makes some people so resilient and strong, and other ones want to give up when they're faced with a trauma. And she thought, 'I don't need to wait until something drastic happens in my life, and my health has taken off me or my mobility, or I have an accident or I have something to wake up. I can actually take on some mammoth task so that I can start to understand what it actually takes and what resilience and strength is all about'. And she felt like she didn't have the right to be leading and guiding other people if she didn't have that experience herself. So she set off on a mission, what she thought would take them a year to do for a status to organise this expedition across the Pacific. And they knew that taking it four years of preparation, we go into the, all the details of putting together such a high-performance team, it's a fantastic interview. She really is a superwoman. I'm in awe over here, I can't imagine being in a 29-foot boat for anything more than about two hours, I reckon, before I'd start going nuts, so she's pretty impressive, this lady. And before we head over to the show, just want to remind you, we've launched now, our patron program for the podcast. So if you want to become a premium member of our podcast tribe, if you like, we'd love you to come and join us here on over to patron.lisatamati.com. And we'd love to see you over, the, it's all about keeping the show going. We've been doing it now for five and a half years each and every episode takes me a long time to put together to chase these world-leading experts, to do the research that I need to do, especially when it's dealing with scientific topics, and a test takes an awful amount of time. And to keep it going we need your help. And we wanted to give you lots of benefits too so people who do get in behind the podcast and help us provide this super valuable content to everybody get a whole lot of exclusive member benefits. So we'd love you to check it out. Go to patron.lisatamati.com for more information on that. And on that note before we just hit over to Laura, I just want to remind you about my new longevity and anti-ageing supplement NMN Nicotinamide Mononucleotide. You would have heard a couple of times in the podcast I had Dr Elena Seranova and we're going to have her on more often. She's a molecular biologist and tells us all about the ways that we can help with anti-ageing. And one of those things is by taking Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, which is a very, very powerful supplement. It's an NAD precursor that helps up-regulate the sirtuin genes, helps provide a bigger pool of NAD to every cell in the body and helps on a very, very deep level. The ageing working against the ageing process and who doesn't want to know about them if you want to find out all about it and all the science behind it, please go to nmnbio.nz. Right, now over to the show with Laura Penhaul. Lisa: Well, hi everyone, and welcome to Pushing the Limits. Today I'm super excited. I have an amazing, amazing guest for you. I really do find the most incredible people and this lady is a superwoman. So welcome to the show. It's really, really nice to have you Laura. Laura Penhaul is sitting in Cornwall in England. Laura, how's your day going? Well, you're not going. Laura Penhaul: Oh I was gonna say yeah no, it's been great. Do it. Yeah, it's now eight o'clock in the evening. So yeah, no, it's all good. It's been a beautiful sunny day. Lisa: Oh lovely, lovely. So Laura is an amazing person who does expeditions and as a physio, Laura, can you give us a little bit of background? I want you to tell your story in your words, give us a bit of a synopsis about what you do and what the critical things. I mean I've done a bit in the intro so, but I really want your words, if you like. Laura: Yeah, no props well, firstly, yes. Thanks, Lisa for having me on the show. It's been an honour because I think you're a superwoman more than me. Lisa: Hell no. Laura: But no I mean yeah, my background is I worked in elite sport, in Olympic and Paralympic sport for over 14 years. Sort of went to Vancouver, London, Rio, Tokyo cycles. And yeah during that kind of journey, and that was as lead physio in different sports, whether that was downhill skiing, whether it was with British Athletics Paralympic team. And more recently, I was with the British sailing team. And during that sort of journey as a physio like, the role that we have, as physios, physical therapists are very much kind of, you know, you're seeing somebody through a journey. And like when I worked with them and we've worked with patients in trauma, worked versus kind of, you know, in spinal cord injuries, and then straight to Paralympic sport, I've been surrounded by people that have been faced with significant adversity. And it's sort of, it's always along my journey of my career, have I been fascinated by understanding the person in front of me and kind of going, there's usually two types of people when they've been thrown a massive curveball, like an RTA or road traffic accident, or something horrendous, that is completely changed their life for the rest of their life. Those two, there's people that can go through the same type of thing. And yet one person wakes up, being so thankful that they're alive, they're now going to make the most of life. And then somebody else that wakes up and they're like, they wish they didn't wake up. And as a physio dealing with those two people, you've got to have a very different approach. And in the, kind of—to me, understanding that person that wants to give up and actually being able to change their mindset and facilitate, go shoulder to shoulder with them is really powerful. And then those people that do wake up and want to thrive, like they're the ones that have inspired me to do more stuff, because I'm like, why do we wait for adversity? Why do we wait for something to be a curveball before we then, like, start to go, ‘Oh, my God, I need to make the most of life like I’m fit. And I'm healthy. I need to make the most of life because clearly stuff could happen in an hour’s time. Lisa: At any time. Laura: Exactly. So that's kind of what then drove me to start to do more and more personally, and kind of a bit of exploratory expedition space. And then the real, so that led me to ride the Pacific Ocean, which is kind of you know what, we're talking about. Lisa: You said it again, you just rode the Pacific Ocean is, I just dropped it as a, to yeah, and then I rode the Pacific Ocean. So you were into sailing and into rowing and into all of that sport, as prior, this was your thing? Laura: No. Well, that's the thing, no wasn't in all honesty. I was, I'm kind of a jack of all trades like I love anybody, any athletes, anybody that I work with, I want to understand them. And I want to understand the sport, the environment that they're in. So when I was working with skiers, I went off and did a ski season. I learned to ski when I, and I'm somebody that, yeah, I love to do different sports and outdoors, the sort of outdoor environments. And if I was working with marathon runners, I was like, I can't fully treat them if I don't understand, if I haven't run a marathon like, to me, I need to experience what they've experienced, even in a small way to kind of get a glimpse of the environment. So I would run a marathon, same with triathletes, and, you know, not to the extent of your, sort of did a half Ironman, and then the point was the Paralympic cohort when I was working with them. I was like, this is an area that I can't untap you know, yeah. Lisa: Yeah. Laura: I can do it, but I can't understand what it is to be a Paralympian. Lisa: Yep. Laura: However, how can I put myself in a situation which is completely unknown, that's kind of gonna make me want to give up. And I want to understand what it is we draw on when we can't give up you know, we've only got one option. Lisa: Yep. Laura: So I kind of, that's what I was searching for, for a couple of years of searching for something that was going to be out of my comfort zone completely and was going to be a challenge on multiple levels. Lisa: Sure must have been. Laura: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I guess at the time, I was doing, sort of, triathlons. I was enjoying them. But anything that was cycling, running, swimming, I felt like this would be expected and I kind of would already be a bit familiar with it. So when I suddenly heard about ocean rowing, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is ideal'. I've always wanted to row but never did it. Then never got a chance to, so I'd never rode before. I've never lost sight of shore. Like, you know, I've never been out at sea properly, never sailed or any of that stuff. Well, a bar like going on a few trips. But yeah, not a sailor by anyway, shape or form.  So it was, I was, and that just connected, you know, when something, an opportunity comes up and you're like, ‘This is exactly what I've been looking for'. And it was a proper light bulb moment. And the thing for me, it's the one time in my whole life that I've been so focused, like, ‘I have to make this happen'. Because I know, in my heart of hearts, I know what I'm going to get out of this is going to be huge. Lisa: Wow. Laura: And that basically is why starting point with it, it was kind of, I didn't know how to row, I went from being a marathon weight of like, something stupid, like 58 kilos up to, I had to go up to 72 kilos to grow on mass, you know, to be not skinny, because we lose a lot of weight out there. I had to put a team together, whereas, in my personal sport, I was doing quite individual sports. So, you know, I had to work out the team cohesion, the whole team dynamics, and recruitment. I had to figure out what the boat was, get it built, like then set up this as a business, you know, so. So yeah, so the whole journey it was, I mean, now on reflection, there's so many learnings from it. But I absolutely thrive from the self-awareness piece, how much I've learned about myself, and the different perspectives. And you know, approaching that row, my approach is very much like, this is all brand spanking new. So if I can approach it with a blank canvas, if I can have a real adaptive mindset, and if I surround, if I've now gone on the other side of the table, rather than surrounding athletes, if I surround myself with the relevant expertise, how far can I get? And how far can I really experience that athlete? Lisa: Yeah, sorry, just my brother's just come in the middle of the podcast it’s all right. There. Come on Mitch, get around the other side. Yeah, this is podcast life for you. Didn't tell your brother you’re recording. There was so much here that I wanted to unpack. Because there was like, you just skipped over a ton of stuff. Number one, you had no idea. So what gave you the confidence, what was the little voice inside you saying, ‘I can do this’, when you're in a completely unknown sport? Like what was it that made you think, ‘Oh, yeah, I can ride across the Pacific on a row across the Pacific, you know, for nine months, and that all worked out well'. You know, how did you even come up with a concept for something so audacious? Laura: Well, I mean, it's all about small pieces, isn't it, and kind of reaching out to those that have done stuff and those that you respect and have the expertise. So it was basically breaking it, breaking the journey down. First of all, one is that route even possible? So initially, somebody had asked me to be part of the Indian Ocean, and they were putting a team together and then I evolved it into the Pacific. And then somebody, I was like, well, actually, originally, it might have been the new ocean wave race, which just goes from San Fran to Hawaii. And I was like, well, that's not the Pacific. That's a third of it, like so if I'm going to say I'm going to row the Pacific. I want to row, can I row all of it? Yeah. So it was then reaching out to somebody from a logistical point of view and a support structure point of view saying, ‘Is this even feasible? And what would it look like?’ And when they said, 'Yes'. I was like, right, okay. So that's route can get involved, this is what it's going to look like. We're going to need to start, we're going to need to replenish, but it's doable. But it's going to take this time frame. And then it was kind of like right, in order for me to get prepped and the team to get prepped, what's the time frame that it's going to take to do that? Let's be realistic. And I wasn't realistic. I was naive, I thought it would only take us about a year to get to the start line. And hell no. It took four years to get to start, like four years. Lisa: Four years. That’s massive. Laura: Yeah, so it was. But interestingly, there's so many parallels, you know, like working in Olympic sport, everything's in four-year cycles for the Olympic cycle. And so there's so much that I learned through that process of, I thought I was only going to go in a year's time. That didn't happen. We didn't have the funding. I didn't got the team, the boat wasn't finished, you know, it was like, right, I need to go again. I need to reset. I need to sort of keep the ball rolling. But I need to learn from what failures have had here. And how do I overcome them? Lisa: Wow. Laura: The second year, I didn’t quite have to win I thought it was but it's all that sort of stuff. You go, yeah, you can give up why it's such a clear vision with it. And the question in my head was, ‘There's going to be an all-female team that is going to do this at some point. Like, why can't it be me? And I'm sure that will happen in my lifetime'. So what am I missing? What are the things that I can't see? That's in my blind spots. And that's where I started to reach out, to pull in different people to say, right, ‘This is the problem I've got, how can you help me’? How can you see and it was that reaching out for help with the right expertise that got us to the start line? It wasn't me. It was the collective bigger support team around us. Lisa: How did you even, like the resources and the money in the financial and the sponsorship, when you didn't have a—I mean, you had a backstory as a high-performance expert, and helping other people in training and so on. But, you know you didn't have, you weren't—there were no huge amount of resources behind you. How did you—I know what I had to go through to get to the races that I did. And that was probably a heck of a lot less than what you had to go through. How did you face that? And what did you learn on the business side of the journey, the marketing, all of that sort of stuff? Laura: Yeah, I mean– Lisa: Selling the idea to people. Laura: Yeah, the money. It kind of—it’s exactly that. I think it's showing the belief, like the absolute dogged determinedness, that this is going to happen, and you know, like, I put in my own swag to it. I paid for the boat built in the first place. So I'm like, I'm gonna do this, like, do you want to be part of it or not? But I want to do this regardless. Yeah. Lisa: So basically, how I did too. Laura: This is not my approach. But you know, I mean, I say that, but let's face it, I was useless at kind of asking for money, like, you know, it's great, you're doing it for charities. But to ask to support me, and like our journey. I was crap. You know, I'm a physio, I like to help people. I don't like asking for help. You know, at the time, I was very much in that poor sort of leadership style. And that's a big, that was a big learning point. But then reaching out to people that do work in business and do work in sponsorship. And they were the people that then helped me to shape sort of your sponsorship deck and how you need to brand it, what's your, you know, the colours, the language, all of that type of stuff. Lisa: Wow. Laura: And I loved it because I mean, I love learning. So suddenly, I was entering a snippet of a different world that I knew nothing about previously. Same with like the PR side of it, I had no idea but that was great fun, and, and the business model itself, like yeah became a business and I thought it was all about the physical and that was totally not it was 10% of like the project. And then yeah, so like you say, setting up a business no Scooby-Doo about and so simplicity was reaching out to people that had been successful had done it before. And the likes of, you know, Mark Beaumont, that we've talked about before like Mark. Mark is somebody that's an elite athlete, expedition athlete, he'd actually at the time rode the Atlantic, and unfortunately, they nearly died at sea. So I'd reached out to him to learn from his experiences from the actual failures, more, I don't want necessarily the successes, but, and he then was great at providing me with a bit more of the structure for you know, the timeline, the budget that this, that in the other room. Lisa: Wow. Laura: How you sort of need to get the sponsorship. And yeah, so I think to me, it's about as you know, if you hold, if this is a new space and you hold an ego thinking you're going to, then you're never gonna get anywhere. Lisa: You’re gonna get your ass kicked. Laura: Yeah, basically, just whereas for me, yeah, well, I don't mind. I don't mind saying I don't know something. I'm happy to ask why and how and who can help… Lisa: You can be very humble, we can tell that five minutes of talking to you, you know. Laura: Thank you very much. Lisa: And how did you get a team together? Because you get four ladies, you rode the Pacific and people were talking like nine months and a rowboat unsupported, like from California to Cairns, wasn’t it? It's great. Yeah. There's a documentary out on it. If people want to find out we'll work out with it with the link sir. And how they can get hold of it perhaps afterwards. Four ladies in a rowboat, rowing across the lake. I mean, to the average person who doesn't know anything about rowing? It sounds absolutely insane. And I, like, I said to my husband, I was interviewing this morning and I said I couldn't last 24 hours in a rowboat. I probably couldn't last four hours in a rowboat. How do you comprehend nine months like that for me? Is, I mean, I've never done anything on that scale, of that long. You know, like, the longest thing I ever did was run through New Zealand which was a sustained effort over 42 days. And that well nearly bloody killed me, you know. But that's not nine months, you know, little logistics and all that. Wow. Laura: Yeah, but you know what, I've been, flipping heck, you know. 40 odd days that you're running the lengths of New Zealand, like that is insane. So you could have... Lisa: That’s a hell lot easier than rowing. Laura: It’s not though! I mean, it's all about perspective, isn't it? And it's all about the context that you're in. And this is the thing that I get really passionate about is, I want to optimise people's own elite performance, like, not comparative to anybody else, like, what's your—so what you're really is your achievement of like, 42 days and everything else you've achieved is huge. Whereas somebody else's 42 days of running, will be running a marathon like that will be—it's about that gap analysis, like, where you'd got yourself to, to then be able to take on the 42-day sort of challenge. Like that was a big old leap, but you're already like, sort of—your experiences, and you'd prepped yourself for that. Lisa: Yes, years and years. Laura: Yeah, and where is somebody who's on a couch, but then is setting their sights of running a marathon. That's their 42 days, like, that's their elite performance for them. And the row for us? Yeah, it was a big old leap, but it was fundamentally, it was broken down. Like I think sometimes you must have found this with the run, you're talking about there and everything else. You've got to break it down, like you certainly in the preparation phase, you've got to plan every inch and every sort of crook of it within its life so that you don't leave any stone left unturned. You feel like you're best prepared, that gives you confidence, to then have capacity to deal with the unknown when you're faced with it. So to me, that sort of, I always wanted to leave, like, at least 30% of capacity in my headspace to make sure I can react to when I need to. Lisa: You can handle it. Laura: Exactly, and deal with the unknown. If I mean, if we'd gone on that row in that first year, Jesus Christ, like most of it was unknown, like that. I was so naive, it was ridiculous. But by the time you know, it's four years down the line, I felt so confident in actually we've trialed the boat, we've done 72 hours, we've done a couple of weeks. We've done team testing, we've done routines, we've done steep depot, we've done the training, we've done the site support, you know, all of those, every aspect of it. I feel like we took out and then it was a case of right, well, then we just need to do this on a day and day out. And then however long that's gonna last for it's just sticking to routines, which you know, the same in whatever you do. Lisa: The more you do the more it becomes normal. Laura: Exactly. And then it's kind of like, Well, actually, once you lose sight of shore, whether you're out there for five days, five weeks, five months, actually doesn't make much difference. Lisa: You’re in this shit anyway. Too far from home anyway, you've lost sight of shore! Laura: Yeah, you kind of just got to crack on and then, you know, there's no going back, you can't row backwards, sort of, it's only about, you know, having the confidence to step into taking on the Pacific. And for us, you know, yes, we rowed the Pacific literally, but to me, it was the essence of everybody's got their own Pacifics to cross like... Lisa: Yes.  Laura: ...our film’s called Losing Sight of Shore because it's about having the courage to lose sight of shore, like, have that sort of courage to just step away from the comfort, step away from the knowns. And like, Oh, my God, you know, that's where life just opens up and expose. Lisa: Because you know, I had Paul Taylor, who's a neuroscientist, and ex-British Navy guy, and exercise physiologist on the show last week, and he's talking about the small bubble where you can live in or the big bubble. And the big bubble is where we all want to be, you know, where we’re reaching our potential and we are filling and where are all these amazing things that we could do. We know that that bubble was there. But we're all scared living in this little comfort zone. And how do you push outside because that outside is risk of failure, and in your case risk of dying. You know, there was so much that you put on the line physically, mentally, financially, emotionally, relationships, you know. You name it, you put it on the line for this one thing, and that is living in that big bubble and scaring the crap out of yourself and doing it anyway. Most people have this tendency to want to be comfortable in and I see this as a massive problem in our society today is that we are all cozy and comfortable and sitting on the couch watching Netflix and we are warm and we don't push ourselves for the gloom we don't push yourself. And this leads to disaster when it comes to resilience and being able to cope because you're been through this amazing adventure and expedition and you've risked everything, you must have an inner confidence that is just—and I know that you won't have it in all areas of life because this is certainly specific. And I know how that works because I'm really good and some things and really crap in others and I'm still working on my mindset in this area and that area or whatever, we're work in progress but you when you've lifted up your horizons to that big, nothing must daunt you in a way. Like he must be like, ‘Okay, whatever is coming at me, I can probably handle it'. Because you know, inside you have that resilience, which is so important. Laura: Yeah. I mean, I think you're right. It's about context, isn't it? Like I—you know, I'm a risk-taker, but I'm a really calculated risk-taker, right. Lisa: Yeah. Laura: Exactly. So kind of the Pacific seems like it's ridiculous, and it's life threatening. I mean, I didn't leave any stone left unturned. I had military guys helping us to make sure we'd sort of not left stuff unturned. We went through survival practice. We, I mean, there was everything and the amount of sort of, you know, routines we had on the boat, leashes, and kind of safety equipment was next to none. Because I was like, the risk we've got is getting separated from the boat. So I'm risk-aware, really risk-aware. And, and kind of, and make sure that sort of don't leave any stone unturned so then I feel confident to go forwards. I wouldn't just leap into it like blindly. Lisa: Yep, you shouldn’t. Laura: Yeah exactly. Lisa: Because you will die. Laura: Yeah. But I mean, it's no different if you watch, I don't think like, you know, you watch Alex Honnold, climbing free solo, you know, the El Cap, sort of the climb, if anybody’s seen that film. I mean, it's phenomenal. And anybody would, you know, you watch it. You're like, ‘Oh, my God, that's insane. He’s free climbing that like, what if he just slipped’? What if this? What if that? But look at his meticulous approach to it. Lisa: Yeah, one hand wrong. Laura: Exactly. But then his meticulous approach, he hasn't just woken up that day one, right. So I'm going to climb up, you know, sort of freestyle at this thing. He's like, he's been off top-roping with it, he is kind of lead climbed it. He's, kind of, known every single holding place he's written it, he’s drawn it, he’s visualising it. And he's only done it when he feels completely ready, prepped. And that actually, there's no move in that that is going to be a risk. So, therefore, he's a calculated risk-taker. And it is extreme when you watch it, but the preparedness is totally there. Lisa: I couldn't do it. I didn't put the parachute on as I'm halfway down. You know, you do learn from that, you know. I remember going out into the race in Niger, which was 353Ks across one of the most dangerous landscapes in you know, places on Earth, countries on Earth. And we were meant to have food come from France, and it didn't arrive. And I wasn't prepared. I didn't have my own stash, I didn't, my husband at the time, my ex-husband there. He did, you know, like, and when you're doing things like that, and you end up with food poisoning, and you're, you know, vomiting and shitting your way across the Sahara. And you realise, you know, you could have avoided that. That’s sort of a big lesson and do your preparation better, you know. Don't be so cavalier with your, ‘I am going to go and, you know, run 100 miles, and I haven't even trained for a marathon yet'. No, no, you know, and I had to learn those things the hard way because I had a tendency just to dive in. And this is all exciting. And let's do it. Laura: But then you learned that didn’t you? Lisa: Yeah, but it's not a good way to learn in the middle of the Sahara. It’s better to learn previously. Laura: Yeah, that is sure. But yeah, I mean, you still but you learn and I think that's one of the biggest takeaways, of whenever we talk about failure and stuff. It is not a failure, if you, unless you don’t learn from it. And leaping sometimes is exactly what you need to do, and it's just not being scared to fall, like just knowing that, you know what, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. It's got you one step further. And one step closer to finding what the next thing might be. Lisa: Yeah. Laura: So yeah, just it's having that like you say, that the sort of the robustness, the resilience or whatever it is to bounce back to kind of jump back up to ask the questions. ‘Well, why didn't that work? And let's try it a different way', or learn from it and do something. Lisa: Yeah, like you said, You reached out to Mark and he'd had, you know, nearly died and had actually failed in that particular expedition, done lots of other crazy stuff, but you know, and that one and it is those things like you are risking failure and you have to understand it from the outset. That you can take care of all the things you can prepare. You can get everything and you're still risking because, if this was easy, everyone would be doing it. And you have to be okay with the—this is something I try and get my athletes to understand. When you're actually done the work, you've done the boulder, you've done the—all the hard stuff that you knew now standing at the start line, that's actually to have time to celebrate and go, you know, ‘I've done the hard work. Now it's up to whatever's going to come my way'. And like you say, being able to adapt and to have the flexibility to take whatever's coming at you, which isn't always easy, but you have to sort of give up those—I think the consequences of what if, what if, what if, because if you’re constantly asking yourself, for ‘What if I don't make that time?’ You know, say you're running a marathon, or I want to do it in under three and a half hours, or whatever the case may be, and then you're so like, ‘Oh, no’, and then it takes you three hours and thirty-two and you know, ‘I'm a failure’, you know, like, hang on a minute, no, hang on. That's not how it works. Laura: Yeah. Lisa: Yeah, you've got to understand that there are things you can't control. So you've done everything you can control. And now the rest is up to the gods, basically. And you're going to have to be able to be adaptable and flexible. And that was one of the things in your website, talking about adaptive, being adaptive in your performance. And I think that's a really good thing because we cannot control like… You can be having a bad day at the office and get up and you feel sick and your immune system’s down and you've got your period and you've, you know, whatever the case may be. And you weren't bargaining with that, you know, so you have to be able to work, ‘I need to still go because there's no way back. How do I deal with it’? You know? Laura: Yeah, and I think it's a really valid point. Because I mean, even in the row halfway through, and it's in the films, it's not kind of confidential stuff. One of the girls, like, she just completely changed her personality, right, because that was exactly the problem. She thought she could control the boat. She thought, you know, she was a rower. Out of all of us, she was somebody that actually had rowed since she was a kid and stuff. She thought ocean rowing was, you know. She didn't want to lose the passion. Unfortunately, yeah, it killed her passion. She didn't know then, she lost the sense of identity, all of that stuff. Lisa: Oh yeah, real tough. Laura: Yeah, awful. And, but because she was trying to control the boat, you know, like, the current, the wind was against us, like, those are things you cannot control. It’s a one ton boat, not one person is going to be able to control moving that in the direction you want it to go in. And so, but it was the collective of the team that enabled us to be able to rally around and understand, first of all, recognise the change in personality, it was a behaviour, it was yeah, there was something underlying. It was not her—well, it was, but there was something emotional that she couldn't verbalise straightaway. So hence, she just changed her personality type. Lisa: Wow. Laura: And then it was like the strength of the team to be able to rally together to support that. So kind of come at it from the right approach that she was able to share it, to then collectively go, we just need to see a different perspective on this stuff. And I think that's where, you know, a vast dynamic sort of team, you know, a diverse team sorry is what I meant, has got so much strength in it, because you know, what, when you see it through your own lens, there's only sort of one way. Whereas if you've got some diversity there, I just think it brings a different perspective. And suddenly, you're able to see, you can't control the uncontrollable, you know, you can only control the controllables. You can't control what's out of control. And those things are the weather that is, you know, yes will prevent being ill or injured. But that might well happen. That, you know, is what it is. And if the boat sort of fails, but you whatever, then those are only three things that are going to be out of our control. And if anything happened there, then I wouldn't be. I would have been upset, I would be upset, but I wouldn't be throwing my toys out the pram because it isn't something we could control. And if the row didn't happen, we didn't finish because one of those three things, that is what it is. Lisa: Yeah, it is what it is. And you've done your utmost. And I mean, I've failed on different expeditions and things that I’ve done, like really fallen on my face, you know, with, you know, documentary crews there have captured all on film as you just absolutely completely faceplant. And, you know, and it takes a long time to get up again, and it knocks the crap out of you. And, you know, but it's part of that, okay, well, this is the game wherein, you know, we’re pushing the limits, and sometimes, you know, you are human and you don't have the resources or one of the things that I find really, really I'd love to and I think this probably needs its own podcast is the whole team dynamic thing. I mean, it's one thing to be a solo athlete that does things, you know, but it's a—couple of times when I've had to be in a team situation. I find it really, really tough because you were reliant... I did one in the Himalayas, and we're trying to do the world's highest marathon ever done. And I was with a guy who was a mountaineer and used to altitude and very at home in that space. And I wasn't. And I don't—I've done a couple of things at altitude and sort of survive by the skin of my teeth. I'm an asthamtic and I don't really do well on the mountains. So take on, you know, the world's highest mountain. Good idea. And we'd be in shape. And I got sick. I got altitude sickness, and I couldn't even start my body. I couldn't even tie my shoelaces.  But the worst thing was that he changed. The person that he was down here was not the person that he was up there, and, it ended up being quite nasty, and quite, detrimental. And he's not here to defend himself. So I'm not gonna say anything too much. But it wasn't a nice situation to be in — I did not trust that if I was in the shutout there, that we would work together as a team to get through it. I felt like, now, he wouldn't do that.  And then so now I'm like, very, very always aware of if I'm teaming up with people like we've got at the moment, this weekend in my hometown, that Oxfam 100, it's 100-kilometre event where lots of just normal everyday people are doing 100Ks, which is like amazing, walking, and they're doing it in, you know, teams of four, and the staff are going to go through... And there'll be people that are, you know, expeditions bring out the worst and bring out the best in people. And you don't know until you're in the situation with them, which way are they going to go, and which way you're going to go. I mean, I can become, I've been a really horrible person on some of my, you know, with my crew on different occasions where I've just lost my shit because I'm in so much pain, sleep deprivation, motions are up the wazoo. And you just, you know, you're snappy, irritable, you know, just horrible. Afterwards, I’m heading to go and say, ‘I'm very sorry'. You know? So how did you deal with that over nine months like that on steroids? Like the dynamic—four women—everybody's having their highs and lows at different points in there. How did you cope with that? I mean, you're obviously,  you've mentioned the one person and how you helped pull together, it takes incredible leadership to keep a team like that together for nine months, no matter how wonderful you all are. Laura: Yeah, that I mean, don't get me wrong, you still have arguments and stuff, but it was all in the preparation. And it was, we knew I mean, so it is a 29th version rowing boat, right. So it's kind of the size of Greg Rutherford's, it's got the world record for the long jump, right? So it is, kind of, his long jump is the size of our boat. So it's a really small space. And then when you're cramped into the cabin, there's two of you. And if it's stormy, then all four of you are either in that or two in each cabin. So it's a tight, confined space. So it was really clear from the outset that this team had to be, we had to be cohesive, we had to be really transparent. And something I was particularly pedantic about was, I never want to leave a permanent issue. Like if there's an issue, we need to confront it, we will have to step forward into it. We can't, I don't want any bitchiness like, there was, that was always been, sort of my approach to most things. Like, I can't stand the whole talking to other people, rather than talking to the individual that you've got an issue with. You just need to step into that as much as it might feel uncomfortable. And I guess, working in a performance context, we're scrutinised on a daily basis, you know. We're kind of everybody's asking you why what are you doing, you know, type stuff, you've got to justify, you feel like you're under a spotlight all the time. So you start to feel this kind of separation, you know, look kind of right. No, this is they're asking me that because of the person in front of us or the, you know, the end goal, that's what it's about. It's got nothing to do with me personally. We're just trying to optimise what we need to do. So when, my, I pulled this, the sort of the team came together, a lot of it, I was like, how do we stress test this, like, we have to stress test it because– Lisa: Hell yeah. Laura: –exactly. And that's where I, you know, I started working with Keith, the performance psychologist. I reached out to him so I was like, there's got to be more depth to this, you know, we need tools we need to I need to know what I'm going to draw on when I'm wanting to give up like, what's going to be my go-to’s, I'm going to, I need to know how I can respond and react to different personalities and stuff and how they're going to react to each other. So Keith was the absolute rock to the success of our journey, in all honesty. I worked with him for four years and I still worked with him. I still work with him, sorry, to this day. And Keith, sort o—he enabled us to sort of understand the differences in our personalities from the basics of just doing psychometrics and stuff, but pretty in-depth ones. And then analyzing that a little bit more and playing it out in different scenarios, and then really forcing us to kind of do the round table. Yeah, because—and the girls hated confrontation. They weren't used to giving and receiving feedback. That was always felt like a personal threat. Yeah. So I just had to put myself in the barrier first. So I be like, ‘Right, cool, okay, if you're not going to give it and you're going to say everything's rosy when it's not, I’ll pull it out'. ‘So this is what's not going so well. And this is not going so well. Right now give it back to me, hit me’, like because then as soon as I've given it they're happy to give it back to me because I think I'm being—yeah exactly. That's fine. And then I would show them that I was learning from it because I was. And there was— I— they would call me, I would have Laura number one, Laura number two, my personalities. And they—I didn't realise that until sort of, you know, going through the row and they're like, ‘Oh my god, it's Laura number two'. And Laura number two is somebody that when she starts getting, like, tired, hungry, all of that gubbins and, and sort of just a bit over it, I start getting really assertive. I'm very tunnel vision, and my empathy just goes. Whereas normal time, like I've got heaps of the empathy, until it gets to a point… Lisa: Yeah, yeah. So like me. Laura: And so they’d be like, all right, Laura number two. Because we then had a language that was a little bit disconnected to the personal and it made a bit of fun of it, then we sort of were able to sort of take a pause, hear it and stuff. But we had loads of loads of methodologies that we built, we'd worked on to try and get to that point. And that was sort of to the point with there, though, is that is not to say we didn't have any arguments, because we did like, I mean Nat and I, in particular, completely different personalities. She is like a, she's a beautiful character. She is Miss Mindful, she is in the moment, and she is just totally there. She's talking about the sky and the sea and the colours. Whereas I'm Miss Planner. Like I'm already in Cannes, I'm thinking about fear, I’m planning, and what do we need to do, what do we need to sort out? So, you know, when we did the team testing before, this was during selection of the team. I remember when I met Nat, I was like, ‘Oh, god, no, we are poles apart. There's just no way', you know because I was trying to see it through. I was only seeing it through my own lens of who I was getting a rapport with. But I brought her onto the team testing weekend, which was, I'd gone to some ex-military guys. And I said, ‘Look, we need to be tested. I need to see what we're like when we're cold, we’re hungry, really sore, in pain. You need to physically push us. You need to mentally push us'. Well. And so we did like a 72-hour sleep depot type thing, you know, in the Brackens in Wales, yeah. On reflection that was like, yeah, that was it was great fun and obviously hated it during. I remember, like during it, sort of Nat in particular, as a personality that stood miles out because when she came on to it, I was thinking oh she can come along. But she's, I don't think that I’m going to be selecting her. And then Nat was the one that, you know, she might not have been the fittest. But even when she was struggling, and she was in pain, she had a sense of humour. When I was starting to struggle, she made me laugh. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, there's not many people that can do that while I'm in that space'. Lisa: Yeah. Laura:  And I'm like, this isn't just about me. But for the comfort of the team, like we need that. Because otherwise, I will make this too serious. I will. When it gets into it, it will be too boring and serious. I need a sense of humour in this. And she is, she's got it in abundance. And she kept us at the moment. Lisa: Wow, yep. Laura: As well. Like, I needed that mindfulness when we're out to sea because otherwise, I wouldn't have remembered half the things that went on and I wouldn't have recognised and seen it. Lisa: Isn't that amazing? So looking at the strengths and differences can actually end up being the thing that holds you together rather than pulls you apart. Laura: A hundred percent. Lisa: And I just think in this space I have to connect you with Paul Taylor, he will love you. He's a resilience expert that I was mentioning before and yeah, I think it when you have characters and I've started to do this just with for myself even now I have these different characters, you know, there's the good me and there's bad me and the good means like Wonder Woman, she can do anything and she's amazing.  And he has all these character traits that you know I aspire to and want to have and that side of me and then the other side's a real bitch, you know, she's a horrible, cynical, selfish person and those are both of me. And I know when you put this on—Paul talks about doing like cartoon characters and putting speech bubbles on them and actually giving them life and because it puts you outside of these characters that are fighting in your head, and you're trying to be that good one you want to be, but when you're hungry and cold and freezing, and you haven't slept in three days, and you're struggling somewhere, and God knows where. And you just want to go home and cry and hide under the covers and get mummy to give you a chicken soup. Well, you—it puts it outside of you, and it helps you see what you're doing.  And even in daily things like, you know, I've been rehabilitating my mum now for five years, seven days a week. And you know, beginning first three years, it was like eight hours a day. So it was just, it was full, full-on. And then even longer than that in the first year. And I catch myself sometimes being so short and irritable because I'm like trying to multitask and trying to run my businesses and she's waiting for me and you know, like, you just find yourself snapping at somebody when you just feel like, you know, that asshole is sure is present, you know, and you're just like listening to yourself going, ‘How the hell do I get a grip on this?’ We're all human. And we're all working on this. And, you know, I go to my mum and I put her in bed at night time and a cuddle. And tell her, I say, 'You know, I'm sorry for being a bitch today, Ma. I’m sorry for snapping at you'. And she's so lovely. She's like, 'Oh, that's all right'. Like, you know. But we have moments where we're just not nice, and when you're in these extreme circumstances fad, the ones that come out, and this is a part of the dynamic thing that I find really, really fascinating in that whole resilience and teamwork, and how do you bring it all together? So, you know, we're going to have to wrap up this one, because I've really enjoyed talking to you, Laura. But I really would like to have you on a couple of times, because I think there's much more to this actual story because we haven't even got to talking about well, what was it actually like to row? How did you, you know, do, what did you actually do on a daily basis? And how do you plan for such a thing? And how do you have such a big project and deal with it? And so I'm really glad that we've made this connection, and I'm very, very keen to have you on the show again, if you, because we've really just been part one, I think. Laura: Let's see… No, I’ll be honoured to come back on. There’s so much I think we connect with in, and we can talk about for sure, especially in that headspace how we can be… What we've both learned from the experiences that we faced and continue to learn, I think is always an exciting journey. Lisa: Yeah. Laura: Yeah, I'd be honoured to come back on it. It’s been great. Lisa: That would be fantastic because I think also the work that you've done with Paralympians and, you know, people that have worked with disabilities and trauma, we haven't even unpacked that either. Because I think that, you know, we can learn a heck of a lot from people that have gone through, you know, all these dramas and so on, me, I learn every day from Mum, like, her mindset is just like, incredibly strong, resilient. And so I'd like to unpack some of that stuff as well. So Laura, thank you very much for your time today. I think you're a rock star, where can people find you? And where can they get involved in what you're doing? And, you know, do whatever you got available? Because you've got some really good lessons to share with people. So tell us where we can find you. Laura: Yeah, I mean, on usual social media, sort of, the Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn, just @laurapenhaul. And that sort of, you know, P-E-N-H-A-U-L is my surname. So yeah, reach out to that we've also got our endurance book. So where we've sort of added science behind, kind of some of the endurance sort of focus is on GCN, which is a Global Cycling Network website, or our podcast is Endurance as well, which is where's Mark Beaumont, which I co-author on. Lisa: So I'm very keen to meet and hopefully get on the show as well. Yeah, hook me up there. Laura: Yeah, Keith will get you on that as well. I think you've got a lot to add and share their experiences for sure. Lisa: I'd love to. That would be an absolute honor. Laura, you're one hell of a strong woman. I can't wait to see where you go and in the future in what you know, what you take on. God forbid is probably going to be big, and thank you for sharing. I think you have such great knowledge to share with people and you have a duty to get that information out there because this is the sort of stuff that helps people. So thank you very much for your time today Laura. That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.      

Get excited for Aries season! And make sure to live your life in the first part of this month because when the monster moon comes on April 26, who knows what will happen! Susan Miller herself can't even tell us what to expect.   In this episode, Laura and Alex continue to be confused about Susan's posting habits (she was on time again and it wasn't even an April Fools' Day prank) and work through their fears about the ominous monster moon in Scorpio that will bring unexpected and unwelcome obstacles and changes to all of the signs. They discuss Susan's note to her readers, geezers versus geysers, Scorpio hate, and of course, all of Susan's practical advice for getting through the monster moon and the pandemic.  Horoscope highlights for each sign can be found at the following timestamps:  Aries: 6:46 Taurus: 11:30 Gemini: 15:44 Cancer: 17:41 Leo: 19:29 Virgo: 21:36 Libra: 22:35 Scorpio: 23:32 Sagittarius: 29:19 Capricorn: 30:52 Aquarius: 33:16 Pisces: 35:12 Practical advice from Susan Miller: 36:25 Share your own thoughts on Susan Miller's Astrology Zone with us (and let us know about your experience with the monster moon!) by emailing astrologyzoned@gmail.com. Links: Order “If You Really Love Me, Throw Me off the Mountain,” by Erin Clark, a strong and powerful Aries woman: https://www.erinclarkwriter.com (https://www.erinclarkwriter.com) Help Laura reach the full potential of her Susan Miller legacy by buying her romance novels: http://lauralovelybooks.com (http://Lauralovelybooks.com) Listen to Laura's other podcasts, The Mermaid Podcast and You're Doing Great, at: http://mermaidpodcast.com (http://mermaidpodcast.com) and http://fairybossmother.com (http://fairybossmother.com) TRANSCRIPT:  Laura: Hello, everybody! Welcome to April 2021. We made it this far! Yay! Alex: Hi everyone. Hi Laura! Laura: Oh, hi Alex! Alex: How are you doing? Laura: I think I'm okay but then I read our horoscopes and now I have some concerns for something, but you know, I think we'll get through. We'll talk about why we're scared, but also I feel like we've lived through so much already that maybe I shouldn't be so scared, but I don't know, I got nervous. Alex: The fact that we have lived through so much and we're scared though maybe says something. Laura: Maybe it says something. Yeah, yeah. Well let's get into, as usual, when Susan Miller released the horoscopes for April. Again, another surprise. Another surprise, she released them on April 1. Wow. And I think, you know, last month in March we were so shocked because she released them a day early and that was really out of character and now it was just on time. So you and I agree that that while we don't like it and we're perturbed by her promptness— Alex: Extremely Laura: Extremely—we are just going to now keep track of like this streak and see how long it goes and also if we ever get an answer about why it's after 25 years she's suddenly become prompt with her horoscopes. It's a mystery. Alex: Right, so it's like a challenge. Susan, can you keep this up? But also why? Laura: Also why? Yeah we don't know why is it happening. Alex: Why are you doing this to us? Laura: Yeah why you're doing this, what's changed about your process, what's going on. But she released them on time. It was April 1. I had just gotten my second dose of the vaccine and I was really out of it so it took me a few days to read. But now we have and I think we should start off with the note from Susan Miller. Alex: Yes, so she starts off the note by saying: April will be a good, cheerful, and productive month until we get to the monster full moon in Scorpio on April 26. I know. And then she wrote: I know I am writing this on April 1, April Fool's Day, and I wish I were pranking you. This full moon will be no joke. Laura: Oh no, but see I got scared. Alex: It's incredibly ominous but also I was wondering if she like crafted this and she was like, Oh, this is

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PISCES! It's your time to shine.  In a shocking turn of events, Susan Miller posted her March horoscopes early! And to confuse matters even more, she included a cryptic note to her readers instructing them to return to her website on March 2 for ‘exciting news'  Laura and Alex start this episode by trying to make sense of the unexpectedly early horoscopes and the strange “Note from Susan Miller,” and then talk through the feelings of confusion and betrayal that resulted from her underwhelming announcement.  Laura and Alex then give summaries of all the signs' forecasts, which can be found at the following timestamps:  Pisces: 25:21 Aries: 26:43 Taurus: 27:44 Gemini: 32:12 Cancer: 34:10 Leo: 35:07 Virgo: 34:43 Libra: 38:36 Scorpio: 39:27 Sagittarius: 46:19 Capricorn: 48:56 Aquarius: 50:17 Practical advice from Susan Miller: 53:08 Share your own thoughts on Susan Miller's Astrology Zone with us by emailing astrologyzoned@gmail.com. Links: Order a sample of Dolly Parton's new perfume: https://scentbeauty.com/products/dolly-eau-de-parfum-3ml (https://scentbeauty.com/products/dolly-eau-de-parfum-3ml) Watch Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory (a must-see for Capricorns this month): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQ58I53mjk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQ58I53mjk)  Help Laura reach the full potential of her Susan Miller legacy by buying her romance novels: http://lauralovelybooks.com (http://Lauralovelybooks.com) Listen to Laura's other podcasts, The Mermaid Podcast and You're Doing Great, at: http://mermaidpodcast.com (http://mermaidpodcast.com) and http://fairybossmother.com (http://fairybossmother.com) TRANSCRIPT:  Laura: Hello, friends, listeners of the podcast. Welcome to our March episode. Me, Laura von Holt here with Alex: I'm Alex Gershuny. Welcome. Thank you for listening. Laura: Yeah, we have a lot to cover. Some big developments have happened in the world of Susan Miller, and to sum it all up before we start, I'll just say that it is Pisces season, and I think that we are underwater. Alex: I think that's the perfect way to put it. You know, I, I thought we'd have kind of a calm month, to be perfectly honest, I thought, you know, well, you know we had an exciting February, we did the special romance episode and I was like okay well March is going to be, you know, standard going through horoscopes. I was very wrong. Susan did not disappoint. That may not be the right word, but we'll explain. Laura: Yeah. So I think let's just get into what threw us for the loop. You know now that we have a podcast, Alex and I the week before, or the last week of the month, we were like, when do we think she'll post her horoscope when we record the podcast and we were like well February's a short month, so let's assume that she'll post into March on like the third or fourth of March because like February's a short month and she usually needs more time, but we were noticing that she was posting a lot when the Mars Rover was landing. And then she was radio silence and then on February 28 we see a social media post that says horoscopes are going up within the hour and I was, I was doing something so I didn't see it until then like three or four or five hours. And one of my friends texts me is like, it's, it's up and I'm like why do you mean it's up? It's February 28. March horoscopes are up? Alex: Shocking. Laura: Shocking. I mean, I mean, we were panic texting each other, and we were worried. Alex: We were really worried. Laura: We were worried. We were truly worried. I was trying to remember if there's ever been a time in the 14 or 15 years that I've read Susan Miller where she posted early. Sometimes she has been able to do it on the first of the month like late at night, but I cannot remember a time when she was early. So, I mean it is very funny that for Susan Miller to be earlier on time gives us cause for concern Alex: But it's like the constant...

Laura Beck is an activist and the founder of LottoLove, the first ever scratch off card with a social mission. LottoLove brings charitable giving to everyday gifting. It's been featured on The Today Show and Ellen DeGeneres and included in national publications, such as Women's Day, Real Simple and Redbook. Through her work with LottoLove, Laura is making a positive impact on people's lives by providing a better way to gift that empowers people in need and inspires communities to do good in a fun and exciting way. Learn more about LottoLove. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. Full Transcript: Passionistas: Hi, and welcome to The Passionistas Project Podcast, where we tell the stories of empowered women who are following their passions to inspire you to do the same. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with Laura Beck and activists and the founder of LottoLove, the first ever scratch off card with a social mission. LottoLove brings charitable giving to everyday gifting. It's been featured on The Today Show and Ellen DeGeneres and included in national publications, such as Women's Day, Real Simple and Redbook. Through her work with LottoLove, Laura is making a positive impact on people's lives by providing a better way to gift that empowers people in need and inspires communities to do good in a fun and exciting way.  So please welcome to the show, Laura Beck. Laura Beck: Hello, thank you for having me on here. Passionistas: Thanks for joining us today. So what's the one thing you're most passionate about. Laura Beck: I always get a little hung up on like picking the one thing, but I really, I mean, I'm passionate about the environment and cooking, but I think the most, the thing I'm most passionate about would be relationships and connecting with people. My dad always said something along the lines of, if you have relationships, you'll be rich in life. And that's something that really stuck with me. And so I've really spent a lot of time investing in friendships, which have had a lot of them for over 20 years, you know, with family, coworkers, mentors. And I think, you know, really having a variety of all these different relationships in your life allows you to connect with people on a lot of different levels, which I think is important. And with a lot of love, you know, I don't get to meet everyone that we're helping, but I do feel a connection to them with what I'm doing. And I value that relationship too, even though it's, you know, more distant, Passionistas: You mentioned your father and your parents really showed you firsthand about giving back when you were a kid. So can you talk about that experience and how it's informed your life? Laura: So my dad for, I want to say, like, I don't know, for 14 years he was going to Guatemala on mission trips. And then when I was in high school, he wanted to bring the whole family. And I think at that point it was like, my little brother's older, not old enough, I'm one of four. So we all went as a family to small town in Guatemala and he had been working on building an orphanage or every year that he would go to that orphanage was built. And there were like three families in there that had, you know, maybe five kids each. And we went down probably for like 10 days and did a lot of like mission work within the orphanage. But then we would venture out and go up into the, like the most remote villages in the mountains where we were giving, you know, some medical relief. There was a CR you know, a little religious component to it and just Christianity, which, you know, is the main religion of Guatemala. And so there were, you know, a lot of different ways of helping and connecting with these people that, you know, most of the time never come down from their villages. They never get to see a doctor, you know, they're suffering from arthritis and to fakes and, you know, a lot of different ailments. So they were very grateful when we would come up there and help with, you know, help them just ease pain and play with the kids and, you know, just interact and kind of give them this, give them some hope. And so I did that trip a couple times. And then at right after I graduated from college, I raised money to go to Honduras with my sister and we did something similar there. So those were, you know, were big experiences. And then just like on a daily basis, my dad had been on the board of directors at the homeless shelter in the home, in the town where I grew up. So, you know, I just grew up with him, always giving his time and not, you know, not just time and money and resources, but so that was always kind of ingrained in our upbringing was, you know, helping those less fortunate and really just taking the emphasis out of material things and putting it more on, you know, these relationships and connections with people.  Passionistas: So you mentioned college, where did you go to college and what did you study?  Laura: I went to University of Michigan. I'm originally from a small town in Northern Michigan, like four hours North of Detroit. And then I studied art history with a minor in Spanish. So I was using a lot of, well. I mean, when I went in high school, I took Spanish as well. So I was able to speak Spanish and these in Guatemala and Honduras when we were there. But then after I graduated, I moved to Chicago and I went back to school for art direction and design. And there's this type of, I guess, school, which is called a portfolio school. And that is where you go specifically to get a job in an advertising agency afterwards. So you can study copywriting design or art direction. And the whole it's a really intensive program. And some of them are two years, but the one I took was just one year. So it was pretty much for an entire year, no breaks taking the courses. So that's where I got my art direction background. Passionistas: What were some of your early jobs after you got that degree? Laura: I had set my sights on New York. I always wanted, when I was younger, I wanted to go to a big city. I think it was partially of like, I want to rebel against the small town and, you know, live somewhere where the closest mall is not an hour and a half away. So I always wanted to go to a big city and I liked Chicago, but I felt like I wanted something more. So I started applying to some jobs in New York and I got an internship at a small midsize agency. And so I moved to New York for that job. After the internship, I worked there as an art director, and then I started working for this woman who is a lifestyle brand and I was hired to basically kind of just overhaul her branding and, um, design and, you know, head there, like the lead of her website development. So I did that. And then at that point I was like, I think I want to do something on my own work for myself. And then that's when I started my own design shop on my own. Passionistas: Tell us about that. That's Tiny Rebels. Right? Tell us about that. And some of the socially good companies you work for there. Laura: I really enjoy working with brands that needed that I really liked working with them from the ground up, you know, being part of their initial, I guess, the initial phase. And so one of the companies I worked for was called OneGridCandle, and their mission was, you know, to help provide clean energy to people in Africa and sell their candles. And so that one was a company that I was able to, I got in touch with right away, you know, from helped them from logo design, to packaging design, to their website and know pretty much all marketing touch points as well. And that was like, okay, I see them able to, um, giving back in a way, you know, by helping this company get off the ground, I really enjoy doing this and that at that point I was like, I think I want to, you know, try doing this a little more direct and be the one that's, you know, has the company that's giving back. So I kind of, I slowly just start kind of as like not accepting new clients and was just letting the phase, not the phase out naturally happen. And then that's when I took a leap with LottoLove. Passionistas: So what inspired you to create lot of love cards? Laura: I wanted a career change and I had a desire to do something that did more good in the world. And I, you know, I felt I could do that, you know, helping client or, you know, the companies I was working with, get off the ground and do that. But I wanted to do that in a little more direct way. And, you know, if you ask yourself the question, why do I do what I do? It really forces you to reflect on what gets you out of bed in the morning? And I knew I had, you know, interesting background and experiences and, you know, different talents that I had, um, honed in on with my past jobs. And I wanted to figure out how I could put all that together and figure out a way to positively impact other people's lives. And if I thought back to a time where I felt like empowered, it was when I went on those mission trips with my family.   And then with my sister that I mentioned earlier, at that point, I saw extreme poverty and seeing it firsthand is very different than, you know, seeing it on the news or reading about it. So I knew that there was a lot of people out there that needed help, but if I can't be there physically, you know, helping them, what can I do based on everything I know, and I've done to create something. And so I, I was ready to make that career change. And I think having my branding company gave me the confidence to do that because could brand LottoLove all on my own, you know, I didn't need to outsource that. So I was able to really kind of take everything in my own hands. And I enjoyed the client aspect of, you know, or the service aspect of Tiny Rebels, but I wanted to try out something a little different by creating a product.   And so my inspiration for LottoLove actually was my grandma because she loved scratch off cards. And that was something that we would always gift her for holidays, you know, especially, you know, what do you give an 80 year old grandma, you know, and they love the scratchers, but that whole idea is about winning for yourself and, you know, winning money. And, you know, I think I saw a way to flip that concept on its head a little bit and add a twist to it. So instead of winning for yourself, you're able to win for other people. And it was actually during a road trip with my now husband, he would love to scratch off tickets too. So he would, every time we'd stop and get gas, he would, you know, buy a couple and he bought two, which actually happened to be winners. They were both like $5 winners, but that's kind of where the whole idea started coming about was on that road trip. So   Passionistas: Explain what the LottoLove card is, how it works and what happens when   Laura: Get one, like you mentioned, we're a social good scratch off cards. So instead of winning money, you want a charitable prize. That's donated to someone in need and we have four charitable partners and each one's tied to what I call the charitable prizes. So you can either win clean water, solar energy, literacy tools, or meals. And it will always be one of those four. And I like to say that we're the only lottery where everyone wins, because we really are. When people ask me that question a lot. So I like to say it right off the bat, every card is a winner. It's one of the four charitable prizes. So, you know, we sell most of on our website and the buyer would then buy a LottoLove card. They could mail it directly to the recipient and then the recipient would get to play the game, scratch off all the circles to figure out basically what was donated in their honor. So it's a gifting item and they come with a greeting card. So it can just be an easy, all-in-one like gifting experience and it's a matching game. So are you familiar with scratch off cards or have you done a lot in your days?  Passionistas: It's been awhile, but yeah, we've definitely done them… for sure. Laura: Yeah, so it's like a matching game. So we've designed icons that represent each charitable prize and then you have to match one of those icons. And then that tells you flip it over and explains a little bit more about the causes that we're supporting. And then we direct everyone to our website where they can learn more about our charities and the efforts that we're supporting. Passionistas: So tell us about those charities who are they and why did you choose them? Laura: We have four Austin charities. Solar aid is our solar non-profit and their mission is to eradicate the use of kerosene, which is harmful to health and to the environment. And why really like about their mission is they're working to employ people to sell the lights, which creates jobs and a sustainable markets. So, you know, they're creating sustainability in a lot of different ways, as opposed to just providing a clean energy source. And so they're able to combat poverty and climate change. And they work specifically within Africa, lit world is our literacy partner, lit worlds based in New York. And they work within the U S and also globally. They're putting emphasis on not just learning how to read and write, but to learn how to teach kids, how to tell their story and how to communicate, which helps them build a sustainable life because, you know, communications foundation of a lot of things.   So they put a lot of emphasis on, you know, talking about feelings and being able to communicate water is life is our word, water, charity. And they, we specifically are supporting their water filtration efforts. They've created this straw that kids can wear around their neck, and they can basically go to any water source and purify the water from that straw, which is pretty awesome. And it can filter two to three liters a day. I think it's really impressive. I mean, when you look at it, you're like, you know, you're like, how can this actually do what it does, but the insides of it, it's, it's an amazing invention. So yeah, that's really cool. And then our hunger non-profit is rise against hunger and they are working to end hunger by 2030. And they do a lot of natural, like natural disaster relief as well. But they've created the most nutritious packaged meals all in like one where it's basically like add water and you get all these vitamins and nutrients that you need in a day.   Passionistas: Tell us specifically what each card gives to these charities Laura Are a limited amount of like gifting options, but you can either give one week of clean water or four weeks of clean water. So when you go onto our website, you're not going to be able to, as of right now, but we might change this. You can't choose. If you are getting a water winning card or a meal, it's a surprise, but you can either win one meal or three meals, one month of solar light, or four months of solar light, and then one set of literacy tools or three sets of literacy tools. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington. And you're listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Laura Beck. To learn more about her scratch cards with a social mission visit, GiveLottoLove.com.  Now here's more of our interview with Laura.  Have you personally had any interactions with people that have benefited from the work you're doing and are there any that stand out? Laura: Yes, actually I think it was two years ago now I was able to go to Kenya and I met with one of the partners of our literacy charity. They work in Kibera, which is like one of the chorus slums in the world. So we spend a day with the Red Rose School and it was all girls and, you know, got to see everything firsthand. They call them lit clubs. So how they run their lit club. So it started with a story and then that story had an underlying message about feelings and like bravery. And so then, you know, we all sat in a circle when it was great, because I got to like sit in a circle with them and I was participating, you know, just like a student with them. And everyone went around the room, talking about the story, you know, talking about moments in their life, where they had to be brave and courageous.   And then there was activity, which they call a heart map and it's basically drawing a heart on a piece of paper and then filling that heart with everything that represents you or that you love in your life. And then we all went around the room and explained our heart maps to everyone. And I was just, you know, I was really blown away by them and their ability to, you know, talk about their lives. And, you know, their upbringing was a lot more difficult than mine. And they were just, you know, full of life and love and, you know, just proud to be a sister and a daughter and a friend. And it was really amazing to actually see how our who we're supporting and the benefits of it.  Passionistas: We were reading about that story. And one of the things that struck us was you told, said you played a game with them and did an exercise with them called a rose, a bud or a thorn, which we loved the concept of that. Tell us about that. Laura: That it wasn't the first time I heard it when I went to Kibera. That was something that actually my parents did with us growing up too. Like, especially around like Thanksgiving, it was like, you know, we'd all be home from college or something and they'd be like, tell us, you know, something good that happened. And you know, and so the rows, the button, the thorn really kind of puts a metaphor to that. I think, you know, arose is something that you're really happy and excited about. The bud is something, you know, you're anticipating, you know, that's going to happen and you're excited. And then a thorn is, you know, something was difficult. Something was a little prickly, a challenge that you faced. And yeah, we went all went around the room and did the Rose about a thorn. It's actually something really fun to do with, you know, friends and family too. And it's just another way to connect with people. And if, you know, for lack of a better word forces, but allows people to open up, you know, cause everyone's doing it. You know, we all have hardships, but you know, we all have something that we can find that we're excited for or something good that happened in our lives.  Passionistas: You've also added wedding favors to your store. So talk about those. Laura: I would say it's a little bit of a work in progress, but something that excites me about a lot, all of is all the different ways that you can gift it. You know, we really want people to rethink what they gift and how they, and there's so many occasions why when we need to buy people, things. And so weddings, and I think it kinda came about like when I was planning mine, now people buy wedding favors and they're cute and they're fun. And I it's a fun thing to do, but I really had a hard time wrapping my head around that because one, it feels a little wasteful to me and it's just not where I really wanted to spend the money. And I, you know, I felt like I could gift something to someone outside of a trinket, you know, the header initials on it or something or something that might get thrown away.   So I use my wedding as like a test case for that. And, you know, it's a slightly different design. Our typical cards are like really bright and punchy, but our wedding line called Lucky in Love. It's, you know, we're stripping it of all the color and, you know, keeping it white and clean, you know, everyone has different themes for their wedding. And white just felt like it would fit. Um, a lot of people's decor. So the game is the same, but we allow this like top portion to be customized. So if people have, you know, like a logo they created for their wedding or a monogram, or they want to have write a little message to all their guests, they can do that. And the way we kind of tell people to gift it is to put it at their placement settings at dinner, but it's also good dependent, like gift bags.   If you're doing that, or people can grab them as they're leaving the wedding, but really easy way. It's just, everyone's sitting down. It's a great way to like get people, talking, bring awareness to the causes. And we included a little penny on each place setting. Um, so people can scratch off and play and you know, their response from people that have included it as part of their wedding has been great. And I love seeing all the photos and, you know, even seen like the little, the little kids participating and playing the game. So it's another way to spread love and your wedding day, Passionistas: What would you like to see as the future for a LottoLove? Laura: Sometimes I feel like it changes a little bit, but you know, near term, I want to expand our product line, you know, which means adding new charities and increasing the causes that we can support. You know, right now we have four and it's what we call our basic needs line. And I'm really happy with the four that we chose, but I know there are so many more causes out there that mean a lot to people. You know, I want to expand and do like a health card, you know, support breast cancer and Alzheimer's, and I mean, there's so many, you know, maybe an animal card. I know a lot of, you know, people want to support animals and help them. So expanding our product line is something I want to do near term. I want to get into more into corporate gifting because I think that is a way to really reach a lot of people and obviously increase our impact.   Like I mentioned before, a lot of creative ways to gift a LottoLove. And I think, you know, just what we have now is kind of the tip. And I think we can really expand a little bit and, you know, bigger picture. I want to continue to figure out how I can help people to rethink about traditional gifting. And I think LottoLove does that for a lot of people, but I think we can do that a little bit more because we are solving a few problems. You know, simply gifting is stressful. A lot of people get stressed out around the holidays because it's expensive and they don't know what to get people in. There's so many people that don't need anything and people that are hard to buy for. So LottoLove solves that problem. Obviously our social mission, you know, we're helping people just live and also thrive, but I think there's more than we can do and want to tap into, you know, traditional gifting and how we can uproot that a little bit. Passionistas: So where can people go to get the cards and find out more about what you do Laura: Our website, which is GiveLottoLove.com. So G I V E L O T T O L O V E dot com. That's where we do pretty much all of our sales through our website and we ship all over. I pretty much ship across the world. We just sent an order out today to Australia. So wherever you are listening, you're not too far.  Passionistas: You do corporate gifts as well. Talk about that. Laura: It's been a really fun aspect of the business, which it wasn't something I was thinking about when I first started, but usually mostly around the holidays. That's when everyone's, you know, figuring out how they can gift people, something, but we did something for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They had a yearly summit and they wanted to include LottoLove at this meeting. So anything from meetings like that to including them and gift baskets that get sent to clients or customers, we can do a lot of the fulfillment ourselves. So if you know, we're mailing these out to 500 people, we've done it. And, you know, we try to be as flexible as possible because everyone's gifting needs are different and unique. And you know, some people want a greeting card and some people just want the scratch off. And we create these little custom informational cards, which are a great, like co-branding option where we can put their logo on it and custom messaging. Or if these corporate companies are ordering a lot more, you know, we have like a 500 unit minimum order quantity, but we can customize the scratch off cards, which is a fun way to, to do a little like co-branding where we can add a logo and some messaging. There's not as much flexibility with that, but we try our best. Passionistas: Is there a lesson that you've learned during your journey that sticks with you? Laura: I would say one of the biggest lessons is to not give up because they're just in startup life. There are so many roadblocks and times where you feel like, okay, this is too hard. I can't do this, but to just not, not give up and to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, because I think those uncomfortable situations is where you really see growth and to not shy away from those because you're afraid. So, you know, there are a lot of twists and turns and disappointment comes with that. But the one thing we can control is to just keep going, regardless of people's response or lack of response and validation, and then saying yes, because I think fear can creep in and we can shy away from doing things, but I've gotten in this habit of just agreeing to things, knowing even if sometimes my guts like, Oh, I can't do this. I'm not good enough for this or something, but, you know, say yes and I'll figure it out and I'll figure out how to do it. But I think that's where I've seen a lot of like my personal and career growth by putting myself in these situations and just not giving up. Passionistas: So as the mother of the new baby girl, what's your dream for women? Laura: My dream is well for my daughter. I want to instill like instill in her the belief that she can do anything and that we're stronger than we know, especially, you know, just giving birth as a woman and being able to give birth, I think is a beautiful and wonderful thing, but it was also one of the scariest things that I've ever done. But after that, I was like, you know what? We can do anything. Like we're so much stronger than we know. And I want women to feel empowered in all aspects of their life because they should, because we're strong and you know, we need to, you know, rise above the fear or whatever's like keeping us down. What's your definition of success? You know, since I had violet, I think that changed a little bit, but you know, I think it's really enjoying what you do and, you know, success, I think looks different. Day-to-day especially now, you know, I think success is okay, my daughter's happy and she's alive. And that is success. Like every day right now is successful for me. If I do that. And if I get a little bit of work done, it's a bonus. But I think success is feeling nourished at the end of the day. You know, whether that's working, whether that's not working, but as you know, feeling that fulfillment and nourishment at the end of the day, I think is success. Passionistas: What's your secret to a rewarding life? Laura: Well, can I still be figuring it out a little bit, but I think one now being a new mom is having really good time management. I have learned I work better under pressure, but I don't have that luxury. Like if I get a minute, I need to use that minute wisely. But, and I think having good time management, it can really either make you feel fulfilled or it can deplete you if you're not doing it in the right way and being an entrepreneur, you know, weekends and weekdays blend together. And they can all the days all feel the same sometimes, but you have to really allow yourself to have the fun, the self-care and do the work. And I think that's keeps your mind and body in check. But then at the end of the day, I think it's, you know, doing something that one thing that brings you joy every day, if you can fit in one thing, you know, whether it's a workout or reading a book or meditating, you know, really, I think gives you that energizes you to keep going. Because there, I mean, a lot of things that we have to get done just to live and to not, you know, to pay our bills and do things, but finding ways to sneak enjoy is really important.   Passionistas: Thanks for listening to The Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Lara Beck. To learn more about her scratch cards with a social mission visit, GiveLottoLove.com.  Please visit ThePassionistasProject.com to learn more about our podcast and subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Our winter box with the theme Passionistas Pamper is on sale now and will ship just in time for the holidays. Sign up for our mailing list to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to The Passionistas Project Podcast, so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

They say that a goldfish grows to the size of its tank. But what if that small fish is ready to launch into a bigger pond? That is the situation Sea Bags has found itself in recently. With a rabid following and millions in revenue, the Portland, Maine-based retail store has outgrown its initial eCommerce setup and is ready to grow into a major totes and accessories brand thanks to growth fueled by personalization, storytelling and an incredible social media presence. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Laura Hnatow, the Vice President, Marketing & Ecommerce at Sea Bags, explains how she is helping to expand the eCommerce platform using a cross-platform social media strategy, and she digs into the re-platforming experience she is leading to help Sea Bags utilize tools like A.I. and M.L. to grow their business both online and as they expand to brick and mortar locations. Key Takeaways: Content, social media and UGC utilization are critical in building and maintaining an active and engaged customer base Re-platforming offers an opportunity to utilize new tools such as A.I. and machine learning to introduce new forms of personalization in product offerings as well as marketing strategies The power of storytelling is the most important tool in your toolkit to differentiate yourself from the competition For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible eCommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome to the show. Laura: Hi, thanks for having me. Stephanie: I'm really excited about you joining me today. I just was browsing through your website, Sea Bags, and I wanted to buy like about five things. Laura: Oh, that's flattering. Stephanie: Yeah. It's awesome. An awesome product. I'd love to hear a little bit about what Sea Bags, in your own words, and why you joined it. Laura: Yeah. Sea Bags is a company based in Portland, Maine, that manufacturers bags, totes and accessories from recycled sails from sailboats. We gather those sails one at time from the boating community all around the country, and bring them back to Portland, where we cut them down one-by-one. Each sail is a little bit different, therefore each bag is a little bit different from the next. People come to visit us in Portland, where they can actually see the bags being made on the waterfront, at our building that actually overhangs the water, with the hum of lobster boats outside, along with the sewing machines and the seagulls. It's really a great experience in quintessential Maine. Laura: The reason why I joined Sea Bags... It was almost seven years ago at this point. The opportunity was presented to be by the current CEO. It was the story effectively. The whole story about the brand. It was so compelling. I've worked for a number of brand manufacturers before, L.L. Bean and Cuddledown. They all had great manufacturing stories to tell, but this story was so much more authentic and rich. It was that authenticity that made the story so easy to tell. They also had built the brand up on these three core tenets, that drive the business every day. It was this very defined mission behind the company, of being made in the U.S.A., sustainable in product and practice, and also committed to giving back to the community generously. Those three things guide all of our decision-making in everything that we do. With such a clear mission and mandate, in terms of how we were going to grow the business forward, to me it seemed like a no-brainer to join that team. Stephanie: Yeah. That's very cool. What is the story behind Sea Bags? I think it started with the Founder's dad. Right? Laura: Yeah. Many years ago, the original founder, Hannah, her dad, he was in the sail bag-making industry, for the actual bags that hold sails in between seasons. He made a recommendation to his daughter, "You should try to figure out what to do with these old sails. They're just going to landfills." She crafted the first ones. It's our current COO, Beth, who actually grew the business from there. She partnered with her and then grew the business to where we're at now, with the help of our current leadership and CEO. Yeah. It started as a hobby business, and now has really ground to be a lifestyle brand. Stephanie: That's amazing.The one thing I really liked, which I didn't know before, was I didn't realize that sailboat sails actually can't break down. So when you guys say you're focused on sustainability, you really mean it. Nothing would happen with those sails, if you didn't transform them and give them a second life. Is that correct? Laura: You're absolute right. Yeah. Predominantly sailboat sails are made out a material called Dacron. Dacron has an element of plastic fiber in it. It's that resilience that lets the sail hold up to the strength of the wind and actually propel a sailboat forward. But it is that strength in the fiber and how it's made that makes our bags so durable as well. Because of that inability to break down in the landfill, we knew that that material, itself, would be perfect for a bag. They wear like steel. People have gone into our store to show off, "Here's my bag. I brought it 15 years ago." They wash it regularly in the washing machine. They look great. Yeah. They do wear really well. Stephanie: That's so cool. How do you convey that uniqueness to your customers, especially through an online experience? I saw some really great videos that you all had on your website, which I thought were amazing. Is that part of the way that you convey that? Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Storytelling is one of the things that we do best. Like I said, that's why I joined the brand, is this rich story. We do a lot of content creation on our team. It's easy to do content creation when you have a lot to work with. Building really great video content... We have a new line of products all the time. We have new partners that we're collaborating with regularly. So being able to stitch together different videos, content pages on the website. We integrate a lot of user-generated content into the website and our marketing. Laura: So things like customer testimonials, but also customer images. We have a very rich user-generated content campaign, called our Sea Bag Citing campaign. It's a hashtag. And customers in that campaign will tag us and show us all the places they take their Sea Bag. It's really a great opportunity for us, because when we see a great picture, instead of us having to go out and stage a photo shoot, we've got a really authentic image of somebody vacationing using their bag in the environment that it was intended for. Stephanie: Yeah. I was very impressed when I saw your social media following and how engaged people were and the really great photos they were tagging you all in. I definitely see the world of online sales seems to be moving to social media and building a community. How do you think about building that up, and creating relevant content, and keeping those followers engaged? Laura: Yeah. I'd say it's one of the things we're really good at, but it's also probably one of the things that's the most challenging in what we do. Because people spend a lot of time on social media, but everybody's competing for their attention. I have a social media team with multiple partners on it. I've tasked them with making sure, across all the platforms, that, number one, we're showing different content, to keep different types of people engaged. And the other thing is that we're hitting the breadth of content that I'd like us to do. Laura: They have a filter that they put all of our content through, to make sure that we're showing the right variety of, and frequency of, things like behind the scenes images, testimonials, new product launches, PR news that we're doing. We're trying to make sure that we hit the breadth. And also, we're tailoring it to the specific types of platforms. Obviously Facebook and LinkedIn are not a synonymous platform so we make sure that some of the content goes on one location and we speak to those audiences a little bit differently. Laura: I think customers want to be invited to participate and we do a lot of that with either surprise and delight opportunities, where we ask people to come and bid on something for a chance a win to a wristlet. A wristlet is a small item. It's not like a vacation getaway. But that alone... people love the gesture. They love to participate. It's really interesting. When somebody does win a prize, it's funny how authentically and genuinely thrilled for the winner the other customers are. It does become very communal. They're like, "Oh, my God. I'm so happy for you. Great job. You're going to love it." Laura: Then we also find that customers... Getting back to this idea of engagement. This is delightful for us. Customers sometimes answer on our behalf. We'll get comments that say, "Do you have this bag in this color? Are you ever going to offer this again?" Before we can even comment, we'll have other customers saying, "Yes, they have it. You can go to this page." It's almost like we've got these brand ambassadors stalking us right within our social media. That is so flattering. It really does speak to a highly-engaged social media following. Stephanie: Yeah. That's amazing. Having people who are working for you and your brand without even asking. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie: It's a key strategy, if you can figure it out. Laura: It is. It's great. Stephanie: Are there any new emerging digital channels that you are excited about or focused on right now? Laura: I think in terms of new channels, I don't think there is one. Social media really is where we're spending a lot of our time as a channel, in terms of trying to grow audience and engagement. We are playing around with some things like influencer marketing, which is important. I think some people might not call it new and emerging either. We're doing quite a bit in just dabbling in lots of different spaces. There is a lot of overlap. I think video is probably where we found the most success, in terms of developing content and distributing. Video specifically for Facebook has been fantastic for us. We're repurposing a lot of that video content again. We like to recycle. We put it in a lot of places. We're trying to incorporate it into the site. We use it for things like Instagram Stories. It's been really fruitful, so that's been really fun. Stephanie: Very cool. Any key strategy that you have when it comes to guiding a customer through that buying journey while utilizing social? Laura: It's interesting. We have a really defined and fine-tuned digital marketing strategy. We work with a great partner that helps us distribute all of our paid advertising. That would include paid social. One of the things about paid social that I think is challenging for people... I do chat with folks who say, "Facebook doesn't really work for us." I am always surprised to hear that. I think part of it is, it's the type of content that you're putting out in terms of advertising on Facebook advertising. Making sure you have the right mix of video, and static ads and then dynamic remarketing ads are really important. Laura: I think the other thing, too, is how you measure it. Of course, there's different attribution models. Last click attribution and first click attribution. Of course, Facebook measures the performance differently than some other folks might measure it. We base it on Facebook's measurement. When you base it that way, you'll see that the programs themselves actually perform much better than if you base it on the other attrition models out there using Google Analytics. Stephanie: That's interesting. I definitely see Facebook stepping their game up with the launch of I think it's Facebook Shops just yesterday or the day before. Laura: Yeah. It's so interesting. The landscape is changing quite a bit. I was actually talking about this recently with the CEO, because we see organic shifting quite a bit. We're doing a lot, in terms of SEO on the website and building organic content. We have a blog that we try to regularly publish. It's made a big impact on our SEO, but then all of a sudden when you have the search results pages changing to favor, again, more ad space? You do immediately see a falloff in your organic search results. Paid search all of a sudden is also doing much better, but you're also spending a lot more money perhaps than you had intended to. Stephanie: Are you guys doing any quick pivots to try and bring back the organic searches? How do you think about that when things change so quickly? Laura: Yeah. I don't think there is a quick pivot with organic. Organic is a long game, as always. The pivot that we're doing right now, and I wouldn't even call it that. We are looking at our digital strategy on a daily basis and really refining things. So if we see something taking off, we are chasing it. A great example is shopping at one point was doing very poorly. We didn't know why and watched it for about a week or two. It was right when things were headed down to a flat line period at the end of March. Everybody was in kind of a lull. Then all of sudden things turned around and a lot of e-commerce folks were seeing a spike. As soon as we saw that spike, we chased it. I think that's the thing. You really have to be on top of it and know when to chase it and keep increasing your budget. Laura: We've increased our budgets in area like shopping more than we've typically been comfortable. I would say the same goes for Facebook Prospecting. We found that Facebook Prospecting is performing incredibly well for us. We do a lot of prospecting with video ads for Facebook as well, and those are very productive too. Stephanie: Very cool. Did you have to adjust any messaging when it came to acting fast on that? With everything going on with the pandemic, did you kind of change how you target people and market to them? How do you think about that? Laura: We changed the messaging. Yeah. We definitely wanted to make sure we weren't being tone deaf to what was going on. We definitely pulled down any ads that had anything to do with travel-related products. We have a great travel collection. We pulled down all of those because nobody was going to be traveling. I think the thing that we did more so than the actual ad strategy was our product strategy changed a little bit. We wanted to look at our product from the viewpoint of how we could add more value to it, to help solve problems for people who were now stuck at home and still had life to conduct. Laura: The example I'll give is Easter came around and people were kind of caUght off guard by the idea that, "Oh, our Easter family celebration is not going to happen. The Easter egg hunt is not going to happen. I have a grandchild. How are we going to commemorate this holiday that is very important to a good portion of the population?" We quickly partnered with a local chocolate company that had just laid off most of its workforce. They were able to bring back five of their employees to help produce chocolate to put in our Easter buckets. Stephanie: That's great. Laura: Within a very short period of time... We thought, "We might sell 50 of these over the next three or four days." We sold over 700. It was one of those things that every day, we said, "How many more do we need?" It was really a matter of how much chocolate could the chocolate maker make in that short period of time? It was a real success story, in being able to reach out, help a fellow business in the community, but also solve some problems for customers. The comments we got from customers were unbelievable. Just saying how appreciative they were because they weren't going to be able to see their family and bring them something. This is how they were able to do that. Laura: So that was really rewarding. That afforded us a lot of opportunity in our digital advertising to reach new customers, to convert customers who were prospects and who were already looking into the brand. It was more about just being relevant with a message that solved a problem for customers. So then we took that same product strategy and same digital strategy and expanded it onto Mother's Day, and Father's Day, and Graduation. Even though a lot of the stay-at-home orders have been loosened a bit? I think a lot of people are still looking for some convenience to eliminate any unnecessary visits to stores that they don't want to make. Stephanie: Yeah. I completely agree. That's such a good strategy, to find partnerships like that. I could see that lasting into the future, where a lot of brands start thinking about who they can partner with. That seems like it would help future-proof both brands, if they figure out ways to work together and send business to each other. I think we'll see more of that over the coming years. Laura: Yeah. I hope so. I know for our brand, we're not going to stop doing it. It was a pilot that was a success. Now we've realized there is an opportunity here and the customers see the value in it. We've always been very collaborative as a brand. We typically do reach out and collaborate with a handful of companies that are like-minded in their business practices and approach. What we often bring to the table is that we're a sustainable product and they might not have that same messaging in their product that they can offer. Or the fact that we're a Made in the U.S.A. product, which again is really valuable to a lot of brands to partner with us. So we have similar mindsets and very much focused the Coastal lifestyles perhaps. Laura: A more recent relevant example, we're partnering right now with Life Is Good. If you're not familiar with that brand, they are an apparel and accessory company that basically delivers the message of optimism in all of their designs. Really quirky designs that we are now able to add to a Sea Bag, and then with these really important optimistic messages during this time that we're all going through. It resonates really broadly with customers. That's another example of ways that we reach out and collaborate. It's given Life Is Good an opportunity to have a Bag story that they sell to their audience, and it gives us a different story in terms of different designs and messaging for our audience as well. Stephanie: That's great. When it comes to messaging, does the consumer know the background of the flag, where it came from and the journeys that sailboat went on? Do they have any insights into that, so they can find of feel connected to their bag even more? Laura: Yeah. It's interesting. We would love to be able to pedigree every bag, but when you start talking about 700 tons of sails that we've saved from landfills, it's really, really challenging to figure out how we could actually catalog that many sails. On a one-to-one basis, no. But what we do is when we take a sail in, our customers are so great about wanting to share the stories. So we've had many cases where a Sail Trade, is what we call it. The customer will bring a sail into our store, for example. Just show up and unfold the sail right in the middle of the retail store and start talking about, "Oh, this is the sail that was on my grandfather's boat. As a kid, we sailed." They just go into this long elaborate story. What we try to do is get somebody from the marketing team downstairs to take notes, and talk to them about it and basically interview them a little bit about what the story behind the sail is. Because that stuff is so meaningful. Laura: We have a really great one on our website called The Santana Sail Trade Story. The gentlemen, Ben, tells the story about how this boat meant everything to him. He had this boat since he was 15. At this point, he was in his late 40s, maybe early 50s. He still has the boat but was retiring the sails. He talked about the different moments that that boat was present for his life and every smudge and stain on that sail means something. He hoped that everybody who buys a bag really understands how meaningful the heart of the sails are. Stephanie: That's great. Feeling like you're connected to a community like that, and another person, without even knowing them, I think it's super important. What people are going to want after all this. Now we're all getting in the state where we're connecting with people that we don't even know online. Laura: Right. Stephanie: We're getting used to that now. I think moving in that direction is really smart and also just fun. Knowing that you have something that has experienced things that you could never even think of. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. We like to say that carrying a Sea Bag is like carrying a story on your shoulder. Stephanie: Yeah. That's great. Have you ever had a sail come through where you're like, "This is from a pirate ship?" Laura: I don't know about that. There is a type of sail called tanbark. It's like a dyed tan-colored sail. The lure of tanbark, it's not often used in sail manufacturing today. It's definitely not as common. The lure is that the pirates, they used to use tanbark sails so that they wouldn't be seen on the horizon with the sunset. It was the way that they were able to sneak about in the ocean and not be spotted in the distance with a bright white sail. Stephanie: That's cool. So if you see one of those come through, you'll know. You'll know where it came from. Laura: Yeah, exactly. I do think we have some tanbark on the site right now. It is definitely a little bit more rare and we tend not to offer it all the time. But I think we have a handful of tanbark designs right now. They're just so cool because they are really uncommon and we don't always offer it. Stephanie: I'd also be giving the side eye to whoever brought that in, like, "What did you do to get this sail?" Laura: Exactly! I could be looking for their medallion. "Are you actually a pirate?" Stephanie: Yeah. I know. "Tell me." Obviously retail is on hold right now, but I saw you guys were expanding. Expanding actually one place that is close to my heart, Rehoboth Beach, in Delaware. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie: We used to go there every single summer. I'm from Maryland. Such a cute beach town. How are you thinking about utilizing brick and mortar stores? How are they lifting each other up and accelerating your e-commerce as well? Laura: That's a great question. By the end of this year, we'll have 33 stores, spanning 12 states. That's really exciting for us because when I joined the company, we had two stores. That's a lot of growth. We open four to six stores a year. We're opening eight this year, alone, which is really, really exciting. I think that one of the important things with meshing the retail business and the online business is just a general omnichannel approach. Right? Laura: Our CEO likes to say that the e-commerce site is our biggest retail store. It carries all the products for the brand and you can see them all there at any time. And you go to our stores, and the stores may have most of those products but some different selections that might be regionally appropriate. For example, you mentioned Rehoboth Beach. There might be some coastal nautical chart bags down in the Rehoboth Beach store relevant to that regional area. So there's some things like that. But we try to do... Stephanie: Crabs all over the bags and whatnot? Laura: Right. Yeah. To customize and be relevant to that local region. If you were to go to a store and they didn't have a product, the great thing is that you can log onto the iPad at the store. They can get the bag for you that you were looking for and ship for free. We're using an endless aisle concept that leverages the flexibility that we have as a just-in-time manufacturer. We make our bags on demand for customers. It's great to have that flexibility, where we don't have lead times to worry about. We're sourcing everything locally here in the United States. Most everything we source is within New England. That's really criticaL, in terms of being able to take an order and turn it around in a matter of days. Stephanie: Yeah. That's huge. With all this expansion that you guys are experiencing, how have you had to adjust your technology, your platforms you're using. What does that process look like with such a large amount of change that you guys have been experiencing? Laura: Yeah. It's great. I'm actually really excited about this. It's very timely. We decided right in the beginning of this year to move forward with replatforming our website. It's a huge endeavor. We realize that over the last six years, we've been on this very exciting ride of growth and expansion. Quite simply, we've outgrown the website platform that we're using. I do find it really rewarding to think that we have squeezed every ounce that we could get out of the current platform we're on. There's nothing that we have left unturned. Laura: Embarking onto this new platform, we're working with Salesforce Commerce Cloud. There are so many new opportunities for us to improve the customer experience and to refine our practices, in terms of how we approach selling to customers. Using new technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning, personalization, I think we're going to be as a team much more efficient and much more sophisticated in how we are able to speak to our customers and give them what they want. It's going to take us a lot less time to manage that. I'm really excited about being able to grow the business utilizing those types of tools specifically for the e-commerce website. But the great thing is that it really does trickle into the other channels as well that we sell in retail, for example, too. Stephanie: Yeah. That's very cool. Tell me a little bit more details around how you plan on using AI. When you think of using that with Commerce Cloud, what are your ideas around how that's going to improve the consumer experience? What does that look like? Laura: Yeah. We have some personalization currently on the site that we do. Not too much. It's mostly personalized recommendations. I'm really looking forward to using that, in terms of... One of the most exciting things for me is the merchandising of the site and making sure that the predictive sort of the categories. When a customer lands on a page with 150 different wristlets, that the ones that are most relevant to them are actually rising to the top. It's not based on a static presentation of what we think is the most important things to put at the top. Laura: I think that's really important. One of the things on our roadmap after the site is launched, is to actually take a look at the marketing opportunities in terms of email marketing and how we can pull some of the artificial intelligence into the journey map of the customer and how we message to the customer in their lifecycle. I think a lot of those components as well will be really exciting to start to create not just a series. I think in the past, people have created a welcome series, or a trigger series after they buy X product. Laura: I think instead what I want this to be is a more dynamic opportunity to generate emails to customers that are, again, pulling in predictive content. So the customers have performed certain activities, and then the machine learning decides, "Okay, great. Because they did these five things, the most relevant thing to put here is this item and a message about this." That's what I'm excited about. And then being able to look at that data. I think the data is so exciting too, and knowing what works and what's not working. And being able to do site tweaks and adjustments to it will be really helpful. Stephanie: Yeah. I completely agree. I was just going to ask, were there any metrics that you paid attention to in the past that you think it will be way easier to get to? Or that you weren't able to access easily because it was too hard to maybe compile all the data and see it easily. What are some of those metrics if so, that are now going to be accessible to you that'll really help? Laura: I'm not sure if this definitely going to make it easier. But what I'm really more excited about is seeing... The measurements are customer lifetime value and customer acquisition costs. Starting to really understand the customer lifecycle better. So that once we see customers logging onto the website. Also, we just launched a Customer Loyalty program. Getting customers more engaged and in the habit of, "To get your reward points, logging in and making sure." We're keeping track of what customers are doing and delivering them relevant content, as opposed to just sending them too many emails. Laura: I think I was telling you, I'm in the process right now of cleaning out my email and unsubscribing from everything possible. I don't want people to have that experience with our brand. Saying, "You guys just email me too much." I want the contact that we're sending them to be interesting. The one thing I will tell you, and again this goes back to how we engaged our audience is. The open rates on our emails are really high. The click through rates are high. Our customers, like when we do these auctions periodically on the website. Laura: After the auction is complete, we usually take a look at who won the auction. We'll just see who the customer is. What's their lifecycle like? Almost every time when we do this, the customers email open rate is over 80%. They're highly-engaged people. Of course, they're participating in an auction. You would assume that. But it is so interesting to see somebody opening that emails from us. That to me, is a real testament to the strength of the brand and how engaged people are. Stephanie: That means you're definitely doing something right. For sure. How are you assembling the team for this digital transformation that you guys are about to undergo? How are you thinking about aligning your organization and your team members so everyone can help make this transition quick and easy? Laura: Yeah. That is critical. So what we did, it's probably not so different than what a lot of other folks might do. I assembled a core team. A Project Manager whose in charge of managing the project with our Systems Integrator. Then I have a Lead Developer in-house. His job is really to get into the technical details behind the development and transition. Because he has been primarily responsible for all of the development on our current website. I'm on the team, more from a strategic guidance standpoint and decision-making. Then our CEO has been really involved as well, which I really appreciate. Laura: This is the biggest project that our company has undertaken in the last six years, to do this type of major replatforming. It's a totally new platform. We've done some previous site launches and relaunches, but this one's pretty huge. I still have a number of other people on my marketing team who will participate and we'll start pulling them in one-by-one. We'll also embarking on a training curriculum, that we're developing in-house for our team. That's going to be going on while we're doing the developing, so that we're ready to go when the site's ready to launch. Laura: We're also looking at peripheral technology that is impacted by this transition. So an example I might give you is, our shipping platform and how we ship products. That was impacted. We needed to make a decision to shift to another provider. We assembled pilot team to get together and review the technology available and the vendor. We got all our decision-makers in one room and everybody agreed said, "Yes, let's do it." We've been making these decisions quickly. Kind of in that agile methodology of those sprints. Laura: Part of that is a function of how the Systems Integrator has outlined and structured the project. We have a very tight timeline, too. We're looking to have the website launched by October 1st. We started it in mid-March. We're definitely on an accelerated scheduled and we don't want to miss any milestones. Knock on wood, we are currently on target. So I'm excited about that. Stephanie: That's so fun. I can't wait to see the new site and try it out. Are there any digital commerce trends that you guys are preparing for, as you're launching this new platform and putting out a V2 of the brand? Are you preparing anything in the e-commerce space that you think is coming down the pike, that you're thinking, "We better get ready for this, or this trend?" Laura: No. I can't say that we're focused on anything like that right now. We're definitely mostly looking at the capabilities of the new platform. Like I said, the AI and machine learning component is so rich, that we see that as foundation to changing how we approach, how we do our marketing strategies and communicate with customers. So I think that's really the biggest opportunity for us. Stephanie: Very cool. One side question I had was, when you have your customers tagging all these photos and they're flowing into your website, are people able to buy from those photos right now? Laura: Yeah. On a limited basis right now. When we launch the new site, it'll much more prolific. You'll be able to buy from almost all of them. Stephanie: Yeah. That's great. Laura: I think that's really critical and it's important. Stephanie: Yeah. I know. When I was looking at all the different photos that you guys were getting tagged in, I'm like, "Oh, I want this Bag." There was this one alignment. It was like a tan orangeish bag but it had a duffle bag, and a bigger bag and there was like three of them together. I'm like, "If I could just click in and get this set, it would be so much easier than going into the website and trying to find out what this is called, or trying to figure out which one it was." Laura: Yeah. It's really interesting. The thing about user-generated content is that the customers put the product in context that we wouldn't necessarily be able to in our marketing because it wouldn't make sense. I'll give you an example. Just this week, we received a review from a customer, that was a picture of what they were calling a COVID Survival Pack that they were sending out their friends. It was a Sea Bag's beverage bucket bag. A beverage bucket is kind of a like a tall 14-inch high bucket that has handles, and the interior has six pockets for six beers. Then in the very middle is like a cavity that you can put ice and it has a grommet in the bottom, so that the ice can melt and escape out of the bottom of the bag. So it's a collapsible cooler. Laura: While they were filling the buckets with six Corona beers, and then put a roll of toilet paper in the center. They were mailing these out to their friends as COVID Survival Packs. It got such a laugh for us. It also is great, in terms of giving other customers ideas on ways to use our product in a way that is memorable and fun. Yeah. There's a lot of that. But like I said, that whole idea of content creation... While a lot of stuff can come from us and we can push it out, when it comes our audience, it's even more relevant. Stephanie: Yeah. That's such a fun idea. I want one of those Survival Packs right now. Person whoever made that, please send one my way. I want lime as well. Laura: Yeah. The lime would be great. Stephanie: Yeah. That's a necessity. That's a good point, too, for larger brands. We work with a lot of larger brands developing podcasts for them and whatnot. When you have your customers, where they can actually interact how they want. They don't have to go through the brand policy team and all these approvals and things like this, where maybe 80% of it would never get past the company's PR team. But when the customers are able to engage the way that they want to, it seems like it allows for more organic conversations to start and just things that maybe wouldn't normally get past the actual internal policies. It makes it more fun to have those customers who can do that stuff. Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. Stephanie: So to shift a little bit. Are you the founder of Women in Retail Leadership Circle? Laura: No, not the founder. Stephanie: Tell me about that. Laura: I'm very flattered. No. Women in Retail Leadership Circle is a national organization that basically connects senior women in leadership, C level and director level, in retail organizations. They were started about seven years ago. They're backed by NATCO Media. I was a founding advisory board member, on the team there. So I've been involved over the last almost seven years. They've grown significantly in size over that time. It's one of the most energized and engaged leadership groups I've ever participated in. They have an Annual Conference that I can say is nothing short of transformational. It has been rescheduled this year for October. I'm hoping that I'll be traveling, to be able to go to it. Laura: Even so, during COVID. The conference is usually in April. They were very quick to figure out how they could be of service to their audience. They set up peer groups that leaders could participate in on a biweekly basis with opportunities to share advice and experience with other senior female leadership. During more normal times, they do regular what they call On The Road Events, where you can connect in a major city, like Boston or New York, over an evening of cocktails or something like that with leaders like Rebecca Minkoff talking about her leadership struggles perhaps. It's a great way to collaborate with other companies. Laura: I've been able to uncover new tactics and strategies for growth. I also use it as a tool to refine my leadership style, because there's a lot of inspirational leadership that we share in those, like I said, events that they sponsor. They're doing a lot of stuff virtually right now. The thing I like the most about it, is it's noncompetitive. It's just great personal development at the senior leadership level, which I think there doesn't happen to be a lot of that typically. A lot of the personal development that happens in organizations usually is more at a junior level. Stephanie: That's really cool. Is there anyone in the industry that you look to for not only leadership, but maybe different tactics or strategies that they're trying out or doing? Do you keep an eye on anyone to incorporate at Sea Bags? Like incorporate what they're doing? Laura: Yeah. I look at a lot of brands, which is the reason why I need to pair down my emails so much. I do. I track a lot of folks. I also follow a lot of people on LinkedIn, because I feel like it's just a great opportunity to see what everyone's doing. As a brand, we try to spend time benchmarking and keeping our eye on brands, again, that are very, very correlated with our DNA. Coastal lifestyle brands, like Sperry Top-Sider, Life is Good, a very inspirational brand. We have a lot of partnerships like that. We also try to keep an eye towards some more local name brands too that we partner with, and just benchmarking what they're doing. Laura: And we also share a lot of information too. An example of that would be Stonewall Kitchen, which is a gourmet food brand. They also are on Sales Commerce Cloud. While we were going through this whole replatforming project, being able to reach out to people within our network and benchmark around what their experiences were on their websites platforms and technologies that they're using is really important. Stephanie: That's great. Having that little network that you can tap into and be like, "Hey, how did you guys do this?" Or, "Does this work better, or this strategy?" That's really fun. And all about, once again, tying it back to having that community that you can tap into to get answers from and learn from people who've already gone through that. Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Over the years, that's one thing that I learned very early in my career. Some of my leaders, actually one that I'm still working with today, who is on our Board at Sea Bags, taught me how important that skill of networking was and that networking is a two-way street. It's really important to make sure that you're not only asking things of people and keeping in touch with them, but you're also being a value to them as well, in terms of that networking relationship. Stephanie: Yeah. That's such a great point. Coming up next we have the Lightning Round, which I can tell you a little bit more about in a second. But do you have thoughts or ideas that you want to share before we move onto that? Laura: Geez, thoughts that I want to share. Stephanie: Anything that we missed? Laura: I'm sure there's something we missed. But I think we covered a lot, too. I'm excited to hear what the Lightning Round is all about. Stephanie: All right. Cool. So the Lightning Round, bought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It's where I ask a question and you have one minute or less to answer. Are you ready? Laura: I guess so. Stephanie: All right. What's up next on your reading list? Laura: Oh, on my reading list. I am about to start... I'm like one chapter in. A book by the founder of IDEO. I think his name is Dave Kelly, if remember correctly. It's a book all about innovation and idea generation and how to approach innovation a little bit differently. I'm really excited about that. I'm definitely one of those people that reads multiple books at once, too. Stephanie: Yeah. Me, too. I think they did have a space here in Palo Alto, right down the street from us. Laura: Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. The name of the book is The Art of Innovation. Stephanie: Okay. Cool. Laura: It's Tom Kelly. I got his name wrong. Stephanie: Tom Kelly. Got it. For everyone, Tom Kelly. Yeah. That's really funny. We went and we were touring office spaces. We toured through their building. It was very forward-thinking and innovative. I mean, just like what you were talking about. It was all about R&D and trying new things. It was cool to see the inner workings of their space. Laura: Very cool. Stephanie: What's up next on your Netflix or Hulu Video? Laura: Oh, I am watching Ozark. I know I'm a little painfully behind. Yeah. I'm trying to make my way through into, I think, season three of Ozark. I am really enjoying that and it's a problem I will sometimes stay up way to late trying to fit in just one more episode. Stephanie: Yeah. Me, too. I love that show. What's the next conference you're excited about attending? Laura: I am really excited about the Women in Retail Leadership Conference. Like I said, I hope it's happening in October. This is, as I mentioned, it's a transformational opportunity for me to go talk with other senior female leaders about their challenges and opportunities and where they're seeing growth within their companies. I've walked away from this conference before getting lots of new ideas, new business opportunities and third-party partners to work with and collaboration opportunities. So that to me is what I'm most looking forward to and I hope that it still happens, especially because it's in Miami in October, which will be a really nice time of year to be there. Stephanie: That's very cool. I'll have to check that out. What are you doing for fun these days? Any passions that you have? Laura: I am actually, after this podcast, going to jump on my boat with my husband and two kids for the first time this season. That is actually our big passion. This is the kickoff to boating season in Maine, Memorial Day weekend. Usually while I'm on the boat, the things that I do is knit. I've been knitting a sweater for four years now, that I am committed to finishing this year. That's my goal. Stephanie: You have to post a picture when it's done, so we can all see it. Laura: I will. I hope it actually fits. I'm kind of laughing at it going, "I don't even know if this is going to fit." I end up probably giving it as a gift. Stephanie: Yeah. My mom got into sewing and knitting and all that. She was trying to make us outfits, just for fun. Sweaters and things like that. She ended making one that ended up having to go towards our Shih Tzu dog because it... She was like, "Oh, this went really wrong." Laura: Yeah. It can go wrong quickly. That's what I'm worried about. I've ripped out a few rows of this a few times and I'm not sure I recounted correctly. So we'll see. I post a picture regardless of what it looks like. Stephanie: Great. It's a journey. Laura: Yeah. Stephanie: The next hard question. You guys at Sea Bags are moving quick. You're having to transition platforms. It's your job to stay ahead on the expectations and your competition and all that. What do you think is up next for e-commerce pros? Laura: Up next for e-commerce pros. I think that we really are going to have to focus on is how to take omnichannel retailing to the next level. I think that that term, omnichannel, is really broadly thrown around. I think that people don't really understand what it is. I think that we need to be able to deliver a seamless customer experience regardless of where they're shopping and figure out, also, how to do it without inconveniencing customers with asking for their information repeatedly. Laura: I think that's one of the challenges in retail, is being able to know when somebody places an order in one of your retail stores, and being able to translate that into their customer profile so that you have, again, that really full 360-degree picture of that journey of that customer and really knowing what their full lifetime value is. Again, so that you can come back and customize and personalize their shopping experience and make it more rich. They feel valued because they know that you're speaking to them in a way that is informed and caring about what value they play for your brand. Stephanie: That's a great answer. Laura, it's been blast. Thank you for coming on the show. For all our listeners, go check out Sea Bags and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast. Let's help spread the word and spread stories like the one Laura shared today. Laura, thanks. I hope to have you back. Laura: Thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute joy. Stephanie: It really was. Yeah.  

Do you ever wonder what happens when the police leave? Crime scene cleaners are private companies that handle to clean up after the police are gone. Spaulding Decon is one of the nation's largest cleanup companies handling the aftermath of homicides, suicides, decompositions, hoarding, and much more. These are our stories. So I'm getting ready to go in for the initial shock. I can smell biohazard pet waste and I can smell the ammonia from the cats. The walls are yellowing from the smoke- from smoking inside the building. This is a- this is just- there's a cat that just ran back that way. This is a huge case of depression. This isn't the worst. We've seen far worse. I don't have any gloves on right now, so I'm just trying to kick the doors open. There's animal waste everywhere. Everywhere, I'm not going to venture any further in right now cause I am not fully dressed up for this but I just kind of wanted to see what we were working with. I feel like I wish you guys had smell-o-vision so you could actually smell what we're smelling right now. It's actually burning my nose. I feel like my nose hairs are sizzling from the ammonia. We are at a hoarder's home here. We are starting in the garage and we have our big dumpster. I'm suited up because we are going to be going inside and its got a lot of animal waste and its probably knee-high with trash and stuff. So I've got this on here. I'll probably wear a respirator since the ammonia levels are decently high.She has 2 cats but she has 2 dogs as well, and they've never been let out. It's just really 8 years of accumulation. It breaks my heart because I have 2 dogs- 2 teacup Yorkies- and Laura said that the dogs that are here are identical to mine and mine are spoiled rotten. It's heartbreaking. We're an animal-loving company we all have animals it's gut-wrenching to me.Kyle: Just knowing like my dogs are inside Laura: YeahKyle: Fucking kills me Laura: But the hardest part is knowing she didn't do this on purpose Kyle: No, no this is a clear case of depressionLaura: It's hard. It's hard.Kyle: What?... That fucking thing was heavy Laura: Yeah fucking speed it up. Knees to the chest! Kyle: Knees to chest, bitch.Kyle and Laura: Knees to the chest! Laura: Let's do this!Kyle: Go ahead. Can you? 1..2..3Juan: This job is a little nasty but it's not so hard. It's an easy job. To do a hoarding... that's easy.Ben: You could tell she was really depressed. You could tell she was going through something.Kyle: I love total cleanouts because it makes life so much simpler not having to pick and choose. We only have a tiny list.Laura: Right, but also it like a huge transformation and biohazard remediation. I love the before and after Kyle: oh 100%. Instant satisfaction.Laura and Kyle: ♪ we are family leave♪ Kyle: No we're not. Don't even try.Kyle: There are 2 that are seen. I am waiting for the 3rd. I will cry if it's up my leg.Laura: Where did they go? Kyle: I don't know which is why I'm freaking out Laura: Oh, I thought you guys put them outside or somethingBen: No, they started going up the wall so I left them alone. Kyle: I swear to god. It's not a spider though I couldn't tell that from far away. Laura: What are these poor cats eating? Kyle: Leftovers on the floor. You have to look at the expiration on it. 2008?!? No!Kyle: They'll die. They're better off eating roaches. I want to give you an update on the hoarding situation here in Pasco County, Florida. We are probably 6 1/2 hours into the cleanup. There are 5 of us here. We have already dumped one large trailer of this size and now we almost have the second one completely full here. So this is 24 cubic yards of biohazard waste. It holds up to 2 1/2 to 3 tons right there. But we started off with the garage and we are using it as a staging area for very few keep items that she wanted to keep which was really just jewelry, purses, and pictures. So this room was pretty bad here. It was probably knee-high maybe a little higher. The kitchen had a ton of spiders and roaches. So it was challenging to get them all in garbage bags. So follow me. We found food from 2008 and I mean it was really old stuff you can see on the floor finally. There are still tons of spiders and tons of fast food and food packages. We're really going to end up throwing 99% of all her house away and she's gonna start fresh so this was probably stacked I would say about 4 ft high. Then this room, we're working on this now we couldn't even walk in here so at least now you can see some carpet and then we have all of this debris here so you know she's only keeping like this TVand stuff but take a look at the ceiling fan that is years of accumulation. You have tons of feces back here to the bed so it looks like they were using this room for their bathroom. You know, animals want to be clean but when you leave them alternatives, they don't really have anywhere else to go so. Now in this room you can see tons and tons of bags of cat food and we have a couple more hours here this project will take us probably two days to do a clean-out of five people and then two days to really deep clean it and get it you know we're all these spiderwebs and everything or on the ground, we're gonna pull this carpet up we're gonna pull the padding up and she is going to start fresh which is fantastic because she's gonna get a brand new beginning andI'm happy to give it to her. Ben: Monday if she's having flooring guy comment I'm just gonna also have a painter commend she doesn't need to replace any of their fixtures because we were able to clean them in salvaged out bathroom we've all used it at least twice today bedroom cobwebs are actually on the outside everything on the inside is clean we remove the floors wipe everything down since she's painting and redoing the floors we left them aside for her be easier for her new crew to come in and see carousel hallway. Again the closet the limits this is the worst room in the whole actually with the equal matter you see here it's actually gonna have a hard laminate or tile pudding so she's having all the tax dripping ripped up because we weren't able to actually clean it. We could have done that pushing things in you a-hole reader. I think we do provide hope and I think we provide a new beginning a new lease on life a new start and this house is the perfect scenario she lost her entire family eight years ago she's in a deep depression and she's living in filth because this is the way that she feels inside and just from the first time meeting her she's so embarrassed and she's so sad and I just wanted to help her and I want to transform this house to where when she comes home. She's actually happy to be home and she's not living in spiders and roaches and milk from 2017 and you know the stench in here is just for it the cat's the dogs there are feces everywhere, so no one should have to live like that and it's just super sad that someone can get that depressed that they want their environment to match how they feel on the inside. It's just super sad and you know I think the biggest misconception that I see from our followers and viewers is they think the hoarders are lazy and that honestly could not be further from the truth. They're not lazy, they are debilitated by depression and I know everyone has had a bad day and they've been depressed or sad at some point in their life where you just want to lay on the couch all day well that day that you're laying on the couch you're probably not putting your trash in a bag and taking it out imagine that every single day for years and that's what's causing these people to do this. They are not lazy at all they're just debilitated by depression and a tragic event that happened in their life.

Listen to Laura talk about the summer internship processes for grad students in a range of industries. Transcript: Stephanie: Hi there. You're listening to Gear Up Season 2, where we bring you the Duke Career Center's on career advisers and talk about a variety of summer internship experiences. My name's Stephanie. And today, we're talking to Laura, who advises graduate students on a range of industries. Laura: Sure. I am Laura Coutts. I am a graduate career advisor in the Career Center. And I work specifically with students in the arts, humanities, environment, policy, and divinity. I have a broad portfolio. Stephanie: That is a lot. So generally speaking and then within each of those areas, how early do you usually advise students to start looking for summer opportunities? Laura: Sure. I think it really depends on industry. I would say for those students who are interested in nonprofit, the smaller companies, really, you can look in the spring. But if you're looking more for larger organizations, finance, business, things like that, a lot of that hiring timeline is going to be in the fall. So that'll probably be September, October. The first few months of a school year, you would start looking for an internship that would start that next summer. Stephanie: And where do you usually draw on students to find those internships? Like what kind of resources are available to them? Laura: Yeah, a lot of that, again, depends on industry. So thinking about some of our environment students, there are some really great opportunities there. Stand back, which is also run through the Nicholas School. Thinking about some of our other students. A lot of the time, too. I'll talk to them about, you know, what are second, third year students? What have they been up to and how have they found their internships? Because especially I think about like the arts and humanities, a lot of students are networking for smaller organizations. And so there's not necessarily one central receptacle. Laura: If you're going to this Web site, you will find everything listed, a lot of it in the nonprofit arts humanities is much more kind of networking based or conversations with people you're interested in. Stephanie: So do you usually connect students to older students or is there like good networking platforms? Laura: Yeah, I mean, part of it, too, is just asking people, do you know any second your Masters students? And they're like, oh, yeah, I live with one, right? Or they interact with each other regularly, but they don't think of each other as resources. And so part of it, we just talk about what their social circles look like and who else kind of what are their activities they do around Duke. And so sometimes those are really good opportunities. Otherwise sometimes we'll just do a really quick LinkedIn search, right? Or Duke alumni network, kind of. Who else has been in your shoes before? How do they navigate this situation? Stephanie: Yeah. So let's say students have kind of figured out a number of internships opportunities that they want to apply to. They're preparing for an interview process. Now, what kind of preparation or advice you get to students of things to really be looking to showcase during their interview process, depending upon whatever industry they're going to differentiate? Laura: Sure. You know, I think the biggest thing in interviews is really about self-awareness, right. It's not always about knowing the specific information that you need for that industry or they're not looking for you to be an expert. They will train you in any internship you have. I always joke around with people and say, like every job I've ever had, I've been trained for except for babysitting. And I probably should have had better training for that. So I would say even if you're at an internship and they ask you or an interview and they ask you like you know about the specific information, I say it's less about knowing the answer an

PMI Talent Triangle: Technical Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! Today I am super excited to share an extremely important topic for all of us as PMO leaders and those leveraging the power of project management to make an IMPACT. We are going to be talking about the importance of mentoring, and both being a mentor and finding one. And how that can be transformational for your career, being on both sides of the fence as a mentor and a mentee. And the perfect person to talk to us about all of this is my friend, Elizabeth Harrin. Elizabeth is a healthcare project manager with over 15 years of experience in the field. She's the author of several books about project management and I highly recommend you check them out. So we'll make sure that we have them in the show notes for you. And she writes the award-winning blog, A Girl's Guide to Project Management. Welcome Elizabeth. Thank you for being here today. Learn the best-kept secrets to creating a PMO that drives IMPACT.  The LIVE dates are over, but you can still access this content with the Unlimited Access Pass!.fusion-button.button-227 {border-radius:2px;}UNLIMITED ACCESSLaura:  Elizabeth, we have been chatting as a part of your role in providing a lot of value for the PMO IMPACT Summit. As we were talking a lot about the role of women in organizations, and finding confidence, and building confidence, one of the things that we talked about, one of the pieces of really important guidance that you shared was about mentorship, and both being a mentor and finding a mentor. I thought it'd be really important to share with everyone that listens to the PMO Strategies podcast about that role of mentorship. Because it's not just about women, it's not just about men, it's not just about certain environments. Everyone should have a mentor and find an opportunity to become a mentor. Can you talk to me about your experience with that and what guidance you have for people that are looking for mentorship? Elizabeth: For me, mentorship is the relationship where you have with someone where you can talk to and be confident in the advice that you're getting. I think you're right, people don't always understand what it is and how it differs from coaching. And for me, I understand it in a very simple way. Coaches will help you to uncover the solution yourself, by asking you very probing questions, or "How do you think you might be able to tackle that problem?" And things like that. Whereas a mentor would be someone you'd sit down with a cup of coffee with and say, "I've got this difficult challenge at work. Tell me how you'd do it." And they would share their stories. There is a part of mentoring where you're helping people develop their skills, and it's fine to ask them probing questions, but I think I feel better at mentoring and coaching because I am very opinionated. And I like to share my history and tell people how to do things. So I think for me it's a much more practical perhaps partnership than a coaching partnership, where you are building your skills through deeper analysis perhaps. Although both can be valuable. Mentoring is more common in a workplace setting, I think, because coaching seems to be something that the leaders get to do. Whereas everybody can have a mentor at any level in the organization. You can be a mentor and have a mentor at the same time, and both are fantastic opportunities for personal development. Laura: Yeah. You know, it's interesting that you're saying it that way because I think that's been my experience as well. I've had both mentors and coaches. And to me the coaches were always asking questions and probing, but never really shared their own experiences. And what I love about a mentoring relationship is that it's so much more about a conversation, and sharing stories and experiences, on both sides, so that there's a different way to learn. It's not just let's do some deep dive analysis on your strengths...

In today's episode, we help Laura get new members and also retain current members in her education business. Jocelyn: Hey, y'all. In today's podcast, we help Laura take her online education business to the next level. Shane: Welcome to the Flip Lifestyle Podcast, where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sam. We're a real family that figured out how to make our entire living online, and now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right, let's get started. Shane: What's going on everybody, welcome back to the Flip Lifestyle Podcast, it is great to be back with you again. Today, super excited to be with another member of the Flip Your Life community. This is a great episode, because this is a success story episode. This is a story with someone who has flipped their life. We're talking to Flip Your Life member Laura Keybart today. Hey, Laura, welcome to the program. Laura: Hey, thanks for having me, today. Jocelyn: Yes, we are so excited to talk to you, especially with this awesome success story. We look for cool success stories to find people to be on the podcast. This one was one we did not want to miss, for sure. So before we jump into all that, we want to know a little bit about you, your family, and what you're doing online. Laura: Okay, sure. So I have a wonderful, supportive husband who has been behind me every step of the way that I've been going through this journey. I'm a step mom, I love dogs, I'm a distance runner, always running marathons, training for something. I've always got something on the calendar. We love traveling, we love planning vacations and different experiences around running events like those. So while I run while he watches football or visits a history museum. Shane: Me and your husband would get along, dude. Like, if he's watching football, I just went to Philadelphia, and I hit like five history museums. He should have went with me, I'm just saying. He should have went with me. Laura: Yeah, yeah. Well, when I ran the Washington DC, the Marine Corp marathon, he was hitting the museums and visiting those places. So yeah, it works out. Jocelyn: Cool, cool. Laura: So I just completed my 18th year in education as a teacher. I taught english/language arts, which is reading and writing for, oh gosh, 15, 16 years, grade 6th through 12. The past couple of years, I was an instructional coach working with teachers at a local school district. Most of that was great, I love teaching and working with kids and teachers. But, it's kind of the same thing that we all experience. We become fed up with terrible bosses, all the crazy workplace drama, mind numbing, ridiculous meetings and committees that go nowhere, and you start just kind of looking around. Laura: What else could I do? I went through that. Is there something remote I could do? Something online I could do? Maybe I could teach myself how to code and build websites? Which, that was a joke, I tried that for a month. That's not me. But what could I do so that I have a purpose, I can serve people, but I can also bring in an income that I can live on? What options are there? So I started listening to podcasts around setting goals, and working remotely, maybe even working for yourself. I would listen to all of these podcasts while I was doing my long training runs. That's about the time I stumbled upon your podcast, it was maybe around episode, I don't know, 40 or 50 or so, starting binge listening. I thought, okay, that makes sense. This whole thing makes sense now. I think maybe I could do that. Maybe one day, I can quit my job. That sounds crazy, but so was running 22.6 miles. That's ridiculous too. (Full transcript at flippedlifestyle.com)  Links and resources mentioned on today's show: Laura's website Flip Your Life community 30-day trial Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what's possible for your family! Get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW! – https://flippedlifestyle.com/free You can connect with S&J on social media too!

The Berkeley Bowl CookbookRecipes Inspired By The Extraordinary Produce Of California's Most Iconic MarketBy Laura McLively Suzy Chase: Welcome to the Cookery by the Book Podcast, with me, Suzy Chase.Laura: I'm Laura McLively, and my new cookbook is the Berkeley Bowl Cookbook.Suzy Chase: Epicurious just named the Berkeley Bowl Cookbook one of the it cookbooks for Spring 2018. Tell us about Berkeley Bowl and the owners.Laura: So, Berkeley Bowl is a family-run market. They, Glenn and Diane Yasuda are the owners, and they opened up shop in a former bowling alley back in 1977, so a lot of people think that the store is called Berkeley Bowl because of the bowl alluding to some sort of edible culinary adventure, but it's actually named after the bowling alley, and so they opened up shop there back in 1977 because they used to live behind that location, and Glenn and Diane spent some time living in Japan, and that arrangement really reminded them of how shops were set up in there in Japan, where people had their store front and they lived behind it, and so, they bought the property, turned it into a grocery store that was mainly produce, and from there it evolved into what is now 40 years later a very big grocery store with over 600 employees.Suzy Chase: I found it really interesting that local farmers asked Berkeley Bowl what they should plant.Laura: Yeah, I do too. I think that that's the unique aspect of Berkeley Bowl, and that because it's still a family-run market, they're able to work directly with farmers and local growers to source and ask them to produce items that they want to have in their grocery store, that large grocery franchises can't really do that because they have to provide such huge quantities and take them to a centralized warehouse and distribute them to all the locations. They can't really work with a small farmer to produce some niche item, and so it's a really nice arrangement because in that way, Berkeley Bowl can ask a small farm to produce, for instance, food at hand, knowing that they have a huge customer base that wants that item, and then the small farmer has a guaranteed market for that item. They're not taking that huge risk of growing something that's maybe a little bit wacky or unknown to most people and risking no one buying it.Suzy Chase: The LA Times has called Berkeley Bowl one of the nation's most renowned retailers of exotic fruits and vegetables. Describe the first time you saw an African Horned melon at Berkeley Bowl, and what is it?Laura: So, that's a great question. If you have my book, it's right on the cover because it's such a unique item. It's on the back side, and it's a neon orange orb that is covered in darker orange spikes, and when you cut into it, it literally oozes this lime green juice and all these seeds, and it seriously looks like some sort of spiky hand grenade or a weapon from outer space, and in fact, the first time I saw it was featured on a Star Trek episode, where aliens in outer space are eating this fruit, and it's actually an African Horned melon. It's not something that they CGI'ed or created for the show. I think it's really interesting that it's ...Suzy Chase: That's funny.Laura: it's on Star Trek, but my first time seeing it in the store was I had moved here from Sonoma county. I moved to Berkeley to go to college, and I had heard about Berkeley Bowl, and I immediately went there because I wanted to check it out for myself, and I was, of course, struck by the variety they had. Even though I'd heard about it, I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. They had so many amazing fruits and vegetables that I'd never seen before, and I think, by far, the most extreme one is the African Horned melon, and I picked it up. I looked at it. There happened to be one that was cut in half, and I smelled it, and it just, it was kind of intoxicating. It smells like lime and banana and melon and cucumber all mixed together, but something in me didn't feel like I could take it home and eat it. It was almost like all these unusual fruits and vegetables that weren't part of my culture, I almost felt like I didn't have permission to take them home and cook with them, like they weren't mine. And it wasn't until years later, after an experience of living in Spain and having a cooking club there, where we were basically just challenging ourselves each week to cook with something we'd never cooked with before, it wasn't until coming back from there that I was really yearning to continue that spirit of adventurous cooking, that when I went back to Berkeley Bowl for the first time, and I saw these fruits and vegetables in that new context, I was like, well, hey, why aren't I doing this now? Why don't I continue that spirit of adventurous cooking from my own home? And so that's when I picked it up, brought it home, and played around with it and had so much fun developing recipes for it that I decided to start a blog where I would chronicle my adventures with doing that with each and every item in the store I could find.Suzy Chase: Yeah, before we talk about your blog, you have a line in your book that says, "Foods unfamiliar to me are as much a part of someone else's everyday diet as tomatoes are to my family."Laura: Exactly. Yeah, and so that fruit, every fruit and vegetable in my book is normal to someone, right?Suzy Chase: Yeah.Laura: And for good reason, so these things are really amazing, and they may be popular in other cultures, other countries, but even within the United States, other regions, and once you get over that fact of, once you realize that fact that these things are normal to someone, it kind of [inaudible 00:06:18] some of the intimidation in working with these fruits and vegetables because maybe at first glance they look like, oh, well I've never seen that before. I wouldn't possibly know what to do with it, but someone somewhere is cooking with that, otherwise it wouldn't be in the store, and it's probably for a very good reason.Suzy Chase: That's a really good thing to remember.Laura: Yeah, I think so.Suzy Chase: So, you chronicled your journey cooking with the market's ingredients on your blog called My Berkeley Bowl. Tell us about your blog.Laura: So, my blog was really just a personal challenge. It was a ... where I just chronicling my own personal challenge. Like I said, once I brought my first exotic or unfamiliar food home and had so much fun developing a recipe for it, I sort of just challenged myself to make my way through all the unfamiliar fruits and vegetables at Berkeley Bowl, and I thought, why don't I chronicle this adventure because there's bound to be some interesting discoveries and mishaps, which there were, and it could be some fun, and so I really was just writing for myself, and I was surprised that when I posted my first entry, it's kind of crazy how the internet works. I don't know how someone found it, but within a minute, I had a like, and I was kind of like what? How did someone find it? It's been ... At that point, I didn't even know how to tag my posts in a way that they were searchable. It was really just so fun, and so I was surprised to see it kind of grow, and people starting to comment and saying they really liked the concept, and even on Wordpress you can see in which countries people are reading your blog, and so really quickly, there were people all over the world reading it, and I don't know if it's maybe because they were excited to see maybe something that they grew up eating being featured on a blog, but it was really neat to see that it was being appreciated outside of the Berkeley area, and so I did that for ... Let's see. I started it in spring of 2015, and it was that December of the same year that Parallax Press approached me about turning it into a cookbook, and it just seemed like a great idea because it was such a finite project with a very specific aim of cooking with unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, and it just really seemed like it would work as a cookbook because part of what I wanted of this is to see, to really shine the spotlight on these fruits and vegetables, and so to have a beautiful, almost coffee table-like book with luscious photos by Erin Scott, that really capture how beautiful these fruits and vegetables are, is sort of a dream come true for me.Suzy Chase: In the book, the recipes are organized by type and ingredient. Talk a little bit about that.Laura: So, I didn't go the traditional route of organizing it by courses because this is really an ingredient-driven book. That's how my process was for developing the recipes, and so that's how the cookbook is laid out, so what I mean by that is I literally would walk into the store not knowing what I would find that day because it's different every day, based on what's in season, and I would pick up something new and bring it home, and after trying that one item in a jillion different ways, I would develop a recipe for it, and so it makes sense to me to organize the book in a way that really honors the fruit or vegetable itself rather than organize it by course because that's not how I developed the recipes. And in addition, I think it's really, it's kind of a poetic way to think about these things, but in a chapter, that if you want to delve into a chapter, you're working with spores and succulents, or you can work with flowers, seeds, and pods, and so I think it's a kind of poetic way to think about these things and just to treat them as the superstars or as the hero of the dish, rather than as an ingredient in a breakfast or in a dessert or in a dinner.Suzy Chase: You have a whole chapter dedicated to stems. What exactly are stems?Laura: Stems are basically anything that would be the stalk or the stem of a plant, and so, some examples in the book are things like Bạc Hà, which is the stem of the Elephant Ear plant, so it's a really spongy stem that once you cook it, it's like a sponge. It literally soaks up the broth, so it's really commonly used in, for instance, hot and sour soup type dishes, and I use it in a Spanish-style garlic soup. Other stems that maybe don't even look like stems are, like one that surprises people who are familiar with it is kohlrabi. The kohlrabi is, people think it's the bulb of the plant or the tuber, but it's actually a stem that's kind of in a round shape, so that one is, that's the kind of surprising one in that chapter. And then I have things like white asparagus and lemongrass, which is in a lemongrass coconut ice cream, [inaudible 00:11:44], cardoons, rhubarb, so all different colors and shapes and sizes that when you weigh them out, and if you have the book, you can see them laid out in the spread, and it's like art. It's these beautiful different shapes and sizes and colors.Suzy Chase: When I go to an ethnic market that has exotic produce, I'm so intimidated by the fruits or vegetables that I can't identify. What advice would you give someone like me, who's daunted by the unknown?Laura: Have some fun. There's no harm in making mistakes, and there's really, you really can't make mistakes first of all, but if you take it home and you try using it in a way that you don't like, no harm, no foul. You can just try again, but I think I would say that you would quickly find that the fun of doing it outweighs the fear of the unknown, and there's also of a lot of resources available to you. One thing I would say is if you're at a market and you're looking at something you're considering cooking at home, but you're not sure what to do with it, just stick around and wait because someone is bound to come up and reach for it, and it's a great way to interact and to share between cultures because you can ask the person, hey, what are you doing with that? And that's what I often did at the store, is I would sit around and wait for someone to reach for the burdock root, and I'd ask them, what do you do with that? Also, the staff at those places are usually very knowledgeable, and so you can ask them questions, and if they don't know, someone else might know, and they'll go grab them, so that happened a lot at Berkeley Bowl, where the staff is diverse with the community and is diverse with the offerings at the market, and so I was always able to get an answer from them. And then, of course, most of us have iPhones or smart phones, and so you can look it up. There's some great resources out there. You can find a lot of them on my blog, My Berkeley Bowl, but also Specialty Produce is a great website that has a lot of information on specialty produce as well.Suzy Chase: Yeah, I took the book with me to Chinatown because there's a bit of a language barrier, and that helped a lot, getting the produce that I needed to make some of these recipes.Laura: Oh, good. Yeah, I was hoping ... I'm hoping this book can sort of be a companion because of the nature of the items in it, a lot of times they have a short season or you have to go to a specific market to find them, and so my idea is that you just pack this up and take it there because you don't really know what you're going to find until you get there, so it's better to go see what's there, and then maybe look it up, and in the back there's a key, where all of the produce is pictured with numbers, and you can look up the name of it so that you can easily find it and identify it and make sure you're picking up the right thing.Suzy Chase: As a food explorer, and I love that title, how did you determine how to cook a mysterious fruit or vegetable? Walk us through how you developed these recipes in the book.Laura: Generally, once I got the item home, I started a process of what I call playing around with it, so generally I would try it raw to see what it tastes like in its pure form and really identify its flavor, and if it's something that needs to be cooked, I would usually cook it a couple different ways, and not necessarily the most, the way that it's most commonly used in that culture. So, I wanted to see if there were other ways to bring out its structure and flavor, so I'd broil it or braise it or roast it, grate it. I'd try as many ways as I could to see how I liked it the best, and then once I identified the way in which it, the way which truly honored its texture and its flavor, I was usually inspired by that point to incorporate some other flavors, so for instance, something like a green papaya, when I tried that on its own, it's really bright and acidic, and I knew I wanted to have it in a gazpacho because gazpacho should be very bright and acidic. So, from there, I fiddled around with what I wanted in the gazpacho. I threw in some avocado for creaminess and some cucumbers and limes and ultimately tried and tried and adjust and adjust until it's to the point where it can be tested, and then I would send it to a huge team of friends and recipe testers, I think there's about 35 of them all over the world, and someone would try it at least three times, and we would adjust it from there.Suzy Chase: So, I made a few things out of this cookbook. First was the pickled kumquats on page 197. The flavor was definitely different. I expected the kumquats to be very sweet.Laura: Yeah, I think a lot of people expect oranges but they're not ...Suzy Chase: Yes.Laura: ... as many oranges.Suzy Chase: Exactly.Laura: Exactly. So, I think what I love about pickled kumquats is that they're not sweet, and it's not supposed to be candied or like a fruit that you would eat on its own. It's really meant to brighten and add acid to pair it with, so I always had a jar of pickled kumquats in my fridge to throw in salads. It's really great to throw on a salad, or just something to make it more beautiful and acidic and tangy, and guests are always surprised because they sort of look like cherry tomatoes, but the Sun Gold tomatoes, so when they bite into them and instead they find this citrusy, pickly taste, they're always like, wow, what's that? And then they're also really great on a cheese plate because creamy cheeses like Brie or Camembert can really finish it from having a little touch of brightness and acid.Suzy Chase: Yeah, they were definitely tangy. I'm going to try them on a cheese plate.Laura: Yeah.Suzy Chase: I also made the purple cauliflower quesadilla with curry crema. Try saying that three times fast on page 73, and I cooked the cauliflower until it was super, super soft, and the curry cream was such a nice surprise with it.Laura: I'm so glad you liked it, and yeah, I'm glad you brought up that recipe because, actually, both the recipes you brought up. One thing that people have told me when I tell them that I have this cookbook is they say, "Oh, I'm not a good cook. I probably shouldn't cook anything out of your book," and I'm always surprised by that because just because ingredients are extraordinary and unique and sometimes look intimidating doesn't mean that the recipes are. I'm a home cook. I'm not a classically trained chef by any means ...Suzy Chase: Me, too.Laura: ... and I'm cooking for my family, right? So it's like these are things that I should cook, and purple cauliflower quesadillas is about as easy as it gets, so the things that are meant to be accessible and to take the intimidation out of these fruits and vegetables.Suzy Chase: And my 11 year old loved this quesadilla. It's really a great weeknight fast dinner.Laura: Good, I'm so glad that you're daughter liked it, too.Suzy Chase: He's a son, but that's okay.Laura: Oh, sorry. Yeah.Suzy Chase: So, I also made the starfruit almond torte on page 198, and I didn't have a springform pan, so it was rough getting it out, but it was really delicious, and I was surprised by how almondy, is that a word,? Almondy it was.Laura: Yeah, that ... This tart was inspired by Tarta de Santiago, which is the St. James cake that they serve in Santiago de Compostela, which is the end of the pilgrimage that you can do across northern Spain, and so when you arrive in this town, there's sort of cake in every window, and it's an almond based cake, and I've always loved it, and my mom used to make it when we were growing up, and it's really simple to make, too. It's kind of a foolproof dessert, and so when I saw the starfruit, I knew I wanted it to decorate the top of the cake, but rather than just laying it on there raw, I thought it would be really cool to bake it into the cake, so there's like a pineapple upside down cake and flip it over, and so there's a sort of a combination of those two things, and I think it comes out beautifully, and if you serve it to guests, they can be like, oh, my gosh, how did you cut the fruit in that beautiful shape, and they don't realize that it just comes that way.Suzy Chase: Yeah, it's really pretty. Last night, I made the broiled pomelo with cinnamon crème-fraiche on page 172. Now, what's the difference between a pomelo and a grapefruit?Laura: A pomelo is much larger, and it has a much thicker rind and pith, whereas grapefruit is obviously smaller and has a thinner rind. I also think pomelo is a bit sweeter. It's sweeter and it has less bitterness, so if you always wanted to like grapefruit, but you just can't get over the fact that it has that bitter taste, you should try pomelo, and the reason I like it in this preparation is because when you slice it in half and you broil it, there's more, the pith is bright white, and it just looks prettier than grapefruit. It has that nice contrast between the pith and the fruit, and it kind of caramelizes and burns a little bit on top, so I think it works really well in this recipe.Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on social media?Laura: So, my social media, my Twitter handle and my Instagram handle is @myberkeleybowl, and I have a Facebook page as well that's My Berkeley Bowl. My website, the blog is myberkeleybowl.com, and you can also me on my personal website lauramclively.com.Suzy Chase: With this cookbook as your handy guide, sourcing produce is fun. Thanks, Laura, for coming on Cookery By The Book podcast.Laura: Thank you so much, Suzy, for having me.Suzy Chase: Follow me on Instagram at CookerybytheBook. Twitter is IamSuzyChase, and download your kitchen mix tapes, Music To Cook By, on Spotify at CookerybytheBook, and as always, subscribe in Apple Podcasts.

In this jam-packed 65th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk with author and ghostwriter Laura Hanly about book writing and publishing. We met Laura a few months ago and after grilling her over breakfast, knew she’d be a great addition to the show. In this discussion we cover: •  how she became a book writer and publishing consultant •  what you need to think about before you write your book •  Laura’s thoughts on who exactly needs to have a book—if you are in a commodified service business, the answer is “yes” •  who needs to be on your book writing team and who should be your early readers •  what a realistic timeline for writing a book looks like •  price ranges and what she does to charge $40,000 per book project •  what you need to do to promote your book •  common mistakes writers make when they write their book •  the differences between self publishing and traditional publishing •  how to publish with Amazon Create Space and KDP •  the design options to consider when you’re ready to publish your book •  how to find clients as a ghost writer of books •  whether you should get a byline with the books you ghost write •  the mistakes she sees over and over on book projects We also asked about the rates she charged when she first started out (they were way too low), the mistakes businesses make when they “do” content marketing, who is doing content well today, and what to keep in mind when promoting your content. Ready for this? Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Telling Your Brand Story (Rob’s book) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (Mark Manson’s rudely titled book) The Martian (Andy Weir’s book) Gary V Ramit Sethi Digital Marketer CreateSpace 99designs Laurahanly.com Content that Converts Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group Intro: Content (for now) Outro: Gravity Full Transcript: Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob: You’re invited to join the club for episode 65 as we chat with author and book consultant Laura Hanly about the process of writing a good book, how to choose between self-publishing and a formal publisher, what it takes to write a bestseller, and the tactics, strategies, and systems for promoting your content. Kira: Welcome, Laura! Rob: Welcome! Laura: Thank you so much! Very exciting to chat with you guys. Rob: I want to jump in and just say that we met at a mastermind event, and you and I, I think, had the opportunity to sit down at breakfast and for about 45 minutes or so, you sort of walked me through a lot of the process of writing a book and as we were chatting, it was one of those things where like, “Laura, we got to have you on the podcast!” Because there are a lot of people who listen to us that need to know the things that you know! So we are really excited to have you here. Laura: Yeah, I think it’s a big opportunity for a lot of people at the moment so I’m excited to talk about it. Rob: Cool! Well, why don’t we start with your story? Where did you come from; how did you start doing what you’re doing? Laura: So, I grew up in Sydney in Australia. I studied writing and publishing at university and worked at a big publishing house there in Australia for a few years. And I think about 2011, the industry really started downsizing and they weren’t kind of learning the lessons that we had all seen go down in the music industry in terms of, you know, adapting to the new technologies that were becoming available, and I thought, mmmm, I really need to get myself organized and become a bit more independent. So I moved online,

Laura Martin. Photo courtesy of Laura Martin. Episode 6 features Laura Martin, expert parent, mom blogger at Joseph at Home, and the Director of Parent Communication and Engagement at Graham’s Foundation—a non-profit organization that supports parents of premature infants. During the episode, Laura shares her son Joseph’s story of prematurity and survival including his near fatal bout of late-onset NEC and the multitude of life-long complications that have resulted. She discusses: The extremely premature birth of her twin sons, Joseph and Campbell, at 24 weeks—four months early, and Campbell’s passing at 23 days of life, How Joseph developed late-onset NEC and lost two-thirds of his small intestine, Several of Joseph’s secondary diagnoses including Short Bowel Syndrome, Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, and multiple food allergies—all resulting from NEC, How hers and her family’s experience with prematurity led to her work at Graham’s Foundation, Her personal blog where she documents her daily life as an expert parent of a child with special needs. Copyright © 2015 The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, Inc. This episode was produced in part by the TeacherCast Educational Broadcasting Network. [powerpress] STEPHANIE VAUGHAN, HOST: Welcome to Episode 6 of Speaking of NEC—a free, audio podcast series about Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Produced by The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, and funded by The Petit Family Foundation, Speaking of NEC is a series of one-on-one conversations with relevant NEC experts—neonatologists, clinicians and researchers—that highlights current prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies for NEC, and the search for a cure. For more information about this podcast series or The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, visit our website at morgansfund.org. Hello, my name is Stephanie Vaughan. Welcome to the show. I’m the Co-founder and President of The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund. NEC is the leading cause of Short Bowel Syndrome or Short Gut Syndrome. The amount and location of intestine lost can result in life-long medical complications. Up to now, we’ve discussed NEC and its most common complication from the perspective of the neonatologist or surgeon. However, I feel that it is equally important to share the parent’s perspective. I’m privileged to have one such expert parent as my guest today. Laura Martin is the mom blogger at Joseph at Home, and the Director of Parent Communication and Engagement at Graham’s Foundation. She is also the parent of a fellow surgical NEC survivor. Laura will share with me today her son Joseph’s story of prematurity and survival including his near fatal bout of late-onset NEC and the multitude of life-long complications that have resulted. During our conversation, she will discuss in varying degrees: The extremely premature birth of her twin sons, Joseph and Campbell, at 24 weeks—four months early, and Campbell’s passing at 23 days of life, How Joseph developed late-onset NEC and lost two-thirds of his small intestine, Several of Joseph’s secondary diagnoses including Short Bowel Syndrome, Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, and multiple food allergies—all resulting from NEC, How hers and her family’s experience with prematurity led to her work at Graham’s Foundation, Her personal blog where she documents her daily life as the parent of a child with special needs. With that in mind, let me introduce my guest today. This is Laura. Hi, how are you? LAURA MARTIN, GUEST: Hey, good. How are you? STEPHANIE: Good. Thank you for joining us. And Laura is a blogger at Joseph at Home and the Director of Parent Communication and Engagement at Graham’s Foundation. So I will let you introduce yourself and talk to me a little bit about your experience with prematurity and Necrotizing Enterocolitis. LAURA: Yeah. Our twin boys were born at 24 weeks gestation on Halloween morning in 2009. It came as a big surprise. It had been a perfectly clean, normal pregnancy. I had just had an appointment three days before, woke up with a dull backache about midnight. And Joseph was born first at 7:41 and his twin brother Campbell at 7:42. No rhyme or reason for the prematurity. It just happened. Campbell, unfortunately lost his battle to prematurity after 23 days of life. He just had a lot of complications from prematurity that he just couldn’t have overcome. Joseph went on to spend 228 days in the neonatal intensive care unit before he came home. He is now five and a half. He just started kindergarten. But it’s been a long journey to get here. We were two days from coming home when he was 5 and a half months old. He was about eight weeks adjusted. We had everything set up at home. We had oxygen. We had G-tube equipment. We had everything. We were ready. His room was ready. All of the clothes were washed. Two days before discharge, we got a call from the NICU that he was gray and bloated. And they were putting him on a ventilator. Let me back up a little bit. A few days prior to that, he had been showing some signs of infection. But nobody really knew what it was. He just had vaccines. He was running a little bit of fever. We contributed it to that. This pushed discharge back a little bit. But just two days before the initial discharge, when they called and said he’s gray and bloated, and they were putting him on a ventilator. You need to get here immediately. Our world kind of turned upside down, because we thought we were two days from home. And here we were not knowing what was going to happen. This was a Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday, 2010. And we didn’t know what was going to happen. The doctors kind of watched him throughout the Saturday, were taking X-rays every few hours. A little bit after lunch that day, one nurse practitioner came and said, his X-ray looks a little bit like NEC. Do you know what that is? And we said, of course, we know what that is. We’ve been in the NICU five and a half months. But he’s eight weeks adjusted. Why would be looking at NEC? We’ve been told once you get to your due date, you cross that off your list of things to worry about. And so, as the day went on, the night went on, it became very evident that he had Necrotizing Enterocolitis. They had seen this one other time in the NICU with a baby this old. He went through Saturday night. Things were not looking good. And on Sunday morning, the surgeon came to us and said, I’m going to take him to the OR. I’m going to open him up. And I’m going to see what happens. We don’t know what we’re going to find. So, on Palm Sunday, 2010, the surgeon took him to the OR. He was gone for several hours and came back halfway through surgery and sat us down in a room and said, here’s what I found. He has 41 centimeters (16 inches) of salvageable intestine. He said, he has 28 centimeters (11 inches) below his stomach, and he has 13 (5 inches) above his colon. Everything else in the middle is completely gangrenous. He said, we can take out the gangrenous intestine. And he’ll have two stomas for a while. Then we’ll go back in and reconnect. But he also looked at us and said, we don’t know what life for him is going to be like. It’s probably going to be very rocky. He may die before the age of two waiting on a liver transplant, because he’s going to be TPN dependent. If you want to close him up and let him go, I’ll respect your wishes. And, of course, we looked at him and said, no way, we’ve gotten this far. We’ve already lost one kid. We’re not doing this again. Go in there. Do what you have to do and save his life. So he went back. He was gone for several hours, came back to us. We saw Joseph, and it was amazing. Even though he had stomas, and he had just lost two thirds of his small intestine, he looked so much better than he had right before he went, because the infection was gone. A few days after that, they went in and placed a central line, because he was, of course, totally TPN dependent. He already had a G-tube before NEC, because of aspiration to his lungs. So we were fortunate with that that he already had the G-tube. But, as the weeks wore on, they were able to slowly decrease TPN, increase feeds, and decided after four weeks, he was ready for intestine reconnect, which was shocking. Nobody expected after four weeks he would be ready for intestine reconnect. So four weeks later, they went in, reconnected the intestines, told us we would probably be in another two to three months. He again amazed everybody—came off TPN very quickly, increased G-tube feeds to the point that they pulled his port before he came home. He never came home with a central line. And four weeks after his reconnect surgery, he came home—after 220 days in the NICU. STEPHANIE: That’s amazing. LAURA: So that’s how NEC came to be. Again, the hospital had seen one case of that. And it had been years and years and years. And people say, are you sure it’s NEC? Are you sure it was NEC? Yes, pathology confirmed that it was NEC. But who knows? Who knows why he had it at five and a half months old. STEPHANIE: Right, right. So just to back up, I’m curious what you knew about NEC before his surgery. You know, you had said that you had been in the NICU for now almost five months. And he reached his due date, so you were crossing it off the list. So I’m just curious, in general terms, what you knew up to that point. LAURA: NEC was one of those things that I remember learning about really early on in our NICU stay. Having 24-week twins, we knew that it was a very rocky journey. They both had less than 50% chance of survival. But my husband and I were the type that we wanted to know everything. We wanted to know what are things we have to look out for. What are things we need to be worried about? What are things that we don’t have to worry about? And it was within the first 24 to 48 hours that the nurse said there’s a thing called Necrotizing Enterocolitis. It doesn’t happen a lot. But it’s one of these things we watch for. We stay on top of it. So we knew about it from the beginning, but we had always been told that once you reach the gestational due date, you didn’t have to worry about it anymore. And while that is so true 99.999% of the time, there is a very small chance that it can happen later. And it’s almost one of those things I wish we had never been told—oh, yeah, you don’t have to worry about it when you hit 40 weeks. Because we did—we had completely crossed it off Right. So we know about it. And we knew what the warning signs were. We knew what to look for. Yet, again, when we look back on it, he had some of these warning signs two to three days before he got really, really sick. But why would—none of us thought it could be NEC. We thought, well, he’s had some GI issues. He has the feeding tube. He’s had his vaccines. It could be any other bug he’s picked up. He’s still in the NICU. But we knew what it was, but it was still just a huge shock that—I mean, he was 13 pounds at that point. He was a big kid, you know, for being in the NICU. STEPHANIE: Right, right. So he came home now, you said, four weeks after he had been reconnected. So talk to me a little bit about, I guess, those first days and first months when he was coming home—you know, again, sort of thinking from the perspective of things that we want to let parents and caregivers know, questions to ask, sort of things to look out for—so anything that you want to talk about, you know, his transition home and getting settled. LAURA: Yeah, he came home on complete continuous feeds via G-tube. So he was on feeds 24 hours a day because, of course, having NEC left him with short bowel syndrome. So he had a lot of dumping episodes, where it was out of control at times. We couldn’t really go anywhere because of the dumping syndrome. As the days went on, the weeks went on, the months went on, that got a little bit better. We were in and out of GI every 8 to 12 weeks, just checking in, making sure he was gaining weight. But a lot of doctors also didn’t really know what to do because he wasn’t TPN dependent. A lot of kids who come home with short bowel syndrome are TPN dependent. But here you have this kid who has only a third of his small intestine, but for the most part he’s tolerating formula well. He’s tolerating G-tube feeds. He’s gaining weight. He’s not going to need a port. Everybody was convinced he would have to have his port put back in. He never did. So that was actually, to be honest, a frustration for the first several years, is finding doctors who understood that, yeah, he is doing well. But he’s also not doing well. He only has a third of his small intestine. His weight gain is very slow. He still has periods of severe pain even today, from school. He still has periods where his belly is very distended. It took some time to find doctors who really wanted to help and say, yes, there really is still a problem here—with a kid who only has a third of his small intestine. That first year that he was home, he was rehospitalized five or six times, most of those with a GI bug. If he got any sort of stomach bug, we were in the hospital, because his body just couldn’t handle it. And so we were back in. Usually it would lead to a respiratory infection. He would spend a good week, 10 days, in the hospital. That was the first year. After that, I quit my job teaching, because we knew he had to stay home. He had to be healthy. And he had to grow. And as he’s gotten bigger, he’s gotten healthier. He has not been in the hospital for a GI bug in 3 and 1/2, 4 years. It’s been awhile. STEPHANIE: Oh, that’s great. LAURA: Yeah, now his body can tolerate it. You know, it’s not pleasant still. But we know what to do. But, as he’s gotten bigger, it’s gotten better. So, yeah, that was the first few years out of the hospital. STEPHANIE: We don’t have nearly the after-effects, but I remember Morgan’s transition home was pretty chaotic. LAURA: Yeah. STEPHANIE: His brother came home after 85 days, and I’m guessing was a much simpler transition, even just holding him in hands-on care and changing diapers. Morgan was very traumatized, I think, from being in the hospital and having the surgery. And we saw a big, big difference between him and his brother. So it was very scary as a parent that even simple things that you have to do was traumatizing to him. LAURA: Right. And then they can’t communicate with you to tell you that. And that’s what was so hard to watch early on, was you knew he was hurting. You knew he was in pain. But I didn’t know what to do to help, you know. So that was hard. Yeah. STEPHANIE: So, I guess, now that he’s getting a little bit older—you said he started kindergarten. That’s great. So how is he doing, I guess, developmentally? And are you seeing anything—you know, secondary diagnoses, I guess, maybe, strictly because of NEC or because of the short bowel or other issues that he’s having? LAURA: Yeah, he has several things that are going on. He did just start kindergarten. He’s in a special needs kindergarten. As a result—well, when he had NEC, he had to receive Gentamicin, which of course is an ototoxic drug. And the surgeon said, if we give this to him, he will probably lose all of his hearing. But if we don’t give this to him, he’s not going to live. Well, of course, it was a no-brainer decision. Before that, he had not passed his newborn hearing screening. But a lot of preemies don’t. So we kind of thought, well, we’ll get out of the NICU, he’ll pass it. He never did. While he was still in the NICU—this was in between NEC and the reconnect surgery—he was diagnosed with Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder, which is a hearing loss that comes and goes. It’s almost like you’re trying to tune a radio and there’s static. And that was what his hearing was like. So he received his first cochlear implant when he was three—three months after he turned three—because his hearing was rapidly deteriorating in his left ear. Just, not even two weeks ago, he received his second cochlear implant in his right ear. And we always go back to say, his hearing probably would have never been that great. But it’s definitely a lot worse post-NEC, because he had to receive the Gentamicin, the ototoxic drug, in order to kill the bacteria. Some other things that he has—July of 2014, he was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis, which has been in question for several years. And we could not get the GI doctor to agree to do an endoscopy. He hated to do the endoscopy, because it meant putting him under sedation. Due to asthma, he didn’t want to do that. But at the same time, we’re battling with this increased amount of food allergies, knowing that that has to be a problem. Finally, they agreed to do the endoscopy. And it was clear that he had Eosinophilic Esophagitis. As a result of that, he has 15 food allergies. I’m happy to list them all if you want. But it includes all of the top 8 plus beef, chicken, rice, potatoes, watermelon, strawberry, pineapple, and a whole slew of medications. And I always tell people asking—it’s hard to know whether he would have had that regardless. Probably not. But having the Short Bowel Syndrome made it worse. He would not have had Short Bowel Syndrome if he didn’t have Necrotizing Enterocolitis. So to me it’s all sort of related. STEPHANIE: Right. Right. There’s definitely a domino effect. LAURA: It’s a domino effect. One thing has led to the other, which has led to the other. So it’s hard to know, some days, if you’re battling GI issues because of Short Bowel Syndrome. Or are you battling GI issues because of the Eosinophilic Esophagitis? Or are the white blood cells growing because he’s eating something he’s allergic to? Is there a new allergy? So some days we really struggle knowing what is what. And then you’ll have periods where he does great. And he’s like a normal kid. He does still have a G-tube. We were told he would lose the G-tube by two. But here we are almost six, and we still have the G-tube. Many days I wish we didn’t. But there are many days we couldn’t do without it. And if he doesn’t feel like eating or he’s in pain, we have the G-tube. And it’s literally been a lifesaver. And if he’s been sick, we can always get fluids in him. I would love to see it go. But I don’t see it going any time in the future. He doesn’t know life without it. He’s had it since he was four months old. To him it’s second nature. He gets his G-tube feeds at school. He gets them at home. They travel with us. But it’s truly a lifesaver for him. But it helps him gain weight. It’s what helps him actually be on the growth chart as a short-bowel kid. Many short-bowel kids, I think, are failure-to-thrive. He has never even been remotely considered failure-to-thrive, which is huge. So, yeah, there’s a lot of complications as a result—what I feel like, had he not had NEC, wouldn’t have led to X, Y, and Z probably. He does have development delays. But a lot of it is that he spent so much time in the hospital. Then there was the hearing issue, but he could not get a cochlear implant because he wasn’t healthy enough to have surgery. So it was just sort of this domino effect, and a spiral of getting out of it, and getting him healthy enough to be able to have surgery. And then you’re trying to catch up. You’re trying to catch up with language, fine motor, gross motor, it all, as well. But the kid we were told would never walk or talk, walked into kindergarten last week. So there’s so many things to be thankful for, and so many things that he’s doing so well on, that those are the days you really have to hold onto on the days he’s feeling really, really bad. You have to know that he’s going to get through it. Life will turn around, and it will get better. It’s just going to be interesting to see as he continues to grow, how much of this is just going to continue to get better. Will there be a decline at some point? We don’t know. Nobody really thought he would even make it to this point. STEPHANIE: Now, I’m just curious, sort of, personally, but also as a fellow parent of a NEC baby, have you talked to him at all about being in the NICU? Has any of that come up yet? I mean, I know he’s still sort of young. But I’m just curious. LAURA: Yeah, he knows he was in the hospital. When we drive by the hospital where he was born, he’ll say, that’s where I was born. That’s where my sister was born. He has seen pictures. He’s seen videos. But I don’t think he quite cognitively wraps his head around it. When he had a cochlear implant put in 10 days ago, it was at the hospital where he had NEC. And so we were able to kind of say, you were in the hospital here when we are a baby. A couple of the nurses stopped by to see him—they took care of you when you were a baby. But the cognition is just not quite there too. He sees his pictures. And he’ll say, I was very sick. And, yes, you were very sick—because he knows that his baby pictures look very different from his sister who was born full term. So he knows. He knows he has a G-tube. She does not. And so he’s starting to really realize those differences. STEPHANIE: Right. Yeah, I don’t think we’ve quite reached that yet. Shaymus deals with asthma. So he gets his puffs and he has, you know, different things. But I don’t think they’ve really lined up and taken notes on, you know, your picture has this. And my picture has that. Or you have this and I have that. But, yeah, sort of, it’ll be interesting to talk to them about it when they start to ask. Like, they just figured out that they’re twins this year. LAURA: Oh, that’s so funny. And my husband and I have talked about it. Gee, at what point in their life are they going to realize everything that they went through as a baby. And all these odds that were stacked against them. And all the times that they shouldn’t have lived. And will they be teenagers? Will they be adults? Will it be when they have their own children? My husband and I talk about this a lot. It’s just going to be interesting to see at what point do they kind of go, oh, wow, yeah, that really was what mom and dad went through and what I went through. It’s just fascinating. STEPHANIE: Yeah. So I would also like to let you talk about the work that you’ve done now because of having preemies and Joseph’s diagnosis. So you are the Director of Parent Communication and Engagement at Graham’s Foundation. So I’m happy to let you plug them away, and also to talk about your blog, which is Joseph at Home. LAURA: Yeah, I'll start with Graham’s Foundation first. I started working for them, gosh, about three and a half years ago in a different capacity. And it was one of those things that I was staying home with Joseph. And I was trying to figure out a way that I could give back to the preemie community. But I knew I couldn’t go into the NICU, because here I was with this child who got sick easily. And I knew that that couldn’t happen. So I started working for Graham’s Foundation, which was such a great outlet to be able to connect with other preemie parents, and sort of share stories—share stories with families who lost their child, with families who went through a long-term NICU stay, families who went through a short-term NICU stay. People will say, well I was only in the NICU 10 days. You were in seven and a half months. One day is one day too long for anybody to be in the NICU. And that’s what I always say to people. Nobody should have to go there. And if I can provide any sort of “it’s going to be OK,” I would love to do that. And so now, I serve as the Director of Parent Communication and Engagement. I do a lot of the writing for the blog for Graham’s Foundation, which is something we’re really trying to get off the ground. And through that, I also serve as a NEC mentor. So if parents come across our website and are looking to talk with someone who has experienced NEC, in no way am I a medical professional but I'm able to say: This is what we experienced. This is what we’re experiencing now. These are some questions you might be able to ask the doctor. And it’s been really nice to connect with people. Also, being five years out, to say, I promise you are going to get through this. When you’re dealing with, all along, doctor’s appointments, and you feel like you’ve got 18,000 things going on in one week. I’m here to tell you that I promise you, it gets better. The appointments get less and less and less. And it’s been so nice to connect with parents, and to offer that support from home, while I can still stay home with my kids and be able to work from home. And then also I have my personal blog, josephathome.com, which I started when I found I was pregnant with twins. I didn’t even share the blog address with anybody. My husband and I thought, oh, this will be great. We’ll update it. We’ll send it to friends and family. So as the pregnancy rocked along, I would sort of update it. I could never send out to anybody. And then when they were born Halloween morning, 2009, at 24 weeks gestation, I knew I didn’t have the energy to tell the same story over and over and over about what was happening. The texts were too long to send the information of what was going on. We had two of them, and I just couldn’t do it. And I was, like, oh, I’ve got this blog. This will be a great way to update people, so the long days of sitting in a hospital, my husband worked on our family tree. And I worked on the blog. That is just what we each sort of did to take our mind off of what was going on. And it was a great way, if somebody asked me a question, I would just say, read the blog. It’s on the blog. Just read the blog. I could share pictures—it just—because I wasn’t really in the mood to talk. We would talk to family, immediate family, and share with them what was going on. But it was just—it was so draining to tell the same story over and over and over. And if I just wanted to get something out there quickly, I would put it up. So, when Joseph came home, and I thought, well, I’ll keep it going. We’ll see what happens. It’ll probably die by the wayside. Well, five and a half years later—it’s almost six years later—it’s still going. And I write a lot now just about, of course, about prematurity, but also raising a special needs child and what that looks like, because we’re in this short-bowel world. We’re in the eosinophilic world. We’re in this hearing-loss world. We’re in the cochlear-implant world. We’re in the vision-impaired world. We’re in the mild cerebral palsy world, food-allergy world. And it’s just been nice to be able to connect with other parents and just to write about our real life and what it’s like. What it’s like. How do we deal with insurance? How do we deal with medical supplies? How do we travel? How do we do this, that, and the other? And it’s just a great outlet, too, just for venting, you know. And if I don’t want to talk about it, I can write about it. So we’ll see where it goes. It’s been a really nice outlet. But it’s also a great way to show Joseph, hey, this is where you started. This is where you are now. And it’s almost like a scrapbook, really, of his entire life, because it started the day he was born, and has everything. I just hit my—over 1,100 entries on it. STEPHANIE: That’s great. I commend you on that. I attempted, when I first came home from the hospital, to start recording things. And, I think, honestly, it was just too hard. I sort of thought to myself, I don’t want to remember this piece of it, so I sort of stopped. And I had scraps of paper where I would write down stats every day. You know, they gained this, and literally had, like, a pile two inches thick, by the time they came home, of daily weights and charts and things. Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen many of your posts. And I think they’re great. And I think it’s a great outlet. And, again, sort of that you’re not alone. And, you know, people are better off than you. People are worse off than you. And everybody’s sort of on their own journey. And I know preemie parents tend to minimize amongst other people, but your struggle is really your struggle and your family’s struggle. And no one should have to struggle. LAURA: No. And that’s what I’ve always said to people is, somebody out there always has something worse going on. Like, on Joseph’s worst day, somebody else has something worse going on. And that’s what I always say to people is, yeah, this is just our life in a little nutshell. But we’re so thankful for what we have. And, again, it could always be worse. You can just turn on the news every day and see that. But if it’s just, you know, if it can help one parent to say—and even sometimes I think people don’t like to say, well, this is not fair. You know what, sometimes it’s not fair. And it’s OK to say that and have a little pity party and then move on. And I enjoy being able to say to people sometimes. STEPHANIE: That’s great. So, I guess, is there anything else that you would want to mention if you had somebody in your position, however many years back, thinking to ask the doctors about, or transitioning home—coming home—how you sought out your specialists, if you’re not getting the answers that you think you should, how you proceeded, any sort of big-sisterly advice. LAURA: Yeah, I know, really. I think the big thing is to trust your instincts if you know that there’s something not right. We’ve gone through our fair share of doctors. Because if I feel like my child’s not getting the care that they need—and any parent would feel this way—I’m not going to settle for mediocre. I’m not going to settle for “he’s going to be fine” when you know in your heart that there’s still a problem. We were having some issues last year around the whole eosinophilic diagnosis. And I felt like we had run out of options where we live. And so I reached out to a doctor eight hours away. And he said, if you’re willing to travel, I’m willing to see him. I said, of course, we’re willing to travel. And so we did. He got us in. And we made the trip. And it was so nice to just connect with somebody who was a specialist in that field of Short Bowel Syndrome, to be able to say, yeah, he’s doing OK. I see that there are some problems. But you’re doing the right thing. And I think that’s become sort of my mantra is, don’t stop until you have the answers that you need. And there may not be answers. But I am not going to rest until I know that we have the answers we need. Like, we’re having some eosinophilic issues, so we’re working on getting into a top eosinophilic clinic. I don’t care how far we have to travel, because that’s what Joseph needs and it’s what’s best for him. And that’s what matters. It matters him feeling good. It matters him being healthy. It matters him growing. And he deserves to have the best life absolutely possible. And that’s what I would tell somebody if you’re just coming home. If you feel like something is not right, keep going and keep going and keep going. Yes, it’s exhausting. I think there are many days I’m asleep before my head even hits the pillow. But you have to do what’s best for your kid, because they can’t do it for themselves. You are their advocate. And that’s one thing that the NICU nurses taught us really, really early on—is you have to advocate for your child. Nobody else is going to do it for you. They can’t do it for themselves. You just have to keep going. And, again, it’s hard. You may hit brick walls here and there. Because goodness knows we’ve had our fair share with doctors. And it’s OK with doctors to speak your mind and say, you know, I don’t think you’re right on this. I think there’s more to it. You may upset them a little bit, because there’s no doubt I’ve upset a few. But it’s OK. It’s OK. Yes, they’re doctors. But they don’t have all the answers. You’re the parent. You live with your child day in and day out. You know their idiosyncrasies. You know what’s right and what’s wrong with them. And I think standing up for yourself is so important. And that’s what I would tell somebody coming out. You can’t be shy when it comes to advocating for your child who has special needs. STEPHANIE: I would agree. Yeah, we’re transitioning through preschool. And the boys were kindergarten eligible this year. But they’re actually being given an extra year of pre-K. And we had sort of that, uh, I’m not sure about this. I’m really not sure about it. I’m really not sure about it. And in the end they saw that—their teachers agreed with us. And the educational system agreed that, yeah, they’re a little bit immature. And probably going to kindergarten isn’t the best idea for them. And they really need the extra year. You know, they’re smart. Yes. But good enough isn’t good enough. We don’t want them to sort of eke by. We want to give them the best opportunities that they can have. So I agree with you wholeheartedly. LAURA: And it’s tough as a parent. I’ve had this conversation with a lot of people. My husband’s a teacher. I’m a teacher also. I’m not teaching right now. Hopefully one day I will be again. But it’s hard as a parent. It’s hard as a parent-teacher to have a child who has special needs and who needs that IEP (Individualized Education Program). It’s tough to sit on that end of the table as a parent. I mean, I’ve sat on the other end of the table as a teacher countless times. But, as a parent, it’s a tough pill to swallow, to say—and we know—I mean, Joseph started kindergarten. But we know full well he may need to repeat kindergarten. And while that’s tough to say, it’s a reality. We hope that he does great. But he may need to repeat. And if that’s what’s best for him, then that’s going to be what’s best for him. It’s tough to sit in an IEP meeting and hear how far behind he is. Or these are all the goals. And up to 21 pages now of his IEP. But it’s what he needs. And it’s what’s best for him. But I always go back to the day when one of our favorite NICU nurses—this was a long time ago—said, you know, one day he’s going to pull out a picture of him with all those tubes and wires and on a ventilator and say, see, mom, you remember this. And I have to think back to that, because, yes, it’s hard. And I kind of want to wallow in self-pity about, oh, I wish he was just in a regular ed class. He shouldn’t even be here. And that’s what I have to remind myself is, we had many days where we weren’t even sure we would see pre-K. And I know you’re the same way. We weren’t even sure he would see kindergarten. But here we are. And let’s just make the most of it. He’s loving every second of it. And that’s what matters. And so, being a preemie parent, as you know, it’s a journey that I never expected. But at the same time, I’m grateful for it, because it’s opened my eyes to a whole new area of life. STEPHANIE: Right. Well, I really appreciate you talking to me. And I think you’ve given some great advice—preemie parents or not, and NECs parents or not—on advocating for your child, and in every facet. So I really appreciate your time. And thank you so much. And if there’s anything else that you want to add, feel free. LAURA: If anyone wants to contact me personally, I’m happy to answer questions if there’s something that anybody wants to know more about. STEPHANIE: So great. Thank you. Thank you so much. LAURA: Thank you. STEPHANIE: For more information about Laura or to follow her blog, visit: josephathome.com. A direct link can also be found in this episode’s show notes. You can also email Laura directly at: laura [at] grahamsfoundation [dot] org. In closing, I’d like to share a few thoughts about today’s conversation with Laura. According to Dr. Besner, with whom I spoke about Short Bowel Syndrome in Episode 1, “if we estimate that a newborn baby has approximately 200 centimeters (78.74 inches) of intestine, they have to be left with at least 40 centimeters (15.75 inches) in order to be able to nourish themselves and get off TPN.” As a result of his bout with NEC, Joseph had only one centimeter (0.4 inches) more remaining. So first, I would like to take a moment to celebrate Joseph’s survival, courage, and strength. And that of his family. Both Joseph and his parents have shown remarkable resiliency while dealing with the daily effects of his bout with NEC. Second, I would like to reiterate that I strongly believe that a cure for NEC, once found, will have a far reaching impact not only on Gastroenterology (the digestive system and its disorders) as a whole, but also all of the patients like Joseph, and families like Laura’s. Show your support for our smallest and most fragile babies, those who have the greatest risk for developing NEC. Show your support for continued research in NEC. And join our effort to raise awareness about, and funds for research in NEC by making a donation to Morgan’s Fund at morgansfund.org/donate. If you’ve had a personal experience with NEC and would like to share your story, or have a question or topic that you’d like to hear addressed on our show, e-mail us at feedback@morgansfund.org. We’d love to hear from you! Copyright © 2015 The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund, Inc. The opinions expressed in Speaking of NEC: Necrotizing Enterocolitis (the Podcast series) and by The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund are published for educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended as a diagnosis, treatment or as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis and treatment. Please consult a local physician or other health care professional for your specific health care and/or medical needs or concerns. The Podcast series does not endorse or recommend any commercial products, medical treatments, pharmaceuticals, brand names, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm, or corporation name is for the information and education of the viewing public, and the mention of any of the above on the Site does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by The Morgan Leary Vaughan Fund.

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Laura Fitton CEO and Co-founder, OneForty Date: April 25, 2011 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes: Interview with Laura Fitton [musical introduction] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders, the CEO of NCWIT, the National Center for Women In Information Technology. This is the next interview in a series of interviews we've had with women who have started wonderfully successful tech companies. We're always interested to catch up with our latest entrepreneur and see what she's doing. With me is Larry Nelson, W3W3.com. What's going on at W3W3, Larry? What's the news? Larry Nelson: Well, I'm trying to learn more about Twitter. Other than that, things are going good. We've got a number of business people who tune into the various shows with NCWIT. It's not only business leaders and parents, but also many young women who listen for some great ideas. Lucy: Today we're interviewing someone who is known as the Queen of Twitter, Laura Fitton. I guess that's why you said something about Twitter, isn't it? [laughter] Well, you need to get the number right in your Twitter. Larry: I was just trying to check her out there. Lucy: We're interviewing somebody who is known as the Queen of Twitter, Laura Fitton. Laura Fitton: [laughter] I think Lady Gaga deserves the crown now. Lucy: Lady Gaga! Laura: Once upon a time. Lucy: [laughter] That would be great, maybe we should try to interview Lady Gaga. Any way, Laura is the founder of oneforty.com. Oneforty.com helps people understand Twitter and the exploding ecosystem of applications and services built on it. Oneforty.com has been called the "app store" for Twitter by TechCrunch and others. It's really a place to find awesome tools that really help you use Twitter, not just in ways for yourself but also for your business and so forth. I went and looked at some of the apps there and it just shows how much I need to catch up on the world of Twitter. [laughter] Laura: It's so true. We started out the Consumer App store and quickly learned from our users that they need us to cut through all the noise and provide them with reporting, with solutions to streamline their social business. Oneforty.com is really the place where tool providers, experts, and business leaders are sharing all their advice and lessons learned regarding social business. If your business needs to be getting into social media, this is the place to start. Lucy: Well, Laura, we're really happy you're here today. Maybe you could start off quickly telling us the latest news from oneforty.com. I think it's a place that most of us really need to know about. Laura: Sure! Thank you. In the last four months, we've done a pretty significant pivot, again user-led. We offered people a little thing we called "Toolkits," which were these humble little lists. The idea was, well you're using Twitter online but you're also using it on your phone and a few other places, using a lot of different tools. People came in and said, "Well, here's how to market a car dealership," "Here's how to market a restaurant." Or, "Here's what a realtor needs to know about social media and social business." So we responded to our users like any good startup does. In the last three weeks, we have completely relaunched the site centered around four business personas. All of the directory is still there, but we're really focusing it on connecting people with what they need to streamline and scale social. Lucy: So oneforty.com three weeks ago had a relaunch? That's pretty exciting news. Like I said, the site was just great and I really enjoyed looking at it yesterday. Laura: Thank you so much. The other thing that's new is that I was just on a webinar where I gave a sneak preview of some products that we're just launching that put everything you need for social all in one place-tools, all the workflow, all the guides on what to do next. Kind of training wheels for social engagement, making it really easy. Lucy: So Laura, it's really pretty exciting times at oneforty.com. Thanks very much for telling us all about the new site launch three weeks ago. It's really a great site and we really appreciated taking a look at it earlier this week. One of the things we like to find out from our entrepreneurs is how they first got interested in technology, as well as ask them a follow-up question to that where we ask them to look into their crystal ball regarding which technologies they think are out there that will change things even more? Laura: Awesome. Well I was a kid who was really into science, so I came to technology through science. In fact, my degree is in Environmental Science and Public Policy. I always played around with consumer web technologies, but never got involved in software development or anything like that, quite up until I did the startup. So it was a very odd choice for me, because I'd never seen software built. I knew tons of people in the interactive industry who did build software. I had lots of friends who had invested in it, had worked at startups, had run startups. But I myself had never done it. My connection to startups was that I was kind of a communications consultant. I did a lot of work on helping people to present and speak more effectively. And obviously entrepreneurs are constantly on the hot-seat having to present, so I stayed very close to the startup community but never dove into it myself. Long story short, I moved to Boston in 2006 just in time to have my second kid. They're like 14 or 15 months apart. I've no business network up here and I have to restart that communications consulting firm after nearly two years out of the market. So I get into blogging. I hear about this Twitter thing. I blog how stupid this Twitter thing is, around March 2007. And then two months later, the nickel drops and I say, wait a minute. I can surround myself with successful, interesting people and still be this home-based mom of two kids under two, and yet stay motivated and inspired throughout my workday. And that is exactly what appealed to me about Twitter when Twitter finally did appeal to me. Then I got so emphatic over how so much it was changing my life and how amazing and exciting it was for me that I just ran out there with this blog post called, "Ode to Twitter" on something like August 11, 2007. I mailed it to Guy Kawasaki, who, believe me, had never heard of me. And I just started telling everyone who would listen. To my great luck, Guy Kawasaki did listen and then turned around and trumpeted to the rest of the world. So in this very short time, I went from not even really knowing what the term "web 2.0" means in March 2007 to being profiled by the author of "Naked Conversations," one of the first major books in the space, less than a year later in April 2008. The next month, Wiley is coming to me asking me to write "Twitter for Dummies." I'm relaunching my communications consulting firm as a Twitter for business consulting firm, which was a little insane to do in September 2008. It was still really early on the concept and I'm just incredibly lucky that I staked my career on Twitter and not on one of the competitors like Pounce or Plurk, most of which have dried up or disappeared. I got very excited about a technology, because it made huge personal and professional changes in my life. It's like the classic adage to follow your passion and you can't go wrong. I was still was dragged into it kicking and screaming, though. For four months after having the idea for oneforty.com, I was trying to pawn it off on somebody else. But hey, you go build the startup and I'll advise. I'm smart enough to not do a startup. I know they're kind of hell. I'm in the middle of a divorce and have two very young kids. (They were two and three at the time.) And yet I failed at quitting it. I kept trying to quit it and I kept failing at quitting. So in March 2009 I finally started it up in earnest and it's been two years now. Lucy: You know, your comments kind of lead to our second question. Larry: Boy, I'll say, is that a fact. Here you came into this thing through science. You've been through all the different types of things, you knew you wanted to give it up. But... Lucy: And she tried to not be an entrepreneur. Larry: Yeah, exactly. Laura: I tried so hard. I'd worked for a startup in my 20s and the guy was nuts. [laughter] Laura: I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs and I love entrepreneurs. You have to be fundamentally out of touch with reality on some level to be an entrepreneur, because otherwise you would know that your idea can't possibly work. You need enough detachment from that to be able to go make it work. Which is great, but boy, it puts you into some weird places, doesn't it? Larry: Boy, I'll say so. What is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Laura: I don't know, because I never thought I was an entrepreneur until this happened. [laughter] I have mad curiosity. I love to see things for myself. One of the people who has been kind enough to mentor me is Tony Hsieh, who is the CEO of Zappos. I won't be able to remember exactly what they were, but he asked me three very simple framing questions when I was kind of whimpering and whimpering and saying that I couldn't possibly be the CEO. It was, "Do you have that natural drive and curiosity?" "Do you want to see things for yourself?" And one other thing. He said, "If you have that, you're good. Everything else, you can learn." Lucy: Zappos is a great company. I just ordered my son four birthday shirts from them. Larry: Oh, all right! [laughter] Laura: That's the [inaudible 9:00] , girl. Tony is a fantastic human being, very generous with what little time he has. Lucy: It sounds like Tony definitely supported you on your way on your career path. Do you have other role models or mentors or other people who influenced you? Laura: I was carried by this net, literally my network. When I first did my angel pitch, there were a few people I knew in the investment community who charitably dialed in to hear it and asked me leading questions to help me understand what I was missing. One of them was Christine Herron, who at the time was with First Round Capital and now is with Intel Capital. She literally had to ask me in my first angel pitch, "Laura, where's the pricing coming from?" And I didn't even know what the word "pricing" meant at that point. [laughter] I was that naive. I tried to answer it. Later another person-again, these were friends because of social networking-Dave McClure was kind enough to take the time to listen to the recording. He asked, "Do you know what Christine was trying to tell you, Laura?" I said candidly, "No." And he explained it to me. So I was carried by this huge network of cheerleaders and supporters and mentors. One of the weird, kind of, "rags-to-riches, Cinderella" aspects of all of this is, I was so completely unknown, and then a year later I was in a book by Seth Godin and I was being mentored by Seth and by Guy Kawasaki and by people whose blogs I'd been reading for a long time and looking up to. And it actually took awhile to come to terms with accepting that. Like I felt guilty. I felt like, why am I getting all this time from all these busy people, there's nothing that special about me, I'm just sort of whatever. And then the way I came to peace with how incredibly generous the world was being with all of this was just like, OK, maybe they see a chance to get something done in the world by helping me get it done. So my responsibility to pay back the debt of all this mentorship is not only to do mentoring when I finally have bandwidth to do it, but to follow through and to make sure I realize the riches I've been given and try to create something with it. So that's been incredibly powerful to keep me going. Lucy: Well, and you know this interview is part of a give back. We have had a lot of people listen to these interviews, we have a social networking campaign with Twitter right now, on this interview series, so we really thank you for being with us and giving some of that advice back. Laura: Thanks. Larry: Well you know with all of the neat things you've done, Laura, what is the toughest thing that you've ever had to do in your career? Laura: That is such a great question. I was going to say that, the days after you run into a wall, because make no illusion, you run into a wall time, time and time again when the start-up [inaudible 11:46] , you fail all the time. Investors flake, co-founders drop out, people you hired don't work out, whatever. It's constantly running into a wall. And the next moment where you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, is really painful, it's hard. And just staying calm and.. and one lesson I've learned? Being radically nice to everybody, even if they kind of screwed you over. Because it preserves the relationship and you never know where that relationship leads in the future. That said, I'm very lucky, in that the energy just kept surging back to get through those times. I can't even take ownership of that, it was like being a lightning rod. I would give up, I would go to sleep like, "OK it didn't work, tomorrow I'll figure out something else," and I'd wake up still hell-bent on making it happen. So I was lucky. Lucy: Wow, it's great advice to be radically nice to people, even if you think they screwed you over. [laughs] I mean, it's powerful advice and I think it's advice that you might give to any young person who was thinking about being an entrepreneur. Do you have any other advice that you might tell a young person if they were on this call right now or listening to this interview? Laura: I think it's really important to not discount the most trite, childhood, what-your-mother-tells-you of all, is really be yourself. People told me that. I really struggled growing up, I was not socially well adapted, I was very emotional and kind of out of touch with my colleagues, like had a hard time in elementary school. And everyone was like, "oh just be yourself!" and I'm like "yeah, right." You know, "everybody hates me, I can't be myself." But it is so true that the more I was able to connect with "OK, that is what makes me tick, I'm just going to go with it." I mean, I never set out to think, "I'm going to rave about Twitter for a year and a half and someday it's going to be my job to do that." I just couldn't contain my excitement. So things worked out really well for me. I was very lucky. Larry: You know, with all the things that you've been through, in your childhood, preschool and everything else, what are the personal characteristics that really give you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Laura: Definitely resilience. Some of the greatest gifts that I've been given in life were times that frankly sucked. I won't trot them all out, but... a couple tough things here and there. A couple really scary things that ended really well, like a premature baby and a very minor stroke, and things like that. But those are huge gifts and I don't think people see them in the moment when they're first happening. Again, I want to fall back to the trite, "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger," but there is huge, huge, huge silver lining in every negative thing that happens to you. Even if it's just making up a story in your head like "hey, that felt really terrible but I actually just dodged a bullet, because it could have been this," and I look back at the tough times and I am so grateful for every single one of them. I'm sad for the places where something terrible happened and it made other people sad, but I'm so grateful for how much strength they gave me and how much ability to bounce back and how much calm they gave me. I would not give up a single one of them. Lucy: That's just wonderful advice. That's so true of life in general, right? Being able to learn from tough times. Laura: Yeah. Lucy: And really integrate that into how you're looking at situations. Laura: I really do just straight-up cherish some of them. Lucy: Yeah, I think personally I had some in my corporate career that ultimately led to me coming here and doing what we're doing now with MC Wit, and it's just kind of interesting when you look back and thing "gosh, if that hadn't happened I wouldn't be here." Larry: Yep. You bet. Laura: Right! Lucy: It's totally the case. Laura: You know one of the more bizarre things I did was when I was about 26 or 27 I kind of more or less adopted one of my nieces. Who was, you know, "go and live with your aunt for the fun of it," right? So she had a couple things. And my mom was so, like, almost mad at me. She thought I was crazy to do it. But it was huge, I got so much more out of that experience than I put into it. A lot of growing up, a lot of taking responsibility, a lot of learning about how radically permanent love for a child is, because she really was functionally my daughter for three years, when she was 15, 16 and 17. And I remember thinking, "oh how hard can it be?" And wow, it was really hard. You know, being a teenager is tough, and being a teenager who's had a crappy run-in up to there was tough, too. But it took me out of my shell, it made me connect to people in new ways, my career catapulted because I had to get my act together. And I just love her so much, it was just incredible, it taught me a lot. Lucy: Well and that kind of gets to our next question we were talking some about, sometimes people say "oh, you should have balance between your work and your personal life," and how do you bring balance. We've talked to people about it really being an integration, and we're just curious to get your point of view on this issue of work- life balance and how you achieve it? Laura: It's tough and I don't think I'm super good at it. Yeah, not enough. I try to be really present with my kids when I'm not working. I would really love to bike commute more often, because it's about a nine mile, very flat, ride, very easy, takes the same amount of time the train does but forces me to exercise. And I think that's really important in managing the stress. Again, in a twisted way, I'm lucky that I'm divorced, because my ex is a fantastic dad, and he and his fiance are a great family for my girls in the 50 percent of the time I don't have them. I use that 50 percent of the time I don't have them to do all the extremes like, stay up late and work, or travel, or the different things you have to do to do a start-up. And I think that it would be tough if it was an intact marriage, and I didn't have that really clear-cut line of "OK, you are not a mommy right now." Yeah, of course I call them and stuff like that. But I'm not functionally needing to be there for them. And being more present when I am there with them. Larry: My goodness, I must say that you have really done a great deal, you've achieved a lot. What's next for you? What's on the horizon? Larry: You know, I don't think you ever feel like you've achieved a lot. I always feel just like, "oh crap, what's next? Oh my god, we've got to surmount this, we've got to surmount that." It's not like our company's profitable. It's not like we have a billion users. And I think if you asked everybody along wherever they are in the entrepreneurial process, they'd probably talk a lot more about what's yet to come than about what they feel they've achieved. So there's a ton of professional development I want to do, a lot of skills I want to improve upon and learn. I have this little fantasy about joining a team in the future where I'm a relatively junior part and I can really stretch and grow and learn from others who are just the best at what they do. I still don't have very much management experience, I never had an employee before oneforty.com, and so that means it's been really tough for me and for my employees to learn how to manage on the fly, learn all about software on the fly, learn all about business on the fly. And I just feel like I have so much more growing to do. Lucy: Well we have no doubt that oneforty.com is headed towards great success. Laura: Thank you very much. Lucy: We really do thank you and wish you the best of luck. So I want to remind listeners that they can find us at w3w3.com and also mcwit.org and to tell their friends this is a great interview, and to go visit oneforty.com and learn more about how to use Twitter. I know Larry's going there! Larry: I'm going to oneforty.com . Lucy: I saw him underline "Twitter for Dummies." [laughter] Laura: It's tough, right, I can't really give out my book as a gift because it's a bit insulting, isn't it? Thank you so much for the opportunity, such a salute out to, it shouldn't matter, but to the women in technology who are my heroes. Because it is inspiring to see, you know, Padmasree Warrior as the CEO of Cisco, Kara Swisher just tearing it up in tech journalism, Katarina [inaudible 19:01] , one of the first social media founders of a company. Rash [inaudible 19:12] is running slideshare.net, Marissa Meyer who's done phenomenal things at Google. It shouldn't matter whether, you know, I'm inspired by lots of men, too, but it really does mean a lot and I'm just so grateful for all of them and their work. Lucy: Well thank you, and I know people are really going to enjoy this interview. Larry: Yeah, thank you. Laura: Thank you. Lucy: All right, bye Laura. Laura: Take care, bye bye. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Laura FittonInterview Summary: Once upon a time known as "Queen" of Twitter, Twitter's own mom-at-home to tech CEO Cinderella Story is CEO/Founder of www.oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for Dummies. You can read her story in the Boston Globe, on Xconomy.com or watch her Mixergy interview. Release Date: April 25, 2011Interview Subject: Laura FrittonInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 20:12