My sudden butt obsession, and other fun links (and a free class!)

Bits and bobs from here and there

Friends, it’s been a very strange few weeks for me, and there are so many things I want to write about, but my brain isn’t giving me the space and focus to actually do so with any kind of coherence or insight. (I hate to be so vague, and hope to share more about all of this soon.) Luckily, Past Anna worked on a few cool things while I was a bit more clear-headed that went live elsewhere in the last week that I’m very happy to share with you here, today! So…if you were looking for coherent, insightful (hopefully) thoughts on movement from me, I still got you.

First, I had the pleasure of writing an essay for my friends at Elle magazine for a special package they published last week called Working It Out. In the essay, I explore how optimization culture — especially the way it seems to be taking over my social media feeds — serves as a huge distraction and does not help most of us get more exercise. It starts with a “fun” story about how I sometimes get pulled into weird internet rabbit holes about optimizing my butt. Here’s a link to the piece, which is free for all to read.

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Next, I had just the loveliest conversation with Abbie Attwood, an anti-diet, weight-inclusive nutritionist and body image coach whose podcast and newsletter Full Plate by Abbie Attwood are wonderful places to find helpful insights on eating to nourish yourself, healing your body image, and so much more. It was a true pleasure to speak with Abbie about my weird, winding career into and out of the magazine industry, my journey with fitness (both personal and professional), my many beefs with the fitness world, and some real talk about finding an approach to movement that you can stick to. (Hint: You might not actually like doing it at first. Sorryyyy 😬)

Moving Without Punishment: A Weight-Neutral Approach to Exercise with Anna Maltby

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And then: It’s been so much fun to meet author and former Washington Post columnist Kate Cohen here on Substack and discover her very brain-tickling work on Scratch — she writes about human agency and autonomy, and the value of making and doing things from scratch, in a way that makes me want to reexamine all of my choices. (But in a good way!) I was delighted to talk about exercise with her, and love the way she used our conversation to inform her current attempts to divorce movement from diet culture. This essay, like all of Kate’s writing, is beautifully written and very fun to read, and I feel honored to be part of it!

Working Out Without the Mean Girls

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Finally, I was so, so flattered that my teacher and mentor, the Canadian fitness coach and kinesiologist Jessie Mundell, whose work I wrote about in the post below from last year, invited me to join her for a conversation on her excellent podcast about pregnancy, postpartum, exercise, and the pelvic floor, To Birth and Beyond.

Jessie and I chatted about what it’s been like for me to build this amazing community, how we both keep striving to make our work even more inclusive and accessible, and how we try to keep up with the ever-changing world of research on perinatal health and exercise. Here’s a link to the episode!

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And! Just a few other things I loved reading around here recently:

• Mara Gordon, MD’s great piece about longevity bros and primary care

• Chrissy King on moving for joy, the power of strength training, and breaking up with diet culture

• Mikala Jamison on how thin fitness influencers keep moving the goalposts

• This piece by Cardio Rebel, who identifies as a fat fitness instructor, which explores why super intense classes dominate the fitness industry when such a huge chunk of exercisers might prefer something more chill

• The brilliant Sofia Engelman of Queer Body Pilates is now on Substack, and I’m so glad they’re here: Their work (including a fantastic seminar I took from them on trauma-informed cueing) has been so influential for me, and I was psyched to see them writing about the subtle but important differences between discomfort and pain — and the power, and even pleasure, that lies in learning to tolerate discomfort. (FWIW, I spoke with Virginia Sole-Smith about this in our most recent Burnt Toast interview, and with my PT friend Dylan Peterson in our interview too. It’s a subject that’s really worth thinking about!)

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Okay, one last thing before we go! Over the weekend, thanks to YOUR incredible support, I reached a milestone that only true nerds (complimentary) will notice or care about — a solid orange checkmark on Substack. (What can I say; I’m from the “read a lot of books to earn a personal pan pizza” generation.) I’ve been working for the past year to turn this project from a solid side hustle into my main job, and I’m so grateful to be actually doing it. That’s all YOU. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my spectacular paid subscribers for helping me build this strange and wonderful new career. There’s still quite a ways to go before I can truly take a deep breath (subscriber churn and the big cuts Substack and Stripe take are very real!), but reaching this milestone makes a huge difference.

To celebrate, I’ll be doing a lunchtime stretch-and-move session this Friday at 12:00pm ET on Substack Live! It’ll be free to all, and will be desk-friendly: You can wear truly whatever you want, and I won’t be asking you to get on the floor. Pop in, say hi, move a little, and help me mark this special occasion. Mark your calendars. Here’s a link to join! THANK YOU AGAIN; I love you so much.

Have a great rest of your week!

xo
Anna