The Full Plate Podcast with Abbie Attwood, MS

This week's episode is one I have been so excited to share. I'm joined by two brilliant, generous, and deeply thoughtful guests — writer, educator, and body liberation advocate Chrissy King, and creative and founder Claire — who have co-created the Child-Free Coven, a community and mutual aid space for people who are child-free, by choice or by circumstance.
In this episode:
*What the word “childfree” actually means — and why Chrissy and Claire are actively reclaiming it
*Why being childfree is not anti-child, and the James Baldwin quote at the center of their community
*Chrissy’s story: ending a marriage, being the first woman in her lineage to have this choice, and what liberation actually feels like
*Claire’s story: knowing from her early teens, navigating a partner’s uncertainty, and how 25 years of undiagnosed endometriosis is inextricably linked to her childfree journey
*The things people say to childfree women and what to make of them
*The connection between body liberation and the childfree experience
*Race, reproductive justice, and how this conversation is profoundly different depending on who you are
*The political moment we’re in — bodily autonomy, forced birth, and what history tells us about these tactics
*What it means to pour your love, attention, and energy into the world without motherhood as the vehicle
*The difference between grief and regret
*What Chrissy means when she says she wanted more than “fine”

Resources:
Find The Childfree Coven on Substack and Instagram
Chrissy’s book: The Body Liberation Project
Claire on Instagram and Chrissy on Instagram
Rachel Cargill / Rich Auntie Supreme
Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands
Tricia Hersey / Rest is Resistance
Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
Apply for Abbie’s Group Membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group
 Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com

This is part two of my conversation with Kate Zigrang, founder of Viva Voce — and this is where everything shifts.
To hear it: abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
We left off last week with Kate at a turning point: an OCD diagnosis, a doctor who finally told her the truth about her health, and something beginning to loosen. This episode is about what came next — the harder, slower, more relational work of actually stepping out of diet culture after a lifetime inside it.
We cover:
* Going no contact with her parents — the decision, the grief, and what space it created
* The complicated dynamic with her mom: over-apologizing, enmeshment, and why leaving felt both impossible and necessary
* The slow, specific work of separating her own body from her mother's — learning to look at herself without dread
* Religious deconstruction happening simultaneously with the body acceptance work and the mental health work — all three threads unraveling at once
* The Manhattan pants incident — eighteen months of traveling the world, unable to find a single pair of pants in her size anywhere in New York City, and the rage that became a turning point
* What Viva Voce actually is — a marketplace vetting brands for ethics, sustainability, and genuine size inclusivity
* Why she insists on carrying straight and plus sizes in the same space
* The pop-up strategy — and why she's bringing it to smaller cities on purpose
* A data project collecting real body measurements to understand how clothes could actually be made better
* Why belonging is at the center of every decision she makes — and what that looks like in practice
This episode is for paid subscribers. If you'd like access to this conversation and the full archive, you can subscribe here:
abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
Find Kate and Viva Voce at vivavoce.live and on Instagram @vivavoce.live
Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe

Apply for Abbie’s Group Membership:
Already been at this anti-diet culture thing for a while, but want community and continued learning? Apply for Abbie's monthly membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group

Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
Podcast Cover Photography by Anya McInroy
Podcast Editing by Brian Walters

Kate Zigrang is an advocate, entrepreneur, impact investor, and the founder of Viva Voce — a size-inclusive fashion marketplace and community rooted in body justice. But before we get to what she's built, we go back to where it all started.
In this first part of a two-episode conversation, Kate takes us through her personal history with her body — from watching her mom navigate the world in a larger body and absorbing the shame that surrounded her, to puberty changing her own body in ways she wasn't prepared for, to a disordered relationship with food that developed in her late teens and went unnamed for years. We also get into her OCD diagnosis at 31 — more than a decade after onset — and what it meant to finally have language for what her brain had been doing all along.
This is a conversation about the things diet culture teaches us before we're old enough to question them, and what it actually takes to unlearn them.
We talk about:
*Growing up watching her mom be treated as a problem to be fixed, and inheriting that shame before she had words for it
*How her body changed at puberty while she was already carrying that inherited weight
*The food rules in her home growing up, the restriction and binge cycle they created, and how it planted seeds for a disordered relationship with food
*Moving away from home at 21, marriage, pregnancy, and her body changing again in ways that felt out of her control
*The wellness journey — naturopathic doctors, juice cleanses, a month-long juice fast, and crying in the shower
*Getting an OCD diagnosis at 31 and finally understanding what her brain had been doing since she was a teenager
*A doctor who told her, simply, that she was healthy — and how much that cracked open
*Finding Maintenance Phase, Aubrey Gordon, and Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings, and what it meant to finally have the research match what she'd lived

Find Kate and Viva Voce at vivavoce.live and on Instagram @vivavoce.live.
Books mentioned: What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon; Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings

Get 40% off of your Hungryroot order with code abbie40
Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
 
Apply for Abbie’s Group Membership:
Already been at this anti-diet culture thing for a while, but want community and continued learning? Apply for Abbie's monthly membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group
Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
Podcast Cover Photography by Anya McInroy
Podcast Editing by Brian Walters
This podcast is ad-free and support comes from your support on Substack. Subscribe HERE.



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com

Abbie sits down with Dana Colthart, LCSW, a therapist specializing in OCD and eating disorders, to explore one of the most under-diagnosed and misunderstood overlaps in mental health. From intrusive thoughts to diet culture to why you can’t logic your way into recovery, this conversation explores what's truly driving our fears, our coping strategies, and the compulsions holding us back.
The first part of this episode is free for everyone. Paid subscribers can hear the entire conversation. You can upgrade here: https://abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode:
* Why OCD is so much more than hand-washing and organization — and what it actually looks like
* The key difference between OCD and generalized anxiety disorder, and why misdiagnosis is so common
* How the OCD cycle works: the obsession, the compulsion, the temporary relief, and why that relief is the trap
* What reassurance-seeking is, why it counts as a compulsion, and how it shows up in relationships with food and body image
* Pure-O OCD — when the compulsions are entirely mental, and why this goes undiagnosed so often
* Taboo and shameful intrusive thoughts: why the people most disturbed by a thought are almost never the ones who’d act on it
* What ego-dystonic versus ego-syntonic means, and why that distinction matters in disentangling OCD from eating disorders
* How diet culture functions like a mass OCD delivery system — rules, rituals, fear, and relief that never quite arrives
* Why clinicians treating eating disorders are often the only voice in a client’s life saying “you don’t have to do this” — and how hard that is
* The particular cruelty of food and body-related intrusive thoughts in a world that confirms them everywhere
* How OCD and eating disorders mimic each other, overlap, and take turns — and what that seesaw can look like in recovery
* What ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) actually is and why the discomfort is the point
* Why your brain watches your actions, not your words — and what that means for recovery
* The systemic piece: how disordered behaviors get praised in some bodies and diagnosed in others
* What to do if you’re recognizing yourself in this episode but aren’t ready to call a therapist yet

About Dana: Dana Colthart, LCSW, is the clinical director of Clear Light Therapy, a boutique practice based in Englewood, New Jersey. She provides evidence based treatment for OCD, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders, blending Exposure and Response Prevention, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and integrative mind body approaches. Dana is also a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist.

Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
 
Apply for Abbie’s Group Membership:
Already been at this anti-diet culture thing for a while, but want community and continued learning? Apply for Abbie's monthly membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group
Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
Podcast Cover Photography by Anya McInroy
Podcast Editing by Brian Walters
This podcast is ad-free and support comes from your support on Substack. Subscribe HERE.

Abbie speaks with Anna Maltby — health journalist, personal trainer, and author of the How to Move newsletter — for a conversation that pulls back the curtain on the fitness industry. At the heart of this episode is: what does look like to rebuild a relationship with movement that isn’t rooted in shrinking, earning food, or “fixing” your body?
They talk about how fitness media manufactures insecurity to sell us solutions, what people are unlearning when they come to weight-neutral movement, why decoupling exercise from aesthetics can temporarily leave people unmotivated (and what to do about that), and why your squat is probably fine.
Tune in for more on:
* The “body as business card” problem in fitness and nutrition
* How magazine cover lines were engineered to exploit seasonal body insecurities
* Anna’s origin story: from Eat This Not That to anti-diet fitness journalism
* The Refinery29 moment that changed everything (shoutout to Kelsey Miller’s Anti-Diet Project column)
* What people are unlearning: trusting their bodies, eating before workouts, modifications that aren’t lesser
* Why losing aesthetic motivation can feel like losing all motivation, and how to find intrinsic intentions
* The importance of where you are in recovery before reintroducing movement
* How to experiment with movement without judging yourself on the first try
* The “you’re doing it wrong” trend and why it’s harmful even in anti-diet spaces
* Body diversity and squat mechanics (yes, really)
For more from Anna:
https://howtomove.substack.com/
https://www.instagram.com/howannamoves/
Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
 
Apply for Abbie’s Group Membership:
Already been at this anti-diet culture thing for a while, but want community and continued learning? Apply for Abbie's monthly membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group
 
Social media:
Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
 



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe