Find Your Strong Podcast
Encouraging people to find what FEELS good in terms of food, movement and their bodies. Let's challenge the wellness w*nkery and start a new conversation.
In each episode, Christine and Ela discuss their thoughts on diet and fitness fads, speak with fabulous guests about their experiences with finding peace with food and movement, and interview experts so that they can share their insights and knowledge with you.
The hope is that together we can change the narrative around nutrition and exercise and help you find YOUR strong!
Find Your Strong Podcast
Exercise Without Agenda. A Quietly Radical Approach with Author Bethany Rutter
Bethany Rutter is an author and online personal trainer. She is the author of four books for young people and two books for adults. Her next novel is Ask Me Anything, out November 2025.
It was a joy to speak with Bethany - so refreshing to hear how she has come to be chill with the body she is in and how she has come from hating PE at school to enjoying movement.
We talked about
- Bethany's own body and movement story
- spinning, sweating and finding joy in movement
- how something that is apparently good for your body can be very stressful for your mind
- her books and how important their message is for young people (and, actually, people of all ages!)
- the importance of language when we discuss bodies and food
We highly recommend you check out Bethany's socials and read her books - maybe with a young person in your life - and DO Pre-order her latest book out in November here
Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x
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Christine Chessman: So, Ella, today's podcast, we have got the wonderful Bethany Rutter.
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Christine Chessman: And she's an author, an online personal trainer, which is very exciting. She is the author of 4 books for young people, and 2 books for adults.
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Christine Chessman: next novel, which I have already pre-ordered. It's called Ask Me Anything, and it's, like, November 25.
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Christine Chessman: So this November, in a month. So I just… I had… I think it was a really good conversation.
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Ela Law: I think people are gonna receive it really well.
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Christine Chessman: And what struck me the most was…
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Christine Chessman: In her own words, her detachment from how her body changes, and her acceptance of her body as it is, and really the… just getting on with her life and not really spending that much time thinking about it, because there was nothing that she couldn't do.
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Christine Chessman: In the size that she's at. And it was… I find it quite a powerful message, and that detachment is definitely something that…
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Christine Chessman: Would be very useful, huh?
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Ela Law: Absolutely, yeah. No, I think it's… I think it's really important to hear that side of the story, because very often we hear the struggles, and we talk about the struggles a lot. It's just really nice and refreshing to hear from somebody who, is…
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Ela Law: self, sort of, described in a larger body, and has actually made peace with how our body fluctuates, how our body changes. I think that's really… I think it gives you hope that that kind of detachment is possible.
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Ela Law: And that kind of, way of living your life without your body being the anchor point, the thing that you always have to think about. You know, just…
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Ela Law: just do what you want to do, and her story about how she found, joy in movement, and how hard it was as a child doing PE, and how she thought that wasn't for her, I think all of that will resonate with people listening, so I think…
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Christine Chessman: It's really good point.
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Ela Law: Really good conversation. And we will put all of the links to her books in the show notes, and to her new book as well.
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Ela Law: Which.
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Christine Chessman: If you are…
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Ela Law: Okay.
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Christine Chessman: if you… if you're kind of starting off a movement journey, or you hit a P in school, but you feel like you should do something, or you want to do something, or it's that time of life.
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Christine Chessman: and you're not sure which direction to go, listen to this conversation. There's some really useful guidance from Bethany, who's just trained to be a personal trainer herself.
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Christine Chessman: So yeah, without further ado, here is our chat with Bethany.
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Bethany Rutter: Welcome, Bethany! How are you doing?
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Ela Law: I am great, and I'm so delighted to be chatting to you. I'm very happy to be here, so thank you for having me. Oh, we are delighted to have you!
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Bethany Rutter: I feel very honored.
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Christine Chessman: We have lots and lots of questions, don't we, Ella?
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Ela Law: Oh yeah, always.
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Christine Chessman: And lots of tangents ready. Yes, lots of tangents. So I… I sort of came across you, Bethany, through my friend Lydia, my client. So she started talking about this person called Bethany Rutter, who's an author on Instagram, and I absolutely had to follow her.
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Christine Chessman: So I was like, alright, I'll give that a go. And then I really enjoyed your content, and then I read…
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Christine Chessman: Slow Coach, and then I was hooked. So, absolutely loved Slow Coach, and it was really timely for me, because it was a time that I just wasn't reading books, I just couldn't bring myself to.
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Christine Chessman: I struggled to relax, I don't know, Ella, if you noticed that. And it was just the perfect book to get me back in the flow.
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Christine Chessman: And I really enjoyed it. I read it, like, literally in maybe a day and a bit, like, just couldn't stop, couldn't put it down. So, we are very excited to have you here. The first question I wanted to ask you, which we talked about just before we hit record.
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Christine Chessman: Is your own journey with movement, you know, I hate the word journey, but how you came from sort of hitting PE, etc, into enjoying movement, or how it's kind of morphed for you and evolved?
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Bethany Rutter: And it really, yeah, it's really evolved, because as you know from reading Slow Coach, I mean, not that every person who writes a book writes autobiographical books, but, you know, what Slow Coach is kind of about is a teenage girl who, just feels really, like.
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Bethany Rutter: moving her body is not for her, because PE, at least in the UK, is not really structured in a way
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Bethany Rutter: to make people enjoy it, or at least in my experience. So I was one of those people who, because I was not, like, an athletic, thin, sporty girly, PE was just not really a place that I thrived, and so for a long time.
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Bethany Rutter: after school that, you know, remained with me, and so I didn't really exercise at all. I thought exercise was, like, for other people. It was really not something that I had any relationship with at all.
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Bethany Rutter: And then, in, like, 2016, I feel like that was around the time of the kind of, like, spin boom in London.
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Bethany Rutter: and a lot of, like, places opened, and I really got into going to a place called Cycle. So I used to spin quite a lot. Spin remains my favorite way to exercise, which I don't really do much anymore, because it's kind of expensive, and .
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Christine Chessman: I've.
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Bethany Rutter: I've found other ways that I enjoy, but 2016, I loved spinning. And then, for some reason, I just kind of fell out of the routine of going, and again then lapsed into not really doing anything again.
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Bethany Rutter: And then lockdown happened, and just before lockdown, I moved to an area of London that has a lot of hills.
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Bethany Rutter: And I just found I hated walking up the hills in my area, and I thought, I'm sure there's something I could do about this. So I, sort of started…
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Bethany Rutter: A few years ago, to consciously exercise a bit more.
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Bethany Rutter: And that, again, meant going to spin classes, I went somewhere different, I went somewhere called DigME, which I really liked, and then from there, started running again, which I'd done a bit in the past, but had not really been that serious about. And then, obviously.
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Bethany Rutter: there is a lot of chat about strength training, which was something I'd not really committed to before, and I thought I should probably do some of that. So I've really kind of, you know, diversified what I'm doing, and…
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Bethany Rutter: have led… that sort of led me to a much more consistent movement practice. I'm not, you know, I'm not one of those, like, consistency is key people, but I'm more one of those, like, I like to keep my hand in and, like, do a bit of everything.
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Bethany Rutter: And so, that has led me to the present day, and how much I've enjoyed
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Bethany Rutter: finding ways of moving that I like and that fit into my life in a non-stressful way was what led me to then do the qualification to become a personal trainer, which is what I do now, and
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Bethany Rutter: talking to you, Christine, was so helpful, because it made me feel way less stressed about, like, actually starting to do the job, which I really enjoy, but I was, like, I felt very logistically overwhelmed, so it was very meaningful to me to have someone that I could ask these logistical questions to.
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Bethany Rutter: So that's my story!
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Ela Law: Wow.
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Ela Law: Yeah, a lot of it resonates, the whole PE stuff. I grew up in Germany, and I… I was not a PE person, I hated it, and it was quite… actually, it was quite good there, because we did football, we did basketball, we did all sorts of different…
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Ela Law: things, and, you know, there should have been something that I enjoyed, but I hated it, absolutely hated it, and I, like you, didn't really come to any kind of movement until I was in my mid-20s. I just thought, no, don't like it, don't enjoy it. And it's nice to hear that, you know, you found things that.
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Bethany Rutter: Hmm.
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Ela Law: give you joy that you enjoy, and now you're PT! Wow, that's amazing!
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Christine Chessman: I mean, in PU, we had to wear little tiny pants, like, little…
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Ela Law: Did you?
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Christine Chessman: Knickers, yeah. Just, like, a white top and, like, little navy knickers with a white strap.
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Christine Chessman: It just literally pumps.
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Ela Law: Really?
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Bethany Rutter: Ours were green, but they… they were the same, yeah.
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Christine Chessman: Honestly, it just beggars belief, it really does, but and that's… so, spinning lit you… lit a fire in you. The first… sorry for an anecdote, but the first time I did spinning, I couldn't have it, because I couldn't get my foot out. You know, when you put your foot in and lock your feet in.
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Bethany Rutter: I wear the clippy shoes, yeah.
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Christine Chessman: And then I got a bit panicky, I'm like, oh, I can't get out. And the guy next to me, I spoke to him, he said he'd been out all weekend partying, so he was here to sweat it off, and literally, puddle of sweat underneath the bike, just.
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Bethany Rutter: Well, that's… that's me as well. I'm a real sweater, and I've found it really, you know, that's something that I've, you know, in my life, like, experienced quite a lot of shame about, but, you… for me, with spinning, you just can't avoid it.
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Christine Chessman: count.
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Bethany Rutter: I am just… I've accepted it, I used two of the sweat towels, I've gone beyond the need for one towel,
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Bethany Rutter: But yeah, spinning, I love it.
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Christine Chessman: Embrace the sweat. I think sweating is great, because it's just your body doing its thing, isn't it?
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Bethany Rutter: Calling me down.
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Christine Chessman: Yeah, exactly. It's the only time that I don't like looking sweaty, because I get sweaty when I'm not working out.
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Christine Chessman: And it's the only time I feel in context in the sweat, so I quite enjoy it. Yeah, you're like, this is legit.
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Christine Chessman: It should be. But yeah, so the spinning, you did spinning for a bit, and then why… so is it just… you're not… is it just the money? Is it the price of it, or just… it's interesting that you love, so it's the one thing you love, but you're not doing it?
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Christine Chessman: Just a…
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Bethany Rutter: So now, yeah, yeah, yeah, so, I… I'm self-employed.
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Bethany Rutter: So, money really fluctuates, and I'd been paid, some of the advance for Slow Coach at the end of 2020…
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Bethany Rutter: 2, and so I paid up front for a whole year of spinning in 2023, which was very economically clever of me. And then I got to the end of the year, and I was like.
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Bethany Rutter: okay, well, I have not been paid a big chunk of money recently, and…
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, I just… I… I just had to accept that I just couldn't afford, like, boutique fitness studio in London prices that year, and so had to diversify, which was, in a way, quite good, because that's what got me back into running. And, like, I miss spinning, but the logistics of having to go into central London every time I wanted to work out is not… you know, it was… in hindsight, it was a kind of wild way to be living, even though I was really enjoying it.
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Bethany Rutter: I'm kind of glad that I… I've been…
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Ela Law: I've had to diversify.
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Christine Chessman: Yeah, and it's… but you mentioned, kind of, before we started talking, officially talking.
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Bethany Rutter: Hmm.
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Christine Chessman: That you don't love the structure. So this is something I find really interesting, because from an ADHD perspective for me, I sometimes love the structure, need the structure, do the structure for weeks on end, and then I can't do the structure. So I'm like, yes, I love this, this is great, I'm gonna do this forever.
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Bethany Rutter: Yes.
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Christine Chessman: And then, a couple of months later, I'm like, no, I never want to do that again, I'm done.
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Bethany Rutter: There is…
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Christine Chessman: Sounds…
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, so I will repeat what I said to you before you were recording, which was that I've found… so obviously, like, there has been the physical journey of, like, trying all these different things, and, like, running and, you know, strength training and spinning.
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Bethany Rutter: But there's also been the kind of, like, emotional and mental journey of learning what I actually like doing, beyond, like, do I enjoy spinning? Do I enjoy running? It's like, how do I enjoy doing those things, and what are the conditions that I personally need to make this feel good?
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Bethany Rutter: And what I found… is that almost exactly a year ago, I did a half marathon.
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Bethany Rutter: Which is no joke, and requires, like, a lot of training, and it just meant that I had to really commit to running.
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Bethany Rutter: And couldn't really do other stuff. Like, if I'm… if I have to be running, sort of, 3 times a week, and one of those has to be a pretty long run of, like, you know, 15 plus kilometers. And because I'm a slow runner, that takes a long time.
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Bethany Rutter: Or, I then found if I was doing, like, a strength training program that involved me, like, going to the gym and logging my reps and my sets and doing a kind of, you know, using all this different equipment.
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Bethany Rutter: I just found that the more I imposed those kinds of, like, structures or challenges or requirements on myself, the less I really enjoyed
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Bethany Rutter: doing those things. Whereas now, this year, I consciously, at the beginning of the year, decided not to sign up for any kind of, like, race or organized run at all, and
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Bethany Rutter: decided to… that I would do strength training, but I would not be following, like, quote-unquote, a program. That I would just see what it was like to do all of this stuff. I think I… I'm quite kind of, like, goal-oriented, and I'm very, like…
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Bethany Rutter: I'm quite sort of, you know, I know this is, like, a bad word, but I'm quite, like, productive. Like, I'm always doing stuff, and the stuff I'm doing generally has, like, a quote-unquote point.
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Bethany Rutter: So I was like, what would it be like if I wasn't doing stuff to, like, reach a goal, or run further, or, like, do it for a specific point? And this year, I'm just enjoying all of the stuff I'm doing so much. And really, without trying, I'm still…
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Bethany Rutter: doing it well. Like, it hasn't actually… you know, and whether it did or not.
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Bethany Rutter: is kind of irrelevant, but I have personally found that, like, it…
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Bethany Rutter: I'm still, sort of, improving in whatever way that means, that it hasn't meant, like, checking out of…
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Bethany Rutter: improving or,
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Bethany Rutter: doing more challenging things, that just because I'm not following, like, a progressive plan, or training for a race, or whatever, I'm still…
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Bethany Rutter: making, like, quote-unquote progress, as well as actually enjoying it, whereas I think I could be making progress and not enjoying it.
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Bethany Rutter: As I have done in the past.
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Ela Law: So when you say, you sort of, you notice the progress, how do you notice that you are making progress without actually tracking it particularly?
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Bethany Rutter: Well, it's not that I don't track it, it's more just that I… I will, like, put my phone in my bum bag when I run, and I will… I still, like, use, like, Strava or whatever to log my runs, but I won't be checking how fast… like, while I'm running, I won't know how fast I'm running, but then I'll finish my run. You know, I always go out with an intention of running a certain distance or a certain time based on how much time I have.
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Ela Law: that day, or what I need to do that day, what can I fit in that day? And I only run twice a week, maximum, because I only have two sets of running clothes, so I'm limited to that.
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Bethany Rutter: And so… Yeah, I can see that, like.
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Bethany Rutter: I now run 5 kilometers faster than I was running it a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn't consciously, like, working on my pace. It's just that by keeping… and I think, you know, I don't love the whole, like, consistency thing, the way that, you know, a lot of, kind of, normie trainers talk about, like, consistency is key, and, like, you just, you know, I think of it more as, like, how do I keep my hand in all of these different things?
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Bethany Rutter: And just keep it ticking over, and…
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Bethany Rutter: So most weeks, I don't actually run further than 5 kilometers, and I maybe do that twice. Sometimes I run further, but,
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Bethany Rutter: I can still see that by doing that, You know, doing, like, a…
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Bethany Rutter: a 35-minute run twice a week, that that is enough to keep my body, like, improved, you know, being able to run faster, and also to make it feel easier, that, like, my cardio system recovers way quicker than it would have done 6 months ago,
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Bethany Rutter: you know, I'm… I can… I physically feel like the running itself is easier, so it's those kinds of, like, improvements that I am seeing without necessarily…
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Bethany Rutter: consciously working on anything in particular, and my body's just, like, taking care of it.
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Bethany Rutter: And with strength training, I just bought a heavier kettlebell, because I thought I can probably squat more than the kettlebell that I previously owned, and it would be better for me. But I… I think in the past, I'd have been like.
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Bethany Rutter: the only point in doing strength training is if you can do it to the maximum possible effort every single time, with the most equipment, and, like, to leave a day in between sessions and do, like, a split, and I'm just like, that… I don't live like that, that's too complicated, that's not realistic for me, and I don't enjoy it, so…
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Bethany Rutter: I just decided at the beginning of this year, I was gonna do two strength training sessions a week of some description, and they could both be at home.
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Bethany Rutter: there was no pressure to go to the gym, I have, like, 3 kettlebells, I have an 8KG, a 12KG, and a 20kg, and I do everything that I do with those, and I don't really care that it's probably not, like, the most…
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Bethany Rutter: efficient, or it's not getting me the most, like, gains, or whatever, because I actually do it, and that's what I say to people, is, like, the workout you actually do is so much better than the, like, ideal workout that you would
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Bethany Rutter: do, because you don't have the time, or you just don't want to. Like, I was… like, last year, after I did the half marathon, and I was like, oh, I should probably do some strength training. I was, like, following a…
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Bethany Rutter: you know, a proper plan in the gym, and I just found, like, you know, I'd just be like, I don't have time, I cannot go to the gym the number of times a week that I need to do this, and I cannot rely on all the equipment being available. And all of these things would just…
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Bethany Rutter: be barriers in my head to getting it done, whereas I was like, if I took away all that pressure… and I think that's something that I… I think people would do well to ask themselves, is like.
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Bethany Rutter: what is the easiest way for me to do the thing I want to do? Like, what is the lowest… the path of least resistance to getting me to do the thing that I want to be doing? Instead of imposing all of these things on yourself.
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Bethany Rutter: is it, like, buy a 12kg kettlebell on the internet and follow a YouTube workout? Because that is better than doing the ideal workout that you never do.
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Bethany Rutter: So I'm very, you know, I literally do my two little 30-minute kettlebell workouts at home twice a week, and I feel good for it. And you can't tell me that that is not improving the quality of my life, and my movement, and my running, especially. Like, that's… I know that that's not true, so I just feel like…
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Bethany Rutter: I do think a lot of, kind of, fitness content made by the, you know, as I've already used the expression, but, like, normie trainers, is kind of gatekeeping and making things seem more complicated or difficult than they are. And yeah, I think that's one of the things that led me to doing what I do.
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Bethany Rutter: personally, as an exerciser, but also as a PT, is, like, trying to make things just feel more manageable to people, and, like, exercise is a thing you can fit into your life in a non-stressful way.
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Ela Law: That's a… it's a really… sorry, go on.
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Christine Chessman: No, no?
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Ela Law: No, I just… something you just said about the gatekeeping and the kind of making things more complicated than it needs to be, that rings so, so true. I totally get that, and I exercise like you, I do things as and when. I have a couple of classes where it's time constrained, but generally, I don't like this, having a plan and then having to stick to it, and if you don't stick to it, what does that mean? Are you failing at it? All of this kind of…
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Ela Law: head fuck that goes with it. I don't subscribe to any of that, to be honest, but what you just said about the gatekeeping and making things more complicated, I find that it's the same thing in the nutrition world, when you look at all of these influencers that have just the right way of eating in a day, and it's just so fucking complicated, and you don't need to do it like that. It doesn't need to be like that.
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Ela Law: But it makes people seem like they're the expert, whereas actually you are the expert of what works for you, and you should be deciding, look, two kettlebell workouts a week for 30 minutes each is enough, thank you very much, that's gonna do me.
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Ela Law: I think, there's a lot to be said for tuning into what works for you, what works with your lifestyle, with your time that you have available. You know, you can go to a gym, and, you know, you get a workout plan of, you know, 3 hours a week.
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Ela Law: When you work full-time, or you have a family, and all, where are you gonna get those 3 hours from?
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Christine Chessman: Yeah.
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Ela Law: You know…
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Bethany Rutter: And then people feel like if I can't do that.
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Ela Law: Yeah.
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Bethany Rutter: exercise, and it's like, there are so many things, and this is not to be understood in a, like, there's no excuse not to exercise way, but it's more like, there are so many things you can do that don't feel as, like, mentally taxing and as time-consuming.
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Ela Law: that, you know, if it is something that you want to fit into your life, there are ways of doing it that hopefully will not feel like a massive stuck on your resources and your time and your energy.
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Christine Chessman: And, you know, there is, sort of, as you get slightly older, it's… there's certainly a case for taking care of your joints, and, you know, strength training is obviously probably the most efficient way to do that.
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Christine Chessman: But strength training looks different, as you were saying, for everybody. And I always say two 30-minute
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Christine Chessman: sessions a week is more than enough, and if you can actually build those into your life, happy days. And then if you want to add more in future, crack on, but that is… that's my starting point is one, then you add another once you get that one embedded, and it is just taking…
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Christine Chessman: all of the complexity out of it, you know? And I think people get scared by, oh no, I'm over the 45, I need to… this is kind of from our perspective, you need to lift heavy weights, and if you're not in the gym lifting barbells, you are screwed. And that's the scaremongering that is out there.
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Ela Law: Hmm.
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Christine Chessman: So I get loads of people coming to me here, kind of 47, 48, going, I need to strength train, I need to strength train, because they're hearing all of this.
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Christine Chessman: That that's the only way they're gonna survive.
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Christine Chessman: And it is just trying to…
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Bethany Rutter: Many of my PT clients don't do other intentional exercise between our sessions, so I see them once a week, and they…
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Bethany Rutter: that that's kind of all they do in terms of strength training. And if you look at what they're doing now, in terms of, like.
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Bethany Rutter: weights, reps, complexity of movements versus what we were doing a few months ago, even one session a week is, like, having tangible effects on their strength, which are measurable, you know, I can see. But more than that, the fact that every week they are doing this one thing, that is priceless, because these are people that otherwise might not be
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Bethany Rutter: doing it, but have found a way to fit something into their lives, and I think figuring out, you know, do you need…
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Bethany Rutter: Accountability.
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Bethany Rutter: therefore, should you maybe think about working with a person or a class? Or do you need things that are really, like, bite-sized, and you can just do, like, a little bit here and there? Or do you like being on your own, and want to take time for yourself, and therefore maybe, like, running would be nice, because that's, like, you know, thinking about, like, what would…
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Bethany Rutter: what are the things that you want and need, and how can you marry that with the time and the life that you actually have, I feel like is always, like, the way.
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Ela Law: Definitely.
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Christine Chessman: And are you thinking of going to more than one day a week with your personal training.
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Bethany Rutter: I will, I would really like to,
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Bethany Rutter: I have another job, as you know, because you have mentioned the book that I wrote, but, so I'm also an author, and through that, I have a third job, which involves working at a university, helping students with their academic writing, and I think once that comes… that was a two-year contract, and I think once that comes to an end, I'm… I would really like to add another day, because I have, like, a waiting list of people.
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Bethany Rutter: And… it would be really nice to work with more people,
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Bethany Rutter: I love the clients that I have at the moment, but who knows who I could be missing out on? Who are the people on my waiting list who I could be befriending and yupping to every week?
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Christine Chessman: Ella.
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Ela Law: Brilliant.
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Christine Chessman: We have a little tangent there, there's a segue there. So, Ellie, you wanted to talk about language.
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Ela Law: Yes, yes.
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Christine Chessman: just saying.
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Ela Law: massive on that, and you as an author, obviously, you're very well aware of the power of language, and this is something that I keep when I work, especially with, early year settings, or with parents.
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Ela Law: I talk a lot about how important it is, what language we use around bodies and food, because there's just so much very, very harmful and damaging language out there.
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Ela Law: So tell me… tell me a little bit about what… how you feel about it, and especially when you do your own writing, how do you… what… what do you… how do you stay, sort of, conscious of
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Ela Law: What language you use.
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Bethany Rutter: Well, writing for… my background is that I started writing for teenagers, and then I have written books for adults, but… and still writing books for teenagers, and I think coming from the background of writing books for teenagers with plus-size protagonists.
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Bethany Rutter: has always meant that I have been…
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Bethany Rutter: I don't… I guess I've been, like, swimming in these waters and thinking about, like.
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Bethany Rutter: how do I communicate with young people, in a responsible and effective way? So I feel like this is something that I've always been thinking about, and…
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Bethany Rutter: I guess not… more than language, specifically, for me, it's been about how do I…
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Bethany Rutter: impart the idea that other ways of doing things are possible, and I think that's what I'm always looking for with my writing for young people, is
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Bethany Rutter: I grew up a certain way, I received these messages, I had all of these anxieties, you know, that I carried into adulthood, because they don't just magically disappear when you become an adult.
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Bethany Rutter: And how… what would… what stories would people need to be told in order to believe that it was possibly… it was possible to kind of do things differently?
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Bethany Rutter: So I've always been kind of thinking about that when I've been writing, but it is, you know, writing for young people is a really big responsibility, especially about stuff like this, so I've never, like, taken that for granted.
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Ela Law: Yeah, thank you for explaining that. Yeah, I think it's… especially for young people, because as you said, a lot of the young people nowadays are surrounded by diet culture language, and it starts in their families, granny says something about her body, mummy says something about the dinner that she's eating, and, you know, there's just so much out there, so having
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Ela Law: Bit of an antidote.
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Bethany Rutter: In a book, or…
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Ela Law: Hearing it from someone else.
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Bethany Rutter: because, you know, I don't think it would be, useful for me to always write characters that have no problems with their bodies, that have no…
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Ela Law: negative feelings about their bodies that are just, like, 100% confident 100% of the time.
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Bethany Rutter: And I have written characters like that, but I've also written characters that experience, you know, fear of rejection because they are fat.
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Bethany Rutter: Experience, like, you know, not enjoying pee because they feel singled out because they are fat and not sporty.
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Bethany Rutter: it's more about, like, how do we contextualize that? And, you know, whereas in a book maybe written by someone else who did not have the experiences I've had.
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Bethany Rutter: that would just be, like, a side character that was, like, a silly fat character, you know, whatever. What is it… what does it feel like for that person to be treated like a whole person, and…
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Bethany Rutter: how do we kind of give them a whole story? So yeah, that's… that's my take on writing.
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Ela Law: Yeah, I like that. We were saying before, before you came on the call that I sometimes struggle with
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Ela Law: the fact that when you only have a protagonist who's in a larger body, generally, the whole story is about their weight. And there's not an awful… it's a very two-dimensional.
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Bethany Rutter: Okay.
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Ela Law: kind of
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Ela Law: character that has been… that is being portrayed, and I think… I completely hear what you're saying. It's really important to, you know, for people to relate to the character as well, to show, yes, we are struggling, because we live in a diet culture world, and, you know, we feel the fear of rejection, we feel that it's not easy to be in a larger body. But also, it's nice to, you know, that's not everything. It's nice for people
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Ela Law: People to have that.
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Ela Law: I remember watching Shrill, I don't know if you've seen it, and that was the first program I saw where the weight was sort of a side thing, it wasn't really a big thing. It was more about the character and, you know, what she was going through, what was going on for her, and I really loved that, because it wasn't the main thing about the person. And I think young people need to see more of that to normalize that, you know.
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Ela Law: fat people can have a normal life. It's not all about the weight.
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Bethany Rutter: Yes.
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Ela Law: But at the same time, I hear you when you say, you know.
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Ela Law: There is that struggle, there is that weight stigma there, that weight bias that they're dealing with on a day-to-day basis, so to make it relatable, you kind of have to factor that into the story, don't you?
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Christine Chessman: What I was gonna say, Ella, it was also somebody somewhere Yes. That is a crush.
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Ela Law: I love that.
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Christine Chessman: Beautiful show, which is just about real people doing…
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Christine Chessman: Really? Having friendships, and… and it's… I just adored that, because it just…
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Christine Chessman: I don't know, it hit me in a way that other manufactured Hollywood shows do not. You know, it could… it just had a… I don't know, authenticity, just sort of a very big heart. It was just a beautiful show. So if you haven't seen it already, go… after you've bought all of Bethany's books.
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Christine Chessman: Go watch Somebody somewhere.
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Christine Chessman: I would like to talk about… now, you can go, no thank you, because that's absolutely fine.
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Christine Chessman: I like to overshare, as you know. I would like to talk about your journey in terms of body acceptance. Now, if you would rather not, that's fine, we can talk forever about ours.
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Christine Chessman: But it's more about, you know, I've struggled to accept a changing body over the years.
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Christine Chessman: And I'm very much in a straight-sized body, but my body has gone up and down. Goes up and down depending on the exercise I'm doing, or how… all of that kind of stuff. Not intentionally, but it just does. And I… I do struggle at times to accept that, and go in and out, and work on that, etc.
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Christine Chessman: And, yeah, the age thing. But how do you accept your body as and when it changes? Is it something for you which is…
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Christine Chessman: Hard thing to do, or is it just…
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, it's definitely, like, a… it's been a very interesting thing, because I… in… the way that your body has changed in a, you know, a straight-sized body, mine has changed in a plus-size body, that sometimes… you know, I've been… since, you know, I've been an adult, I've been, like, maybe…
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Bethany Rutter: 3 different sizes, but because, you know, the bigger you, you know, the bigger you are, the bigger a difference there is between sizes,
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Bethany Rutter: It sort of looks very different, and…
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Bethany Rutter: I… I think because I just fundamentally believe in fat liberation, in…
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Bethany Rutter: you know, I think that's a thing that once you know it, you can't really unknow it. It just means that whatever size I… I feel very kind of, like, chill and zen about whatever size I am, because I fundamentally
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Bethany Rutter: don't think there is anything wrong with fatness. I don't have, kind of, like, a sort of ingrained,
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Bethany Rutter: hatred of it, or, like… I don't know, I feel quite, sort of…
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, I feel quite at peace. I find it, like, weirder and more difficult when my weight is lower, because I am like, oh, like, this is, you know, it feels weird, and kind of contrary to, how I've experienced life at different times, but,
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, I think I will never be a small person, so whether I'm, like, a size 24 or a size 20, which is kind of what I am at the moment,
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Bethany Rutter: I feel very, like, serene about it, because… partly because I… I think…
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Bethany Rutter: accepting that I will never… I have no need to be any smaller than I am now. There is no benefit to my life, that would require me to do stuff that, like, I just don't want to do, and I don't believe I should have to do. I think I…
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Bethany Rutter: I reserve the right to be the size I am now, forever, or bigger, or whatever, but, I think taking that pressure off myself
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Bethany Rutter: It's funny, like, obviously.
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Bethany Rutter: you know, thinking about the world of, like, GLP-1s as, you know, we have to all the time now, I was like, I actually don't…
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Bethany Rutter: I can't really imagine doing that, because I don't want to be any smaller. Like, I… it's, you know, realizing that you're so disconnected from the world of, like, actual thinness.
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Bethany Rutter: that you just go, like, I… that would represent no benefit to me in any way, to be smaller than I am now. And just being like, well, no, I would not take this wonder drug, because I… I could happily just hang out here in my…
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Bethany Rutter: you know, over a 100kg body forever. I… yeah, I feel very detached from that kind of thinking.
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Christine Chessman: And can you sell that detachment to some other people, please?
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Ela Law: Bottle it up.
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Christine Chessman: I mean, that is… I think that is something, if you could bottle that and sell it, you know, that is…
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Christine Chessman: it is just a really incredible place to be. It's somewhere that
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Christine Chessman: I have longed to be my whole life, and I had to, you know, I have to be very honest with myself, and I had, a counselling appointment where she kind of
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Christine Chessman: really just went for me and said, you're fatphobic. And I was like, no, I am not! Do you not know what I do for a living? And she was like, you internalize fatphobia as I'm seeing it, and it really upset me, because it…
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Christine Chessman: confronted me, and it was very much, yes, that's absolutely right, because if I'm scared, or if I'm worried about getting bigger, what is that saying?
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Christine Chessman: Oh, and it… and I was like, oh, but it's not about other… it's so… it is. It's… it's something that I've really had to…
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Christine Chessman: Have a long, hard look at myself, and kind of do a lot of work on myself.
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Christine Chessman: And I think to have that detachment, is…
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Christine Chessman: is something really special. I don't know, Ella, do you agree?
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Ela Law: I love, I love the question you asked yourself, like, what benefit would I have?
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Christine Chessman: Yeah.
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Ela Law: They were smaller. And I think a lot of people can come up with all sorts of benefits, in inverted commas, but when they really look
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Ela Law: at the situation, those benefits are either pipe dreams, or they already have those things, but they're not able to see that they already have that. So I think that's a… it's a really powerful question to say, you know, what benefit would.
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Christine Chessman: Oh, wait, bye.
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Ela Law: If I were smaller.
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Bethany Rutter: that there are not people… you know, I absolutely… you know, as someone who has, like, you know, lost and gained weight in my life, I don't… I totally do not judge anyone who feels motivated to do it.
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Ela Law: Mmm.
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Bethany Rutter: But, for me personally, I just feel like…
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Bethany Rutter: every… you know, there's nothing I would want… although I did see a post from someone yesterday who was like, I couldn't go horse riding because they have a 90 kilogram weight limit, and I was like…
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Bethany Rutter: maybe I want to go horse… you know, there's all these things…
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Christine Chessman: Yeah.
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Bethany Rutter: But, you know, realistically, in my life, there's just nothing, like, in terms of the movement that I do, in terms of, like, my clothes, in terms of, like, I don't know, yeah, there's nothing that I feel like I need to be…
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Bethany Rutter: smaller than I am. And, you know, I am smaller now than I have been in my life, But…
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, I…
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Bethany Rutter: I just feel like there's… there is no world in which I will ever be a thin person.
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Ela Law: Hmm.
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Bethany Rutter: And that's… I think being at peace with that.
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Ela Law: Nice.
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Bethany Rutter: Probably save me, like, a lot of mental and physical…
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Bethany Rutter: stress, just knowing that, yeah, it's… it's… some people are just… some people are just bigger than others, and I'm very okay.
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Ela Law: Yeah, definitely. And yeah, I suppose just to highlight that, obviously, there are people who are in, in much larger bodies who
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Ela Law: really struggle with daily life, because they can't find clothes to buy in the high street stores, they can't fit into doctors' chairs, and we have to sort of acknowledge that there is a certain privilege that comes.
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Bethany Rutter: 100%, yeah, and that's why I'm… I'm so, like, you know, I… I cannot and will not, like, judge anyone for…
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Bethany Rutter: the positions that they put themselves in, you know, for whatever choices that people make, and however they do it, because I know, like, people are way nicer to me at a size 20 than they were at, like, a 24. And that's not even, like, the biggest that a human person, you know, can… like, that's still in the sort of mid-range.
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Bethany Rutter: Sizing, and just… it's just naive and untrue to think that…
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Bethany Rutter: you know, you do not receive many benefits from being smaller, so… yeah. But I just think having a more, kind of.
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, I feel very, sort of, chill about… my… body, and…
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Bethany Rutter: have for kind of a long time, but as you say, Christine.
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Bethany Rutter: you know, in some ways, not in all ways, but, you know, the size of your body is semi-determined by the input and output, and the more output… you know, if I want to be, like, doing more physical movement, that, you know, puts… that sort of changes the… the dynamic and the balance, and so…
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Bethany Rutter: yeah, if I want to be doing as much moving around as I have time for now that I'm self-employed, and…
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Bethany Rutter: whatever, like, that will probably result in being smaller than I have been at times where I, you know, like, lockdown, where it was just not going anywhere, not doing anything. So yeah, I feel like I'm… I'm quite, like, chill at the moment, and long made up.
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Christine Chessman: Yeah, and it's, you know, I think Ella and I are always talking about this, that we have no… we're not gurus in this field, and I think it's… it's definitely work that I've done an awful lot of work
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Christine Chessman: To become chill.
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Christine Chessman: Not quite there yet, but we're definitely getting there.
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Bethany Rutter: Also, recognizing things that sort of make you feel not chill, and not engaging with them. So I… a while… I think it was around when I was trying to do, like, strength training, I was getting really stressed out by all the messages around, like, how much protein you need to eat. And so then I was like, okay, so if I weigh whatever I weigh, that means I need to eat,
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Bethany Rutter: this much protein, and I just looked at that and was like, okay, well, I'm trying to eat less meat, so this means I'm having… I'm gonna have to eat an astronomical amount of, like.
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Bethany Rutter: other protein… you know, it's not easy to eat that much protein if you are choosing to eat a lot less meat than you have at once in your life for ethical reasons. And I was… I was finding it really stressful. I was like, you know, I felt very oppressed.
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Bethany Rutter: by the knowledge of having to eat, you know, 120… you know, something like 120 grams of protein a day. And…
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Bethany Rutter: And I was like, okay, so does that then mean I have to, like, track my food? And I was like, well, I don't want to do that. You know, I don't want to be getting into this stuff that's making me feel, like, stressed, or like I have to, you know, I have to know what I'm eating in terms of, like, grams of protein. Like, that's very… that's really something that seems like a thing that I don't want to be doing. Yeah. So I just thought.
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Bethany Rutter: if…
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Bethany Rutter: If trying to do this, like, quote-unquote good thing for my body is actually resulting in me feeling, like, stressed out and overwhelmed.
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Bethany Rutter: It's not actually a good thing.
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Ela Law: Yeah.
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Bethany Rutter: you know, that's a thing that I just don't need to let into my life, that, like.
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Bethany Rutter: I'm not gonna keel over because I'm not getting 120 grams plus of protein a day. Like, that's not gonna kill me. So I try… I feel like with… I think maybe what I've learned over the past few years is, like, holding onto things with a kind of light grip, you know?
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Christine Chessman: And yes.
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Bethany Rutter: Kind of.
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Bethany Rutter: you know, I'm running, but I'm not stressed about running. I'm strength training regularly, but I'm not stressing myself out about, like, doing body part splits and whatever. And, you know, I am trying to…
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Bethany Rutter: Eat in a way that feels nice to me, but without…
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Christine Chessman: Mmm.
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Bethany Rutter: Overwhelmed by any particular, like.
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Bethany Rutter: nutr… you know, macronutrient group, or whatever. I try and get my 5 a day. Like, that's sort of basically it. I… I try and eat 5 fruit and vegetables a day, and not eat too much meat, and… because it's bad for the environment. You know, that's sort of it. Like, that's…
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Bethany Rutter: So yeah, trying to sort of have a vague structure, an idea of what I would like to be doing, but without being like, this is what I do, and it's really important to me that I do it every single day to the best way that I can, and just be like, we've got some little guardrails going on, but, like, nothing that makes me feel stressed.
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Ela Law: Wow, this is music.
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Ela Law: It is, because it's so…
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Ela Law: intuitive eating, isn't it? It's about being flexible, and having a light sort of grip on it, I like that phrase, and not sort of being rigid with anything. And that's movement and food, and your mind, and the thought, and the stress.
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Ela Law: And making sure that, you know, you're not stressed, you're not stressing yourself out with any of those things. That's pretty much the essence of the framework, isn't it? Not to be too rigid and having that flexibility.
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Ela Law: I love that.
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Christine Chessman: And it is… I like that kind of minimum effect of
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Christine Chessman: you know, you're kind of… you've got your guardrails up, you're kind of doing what works for you and keeps your, you know, maintains the strength and the fitness that you're… you're building. Coming way back, circling way back to your kettlebell story.
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Bethany Rutter: Hmm.
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Christine Chessman: I find the reason I like kettlebells so much is COVID, because I suddenly realized a kettlebell in your house
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Christine Chessman: It's worth so much more than a lot… a gym membership, because you… it's there, and it's completely flexible, and it's completely… you know.
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Christine Chessman: You can do such…
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Bethany Rutter: Those are so good, and whenever I have, like, a new client who doesn't have any equipment, I'm like…
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Bethany Rutter: can you afford to buy, like, one kettlebell of roughly this weight? And almost always the answer is yes, and so then, many people that I work with have one kettlebell, and after, like, some months, maybe they will get a heavier one, but, you can just do so much. Like, it can humble you very quickly if you want it to.
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Christine Chessman: Yes, 100%. And there's fun things, you know, there's fun things. I love the ballistic movements. I love things like a halo, where you can just do a bit of shoulder mobility and build up, and you can do a lovely little neck stretch if you hold one behind your back, and just, like, there's just a lot you can do.
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Bethany Rutter: No, I love.
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Christine Chessman: Oh, I love the way.
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Bethany Rutter: It makes my hips feel so nice.
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Christine Chessman: is my favourite movement. Ella, you need to get yourself a kettlebeck.
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Ela Law: I have a kettlebell.
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Bethany Rutter: Oh, you gotta go.
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Christine Chessman: That's fun.
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Bethany Rutter: It's so fun.
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Ela Law: I was just thinking, when you said, oh, there's so much you can do with it, I thought, well, you could just put it down and carry it from room to room when you go from one room to the other, because, you know, that's the… a good thing, isn't it, to have that load when you walk.
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Ela Law: So I just thought.
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Christine Chessman: Yeah.
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Ela Law: That would fit into my life, carrying it around when I'd go into the utility room to put the washing up, and then carrying it back to the kitchen.
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Christine Chessman: I would never do that. I am never going to be, while the kettle's boiling, doing squats. I'm not gonna be doing that. I kind of… I like to do my
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Christine Chessman: And then I'm done.
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Ela Law: insane.
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Christine Chessman: I'm done then. Then I'm… then I'm sitting.
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Ela Law: That's it. I've done the movement, I'm not doing any more.
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Christine Chessman: Yeah, that's kind of… it's… but it's interesting, some people like to do it little bits here and there, which is also really…
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Ela Law: But then you…
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Ela Law: So that, in your mind, it counts as movement, because a lot of the time, people then think, oh, I haven't done anything.
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Ela Law: But you've just walked to the shops, you've just taken the dog out, you've just carried a kettlebell from the utility room to the kitchen. You have done stuff.
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Ela Law: It's a mindset, isn't it?
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Christine Chessman: It all comes.
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Ela Law: It does.
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Christine Chessman: Bethany, before we let you go, because obviously we've run over, because we always do, I want you to tell me about your new book. I have pre-ordered your new book, and I want to know a little bit about it. As much as you can tell us.
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Christine Chessman: And as you can go off… And tangent.
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Bethany Rutter: Well, thank you.
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Bethany Rutter: My next book is called, Ask Me Anything. It's out in November, and I've written books, where people are at school, and I've written books where people are adults, but I've always wanted to write a book set at university, because for me, that was, like, a really, like, that was the sort of…
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Bethany Rutter: the time that I felt very, like, independent and free, and started kind of, like, dating, and started sort of becoming the person that I, you know, really was.
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Bethany Rutter: So I've always wanted to write a book set at university, and Ask Me Anything is the realization of that dream. So it's about a girly… a little girly called, Mary Elizabeth, who is in her second year at university in London, and has an advice column in the University magazine, and…
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Bethany Rutter: Is in a kind of, situationship with her editor, who she really fancies.
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Bethany Rutter: And…
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Bethany Rutter: then sort of maybe discovers that he is not the best person for her, and that maybe there are other people on the scene with whom she would be a better fit. But how does she…
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Christine Chessman: Hmm…
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Bethany Rutter: get the…
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Ela Law: You'll have to read the book. But yeah, she's a…
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Bethany Rutter: very stylish.
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Bethany Rutter: cute, plus-size girly who loves clothes, and I strongly relate to her.
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Ela Law: Oh, that sounds amazing.
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Christine Chessman: Fabulous.
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Christine Chessman: And, I think I read an article that you wrote, was it in the Metro or the… I can't remember which paper it was in, but you had said that every protagonist in these, sort of, teen books will be plus size, is that right?
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, I mean, that is true so far.
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Christine Chessman: so far.
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah, I mean, who knows what the future… well, I would have said that in general, but I've written a book for adults under another name, which is coming out next year, where the protagonist is not plus size.
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Bethany Rutter: But, in terms of my teen stuff, I don't see any reason why that would ever change. But who knows, you know, just in case, just in case someone's like, here's a million pounds to write a book about this one really specific person who is not fat.
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Bethany Rutter: So yeah, I never say never, but yeah, I just… I feel like there's so much to explore in…
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Bethany Rutter: In terms of, like.
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Bethany Rutter: how that affects you as a teenager, and the way that that does not leave you as you become an adult. Like, when I was dating in my 20s, I was thinking the same thoughts about myself that I had been thinking as a teenager, so I just feel like, you know, there is so much to excavate.
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Bethany Rutter: They're.
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Christine Chessman: Huge.
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Bethany Rutter: Yeah. Many mobile.
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Christine Chessman: Very excited.
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Bethany Rutter: Well, thank you.
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Ela Law: Yeah, we'll pop the link in the show notes to pre-order the book.
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Christine Chessman: Absolutely, and yeah, I highly recommend. Bethany writes beautifully, so.
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Ela Law: I have ordered, I have just received, actually, a few of your books, but I didn't have time before today to read them, so I'm on it. I'm on it.
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Bethany Rutter: that.
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Ela Law: Might read them.
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Christine Chessman: I like it, I said, I said, I said to Ella, oh, we're having Bethany on the podcast, so she just bought all of your books. She's like, oh, I'm just gonna…
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Bethany Rutter: no more.
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Christine Chessman: I like this!
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Christine Chessman: Yeah, well, you know…
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Ela Law: You've been raving about Slowcoach in particular, so that's definitely the…
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Christine Chessman: Yeah.
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Ela Law: home, and then, yeah, I just thought I might read it with my daughter at the same time, so we can have a chat. Yeah.
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Christine Chessman: Yeah, absolutely. But, Bethany, thank you for giving up some of your very precious time for us, and we really appreciate it.
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Bethany Rutter: I love chatting with people who understand.
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Ela Law: Thank you so much. Really lovely to meet you. Thanks for your time. Nice to meet you.
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Christine Chessman: Nice to meet you. I'll see you next time!
