#111: Amanda Lee Burkett

"I’m trying to manage myself but not judge myself."

Jul 26, 2026

Amanda Lee Burkett is a creative consultant and the writer behind YOU CAN TALK ABOUT IT, BUT ONLY WITH ME — a fashion newsletter that’s part-diaristic, part-voyeuristic, always fabulous, and often makes me miss New York. She also serves as Air Mail’s Market Editor, where she recently launched their new style column, Dress Code.

Below: notes on overcoming claustrophobia, being a pork maximalist, and her and her boyfriend, chef Flynn McGarry’s, very chic apartment.

#111: Amanda Lee Burkett
New York, NY

What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?

Health is positivity! I am at my most healthy when I have an honest and positive outlook on who I am and how I live.

Health depends on freedom and autonomy. Right now, I have that. I’m very lucky.

How would you describe your current lifestyle?

My current lifestyle is a work in progress. I’m trying to manage myself but not judge myself.

Monday to Saturday, I work at home during the day. My weekly newsletter, You Can Talk About It But Only With Me, goes live on Sundays, so I often work most of Saturday — I don’t mind. I reserve Friday and Saturday evenings for relaxing by myself or having dinner with friends.

Monday-Thursday evenings, I usually have an invitation that is important for me to attend. I have recently joined the team at Air Mail as the Market Editor for their style section, Dress Code, where I share a weekly dispatch on stylish happenings. I find myself having a lot of 5pm coffees.

Sunday is reserved for resting and catching up with my boyfriend, Flynn. He’s a chef so his hours are…unique. We have kept our Sundays clear for the better part of five years.

How do you start and end your days?

I say bye to Flynn. We always say something nice to each other/wish each other luck on whatever the day holds. It’s not a deep meditative encounter, but the daily confirmation of “I’m on your team” is the best way to start the day. Once he’s gone, I pull my laptop into bed. After I read Lena Dunham’s Famesick, I ceased having shame about working in my bed.

I have three jobs, two of which I told you: my writing and editing. Those are the things I feel OK doing in my bed. The third job is consulting, which I do at my dining table with my notebook and an iced coffee or matcha from Gem Home.

I have the most incredible clients. During the week, I chat with them and execute the strategy I built for them. Working with creative people and helping them find unique ways to express themselves has given me purpose and fulfillment. Celebrating with them is the best feeling.

The end of my day, usually, is coming home from a dinner or party or real-friend gathering of some sort. I make sure to wash my face and my feet. And I’ll talk with Flynn when he’s done with work. If I wasn’t out already, we’ll have a glass of wine together. He built our dream bathroom, which has a soaking tub for him and a rattan chaise lounge for me.

Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?

Smoking changed everything. I started smoking when I was 19 and like magic, I lost the fluff that hung around my hips and face — like POOF! I was so skinny. I was eating as much as I always did — I love to eat — and the nicotine set my metabolism on fire. I couldn’t put on weight AND no one was accusing me of an eating disorder.

Before this, let’s say 14-19, I hated my body as much as you could possibly imagine. I fantasized about chopping my inner thighs off. Can you imagine? It still breaks my heart.

I came from a skinny house. Not an almond mom house, but a house where everyone was thin no matter what they ate. Instead of eating healthier, I was advised — frequently — to eat a lot less. Black coffee, no sugar, no carbs, no dairy, crash diets, running track, gym memberships, SOUL CYCLE... Nothing worked. I would cry about it a lot and really felt like I had nowhere to turn. I was always completely healthy by medical standards, but like many girls I was convinced that I was too big.

And in an instant I had seven years of everyone telling me they would kill for my body. There were only a handful of moments where friends told me they were worried; I remember my mom once looking at me and bursting into tears. But mostly, it was amazing.

I came from a skinny house. Not an almond mom house, but a house where everyone was thin no matter what they ate.

Until one day, it wasn’t, and in January of this year, I quit smoking. You can read more about that decision here. Today, I’m in a place I never planned to return to: middle school, where my favorite jeans (now-$600 jeans that ironically I worked my ass off to get for trade) won’t button. I was recently told at a vintage store I was not thin enough for one of the skirts I was holding. When I left, I texted a friend who I knew would know what to say. She said, 1. Fuck him, he wants to wear your skin, and 2. You’re perfect.

She kept me from reverting to my past self whose answer was always to become thinner. I am determined to live the opportunity that I did not allow my younger self to pursue: acceptance.

I’ve been fighting the magnetism of disordered eating my whole life. It will probably never go away, but it has never felt less powerful.

What’s your relationship to self-healing?

I saw a specialist a few years ago for claustrophobia (ex., I could not and did not take an elevator for four years). It was controlling my life and had stripped me of my dignity; I had debilitating shame.

I did not fix this issue with self-healing. I remember Flynn finally telling me: We don’t know how to help you, but you can find someone who does. Because of this, I found Sarah. Sarah is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist who was funny, tough, and very pregnant, which I thought was awesome. She was leading me through my lion’s den while managing all three of our heartbeats. With her help, I can take elevators and ride the subway — two things that were unimaginable to me for years.

If you are suffering from a phobia, please know: you have all of my empathy, it’s not your fault, it’s not funny, or a piece of information people should feel comfortable spreading about you. Be kind to yourself and on a strong day prioritize treatment. It will work.

I brought all of this up because yes, sometimes you cannot self-heal, and I needed to learn that. But Sarah did teach me how to box breathe, which is a form of self-healing that protects me from my wild mind often.

In the traditional sense: I do not get sick often. My friends say I deny sickness when it infects me — I’m too busy to be sick! There has not been much that hot lemon water and some sleep couldn’t temper. I am grateful.

Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?

I am in therapy (that I pay for myself — more on that in a bit). I’ve been with this therapist since 2020, having her in my corner has been life-changing. She has taught me to rely on myself above everything, take matters into my own hands not just sometimes but every time, and claim responsibility for my own happiness. She has given me pride. Shoutout Brooke.

When do you feel the most nourished?

This will probably be a first for Health Gossip, but getting paid nourishes me.

Financial independence has always been a huge priority; my mother taught me that it was one of the only things that guaranteed freedom. I watched her transform her own life — in her late 50s — by changing her career and making her own money.

I didn’t know until very recently that I could get paid for my…unique skills…because they took a while to reveal themselves. At 26, approximately 15 jobs later, I am getting paid to be me. It’s not easy, but even when I’m looking at a bit of debt, I see the value in handling it myself.

The only thing more nourishing than seeing the money come in, is spending it: on a home I love, on people I love, on things I love, on a life I love in the city I always wanted to live in.

How do you reset?

Social life in New York mostly revolves around drinking. And if you work in media or a creative industry, the drinks are often unlimited and free––which sounds great, but it can spiral pretty quickly. The only way I survived dry January was by staying in my house!

One to two days without drinking a week is my goal, and that is my reset. When I drink a bunch, I can’t sleep, I get super anxious, and the next day is easily wrecked. I try to be honest about drinking, I think people have a lot of shame around it and can sort of...suffer in silence...It’s slippery, and everyone is so different.

I don’t want to burn out, I don’t ever want to move away or blame New York — so getting a handle on it has become more important to me. (My psychiatrist says this is common during the second half of one’s 20s.) Let’s talk about it more!

Do you have a favorite meal?

My all-time favorite meal has to be crab pasta with caviar, which is what Flynn made for our friends and family this past Thanksgiving. That will always stand out to me as a special meal because not one of our twelve guests cared that we were not doing a traditional Thanksgiving, and we all had such a fun night. Because of him, I have learned and still do learn so much about food and eating with the seasons. I eat something from Gem Home every day and have dinner at Cove at least once a week; if you have not yet been, summer is a great time to try!

An additional favorite meal is a beautiful Italian sandwich, which even I can make after shopping at our local Italian grocer, DiPalo’s, who makes the best mozzarella in the world. Living in Little Italy is incredible.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I wish I could tell my younger self that all of her dreams are going to come true before thirty. It’s not really advice, but if I told me then about me now, she would have cracked up.

For real advice, I would tell her what my father always told me plainly: “You are great.”

And I would also tell her to laser hair removal literally everything. I bet my mom would have paid for it then and I wouldn’t have to deal with it now. I probably also would ask that she find a way to get Accutane. The people with the most beautiful poreless skin always confess to doing it in high school. I regret nothing except for these two vain things.

What advice would you give to the person reading this?

You can change your outlook at any time. You can go from negative to positive right now. Good news is coming. Something good happens every day.

Be yourself. I don’t think I’m so goddamn unique, but I am the only me there is, as are you. Find ways to embrace it, find ways to enjoy it.

If you are lucky enough to meet your basic needs, give the rest of the money away, use it for pleasure, don’t hoard it, don’t worry about it. Spend money with abandon. Make room for more money to come in, make room for more things to bring you pleasure.
1. Never become a billionaire.

What would you like to see or create more of in the world?

Something that really puts me off in my teeny tiny slice of the world is when people say there is too much of something, too many Substacks, too many podcasts, even something as stupid as there are too many DJs, we need EMTs. I get it, it’s funny, and it’s true — but don’t let anyone tell you it’s too late to do something. All you have to do is be unique and try hard to be good.

I want other people to see the opportunity of being alive, the blessing of being healthy, and the benefits of being positive.