The Psychology Behind Food Addiction & Creating Better Habits EP 1316

Food is wired in to our brains in such a way that you can't not eat what your brain is demanding, that you need to eat any more than you could not breathe the air that your brain thinks that you need to breathe. It changes your hormonal profile to force you to eat, but here's what happens.

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It's been just a super personal journey. I mean, I think I was addicted to sugar first. It wasn't the most dramatic addiction early on because I wasn't a fat kid, but I was hooked on sugar in a way that I remember I was probably five or six or seven years old and some grown up waggled a finger in my face and said, you,'re a sugar addict, Missy. You mark my words, you're a sugar addict for life.

Already programming your mind, telling you you are.

Well, I mean, I was sneaking it already. I was hiding it and really fixated on it. But the most dramatic addiction was drugs. I started using drugs when I was 14 and it took off hard and fast for me.

Why do you think people get addicted to drugs in the first place? Like why do they get into it and how does it become addictive? Is it a self-love thing? Is it I don't fit in or belong or I don't connect to my parents or something's disconnected so let me go try this thing?

You know, I think it starts in different ways for different people. Often it can be a deficit, right? Like a nurturance deficit or a connection deficit or whatever. There really is, research shows, a genetic susceptibility. so just look at your family tree, right? How many smokers, alcoholics, you know, people with obesity, just look at your family tree. And I definitely have an addiction in my family for sure.

But if there, well, let's hypothetically, if there was no alcohol or drugs available, would people be addicted to them if they couldn't have access to them?

Well, they wouldn't be addicted to them if they couldn't have access to them. You gotta, you have to have experience with something. So, so the underlying genetic susceptibility sets the stage. And then you have to wire up experiences with that specific thing where the brain goes, oh yeah, that'll do. Exactly. Like that worked, right? And then you do it again and the cues that predict that particular reward get wired in and over time. So for example, I'm as addictible as they come genetically and environmentally and so forth, but I don't have gambling addiction, I don't have shopping addiction, but I'm susceptible, right? Maybe if I went through a divorce and suddenly, you know, I go to.

The mall and I'm buying everything.

Amazon one-clicking and it's hitting the spot. or whatever, right?

So. Does everyone have an addictive personality?

No, only some people do. So research shows that for human beings, for rats, both species have been tested, about one-third of people are just not addictable at all. Under any circumstances to anything.

They're like, I'll have a reasonable amount of food. I'll have a reasonable amount of this. I'll just take one of these things, I don't need 10 of them.

Yep.

Really?

They don't need coffee every morning. If they miss it a couple mornings, they're okay. They can go to a concert and have a cigarette and then not think about it again for a year. Yeah, so a third of people are not addictable, a third are moderately addictable, and a third are highly addictable.

How do you know which one you're in?

So a lot of people know, they just know from their own life experience that stuff pulls them, right? That stuff pulls them and they have to watch themselves, otherwise they go overboard, right? An overly sensitive constitution and personality, an impulsiveness, You know, difficulty, delaying gratification, those are some of the traits of an addictive personality.

But it could be, you could delay gratification on some things, but other things not be harder to.

Yeah, exactly. So it definitely goes domain by domain, right? Again, back to the like, I don't care about shopping kind of thing, you know.

But throw a cigarette in your face and it's like, oh, this is just.

I have one problem, and I must go buy a pack even and smoke it even if I go by.

All of it, right? All of it, right?

Right then, it's nasty. And actually, I got back into cigarettes about five years ago and spent a year on the merry-go-round with cigarettes. At that point, you know, I'm married, I got three kids, my husband hates the smell and taste of cigarettes, so I'm sneaking out of the house at night. Oh man. I'm having as many cigarettes as I can force in, and now I'm sneaking up the back stairs into the house and stripping off my clothes and putting them in the washing machine and showering and washing my hair, and then brushing my teeth.

It's like a whole charade. It's a whole, and then my husband.

Can still smell it. So he's like, I'm not kissing you. You know, And then, you know, like.

Your lungs and like you have to.

Like, drink mouth I quit, like, four or five times that year and then would still go back to it. It would you know, even when it was out of my system for a month or whatever, I would how long.

Were you and I? How long before then were you not smoking?

Oh, probably a decade at least, or more more.

So what draws someone back after five, ten years of an addiction?

I was at a meeting, a twelve step meeting, a bunch of You know, good looking, happy looking young folks were smoking cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes outside of the movie theater. And I was like, oh, let me.

Just go, yeah, the lie of all just have one. It'll be okay, I'll just have one.

I could never just do one cookie. You know, that's why I say cookies.

I do like cookies. Put me on here, and we're gonna talk about that. Yeah, interesting. Okay, so what helped you, I guess, and the addiction for the drugs and the alcohol, you know, 20 years ago, what allowed you to get a handle on food addiction, drug addiction as a highly addictive personality type.

Yeah, so the ego addict in me wants to say, it was 28 years ago, Louis.

28 years ago, sorry. 28 years ago, I don't wanna take any years away. You don't wanna take one day away from an addict, right? It's like, every day is huge.

Oh, sorry about 28 years. 28 years. Wow. Yeah, just recently, I picked up my 28 years. That's amazing, congrats. Thank you. So, yeah, and at that point, the drug addiction had just spiraled out of control. We're talking crack cocaine addiction, crystal meth addiction, prostitution, dropped out of high school. I was 20 when I got clean. Wow. And I didn't have a key to a place that I was living. Like it was, you know. Yeah, I dropped out of high school when the crystal meth took hold. Drug-induced psychosis, jail. Never went to prison, but a couple times in jail.

Right. So it's hard to put a woman in prison. I think it's hard to, like. It's hard to get it all the way there.

They kept me out actually. It's interesting. And I, you know, when you talk about privilege, I mean, I literally had a cop say, you do not belong here. Like look at my appearance and say, you don't belong here and do everything he could to keep me out. I should have been in prison. But I was kept out, yeah. But definitely spent a fair bit of time in jail.

So what was the thing that was the catalyst for you getting clean in all these areas?

So the drugs and alcohol came first. So what happened was I was 20, just turned 20, and I was tricking. So I had a, I had a shaved head and I had a blonde wig on my head. I was living in San Francisco, where I'm from, and I was in this crack house. So I was at the, I think it's called the Mission Hotels on South Van Ness and Mission Street, and it was you know, a pay by the week slash month slash hour kind of seedy place, nasty place. And I had this friend named Joe Brown, friend, we'll put that in quotes, named Joe Brown, who had a room there. And he liked to smoke rock, crack. And so I was making a lot of money as a call girl. And so I would bring crack rock and I could smoke safely in his place. And I'd been smoking, at that point, The crack smoking was binging. So it would be, you know, three, four, five days in a row, no sleeping, no food, no water, just smoking around the clock. We'd smoke up thousands of dollars. So I was there and I'd been there all weekend. And now it was a Tuesday morning. There was a couple kicking heroin over to my left. So they were kind of shaking like fish on a boat dock, you know, just like quivering and detoxing. And Joe Brown was passed out. There were still crack rocks on the table. So it wasn't that we were out of drugs. But it was Tuesday morning now, maybe 9 or 10 a.m. And I just had the most significant moment of my entire life. I was sitting there and nothing special happened except suddenly I became aware. Just aware. And I remembered my dreams of going to Harvard and and getting a PhD when I was a little kid, and who I was and the life I was living suddenly was clear to me. And it hadn't been any choices that had led me there. It was sort of like this creeping non-choice of just sliding into this life that had happened. And then this knowing came big, full knowing. where suddenly it was clear that if I did not get up and get out of there right that second, that was all I was ever gonna be.

You'd be trapped there.

In cycles of getting clean and relapsing and using and prostituting and drugs and forever and ever and ever, that that was gonna be my life. That that was the moment.

You're 20?

I was 20. Wow. And I grabbed my jacket and I walked out the door.

And.

I went over to this guy's house where I was crashing sometimes. I slept, I showered, I put on my makeup, I put on my wig. I was ready to go for the day. I put my pager on my hip. It was 1994. Put my pager on my hip. And I was ready to go back out and trick. And I just thought that I was gonna not use drugs anymore. That was my game. I was not gonna use drugs anymore. You're gonna go right back to the life. And I used drugs. And, but I had met this super cute guy at a gas station at 3:00 in the morning a few nights prior, and we had a first date, like not a money date, but like a we actually liked each other date. And he took me to a 12-step meeting for drug and alcohol recovery on that first date.

Your first date he took you there?

Yes. There are hundreds of people there. He was sober four years, but he was a sex addict, so he picked me up because he knew I was a call girl. And he was deep in his sex addiction, but he was four years sober. And he took me to this meeting.

Were you sober with sex?

With booze. No, no, no. He was using sex. He was sober on booze.

He used a different addiction. Yes, yes.

And I picked up a 24-hour coin that night, and I've never had a drink or a drug since.

Holy cow. Yeah. That's a big.

I started working the steps. I started doing the recovery thing. I mean, I didn't kind of get it at first. I didn't know where we were, what was this thing? It was very bizarre. It took me a little while to acclimate to it. I didn't start going to a lot of meetings right away because I didn't know there were a lot of meetings to go to. It took me about 30 days for the fog to clear in my head, but I never used again. And then after about 30 days, I started to really go to meetings and really dive into recovery. Wow. And then my academic journey started. So now I'm clean and sober.

So you're 20, 21 now.

I'm 20. Just 20, I'm clean and sober. I go to community college, 'cause I was a high school dropout, right?

So I enrolled in, I started living with my mom.

You got your DED or whatever? Yeah, you got to community college. Exactly, went to community, thank God for the community college system. It just, it's an on-ramp into life for anyone at any time.

And I crushed it there and then transferred to UC Berkeley.

Wow, so you did two years there, one year, two years? I only did one year because before I dropped out of high school, I actually had some AP credits under my belt. so I only needed to do one year at community college and then transferred to UC Berkeley, did two years there, 4.0, spoke at the graduation.

Holy cow.

Crushed it there.

What was your graduation speech like? Did you tell stories?

I, you know, it was interesting. It was about how there are no bad choices in life. Experience is the thing that really matters, right? Like, that's basically what my speech was about. And my uncle was supposed to bring the video camera and he forgot, so it's not recorded.

What a great throwback that would have been, you know?

And then I was studying cognitive science. I started studying the mind and the brain. I was fascinated. How can a brain like mine go so far off the rails? What is up with this mind and brain thing? So I just started studying it. After two years, I was nowhere near finished. So I went to go get my master's and PhD in that. Five years later, I had a PhD and just got a legitimate life. And got fat really fast.

My food addiction took off. Well, because that's usually what happens, right? It's like someone stops smoking When they're smoking, they go into what's the food or whatever the next addiction is that's not smoking, right?

Yep.

What do they call that? Is it like addiction transfer?

Yeah, or cross-addiction or whatever. Yeah, exactly. But it does, I mean, what's going on in the brain is the dopamine receptors, they want their hit and they don't really care where they get it from. So they're like, all right, you're not gonna give me booze, let's take cookies. You're not gonna give me cookies. start one-clicking on Amazon. You're not gonna let's start watching pornography. You know, like that dopamine, you know, when the brain wants it, it wants it.

And there's lots of ways to get it. Lots of ways to get it. So many ways to get it, right? Yeah. Man. Okay, so you got, you use food as your addiction, right?

Yeah.

You got fat. What does fat mean?

Is this 20 pounds overweight? Is this 100 pounds overweight? 60 pounds overweight. And I'm only five foot three. I'm pretty tiny. So it was obese. On the BMI chart, it was, So it's like barely obese. So it's about where the average person in this country is right now, frankly.

So when did you realize like food addiction was a thing that you wanted to master next and understand for yourself?

Well, I knew within a year that I was addicted to food. I had this moment of clarity around that actually. I was at that community college, I had moved out from my mom, I was renting a one room, In a shared house, and every night I was going out to binge. So I'd go get all my binge foods. I'd bring them home. I'd watch TV. This is now 1995. And back in those days, the TV, you know, had channels.

--Did it have Netflix then?

--No Netflix.

--Mtv and five other channels or something like that.

--And I was, I would eat, you know, so my foods were, I'd buy like some pasta, I'd buy some, Some English muffins with butter and strawberry jam. I'd make myself a whole batch of raw cookie dough. No pretense of preheating up.

I'm just gonna eat the cookie dough.

Just eat the cookie dough. Just eat the cookie dough. That's about 3,000 calories right there. I'd maybe buy some Cool Ranch Doritos, some Twix bars. One night? Oh yeah, like all this stuff. And, you know, big box of like garlic. Oh yeah, and a couple pints of a couple pints of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. You know, strawberry vanilla. And coffee, Häagen-Dazs ice cream. So, I've got all this food around me and I'm smoking at that time too. So, I'm binging and then I'm going out to smoke. I'm coming in, I'm eating, going out to smoke. And then I do this until like, I guess it's 4:00 in the morning, the programming would stop on the TV.

And the big vertical bars would come.

Up and it would be like, Right. Like the TV was going. There's no more content. Yeah. And I had this moment again, this moment of clarity where I looked around and I It felt like smoking crack in the crack house. I was like, this is not sober behavior. I am not clean. I am using. I am using.

A different drug.

And I was sharing in 12-step meetings for drugs and alcohol about the cookies I'd eaten last night and how I kept binging. And the response was mixed. A lot of people would pat me on the head and say, at least you're not smoking crack. Like be lighter on yourself. But when they would say that, I would ache inside and I would, tears would spring to my eyes and I would think, you have no idea how I'm eating. Like if you knew how I was eating, you wouldn't be saying, they're there, at least you're not smoking crack.

It was, I'm not just having a couple bowls of ice cream.

I'm tired one on hard, you know, and I was gaining, you know, 20 pounds a month, like unsustainable, whatever it was, it was a lot. I got fat really fast. So I marched myself down to a 12-step program for food.

Come on. And there-- Two different 12-step programs.

Yep, yep. And there the challenge began because it didn't work like that, like the drug and alcohol recovery did. Food addiction is harder.

Than drugs.

Harder. By a lot. Sugar is harder. Sugar and flour and food addiction is harder than drug and alcohol addiction by so much. It blows my mind.

Wow.

It's the hardest drug for sure. Food, sugar.

Sugar, flour, addiction.

Yes.

And it's hard to- More than crack, more than cocaine, more than alcohol.

Well think about it, Louis. You can't just quit first of all, you have to eat and so you have to figure out, it's really clear and you know as someone who does it, it's really clear how to not drink.

Yeah, for me it's simple.

It's simple and it's easy to survive. You don't need it to survive. It's the brightest of bright lines. It's like I know what the first First drink is, I'm not gonna take it, right? But if food is your drug, right? Okay, so you could say sugar, but now what? Like fruit on the bottom yogurt, teriyaki sauce, you know, now they're putting sugar and salt now.

So you're not eating table salt, like it's, seriously. You have to go to the grocery store and essentially, you know, probably 3% of the grocery store doesn't have sugar or something.

I don't know, I'm just making this up. Yeah, I think 5-10% or something, right? 20% of the calories in the grocery store don't have added sugar. But then you're also like, you know, what about fruit and what about, I.

Mean, it's hard to turn into sugar, right? It's like the bagel is sugar.

It's like the flour is the dopamine substitute. Like if you stop eating sugar and you don't address the flour. Exactly, you'll be making quesadillas and eating pot stickers and eating pasta all day long.

And then you're in brain fog all day too.

Totally.

Grain brain, right?

So, yeah, it's the hardest one. And of course we need to eat, like our brains were designed to make the forging and procurement of food.

It's not stop, it's so hard to just have one and be like, ah, okay, I'm done. It's like, it makes you wanna have more of it.

Well, they're making these foods now deliberately to do that. And that's another thing is when I stopped smoking crack, I had a whole world to go to, to live in.

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Where nobody was pushing it on me, everyone was glad that I'd stopped. I could drive to work without any billboards, you know, like, enticing me to yes, no one's pressuring me. But try to say, no thanks, I don't eat pumpkin, I don't eat sugar on Thanksgiving when they're trying to serve you pumpkin pie.

You'll get heckled like you wouldn't believe.

I mean, I'll just try a little piece. Come on, you can't diet on Thanksgiving. It's like, this isn't a diet, like lay off. This is a lifestyle. Exactly, this is what I gotta do for myself. It's harder for so many reasons. You can't even go to a, well, you have not offered me anything to eat since I've been here. But that is rare. Like usually there'd be bagels and pastries off, here's the coffee, the cream and sugar, it's right over there. You know, it's not, I'm sorry, I'm a bad host.

I'm trying to be a good host, but not always.

Well, that's the thing, is we need to switch how we think of it, right? Like we need to realize if the neighbors move move into the neighborhood, you're not doing them any favors by baking them cookies. Don't bake them cookies. They probably have diabetes, they're probably overweight, they probably have heart disease. 63% of people are dying too young and in pain from diseases caused by the food that you're offering them when.

You bring it in. 63%. 63% of people are- Dying young because of food. Food.

That's right. Diabetes and other things. Yeah, I mean, stroke, heart attack, I mean, where people don't eat like this, How much heart disease do they have?

None.

None. It's the food that we're eating. Heart disease isn't the natural consequence of growing older. I mean, what are people dying of? The diseases of the food that they're eating. So, you know, we need to change, you know, when people move into the neighborhood, visit them and bring them flowers, bring them a beautiful potted plant, invite them over to your place for a game of parcheesi, you know, like make friends, but you don't have to make them cookies. We need to change our way of operating in society or it's getting bad and these chickens are coming home to roost. The obesity rate keeps climbing unabated.

How many people are obese in the US right now?

The last statistic is 42.4%, but I think it's 50% now, Louis. So here's what happened. It takes them two years to collate all the data state by state and put out the latest numbers.

I thought it was a third like a few years ago. It was. And then- now it's 42% was the last stat?

That was 42%, but that was before COVID Come on. That was before COVID And then, and then, you know, half the population, just under half the population gained a ridiculous amount of weight during COVID And so I think we're at 50% now.

And what is obese?

What's the- oh, it's the BMI, right? So it's like, you know, Normal BMI is 18.5 up to 25. Body fat. Is that body fat or 18.5? It has to do with your weight compared to your height, right? It's your weight compared. And is it flawed absolutely? Because you could be a bodybuilder and.

Have a low body fat.

Sure, sure, sure. But that's rare. Yeah, there's a smaller population. It's a pretty small percent. Yeah, that's not what's happening. We're not all just getting stronger and like that's the weight problem, right? Yeah, totally. So, obese is when you have a BMI of what would it be, 30 or greater? Is that right? So 25 to 30 would be overweight and then over 30 would be obese. And then there's classes of obesity. Over 35 would be class two, over 40 would be class three. So, yeah, so-- and what happens to.

People that are obese in general? What do we see are the challenges that they struggle with when it starts to creep in more?

There are so, so many. So this is this is where I have challenges with the health at any size and the body positivity movements and the big size mannequins that we're seeing now and so forth is the research is really strong that being obese is damaging on so many levels. And it's not just because it's demonized and denigrated in society. I'm a huge proponent for no fat shaming and no discrimination or prejudice like Absolutely, and everybody needs access to good medical care and there's good research showing that when you have obesity, you're not getting access to good medical care. So that's all problems. But what we see is mood disorders, right? Depression, anxiety, and it's incredibly bad for the brain, dementia. We see rise in 13 different kinds of cancers. We see heart disease, we see diabetes, We see joint problems and musculoskeletal problems, arthritis. And the other thing is- and psychologically.

What'S it do too?

In terms of our self-concept, what happens because a lot of this- Self-identity, right? Self-identity. A lot of this obesity is food addiction driven, right? It's not just that you're genetically predisposed to gain weight, it's that you're addicted to food. And so oftentimes, there's an attempt to address that where you know you're not doing right by yourself with the food you're eating. You know you're not eating in alignment with your values, so you're trying to do something about it, but then you watch yourself fail at that. And so what happens in the brain, this is no one else talks about this, Louis, but this is so key. Food is wired in to our brains in such a way that you can't not eat what your brain is demanding that you can that you need to eat any more than you could not breathe the air that your brain thinks that you need to breathe, right? Like you couldn't through sheer force of will hold your breath and run up 40 flights of stairs. You couldn't do it. Right. Doesn't matter how much you wanna do it. You extend the time scale out to months and months and months, which is how long it takes to really get your weight off if you've got a weight challenge, right?

It seems so far away.

You can't do it. You can't. Calorically restrict in the way that most diets are set up to have you do it. You can't do it. The brain becomes convinced that you're starving and it changes your hormonal profile to force you to eat, but here's what happens. It makes you think you've changed your mind and decided to eat the nachos and drink the beer and have the pizza. It makes you think you've changed your mind and decided. It crawls into your brain and convinces you in your own voice that you've changed your mind and now you're gonna eat in the same way that if you run the experiment and try to run upstairs without breathing, you will believe that at some point you decide to take a breath.

No, you're forced to.

But you will believe that you decided. Yeah, it feels in your brain like you realize, I can't do this. This is a stupid experiment or I'm you know, I'm not gonna succeed and you choose to breathe. But really, what kind of choice is that, right? It's a forced choice. It's not really a choice.

So either pass out or you have to do it.

You have to do it, right? Your brain is forcing you to decide, quote unquote, decide. And so what happens when you decide to eat that food is you believe that you've let yourself down and then over time you watch yourself choose to let your quote unquote choose to let yourself down, and you come to conclude that you don't love yourself, that you don't value yourself, that you don't want yourself to be successful at what matters to you in this world, because you watch yourself undermine your really heartfelt, sincere attempts to get that weight off. So what ends up happening after years and decades of this is, is profound psychological damage of low self-esteem, self-loathing, Constant failure.

I can't do this.

Exactly, this loop of why, and even with people who are successful in so many other ways, right? Successfully raising families, great friends, they know themselves to be kind and loyal people, amazing careers. I mean, we could call it the Oprah effect, right? Like, you can't point at Oprah and say, there's fear of success happening there. She just doesn't wanna lose her weight, right? No, there's no fear of success, there's no lack of follow through, there's no.

Lack of-- Oprah's giving.

Right, successful in every way, the food is a separate, different beast. It is the hardest war out there to get the weight off and keep it off.

I had an interview recently with Dr. Gabriele Matalon, I'm not sure if you've heard of him. Gabormate, yes. Gabormate, yes. Love that guy. And he talks about addiction as well, addiction in general. And I was like, what is the root of all addiction? He said, unresolved trauma. He said, an unresolved trauma, psychologically, internally, that you've yet to heal, learning to face that trauma and heal it. And I'm assuming there's obviously having a discipline and a program and other, you know, things at play to support you in being accountable. from the addiction. He said if you don't really get to the root of the unresolved trauma, it's going to continue to be hard to be, you know, not addicted to things. So how does that resonate with you or do you feel like you were, there was trauma associated in your life as well that caused you to seek out these kind of empty devices that were becoming more addictive?

So maybe, yeah. I mean, life is difficult, right? And some things have that, but No big trauma for sure. Like I was not abused, I was.

Not, It doesn't need to be a big T, it can be a little T, a consistent little T's. Yeah, yeah.

And so what I would say, I have a slightly different perspective as a neuroscientist who studies addiction in the brain. What I would say is that trauma and addiction have a very special relationship. And most, I wouldn't say all, I would say most addicts have a background of trauma, and I would say that healing the trauma is going to be absolutely necessary for sustained long-term recovery. And what I would say is I actually think addiction is more, the brain learns to scratch an itch and it learns what works. And over time, if unchecked but trauma can be in the mix there too. Like why is it left unchecked, right? Some people people, you know, rein it in or, you know, just don't let it get that far. They see themselves going down a road, they don't wanna go down, or maybe they never, maybe they see their family members go down a road that they don't wanna go down, and so they never start.

I'm not going there, yeah.

I'm not going there, right? So it can be a trauma thing, but I would also say sometimes it cannot be a trauma thing.

Interesting. So the brain just has this, for a third of the people, the population it sounds like, is more of extreme addictive personality or is it the brain connects its dopamine to itself in a wired way? Exactly. And in a wired way.

It wires for addiction. Exactly. So there's a host of changes that happen in the brain with addiction. First of all, dopamine downregulation. So you've got this center in the brain, it's sort of like it's almost right in the middle of the brain. You've got this addiction reward motivation pathway, the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, is all driven by dopamine. And what happens is you flood that area with too much dopamine, like ungodly amounts, right? Because donuts, frankly, you don't have anything like that in the wild. Blueberries, I mean, come on, not even close, right? What have you got in the wild that's like a donut? Nothing. I mean, it's the equivalent of pornography for sex.

It's like, you know, super normal stimuli we call it.

Extreme sugar, flour, sugar, everything in that. Oh my god, right? flood the brain with too much dopamine and the receptors go, whoa, we don't need anything like that kind of stimulation around here. And so they adapt, they down regulate. The receptors become less numerous, less responsive to compensate for this flood that keeps coming in all the time. So that is challenging because now you're rewiring the brain and that's going to be fine as long as you keep swinging by that coffee shop and getting that fix, right? As long as you keep you know, hitting that dunk of donuts, right? It's gonna be fine, but if you don't start topping up every few hours, you're gonna have a problem. You're gonna feel itchy, you're gonna feel restless, you're gonna feel irritable, you're not gonna feel quite right in your own skin because you don't have enough baseline dopamine anymore.

So, so when I have a donut, what happens to my brain and my body?

So, it hits the brain first where dopamine floods into that area and...

This is incredible.

This is incredible.

We love this. We love this. more of this.

Yes, exactly. And then over time, you start liking that donut less but wanting that donut more.

Oh man.

And then you're effed.

You're screwed, right?

Yeah, then it's a problem. You like it less, you want it more. And there's this incredible line of research that shows that people with obesity, people with addiction, their wanting system is out of control, but they're not even liking anymore.

And they're probably after eating it disgusted with themselves, right? It's kind of like, why did I do this? This doesn't feel good. My stomach is telling me I don't want this, but I need more to feel good.

Exactly.

Because I don't feel good now. So, give me something so I can feel better about myself.

And then when you eat that donut, of course it affects the blood sugar system and the insulin system. So, blood sugar spikes causing a dump of insulin into the system, too much insulin which starts starts to create lack of insulin sensitivity, right? So now you're on the way to developing pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes, right? Because blood sugar is not supposed to go that high. You're not supposed to flood the system with that much insulin.

It was never that in the wild.

No, never, right? So all of these systems start to compensate and over time you just get sicker and sicker and sicker.

So sugar and food is more addictive than drugs.

Yeah, I mean, more addictive is relative. It doesn't actually release more dopamine, but it's more addictive in that it's harder to quit. Because when you're actually trying to quit it, there's all these problems with quitting. Because the other change that happens in the brain is the addicted brain is hypersensitive to the cues that predict that reward. Whether it's the logo or the billboard for your favorite brands, now you're going to pull in through the smell, a time of day, a social cue, an emotion, all these things are driving you. And if you think about how often you eat addictively, it's all through the day. It's nonstop practically.

Oh my gosh.

And so those cues are so ubiquitous in our current food environment that it's going to be very, very hard to.

Is there such a thing as good sugar?

Yeah, apples. Apples.

But isn't there like a lot of sugar in apples now? It's like the bigger the apple, it's like so much sugar in there and so much fructose, right? Well, that'll spike your blood sugar up too.

Not as bad. So the fiber and all of the micronutrients and stuff in an apple, it does not spike your blood sugar, but don't drink apple juice.

Yeah, the juice.

It's like eat the apple, eat the whole real apple. And so I actually, I have one pet peeve in life. I'm not a super easily annoyed gal, pretty laid back, but I have one pet peeve and it's the word carb. Carbs.

Carbs.

When people talk about carbs, it's the worst word in the world. Wow. Because it completely conflates, you know, carrots, bananas, spinach. Vegetables. Vegetables and fruits with, you know, with bagels and pasta, you know, And it's like, let's just be clear. We want to talk about flour and sugar. And the flour is bad, but you want to be eating good carbohydrates and a lot of them. And people are literally confused thinking it's bad to eat an apple. And it's like, they're thinking it's better to eat bacon than to eat an apple. And I'm like, come on, people. Really, right? It's okay to eat an apple. Apples are good. So we need to stop using that word carb.

It's just not a helpful word. And why is flour so bad? And what's worse, flour or sugar?

So sugar is worse. But interestingly, this is a research study that I want to do. Some percentage of people are more flour-based in their food addiction. So they're like, I don't really have a sweet tooth, but don't take my bread. Don't take my pasta. So I think it's about 20% of the food addiction population. So flour and sugar both have to do with drugs. So let's talk about drugs. What is a drug? How do you make a drug? What makes these things drugs? So Pop Quiz, Louis Haas.

You-'Re asking the wrong guy, but go ahead, yeah.

No, maybe. Where do they get cocaine from? How do you make cocaine?

Where does it come from? From coca bean.

The coca leaf.

Leaf.

Yeah, the coca leaf, right? So in the Andes.

Is there a coca bean too, or no? I think that makes sense. That's coffee.

That's coffee. Yeah, that's another drug.

Or maybe that's chocolate.

Chocolate. Yeah. We got all the drugs in there. Yeah, yeah. So coca leaf. So they take these coca leaves and in the Andes Mountains, the hikers chew on them. They stick them in their cheek and like suck on them and chew on them. But there's actually, funny enough, a published scientific paper saying that it's not addictive. Like, like the leaf. The leaf is not addictive. Like chewing on coca leaves is not addictive. It's got the fiber. That's why. It may. Maybe. It makes your cheek a little numb. Maybe it might give you a little lift, but nobody's breaking into their grandma's house to steal the VCR to sell it to go get more coca leaves. Not addictive. But if you take the inner essence of that coca leaf and then you refine and purify it down into a fine white powder, now you've made a drug. You had a harmless plant. You've turned it into a drug. Where does heroin come from?

You're asking the wrong guy.

Poppies. Heroin comes from poppies. Did you know that?

I guess I saw Monarch, not Monarch, I saw Ozark. And they talked about that in Ozark.

Yeah.

That grew the poppy plants.

Yeah, okay. So did you know that you'll fail a drug test if you eat 20 poppy seed bagels? I heard that. Yeah. Is that true? It is true. It is true. Heroin comes from poppies. But nobody's, you know, breaking into the.

Bagel shop to get poppy seeds.

Bagels, right? Because they can't be eaten.

I mean, maybe because they taste so.

Good, but yeah, yeah. But so if you take, so you know poppies are innocuous. You could probably sit in a field of poppies and eat them and be fine. But if you take the inner essence of that poppy plant and then you refine and purify it down into a fine brown powder or a sticky sludge, now you've created heroin. Interesting. Through extracting and purifying and refining, you've turned it into a drug. Same way they make high fructose corn syrup, right? I eat corn on the cob all the time. No problem with corn. But if you take the inner essence of that corn and you refine and purify it down into a fine sticky sludge, or if you take, you know, wheat, I eat wheat, like wheat berries. You go to the bins, right, at the health food store and you get wheat berries and you boil them for an hour like rice. I eat that, but I don't eat flour because now you've extracted just the inner essence of that wheat plant or rice plant or potato plant or whatever, and you've refined and purified it down into a powder. Now you've got the problem. So metabolically speaking, brain-wise, you've turned it into a drug. It's going to hit the brain hard. Extreme dopamine.

Flour sugar is extreme dopamine.

Yes. And the the blood system, if you, the blood spiking now, right? Spiking it, right?

If you think about, so is that like adrenaline or what is that?

Is that giving you adrenaline or something when it's spiking?

No, it's an insulin rush. It's a blood sugar rush and an insulin rush.

What does that do for the body with an insulin rush? Does it make you feel like you have energy? Do you make jittery? Are you? No, what it does is it makes you store fat actually.

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And then leaves you with a blood sugar deficit. So you got to go get another hit. It's like a two hour cycle. so you eat, the blood sugar spikes, the insulin comes in, cleans up all the blood sugar, it dips too low now, and now you're shaky, literally feeling like, why do I need to eat something? I just ate a couple hours ago. But if you eat the wrong things, your blood sugar is now actually too low. Yeah. So if you think about your digestive system, think about a hot summer day and a blacktop driveway, right? Eating an apple and a big salad and some brown rice and some salmon, right? Just a wholesome meal. It's like taking digestively is like taking a big, you know, one foot by one foot block of ice and dropping it onto the blacktop driveway. Metabolically, it'll digest, but like the ice will melt but slowly. But now imagine that you eat yourself a bagel, you know, or whatever. You eat some sugar and flour. You eat a bagel, you eat some Doritos and you eat a candy bar. That's the equivalent of taking snow cone ice shavings and sprinkling them onto the blacktop driveway. It just melts on contact, it all floods into your bloodstream, and you get all of the response right away. Again, blood sugar spikes, insulin rushes in, and it's a completely different metabolic experience. So you need to be eating whole real foods. Everybody knows this.

It's not neuroscience. You need to eat whole real foods. Right. But I mean how, so it's one of the hardest things to overcome. It seems like 50% or close to 50% of the population is getting obese now. Because of the temptation, the access, the marketing, all the cues that hook you into it, the dopamine rush, just our bodies are addicted to it. So how do we break the addiction of sugar and flour?

Well, because it's the hardest, it takes a lot, Louis. It takes a village. It takes a village. It takes a system. It takes more structure and discipline with your eating.

So you can't just say, I'm gonna have willpower.

No, willpower doesn't work. Willpower doesn't work.

Does it work for anyone? Maybe if you have a less addictive personality type and you're not as addicted or something.

You know, I don't wanna say it never works for anyone. I think that extreme force of will can can do amazing things in a human being, right? I mean, you're talking about how you just have never drank, right? That you just don't drink.

But I don't feel addicted, I never was addicted to it. I don't feel a pull to it also. So I'm not like, I crave this. Whereas with food, most people kind of like crave it. Right, and you're like, how long did it take you to stop craving sugar? Because your body starts getting used to other foods that are good for you. You're like, I don't want that ice cream.

I was pretty neutral within a few months. I would say within a few months. And now I'm extremely neutral. I have three kids and I'll serve cupcakes at a birthday party or something. I'll get frosting on my hands and it's kind of like having paint on my hands. I just go rinse it off. I have no urge to lick my fingers or anything like that.

Is that like eating it?

No, it looks like plastic now. It's really neutral.

So when you see a bucket of cookie dough, you don't think I want to eat this whole bucket again?

I have to be careful not to let myself really think about it, right? So I'm vigilant in my mind.

First of all, you guard your mind.

I guard my mind. And I don't bake cookies with my kids. My mom does, you know? Their grandma does, their grandpa does, my husband will. I don't bake cookies with my kids because I just, I know myself. I've got no, cookie dough is my all-time drug of choice. All-time drug of choice.

Cookie dough crack. I'll go for the cookie dough.

I'll go for the cookie dough. I got no business being up to my elbows in cookie dough. I just know myself, right? But I don't, I guard my mind.

And it's not hard. It's just not, it's just not hard. Right. So what are some of the the key strategies to cope with food addiction then?

Well, you need a program. You need a system, right? And this is where a 12-step program can come in or this is where Bright Line Eating comes in. So there's one commercial program that addresses this and I founded it. It's called Bright Line Eating. I didn't intend to found a program. I was intending to write a book. And so we didn't, we kind of left off on my story, you know, after I started studying neuroscience and all that. But I became a psychology professor and started teaching a college course on the psychology of eating and taught that for many, many years. And then I had another one of those moments of clarity, like those moments, like that moment in the crack house. I was meditating. I had been in a right-sized body, the same size body that I'm in today for probably about 10 years. And I was in my morning meditation session. I meditate for 30 minutes every morning. And I think this time it was a voice. It was a booming voice that said, Write a book called Bright Line Eating. And in that meditation session, I started to feel impulsive waves and emotional, like teary, choked me up sort of feelings. the desperation of people who just didn't have an answer for their food addiction, their weight problem, who, like I used to be curled up in the fetal position on the floor, writing letters to God asking, you know, please God, like how do I stop this eating? How do I get this weight off? What do I do? I keep doing this over and over again. Send me an answer. Send me an answer. and so I knew what bright line eating meant, but I'd never thought those words before. I don't think those words ever existed in that order before. So a bright line is a clear, unambiguous boundary that you just don't cross. It's actually a legal term. So if you go to Wikipedia, a bright line rule is a rule in law that gets, it's a rule or standard that gets applied consistently to produce consistent results, right? It's just you're always going to apply this rule or standard. And in his book Willpower by Roy Baumeister, he talks about Eric Clapton and Eric Clapton's sobriety and about Bright Lines for Alcohol and Drugs and how it's so helpful for willpower to use a Bright Line rule, like, I don't drink ever, or I'm not going to drink tonight if I'm the designated driver, no alcohol. He says, if you're the designated driver, don't walk into the party thinking, I'll be sure to drink moderately.

Tonight.

Yeah.

Not even a sip.

Yeah. Not even a sip.

Right. Because that's been my life of, like, I just don't drink.

There you go. Yeah. And the Bright Line rule is easy, right? You just don't have the first sip. And in the book, though, he then says Bright Line rules are great for issues of temptation and willpower control, but they won't help with every problem. The dieter cannot stop eating all food and. I thought to myself, oh, wow. If Roy Baumeister, who's one of the most preeminent psychologists in the world, is not clear that you can use bright lines for food, we've got a real problem. Because you can. You have to eat to live, but you don't have to eat donuts to live. Right. You do not have to eat donuts to live. And no sugar, no flour, and meals in quantities are the other two bright lines.

Oh, man. That's so hard for people too, right?

It is and it's so necessary because food addiction is not just a substance addiction. It's not just the sugar and the flour. It's a process addiction too, like gambling or pornography. It's a quantity, it's a frequency. Exactly, right? So if you're a food addict, you've got a brain that says, Is it time to eat now? How about now? How about a little more? Are you sure you've got enough? A little bit more. A little bit more. How about now? A little bit more. Are you sure you've got enough? How about you think you need a little bit more? And that's true even for a healthy meal. You can sort of go overboard on the quantities. And I'm not talking a little overboard.

You could have a pound of broccoli. Well, which is your thing, right?

Roasted Brussels sprouts, man. I can go to town. Honeycrisp apples?

Yeah, I could eat a lot of those, right? And that's not healthy if you over-binge.

On healthy food also. I mean, I know someone, she was a restrictor by nature, a food restrictor. she, her anorexia was so bad that she would stand in the kitchen and eat iceberg lettuce and button mushrooms dipped in mustard, and she would eat like whole heads of iceberg lettuce. She would, she'd eat like, like 100 calories and eat, binge her brains out, eat all day, you know, on. So quantities are an issue. There's actually stretch receptors in the stomach and a, and a brain switch that when you've eat, like, overeaten, like, really overeaten. for a food addict, it's a triggering thing. It leads to wanting to eat more, not less. There was an interesting study that showed people ate a little bit and then stopped to answer a question, how hungry are you right now? Eat a little bit more. How hungry are you right now? A normal eater, they eat a meal and their hunger level goes down, down, down, down, down, and then they get full and they just push the food away. They reach a point where they're like, I don't want any more food. A binge eater, gets full, full, full, full, full, hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry. It's a U-shaped curve where at the end of the meal, they're as ravenous.

As they were when they started the meal. Oh, now we got dessert 10 minutes later.

Let me get some more, even though I'm full. More, more, more, exactly. So sugar, flour, meals, and quantities. And so I started this program called Bright Line Eating. It didn't start as a program at first. Like I said, I just started writing a book. In that morning meditation session, I envisioned I envisioned it being on the New York Times bestseller list. I could see, I don't know if this was me visioning or if it was visions. It felt like visions that were coming to me, whatever, but I was on the Today Show. These are all things that happened. The book, you know, was on the New York Times list, and I was on the Today Show, and all these things happened. And this book took off, and the program took off, the membership, the community that we have, because it does take a village. When you're recovering from this, society pushes against you with its full force. Marketing.

All of it, like social pressure.

Drink, eat, have some more.

Yeah, and people, you're getting too thin.

And it's like, dude, I still have 50 pounds to lose. Yes, I've lost 150, but I'm not too thin. I still have 50 pounds. You're getting too thin. Don't lose any more weight. People that never commented when you were climbing above 300 pounds, they didn't say anything. but now they're gonna harass you about your weight because you're losing weight. Our society is pretty bizarre when it comes to weight. And so we need a community of people who will help you get to your natural right size body. And I'm not the thin police. I don't think you need to be a certain size or whatever, but let's be real. Health is associated with body weight to a significant extent. And you don't wanna be eating in in a way that feels like you're hurting yourself, like you're harming yourself with this food that you're eating. So for a lot of people, recovery is where they want to go. They want to address this problem, get the weight off, and get a brain that's not chattering at them all the time. A brain that's peaceful around food, where you're eating what you want to be eating, your weight is in check, and you're free to live your life finally.

And you feel in alignment with your the highest version of your self-identity. You feel like, oh, I match where I want to be. Maybe I could always tweak it to be a little bit better or something if I'm trying to be perfect, which is not reasonable, but I feel good most of the time about where I'm at, right?

Exactly. It's a Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs thing, right? Like that tippy tip of the top of the pyramid is self-actualization, right? The striving for self-actualization. And for a lot of us in this society, We have shelter over our heads. We have friends. We have family. You know, we're working in a way that is all right. We're making money. And then so as we look to our self-actualization needs for a lot of.

Us, what's the next problem?

Getting our weight in check is for me, that was the first thing that would always come up. If I was really gonna strive to be the best version of myself, I knew the first thing I needed to do was get my food and my weight under control. Because it was not it was not it was the first thing. And so what I often say is the person who's going to solve cold fusion for us is not even working on the equations right now because they're starting their fourth diet this year already. They're trying to control their eating. It's something like 60% of us, 50 to 60% of us, are trying to control our weight and our eating and we're trying four or five new attempts each year.

Different diet. What's with all the... There's so many different diets out there, right?

So many. Yeah.

How many of them actually work?

Well, any of them work if you can stick to them long term. Most of them aren't set up so that you can stick to them long term. They don't work with the brain to solve the addiction problem. And so they're not going to work long term, right? If you're eating Frankenfoods, first of all, if you're eating bars and shakes and powders and, you know, foods with sugar and flour in them, you're going to keep the addiction alive. And so it's, you know, your willpower is going to give out eventually. It's never going to work. So you got to be eating whole real foods. And you got, you know, even the whole food plant-based community that talks about whole real foods, they're on the, you can eat as much as you want bandwagon.

How interesting. Yeah.

And, and there's a lot of pasta and a lot of, and keto and stuff. There's a lot of beast plant-based people.

Say it again. There's a lot of people people who are beefs who are only plant-based too.

Yes.

It's so much processed plant-based, right?

On average, they weigh a little less than the normal population, but not much less. And so they're talking about you can eat as much as you want as long as you're eating, you know, the right foods. But let me tell you, I can sit down with a canister of raisins and cashews and, you know, eat the whole thing, right? So it's not just that you got to eat plants. You got to be careful too with with the dates and the raisins, you got to be careful on the quantity.

-A lot of sugar and calories and all that stuff.

-Yeah, totally. So it's sugar, flour, meals and quantities.

And you need a structured program like Bright Line Eating.

-So is it the structured program or is it fighting the addiction first? -Well, the structured program is what helps you fight the addiction. -It does, okay. -So when you adopt the structured way.

Of eating, it's the equivalent of stopping drinking, right?

What you start doing is you start writing down your food the night before.

Of what you're gonna eat tomorrow.

Yes, exactly.

Pre-planning the food.

Yes, breakfast, lunch, and dinner according to a specific food plan that has categories and quantities. So you're writing down what you're gonna eat according to, you know, you start Bright Line Eating, you join the membership, you get a food plan that's gonna work. Like we figured this out already. We've been doing this for a long time. And there's a certain way you got a structure you're eating to make it successful in restaurants, to make it successful with travel, to make it successful for the long term, to really get the food chatter to quiet down. And it's structured, it's a commitment. And so- It's work, it's effort. Yeah, well, welcome to the world of anything that matters.

Welcome to discipline.

Well, welcome to the School of Greatness.

I know, and that's one of the hardest things is being structured, organized, and discipline with food choices. I think that's probably one of the hardest things for people, especially if you're busy, especially if you're working a lot, if you travel. It's so easy to just, I need.

A quick thing, right? That's what society does these days. We have gone so far on the continuum of unstructured eating. People wake up, they have no idea what they're gonna eat today. They're gonna eat whatever, whenever. They're just gonna fly by the seat.

Of their pants and they're shocked when it doesn't go well. It's interesting you say that. of pre-planning your food because we talk about this in our world of if you want to have the life you want, it's really thinking about the life you want and then pre-planning what are the actions I'm going to take today, tomorrow, next week, a month from now to get me closer to that result.

That's right.

It's not saying, let me just wake up and figure it out today and just go with the flow. It's having a game plan for some goals. Okay, here's where I want to be in 30 days, 60, 90 in a year. and here's the exact actions I'm going to take. Now, I'm going to reflect on those actions and see what worked, what didn't work. I'm going to reassess. I'm going to make adjustments, but it's having a game plan for the day. In business, you're not just going to show up and hope someone buys my product. Okay, now we're going to have a game plan of how we're going to market this, how we're going to deliver this, how we're going to, how many phone calls and sales calls are you going to do to get the results you want? So, I think it's not a foreign concept. in life, but I think it's foreign for people with eating where they don't think about their meals the next day. Unless they're like, oh, I've scheduled a dinner with friends and we're gonna go to this restaurant. Right. But usually people just kind of wake.

Up and they're like, what do I want to eat now? Yeah, exactly. And do I have time? And, well, then I'll get something after. And then your prey to, you know, what's available, what's quick, what's easy, what's tasty. If you're making food choices in the.

Moment, your brain is thinking, oh, you're screwed.

You know, it looks good.

Let me eat it.

Yeah.

Because you don't have, you don't have a bright line is what you're saying. You don't have, like, a value system that you're living off of that you say, I only do this. I never do this type of structure. And so what I'm hearing you say is the four categories are sugar, flour, meals and qual. So frequency of meals, size of meals and quantity. Quantities.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yes.

Right. So, and then the Quantities is how much you have in each meal.

Yes. And so I actually use a digital food scale and not so I eat tiny portions. Actually, so I eat enough. I eat, I eat, I don't know that I eat more than you. You're a big guy.

I eat a lot.

But I eat more than most people. I eat more than most people that I'm around.

How many calories is that a day?

Oh, I don't deal in calories. You don't count calories. I don't count calories. No, never count calories. because I find it obsessive and not helpful. I have a certain number of servings of protein.

You count protein?

Yeah, well, it's not grams of servings of protein. So I'm gonna have so many, you know. So I have my meal structure is like protein, fruit, vegetable, like cooked vegetable, raw vegetable, fat servings, and I'm gonna have some of each of those in each meal.

You can kind of mix and match.

Exactly.

As long as you get certain amount of servings.

Structured food plan, yep, exactly.

So it's the research, how long have you guys been doing this for now?

Bright Line Eating has been around for eight years.

And so what is the studies of some of the people that you've worked with, the results, you know, after eight years of some of these people you've worked with, what have they seen? Is everyone successful? Do people drop off, you know? Hard for people to do, you know, what is the, what have you seen?

Yeah, totally. Well, we put together a great graph recently comparing Bright Line Eating to Weight Watchers, Noom, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Biggest Loser, eDiets, any program with published results. So we didn't ask them what the results were. We looked at the scientific literature. And what it shows is that Bright Line Eating helps people lose more weight in the first initial period, like the first two months, than any other program by four times. Four times more weight than Noom, four times more weight than Weight Watchers. Some of them, like 17 times more weight. And then after one year, people have lost yet more. and are keeping it off. And at two years, and we're about to collect the five-year data as well. So, you know, Bright Line Eating started eight years ago, but there were only a few people in it then and so forth. So the big research efforts started a little bit later.

So how consistent are people, you know, in this type of a structure?

Yeah, you know, it really varies. It really varies. What we see is Maine, where life.

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Interesting.

So that means about 15% of their starting body weight on average. And so that means, you know, if someone started at 200 pounds, right? They're maintaining a 35-pound weight loss, right? Did I do that math right? 10% would be 20. 15%, yeah. Did I do the math right? I don't know if I did.

10% on 200 pounds? That's 20 pounds, yeah.

Yeah, so 30 pounds would be 50. Yeah, 30 pounds. So that's not a huge weight loss. You want to go from 200 pounds to 170 pounds, right? But maintaining that for years and years is significant. But what's baked into those numbers is some people regain all their weight and some people have gotten all the way down to their, what we call their bright body, right? Some people are, you know, coming in at 400 pounds and getting down to 170 pounds and maintaining, you know, over a 200-pound weight loss for years.

That's good.

They're the anomaly, right? That's not That's not super common. But the weight loss tends to be sustained. What's really interesting is in those first two months, people's hunger and their cravings go down to negligible amounts. And that's while they're losing weight hand over fist in those first two months. They're not hungry.

They're not craving.

They're not hungry. And they're not craving. They go down, down, down, down, down. Which is rare. Most programs have hunger and cravings go up because they're still eating sugar, Yeah. They're still eating bars and shakes and One Point brownies and they're eating all those diet foods, right?

Which is creating a dopamine hit still and craving more of it, right?

Exactly, right, exactly.

So essentially, you in this system, you cut out sugar and flour.

Yes.

There's not even, you don't even, it doesn't even touch your tongue. No sugar, no flour.

No, well again we eat apples and pineapple, you know, if you want to eat some pineapple.

But I mean refined sugars and flowers.

So it's not even, you don't cross the line.

You don't cross that line. Because what happens if you just like, well I want to have like one day a week where I have like a meal or half a day where I just have what I want, and then what happens to the brain when you do the cheat meal or the.

One day a week type of thing? Yes. What happens is intermittent reinforcement. which drives you crazy. So what happens when you're trying to make the brain go quiet, you're trying to make the brain not hound you for treats all the time, right? And the way to make the brain go quiet is to just never allow it, ever. When you give in sometimes, what happens is you create a brain that's incredibly resistant to extinction because it never knows when you're going give in. So it's kind of like, how about now? How about now? How about now? And the more you say, no, no, no, no, okay, the more you do that, the worse it is for yourself. Because now the brain really never-- it's like, well, you gotta ask her, you know, 48,000 times, because then she'll say yes. At some point, she'll say yes. So you gotta be, you gotta be like, strict with the bright line to really get the peak. That's the thing. It's sort of like having a puff of a cigarette.

You know, like you can't if you're addicted.

If you have a two-pack a day smoker, you can't do one. No, like the cheat meal, the cheat cigarette at the concert, it's not gonna go well if you're a former two-pack a day smoker.

It's not a good idea. So, I have a friend who he has a thing he calls never skips dessert, right?

He never skips dessert. He always has dessert.

But he's shredded and he trains so hard. And he's like, the reason I do this, because I don't wanna not have dessert. And so I have all the foods I need to have to set my body up for success the whole day. I train the way I need to train. The guy's like 7% body fat or something. He's just shredded and jacked, right? And he's like, I only have a couple of bites. I don't have like tons of dessert. I don't crave more, but I feel like I get what I want. You know, I get what I need, and I'm very disciplined the rest of the time, and I eat everything perfectly, and you know, the right portions, the right amounts, and I just have like a couple bites, and then I feel like I got what I needed. Yeah.

So he is extremely low on the food addiction susceptibility scale. So that couple bites, like scratching the itch, is the classic sign of someone who's not addicted. For me or someone who's addicted, scratching the itch makes it itchier.

I need a bucket of ice cream.

Yeah, yeah. Scratching the itch makes it itchier. And people who have, you know, an issue with food know what I'm talking about, right? Like a couple bites doesn't satisfy. You want more after that. You can't have a couple bites, right? And I love this guy. I mean, I say power to you. I am so not a one size fits all girl. It is not one size fits all. Even Bright Line Eating is not one size fits all. There's lots of ways to work the, I mean are there people who do Bright Line Eating and decide to stop doing it on a cruise or have a glass of wine? Absolutely there are. And there's no Bright Line Eating police, right? You know, no judgment, no shame. Do it how you want to do it. You know, for people, I have a quiz out there. You can go to foodaddictionquiz.com and find out what kind of brain you have, right? So it'll tell you on a scale from one to 10. I'm a 10. We call people like me a 10 plus plus plus. No surprise there, right? But the quiz will ask you questions like, when you eat a moderate amount of food, do you feel satisfied or do you frequently feel unsatisfied? When you start eating, do you frequently have difficulty controlling how much you end up eating? Are you thinking about what you've eaten or not eaten, whether you're on your plan or off your plan? How many miles, how many calories, how many pounds? Are you thinking about that way more.

Than feels reasonable or sane? And then it tells you what your plan should be.

It tells you a score from one to ten. And then you know if you're a 7, 8, 9, 10 on the susceptibility scale. You need to have brighter lines. You need to have brighter lines.

Exactly, right?

If you're like a one through four, through four, then don't worry about it. Then be the three bites of dessert guy.

Right, right. Every day, three bites of dessert.

There you go.

I wish I could do that. I'm kind of an all-in type of guy. I'm an all like, when I have it, I'm like, okay, I already started it, now let's just keep having more. You know, I already started it.

Or it's like, I'm a hard no.

You know, I can't just do a couple bites. Because the hard no is easier than the couple bites. Yeah, I just don't want it. Yeah, exactly. And I'm really good at being disciplined. when I want to be disciplined. But then when I started having sugar, it is so challenging to be disciplined. And so I understand it. And I think most of the world feels that way. It's hard to just have a couple bites unless you have a less susceptible to food addiction or whatever. So I think everyone should take the quiz, foodaddictionquiz.com, I think it'll be interesting. And it tells you based on your neuroscience or your brain, you're- Just on those behaviors.

Are you satisfied when you eat a regular amount of food? Do you lose control over how much you eat? Do you have cravings for foods that are big cravings that drive you way out of your way to go satisfy them? Do you binge? Just some basic questions like that.

What happens when we just starve ourselves from foods that we crave without having a game plan? It's just like, okay, I'm just gonna not do these things and resist it. What usually tends to happen?

What will happen is you'll give in eventually, typically. And I take issue with the word starve, right? So we'll just call it, you know, or just cut out if you stop eating, stop eating.

Gotcha.

Foods that, you know, so what happens is I do think there are people who are exceptionally driven who could stop eating sugar and never go back, even with an extremely addictive relationship with food with no program, no support, with enough motivation, right? Like, let's imagine that they had watched a parent die of diabetes in a gruesome and excruciating protracted way.

And it woke them up.

And it woke them up and they said, I'm never eating sugar again. And they just stuck to that bright line. That bright line is gonna be easier. The zero tolerance policy is gonna be easier than some sort of trying to dabble and eat less. But for most people, what happens is without support, and a shared communal identity around like, you know, if you're a BrightLifer, you do Bright Line Eating, there's a lot of that goes into that and a lot of support and a.

Lot of-- Like a 12-step type of program.

Kind of like that, yeah. It's just there's a lot to it, right? And it's something that's better to not do alone. And there's a lot that we know, for example, about if you're going to be losing weight, how do you transition to maintenance? We have a whole structured program around.

Maintenance because- After the 90 days of the weight loss, right? Or however long it takes you to get to that point.

However long it takes you. Six months, a year, a year and a half, whatever it takes.

Then how to maintain.

How to maintain it, how to transition to maintenance, and how to live at maintenance, and the psychology of that. We have a whole course on the psychology of maintenance. Like, what does it take to go from a fat, food-addicted person in our society to someone in their bright body who is contented living that way long term, what are the expectations that you might have had about what that would be like that may be fulfilled or unfulfilled? What are the identity shifts that you need to make? There's so much that goes into it. It's like an eight-week course that we have on the psychology of maintenance. So, you know, typically it's not something that you're gonna just figure out on your own. You know, this is the kind of thing where you want to read the owner's manual, actually. You want to do it for real.

Is a lack of self-love attached to addiction or like food addiction as well? If someone doesn't fully love themselves, they might want more to feel a certain hit. Or is it more brain chemistry that's just taking over and overriding your self-love?

Yes and yes. So it's both a cause and a consequence, potentially. Lack of self-love could be a so deep feelings of shame or lack of self-worth could lead someone to really be drawn to the state of numbness and distraction that addiction provides. You know, getting that hit and feeling taken out of yourself. -Escapeism. -Escapeism, right? That could be true. And then also, like I was talking about earlier, when you watch yourself break yourself promises, around food, it causes a lack of self-worth, right? Because you start to conclude, well, I must not love myself, otherwise I would treat myself better. I must not care about myself enough to really solve this problem. I keep choosing, you know, to eat when I promised myself I wouldn't, therefore I must not care about myself. So over time, the lack of self-love can creep in. But yes, it often also is the brain's chemicals running amok. It's both, for sure. So when was the last time you.

Had refined sugar or flour? And do you ever like say, okay, I'm just gonna have a little bit every now and then, or is it?

No, it doesn't work for me. I know that that doesn't work for me.

I think the holiday party and Thanksgiving, Christmas, you're not just like, all right, we made these cookies, like I just wanna, my kids wanna cook it with.

Me, I'm just gonna little taste, you know? I think out of the last 20 Thanksgivings, I've eaten sugar and flour on one of them.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's impressive.

I really, Thanksgiving, and it's interesting 'cause I feel the warmth of that holiday. And to answer your question directly. Pumpkin pie, the-- It's the people, right?

Like, you feel it without needing to eat.

I feel it without needing to eat it. I've learned, I show up to Thanksgiving focusing on on thanks and giving.

Gratitude.

Gratitude and service. So I show up really focusing on the people, really feeling blessed in the.

Company and-- Seeing how far you've come in your life and-- yeah.

And I help in the kitchen, I get drinks for people, I play with the kids.

Are you making sugary foods in the kitchen or are you like serving-- Just.

That helps, you know, get the meal out. Sure. But the warmth of the meal and the day comes through deeply. I enjoy Thanksgiving as much as ever. To answer your question directly, the last time I had sugar or flour was about three years ago. The longest stretch I've ever gone is eight years.

Holy cow.

I know people who've done 40 years.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

How does your body feel? How is your metabolism? How's your brain? without those things.

Sharp. Sharp, man. It's awesome. Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, I feel like what I really appreciate most is I feel like the best version of myself. The discipline that comes into my life by weighing and measuring my food and having my food in order, I weigh and measure my life, and I know I'm just effective as a human being. I just was not effective. when I was in the food. I was amazed.

I mean, what are the people listening and saying, Man, that just doesn't seem like a fun life. You know, weigh and measure your food and never like even enjoy these treats and desserts and all these different things that people get to make. And that just seems so strict and I want to enjoy my life. I want to be able to like dabble and taste little things here and there. I want to have a glass of wine. I want to try some pasta if someone makes it for me. What do you say to those types of people?

I totally get that sentiment. I so get that. And it can seem so real that that's what makes life worth living. And, you know, it's the, it's, it can seem so real. What I've found is that one day at a time, it's actually better. It's, I think it's the dopamine receptors that say, no, don't, don't deprive me of my hit. that's where I get my, that's where I get my hit. Don't take away my hit. But the reality is that life is so incredibly fabulous. Life is sexy and fun and spontaneous and brilliant. And food is a poor proxy for connection. Food is a poor proxy for fun. Food is a poor proxy for Food is a poor proxy for entertainment. Like, what happens when you don't get it there is you're forced to get it where you're gonna get it good. It's like, let's really go.

By going deep into intimacy and connection and relationships.

You learn to suck the marrow out of the moment, out of the person you're with, out of the fun you want to have, you know, and you're in a Sexy fun body to do it in and you're not dependent on the food. It's actually better.

It's so funny you say this because I used to in my 20s, I would in my early 20s, I would go out and dance all the time, right?

Yeah.

And I'd go to all the clubs or whatever and just like, I was big into like techno and house music and so we'd go and just be like jumping. When I call dancing, it's like just jumping like this. Like yes! And you know, everyone was. Had a cup with alcohol. Yeah, almost everyone. Maybe there's a couple stragglers, but it seemed like everyone had a cup and was drinking all night. And I would go for hours on water, and I would do Sprite or Red Bull sometimes, but mostly just water, right? Yeah. No alcohol. And I would just go and go and go. And people be like, you seem like you're really drunk. They're like, really crazy. I'm like, I'm just high on life.

Right.

I just felt like I was high on life.

Yeah.

And just, I could see and experience everything with all my senses, not with limited senses. You know, with alcohol, you're limiting your senses than actually feeling everything. And I always felt like, man, this is the greatest high ever, being sober.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

Exactly.

Being high on water.

Exactly it.

Just some water, just pure energy, right?

That's exactly it. Exactly it.

Man, it's so interesting. But there are people that sounds like there are people that can have a couple bites here and there and it's not gonna affect their weight, it's not gonna affect their mood, it's not gonna affect their, but if you have an addictive personality for food, then you've gotta figure out a good game plan, a structure, a team, a system to support you.

That's right.

Man, this is crazy. Yeah. It's a challenge for so many people. I feel like so many people struggle.

Yeah.

And they suffer.

Yeah. And you know, it's not just people with weight issues. Our research shows that 22% of people currently in a right-sized body, no weight issue, have full-blown food addiction.

Really?

22%.

You mean like healthy body.

Healthy body.

But they're still addicted. What they're binging and then they're kind of restricting.

So maybe they're binging and restricting. Yeah, exactly. So maybe they're running 10 miles to allow themselves to go to the non-fat frozen yogurt place. You know what I mean? So maybe they're those people. Or maybe they just have a really good metabolism still and they're just young enough still.

Burning off.

But yeah, but they have food addiction, which means they're obsessing. They're obsessing about the food. They're losing control over how much they eat. They know their food's a problem. I mean, so what's interesting is, you're not overweight, right? But you're talking about cookies and can't. And so, I'm curious if you took the quiz, how you'd test out. I'm guessing seven. I'm guessing seven.

Because I can, I would say I have discipline and structure, but then sometimes it's like, ah, whatever I want. So it's like, I could be sloppy too. It's not like I'm not structured all the time. So that's interesting. But I, the thing is, I have no other vices, but I guess you don't have other vices now either.

Nope.

You're not like doing drugs or anything.

I now, at this moment, oh, I do have a vice. You're gonna laugh at my vice. I have one vice right now.

And I'm about to give it up.

What, seaweed or something? It's about that lame. It's about that lame. Black decaffeinated coffee. Black decaf coffee. Yeah, I don't do caffeine anymore, but.

I am hooked on decaffeinated Caffeine. There you go. No caffeine. You cut that out too?

Yeah, I don't do caffeine.

Because that could be the next addiction.

But I go to Starbucks and I get a decaf Grande Americano, and I know that Starbucks in particular, their decaf has more caffeine in it than it should.

It's got a little bit of caffeine.

You're addicted.

That's why...

So you've cut out all addictions essentially. Yeah, I've got none at the moment.

And it feels great. You must have so so much extra energy and time because just thinking about food, consuming the food, the addictions, all the things, the negative things that come from that, the self, you know, kind of beating yourself up after doing the addiction, all that energy you can put towards being your, your best self. You can put it towards serving other people. You can, you know. Yeah.

I mean, when I meditate in the morning these days, it's really peaceful. Like, I'm just. It's just, and I'm blissed out. I got this Airbnb here in LA, here to, I'm here to talk to you and it's got floor-to-ceiling windows and I'm looking out over the hills and I'm so blissed out. Life is so good. That's amazing.

Life is so good.

That's great.

Well, what an incredible journey you've had. I mean, from where you were 28 years ago. 28 years ago. That's amazing. This is fascinating stuff. I want people to check out your site. Well, they can go to the quiz, foodaddictionquiz.com, and you'll get more information there about kind of where you're at. They can go to BrightLineEating.com, you've got a membership there. They can learn more about that and just kind of, I'm sure there's lots of free resources there as well. You have research that you've published on here as well where people can dive into the research.

Yeah, if they go to the bottom of the website, BrightLineEating.com, they can click on research and it'll show our publications. I've mentioned a couple of them. Another great study that we looked at, we looked at what happened during COVID So this was an interesting study. We looked at psychosocial metrics. So these are things like how much energy do you have? How's your mood? Are you clinically depressed? Do you have depressed mood or is your mood high and stable? How many days of bad mental health do you have on average in a week? How's your perceived social support? So do you answer a strong yes to questions like, if I were struggling, I know that I have people who would come over and support me right then, things like that. So we looked at improvement in all of these metrics during the first two months of starting Bright Line Eating. We looked at improvement over the first two months. So how were people at baseline and then how much how much did they improve by starting and doing Bright Line Eating? And the results were off the charts. I mean, people improve so much. Their mental health gets better, their energy goes up, their perceived social support goes through the roof so high, everything looks great. Now, we looked at it for people who started Bright Line Eating in the past, people who started Bright Line Eating during the peak of COVID I'm talking about April April, May and June of 2020. You remember those months when we were all wondering what was happening and freaking out and locked down? April, May and June of 2020 or right after that. So before it, after it or right during the peak of it. And what we found was the improvement during those three months was on steroids like way higher even. It was always high. but then even way higher showing that Bright Line Eating gives you a certain amount of resilience, right? Like if you're really going through a hard time, all the better to be doing and even starting Bright Line Eating. Yeah. Right? So interesting.

How connected is sugar to depression, anxiety, stress, ADHD, and mental health disorders?

Hugely, hugely. and not just sugar, but also how we eat in general.

Flour, sugar, you know.

Well, and vegetables and oils and fats. So when you're eating the Bright Line Eating way, you're eating healthy, you're eating well, you're not eating any sugar, so that improves your mood for sure. Sugar decreases neurogenesis in the hippocampus. So this is the area of the brain that that's kicking off new brain cells, right? Neurogenesis is this thing that got discovered several years ago where it's like, oh, adults really do make new brain cells, right? We thought we were born with all the brain cells we were ever going to have. Turns out not true. And it's mainly in the hippocampus that you've got neurogenesis happening. Bad things, smoking cigarettes, eating sugar, not exercising, right, depress the rate of neurogenesis and they have Hippocampus. And this has bad impacts for mood because those brain cells go on and do important things, including supporting the serotonin systems and all sorts of things. Anyway, so yes, stopping sugar is going to be good for your mood. But research also shows that eating vegetables is really good for your mood. There was this big study that was done tracking teenagers in Europe that showed that teenagers who eat vegetables today, they're happy tomorrow. Like within a day, it kicks in. Like they have a good day tomorrow if they eat vegetables today. Then there's a couple other massive studies that have looked at how much you eat in terms of vegetables, and it shows a linear relationship with mood and also with the presence or absence of depression and anxiety, where eating no vegetables is terrible for depression and anxiety and for your mood. Eating lots of vegetables is great, and it's a linear relationship. One serving a day is better than none. Two servings, three servings, four servings, five servings, six servings, up to like seven or eight servings a day, you see the benefits with eating vegetables. We eat a lot of vegetables in Bright Line Eating. And then there's the whole omega-3, omega-6 fatty acid ratio, right? When you're eating cookies, crackers, cakes, french fries, all those foods, you're getting a flood of vegetable oils, which is Omega-6 rich and you get the standard American eating 10 to 20 to 30 times more Omega-6 than Omega-3. You cut out eating all that junk and now you balance your Omega-6 and Omega-3 ratios. That's good for your brain, for the cell membranes, for brain health and so forth. And also good for... So we literally see a lot of people, you know, with clinical depression and clinical anxiety, seeing it clear up, getting off those meds. I mean, people get off their diabetes meds. These aren't promises, these are just predictions based on what we see. But changing how you eat is very, very powerful for the mood and for the brain in general. Oh, man.

It's inspiring stuff, Susan. Thanks for sharing your story. I want to ask you a couple of final questions before I do. People check out BrightLineEating.com, you're also on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook, BrightLineEating. you can find it all there. Your book as well, that's all on the website, right? People can get all the information there. How else can we be of service to you today?

You know, I just want everyone to understand, first of all, food addiction is real. You'll still hear people saying it's controversial, and the reality is that it's not controversial to neuroscientists who study addiction. You can just look at the brain scans. It's like the food addicted brain looks just like the heroin addicted brain. It's just like the cocaine addicted brain. So we need to get over this whole notion that food addiction isn't real or it's controversial or it's a metaphor. It's not. It's a hardcore addiction just like any other. So that's number one. And understanding that not everyone's affected, right? So if you can take it or leave it when it comes to pizza and cookies and chocolate, just know that you're lucky. Right. First of all. and you know, you're not unique, but most people have some degree of addictive relationship on board when it comes to food, right? Two-thirds have some degree of addiction on board. So just know that. And as a society, we've got to change how we're approaching this. We've really got to because research shows now that two-thirds of the calories that our kids and adolescents are eating are processed foods. These are foods that never grew in the ground. They were born in factories as industrial ingredients and then poured into bags and shipped off to convenience stores, right? So, and if you look at restaurant menus for kids, we're teaching kids to eat only processed foods. What happens when you feed rats that way for a few weeks is you try to put them back on rat chow and they'll starve themselves. They will not allow themselves to go back to a regular diet. if they've been exposed to a cafeteria style US ultra processed foods diet. They won't eat anything else after that. And so we're raising our kids to not be able to eat real food. So we've got to understand with the health challenges we've got in our society right now because of this, you know, that weight is an issue for health. It really is. We're not making that up. It's not an issue of prejudice or fat shaming. It's just scientific reality. It's an issue. And addiction is in the mix here, right? So I guess for anyone who resonates and feels like they have a more addictive relationship with food, I just want you to know that there is a roadmap that works. There really is. And it's not, I've done it. Lots of people have done it. And you're not gonna be consigned to a miserable life, I promise. It's a better life.

You'Ll eat well and you'll live a great life.

That's right.

I got a question that I asked everyone at the end called the three truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth many years away from now. You get to live as long as you want to live. You get to accomplish and create what you want to create, but it's the last day. For whatever reason, you've got to take all of your message with you, your book, this interview, your findings, your research, everything you've ever shared with the world for whatever it's got to go with you to the next place. But you get to leave behind three lessons, three truths with the world from all the things you've learned. What would be those three truths? And this is all we would have to kind of remember you by.

Food addiction is real. Not every brain is equally affected. And for people who are affected, a plan of structured eating is going to produce a lot of freedom. Mm-.

That's a great truth. Yeah. Freedom is the key. Peace and freedom is what a lot of people want. I want to acknowledge Susan for your incredible journey. I mean, the story, the journey, I know how hard it is for people to cut any addiction and to free themselves from any addiction. And it sounds like you have many of them that you've had to free yourself from and to be clean and sober for this many years. in all of them and to be peaceful and healthy and happy and not craving something is really inspiring to see that, you know, it's possible for other people to do as well. So I acknowledge you for your service, for your mission, for helping people. Give them the tools, the knowledge, the research, the science, the community to improve their life. It's really inspiring. Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?

Living true to oneself. I'm just a big fan of to thine own self be true. You know, people are different. People are different. And I love it when people answer their soul's calling and live true to themselves. -Yeah. There you go. -Yeah. -Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Amazing. -So great to be with you.

-Powerful. -Thanks for having me.

-Of course. -Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. Now it's time to go out there and do something great. This is Comedy Bang!

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