How to Rewire Your Brain to Stop Craving Junk Food Dopamine Hits, with Dr. Glenn Livingston

[00:00:00] Glenn: food companies and advertising companies are so good at, pushing those evolutionary buttons

[00:00:05] That is psychologist, Glenn Livingston for decades. He's been researching why we overeat and how to defeat those cravings. Glenn is here today to share how we can outsmart junk food marketing and get off the diet roller coaster for good. 

[00:00:19] Glenn: Character Trump's willpower character is something that we exercise all the time without even knowing it.

[00:00:25] He'll explain my cravings originate from a healthy brain, not a lack of willpower and why consistency and self-compassion are key to sustainable change. 

[00:00:34] And by the end of this episode, you'll understand why shame, sabotages, weight loss efforts, and how to stay motivated by self care, not punishment. So if you're tired of the emotional eating and want freedom from food, stick around, we can help.

[00:00:48] ... [00:01:00] 

[00:01:08] Hey, welcome to the show. Zach will join us here in just a few minutes, but first I want to share something about myself that I think maybe you can relate to. I'm an emotional eater. And for the last few weeks, it's been especially challenging for me to manage that issue. Uh, but dealing with an incredibly stressful situation, as I found myself suddenly between jobs. So, not only have I been stressed, but I suddenly have a lot of unstructured time on my hands. That meant that I'd often scroll through LinkedIn and apply for some jobs. 

[00:01:33] Then when that well, ran dry the anxiety about not getting one of those jobs or any job would flood my mind. 

[00:01:40] And I'd find myself looking for comfort in the cabinet. and with Halloween still clothes in the rear view mirror, there's been plenty of bad choices laying around, just waiting to be made. 

[00:01:48] All of this could have gone way worse, if not for the help that I have from my coach and from the conversation you're about to hear. 

[00:01:53] Zach. And I spoke with Dr. Glenn Livingston about emotional eating and managing food cravings. Right before this stressful time began for me. 

[00:01:59] [00:02:00] And he offered tips that have been crucial to the way that I've been able to handle my own emotional eating habits. 

[00:02:04] So, what are these cravings that you and I deal with? Where do they come from? And how can we overcome them? We'll get to those answers right after this. Did you finally want to get the results you've been dreaming of? My personal trainer is giving you the chance to learn how to create an empowering environment that sets you up for success. In just five days, you'll discover why your current environment may be sabotaging your success. 

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[00:02:51] Don't let your surroundings dictate your destiny any longer. Take advantage of this limited time offer from Jovel Vegas and finally make progress on your biggest [00:03:00] goals. Let him help you create the empowering environment you need. So you can achieve the breakthrough. You've been waiting for. So sign up for Joe's five day change, your life challenge. You can do that@resultswithjoedotcomoryoucanhitthelinkinourshownotesatthefitness.com. All right, Dr. Livingston, thanks so much for joining us today. I want to start by just really defining food cravings. What are we talking about when you talk about cravings? 

[00:03:22] Glenn: So firstly what I'd like to say, Is that I believe cravings are a sign of a healthy brain doing its job, not of a sickness or disease or disorder or condition. I think that a hundred thousand years ago, the people who had stronger cravings were more likely to survive because we had to be really good at finding calories and nutrition.

[00:03:43] 'cause we didn't know when the next meal was coming from. So you would see something or smell something or hear something or. , even, you know, feel something in your skin in the environment and then that would motivate you to take a certain set of actions which , would be more likely to help you to find a particular food [00:04:00] source. , in the modern food environment, calories are so readily available and the food companies and advertising companies are so good at, pushing those evolutionary buttons that, you know, you pass a donuts store sign and you have that Intense craving to go in and get coffee and a donut, um, or a bagel or whatever your, , poison of choice happens to be. And, and,

[00:04:24] , it's too much and the

[00:04:26] calories are too hyper palatable and concentrated and, you know, full of excitor toxins that, that. Hit the bliss point in your reptilian brain, but don't give you the nutrition to feel satisfied. And so people have come to feel like cravings are a sickness, but it's really just your brain doing its job. While some fat cats in white suits with mustaches are laughing all the way to the bank while you, you know,, for love at the bottom of a bag or a container. Right. so my initial work, and I guess we could have listeners go back to the early. Uh, earlier podcast, so we could keep this shorter. But, [00:05:00] but essentially I was, uh, You know, chubby guy with, , a serious eating problem. And I felt like my cravings were irresistible 'cause I come from a family of psychotherapists, I thought I could love myself then I thought I could fill the hole in my heart and then I wouldn't have to fill the hole in my stomach. I was wrong. I learned a lot about myself. I went on a very long journey for several decades trying to do that. I was wrong. It didn't work because there were these outside forces working on me in the big food industry. in the advertising industry. People think that advertising doesn't affect them, but it actually affects you more when you think that because your sales resistance is down and the advertising industry is equally as good at the food industry at um, Signaling your brain that calories and nutrients are available like that multicolored, diverse, , rainbow packaging on, , a set of cookies or, or a food bar, that signals your brain that probably a diversity of micronutrients are available if, if you see a big [00:06:00] salad with green lettuce and blueberries and red tomatoes and, and what else?

[00:06:05] Yellow carrots. , Your natural evolutionary response is to go right at that salad. Well, it would be if we didn't live in this food environment. and, and you, you'd be correct, you'd be likely to get a diversity of micronutrients from the different colors. So eat the rainbow is really good advice unless you're dealing with packaged goods, because in most of those packaged goods, those micronutrients just aren't there. So they're, they're faking out your brain. And it's not the only thing that they do. They,, they stimulate the variety response. , so. a bag of chips is manufactured, it's typically not manufactured on a unitary assembly line, but on a multitude of assembly lines. So there's a slight variety in flavor because in nature, if you find a slight variety of flavor, you'd be getting a diversity of micronutrients, and you therefore have an evolutionary desire, a, a survival desire to keep eating. Allow the food industry to do this [00:07:00] for 50 or 60 years with the $7 trillion packaged goods industry. And you can see they can pay an awful lot of rocket scientists to engineer these, these concoctions, and figure out the packaging and know how to push those buttons. And now, You know, you walk out of a convenience store, there's another convenience store across the street.

[00:07:19] Or as Lewis Black liked to say, he knew the world was ending when he walked out of a Starbucks. And across the street there was another Starbucks.

[00:07:27] Um, so. To tell people to just use your willpower and there's something wrong with you. You have a mysterious, progressive chronic disease. If you can't manage your cravings, if you can't defeat your craving, I, I think it's unconscionable.

[00:07:41] I, I, I think

[00:07:42] that, um, you're creating shame when the appropriate reaction should be anger. I think that, I have to be careful what I say, so don't get my butt sued

[00:07:53] Jeremy: Sure.

[00:07:53] Glenn: But, but, but, um, I, I think there's an awful lot going on, and I don't think it's really fair to be blaming people [00:08:00] and and then we're given the wrong advice. We're, we're told to eat in moderation. Eat, eat, you know, healthy 90% of the time and moderately indulge ourselves 10% of the time. But there's no advice for deciding exactly when that is. And that wears down your willpower because every time you're in front of another chocolate bar, Starbucks, or a donor at the coffee shop, you have to make another decision. And you only have the ability to make so many good decisions. That's what willpower is, is the ability to make good decisions and, um, You know, by the end of the day, you're, you're toast, right?

[00:08:33] Because you've

[00:08:33] tried to make so, so I, I discovered that it works better to create very clear boundaries with regards to your most difficult food triggers. So you kind of survey your personal food economy and ask my, ask yourself, , where are the trouble points for me? I fought away with a chocolate bar in 1982, and I lost and, and So I, I [00:09:00] personally have a rule that says I don't eat chocolate. I've just become the kind of person that doesn't eat chocolate. It doesn't require willpower, it doesn't upset me. I don't have chocolate cravings anymore. I just became the kind of person that doesn't eat chocolate. Very interesting. You can ask people, do you think you could give up chocolate forever?

[00:09:16] They'll go, oh, no, no, no. I could never do that.

[00:09:18] Could you become the kind of person who doesn't need chocolate? Maybe I could do that. Character Trump's willpower

[00:09:24] ca character is something that we exercise all the time without even knowing it. We don't take the $10 bill from the table in the diner, um, when the waitress hasn't seen her tip, because we aren't thiefs, we don't push over little old ladies if they say something mean to us in the street. Uh, we don't go number two in a mother-in-law's living room. There, there are, there're things as

[00:09:43] a 

[00:09:44] Jeremy: for yourself. No, I'm just kidding.

[00:09:47] Glenn: Um, I'm, I'm not married anymore, so I don't have to

[00:09:49] Jeremy: No

[00:09:50] Glenn: Um, there

[00:09:51] was that one time, 

[00:09:53] Jeremy: I, I do wanna ask you about that because, you know, I'm coming up on, I think seven years without drinking alcohol [00:10:00] because I just decided one day I'm not gonna do this anymore. When I began my fitness journey, I decided I'm the weird guy that rides his bike to work every day. And like that decision was super easy to make because for whatever reason,

[00:10:12] Those decisions hit me at a time when I needed to make them, and I was super comfortable with the decision. I've probably decided 1400 times today that I'm not gonna eat junk food anymore.

[00:10:21] Glenn: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:21] Jeremy: So where's the, how do you make that, uh, more intentional decision? Because in my case, the, you know, the, these two big significant choices came because I kind of had to make them.

[00:10:33] but these other smaller ones where it's like, I'm just gonna eat better, I'm gonna work out more. Like we let ourselves off the hook within a half an hour of making that decision constantly.

[00:10:41] How do we get around that?

[00:10:42] Glenn: Well, first of all, eating better or working out more are valid guidelines and North Stars to shoot for,

[00:10:50] but they aren't very specific. Attainable goals.

[00:10:54] Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:55] Glenn: What, what, what does it mean to not have junk food anymore? What's junk food? How, [00:11:00] how do you define that? Is that anything with a, you know, with a wrapper?

[00:11:03] Is anything with a, with a label, is it, or does it mean that, you know, if sugar is above the 50 ingredient on the. On the label that you're not gonna have it anymore. Um,

[00:11:14] or the other thing is that we're, you know, we're talking about giving up things because after many years of doing this myself, I've determined for myself personally, that it's better for me to get rid of most of those bags and boxes and containers.

[00:11:26] I, I eat hardly any of them at all. However, most of my clients do. Most of my clients don't wanna let go of that entirely. And I think for two outta three people, it's entirely possible for them to, , say, well, look, I, I don't eat bread except at a restaurant twice a month with my family, or I only have pretzels at major league baseball games.

[00:11:48] Or, you know, they, they make a list of places where it's okay to indulge. I could tell you why that works, but your, your question is about how do you decide, so the first thing you need to do [00:12:00] is ask without committing. So there's no nothing. You're giving up, you're just brainstorming and exploring here without committing. Is there a change, a very specific measurable change that you might like to make, a rule that you would like to follow, , that might result in a better life for you? Might not, would not, would definitely might. Like we're not in school. No one's gonna. Call you on this task, it might do it. , what occurs to you?

[00:12:23] Suppose you were going to, to make a step in a positive direction about junk food? , what would you do?

[00:12:30] Jeremy: Uh, what would I, what would I physically think would be the first step toward, toward doing that?

[00:12:35] Uh, I think, I think it would be, um, uh, and this is something I was gonna ask you more about later, but I think one of my, uh, major triggers is emotional eating. I think that, that it opens a door to a continuation of bad choices.

[00:12:49] If, you know, if I have a bad day, I, you know, feed it at the pantry, and then that allows me to continue to feed it and make bad choices because I made that bad choice.

[00:12:57] Glenn: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:58] Jeremy: And then the, by the time I'm back [00:13:00] on track, so much time has passed. I stopped working out whatever, that now I've gotta completely, you know, rebuild the Jenga block and slowly start pulling the pieces out again.

[00:13:08] Glenn: What are the first foods that you go to when you quote unquote emotionally eat?

[00:13:14] Jeremy: Oh, like anything in the, uh, cookie or donut family is, uh, well known in, 

[00:13:19] Glenn: Okay. 

[00:13:20] Jeremy: in 

[00:13:20] my world. 

[00:13:20] Glenn: in your ideal world, if you could behave exactly like your, your higher self, once you to,

[00:13:26] um, what role would cookies play in your life and what role would donuts play in your life? Would you have them once in a while? Would you give them up when, if you

[00:13:35] Jeremy: Yeah, I think, I think, well, I mean, I would like to say once in a while, but I have a feeling that it's a similar thing as alcohol where like I, I have, I won't allow myself to have it again because I am afraid that one will lead to six, and so I think one donut leads to six.

[00:13:50] Glenn: so you might like to make a rule that says, I will never again eat sugary baked goods. You might like to do that. It's probably, there's a part of you that feels [00:14:00] terrified when I say that.

[00:14:01] Jeremy: Oh, my heart just broke a little bit. That was weird. Yeah,

[00:14:03] Glenn: Well, you.

[00:14:04] Zach: think I see a tear.

[00:14:06] Jeremy: I know. I was like, oh my God.

[00:14:07] Glenn: Well do, dude, you don't have, you don't have to do it to please me. You don't have to do it to please me. Uh, and like

[00:14:12] Jeremy: No, that's, that's legit. Like I felt, I was like, wow. Like that's, that's a big choice.

[00:14:17] Glenn: so I want you to consider an alternative choice and we'll, we'll weigh the two together. , if you were going to have it once in a while, how would you define Once in a while?

[00:14:26] Jeremy: either like a, a, like a special, like outing with the family to a cafe on a Sunday morning kind of a thing. Uh, something like that. I could see like the, the rule only like nothing in the house. Uh, and you know, more than, no, more than once a week or something like that.

[00:14:41] Glenn: Okay. So what you might say is I will never again eat sugary baked goods except at social events, but never more than once per calendar week. Very, very specific. And now in terms of making the decision, there are a number of things you can [00:15:00] do, but I find the best thing is to kind of tap into people's intuition. If you were to imagine two different scenarios, let's try the second one first, where you say, I will never again eat sugary baked goods except for once a week at a social event. , how do you imagine that would change your life 90 days from now? What would be better indifferent in 90 days?

[00:15:22] Zach: He'd, he'd be way more grumpy.

[00:15:26] Glenn: about in a

[00:15:26] year then? How about in a year?

[00:15:28] Jeremy: so I mean, honestly, I think, uh, I think it would help my mental health a lot because I do think that the inflammation from it definitely contributes to the depressive episodes that I have. It contributes to the deep shame that I have about not being able to control these things.

[00:15:41] Um, so if I were able to stick to those, those boundaries and have some discipline around it, I would feel better about it.

[00:15:48] I'd have more confidence and odds are, I would probably . , be physically healthier because I would be limiting, uh, something that, I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm, I'm in the pantry every day, but, you know, a couple, three days a week, I'm [00:16:00] certainly allowing myself these, you know, these indulgences.

[00:16:03] , and it just allows me to continue making them. So that discipline, I think, would help control a lot of that.

[00:16:10] Glenn: So I, I'm gonna rephrase that all in the positive because our, our inner food monsters don't want us to see the positive. They want to focus on the negative to keep us in the present and stuck. So you would feel mentally clearer and more confident because you'd be lower in inflammation. You would feel physically better, you'd be less prone to de depressive episodes, and you'd be shame free.

[00:16:34] You'd be, you'd be free of the shame that has been binding you from the mistakes that you've been making.

[00:16:40] Jeremy: Yeah, I think so.

[00:16:42] Glenn: Do, do you authentically believe that those things would happen if you only had baked goods once a calendar week at a social event?

[00:16:51] Jeremy: Do I think they would only happen by 

[00:16:53] making that decision. 

[00:16:54] Glenn: you think that that future would come to pass one year from now if you adopted that rule and stuck with it?[00:17:00] 

[00:17:00] Jeremy: I think it would be much more likely than it currently, uh, is. As of right now,

[00:17:05] Glenn: Okay. If you instead attempted to adopt the rule, I will never have sugary baked goods again. What do you see in one year?

[00:17:13] Jeremy: Uh, well, I mean, I can tell you in 10 minutes when this interview's over, I would probably go eat some more. So,

[00:17:18] Glenn: Okay, so your answer pretty clear the question you asked me is, should I abstain or should I moderate?

[00:17:24] So, so answer is pretty clear. It sounds like moderation is the,

[00:17:29] Jeremy: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:29] Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:30] Glenn: What I'll tell you is that most people who say that are successful, however, if you try to do it with four different rules, sometimes people come back and say, well, I really wanna do it twice a week,

[00:17:40] or, I forgot about birthdays, or, or,

[00:17:42] they have to modify the rule in some way. If you try it more than four times and you're still not able to control yourself, then it's probably time to consider abstaining.

[00:17:51] So that, that's more or less how we go about making that determination.

[00:17:56] Jeremy: I think up until now I have taken sort of the, you know, the 80 20 rule, [00:18:00] but, you know, I'm not, I'm not doing the math right. It's like, oh, it's, it's been a few days. I'm probably in that 20% window when odds are, I'm probably well outside of it.

[00:18:11] Zach: Probably 50

[00:18:11] 50 

[00:18:12] Jeremy: I.

[00:18:13] Glenn: The, the benefit of being very specific is multifaceted. First of all, it allows you to separate your thoughts to clearly separate your thoughts into constructive and destructive thoughts about food. If you define a destructive thought as any thought that suggests you're going to break your rule, then you're going to more immediately recognize it and remember that. The brain is a calorie finding machine. It's looking for ways to automate behavior, to find calories without you even thinking about it. So unless you have a way, a very specific, specific way to recognize and wake up at the moment of impulse, you're gonna find yourself eating more than you really want to eat.

[00:18:51] So it's a very, very specific thing.

[00:18:53] If you're waking up at the moment of impulse, then there are a multitude of things you could do. You could say, well, What [00:19:00] is my lower self telling me? What's the justification? You worked out hard enough. You could just start again tomorrow. No, I can't because the principle of neuro neuroplasticity says if it fires together, it wires together. So if I have the thought start tomorrow and I eat this now, I've rewarded that thought. I'm gonna be in a deeper hole tomorrow and more likely to say that.

[00:19:18] So

[00:19:19] that's a rational refutation. You can also recognize that these things usually happen when the brain is irrationally perceiving some level of emergency.

[00:19:27] It's not irrational emergency, it's, it's a irrational emergency usually. But maybe you're overworked that day. Maybe you're overtired, maybe you haven't had enough. Authentic, genuine nutrition. , maybe there are just too many things coming at you and too many decisions that you've been making and your brain feels like it needs resources. So you can do things like breathing exercises to take yourself out of that emergency response brain and put yourself back into the, um, upper brain. , if you breathe out for longer than you breathe in, like count to. [00:20:00] Seven when you breathe in and 11 when you breathe out, you're activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which says it's okay to rest and digest and think, and plan and stick to our long-term goals.

[00:20:11] There is no emergency here. can gently trace the outline of your lips. Which also seems to signal the, I don't know why this is the case, but it is the case. It seems to signal the parasympathetic nervous system that we have, what we need right now. You can recite a mantra. You can say, I have everything I need right now.

[00:20:27] There is no emergency, right? You can redirect yourself. You can redirect that craving. You say, well, this is probably a signal that I need some authentic nutrition. I myself got off of chocolate. When I redirected those signals to kill banana smoothies, I would make kill juice or celery juice with a banana, or actually a couple of bananas. And, um, I was actually craving some legitimate, authentic energy, but this way I got it with gu and pectin and all the fiber that was necessary, not with the, um, enormous concentration of, you know, sugar into the ermine [00:21:00] and all the

[00:21:00] things that are in a, in a chocolate bar. So there's a

[00:21:02] variety of things you can do.

[00:21:04] So you don't say, oh, screw it, just do it. , 

[00:21:06] Zach: When I have those moments, I. Where I have a craving, I wanna go eat something. It's, and it's, and it's really kicking in. It's usually because I haven't had water in three days.

[00:21:17] Like, so I've kind of adopted the rule now of when I have that craving, whenever I open the pantry, I've, I've really tried to solidify it in my mind of when the pantry opens, think about

[00:21:29] water first, and usually like, I'll go over and like drink, you know, eight or 10 ounces of water. And that deals with the craving for about an hour until I have to go use the bathroom, and then I'm back at the pantry and it starts over again. But like, is that, is, is that something you would recommend

[00:21:43] Glenn: It's definitely some, definitely something I would recommend. , I mean, first of all, dehydration. I. Does signal an irrational or sometimes even irrational emergency, does signal a state of emergency to the brain. So the brain is likely to try to force you to be less discriminating when it feels that urgent need. So [00:22:00] meeting that urgent need because you haven't had water in three days, can't, can't calm you down. two by the way, is a lack of connectedness or a lack of sleep. , we are social animals. We get a little panicked if we feel isolated for too long. So sometimes just connecting with a friend or even just going outside where there are people , can calm that, um, that part of their brain. So yes, what, what you wanna do also is think of it like killing the fantasy in the crib. Don't let it grow up. So I, I recently had to give up. Of coffee, including decaffeinated coffee, decaffeinated tea, because my blood pressure was, I know my 

[00:22:41] Jeremy: I know my heart's breaking. Again. I've, I've never cried so much on this show. It's ridiculous.

[00:22:46] Glenn: My, my blood pressure was

[00:22:47] a little high. I'm almost 60, uh, people say I don't look it, but I'm almost 60 and it's something I didn't really pay attention to most of my life. I, I always figured salt was okay, 'cause my blood pressure was low, but it apparently you give yourself high blood pressure over the years if you do that. And so [00:23:00] I've been working on it. I haven't had to take medication, but I got another 10 points or so soda go and, decided I had to give up, , all decaffeinated coffee, all. Any semblance of caffeine. So I realized that when I am craving a de, even a decaffeinated coffee, 'cause I don't have these monster cups, which actually had some caffeine in them, it was associated with a fantasy before the actual action. It was usually, I. Two or three o'clock in the afternoon and I would've been working hard. I start to think, wouldn't it be nice to just take a five minute drive over to the racetrack by me? It's not an actual racetrack. That's the name of a convenience store. And they make a really good brooded decaf.

[00:23:36] And the people there know me, they'll often give it to me for free because I'm there all the time. And I just have this nice fantasy about the drive and walking in and getting the brew comp and talking to the people and just kind of kibitzing a little bit. And I realized that the moment that that fantasy starts, , the behavior requires the fantasy first to motivate me. So if I immediately knew what to fantasize about, like, [00:24:00] like Zach, you were fantasizing about water, me it would be a mint. Herbal tea with a little bit of plant-based milk or plant-based creamer. I have a little ritual that I do before every meal to just remind me of a couple of the key refutations, the key fixes in my thinking that are important when I'm making a behavior change. I would tell myself that plant-based tea with herbal tea with plant-based milk or creamer is equally as delicious to my decaffeinated coffee, and I never have anything decaffeinated. 'cause there's a little caffeine that adds up it takes a full year without any added sodium or caffeine to really reverse your blood pressure. I kill the fantasy in the cradle. I, I don't let that fantasy grow up. So ask yourself, for example, when you are. Fantasizing about going to the pantry and getting your stuff, or you're fantasizing about going to get a cookie or, or some kind of a, a baked good. what do you want to fantasize about instead?

[00:24:55] Where is your authentic pleasure? See, often we'll take a break to go eat some [00:25:00] junk for pleasure, but we won't take a break to get pleasure otherwise. And so where are you going to get your authentic pleasure? , and then you'll want to fantasize about that. It won't be like, oh crap, I have to fantasize about that.

[00:25:11] It's, you're gonna want to do that. And that prevents the discomfort in the first place. It's the fantasy followed by the, you know, the fighting where you have to fight through. That's what. That's what really creates a discomfort. If you don't allow the fantasy, there's no discomfort and you can overcome the craving.

[00:25:27] Jeremy: so the thing I'm, I'm curious about, uh, talking with you about is a lot of this, the book, the podcast, backdoor to Weight Loss. Weight Loss is such a huge thing in, in our culture, but I also talk to people occasionally that are resistant to weight loss and it's all about just accepting body image and it's, you know, we're just trying to live up to some, you know, some standard that is imagined or not real.

[00:25:53] So, is weight loss important? Why is weight loss something that, that you are passionate about, uh, to, [00:26:00] to help people attain and, and is it actually something people should worry about?

[00:26:04] Glenn: I think that both of those things are important. I think that shedding the primary focus on weight loss as a way to fit in, in our very sick society, like it's, um, Jakarta Krishnamurti said that it's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. And so I think that's very true.

[00:26:27] And also the panic about needing to lose weight quickly actually signals the brain. that there's an emergency and It, interferes with weight loss in and of itself. So paradoxically, when you really focus on weight loss, most people don't lose weight. Most, most people are less likely to defeat their craving, they're less likely to stick with their rules when they focus on weight loss.

[00:26:48] So I think that people need to learn to accept and love themselves wherever they are all along the journey while still maintaining the goal of getting to a [00:27:00] healthy weight. I do think that there's an extraordinary amount of evidence that says that, , Obesity is, , and even being moderately overweight is physically dangerous for us.

[00:27:10] And so I do think that weight loss is important, but I also think that, you know, unless your doctor says it's an emergency that you lose 50 pounds for this, you know, this next month or something like that, which is almost impossible anyway. 

[00:27:23] Jeremy: Right. 

[00:27:23] Glenn: I, I really have not seen a lot of success among people who paradoxically in order to

[00:27:29] Let that go. You wind up becoming a happier person because you're learning to pause and calm down and remove this emergency system from your body altogether. Not remove it, altogether, but remove the false emergency reactions from your body. So you live a calmer, happier life. There's more of a space between stimulus and response.

[00:27:51] And that's where we live. The ability to make choices, not only food choices, like choices about our values and our intimate connections and our [00:28:00] goals and pursuits, and, and ultimately anything to do with self actualization really occurs between stimulus and response. And so if you're always running to the potato chips or the cookies or the cakes, the moment you have that craving, then there's less of a time to experience you.

[00:28:16] So, I suggest that people work on defeating their cravings in the way that we talk about, where you make it, a secondary effort. most people will make a line, most people will create a set of food rolls, which will take the weight off eventually. I recommend they don't worry about that, at least for the first month or so that they just learn how to play the game and they learn how the process works because it's, there's more to it than you think it, is.

[00:28:38] , but most people will inevitably lose a little weight during that period anyway. And then, um, you know, then you make slight adjustments to the rules without adopting anything too extreme. You know, I find the extreme diets, whether they're Uh, carnivore or a vegetarian or, you know, uh, high carb or low carb.

[00:28:58] If they're very [00:29:00] extreme, I find that I get about half the success rate. If they're, I've worked with over 2000 clients, by the way. So, so I was speaking from experience. Um, so, so it's important, but it's not, it's not, not the first thing. 

[00:29:11] Jeremy: One of the things that has come up when we talk about body image a lot is that, you know, for, for folks that are concerned about body image trying to lose weight, is that the idea of, you know, uh, trying to lose weight as sort of a form of punishment? Versus an act of self-love.

[00:29:26] Like if, like if you resent yourself, if you don't accept yourself, it's going to be much harder to correct course and lose weight and feel better in all of the things than, than if you're taking the 

[00:29:36] punishment 

[00:29:37] Glenn: have evidence to prove that. 

[00:29:39] Jeremy: How so? Maybe this is a deeper question. Well, you've got a PhD. How do I find self-acceptance if I'm struggling with that, right?

[00:29:46] Like where does, where does that come from?

[00:29:48] Glenn: it's kind of an intellectual, , more of an intellectual attitude than a practical basis. First of all, you need to recognize the fact that you just brought up. [00:30:00] That, shame doesn't work. It might work to get you started, but it won't work, it won't get you to the finish line, and it certainly won't keep you there.

[00:30:06] And I, we have an almost 800 person survey of, , people who. You know, use our methods. And when we look at the groups who lost weight and kept it off for a year, 18 months, two years, , shame is not one of their motivations in the end. you can focus on non skill victories instead. Your clarity of digestion, the , absence of food obsession, usually what happens when you get the right set of rules and you've pre made your decisions about what you're going to eat and not eat, there's nothing to think about.

[00:30:41] Food obsession is caused by continually reinforcing The thought, gee, maybe this would be nice. Maybe that would be nice. Maybe this would be nice. when it's not possible for that thought to lead to the acquisition of calories, then the food obsession seems to subside almost entirely. so you can focus on the freedom of mind.

[00:30:59] You [00:31:00] can remember torture it was to be yo yo dieting all the time. You can get good and sick. Of having lived that life and never want to go back. You can focus on, the enhanced presence and mindfulness that results. from staking to your plan. so rather than doing a Stuart Smalley kind of thing and saying I'm good enough and, and, you know, smart enough and gosh darn it people like me.

[00:31:27] Um, you can focus on very concrete things that don't have to do with this scale. I do recommend people weigh themselves so they can see where we're going. But, um, not everybody. Some people don't want to. Some people want to use a pair of jeans or something. That's okay. But some type of measurement so you know if you're going the right direction or not.

[00:31:42] But some focus on really very practical things, which, you know, are slowly but surely leading you in the right direction. And then the Experience of self mastery, observing yourself, able to change your behavior [00:32:00] consistently day in and day out, in and of itself, that leads to self acceptance. Kind of like when, um, a child learns how to walk and they aren't falling down all the time, or, when they become a big boy and they go potty trained now.

[00:32:13] there is an inherent boost in self esteem that occurs with self mastery, and that's the best type of self esteem to, to develop as opposed to try to force it. I mean, I'm all for affirmations. You get further with positive thinking than the negative thinking. But when you do affirmations, but the behavior doesn't match, there's a little part of your brain that goes BS, BS, BS. 

[00:32:34] Jeremy: Yep. Totally, totally. I've turned this into much more of a, of a coaching session for me than I intended for, for folks that are listening and, you know, we've outlined, you know, choose your boundary. Is it, you know, occasionally, is it just, I can't do this anymore. That's one idea. We've talked about the breath, work, the water, lots of different strategies to deal with the emotional eating.

[00:32:51] If somebody is just, they're sick of the way they look in the mirror. Where do they start? What's step one?

[00:32:57] Glenn: One simple rule, and it doesn't have [00:33:00] to be anything that limits your food in any way whatsoever. It could be that you always put your fork down between bites or that you don't go back for seconds. Or that you always take three deep breaths. Before you begin your meal, or that you, you know, stop eating after eight o'clock at night unless you are socializing.

[00:33:21] , the limit is your own creativity. The important thing is to set the bar low enough that you'll clear it. , consistent. Um, BJ fob, who wrote the book, tiny Habits with, I think the first to point out that motivation comes and goes, it waxes and wams, and if you set the bar high, You're only going to clear it when your motivation is high, when you got your mojo.

[00:33:43] You need a bar that you can clear when you don't have your mojo, so that you can observe yourself consistently doing something in the right direction. You need to preempt that thought on the back of your head that says, this is impossible, I'm such a screw up, I'm always going to [00:34:00] be fat. Right? So Eve, Eve, I think he talked about learning to floss his teeth by flossing one tooth.

[00:34:06] , so even if you just put your fork down between bites, like even if you just don't go back for seconds or always take three deep breaths or take a picture of your food before you eat it, it's, it's a commitment to a changed way of life. And when you observe yourself doing that consistently for a couple of weeks, your identity function starts to.

[00:34:23] Starts to kick in. I'm not someone who gobbles down their food. I'm someone who takes a pause before I eat. That one little change becomes a positive snowball that you can... You know, cycle uphill. So, um, go to kindergarten before you go to college, make one simple, one simple role and move forward like that. 

[00:34:41] Jeremy: Love it. Uh, man, I am. I'm always so grateful for your time. So much wisdom. We got into so much of how the indus, the food industry plays with our heads and all the things. The first time we talked with you, there's a link to that in the show notes for this episode. Along with that link is a link to you.

[00:34:54] Where, where can folks learn more about you, the book, the podcast, all the things you have to offer. I.

[00:34:58] Glenn: So the book [00:35:00] is called Defeat Your Cravings. And it, at the moment it's fairly new, , but it's out and it's available for free on the Kindle, Nook, or PDF. If you go through my website, click on the big blue button that says free book and reader bonuses. That will take you to the reader bonus list. If you sign up for that, you'll get a free copy of the book in electronic format.

[00:35:18] We do have other formats also, but there is a customary charge for that. I've got a couple of other things that you'll get when you go there. You'll get a free set of food plan starter templates. So regardless of what your dietary philosophy is, this is a diet agnostic technique. You can use this with any reasonable dietary philosophy as long as you're not trying to starve yourself or you get a reasonable amount of nutrition, you can do it.

[00:35:42] Point counting, calorie counting, , high carb, low carb, you can do this with any dietary philosophy will work with you. or you can work, work it by yourself. And I will also give you a set of full length recorded coaching sessions, because, um, I know that it sounds very weird in the abstract. [00:36:00] Like, this doctor has a food monster inside of him, and, you know, what is he doing, isn't this...

[00:36:05] There are, and there are a lot of objections people have to rules in the first place, where they think that the rules themselves are dangerous, and I.

[00:36:10] I can overcome those very easily in the book if you, if you read the book or listen to some of my, my own podcasts. So, it's all at thefeaturecravings.

[00:36:18] com. Click the big blue button. 

[00:36:19] That is Dr. Glenn Livingston. You can find that link in the show notes for this episode@thefitmass.com and the big takeaway here that I hope you find helpful. Is that cravings are not a sign of sickness or a lack of willpower, but rather a healthy brain seeking nutrition for survival. If you can approach them with compassion, curiosity, and maybe a few rules that, you know, you can stick to. 

[00:36:42] You'll find ways to overcome them. 

[00:36:44] I know my only on the weekends or at a special outing with my family rule has been very helpful. Not perfect. But better. And in the end, that's always, my goal is just to be a little better than it was yesterday. But that's going to do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you have found any value in this episode, 

[00:36:59] [00:37:00] please consider sharing it with someone who may benefit from it. 

[00:37:02] Maybe it can help them to that's going to do it. We'll talk to you again next week@thefitness.com. Thanks for listening.