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From Food Addiction to Freedom: Hypnotherapy, Psychedelics & Recovery With Jiordana Saade · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  Hello everyone, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud
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  Podcasts, the show where we get real about addiction and mental
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  health recovery. Today I sat down with Jordana
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  Sade, a holistic nutritionist, hypnotherapist, podcaster, and
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  founder of The Mindful Clinic. Jordana has a degree in
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  behavioral psychology and is considered the top leading
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  expert in eating behavior and also a Ted X speaker on
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  understanding what it means to have a healthy relationship with
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  food. I learned a lot in today's
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  episode and I hope you do too. If you or someone you know is
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  struggling with addiction, food addiction, or substance abuse,
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  please reach out for help. Enjoy the show.
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  Please support the show by following and subscribing.
• 0:41
  We appreciate you. Hey, Jordana.
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  Hey. How's it going?
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  I'm so good. How are you?
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  I'm doing well. Thanks.
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  Thank you so much for coming down.
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  I really appreciate it. I messaged you on online.
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  I was following what you're doing and I, I really like what
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  you're doing. Thank you.
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  And, you know, I was introduced to you through a mutual friend
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  and you didn't even hesitate. So I appreciate that.
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  You know, you were like, yeah, let's do it.
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  Let's let's jump. And, you know, we're, we're
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  here, here we are doing it. So I'm always appreciative of of
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  people in recovery because I feel like we're really, let's
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  get it done people, you know, Type A.
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  Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
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  So, yeah. So I appreciate that about you
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  and I, I'm really interested in this, you know, body, body
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  dysmorphia from, from my perspective, you know,
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  relationship with food. I think it doesn't get talked
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  about enough. And I'm like, it's really
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  opening my eyes and I'm covering a lot of avenues of and, and
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  also similarities with drug addiction and food addiction
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  and, you know, this kind of obsessive cycle that we get
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  into, right? So why don't you start off, you
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  know, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got into
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  into this field? Yeah, well, thank you so much
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  for having me. It's honestly an honor to be
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  here. But my story started when I was
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  very young, so this was obviously a long time ago.
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  I'm in my 30s now, but I was the only obese kid in my class.
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  And of course, I was like bullied and made fun of.
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  Like, my mom is an Italian chef and so the way that she shows
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  love is through food. And you know, it was one of the
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  only times I got attention from my mom because she was so busy.
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  Not because she's a bad mother or anything, but I was the only
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  obese kid in class and when I was 8 years old I had a crush on
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  a boy and I was playing tag at recess and I tagged him and in
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  front of the whole school he yelled.
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  Fatty caught me. Oh my.
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  God. And I just remember that day,
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  like, that's kind of like my origin story, you know, I'm
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  like. Fuck that guy, but thank you at
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  the same time. Yeah, totally.
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  So I'm 8 years old and I go home and I'm like, something has to
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  change. So that was the day that I went
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  on my first diet. I didn't know what a diet was.
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  I only knew that the more I ate, the bigger I got.
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  And so I essentially just began to starve myself.
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  Like I would throw my lunches away at school and I did lose a
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  lot of weight and I received a lot of validation.
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  Like all of a sudden I had friends.
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  The cutest boy in school started talking to me.
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  My were proud of me. Even my doctor was like, Oh my
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  gosh, look at you go. So this kind of spiraled into
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  decades of eating disorders and then eventually substance abuse.
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  So when I was in high school, I recognized that, you know, if I
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  smoked weed a lot, then I was, you know how people say, you
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  know, weed gives you the munchies?
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  Well, when you do it enough and you do it a lot, it almost like
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  takes away the because you're receiving dopamine from
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  something else, right? And then weed kind of led to
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  MDMA and I would drop like 2 pills of MDMA and go to class
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  and then which led to like acid and shrooms and then eventually
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  cocaine. And that was kind of my Achilles
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  heel. So at this point I'm 21, I'm
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  living in Montreal, I'm kicked out of university.
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  I'm a full blown like cocaine addict and alcoholic.
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  I have a bone sticking out of my nose.
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  And my parents were like, we're not going to pay for you to
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  party anymore. Like there's something very
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  seriously wrong here. So they made me come home and I
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  was working in this restaurant and I met this man and I got
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  pregnant like very quickly. And that baby basically saved my
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  life because through that pregnancy, I couldn't use the
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  substances that I was using to keep my weight down, but also
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  like simultaneously very addicted to it.
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  But the one thing that we're at all kind of started came back
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  with full force, and that was just this very unhealthy,
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  addictive relationship to food. And so I gained a lot of weight
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  in that pregnancy. I was very unhappy.
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  And when my son was nine months old, I was like, I'm going to
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  get down to the bottom of my eating disorder.
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  And I went to become a nutritionist.
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  I graduated as valedictorian, first class honors.
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  I'm hired right out of school to work with a medical doctor in
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  his obesity clinic. And I'm seeing patient after
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  patient and I'm handing out meal plan after meal plan.
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  And like literally nobody's getting any better.
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  Because the truth is, and hopefully you can agree with
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  this, like I think we all know an apple is healthier than a
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  chocolate bar, right? But we still choose the
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  chocolate bar anyways. And so it really opened my eyes
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  up to this idea of like self sabotage.
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  Like I know it's bad for me, but I do it anyways, right?
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  And so I was like, this isn't an issue that a meal plan is going
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  to solve. I went back to school to do my
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  masters and eventually my PhD, which I'm still in the process
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  of in behavioral psychology and neuroscience.
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  And once I started to understand the nervous system and
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  understand why people are motivated to engage in these
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  addictive behaviors and why other people aren't, it like
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  changed my life. And then now I I work with women
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  all over the world doing the same.
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  Wow. Awesome that there's a lot
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  there. No, no.
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  And, and like I, I, I want to, I want to dive into so much of it.
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  Did you have a deviated septum when you when you were using too
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  much coke? No, it's just like just it's
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  still there, like the bone just kind of sticks out.
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  And when it gets dry, I feel it. Yeah, I have never gotten it
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  fixed. But yeah, first question, Yeah,
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  that's where my brain goes, though.
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  I'm like, yeah, you know, I got close to that too.
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  And I always used to brag. This is so weird that I'm gonna
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  say this, but my my nose hair would start to come back when I
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  was a coke addict and I would joke around that that was an
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  indication that I was like doing better because it wasn't like
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  burning. That's so funny.
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  I totally get that, yes. Like, you know, these kind of
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  accolades that we give ourselves because just we're just
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  justifying this like unhealthy behavior, you know, because I
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  don't want to stop. It's hard.
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  Yeah, it's uncomfortable. Yeah.
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  So that was that's cool that you you noticed you had this kind of
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  like epiphany moment where you're and it's true.
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  Like we all have the information.
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  The information is plentiful all out there.
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  There's so much of it. It's just, it's like addiction
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  with any substance. It's like I use outside things
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  to heal my insides, right? I wanna feel good.
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  So that. And you're in the middle of
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  getting your PhD right now. What are next steps for you?
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  Like what do you wanna do? Well, I've written my thesis,
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  and we can talk about that as well.
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  But I I, you know, I've taken a break from my PhD.
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  Like, I have to do my 4000 hours of supervision and I have a
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  business that's plentiful. I have two kids.
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  I'm divorced, like single moms. So like, I just don't right now.
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  It's just not a priority. But eventually, you know, when
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  my kids are older and I have a lot of time, like, I'll probably
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  go and finish. But I think I learned everything
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  I needed to in that moment. Yeah.
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  Very cool. Yeah, I want to talk about
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  trauma a little bit cuz I think trauma effects all of us.
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  I used to think that trauma and I'm sure a lot of people still
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  think this or hopefully they're coming around to this idea.
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  But I used to think that trauma was like I had to get abused as
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  a kid. I had to have this moment where,
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  you know, somebody sexually abused me for in particular and
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  I was proven wrong, you know, time and time again by attending
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  therapy. I learned in treatment that
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  it's, it's an experience, right? Trauma is all subjective, if you
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  will. What's your experience with
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  trauma? And like what, what do you think
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  it is? How do you define it?
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  Yeah, I've done a lot of work in this.
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  I'm, I'm sure you know, Doctor Gabor mate, but I did actually a
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  course with him like so long ago before he was like super fast.
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  Yeah, literally. But so he, a lot of what I know
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  about trauma is a lot of his, his theories.
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  But you know, my trauma was a kid calling me fat when I was 8,
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  right? Like, I mean, and there was so
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  many more things like my dad having really high expectations
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  of me and, you know, the attention that I received from
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  being thin or obese. And I work with so many women
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  that have had very serious traumas, lost both their parents
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  when they were young and in the, in the system, you know, they've
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  been to jail or mom's gone to jail, they've been sexually
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  assaulted. And I look at my trauma compared
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  to that and I'm like, Oh my God, like, what's my problem?
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  You know, but essentially trauma is never the experience.
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  It's like how you internalize it, right?
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  And trauma is anything that takes the nervous system outside
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  of it's like feeling of comfort and peace and safety.
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  And so human beings are really cool because we are, you know,
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  we're, we're primitive and, and like essentially we're very
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  primitive still. And if we look back on the way
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  that these like tribes used to function, there are two things
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  that would make somebody from the tribe, you know, start to
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  break down, like mentally, emotionally, physically.
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  And one of those things is not having any value to the tribe
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  and then not being accepted into the tribe.
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  And so literally, if you weren't accepted into a tribe, the
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  nervous system goes, Oh my God, I'm not going to survive.
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  And it starts to create things like anxiety, depression, even
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  physical symptoms like, you know, they might, their immune
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  system's going to lower, They're going to pick up disease.
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  Ease is easier. And so, you know, me not being
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  accepted when I was 8 years old was very traumatic, right?
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  Because as a little girl, before the prefrontal cortex is even
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  fully developed, you're walking around going like, do I fit in?
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  Am I going to survive? And the conscious brain is like,
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  oh, this boy doesn't like me. But the subconscious part of the
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  nervous system, the very primitive brain is like, I'm not
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  going to have access to food. I'm going to fucking die, you
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  know? I'm not going to fit into the
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  tribe. And yeah.
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  And, and those two things are very closely related to like,
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  not not being accepted and not because if I don't have any
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  value to add to the tribe or to my recoveries with my family or
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  my friend group, like I'm going to automatically feel like an
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  outcast, right? And then I'm using those
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  emotions subconsciously. I'm using cocaine and, you know,
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  other stimulants for me to kind of just quiet that voice in my
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  head. Yes.
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  How does how does trauma? What is the trauma?
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  So you talked a little bit about how it affects, you know, your
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  nutrition and your food and your relationship with food.
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  But can you dive into a little bit more of that, like how it
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  affects that? Yeah, So super cool.
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  So, you know, food is our first access to drug drugs, you know,
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  like nobody's ever addicted to broccoli.
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  You can't change my mind about that.
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  And so I. Haven't met anyone either.
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  Yeah. So it's, you know, I did a lot
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  of research because I was, I'm very curious person and I wanted
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  to know why one person would get addicted to food and another
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  person wouldn't or, you know, two people try the same drug.
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  I had a best friend in high school and she would be able to
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  use drugs just kind of intermittently.
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  And we were doing the same thing.
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  But like I was addicted like it was for me, it was an escape for
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  myself, just like you mentioned, for her, it was just like an
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  opportunity to have a fun experience.
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  So what's the difference, right? And so actually neurochemically,
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  like when we are a child, usually before the age of seven,
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  if there's any type of like chaos in the environment and
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  there are 10 different things that are outlined in this study
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  where it would be like a traumatic experience or trauma.
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  Essentially what happens in the brain is cortisol gets elevated
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  in, in a young child and cortisol literally inhibits the
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  endorphin system from developing.
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  The endorphin system is where we release oxytocin, dopamine,
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  serotonin. And so these individuals that
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  have had traumatic experiences growing up or they're perceiving
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  trauma all the time, whether it's parents fighting or you
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  know, someone's incarcerated or whatever it is.
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  For me, it was not being accepted.
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  My nervous system and these individuals nervous system
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  isn't, aren't able to release dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin on
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  a regular schedule where someone else would.
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  And so when you have access to that drug, it's like your
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  brain's feeling that serotonin for the first time and it gets
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  addicted to that piece. It gets addicted to that like
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  that, those good feelings versus somebody who can release these
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  things on a natural schedule, they can just produce them on
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  the go. And so for me, I'm not sure if
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  I'm answering your question, but for me, one of the main factors
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  is like, was that traumatic experience in childhood?
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  Did it alter the nervous system enough to make that individual
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  when they have their first ice cream, you know, like are they
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  going back to the ice cream because the ice cream tastes
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  good? Or are they going back to the
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  ice cream because the the release of those chemicals, the
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  dopamine, serotonin, etcetera, that you get from that ice cream
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  are literally like releasing chemicals that their brain can't
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  do naturally. And so because food is our first
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  access to drugs and nobody's addicted to broccoli, you see
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  these young children where and, you know, as they grow up, where
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  food becomes a mechanism of coping rather than a means for
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  survival. Like they're not just like
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  eating to live, they're like living to eat.
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  Yeah. I think you did answer my
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  question. What that what then?
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  Sorry, I want to clarify one thing too.
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  For people that don't know, oxytocin is like the love
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  chemical, right? It's kind of like what how when
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  we first start dating, it attracts us to somebody.
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  Is that right? Yeah, oxytocin is released based
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  on feelings of connection. So I mean you can get release it
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  with your friends, romantic partners for sure.
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  But if we actually think about like the drugs that are related
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  to these things, oxytocin would be like Oxys, right?
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  Like heroin is very different than cocaine is.
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  Cocaine's a stimulant, and so cocaine's going to alter
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  dopamine, whereas heroin's going to alter oxytocin.
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  And oxytocin is like, intoxicating.
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  You know, I, I worked in rehab Centers for a while.
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  And there's a big difference between somebody who's addicted
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  to heroin and oxys versus somebody who's, like, an
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  alcoholic or cocaine. Not better or worse, just very
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  different. It's very all consuming.
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  Yeah. So that leads me to my next
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  question. And I've always wondered this
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  and I don't know that there's an answer for it, but maybe you can
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  provide some more clarity on it. What makes somebody addicted to
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  one class of drugs more than the other?
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  I was always a stimulant guy. Like I never enjoyed that kind
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  of Matthew Perry called it because he was, I read his book
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  and he was a great book. He talks about oxys.
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  The feeling of oxys was like it would replace all of the blood
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  in his body with warm honey. And I was like, oh, that sounds
• 14:31
  kind of nice, but I never had that experience with it.
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  What do you think makes, what do you think separates people?
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  Like why do people choose certain?
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  That's a really good question. I this is not a academic
• 14:42
  response. This is like a personal opinion,
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  But you know how when we sat down, you were like, you know,
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  we just get it, we do it done. Like addicts are like we're go,
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  go, go, go, go. An individual who's like that
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  type A who's wired for external validation.
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  They're they're receiving their validation through doing things
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  people like giving them praise, etcetera.
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  It's that go go go mentality. Those people are really wired
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  for dopamine. Like dopamine is the molecule of
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  more. It's not.
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  People think dopamine is a molecule pleasure.
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  It's not actually oxytocin is dopamine is a molecule of
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  movement and more. And the more dopamine you
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  release, the more dopamine you need.
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  And so it's like you release a little bit of dopamine and
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  simultaneously you feel pleasure and craving at the same time.
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  And every time you engage in that substance or that behavior
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  or whatever it is, the pleasure goes down, but the craving goes
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  up. So dopamine, that's why people
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  get addicted to stimulants because it's like, it's never,
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  ever going to be like the first time you tried it.
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  Like I'm sure you know, after years of doing cocaine, it's not
• 15:38
  even like I was having fun anymore.
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  I was just doing it because I had to.
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  But these people are wired for like dopaminergic things,
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  whereas oxytocin is more of a like I'm going to go to sleep
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  for three days and like shut down.
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  And those people might have engaged in total.
• 15:52
  This is me just making a guess, but I would think that the more
• 15:55
  severe the trauma, like the more that they want to hide and
• 15:59
  escape, the more you would gear more towards like I want to shut
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  the system down versus I want to do more things.
• 16:06
  Yeah, and amp it up. Yeah, I've never heard an answer
• 16:09
  like that. No, I I agree like it totally
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  makes sense. Totally get right out of my ass.
• 16:15
  It totally makes sense because, yeah.
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  And there's one thing that this is just a personal, you know,
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  kind of gripe that I have with in addiction and recovery.
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  You know, when you ask people like, what was your DOC, your
• 16:26
  drug of choice? What, what, what did you like?
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  And some people, a lot of people will say like, oh, I liked
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  everything. I was like, no, you
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  motherfucker. Like you have a, you have a
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  favorite. Tell me what it is.
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  You can't. I don't know.
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  I just, it's hard to like, you know, and towards the end, I, I
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  got into benzos a lot, but that was solely because it would
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  bring it would, it would allow me to control my stimulant kind
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  of when I would get way too amped.
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  I was like, oh, and then the anxiety started to come up and
• 16:51
  the cops were coming and people were trying to kill me.
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  You know, the, the, the Breaking Bad meth scene where he's
• 16:57
  peeking out of the windows like that, that was me, you know,
• 16:59
  every time, right. And so, yeah, so like for me,
• 17:03
  the benzos would kind of just like take the edge off a bit,
• 17:05
  but I never really did them on, on on their own.
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  So, you know, we get into recovery and you're told kind of
• 17:15
  we have to like, rewire the neural pathways, the the
• 17:18
  neurotransmitters as you come in.
• 17:22
  What does what, what role does hypnotherapy play in?
• 17:25
  I know because I know you deal with that.
• 17:26
  Yeah. And this is cool.
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  I'm getting into this now. I'm learning a lot.
• 17:29
  Yeah, I, I mean, I'm a hypnotherapist and the main
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  reason why I wanted to become a hypnotherapist was because I
• 17:35
  studied so much about the subconscious mind versus the
• 17:38
  conscious mind, right? So the subconscious mind rules
• 17:41
  80% of what you do. Like, I mean, some people say
• 17:44
  it's closer to 98. I'm like, it's a solid 80 for
• 17:47
  me. And most of the time it is about
• 17:49
  98% of your day is run by your subconscious mind. 2% of your
• 17:54
  day is like where your goals and your dreams live.
• 17:55
  So like I might have a goal of, hey, I want to wake up and go to
• 17:58
  the gym at 6:00 AM everyday, or I want to get sober, or I want
• 18:02
  to lose weight or, you know, whatever your goals and your
• 18:04
  dreams are, that's not 2%. That's like where your unique
• 18:08
  desires and goals live 98% or like a strong 80% is your
• 18:13
  subconscious programming. And your subconscious
• 18:15
  programming is not even you. Like you were literally given it
• 18:19
  between the ages of like third trimester when you're in your
• 18:22
  mother's stomach and age 7. And so whatever the narrative is
• 18:25
  in your household, the emotions that your parents had, you know,
• 18:29
  children are very highly intuitive and they pick up on
• 18:31
  those programs in those systems. And the subconscious is wired
• 18:34
  for survival, not success, right?
• 18:37
  And so, so much of what we do when it it comes to like
• 18:41
  addiction, whether it's eating or drugs or shopping or
• 18:43
  whatever, it's the survival mechanism.
• 18:45
  Like the brain would never ever do any behavior unless it saw it
• 18:49
  as being very purposeful. Like we never repeat any
• 18:52
  behavior unless there's a purpose.
• 18:53
  And so the purpose of us engaging in these like, you
• 18:56
  know, self sabotaging behaviors is because the brain thinks it
• 18:59
  needs it to survive. And so I became kind of like
• 19:02
  obsessed with wanting to understand how to rewire that
• 19:05
  subconscious mind because when we are, and maybe you can
• 19:08
  resonate with this, but have you ever driven home and you just
• 19:11
  like get in your car and then you drive and then all of a
• 19:13
  sudden you're home and you just like don't even know how you got
• 19:16
  there? Like you're in that
• 19:17
  subconscious, right? Most of what we do in the days
• 19:20
  in that subconscious programming, it's like watching
• 19:22
  TV, eating. This is all subconscious
• 19:24
  behavior. We don't have to think about it.
• 19:25
  We don't have to reteach ourself how to brush our teeth.
• 19:27
  It's subconscious. We just we learn it and the
• 19:29
  brain just does it right. And so if we have a behavior or
• 19:33
  a pattern that is adaptive for us, like brushing our teeth,
• 19:38
  that's one thing. But when we have maladaptive
• 19:40
  behaviors in the subconscious, it becomes very difficult to
• 19:42
  change. No matter how much your
• 19:43
  conscious mind, that 2% is not going to outweigh the 98%.
• 19:47
  And so hypnotherapy essentially works on the subconscious mind.
• 19:50
  And how it works is you want to get the individual into a Theta
• 19:53
  brain wave state. And so when we're like conscious
• 19:56
  and we're acting just like we're talking like you and I, I'm in a
• 19:58
  beta state. So if I wouldn't be able to
• 20:00
  rewire my subconscious now. But if you get the individual in
• 20:03
  a Theta brain wave state, which is like very close to slow wave
• 20:07
  sleep. We can actually manipulate the
• 20:09
  thoughts and the patterns and the feelings that this
• 20:12
  individual has about themselves. So hypnotherapy works on that
• 20:15
  subconscious mind and it also works through being able to
• 20:17
  visualize. So I'm an overthinker.
• 20:20
  Like I literally just catastrophize constantly all day
• 20:23
  long. Worst case scenarios, like I
• 20:24
  literally envision them all the time.
• 20:27
  And so not many people actually spend enough time daydreaming
• 20:31
  about like best case scenario possibilities, right?
• 20:33
  We're always because best case scenario is not adaptive.
• 20:36
  The brain is like, how am I going to die?
• 20:38
  It's it's a negative negativity bias.
• 20:40
  So anytime anything is like a threat to survival, the brain's
• 20:43
  going to remember it and it's going to replay it because it's
• 20:45
  going to be like you're going to die, you're going to die.
• 20:47
  I want to go for it. And so no, therapy gives us the
• 20:50
  opportunity to actually like, Daydream and visualize as if
• 20:54
  it's really happening. And the subconscious mind
• 20:56
  doesn't know the difference between imagination and reality.
• 20:59
  And so we're envisioning these like, best case scenarios as
• 21:02
  well as kind of reprogramming the way the subconscious mind
• 21:05
  thinks and feels. And then together, it gives a
• 21:07
  good opportunity for behavior change.
• 21:10
  It's not a magic pill, though. I think people think, you know,
• 21:13
  you go to hypnotherapy, get hypnotized once it's done.
• 21:15
  That's not my experience with it.
• 21:18
  That's awesome. Can you get there to the Theta
• 21:22
  brain wave through meditation? Totally.
• 21:23
  Impossible. Definitely.
• 21:24
  But then you, you kind of so that your part in it or the
• 21:28
  teacher or the coach or therapist part hypnotherapist
• 21:32
  would be to kind of guide people through that, that happy state,
• 21:34
  right, Because that's hard to do on your own, right?
• 21:37
  Yeah, to your point, I feel like my imagination sometimes is
• 21:41
  like, you know, the director's cut of movies where there's just
• 21:44
  like 30 different alternate endings and they're all bad,
• 21:47
  right? Like it's just, there's nothing
• 21:48
  good that happens. And yeah, it's, it's hard to
• 21:51
  catch yourself there sometimes. So that's cool.
• 21:53
  That's. So how many, how long is a
• 21:55
  session usually? And like, how many sessions do
• 21:57
  you start to see kind of positive behavior?
• 22:00
  Positive, Yeah. Reactions to it.
• 22:02
  It's so different depending on the behavior that we're trying
• 22:05
  to change. So one of the reasons why I'm
• 22:08
  obsessed with working with food addiction is because unlike any
• 22:11
  other substance, you can't be abstinent from food, right?
• 22:14
  And so and I don't want to live in a world where I can't eat
• 22:16
  cake. I'm not going to be like sugar
• 22:17
  free for my whole life. That's ridiculous.
• 22:19
  So like whereas if we're looking at something like smoking
• 22:23
  cessation, I've done a session, literally one session with
• 22:26
  someone and they stopped smoking immediately because you know,
• 22:29
  you throw the cigarette packs out, you take a different route
• 22:31
  home, like so many, you don't go back to the bar, you change your
• 22:33
  friends. Like there's so many different
• 22:35
  like confounding factors that would allow that individual to
• 22:39
  be successful with hypnotherapy. Whereas with food, it's like you
• 22:44
  have to engage with it every single day, multiple times a
• 22:47
  day. And so with other substances,
• 22:50
  like a session is typically 30 minutes to an hour.
• 22:53
  I always record it and then you're listening to it for about
• 22:56
  21 days. Yeah.
• 22:57
  And then with my hypnotherapy clients, like it's not just like
• 23:01
  I see you when we do the hypnotherapy, like there's often
• 23:03
  check insurance, like I'm understanding, you know, what
• 23:06
  the triggers are of this individual.
• 23:07
  It's very specific and unique to the individual person.
• 23:10
  But with food, my programs are always three months to six
• 23:13
  months because it really does take that amount of time to
• 23:19
  change the way that we like we relate to food and.
• 23:21
  It's it's so it's kind of my mind goes to this, like what
• 23:25
  does it look like in you kind of mentioned this, but what does it
• 23:27
  look like in daily life? So I leave your office and I
• 23:29
  really want to eat 10 pieces of cake or it always starts with
• 23:32
  one, right? And then you start eating you're
• 23:34
  like, whatever, fuck it, I'm just going to keep going.
• 23:38
  What is it sort of, you know, instead of is it like food
• 23:43
  choices, kind of learning when to stop to eat?
• 23:46
  What does that look like in real life?
• 23:47
  Oh, it's, it's everything. It's all those things you said.
• 23:50
  I was laughing because you said something that was like so
• 23:52
  perfect. And I just want to take a
• 23:54
  picture and frame it because that's like that's the key right
• 23:57
  there. But essentially, like I
• 23:59
  mentioned, you know, human beings were very primitive and
• 24:01
  primal. And so when the nervous system
• 24:04
  detects that there's going to be a restriction of food, it it
• 24:07
  wants to overindulge, it literally bypasses that the
• 24:10
  prefrontal cortex is where we have like impulse control,
• 24:13
  executive functioning, all those things because food is needed
• 24:17
  for survival. When we have, you know, a lot of
• 24:21
  where food addiction starts is when people go on their first
• 24:23
  diet. Like that's where it starts.
• 24:24
  It's because of that restriction, right?
• 24:27
  And So what you said that made me laugh was you were like, oh,
• 24:29
  you know, I've already had one piece of cake, like fuck, it'll
• 24:31
  start again tomorrow type of energy, right?
• 24:33
  It's that idea of like me eating is bad and therefore or I'm it's
• 24:37
  gonna, I'm gonna have to rein it in.
• 24:39
  I'm gonna have to restrict myself.
• 24:40
  That like potential of restriction is actually what
• 24:43
  elevates the overconsumption of food.
• 24:46
  It's so cool. And so like, there's so many
• 24:50
  different things, but I always start off, you know, I'm using
• 24:52
  hypnotherapeutic, but I'm also using a lot of behavioral
• 24:54
  psychology with clients where, where I'm teaching them how to
• 24:58
  receive dopamine from other things like intrinsically.
• 25:00
  So, you know, being their own cheerleader or whatever it is.
• 25:02
  But a lot of the time, and I'm going to explain this in a funny
• 25:05
  way. So if you have, do you have
• 25:07
  kids? No, OK, anyone is listening has
• 25:10
  kids. I use this example.
• 25:13
  But you know, if you take your kid to the grocery store, right?
• 25:15
  And the kids like, I want a chocolate bar and you're like,
• 25:17
  no, we're going home to have dinner.
• 25:19
  You're not getting that chocolate bar.
• 25:20
  And the kids like, I want a chocolate bar and starts like
• 25:21
  stomping their feet and you're like, stop it.
• 25:23
  We're not getting the chocolate bar.
• 25:24
  We're going home to have dinner. Then the kids like, I want to
• 25:26
  fuck a chocolate bar. And they're like hitting their
• 25:28
  head against the rails and you're like, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK,
• 25:30
  here's the chocolate bar. Right now, what you've taught
• 25:32
  that child is all it needs to do is just overreact to get access
• 25:37
  to the chocolate bar. If you say to the child, child's
• 25:40
  like, I want a chocolate bar. And you're like, OK, let's get
• 25:42
  the chocolate bar. I'm just going to hold on to it
• 25:44
  for 10 minutes. We'll have it after dinner.
• 25:47
  Like now that the child realizes they have access to the thing,
• 25:50
  it's not being taken away from them.
• 25:51
  It's not being restricted. The desire for it goes down,
• 25:56
  right? And so with all of my clients,
• 25:58
  and if you're listening to this and you're struggling with like
• 26:00
  food addiction or overeating or whatever, for it is for you
• 26:02
  binge eating, you can't restrict it because if you restrict it,
• 26:06
  the cravings intensify. You have to allow yourself to
• 26:09
  have it, but you have to createspace between the desire
• 26:12
  and the behavior. So it's like, OK, I just had
• 26:15
  dinner. I want a piece of cake.
• 26:17
  I know I'm not hungry. I just had dinner, but I want
• 26:19
  the piece of cake. Can I wait 10 minutes?
• 26:21
  Can I wait 20 minutes? Let me do the dishes.
• 26:23
  By the time you're done doing the dishes, you only want the
• 26:25
  piece of cake. Yeah.
• 26:26
  Yeah, I mean, I wish I I wish I met you 10 years ago because I I
• 26:32
  got into this, I had a really unhealthy calorie counting habit
• 26:36
  and I was fully in sober and, you know, in sober.
• 26:40
  I was sober, I was in recovery. I was doing great.
• 26:42
  I was running marathons, you know, and that's another
• 26:44
  addiction, right? And it was, it was during COVID
• 26:48
  too. And so that was tough for
• 26:50
  everybody, right? But I've never I mean, it makes
• 26:52
  so much sense. It's any time I've tried to
• 26:55
  restrict myself with drugs too it there's always been this kind
• 26:59
  of combating force at it where it's like and I just always end
• 27:04
  up using more, right. You also mentioned something
• 27:07
  that was really, you know, interesting too, this idea of
• 27:12
  once you know, you have it, it's like everything just kind of
• 27:15
  calms right down, right. And that was my, you know, I
• 27:18
  hate to keep making the, to the, the, you know, cross between
• 27:23
  drugs and but there's so many, there's so many parallels here
• 27:25
  towards, you know, drug addiction as well.
• 27:27
  It's just like if, if I would, I would, I was so obsessed with
• 27:32
  the chase of drugs and alcohol. And it's the same with food,
• 27:35
  too. Like, just this kind of chase,
• 27:37
  this pursuit of drugs and alcohol that once I had it, I
• 27:40
  was like, OK, it's there. And then, you know, to your
• 27:42
  point, if I challenge myself and say, can I wait 10 minutes?
• 27:46
  Can I wait 20 minutes? What is this about?
• 27:47
  Do something else. Do the dishes.
• 27:49
  That's a huge one for me. How many times I can't even tell
• 27:51
  you where I've wanted ice cream. Ice cream's my thing.
• 27:54
  And, you know, we've just gone and done something else or I've
• 27:57
  gone and done something else, and it's like, huh, I don't
• 27:59
  really want ice cream anymore. You know, it's kind of gone now.
• 28:01
  Yeah. That's amazing.
• 28:02
  So the the entire first part of my thesis was proving that food
• 28:07
  being food addiction is the same as any other addiction.
• 28:09
  So it actually is elevates the same parts of the brain, the
• 28:12
  same chemicals are released like it literally they're they're
• 28:14
  identical. I'm sure you've heard of the
• 28:16
  study where the mouse was more addicted to sugar than cocaine.
• 28:20
  That's Doctor Nicola Vina. She's a wonderful.
• 28:22
  I met her. She's incredible.
• 28:23
  But anyways, here's a little tip for you I was hoping if you're
• 28:28
  open. To it fix me.
• 28:30
  So one of the cool things about, and this is like a brain
• 28:32
  reprogramming thing, but especially because we can't be
• 28:35
  abstinent from food so often times and it kind of goes back
• 28:38
  into that subconscious like when we're eating, usually the cue
• 28:41
  for us to stop eating is the plate being empty, right?
• 28:43
  Because we're so subconscious about it.
• 28:45
  We're usually on our phones, we're watching TV, we're like
• 28:48
  talking to our spouse is whatever it is, right?
• 28:50
  And so two things that you can do is 1 practice just not
• 28:54
  finishing your plate and throwing the last bite out.
• 28:57
  And it's, I know. Right.
• 28:58
  Just switch things. I'm just thinking.
• 28:59
  About that, but but it's true because because ultimately, like
• 29:03
  if we keep doing things over and over again, like the brain is
• 29:05
  just a big muscle, like let's take the emotion completely out
• 29:08
  of it. The brain is a muscle of habits,
• 29:10
  right? When you're learning to play
• 29:11
  basketball, you're not going to get every shot in on the first.
• 29:13
  You literally have to practice. And so with ice cream, because
• 29:16
  it was also my Achilles heel for a while, what I would practice
• 29:19
  doing is I would have a tub of ice cream, which I used to go
• 29:21
  through one night easily. Like, not every night, but you
• 29:24
  have those moments where it's like, I've restricted for so
• 29:26
  long now I'm just gonna eat this whole tub of ice cream.
• 29:28
  Yeah. And the rationality behind that
• 29:30
  is ridiculous. But you just have one spoonful,
• 29:33
  and then you put it down and you go, Amy, and then you put it
• 29:35
  away like it's a practice. You approach it as if it's and
• 29:39
  exercise, I'm trying, I'm just going to have one spoonful.
• 29:42
  Yay me. And then you put it back.
• 29:43
  This is an exercise. This isn't because I want ice
• 29:45
  cream. This isn't because I deserve it.
• 29:47
  This is because I'm practicing a new skill.
• 29:49
  And when we approach it like that and we take the emotion out
• 29:52
  of it, there's no restriction and you're actually able to
• 29:54
  teach the brain something new. So when I was learning how to
• 29:57
  stop being addicted to food, I was living back with my mom,
• 30:00
  which is like where all the problems started.
• 30:02
  And then my mom literally has like 12 types of pastas ready at
• 30:05
  all times. It's like an Italian buffet
• 30:07
  there. And so I would literally open
• 30:09
  the fridge and say no thank you and close it.
• 30:11
  Open the cupboards and say no thank you and close it like you
• 30:13
  have to practice because the more you practice the more the
• 30:15
  brain learns how to do it. You mentioned a piece there that
• 30:18
  I like to this this idea of like, you know, good job, yay
• 30:21
  me, right, This kind of that's important for us humans.
• 30:24
  I've learned this kind of, you know, inner reward system
• 30:27
  because we look for you know, why don't you applaud me?
• 30:30
  You applaud me. Why look at me?
• 30:32
  I'm doing great, right? But it has to come from inside
• 30:34
  you. Know yeah and that's exactly
• 30:36
  what I was talking about when I'm telling you like that's how
• 30:39
  you retrain dopamine to come from intrinsically rather than
• 30:42
  outside because when you eat your favorite food you're
• 30:45
  releasing like 150 times more dopamine.
• 30:48
  When you do cocaine, it's like 4000 times like a cigarettes,
• 30:50
  this amount, that amount, right When we release dopamine on a
• 30:53
  natural schedule, we teach the brain we don't need these big
• 30:56
  releases of dopamine because we create little like dopaminergic
• 31:00
  pathways like throughout the day.
• 31:01
  So that Yami is actually like really, really scientific.
• 31:04
  And I make all of my clients do it.
• 31:06
  Take a shower, yay me, brush my teeth, yay me, yay me, yay me,
• 31:09
  yay me all day long so that we can feel like we have this like
• 31:12
  intrinsic very balanced reward system rather than needing these
• 31:16
  large dumps from other things. Yeah.
• 31:18
  And, and the phone is the big one.
• 31:20
  I wasn't going to jump into that, but you know, do you want
• 31:23
  to like, because I lately I've been more addicted to my phone.
• 31:28
  I've always been addicted to my phone.
• 31:29
  There's no doubt about it. I don't know if you want to dive
• 31:33
  into this, but I kind of do right now.
• 31:35
  So if you. Don't go there, Yeah.
• 31:37
  Perfect. Where does where does social
• 31:40
  media and technology play in all of this?
• 31:45
  So first I'll admit like people are like, oh, wow, what's your
• 31:49
  morning routine? I'm like, first thing I do is I
• 31:51
  fucking pick up my phone. Like I'm not going to pretend
• 31:53
  that I have this one all figured out.
• 31:54
  I don't I understand it, but it's it's very difficult.
• 31:58
  There's so many different factors here, like even just the
• 32:00
  color of the screen, like that blue light is very addictive.
• 32:02
  So we can start there. The like one notification like
• 32:06
  that, it's literally designed to like release dopamine.
• 32:09
  You're also, if we're talking about social media, getting
• 32:11
  validation from the likes you're connecting with people.
• 32:14
  So it it kind of is like dopamine and oxytocin, like all
• 32:17
  in one shot. It's like the fucking super
• 32:19
  drug. Like it's like, you know, and so
• 32:23
  I don't, I know, I know some of my clients have these apps where
• 32:27
  they can like shut it down early or whatever it is.
• 32:29
  I haven't downloaded those. But one of when I've been more
• 32:33
  moderate with my phone, even though like I run a business,
• 32:37
  for me, it's really like first thing in the morning, get up and
• 32:39
  go outside because you know, or get up and like exercise, like
• 32:43
  release dopamine from a different way.
• 32:45
  So it's balanced throughout the day.
• 32:46
  So then when you're at your phone, it's not like your only
• 32:49
  source of happiness and then the brain doesn't think it needs it
• 32:52
  for survival as much. I've never in my life felt
• 32:56
  better after doom scrolling. They call it.
• 32:58
  I learned that one recently, doom scrolling this like idea of
• 33:01
  just constantly, you know, and you're in this kind of, it's
• 33:04
  almost like a subconscious mode where you're just, you know,
• 33:06
  getting hit. With hours go by, yeah.
• 33:07
  Yeah. And so I've never felt that I, I
• 33:11
  always come out of that situation feeling worse, you
• 33:13
  know, and this past weekend, you know, I was with a bunch of
• 33:15
  family and I was, I'm the kind of person too.
• 33:18
  You can probably, I think you can relate to this where once,
• 33:21
  once I start something, I have to finish it sometimes.
• 33:23
  And I'm, I'm working on it. I'm, I'm trying not to, but to
• 33:26
  the to the extent and to the, you know, to the extent of
• 33:31
  affecting others around me where I'm kind of isolating.
• 33:33
  And that's a dangerous place for me because every time I've
• 33:35
  relapsed, isolation has usually been the the first part of it.
• 33:39
  And you know, I'm good. No, I'm OK leave me alone.
• 33:42
  Right. So I can relate to that a lot.
• 33:45
  And and I like what you said about getting outside because
• 33:47
  that that's kind of the ultimate fix.
• 33:49
  Anytime I've woken up in a shitty mood and gone right to my
• 33:51
  computer and, you know, been in this, even though I'm doing
• 33:53
  stuff and I'm getting shit done and it's work usually.
• 33:56
  Yeah, I've never felt better, like never felt good after it,
• 33:59
  right. So, you know, getting some in
• 34:00
  connection with nature and spirituality, which we'll dive
• 34:03
  into, it's important, right? Yeah.
• 34:07
  I wanna talk about nutrition. I know we talked about food but
• 34:11
  I wanna dive into a little bit of it cuz I'm obsessed with it.
• 34:14
  I love learning about nutrition and how it affects the brain and
• 34:17
  the body. The gut Biome microbiome is
• 34:20
  There's a lot of studies and science coming out now that your
• 34:23
  gut microbiome is, like everything, almost as important
• 34:27
  as sleep. Yeah, if not more important.
• 34:29
  Totally, Yeah. How How does food and types of
• 34:34
  food affect how we feel and affect our brains?
• 34:36
  Yeah. I mean, like some of it is very
• 34:39
  obvious in the sense where obviously if we're eating Whole
• 34:43
  Foods, So what I mean by whole food, it's like something that's
• 34:45
  grown on the ground, like you can go and pick it or from a
• 34:48
  tree, etcetera. You know, bread is not a whole
• 34:51
  food. You have to, it has to be
• 34:52
  processed in order for us to like engage in it.
• 34:55
  And it's through that processing process that things become more
• 35:00
  addictive and like less good for us.
• 35:04
  And so anything that's like whole food based is never really
• 35:06
  going to cause any, you know, imbalances in the body.
• 35:10
  So, you know, I worked with a lot of people that have diabetes
• 35:12
  and they're like, oh, my doctor says I can't have fruit.
• 35:14
  And I'm like, listen, Linda, we have been eating fruit for like
• 35:18
  hundreds of thousands of years. Like fruit is not the fucking
• 35:20
  problem. And so it is through these like
• 35:23
  processings of things. And in Canada and, and the
• 35:26
  United States, unfortunately, like we have very few laws
• 35:29
  around like what we can put in our food.
• 35:31
  So Heinz will make a difference different ketchup for Europe as
• 35:34
  they will for Canada, because Europe is a lot more strict and
• 35:37
  like we can't have chemicals. We don't want to kill our
• 35:38
  people, like very basic things. But I'm going to get into like
• 35:41
  some dark and twisty things that like, you know, here where we
• 35:43
  have big pharma, where actually these companies are like working
• 35:46
  together where the, the, they don't want us dead.
• 35:48
  They want us just sick enough that we're taking a bunch of
• 35:50
  different pharmaceuticals, you know, on high blood pressure,
• 35:52
  high cholesterol, etcetera, then we're profitable, right?
• 35:55
  And so I would just say like the more that you can eat, I don't
• 35:59
  care if you eat fruits all day long or you prefer vegetables.
• 36:03
  I'm definitely a big believer in like not the carnivore diet, but
• 36:08
  I'm, I was vegan and vegetarian for a long time and it like
• 36:10
  destroyed my body. And so if it's a moral thing and
• 36:13
  you, you know, you want to stay away from animals in that way,
• 36:16
  that's different. But I do believe that we need
• 36:18
  like animal based protein in our diet.
• 36:20
  But as long as you're getting like, you know, you're eating
• 36:23
  like the our ancestors would like, everything is going to be
• 36:26
  fine. When we start to have
• 36:27
  processing, that's where we start to elevate blood sugar,
• 36:30
  which increases cravings, which, you know, lights up different
• 36:33
  neurochemicals. Like a banana is going to
• 36:35
  release so much dopamine compared to like, a chocolate
• 36:37
  bar, Right? So yeah.
• 36:41
  What do you do you think like eating in the morning is
• 36:43
  important? What's your thought around that?
• 36:45
  Because there's a lot of, I listen to a lot of podcasts and
• 36:47
  there's a lot of conflicting, Yeah, knowledge science out
• 36:49
  there. So it's actually very different
• 36:52
  for men and for women and depending on where the woman is
• 36:56
  from, her levels of stress, her hormonal cycle, et cetera, all
• 36:58
  that stuff comes into play. So men are on a 24 hour hormonal
• 37:01
  cycle, whereas women were on a 24 hour hormonal cycle plus a 28
• 37:05
  to 30 day hormonal cycle. And so for men, intermittent
• 37:08
  fasting can be quite beneficial because, you know, we allow the
• 37:11
  body to go into autophagy like we don't, you are allowing for
• 37:15
  processes, you're detoxing, you're, you're breaking things
• 37:18
  down. As long as the fast is, you
• 37:21
  know, you're listening to that first true hunger cue then and
• 37:25
  you're, you're attuned to your, your real hunger cues.
• 37:27
  You're not just going off of cravings.
• 37:29
  It's great for women, the intermittent fasting gets kind
• 37:32
  of denatured because often times I have clients and they're like,
• 37:36
  I barely eat anything. I'm not losing any weight.
• 37:38
  And I'm like, well, you're running on adrenaline.
• 37:40
  You're not actually ever going into your, your, your storage of
• 37:43
  fat to burn it for energy. And so when we, when women have
• 37:47
  too long fasting periods, plus we have cortisol, plus we have
• 37:49
  all these things, we're not actually even burning our fat.
• 37:52
  We're just running on this like adrenaline cycle.
• 37:54
  And that becomes very dangerous for us because first of all,
• 37:57
  weight loss is pretty much impossible there.
• 37:58
  But you're never actually hearing true hunger cues until
• 38:01
  it's like 7:00 PM and you've opened the floodgates of eating
• 38:03
  and you're, you've starved yourself all day long.
• 38:05
  And then now we can't control ourselves, right?
• 38:07
  And so I don't know if that answered your question, but I
• 38:11
  personally not really hungry for breakfast.
• 38:14
  What I dislike a lot for from this intermittent fasting thing
• 38:17
  is I never, I don't think it should ever be like a diet.
• 38:20
  So it's not like 21 hour fast, 18 hour fast, because then
• 38:23
  you're not listening to that first hunger cue.
• 38:25
  So typically I don't eat first thing in the morning, but
• 38:27
  sometimes at 9. AMI want a croissant and I'm
• 38:30
  gonna eat it. More often than not, it's like
• 38:32
  12 where I feel kind of peckish. But as long as you are like
• 38:35
  listening to the hunger cues and you're giving yourself enough
• 38:38
  time to have a fasting period. It's all crazy that that's
• 38:43
  simple. I like that.
• 38:44
  Listen to the cues because we we know they're there.
• 38:46
  It's just a matter of kind of taking a second and and just Oh
• 38:50
  yeah, I'm actually hungry. I'm not bored.
• 38:52
  The intermittent fasting thing is interesting to me because I
• 38:54
  went down a rabbit hole like a good addict does.
• 38:58
  When that first came got popular like five years ago and everyone
• 39:01
  was like, you got to try this. It's killing a taffy G is when
• 39:04
  cells kill each other. Is that?
• 39:05
  Yeah. The bad cells, the good cells
• 39:07
  kill the bad cells. Yeah.
• 39:09
  I was all in on that. And Doctor Rhonda, Rhonda
• 39:12
  Patrick, I think, was a big proponent of it.
• 39:14
  It didn't work for me because. Exactly.
• 39:16
  And I didn't realize this until you brought it up.
• 39:19
  This it was too restrictive for me.
• 39:21
  And so by I would have to cram in all my, my meals between
• 39:24
  12:00 and 8:00 and then from, you know, probably around 9:00
• 39:28
  AM to 12:00 lunch, I was miserable.
• 39:31
  I was, that's all I could think about.
• 39:33
  And, and then 12 would come and I would gorge my lunch 8, you
• 39:37
  know, 7:00 would come and I would, I got to get it all in.
• 39:39
  I got to. And so I just ended up I somehow
• 39:41
  managed to cram over 3500 calories every day, like over
• 39:45
  that the the probably the Max amount that I should have been
• 39:48
  for weight loss. Let's say, you know, for my B
• 39:51
  MB, MRBMR and all that other science and stuff like that.
• 39:55
  But I would manage to get like 4 or 5000 calories in like an 8
• 39:59
  hour window. And it's like, this is not, I
• 40:00
  don't, this is not better, right?
• 40:02
  I'm miserable. I'm, I hate myself.
• 40:03
  And you know, I'm waking up in the morning.
• 40:05
  I talked about this on my podcast before I'm waking up in
• 40:07
  the morning and for so long, the first thing I'm doing is looking
• 40:10
  in the mirror and like, you're fat, you're swollen, you ate too
• 40:14
  much last night. And to your point of this
• 40:16
  subconscious, I didn't even realize I was doing it.
• 40:18
  It was just so natural for me that like, how am I going to
• 40:22
  have, how am I going to be confident in myself if that's
• 40:24
  how I started my day? Yeah, I love what you mentioned
• 40:27
  about the mirror work, because I also think that that's a huge
• 40:31
  factor for like, body dysmorphia and eating disorders and all the
• 40:35
  things because your daily behaviors match your deepest
• 40:38
  beliefs about yourself, not your goals and your dreams like that,
• 40:41
  right? So if you wake up in the morning
• 40:42
  and you look in the mirror and you're like, you're a fat piece
• 40:44
  of shit, your behaviors are going to match that.
• 40:47
  Like nobody ever looks in the mirror and is like, Oh my God,
• 40:50
  I'm so fat. Let me get my ass to the gym and
• 40:52
  like, get my, you think, you think that that's what's going
• 40:54
  to happen. You're like, got to get my shit
• 40:55
  together, right? But this is how the humiliation
• 40:57
  wound works. Like you will humiliate yourself
• 41:00
  before anyone else can, right? But that humiliation, that inner
• 41:03
  critic keeps you stuck in the cycles that keeps your identity
• 41:07
  where it's at, right? The brain's number one job is to
• 41:10
  remain consistent to its identity.
• 41:12
  That's why we don't have to reteach yourself how to brush
• 41:14
  your teeth. It's very important.
• 41:15
  It's very adaptive that we remember who we are.
• 41:17
  But if we have a very negative self concept, no matter how much
• 41:20
  you want to release the weight, go to the gym, you know, change
• 41:23
  your behavior, stop using drugs. If your identity of yourself as
• 41:28
  I'm a failure, I'm fat, your behaviors are going to match
• 41:30
  that. Do you believe in this positive
• 41:33
  mirror work these positive affirmations?
• 41:35
  I do, I, I think that, listen, if you're £350 and you're
• 41:40
  looking in the mirror and you go, I'm skinny.
• 41:43
  Like it's almost worse, right? There needs to be like a bridge,
• 41:46
  like a gap, a stepping stone where we, the affirmations are
• 41:51
  actually resonating and you genuinely do feel good about
• 41:55
  yourself because the goal is that you feel good about
• 41:57
  yourself the majority of the time.
• 41:59
  The better you feel about yourself, the easier it is to
• 42:01
  make healthier decisions. But to your point, you know
• 42:04
  nobody's benefiting if you're lying to yourself every day in
• 42:07
  the mirror. Like it won't work, yeah.
• 42:10
  I I remember David Goggins. Do you know David Goggins?
• 42:12
  Yeah. His book changed my life.
• 42:14
  When I read his first book, that's how I got into marathon
• 42:16
  running. And he would always hit like,
• 42:19
  and I did this, too. I don't know if it's healthy or
• 42:20
  not, but he would say he'd had that exercise where you put the
• 42:23
  sticky notes on the mirror and it was just like, all the things
• 42:25
  about you that were true. And I think, yeah, some of them
• 42:29
  were like, you know, you're overweight and stuff like that.
• 42:32
  And I'm looking back now and I'm like, maybe that wasn't the most
• 42:34
  positive thing, but there was definitely value to to some of
• 42:38
  it, right? Like it would motivate me to do
• 42:42
  certain things right? Totally.
• 42:43
  And like there, but there's a very big difference between like
• 42:46
  motivation to run a marathon and like longevity and healthy
• 42:50
  behaviors. And this is like why I I love
• 42:54
  doing the work I do because one of my biggest claims to fame is
• 42:57
  like my clients haven't worked me with me for over 2 years and
• 43:00
  they're still releasing weight. Like usually you, once you stop
• 43:03
  a diet, you gain the weight back. 80% of diets end that way.
• 43:06
  Like literally within 12 months, you've gained all the way back
• 43:09
  and sometimes more. But that like motivation of, you
• 43:13
  know, it's getting me to like this end goal of doing the
• 43:16
  marathon. Like, yeah, you can beat
• 43:17
  yourself up all day long to, to get that end goal, but is it
• 43:20
  going to create longevity and lifelong success?
• 43:23
  No, because it's going to keep you stuck in the cycle of
• 43:25
  restrict or over exercise or whatever temporarily, Yeah.
• 43:30
  I'm happy. To be honest, I don't, I do kind
• 43:33
  of miss it because it was, it was amazing how I felt every day
• 43:35
  running. But I, I know there's a like,
• 43:37
  there's a good reason I don't do it anymore.
• 43:39
  Yeah, it took up a lot of time and energy and food.
• 43:42
  Listen, like I was married for 11 years.
• 43:45
  For the majority of my marriage, I I was no longer using
• 43:49
  substances but didn't know how else to escape.
• 43:51
  So I would wake up at 4:00 AM in the morning.
• 43:53
  I have two young kids. I would run 20 kilometers every
• 43:56
  single day. Every day I broke my body.
• 44:00
  I didn't stop until I started fainting and I had to stop.
• 44:03
  It's unhealthy for me anyways. Wow, were you at least running
• 44:09
  in zone 2 when you were doing anything?
• 44:11
  Jesus. Yeah, I just know I get very
• 44:16
  obsessive about certain behaviors and I just know where
• 44:19
  my comfy spot is. And then it was weight training
• 44:21
  for a while and hit training. And so now it's just like if I
• 44:24
  go to Pilates, great. If I don't like, it's OK, yeah.
• 44:27
  Yeah, that's funny. I'm in the same I'm in the same
• 44:29
  place right now and I'm really happy that I am because yeah,
• 44:31
  it's I don't beat myself. I used to always if I didn't go
• 44:34
  to the gym, it would ruin my day.
• 44:36
  I. I was unbearable.
• 44:38
  Like my, my poor ex-husband was like literally the only time I'm
• 44:42
  happy is when I'm gone running. And then when I come back, I'm
• 44:44
  irritable and, and then if I don't go, it's even worse.
• 44:48
  All day I'm obsessing about how I haven't gone and, and you
• 44:50
  know, then it feeds into like, oh, I'm going to gain weight and
• 44:52
  like all these like ridiculous things.
• 44:54
  Or you're a piece of shit. Or yeah, you're not good enough.
• 44:56
  Whatever. For me anyways.
• 44:57
  Yeah, I went through a phase where psychedelics were, you
• 45:03
  know, a very real possibility in my in my recovery.
• 45:09
  And I'm really happy today that I didn't indulge in them.
• 45:11
  I had booked. I talk about this, you know, if
• 45:14
  you've heard this before, I apologize.
• 45:15
  But I had booked a ayahuasca trip, a retreat with like a
• 45:18
  shaman and up north, and I paid and I was all ready to go.
• 45:22
  And I'll never forget it. I was sitting with my therapist
• 45:24
  one day and she's, you know, she's sober as well.
• 45:27
  But she's great. I love her and she kind of, she
• 45:30
  posted in a way that changed my relationship with it.
• 45:33
  And this is for me, it works for a lot of people, which you're
• 45:35
  going to get into. But she kind of asked me this
• 45:37
  one question and she said, do you know anybody that's done it
• 45:41
  once? And I was like, I really thought
• 45:43
  about it and I'm like, no, I don't.
• 45:45
  So she said, what makes you think you're going to do it
• 45:47
  once? And because I, that was my idea,
• 45:50
  right? It's always, like I said to you
• 45:51
  before, it's always the first piece of cake.
• 45:53
  It's always the first drag of the cigarette.
• 45:54
  It's always the first line. I don't envision myself doing 30
• 45:57
  ayahuasca trips, you know, because what's the point of
• 46:00
  that? I just need one to kind of get a
• 46:02
  fine God, right? Yes.
• 46:05
  What's your what's your experience with psychedelics in
• 46:07
  recovery? Yeah, OK, so my experience with
• 46:10
  psychedelics started when I was in high school, right?
• 46:12
  And one of the things that I recognized about, you know, I'm
• 46:15
  do using them recreationally, fucking around with my friends.
• 46:17
  But what was interesting and different about the psychedelic
• 46:20
  experience is that, you know, after a night of cocaine and
• 46:23
  drinking, the next day you're in withdrawal, you'll do it again,
• 46:26
  etcetera. After using psychedelics, like I
• 46:29
  had zero desire to even smoke cigarettes and I was like a pack
• 46:31
  a day kind of girl like. And so it's, you know, having
• 46:37
  that experience recreationally and then me trying to problem
• 46:40
  solve, finding trying to find answers for my clients who
• 46:43
  cannot be abstinent from food, etcetera.
• 46:45
  I agree with you actually. And I had a few clients that
• 46:48
  were in the rehab clinic that said, you know, they tried use
• 46:51
  it, they tried micro dosing, etcetera and it became kind of
• 46:53
  addictive for them. And so it definitely is
• 46:55
  different for everybody. So obviously, like work with
• 46:57
  your therapist, like like consult somebody, you don't just
• 46:59
  take this isn't medical advice. But from the perspective of, of
• 47:03
  eating and why it works not just with eating, but with substance
• 47:07
  abuse is essentially it's going to balance out.
• 47:12
  It's like an adaptogen. So it's going to balance out a
• 47:13
  lot of the receptors that make an individual want dopamine.
• 47:17
  So it's working a lot on the serotonin 2A receptor and
• 47:21
  serotonin and dopamine are actually opposite of one
• 47:23
  another. So when we're releasing
• 47:24
  dopamine, we want more, we're motivated to move.
• 47:27
  When we have serotonin, like we're good, we're satiated, like
• 47:29
  we have everything. It's one of the reasons why when
• 47:31
  you wake up and you go outside first thing in the morning,
• 47:33
  you're getting serotonin, you're not getting dopamine.
• 47:35
  It makes you feel balanced and good and satiated, right?
• 47:38
  And so psychedelics are going to neurochemically work on that
• 47:41
  serotonin 2A receptor to balance your nervous system so you're
• 47:44
  not in craving as much. But it's also going to offer
• 47:47
  this like spiritual awakening, which is why when doctor Albert
• 47:51
  Hoffman in the 1940s first founded LSD, he's it began, he
• 47:56
  began to use it for Alcoholics and these like treatment
• 47:59
  resistant disorders. And this is also where a lot of
• 48:03
  the like, you know, popular people who work in addictions,
• 48:06
  like started their agencies is through the psychedelic
• 48:08
  experience, because we call it, I know I said this to you
• 48:12
  before, but like we call it recovery.
• 48:13
  When we're in recovery, well, what are we recovering?
• 48:15
  We're recovering ourselves. So when somebody is addicted to
• 48:19
  something, we are so separate from who we really are because
• 48:21
  we're escaping ourselves. We don't want to look at
• 48:23
  ourselves. But when we're doing this
• 48:24
  psychedelic experience, it's kind of like the spiritual
• 48:27
  awakening of like we see ourselves, we accept ourselves,
• 48:30
  we become one with who we are, we connect with that higher self
• 48:33
  and we begin to like love ourselves more.
• 48:36
  And so when we can facilitate that process, it can be very
• 48:40
  life changing. Again, like I, I don't believe
• 48:43
  in any magic pills. I think all of that shit is
• 48:45
  bullshit. I think you need to like
• 48:47
  continually work at something and train the brain.
• 48:50
  But I have seen a lot of really positive results in my thesis
• 48:53
  was on using psychedelic therapy for overconsumption of food and
• 48:59
  it was really powerful. And like it did, all of the
• 49:01
  clients who were using the psychedelics in a macro dose or
• 49:03
  a micro dose were able to not have as many cravings to change
• 49:08
  the relationship to food because they like connected with who
• 49:11
  they really are. I was at a wedding one time and
• 49:14
  I heard one of the best wedding speeches was the father of the
• 49:16
  bride. He said something that I'll
• 49:18
  never forget for the rest of my life.
• 49:20
  He said, we have two jobs in this life to find ourselves and
• 49:25
  to love that true selves to to find our true self and to love
• 49:28
  that true self. And I was like, oh, simple.
• 49:30
  Yeah, it's not easy, but it's simple.
• 49:31
  Like that's I can relate to that, you know, and and I've
• 49:35
  done a lot of work around it and I find today I'm not, you know,
• 49:38
  I can love myself today. I go in and out.
• 49:40
  I waver from it. But yeah, spiritual experience
• 49:44
  to me, you know, the thought is I need to have a profound
• 49:48
  alteration in my reaction to life as it, you know, it says
• 49:50
  in, in one of the literatures that I read, I didn't make that
• 49:53
  up, but it's true. I, I react to the world in such
• 49:57
  a negative way and I react to myself in such a negative way
• 49:59
  that I come into recovery and I need to have this.
• 50:02
  I need it's, I found that it's essential for me for, for me and
• 50:06
  for a lot of people I've seen, I need to have a profound
• 50:08
  alteration in my reaction to life.
• 50:10
  It's like when somebody cuts me off in traffic, my first thought
• 50:13
  is to go murder that guy's family, right?
• 50:15
  Like sometimes my brain just goes to this, like, like we
• 50:18
  said, these alternate endings in the movie.
• 50:21
  But I need to, I need to stop and have this, OK, it's not that
• 50:26
  bad or it's not about you or, and you know, it works with
• 50:29
  everything and it's really hard. It works with, you know,
• 50:31
  somebody gets diagnosed with cancer.
• 50:33
  Like on a more extreme level, it's like, well, I know it
• 50:35
  doesn't seem like it right now, but there is a reason there's a
• 50:38
  gift here somewhere, right? There's a silver lining.
• 50:41
  And so that's kind of the way I I look at it today.
• 50:44
  Yeah, listen, like Friday my Jeep got stolen out of my
• 50:48
  driveway. Another one, eh?
• 50:50
  And I had a root canal on the same day, got into a fight with
• 50:54
  my boyfriend. Like I was like, I was bawling.
• 50:56
  My, I was like, this is the worst day of my whole life.
• 50:58
  And like, I just like couldn't get to that positive place, you
• 51:00
  know, when it just feels like everything crashing down.
• 51:02
  I know this is like very like first world problems.
• 51:04
  My Jeep got stolen out of my driveway.
• 51:06
  But like it this, the way that the brain conceptualizes trauma
• 51:09
  is what's important. It was like so traumatic for me.
• 51:12
  It felt like everything was getting taken away.
• 51:13
  And if and unless we can change our response to like the things
• 51:16
  that we're thinking and feeling like we will suffer.
• 51:19
  Like that's just the truth. There's a huge difference.
• 51:22
  I was taught this. There's a huge difference
• 51:23
  between pain and suffering, right?
• 51:25
  Pain is is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
• 51:28
  It's like I can. Yeah, I heard that from a mentor
• 51:32
  of mine. I can sit in this all day and
• 51:35
  I'm suffering, but I can choose to kind of get out of it.
• 51:38
  It's hard. It's really hard.
• 51:39
  You know, I, I want to be clear too, when I said another one,
• 51:43
  you know, you haven't had two jeeps stolen.
• 51:44
  But no, no, I just, we have a problem in the city with people
• 51:47
  stealing and I'm, I'm smiling about it, but it's it's actually
• 51:49
  pisses me off. Yeah.
• 51:52
  That's a huge problem. And I'm sorry to hear that.
• 51:54
  That's OK. How did you?
• 51:54
  OK, So how did you, how did you get out of that?
• 51:56
  Yeah. I cried a lot.
• 51:59
  I basically thought the world was ending.
• 52:01
  And then I have a mentor. Like I believe that one of the
• 52:04
  reasons that like keeps me sober is that I obviously work with
• 52:07
  individuals. So like even just what you're
• 52:09
  doing here, like this is such an important thing and people who
• 52:13
  are in recovery should always be immersed in the community, I
• 52:17
  believe. But I have a mentor and I
• 52:19
  basically was like SOS like, and she, he kind of like talked me
• 52:23
  down off of it. And The funny thing is like, as
• 52:25
  the days have gone on, like there have just been little
• 52:27
  Silver Linings. Like, you know, the day that my
• 52:30
  Jeep got stolen, my dad, the day before, my dad spent 4 hours,
• 52:33
  the poor man in his 80s cleaning the whole thing.
• 52:36
  So we took everything out. So all of my son's hockey gear,
• 52:38
  this vintage motorcycle helmet that I have like my $2000
• 52:41
  speaker, like everything was taken out of the Jeep first,
• 52:43
  right? And so I'm like, OK, like, you
• 52:46
  know, everything could have gotten stolen.
• 52:49
  So like you just have to find these little like pockets of oh,
• 52:52
  maybe my insurance is going to give me a massive payout and I
• 52:55
  can get something better. You just have to like you just
• 52:56
  have to find the little pockets of joy.
• 52:58
  I guess I. Don't know, my first thought was
• 53:00
  that too. The insurance was boy, I wonder
• 53:02
  if she's going to get one. Right.
• 53:03
  I'm like, well. Big win, Yeah.
• 53:06
  Oh man, that's awesome. What?
• 53:09
  OK, so we talked a lot of good stuff today.
• 53:13
  What what sort of tools or practical things can people use
• 53:17
  if you mentioned a lot of them? But just what's something that
• 53:21
  someone can take away from this that they can actually implement
• 53:23
  in their life if they have a problem or they think they may
• 53:27
  have a problem with food addiction or their relationship
• 53:29
  to food or body is smart. Yeah.
• 53:30
  Yeah, so I've done a Ted Talk, so maybe link it up because I
• 53:35
  like go through the, I'll go through like I go through very
• 53:37
  succinct things, but I'm just pulling from that.
• 53:40
  Like first of all, you can't hate your way to a body that you
• 53:42
  love. Like point blank, the more you
• 53:45
  criticize yourself, the more you will self sabotage because it's
• 53:49
  like your daily behaviors match your identity, right?
• 53:52
  The second thing is really being able to differentiate between
• 53:55
  craving, like true like craving and true hunger.
• 53:59
  And it's difficult, right? Because you know that desire for
• 54:02
  food is so prominent all day long, and it's used to escape
• 54:06
  from work or to escape boredom or to facilitate feelings of
• 54:11
  oxytocin. So I have a little trick that I
• 54:13
  do with my clients, and it's called the broccoli test.
• 54:16
  And so if you're hungry, you just ask yourself this one
• 54:19
  question, like, would I eat raw broccoli right now?
• 54:21
  If the answer's no, then you're not hungry.
• 54:25
  And that doesn't mean that you can't eat.
• 54:27
  It just means that you're no longer tricking yourself into
• 54:30
  thinking that a craving is true hunger.
• 54:32
  And that's the important differentiation, right?
• 54:34
  Because the brain is, will, will rationalize, it'll tell you all
• 54:37
  these crazy things to get it to engage in that one thing, right?
• 54:40
  Like it'll tell you, oh, I deserve it today.
• 54:42
  I, you know, I worked hard. I'll start again on Monday, like
• 54:44
  all these crazy rationalizations just to gain access to the thing
• 54:47
  that it thinks it needs. And so when you can at least be
• 54:49
  honest and be like, this isn't true hunger.
• 54:51
  I'm still gonna eat the chocolate bar, right?
• 54:54
  But at least I'm recognizing I'm responding to a craving, not
• 54:57
  actual hunger. The next thing is, and I
• 55:00
  mentioned it, but I'll reiterate, but you just never.
• 55:03
  The last bite is never going to give you anything more than the
• 55:06
  first bite did ever, right? Especially when we're talking
• 55:09
  about these like processed, highly palatable foods.
• 55:12
  And so if I'm eating literally the most delicious, like gooey
• 55:15
  chocolate chip cookie like or the things that I love the most,
• 55:17
  I always leave the last bite. It's just a little like trick
• 55:21
  that I play with myself because it's not going to give me
• 55:23
  anything more than the first bite did.
• 55:24
  It has 0 nutrients, right? And So what that does is it
• 55:27
  immediately puts you in the driver's seat where the cookie
• 55:29
  no longer has the power. You do, you get to go.
• 55:32
  No, thank you. Right.
• 55:34
  And then the last thing, and we touched on this too, is that
• 55:36
  like we are primitive human beings, like we are bipedal.
• 55:40
  We are designed to be out in the sun and the blue light is like
• 55:43
  really messing with our mental health and our hormones in your
• 55:46
  chemistry. So like, if you can get outside
• 55:48
  and walk every single day, you're going to, that's the
• 55:51
  thing that's going to change your life the most, honestly.
• 55:54
  Amazing. I, I learned so much today.
• 55:57
  I really appreciate you. Yeah.
• 55:59
  No, it's, it's good. I think this is one of those
• 56:02
  things where people don't realize that it, it can become a
• 56:05
  problem, or maybe it is a problem, or maybe it's not.
• 56:07
  Maybe you're not struggling with it and you don't.
• 56:09
  But it's, it's good to know. And you've you've taught me a
• 56:11
  lot of practical things that last bite.
• 56:15
  Yeah. Like, I don't need to finish
• 56:16
  this. I was brought up in an Italian
• 56:18
  household, too, where you don't waste food because so and so,
• 56:24
  right? You just don't do it.
• 56:25
  And so now today, it's like ingrained in my brain that I
• 56:28
  have to finish my plate. And that's not the case.
• 56:30
  Right, where can we find you, Jordana?
• 56:33
  Yeah, so I'm not a super tech savvy person, but I live on
• 56:36
  Instagram. I have a TikTok.
• 56:38
  I never use it. So Instagram would be the place
• 56:40
  to find me. I have a website, I'm sure
• 56:41
  you'll link it up. And I also have a podcast, so
• 56:44
  that has a lot of, I dive deep into food psychology and
• 56:48
  addiction and all of that in there.
• 56:50
  So. I'll link all of that in the
• 56:52
  show. Thanks so much for coming.
• 56:53
  Thank. You for having me.
• 56:54
  I had so much fun. Thanks for listening.
• 56:57
  Please help us grow the channel and like, share and subscribe
• 57:00
  for more content. The discussions and stories
• 57:02
  shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational
• 57:05
  purposes only. This content is not a substitute
• 57:09
  for professional medical advice, addiction treatment, or therapy.
• 57:12
  If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction,
• 57:15
  please. Consult A licensed physician,
• 57:17
  addiction specialist, or mental health professional.
• 57:20
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