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Do You Deserve a Cheat Meal? The Question Your Addiction Wants You to Ask | Day 15 | 300 lbs · Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's always stories about something.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you about something that happened to me this week.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Standing in the kitchen, all alone, brain said, make brownies.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not a whisper, but a full sales pitch.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: It told me that I deserve it.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It told me that I've been disciplined.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: It told me that one little brownie wouldn't matter.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: The voice?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It sounded like me.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: It used my voice.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It made a reasonable case.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk to you today about because if you've ever stood in your own kitchen and you've had your own brain try to sell you something that's going to hurt you, this one's for us.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So not for them, but for us, because we're the same person.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just happen to have a camera.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the first thing we need to understand.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: That voice in your head, the one that says just this once, or you've earned it, or you'll start fresh Monday, or you deserve a cheat meal or a cheat something, that's not you.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually your addiction.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been studying you your entire life.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: It knows what words work, it knows what time of the day you're at your weakest, it knows exactly which emotion to exploit.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if this were alcohol, we'd call that a craving and everybody would understand.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: If this were nicotine, people would nod and say, withdrawal, it's brutal.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: But because it's food, because it's brownies or ice cream or donuts, people say, oh, go ahead, treat yourself.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: You deserve it.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: One little indulgence, moderation, that's the trick.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Try that with a heroin addict.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Walk into a recovery meeting and say, come on, just a little.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: You've been so good.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be thrown out of the building.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: But hand a food addict a plate of pasta at a family dinner and watch everybody nod like it's kindness.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not kindness.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a loaded weapon with a bow on it, and nobody in polite society wants to say that.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I will.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what happens to your body when you eat refined carbohydrates or sugar, or carbohydrates at all, or even fruit.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Blood sugar spikes.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Your pancreas floods insulin into the body.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your body shifts from burning fat to storing it.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a metaphor, that's physiology.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your inflammation markers rise, your joints swell, your brain rolls in, some fog, just like bad weather.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: For me personally, when I eat carbs, my knees feel like they belong to a 90-year-old man.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Shoulders lock up, fingers swell, energy crashes three hours later, and the only thing that brings me back is more of the same substance that caused the crash.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound familiar?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's a dependency cycle.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the exact pattern any other addictive of any other addictive substance on earth.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Dopamine spike, crash, craving, repeat.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Food industry knows this.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: They've had scientists, actual HDs, whose entire job is to engineer what they call the bliss point.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: The exact combination of sugar, salt, and fat that makes your brain light up like a slot machine.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're not feeding you, they're programming you.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the result, the result is that we walk around in bodies that are screaming at us and we call it having a sweet tooth.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's addiction talking in a language society gave a cute name.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I did about the brownies.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Set a timer, 90 seconds.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's where the science actually shows.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: A craving peaks and begins to fade within 60 to 90 seconds.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's the entire battle window.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you can hold on for that long because I'm sure you've had brownies before.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've had donuts before, and you've had, well, insert whatever name of the stuff that you're craving.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, after that battle window, you don't have to beat this thing for the rest of your life in one moment.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have to survive 90 seconds.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I stood there, watched the clock, and I breathed, and it passed.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I'm stronger than you, not because I have more discipline.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It passed because that's what cravings do.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're temporary surges in a brain that's recalibrating itself.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: They feel permanent.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: They feel that they'll eat you alive if you don't feed them, but they don't.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they won't.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: They peak and they fall every single time.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the part that actually changed everything for me.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I stopped trying to resist food.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I actually changed who I am.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a massive difference between I can't eat that and I don't eat that.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can't is deprivation.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a leash.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It creates tension because you're telling yourself there's something you want that you're not allowed to have.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's an identity.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fact.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's no tension because there's no negotiation.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's no somebody maybe at some time.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody walks around all day saying I can't smoke crack.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't smoke crack.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not part of your identity.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no internal debate.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we need to get with food.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not willpower, but identity.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a person who does not eat processed carbohydrates, carbohydrates, or sugar, period.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's my way.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have a different way.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: But full stop, that's no negotiation, not unless it's a holiday, not unless it's that time.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: No, not unless it's my birthday or unless somebody made it special.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's no exceptions.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exceptions are the door your addiction walks through every single time.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: You give it just Thanksgiving, and by December you've given it Christmas, and then you give it New Year's and Valentine's Day, your birthday, and then also Tuesday.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: The addiction doesn't want the brownie, it wants the precedent.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It wants you to prove that the rule has a crack in it so you can drive a truck through it later.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't crack.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want to talk to you about something else.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is called the negotiation phase.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is the most dangerous stage of a craving, and most people don't even know they're in it.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: It goes like this.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So stage one's the seed.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's when that thought appears, the brownies, the ice cream.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a suggestion, whatever your substance happens to be.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Stage two, that's the negotiation.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's your brain starting to build the case.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've been good.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: One's not going to matter.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You deserve it.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Moderation is the key.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to start over tomorrow.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: You need the energy.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Life is short.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You actually have three weeks before that thing.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Stage three, that's the act.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: You eat it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Stage four, the morning after, that's the bloat and the joint pain and the number on the scale and also the shame.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what most people miss: the battle is won or lost in stage two, the negotiation part.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once you let the negotiation start, you've already given the addiction a seat at the table.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a better negotiator than you.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's been doing this your whole life.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's undefeated when you let it talk.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't let it talk.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: The moment you recognize stage two, you shut it down.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not a counter argument, not with logic, not with, well, I shouldn't because.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's no.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, period.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You shut it down with identity.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You don't eat that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't eat that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Four words, not a debate, but a declaration.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then you move your body, walk outside, do 20 push-ups, drink some black coffee, call somebody, record a video about what you're feeling right now.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that last one, that's what I do.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I turn the craving into content.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I take the energy, the addiction wants me to spend, destroy myself, and I redirect it to something that actually builds.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's not willpower, that's just strategy.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you another tool.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Keep a note on your phone, title it the morning after.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every single time you give in, write exactly how you feel the next day.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: The swelling, the brain fog, the regret, the irritation, the scale, the self-talk, all of it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then the next time stage two starts, it's pitch.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Read that note first.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your addiction has amnesia.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It conveniently forgets what happens after the act.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It only remembers the taste.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It only remembers that dopamine hit.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your note, it remembers everything.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: When that brownie thought hit me this week, I didn't read my note.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need to.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I read it enough times that the data's burned in.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: But in the early days, that note saved me more than once.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing, nobody wants to say out loud.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Processed carbohydrates are sugar, not food.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're a product, engineered in a lab, optimized for addiction, packaged to look normal, marketed to children, subsidized by governments, and defended by an industry that profits from your inability to stop eating.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Eggs are food.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Meat is food.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Vegetables are food.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Cheese is food.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: A donut in a delivery mechanism for a dopamine spike wrapped in flour is what a donut is, a delivery mechanism.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I know how that sounds.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know people are going to say, well, that's extreme or everything in moderation.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Moderation, let me give you a few thoughts about moderation, at least with me.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Would you tell a recovering alcoholic to drink in moderation?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Would you tell a gambling addict to play the slot machines in moderation?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Would you tell somebody addicted to painkillers just to take one oxy on the weekends?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then why do we tell food addicts to eat the trigger substance in moderation?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because society doesn't recognize food addiction as real addiction.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But your dopamine receptors don't care about society's opinion.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: They respond the same way, whether the trigger is cocaine or a cinnamon rule.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: The mechanism is identical.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: The social response is completely different.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that gap is where the food addicts die, slowly, quietly, in plain sight, while everyone around them says, you know, you'd like to eat.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, he was addicted.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody called it what it was.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're calling it what it is.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: The platform exists because there's no room for people like us.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: AA has room, Gamblers Anonymous has rooms.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the room for the person who can't stop eating?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Where is the meeting for the person who stands in the kitchen at 10 p.m.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: having a full negotiation with their own brain about whether to eat something they know will hurt them?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the room.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And let me be clear about something.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not standing in front of this room because I figured it out.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm standing here because I'm the one who stood up.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on day 15, 300 pounds.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have a long way to go, but the distance doesn't scare me.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: The direction is correct.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And every day I don't eat that substance, the neural pathways weaken just a little more.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: The cravings shorten and the identity solidifies.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's neuroplasticity, that's real, that's science.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain rewires based on repeated behavior.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you choose, I don't eat that over just this once, you're physically strengthening the circuits that support the person you're becoming and physically weaken the circuits that kept you trapped.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're not fighting the same battle every day.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The battle gets smaller if you let it.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if you reset that clock, every time you give in, you're rebuilding the addiction's infrastructure.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're reinforcing the exact pathways you're trying to dismantle.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's why just one is never just one.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a construction project for the prison you just started escaping.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the protocol.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what we're going to eat.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to eat meat, you're going to eat fish, you're going to eat vegetables, you're going to eat cheeses if you can handle them.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to eat salt and pepper or some cayenne, maybe black coffee water and sparkly water.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the list.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else, that's the addiction talking.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not almost everything, but everything.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Fruit, well, fructose is sugar.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's natural sugar, sir, but your body doesn't get it.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And alcoholism is natural fermentation, but alcohol doesn't make that safe for an addict.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Bread, it's engineered.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Pasta, engineered rice, insulin spikes, cereal, chemistry experiment in a box.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know people are going to disagree.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know people are going to send me studies.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know people are going to say, but whole grains.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care for works for people who don't have the problem.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I care about what works for people that do.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And for people like us, the answer is clear.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Remove the trigger substance entirely.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't negotiate, do not moderate, do not make exceptions.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Would we tell an alcoholic to just keep a bottle of whiskey on the counter just in case?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then we don't keep the substance in the house.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: We don't keep it in the rotation.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: We don't keep it as part of our identity.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're the people who don't eat that.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So say it out loud right now, wherever you are, I don't eat that.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Feel how different that is from saying I'm trying to eat better or I'm cutting back.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's negotiation language.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the addiction wins every negotiation.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Identity is non-negotiable.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let me leave you with this.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: 130 pounds I've dropped before.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Went from 365 to 240.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And some of it came back.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know why?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But because I changed my behavior without changing my identity.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was a fat guy who lost weight.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was never a person who doesn't eat that substance.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So when the behavior slipped, there was nothing underneath to hold it.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: No foundation, no identity anchor, just willpower.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And willpower is a battery.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: It runs out every single time.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: This time's different, not because I want it more, but because I'm more motivated, not because of that.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The time is different because I'm building identity, not discipline.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Discipline gets you through a meal.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Identity gets you through life.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't eat that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a person in recovery from food addiction.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be that person tomorrow and the day after, and on day 365, and on day 33,650.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it's easy, but because it's who I am.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're standing in your kitchen right now, 90 seconds away from a decision you're going to know you're going to regret tomorrow, set the timer, breathe, read your notes, say the words.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't eat that.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then come find us, thelaxaddiction.com, because this is the room.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a seat with your day amount.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you tomorrow.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for watching.