Episode 46: Dealing with food addiction

Tired of losing the weight, only to find that you just fall back on old habits as soon as you reach your goal? Or struggling with constant temptation, even though you know those treats aren’t healthy? If so, you’re likely dealing with a problem shared by most overweight Americans… Addiction. Coach Blu joins us, founder of the non-profit organization “Addict 2 Athlete” as we get into the fundamentals of dealing with addiction. We talk about why food can be more addicting than drugs, and why that addiction leads to a life-time of misery for so many people. And of course, […]

Tired of losing the weight, only to find that you just fall back on old habits as soon as you reach your goal? Or struggling with constant temptation, even though you know those treats aren’t healthy? If so, you’re likely dealing with a problem shared by most overweight Americans… Addiction.

Coach Blu joins us, founder of the non-profit organization “Addict 2 Athlete” as we get into the fundamentals of dealing with addiction. We talk about why food can be more addicting than drugs, and why that addiction leads to a life-time of misery for so many people. And of course, Coach Blu talks us through some basic techniques you can use to start taking control of the problem.

You can find more about Coach Blu and Addict II Athlete, here: www.addicttoathlete.org

Automated Transcript Below:

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Weightix / 100 down podcast. I am Bryan and this is probably the most anticipated most exciting topic that we have ever thought. I am super excited about this one because literally since the day that I started Weightix cuz I’ve had requests for this podcast. The problem that I’ve had with this particular topic is I am not an expert in life, you know anything from previous podcast from reading my blog from participation in the Weightix group or the 100 down area. It’s that unless I understand it. I really don’t like talking about it and very happy to Aja fir to other people who are experts when when that’s appropriate. This is a case where I am not an expert. However, I have found somebody who is actually a couple of people who are far far bigger experts than I will ever be number one and number two probably some of the the I’m going to go out on a limb here and say these are probably some job

Leading experts at least in in the country. If not the world on this topic because they eat sleep and breathe this topic. So we’re going to get into the the concept of food addiction today and I have blue and Marissa Robinson if you guys want to say hello. Yeah. Hey, thanks for having us on we’re excited to be here. That was quite the intro world. You know, I am I sincerely believe that you know, you don’t have to you don’t have to be putting on big seminars and writing expensive books and doing the you know, the the The Joe Rogan podcast wage order to be in order to really know your stuff and I I’ve had enough interaction with you guys to know that you guys really know your stuff. I also had the opportunity blue to be on your podcast not very long ago. I I had an amazing time on that. You asked some of the most intelligent questions that I’ve actually ever gotten and I feel like we had a really good time. So I I was so excited because I’ve been looking for so long for somebody else.

Who can come on here and actually give people who are trying to lose weight some context around what that means from the perspective of addiction. I have one other person here that I want to that has been the podcast before that’s Jared Salo Jared. Hey, how’s it going? Buddy? Jared? Why don’t you give us a first of all let’s give Jared. Why don’t you give your sort of 2 minute introduction? So everybody knows where you’re coming from how long you’ve been with Wade across and and kind of your history and then I want blue and Marissa to to talk a little bit about their background. Sure so early 2017. I was at my worst and that’s where I started to lose all the weight. But what kind of kick things off was in 2015. I was thirty-four years old and I suffered a heart attack. I had the Widowmaker heart attack get lucky that I shared that and then alive. Yep. So how much did you wait your worst? You said, you know, my worst has about four hundred pounds. Perfect. Okay, and you had a heart attack how how long ago was that? Oh boy, that would have been 2015 and closed and that was right before I met you log.

Right. Yeah, we would have been appears for we we met yeah, so yeah, I have the heart attack and even that wasn’t the wake-up called and I needed I knew I needed to lose weight, but the problem was the lack of everything experience and knowing what to do long story short met Brian and learned about CarMax and I realized this was a diet that I could do lost a hundred and sixty pounds and shortly after Thursday. Sixty pound loss. I ran a half-marathon and then after that I kind of got complacent there wasn’t any more goals after that and the weight started coming back up and then a couple of bouts with depression and I’m I’m I’m back up sixty pounds some down a hundred pounds still but I’ve seen back 60 of that pounds that I’ve that I’ve launched yet. I’m first of all, I want to point out that’s amazing. And I think so many times people lose like a huge amount of weight and then and then and then they relapse a little bit and they forget sometimes that you’re still ahead. Right? I mean if you if you lose a hundred pounds and you gain back ninety pounds your name

10:00 and and that is that is we’re celebrating. So let’s let’s let’s celebrate that the fact that you know, you’re you’re you’re still better now than you were before. I mean way better right? Not only that but my guess is you’re making way smarter choices now than you were before and even during that relapse. I’ll bet you were making smarter choices than you were before. So let’s not, you know, give yourself some credit here off your your way ahead of where you were at your worst.

Okay, I appreciate that. Yeah, I still feel a lot better. But I’d like to get back to where I was. Well, yeah, let’s do it. I have Jared on here for a specific reason and and I want to get into that in a second but blue and off odisha. Why don’t you guys introduce yourselves? So I’m Marissa Robinson. I am a recreational therapist. I used to work with at-risk youth. Let’s see almost ten years ago. We started out of athlete a program helping people affected by addiction not only those seeking recovery but also family and and friends and anyone in in the workplace and and what is what is addict to athlete all about like walk us through what goes through your angle here? We have a lot of different components that it started as just a free alternative support groups, like alternative to the 12 Steps something else to help those who struggle with addiction. It’s something that everyone can come and attend with the whole family and we promote our birth.

Jason replaced philosophy if you take away the addiction, then you have to replace it with something else or that void is there and it will be filled with something. So if you don’t if you’re not intentional about how you feel about it will fill itself. So we follow that erase and replace philosophy and we have chapters throughout the country mostly based in Utah, but then we also do online support and three podcasts a week a lot of educational content YouTube a few years ago. We became owners of a residential treatment center for adults and substance abuse and outpatient program. And so we worked with a known that program for about three years. So we’ve been on that side of the treatment side of addiction as well as you know that Community Resources and and things like that. So you’re saying, you know, very little about addiction. Is that what I just heard you say. All right, we’ve seen it all I wanted a dog

Tell you guys I have I have very few. I’m just the kind of person who has very few kind of personal heroes in in life. But your mission you you guys are absolutely my heroes with what you guys are doing. Thank God and I mean that sincerely blue how what what the heck made you get into this.

Personal experience absolutely. So, you know and I want to pause right there. I’m sorry. You said you said two very important words because I I say this to people all the time do not take advice from someone who has not been there before do not take advice from someone who hasn’t been there before. This is why fit and healthy people hand out the worst weight loss advice I have ever seen because they never break the journey. So blue you you’ve been there. Yeah personal experience. I’ve battled my own addictions all throughout my adolescence and teenage years and very early adult life. And for the longest time. I didn’t know where they came from. And so when when I was fully licensed as a mental health therapist and a substance use disorder counselor addiction specialist, I sort of seen that there’s only one outlet for for a walk outside of like standardized treatment and that was a twelve-step community and the 12-step communities are fantastic, but I thought there’s some of them that there’s some people that that doesn’t work for and log

Program but I worked at as a therapist required my clients to go to three meetings outside of our regular program. And one day I came back from Russia. I saw my clients like like forging their signature sheets. They say they had it’s been dead. But who do you guys doing? You know, and they told me oh, you know, we don’t like these meetings since I thought there’s got to be something out there that I could send these guys too. And there wasn’t so I’m posturing those guys place for one second because this is also really important. It seems like inevitably every time somebody says addiction the very next words out of their mouths are twelve-step program almost like like like it’s the Bible and it’s irrefutable. You want to beat addiction you have to do the twelve-step program what you’re telling me is you’re you’re not a fan of that. Is that is that what I just heard you say, I’m not I I believe wholeheartedly in the 12 steps. I think they they’re guaranteed to work. If you took them correctly most people have a hard time with it, but there are other ways to get to that finish line. I love it. Okay. I want to get into that that in a minute for sure because I think that’s a unique thing that you guys are doing wage.

And I’m in the same boat. I’ve always kind of looked at the twelve-step program and scratch my head a little bit and thought it’s good but is it too complicated or is it too much but I don’t know you’re going to tell us about that here in just a second deadly get into that. But so there there wasn’t and so I’m a firm believer that if there’s there’s a void somewhere. It’s my responsibility to fill it and I knew what works my own recovery, which was you know mountain biking and being a choice because I was no longer an addict. I removed myself from an addict to an athlete. So our name added to acid is like it’s a trend if it’s transition. It’s a progression. It’s the Roman numeral two months on our lot or logo represents building, you know, once you have to you can build a foundation to build upon that and the Roman numeral system, they don’t identify zero so you’re never completely off like alone you’re never completely zero. So we took that philosophy. We we created this program where I started having my clients who were recovering from drugs and alcohol instead of coming to group into sitting around table.

About life. We got there running shoes, which stretched like to come out running and training for a 5k, but the craziest thing happened is as I was running with them. They were two are so open he would tell me about trauma The Experience sad all these heavy things that they never told me in my awesome fengshui office out here in public. They’re like tell me honestly didn’t realize the mechanism of what our brain does to heal itself, which is essentially what’s called EMDR therapy we can get into that later but it’s your brain processing trauma and as you’re running and working out it just comes and I have no idea the magnitude of what that would do and that was ten years ago. And now we’re like versus said we’re up to about five thousand athletes throughout the country and and growing and it was just kind of really an excuse for me to go running at lunchtime that turned into this country movement. All right, I was exposed before I’m even more excited. Now this is going to be great blue. I want to start with something here because we have an interesting we have an interesting demographic inside of Weightix, you know, one of the biggest challenges with birth.

Los is keeping it off after it’s gone and and breaking these old habits and a lot of people they kind of they kind of fall back on this problem of motivation. And first of all, four people who are here, if you have not listen to the podcast we did on a discipline and motivation, please please please in fact Push pause right now go listen to that and then come back to this one because it ties in so perfectly but the you know, the challenge they find is that motivation is just not there when they need it. They they’re enormously motivated when they start and Jared can tell you all about this, right because he literally had a doctor tell him if you don’t change you will die and and you can sneak in hospitals to write people go in and for four lung cancer and the minute their surgeries over there out on the on the out, you know, the outside porch and they’re smoking a cigarette because I mean they’re literally dying and they can’t give up the thing that put them in this position and we have so many people in Weightix. So I think I think a good number of people are willing to admit that they have a problem.

There’s there’s there’s an addiction component to this but a lot of other people, you know, not so much and I gotta tell you during my own journey. I don’t think I necessarily realized it at the time but not very eye-opening moment where I was sitting there eating my my second Double Whopper for lunch, right? I just finished the first one started on the second one and the only thing I could think about was what I was going to have for dinner. Like I was so excited about dinner even though I’m sitting here with you know, my favorite lunch and that really in my in my mind I did the word Addiction didn’t enter my head at the time and didn’t for a long long time after I now look back and realize I had a serious problem, but I want to I want to play a little I want to play a little game with you here and I call it addiction Or Nah. All right. So we’re going to we’re going to do this. Cuz what I want to do is give you some phrases that I hear all the time from people, you know, and I want you to tell me if they have the Hallmark signs of addiction or not as they describe this. Okay? Here’s here’s number one. I’m not addicted to crack.

Food, but I tend to rely on food as a coping mechanism when I get stressed or emotional addiction or not addiction. All right. Okay. All right. All right. This is going to be hard for some people to here. By the way. I’m telling you that right now and if you’re listening to this, please just understand that. All we’re trying to do is reframe the way that you’re thinking about your journey here and by reframing it you’re going to get a whole new set of tools that you can use to help you right? So not a bad thing. No, it’s not a bad thing. That’s thank you Marissa. That is exactly my point. I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad. I’m trying to get you an extra set of tools here that I think you can use. Okay. So here’s the next one already. I’m not addicted to food, but I just really feel like I need Comfort Suits food sometimes like when I’m sick or I’m having a tough day.

Yes, okay. Okay. All right. Have you under here’s another one? I’m not addicted to food, but when I’m full I still find myself reaching for my favorite snacks.

Yes, absolutely. Okay again 3 for three. Okay. This is getting more and more uncomfortable for everybody here cuz I I’m not addicted to food but my doctor told me that if I don’t lose weight I’m going to die soon, but I just can’t stay committed to it. Yeah, okay. All right. I’ll give you one more here. I’m not addicted to food but many times in my life. I’ve lost twenty maybe a hundred pounds and within a few months. I just fell back on Old Habits and the way comes back on me. Steal that from me I did that’s actually Jarred right there. Yeah, almost word-for-word I think because and Jared I don’t mean to pick on you. But the reason the reason I love having Jared here is Jared and I are really really good friends and and he knows I’m taking this from the right place. But when I asked Jared to be on his mom had cast I believe that was almost the exact sentence that he said look I’m not struggling with addiction. I’m struggling with commitment. Is that fair Jared for me to find it like that? Okay. All right and

Get I’m not trying to pick on Jared Brian. The cool thing that you said is is the first three in the last one. They are what you’d classify through the addiction model as abusing a substance abusing something without them both of you. Just did you just call Food a substance? Yes. Oh boy. This is going to get real uncomfortable for a lot of people asked specifically when you’re talking about this kind of conversation. Every time you have a butt in it council’s all of it out because you can’t justify it with that. So the the first three and the last one are what I would classify if you if you substituted, you know, like food with with with with you know, like, you know marijuana or you know, let’s try let’s try it with one of these same. Yeah. Yeah. Can we try it real quick? All right. Let’s try this. Let’s try this the first one maybe I’m not addicted to alcohol, but I tend to rely on alcohol as a coping mechanism when I get stressed or emotional now when you put it in that context blue, it’s it sounds ridiculous, right? Yeah, he would look at someone and go home.

Think about like you can’t admit this. Let’s try the second one. I’m not addicted to marijuana, but I just really feel like I need comfort sometimes like when I’m sick or I’m having a tough day and again with your boss. I love that you like frame you fret you if you plug anything else into that spot. It’s it’s absurd to think that it’s not addiction. You’re right. This is crazy to an addiction even even just you know with the term. It’s very controversial because of of the the way that we’ve been I guess kind of cultured into it. It identifies in the same parts of the brain that any addiction would so it may say an extra slice of birthday cakes or you know, the site of of cocaine it’s going to light up the same the same parts and there’s something to that and we’ll get into this too, but it’s engineered that off but let me start by explaining what addiction is. Yes, perfect. Like I said, there’s two different types. There’s there’s the abuse and that’s usually you’re you’re using a substance or something to cope with something else.

Maybe you call it self medicating if you will and then there’s dependents. Now the second to last one you read felt more like a dependent. So would you read the second to last one again? Yeah. Yeah. I’m not addicted to food but my doctor told me if I don’t lose some weight I’m going to die soon, but I just can’t stay committed to it. See now that’s dependent. So dependence is kind of an interesting abused is your abusing the substance for the game dependence is I can’t live without this now they talk about the disease of addiction. And now I’m kind of one of those guys that’s that you used a very inflammatory word there. So I want to I want to make sure you use that on purpose. I assume the word disease. Yeah, because I think it’s a very controversial thing the medical model pulls addiction into it, which is kind of a I I’m I’m not a real big fan of it because what it what it kind of like implies is that you you have this disease and there’s not much of a move to do with it other than learn to live wage.

I think there are a lot fewer people that struggle from the disease and they do like a substituting that that that dependents or that abuse on a subject to fill a need nine times out of ten. Most of us will use food substances. What have you to fill the void of something that hurts and that’s where we abused. So the fact that you have people here right now is off of them are worried about maybe what category they fall in I can guarantee you there in the abuse Factor because the dependent people they don’t care about this. They’re not here with us. They’re out doing their own thing. They usually do not seek help from yeah. Oh this is old-fashioned. All right talking a lot tonight about the abuse the addiction using food to fill a void to 5 or need we got to find out why we can get into the core issue of what’s causing that which is awesome because I’m a firm believer that once you identify the core it all goes like dominoes and it’s dead.

It’s doing some soul-searching and and it’s it’s an amazing process. Very liberating. Oh, wow. Okay, this is great. So first of all to the people who are here with us live. I appreciate you immensely. We love the interaction if you have any questions or anything for blue or Marissa or Jared, please type them into the chat window here and and we’ll we’ll sort through them. Jared’s kind of going to run run run moderator off for us and we’ll try to keep this try to keep this moving but they’re absolutely here to answer your question. So fire them in their blue you you you said something interesting where you know, Society doesn’t necessarily Viewpoint addiction with the same weight that it gives to other things and there’s a million reasons for that. But how do you balance this message for that? We keep hearing where they say. You’re beautiful. You’re perfect. Just the way you are. You don’t need to change anything. How do you balance that with your addicted to something that’s going to kill you if you don’t change and by the way, I really believe that obesity fits in that category, right? It it it really will kill dead.

If you don’t change, so, where do you where do you kind of balance those? You know, it’s an interesting and exciting principal when you start applying some of those mechanisms that people want you to feel comfortable in your own skin, which I’m a firm believer you should sure but that message isn’t reaching the people that you and I come into contact with because these are the ones that are looking at himself in the mirror. I’m thinking themselves apart and it doesn’t matter if they have a PSA bounce payment on the on the 5:00, you know news break to love yourself. If you are feeling that you’re you’re filling that void with something with substance and you’re you’re you’re plug-in yourself up with food and in Black of it a lack of exercise and whatnot. You’re not going to love the thing that’s looking back at you and my job is to help you discover how and why you fell out of love with you in the first place else and it’s a beautiful thing because people are afraid of that word Addiction. I’m a firm believer the people that overcome weight loss overcome addiction. They are those who have the most strong resourceful.

People known the man because they begin to master themselves. It’s not something that I think a lot of people look at the positive sides of addiction, but we talked about having your addiction be the mess that you turn into a message with friends why you’re here. It’s it’s it’s why we’re here is we’re turning the message to a message. So we need people to be able to advocate for themselves through their own efforts and and not and if you feel good about where you you are fantastic, but again that message isn’t being being reached to the people that are here in this group. They they want some kind of change. I believe that so sorry. There’s a lot of social media that pushed and and just populations in general that pushed different unhealthy views of ourselves. No matter what it is, whether it’s it’s okay that you’re you weigh three hundred pounds. You just love your body and don’t worry about it. Yes, but if it’s becoming unhealthy to you, even if you like and you’re happy with where you are at if it’s unhealthy

You and going to shorten your life. That’s a danger. That’s not really safe. You hear a lot mostly with Copic going on. I see Memes all the time about oh, you know, how do we make it through without? You know mom’s you have home school without your wine. How do you make it through there’s shirts you can find shirts that just say it’s okay to have your you know, your alcohol and your beer at the end of the day and P push that it’s okay and it ends up becoming and yeah people just normalize it thinking that that’s that’s just how it is and people are then getting worse and worse and worse and worse, you know numbing that with whatever substance food alcohol meth whatever it is and a lot of society is saying well, it’s not that bad, you know, or yeah alcohol food. It’s not as bad as quit comparing. It’s you’re still what are you using it to block out from your mom’s using it to block out the kids crying? Yeah, you touched on something.

I think I mentioned on this podcast before which is it’s this idea that that Network television is always looking for the extremes right my is it got my 600 pound life? Is that what it’s called? And I know a lot of people who weigh four hundred five hundred pounds who watched that show and go well boy. I’m glad I’m not I’m glad I’m not that big, you know glad I don’t have those problems. I’m glad I’m healthier than they are and you’re right. It’s all about just reframing the extreme and and it’s very easy to look at that and go. Well. Those are you know, I have a long way to go before I ever have that problem. And so you can you can reform in your mind and think you’re fine just because all you’re ever shown are the extremes right? And I think that’s one of the reasons we do is amazing we do it. I think that’s one of the reasons that it’s hard to to use the word Addiction here is because usually when when when people think of the word Addiction, they’re picturing, you know, the seventies movies of you know, people whose lives have hit complete rock bottom and you know, they’re just a total mess and it’s like dead.

We’ll know it doesn’t have to get to that level before you can treat it and work with it. So I think that spot on hey, I have another question for you. This is a little bit unrelated is actually from Martha in our chat room here. She’s asking about food and eating disorders being the same thing. Do you view? You know bulimia? Anorexia. Do you see these as a kind of addiction or are they treated very differently than they’re treated they treated fairly differently with with different results. The disorder family cuz addiction is a is a disorder as well. But I’m a distinguished by the mechanisms of used typically being beat the binging and purging and those things that have to do with with body image issues and have to do with control and a lot of different things off that they’ll fall into it. But the act of carrying those things out can be very addictive, you know that the purging and and those kind of things and so they are in the same family, but I don’t like them.

Lump them together because then it loses kind of its context with with the issue that you’re battling and that the issue that you’re that you’re going to understand and to eliminate so it is within that principle. There are there are Concepts similar similarities that gotta go together, but you want to kind of keep them separate so that they don’t kind of lump into one, you know, once you’ve got it. So you’re you’re you’re you’re you said earlier that it’s what are they using it for? Yes, you know and that’s what it really comes down to food heroine alcohol, whatever binging and purging are also a substance a drug and what you get from it and it really doesn’t matter substances are substances food is food is why are you using to num or

Block out or whatever. Why are you using it run? You can trace this stuff back to figure out where it started to that’s the that’s the amazing thing about addiction in and of itself is I usually takes about two years after some kind of some kind of situation some kind of turbulence in your life and around, you know, two years within within an activating event should start seeing where life started to kind of go sideways where Maybe started overeating or starting to stop you’ll caring so much you can pinpoint where this stuff is coming from and it’s just not the world according to Blue here. It seems like noticing patterns about people’s behaviors that were not as unique as we think and we can pinpoint this which gives you kind of a window to find out how to solve it’s kind of neat thing. Oh, this is interesting. Okay. So this is a really good segue my next question here. I and we touched on this earlier, you’re not a fan of the twelve step process necessarily. I do want you to talk a little bit about that. But one of the questions we got, you know was as I posted that wage.

To be doing this podcast. Somebody said they said all right. I admit I have a problem. I’m addicted to food. What now? What’s the second step? Yeah, you want to take that one off. So yeah, then you start looking for a ways to treat and heal it mhm. You know, how do you address it? Why are you using it? Why are you using food? How are you using it off? What kinds of food are triggers what kinds of things do you have cravings for that are difficult for you, you know, it’s not just through following the 12 Steps. Although those can be helpful ways to like identify and work through issues for sure. But I love that looking at patterns of behavior. I love that you peel back the layers. You can start finding out why you’re using it in the first place. Is it is it a ward system, you know, I did, you know, I I felt good at work. So I’m doing this or you know, I got chewed up my boss again. So I’m doing that is it? Well, I’m working so hard that I’ve got to grab, you know something on the wage.

You know, like I told you Brian, I mean I would go to work and I’d be like yeah, you know what I paid good money to swing by and grab a doughnut. I did not grab to you know, and I’m like, it’s one of those things where you gotta figure out why you’re using it off once you have identified. Yeah. This is an addiction now you go back to later later in circle. And for what I call the core issue. It’s that it’s that belief. It’s that lie that you told yourself is that reason for using home? Sometimes it goes back to things as deep as as neglect or abandonment that we felt when we were young and sometimes it could be, you know, like other things but what I noticed once you pinpoint what that is, then you should start changing it, but the problem that we have is that most people try to heal their addictions they get caught up in the feelings and not the thoughts see so we feel depressed. We feel sad but no one ever talked about how addiction makes you think and so it’s kind of a crazy thing. So if my my addiction kind of was created out of out of a kind of Abandonment my place

Until like like, you know caretaker didn’t do a great job. And so as a kid I felt abandoned That Grew into an addiction of me trying to self soothe and when I figured that out, I’m like, yeah, it makes me feel sad and depressed and mad and in the loan, but why do I think that you know, well, I think about it because you know, there must be something wrong with me and all these lies. I told myself treated those feelings off the desire to use to once you start peeling back the layers the self-discovery when you start doing that is phenomenal. It’s very liberating. So I’ve got a question to go along with that. So Brian has all these I’m not addicted to food but this and but that I think a lot of it becomes habit. I’m doing this because of that. So my question for you is are good habits bad. Are we changing the mindset? You know, for example, Brian runs every day is this a bad thing if he gets addicted to running even though Society would say oh, this is good because he’s working out. He’s very negative side of if we don’t change.

Had that exact thought Jared and I’ve often wondered. Yeah, did I just replace one one addiction with another addiction and no you didn’t because they’re very they’re very different mechanisms to that. What’s the difference between between going out and and running a 5k after work or whatnot versus sitting down and and grabbing that to the Pringles and and the coke, right? Well, one of them is way more delicious than the other. I’ll tell you that right now. Yeah, it’s because you know, what else other reward is a lot sooner it’s a lot quicker and it’s a lot more impulsive and your need is met with that fast. Yeah had no cost essentially right people can’t take it too extreme. The funny thing about that too, though is is you know to what end. That’s why we must have said that you erased and replaced. We don’t talk about erasing the food objects and replacing it with running. We talk we talk about erasing replaced with things of Greater valve multiple things. So on T minutes log,

We have our Athletic program, but that’s small compared to our community service our public Outreach our family system development, you know our public speaking we have so many avenues that we took we have the athletes participate in that health and Recreation is one small part to a much bigger hole. And so if you paradigm shift from one to another yeah, that’s cross addicting with the things of greater value because you know, like like for me when I go running and whatnot when I dragged my butt down here and I’d like to do it when no one needs me. So typically it’s probably early in the morning cuz no one cares where blue is off at like 6 in the morning. They care where where Dad is at 3:30 in the afternoon when the kids are getting home. And so you gotta you mean into it where it works not for where you makes you feel good to know how big I mean when I first started cycling and biking all over I’d go for hours of rest would call me and say hey man, we have a a wedding reception in an hour when you’ll be back and I realize that I live in Provo, Utah, but I’m in Nephi, which is about 40 Jun.

Miles away. I pushed it too far and we had to have that conversation. So that things of greater value are you know, the running the the the responsibility to your family job almost things not just one Paradigm Shift am a blue. Wow, you’re you’re you’re completely reframing the way I even think about my own habits here. Elizabeth has a question. I’m going to unmute her hair and and let her ask you this. This is this is actually very interesting go ahead Elizabeth and going back to what you said about.

Finding the core for the reason for the addiction. Like what was it? What was the trigger? What if you had looked at that or have tried finding what that is, but you just can’t narrow it down or you’re not sure what it is like birth specific questions. Do you have found that help reveal that for others? Yes. Absolutely. So the cool thing about that that is again world. According to Blue about a white blood drops. It’s a beautiful thing where once you identify like, do you mind sharing with me? What you think your core issue is? Oh, hang on. I just I muted or computer again. Go ahead. I’ll leave you on meet at this time.

You’re fine. I think right now it’s stress. My I just had a third baby who got a diagnosis of a condition that will be a lifelong issue will get to work with and shortly thereafter. I went downhill, but before that I cannot figure out what before that it is. Okay. So you’re you’re on the right you on the right track. So when you’re trying to find your core issue, okay, there’s there’s the story and everyone has a story. So once we hear the story you start looking at it. Okay, let’s say it’s stress and you plug stress in as your core. So what are your thoughts on stress right off? I think that it’s you know, it’s hard to tolerate. I I think that I’m weak because I can’t handle it you go through these thoughts but that’s how hard part because what thoughts on stress. Right? But your thoughts are what creates the feeling that create the behavior and so it’s a behavior chain so stress I hate to tell you is not your core issues.

That’s the feeling but you’re jumping over the thought process. Why do I why do I think stress is it and so each are going back into it now therapist coach right here among a deep into it, but you start looking at what does that diagnosis mean to you mean? Cuz then it’s like okay. This is going to be hard as a mother. Am I going to be able to handle that you start digging into the deeper stuff of like it’s not going to emotionally be able to do this start looking at like capacity and things like do I have the capacity of my part to do this which causes stress? It’s caused it to make sense. It hurts and I can’t make it off. I can’t warn you enough. Yeah, it hurts. But once you figure it out, the thoughts are clear. Your feelings are clear. When you move into the wants, what do you want as a result defying this core issue? What do you want for yourself? What do you want for others? What do you want for stakeholders? They all have a y’all have a stewardship in this and then you go to your plan. What are you going to do to eliminate it Elizabeth? I almost fell off.

Should be laying down on the couch while you have this conversation here. Yeah, absolutely on the right track to see that’s where it gets hard because stress is a feeling that’s not your it’s not a core issue, but it’s so overwhelming and of course stress is the number one cause of any relapse on anything whether it be a gambling pornography substance is eating. His stress is the number one and I like it’s across from from a Weightix perspective. I have to agree with that. I would say, you know, the people that reach out to me and you know who are doing the yo-yo diet thing will always say I would say 98% of the time it’s very, very rare that they say anything other than

I just got stressed out something stressed me out. And I just went and then I fell back on Old Habits and that that exact phrase. I’ve heard a thousand times in the way to swirl a thousand times and I would be more than happy to send to you the diagram in the outline on how to do this. And I know the bride will probably give out our information at the end, but I’ll be more than happy to help you through give it out right now. And then we’re going to give it out again at the end because I am you’re you’re you’re clearly I can tell by the comments I can tell by the in the interaction is going on offline you’re connecting with a lot of people right now that I think we could plug into your organization and you can make a huge difference for them. How how do they get started with you? So you can go to our website addict athlete. We have tons of podcasts YouTube videos lot a lot of free content along a free free stuff, but you can also email me Marissa t o a fleet. And I can set you up like a dog

Need people they’ll want maybe something further and deeper cuz yeah, there’s a lot of stuff you can try to figure out on your own there’s tons of self-help kind of things. But if there’s something like that I just can’t reach that point then yeah looking into a professional like blue does Private individual counseling through Zoom. It can be done anywhere. You don’t need to be here. In fact right now, no one’s coming to the office phone so it can all be done wherever you’re at. And you know, I can explain how to like set up counseling and session like that. I have all the schedule and can forward that out to you too. Perfect and merciful. Also a member of our way text group on Facebook. So she’s easy to find she off posts often. They’re so she’s she’s been with the community from from early on actually. Yeah been well, so let’s keep this going here cuz I know we’re we’re we’re burning through time at a rate that I did not anticipate but the content here is just fantastic. I could listen to all day talk about this. It’s interesting. You know, what time?

Things that people talk about is you know, and and I hit on this briefly earlier this idea of motivation. Oh, I need motivation before I can lose weight. I’m I’m not feeling motivated so I can’t do this anymore. And I’m anybody who knows me knows that I hate that phrase. I hate that word immediately respond with it’s not motivation. It’s disciplined. You always come up short. How does discipline fit into this is is is that just asking too much of somebody who’s you know, dealing with these kinds of issues is that just way over simplifying it lecture me here for a minute because I I’m so good at just swinging the baseball bat and saying discipline and faith and I don’t know that that’s the right answer. I know it kind of is because the term discipline it just seems mean and it seems like you’re you’re getting in trouble and getting your hands smacked by a ruler by your teacher. That’s how I feel. I feel me and when I said, yeah, that’s exactly right, you know discipline is disciple which is a student which is the teacher to follow and so it’s kind of one of those things where we’ve got to change your mind set on the way this is but the motivation things an interesting job

It’s an interesting built. I tell my my my new my new commercial come on to the team no matter what their what their addiction as well say if you and I right now went out and ran a marathon 26.2 miles would not do it and they’re all like you out of your mind. No way, but I’m like but Brian what if I put for you and you only $10,000 that’s up to you finish line. As soon as you cross it. It’s yours free doesn’t matter how long it takes you would you do it. They’re like, yeah, probably small unmarked bills on there. So it’s kind of well, so maybe not so impossible, huh? Okay, we’re all motivated by something. But in the world of addiction what I found is that once you it’s hard to get motivated and tell you have some kind of success success, I believe breeds motivation. So let’s just say that you have a small a small win small victory maybe instead of going to that fast food place at all on the way home. You say not today and you place

So that is a success. I will I will tell you the first time I did that. I was inside. I mean I was fist-pumping. I’m like and I was only ten feet past the Wendy’s before I was like, oh my god did it like I did I got past and I did this. Yeah, and that that little success turned into a motivational quote I could do it then I wonder if I can do it again. And once you have those successes off the motivation starts kicking in the problem is you have to be your own cheerleader because your spouse isn’t sitting next to you applauding you for driving past that’s going to be your victory in your Victory alone. But what I found is that small 6th life has been turned into that fire for motivation to turn into an inferno. So I I think that we don’t give ourselves enough credit for some of those smaller victories when you’re standing in line and all the candy bars are staring at like not today and you go through there. To me is a success. So we capitalize on even this Paula success and show progression. I also leave motivation is short-lived.

No that so it is for me. So when you do have motivation, that’s the time that you set plans in order. That’s the time that you start working on a goal. You know, you start creating habits Because by the time that dies down that motivation gets lower and lower. Hopefully you have some habits going to keep it going and I’m going to say one more time if you if you have not I know you guys have but for those who are listening if you have not listen to the podcast we did on discipline motivation and habit, please go listen to it because it will completely reframe the way you think about those days you don’t feel motivated and it will also completely reframe the way you think about building habits. There’s this old thing where people say, oh if you do it for 30 days in a row, it builds a habit that it doesn’t work now. It’s in fact, it’s not even it’s not even close to how it works that that phrase just drives me insane cuz that you know habits are based on rewards right your reward center is what causes you to build Habits song.

We don’t necessarily need to get into that here you touched on it briefly earlier, but in in the podcast that I did with you, you you said one sentence that has been replaying in my mind hundreds of times and I keep thinking about this and I keep working on this and in the context of weight loss and Jared I’ve set it to you down and that was you said and I’m going to paraphrase. I hope I get this right you’re the average of your five closest friends. Did I get it? Right is that is that we said, can you talk about that in the context of weight loss because I think so many people feel alone in their weight loss Journey or feel like they’re the only one that cares whether or not this works and that’s it part of what causes their motivation to die as they look around and go. Well. Nobody else is doing this like what am I doing here talk about that phrase and what it means and and how people can use that to their benefit dead.

It’s a big deal. I mean everytime Marissa and I have really tried to an essay tried as if it’s easy trying to buckle down even in our own like diet and nutrition and whatnot. But you know, we are two of six people in this home. And so the kids are like, we’re not eating that and when they come home with the food and all the sense of what’s past what’s easy? It’s like well, you know the average of the five people it takes incredible amount of effort to build your team around you’ve gotta have and that’s why I’m glad exactly philosophy as you’ve gotta have a team of people that that that got your back. If you’re the team captain on court, you gotta know that you pass the ball to you to your teammate that they’re they’re going to score pass the ball, but if you’re playing with with for lumps, then you’re want to play like a lump. It’s just the way that it goes and said it’s it’s so important for you to understand that even if you try your hardest you’re the average of the five people that you that you spend the most time with and so we talked a lot about birth.

Shooting your resources and sometimes your team that can’t be family. It’s gotta be a very tight support group. That’s one reason why I think that it to athletes flourish is because they’re no-nonsense only twelve steps would have sponsors thought where you call them in case of the need wanted to athlete if if you aren’t need help the team goes to you. They’re like grab your shoes were going for a walk. We went for a hike we’re going to go do something. It changes the situation the the perspective and everything. So if you are an environment where people are like, oh, you know what you can’t have the birthday cake, but we’ll have it. You know, I love the term right here in in in the addiction World, which you hang around a barber shop long enough to get a haircut around long enough. You’re buying the donut know, it’s true though. It’s because it’s because in the bakery the only kind of people there are the people who are eating donuts and eventually you say everybody else is eating a donut. I it must not be that bad. Exactly absolutely. So it is crucial. So it really does take a lot of work for your family together.

Attitude because they’re not into it, you know, they’re kind of like well, I don’t want to eat rabbit food. I want something with substance in it. Right? And so it’s hard but I think once you kind of established that course home and explain why it’s important and make changes like that slowly you guys the reason why most of these things fail is because we try to dive into it too fast, or you know, you’ve gotta you gotta pace yourself just like Marathon you don’t the gun doesn’t go off you don’t care, you know French bread like a bat out of you know, where to get to the Finish Line you’ve got to pace yourself, but I feel like that has to happen even in this kind of a situation or else you’ll give up. It’s it’s hard to the learning curve with food and nutrition. It’s pretty tough learning curve is a very steep learning curve to like simplifying but for some people it’s like a geometry or something. No, no no and and and and you gotta you gotta understand this is this is the number one problem. I think with weight X that also happens to be its biggest strength of the problem. Is this the learning curve

Steep the strength is if you’re willing to endure that learning curve, you will actually understand how and why it works and that’s something that none of the other programs are going to give you right they they literally want you addicted programmed by not telling you how it works so that you don’t have any other choices. That’s the problem with the 12 Steps. You’re addicted to the twelve-step program, right? Yeah, and I come to reliant on them. So what’s the answer to life? I mean if you’re the average of your five closest friends, by the way, I love the term you use just a second ago, which is build your team. But your Tim together that’s going to be with you. What do you do? You have to fire your friends? I mean, what else do you do this? Like like what I talked about is I mean don’t get me wrong in the world of of say substance use disorders and whatnot. There are times in have to and and wait then pause. I want to say that one more time and I want you to say that very slowly because I need people to understand what you just said world in the world of substance disorders, you know addiction will talk about drugs and alcohol.

And it’s your food addiction is causing the same kind of problem. Sometimes you have to distance yourself from the people that will support you. Now again, coach blue looks all turn out careful cuz we’re not telling you to get a divorce really careful with this here. But yeah, but but but keep going. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt super emotional because if I didn’t detach from my very like like very often dysfunctional family system. I wouldn’t have made it and that was one of the hardest things is that they were still going down my family my mother and my siblings are all going down the path of addictions and I thought that was my life and I sort of took out of it they were like, where do you think you’re going and just like with crabs in the basket of the crabs try to climb out one will speedily grab it and pull it down pause for a second family did to me and to build a new team. I want you to pause for just second. We got a ton of people here not everybody has their web cams on but a few people do if you’ve been in that situation where you felt like this is these two powerful thing you just said, which is you know, that that dog

In the pot as soon as you start trying to lose lose weight, how many of you guys have felt your friends and or family, you know co-workers whatever grab you and say. Whoa. Where do you think you’re going? You’re one of us get back here, right? Yeah. I see every hand is going up and one blue every hand is going up Jared. Go ahead. You know them. Well when I started losing weight and getting a more active lifestyle, it’s amazing. How quickly going back to that crap scenario how there were people pulling me out of the basket and I circle of friends that were there were into those same type of active things like going to the gym or V. I now have workout buddies to go with people. I went to lunch with we were going to the same place as cuz we were on similar diets and it’s amazing how quickly without offending anybody the the circle of friends that I spent most of my time with changed naturally. Yeah not and I completely agree with what you guys are saying with that your five. It is so important to have that and it’s amazing.

Naturally happen for me. I will say I had I’ve been guilty of the other half of this and we did another podcast that I actually think everybody if if this is a topic that’s resonating with you. Please go back to it. It’s what to do when your spouse isn’t on board and one of the reasons that that podcast comes from a new unique perspective for me is I was the spouse that wasn’t on board as my wife was trying to to fix some of her issues. I was the one saying whoa. Whoa, where do you think you’re going? I just brought you home a Wendy’s frosty, right? And and she thought staring at this like what what are you doing? Like? Why? Why would you why would you do this to me? And yet it came from a place of love. I was just like I thought I wasn’t trying to be mean a lot of people look at that and think. Oh, yeah, that’s just mostly if you look at say a heroin addict and oh, yeah. Those are just bad friends. No, it’s not it’s not always they care about them. They just don’t know or understand.

Or have maybe the awareness that you do that you want some change and you want something different. It’s not always a negative thing tool you back in it’s just that’s the head and what works for them testing and Naomi you just you just nailed the phrase that I think is a Telltale sign of somebody saying, you know, hey, where do you think you’re going? Even though? It’s not meant to be mean. I’m going to page here Naomi and I want you to say what you just said here What’s the phrase? I just yeah, you have to click the button there.

Well, it’s either you look good. You don’t need to lose more weight or they’ll say if you lose anymore way, you’re going to be like unhealthy, right? Yeah, and does anybody smaller than you ever thought too, you know, nope and I started hearing that phrase about fifteen pounds into my journey. Now remember I had a hundred and ten pounds to lose and about fifteen pounds and I started hearing that and I was still hearing it when I was 240 when I was two twenty when I was two hundred when I got under about the two hundred mark, I’m still in the obese category at two hundred pounds. I heard it from everybody. You don’t need to lose more weight. You don’t need to lose more weight, but I did like the numbers didn’t seem why I needed to lose more weight yet Naomi. I appreciate you sharing that because that is the phrase that people seem to use that are in the where do you think you’re going category? Right? Yeah. Thank you.

What a way to frame that blow. I love that. Why do you think the athlete thing is the and I’m uniquely positioned here you blue because I and I’ve talked about this on my podcast before it saved me in a lot of ways because I’m wondering about the athletes athletes thing for a minute because for me

it became mutually incompatible with with let me let me back up a little bit at first and I said this before I was I started running off because I figured that if I was running I could eat whatever I wanted right that was kind of the the deal I made with myself or or or the lie that I told myself. Hey, if you’re running you you’ll be able to eat that junk food again, like you can have a back and what actually happened was I started actually really like running and what I found was that if I ate like crap the running sucked in other words, I went from running so I could eat off and one day a switch flipped and now I was eating so that I could run right? I actually I actually was eating healthy because it made my running better. I don’t know if this ties in or not, but I would love to hear why you should feel so stressed you feel so strongly about it that you’re named your organization addict to athlete why is the athlete components such as why is that the substitute for I this why that versus piano playing when

Not play the Vienna. We have an act artist program 200. You just just hearing you just hearing you describe that bracket kind of emotional because it’s it’s not something that a lot of us don’t believe we can do and it’s so overwhelmingly achievable if you’ll put in just a little effort when I first started this program. Um, my boss is where I start the program where like, are you sure you want to do this either the most unhealthy people known to man when users and drug addicts and smokers and I’m like, I’m sure it’s CPR certified. I think I can handle it to hit the deck but I was terrified that in a hurt one of them. It happened like this, but there was one time we were running early on in our Inception and were running with it running with this girl. Her name is Janise and I’m running with Jenise and she’s like coach I gotta stop and I’m like no, let’s go to the corner and we’re about you know, maybe Twenty Yards away from the corner and as we approached the Corner Pub.

As if she didn’t slow down, so I said Jimmy’s let’s let’s run to that pickup truck, which is about halfway down the block and she’s like do we run that pick up and she still didn’t slow down. So I’m like, how about we run to that stop sign off like, oh you’re killing me run to the stop sign them like okay to the corner and when we hit the corner, which was probably about a quarter of a mile longer than she wanted to go home. She’s HIM Tears and I’m like what? I thought oh crap. I’m getting fired. I just kill her on my athletes and she’s like started screaming. Why do I do this? Why do I do this? I am always give up myself. I know I’ve got more into take I’ve given up on my family. I’ve given up on my life. I’ve given up on my my children and she just sat there just saw and I’m like, holy crud. I believe the same principles that it takes to become a world-class athlete are the same principles. It takes to become a real fast person. It’s a variety. It’s the same discipline. It’s the same stewardship. It’s the same.

It’s the same goal setting the same feeling you get when you when you you know, when you have a victory and success it plays so well with one another that you don’t have to identify yourself as an addict. That’s the reason I’m not a fan of the 12 steps. I don’t let my athletes identify themselves as addicts. They it’s a part of them but it’s not who they are. Their their fathers. Their brothers are Scholars are artists. They’re athletes India there a dog. It’s a part of them and so moving from one to another means that you no longer have to identify with that. It’s now part two of your totem pole at your building up and it’s it’s birth inspire me, you know, I I’m you’re on the verge of tears. I am too right now this you’ve mirrored my journey exactly which was you know, during my own weight loss journey. I had to reframe it. I didn’t set out to lose a hundred ten pounds. I set out to lose five pounds. Like if I figured I’d lose 5 in and we’ll see kind of how this goes and I lost five and you know, you eventually get to a point when the when the Cravings home.

So strong, right and believe me I have had those days where yeah, it was all I could think about and I would just say look if I could just get through the next 15 minutes. I’m going to be okay with you focus on the one minute number one and then you worry about minute number two and then worry about minute number three and I’m telling you it is not easy. I mean it takes everything you have to get through that and eventually get to a point where I don’t have to focus on it by the minute. You can do it by the hour if I can just get through the next hour without caving I’m going to be okay and then you get to a point where you can do it by the day. I only have to do this for today and then I’m going to be okay, you know people ask me all the time. How do you how do you run five miles every single day? Like, how do you do that? I’m like, I don’t have to run five miles a day. I only have to run five miles today. That’s it and not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is a whole different problem for me. I’ll figure it out then but for now, my only problem is five miles today, and you know what blue I’ve been there in marathons to where I say continue in Marathon wage.

Not really you I’m at mild eighteen and you’re and you’re done in the tank is empty and you don’t know what you’re going to do. But but you didn’t come that far wage only get that far, right and the weight loss Journey works the same way. You did not come this far to only get this far and I got to tell you who have had that talk in my head where I’ve said. You know, what all I have to do is take 10 more steps. If I can just get ten more steps, then I’ll allow myself to quit and you know what when you get through those next ten steps you go. I might have ten more in me. I might be able to do ten more and you do 10 a.m. And guess what? There’s another 10 in there somewhere and you keep doing that and pretty soon you’ve gone twenty six miles and it’s pretty freaking amazed ultramarathons that way of just like I’ve got to run back that bush. Right? Right, but if you focus on the ultra-marathon, you know, these Hundred Mile races, whatever it is, they’re impossibly pure static. I have never stood on the starting line of a marathon and thought

And do this not once and I’ve completed 16 of them, but I tell you all you have to do is worry about the next couple of steps. That’s it part of that process is that most of the athletes specifically on the team where they start doing this they’re always afraid of coming in last and cheese, you know emotional. I tell you what coming in last just coming in. That’s it. You know what I mean? It’s it’s the best and what I’ve noticed is this kind of like on T minute athlete no one ever finishes alone. And the reason why is because once an athlete finishes they go back out for the next person in their Jersey. And once they see your team, they run that person and pretty soon by the time the race is over your whoever’s last you’ll never know because the team surrounds them and it was something just naturally they did before no one was ever afraid that they were going to come in last. In fact the exact opposite happened to one of my races where I had a an athlete who was very good and we were able to right at the Inception of birth.

Athlete and he was we were doing a 5K in Salt Lake and I’m watching and and I see his name is Brandon Brandon pops round and he’s going to win and I’m like, holy crap. One of my athletes is going to win. I’m freaking out and I see Brandon. Wait a 5k. Yeah. All right. Now I want I want to point I’ve 125k before and it was it was hard like most people are fast. That is so cool off. This was the third race since we started and I’m like, this is the coolest thing ever. It’s like downtown Galvin Plaza. I’m freaking out and I stopped and I see him and I’ll sudden he stops and he goes down to like tie issue and I’m like screaming Brandon flipping run. What are you doing and someone popped on the corner and passes him and then and then I’m like as he hurt and that guy finishes another person another month after the third person passed to me caught up in the kind of jogged in and I’m like dude. What was that? And he said you saw me like, yeah, we all saw you can you hear us yelling at you home?

He hung his head Brian and I’ll never forget this.

He said I didn’t want to win because it didn’t think anyone would believe me. I thought I would cheat because that was his mindset as someone who struggle with addiction. He thought that God no one’s going to believe me. So I better not win this and I’m like if you ever do that again, I will drag you across the finish line by your ears restore and it blew me away that he was so dead in his head like we all get some times that we think, you know, as anybody really going to believe this and that’s that’s the funny thing is diction does is that it tells us that we’re not good and it tells us that we don’t deserve and it tells us that we’re we off and release the opposite people who overcome this other most amazing powerful people that walk the face of the Earth. There’s nothing to be ashamed about. You know, I I really agree with that. I thought wow, I want to I want to slightly reframe this a little bit because one of the other reasons that I love your your focus on the athletes side of this is because we’ve talked a little bit off.

It was actually the last podcast that we did where we talked about weight maintenance and the key to maintenance and of course you deal with this too, right? Because that’s the whole point of addiction is maintaining, you know, this new life that you’ve created for yourself and it’s really hard and I think I don’t think a lot of people realize just how difficult that really convey and we’ve looked at the science on it and and and your message of you know, you’ve gotta you’ve gotta you’ve was it off something replaced erase and replace. Yes. So so for for me running was the erase and replace it was very accidental. I was not coached through that I got I’m not afraid to say I got a very lucky that I discovered it more or less on my own because I I don’t know that I could have figured it out any other way or figured out just how important it was but the science behind this is super interesting down. There are very few topics that have been studied more than the science of weight loss in the science of weight maintenance, but what they’ve discovered is that 95% of all people home

Just a significant amount of weight will gain it all back within one to two years. That’s a sobering statistic. That’s a that’s a that’s a powerfully demotivating statistic for people who are doing this but they may be the best part of this is that the 5% who are the exceptions all have one thing in common and I’m curious if you’ve if you want to take a guess at what it is based on based on your record if you get off to make funny, but but but I bet you can guess what it is. No because I would say it would be similar to to kind of how I say is that there’s a difference between your mindset and not belief system home most of the time when people get into those kind of a long-term sobriety and they have a relapse we call the slips varieties as a purpose. So what I teach is that if that happens that means you’ve lost your purpose. You must you’ve lost why you did it out first place. I love that. Yeah. That’s actually that’s probably a better answer than the real answer and and I know it you’re embracing the correct answer which is that the 5% who manages

Keep it off actually do at least I believe it’s a hundred twenty minutes of exercise per week dedicated exercise. And the reason that that’s so important is because it home serves as that erase and replace and it also serves as a reminder. Nobody wants to go out and do a really hard workout for an hour only to erase it by eating a cookie. I mean what what a dumb wrong word for working your butt off for an hour, right? So I you know what? I mean. I mean, I can’t think of a worse thing to earn for the amount of work that it takes to to to do this and I but I think it also serves as a reminder of not wanting to go back to what what it was before because you you get to embrace what you’re capable of right and for me that’s that’s a celebration every time I run honestly bad burn good run. Whatever it is. I feel this sort of celebration of look what I can do now, like like look what I’m doing. I’m forty-one of my 42. Look what I’m doing out here and and nobody wants a dog.

Through that up with you know with with break, you know, I don’t want to break that right? Yeah. Yeah, that’s the key is it’s that lifestyle change, you know, like a lot of people off, you know, we we we don’t teach the whole once an addict always an addict. We don’t I have our athletes identify as addicts because that keeps people in that negative mindset that yeah, there there for em. This is a disease, they’ll never be able to fix it. They’ll never be able to cure it addiction will be chasing them right behind them the rest of their life and that is a horrible way to think right sobering thought to just I mean to me I don’t understand how that could be talked about talking about feeling like you just got handed a life sentence right? Like exactly locked up throw away the key this is you forever right home and you being able to maintain like you’re saying is doing exercise that’s just changing the lifestyle so that why it’s what you said. I began started changing my life.

So that obesity or being overweight didn’t fix fit into my lifestyle. There you go. And that will not fit into a lifestyle of somebody who is fit and exercising and she covering I love it so erase and replace but the replace needs to be something that is just mutually incompatible with your old self. Right right and multiple things. It can’t just be one if you just recently replace your addiction and you’re back where you and I will tell you the other piece of that for me is way too itself, right? I am running away today is mutually incompatible for me to going back to who I was I mean, I I would I can’t I would feel like the biggest fraud ever right if I’m with you the same feeling here. Absolutely. So that’s why we talked about turning your mess to message. Every person is listening to this has a story that has the power to inspire. We just got to get out there and talk about it. That’s why when the athletes where their addict to athlete Jersey when they first were dumb like you guys there’s a thing called anonymity or not supposed to Thursday.

About this stuff and then they don’t care we want to talk about to everybody because you know, we feel the power behind it. And so they did and so we’re not Anonymous and I found out that that has helped with so many people because it’s deer walking Embassy of recovery people people identify it now. I love the fish named of I love it Jared we have any questions that have come in that we want to fire in a yeah, I have someone earlier. Let me find it real quick, which I thought was interesting to hear. It is Naomi was asking about there’s a line between addiction and Nostalgia for example on compact giving chicken soup when you’re feeling sick, you know that pattern where we do things that feel good to soothe us because of a genetic thing is

Yeah, okay. All right. So so the you know, the the traditional holiday treat is is that is that an addiction or is that something completely different actually really good question. It kind of depends on on again. You gotta know yourself and to know where that’s coming from. Typically it was funny cuz I didn’t realize this until Marissa pointed out when our kids were small whenever my kid would get injured the first thing I would be like, oh, hey, let’s put some bandages on that. Let’s get it picked up and let’s go have some ice. I was just going to say and go get you some ice cream. Yep. Yeah, and I was like whoa. Whoa and I’m like what like, you know, this did not hear them up. Like we can’t do that because if we do that they’re going to think pain equals pleasure and go to and I’m like whoo. So so there lies there lies the problem The Nostalgia Factor, right? I mean, I would say be very cautious with that kind of stuff. Maybe maybe try a replacement and the reason why is because once you start putting, you know, that that pattern into it you can log

You can have a holiday every day, you know, it’s true, you know, you’re literally draining your kids that if if they get in trouble holster. Yeah said if we can I only drink on holidays in every day 365 days a year was a holiday somewhere, right and I’m like hm. So yeah, we gotta be careful with that. I think it’s what he said before. It’s why are you doing it? What is it behind it? Is it you know, because it reminds you of someone and that’s just a happy good feeling or is it then you’re also eating the entire pie because it’s all the memories and the yummy and the truth, you know, yungeen couple years ago. You can eat your good thoughts feelings. And your bad feelings is what you’re saying, you know years ago we go to Costco, you know, those those pumpkin pies are like the size of like, you know car tires and I’m like, oh, yeah you would you would you just say that softer and lower form a way. You have a little moment together here. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I know that. I’m thinking I’m going to put I’m going to punish. This thing are flipping dog eat the whole thing get a home that are golden retrievers like is like dead.

And come back and it’s gone. I’m like what the heck but it was so funny cuz I thought I did I buy that in the first place. I shouldn’t be I’m allergic to eggs. And dairy. I can’t have it makes me violently ill but I’m like I can walk around all the bad stuff. Right? Sure. Just pick out the dairy. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know and it was kind of funny. So now we’re like every time we see it as much as I want like the dogs just going to flip the meat it so we had to pull that Nostalgia out of that. And the thing is too you don’t want to punish yourself. You know that discipline comes into play here. You can have you can have it just you rename what it means to you, you know, don’t make it a big to do but the thing that’s so crazy about about food addiction is that you absolutely can’t avoid it. We need to eat to live and not coaches say, you know, just just turn it in to feel feel fuel for your work outs and stuff monkey. Have you ever tasted some of these crap work? Look at fuel workout fuel is not dead.

Fun food. It’s really pretty gross actually turn it into fuel like you’re an idiot because I’m not I can’t do that. So actually I want to tell you I did at one point figure out how to walk to work out work Sour Patch Kids into my my workout fuel routine. Cuz I mean, I like candy right turns out for Sour Patch Kids is enough to fuel me for five miles, like know it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s absurdly like you can try to justify it all you want. It ain’t there. Yeah. Yeah it is. And and this is the thing. I mean you go back to again, you’ve got to pull back the layers and find out what’s driving it and you guys and telling us one of the hardest things you will ever do but it’s the most liberating and rewarding thing when you realize that it’s not just because it’s there. It’s because something connect you to that it’s your your drug of choice. And so it’s hard and it hurts but only hurts because you care love about love yourself and you’re you’re worth doing this the soul.

Teaching most people don’t spend time doing it. So self-awareness is so huge and you know recovery and long-term recovery being able to identify feelings that you’re having in life and thoughts you’re having and why and then what the behaviors are next. It’s to me. That’s like the number one key to really long term recovery that people say is being able to be self-aware and change the behaviors. Yeah or address the thoughts and the painful feelings in healthy more appropriate ways when they come beautiful. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome answer I have a why don’t you fire this one in here interesting question iPhone put this in there. I thought yeah, I love that guy talks about genetics and addiction. For example. I know that my father had said that we have alcoholism in our family lineage so that I’m more prone no,

To be an alcoholic because of that. Is there any truth to that? Yeah there is but you also have to understand that there’s a lot of substances that can fill that void other than alcohol. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold on. Are you saying that if if so so a tendency to addiction is genetic did I hear that? Right? Yeah, Tennessee. That doesn’t mean that you know, anybody can obviously do this but there are Tendencies there and then you followed that up with something that I want to make sure I highlight this. Yeah alcohol doesn’t necessarily if you have a genetic tendency to be an alcoholic. It may be better to say you have a genetic tendency to be addicted to things. Is that okay? All right percent. So don’t just avoid alcohol like you may have to recognize that there’s a bigger issue here right impulse and I wish there was I wish we could identify that back in genetic coding that’s like you can never drink alcohol, but you have to or just avoid the ones that are you know, just avoid the pink alcohols and you’ll be fine all the other ones. Yeah. Okay, right, you know this what is sugar break down into yeah. Yep.

Yeah, I’m with you and sugar breaks down into alcohol. It’s the same pieces in chemical components. And so it’s one of those things it’s the same dopamine release too. So you’re right if there’s an addiction to to that then you’re going to be you’re going to tend to Crave other things that cause the dopamine release as well. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, okay tend to have like addictions towards depressed and it’s like like alcohol marijuana THC those things. They have a very high addiction to carbs and sugars and things of that nature to it’s very it’s very interesting. So you can’t let that be a masked if I can never drink but I can definitely go have as much kick as I want. It’s just it’s the city lights up the same place as that’s an interesting segue into another question that came from someone who’s as looked, you know, if I even have one bite of sugar like the monster is Unleashed and I will box Troy a bakery, right? What? What do you what advice do you give to somebody like that? Just just just is it really just as simple as the same advice you would give to an alcoholic which is you gotta stay away like wage.

A problem for you stay away or is there is there another way to approach that? Yeah, you know mindfulness. I was at a conference once where I was with a buddy of mine and we went out to eat and wash the dishes had like the the the sauce or something had some kind of wine alcohol in it. And he asked the waiter. He said hey, can you not put this on in the guy at the waiters? Like know the cooks kind of partial the way does things not gonna change it and he dead seriously in Derek. He looks at this guy and he says do you know that if one molecule of alcohol attaches to one of my brain receptors? I’m a dead man. He said if I if I made you a dinner with Arsenic and I told you don’t worry, it’ll burn off. Would you still eat it? He’s like I can go talk to the chef. I’m like have any orders something else with that? He’s being a jerk but like oh, but it’s not thought was kind of interesting where I’m like makes a lot of sense cuz if one molecule survive, so so what it do anything, I don’t I don’t think so, but it’s it’s not it’s not the molecule. It’s your mindset to it as well.

Well because but I think if somebody said in this is real, right, like if I have peanut butter, I’ll die. Well, it’s pretty frigging easy to stay away from peanut butter. Right? Absolutely. And you know, no you don’t know very many people with that whole problem who just sit there and crave peanut butter. They’re just like like I can’t have it. Like it’s it’s just not an option just not an option right you can you can do that. But again are they being they being genuine when they say in a 1-1 granular sugar and it’s on like, you know, I don’t know I say, I can’t answer that actually don’t know what your self self awareness of okay, what’s going to kick it say you owe I want another bite and another bite and another day you go. Well, this is the you have to look at that. This is the Jeep meal turns into a cheat day turns into a cheat weekend turns into forget it this isn’t worth it. Anyway just going to go back to you know doing what I want to do right Brian. I have a question for you. Why do we call them cheat dates and cheat meal? Because when it does it kind of says, hey, we’re sneaky. We can get a little cheat in there. You know, I’d like that. In fact, it’s funny you say that wage.

Cuz if you I tell people as part of the program that the cheat meal is actually important, but you may make a solid point there, which is I need to stop calling it that for for for two reasons one. You’re right. We’re if it’s along it’s not cheating right and to the way we structure cheat meals are exactly that they’re structured right? They are planned. They have rules they have boundaries, but you’re allowed to order something that one time during the week that you weren’t allowed to do for the other, you know for the other meals, but that doesn’t necessary but you’re not cheating right because it’s allowed it’s planned. Yeah, that’s a very interesting observation Jared. We had a we had a chat Christopher don’t know if you’re on or not. We had a chat about possibly changing the name of that. Yeah. No, it’s it’s it’s actually a valid observation. You know, I cheated quite a bit when my kids brought home their their home and back juror days after so it’s like yeah words are so powerful really are they really are and how we how we explain things how we talk to ourselves. This is great. I’m changing. I’m not going to call log.

Email anymore actually bonus mail or something. Let’s pack that’s probably what I’ll call it is like a bonus meal know it’s you’re you’re making a very solid Point here, which is stop calling it that so that it doesn’t feel that way. I will say you had me concerned because when I had done my first-ever 5K I said, I’m going to break keto for the first time since I started after I run my 5K I’m getting on an airplane. I’m going to Disneyland and I’m getting the the Red Bull clam chowder. I was like that is going to be my reward for doing the 5K and then I went right back. You know, I said I’m going to sacrifice being kicked out of ketosis for three days. It’s worth it to me but Blues, right? It can be called a cheat if you if it was intentional, right? It was part of the program i setting myself the wrong reward system like we were talking earlier and I’m glad this got brought up when we were talking about soup when you’re feeling sick berth or you know, the pumpkin pie on on Thanksgiving, you know, so I’m glad that got brought up cuz I was like, oh no did I do a bad thing? Yeah. Well, I think yeah the reward system down.

Like external rewards are things like that like you get to go and have that extra bonus meal or you get to go buy a new pair of pants when you work down and get to that. Okay, those external rewards are very important and very motivational to work towards but if it does not switch at some point to internal motivation external is fleeting. It’s just like motivation it’s going to come but then it will go and if you are always on the lookout for well, if I do this, then I’ll go buy this if I do this and I’ll go buy this if it doesn’t start going to the internal of I’m doing this and while I’m proud of myself and I feel good after it and I’m you know, my confidence is raised then you’re you’re going to be in trouble long term that you guys are you guys are really really reframing the way I’m thinking about all of this. So which means I know for sure you’re reframing the way most of our group thinks about this and this is I mean, I’m in, Georgia

To be grateful to you guys. I have I have two more questions for you. Just really briefly. The first one is one of our long-time members is just kind of looking for some self-help suggestions feeling like, you know going to actual real counseling is out of the question and I’m not sure I disagree with that. You know what I mean? I think there’s there’s a there’s a line that’s crossed. When you start to say, I’m going to start going to counseling think a lot of people may not necessarily need that level of help. What what do you recommend for that? I mean, your organization obviously is perfect for this right because you can kind of dip your toe into this and and and do it. What is that? Is that the right start off for somebody who’s in that position? It’s a great starting point. And that’s the reason why we started out of deadly like versus said we own our own Residential Treatment Center for people that had like like hardcore addictions and took out of it because of how how I’m going to I’m going to say Sinister it was you gotta if you’re going to ever do Council, you’ve got to find someone that matches and you gel with because if not, you’ll never have that that wrong.

Friendship connection, but the other part of that too is is that a lot of times you can do this stuff with the right support system. That’s why the team I think works so well, so, you know, there’s a lot of stuff that you can do on your own so to speak, you know, I mean joining the team getting to know people the cool part about addict to athlete is we don’t care about what anyone’s using it doesn’t matter. We have suggested many people that don’t have any addictions at all that come because they have a loved one that struggles we call them the whole say that one more time for I want you to say that one more time for me. You have people join why it’s just because they have a loved one that struggles. I hope that’s yes. Yes. I love that. I love that are Muggles. So you’d never know what you call them Muggles. I love that. Okay, we still allow. Yeah, but she is is instead of like JK Rowling were kidding. Please don’t sue us Al-Anon instead of splitting people. We bring them together so they can learn from one another and the more I’m finding out about Alan on the more. I’m just you know, that’s a whole other podcast birth.

Don’t go there. All right, but like, you know, I’m telling you so we bring those people together. So it doesn’t matter. No one. No one says hello. I’m blue. I’m an addict alcoholic for fifteen years. We don’t do that. And the reason why is because we capitalize on the positive aspects of of who you are and the principles behind becoming, you know, an athlete even if you’re what we call the beautiful people who just walk the courses. I love that. Yeah Weightix to take it easy way to start a meeting by punching yourself in the face for the mistakes. You’ve made right? Yeah. I know it’s amazing and and literally because we have our younger kids. We have 18 years and younger group. We call them the major league they come with their parents and now the family Star Trek reading and healing together and I’ve never seen something works so well, and so if you’re if you’re nervous or Counseling doesn’t fit into into your Parish join a support group like this that’s got the positive motivation that can capitalize on helping you erase and replace and move forward. There’s a lot of free content on birth.

Free self-help, you know online you can Google and and if you usually work through really well get that support get the team around you you know, who is your system there your family and your life then if it’s not working, you’re still struggling then maybe looking into professional help like blue said we owned a treatment center and it just became people were mortgaging their homes and so much damage and then it was just relapsed they’d come damage upon damage on damaged and just repeating it and it’s just like there’s got to be and that’s what we’re trying to do is create more affordable ways. Just like you’re doing with way techs affordable ways to get healthy affordable ways to get clean that people can do without. You know, you don’t want to be a stick addicted to the addiction treatment. In other words. It happens happens. A lot of institutionalized. You shouldn’t have to go bankrupt to get help. That’s how we feel you. Are you are singing my song my friend one fine girl.

Question for you. And actually this is kind of a little bit of out of left field, but I think it’s a really good question when you’re on a weight loss Journey measuring your progress is super easy, right and you know as much as we all hate the scale and as much as I am ill of using the scale as your measure of progress, unfortunately, it’s it’s the best we have for for most people in terms of you know, how do I know? I’m headed in the right direction. What do you how do you measure progress on a on an addiction Journey? How do you know you’re getting better? Kind of funny? I love this. I can’t like it’s kind of like the theory of the Gap. I feel like we are always kind of in the Gap and so it’s kind of interesting. We don’t have people count sobriety days with us because we wanted to become a way of life. So we don’t we don’t celebrate, you know, clean time. It’s like I’ve been cleaning out cuz I wanted a little video off this I’ve been clean for like, what was it like 10,000 something day. It was insane and I’m like, there’s no way I could keep track of I suck at math. And so what we do is call the theory of the Gap and what it is is dead.

We kind of teach are the folks we work with to to stop to stop thinking about like how far you’re going but to look in to go to the Horizon and the funny thing is once you hit the where you think the Horizon is, what should reach it it flip and moves. You don’t have to tell me that they’re yeah, what you can do is turn around and see how far you’ve come. So instead of counting days. We count Milestones. It’s like do you remember the first time I dated? I bought your first 5k you remember that like it was yesterday or the time that you had a success? And so instead of doing that. We just say look how far I’ve come turn around and see how far you’ve come as you’re moving to the Horizon. The thing is is you’ll always be in the middle. I love that answer. Yeah, there’s always there’s always more to accomplish but there’s always an infinite number of things that you have accomplished. Absolutely. What are platypus you start feeling like you’re getting complacent switch your Trails, you know, start still maybe maybe stretch yourself. So instead of just doing the races. How about you start your own podcast or how about you start speaking? How about you log?

Writing a book. How about you start helping turn that mess into a message because like you said, right you’d be a hypocrite if you decided to go back to your old ways as would I and so it’s like that helps that motivation every one of the folks here have the power to inspire start sharing your story get it out. There. It helps motivate you I love this and and I want to know I can tell by the reaction in the zoom Windows also in my own private chat that not everybody is seeing people are grateful blue. They’re they’re they’re immensely grateful for your time to take that. You’ve that you spent here. I’m grateful. These are these are the kinds of things that I can get to do for people and you’re volunteering your time you your this is this is this is what you do and and and this is one of the reasons you you guys are heroes of mine off blue. How do people find you you have Facebook page. First of all, let’s start with that. How do they find that holy cow Marissa has like just blisters. It was social media on every social media platform addict to athlete is what you served.

Or it’ll exactly Instagram LinkedIn tiktok. Well, well, right even you guys have you guys have a podcast? How do people find that? Yeah. So almost every platform Apple podcasts on Stitcher Spotify. Our website has links to all of those as well. Which ever one where you listen we have we have professional, you know athletes have been our podcast when we have like some of the own athletes we have that have just inspired us. We’ve got Brian on our podcast. We have a lot of variety so that it’s not just about drugs and alcohol. In fact, I’m very rarely where you will you hear a podcast on drugs and alcohol. It’s about it’s about the life changes. I will I will confirm that your podcast is one of the most underrated ones on iTunes in my opinion and I I say that from a place of love. I know, you know, it’s an immensely difficult to get you know, iTunes ratings and things like that, but but there are some real real hidden gems wage.

In the in the iTunes podcast World in your podcast is a plus material. It is absolutely phenomenal. It is phenomenal is the minor league the eighteen years younger group. I have a minor here my daughter Savannah. She’s fifteen and I’ll tell you I mean I’ll get emotional again. If you really want to know what your kids are thinking and how they’re doing through all of this go listen to the minor league podcast because my daughter’s got a very interesting perspective. How old is she again the podcast? Oh, that is so cool. Yeah, we get a lot of questions on the way to decide from you know, parents are trying to figure out how to help teens through these problems as well. So so we do a lot of just mental health and things to every Wednesday night. We do a college show called one-on-one coaching blue and anyone can call in. It can be questions about addiction. It can be questions about mental health parenting can be vacation and we try to get on those and there’s a link on our our website.

Under resources, and I think it’s recovery tools, but we also go and that’s just a zoom link, but we try to share it never everywhere else and we go Facebook live and on zoom and a long time and I will have a nap together. We can give it to all your we’re going to we’re going to work on it for sure. All right website is addict to athlete. Org and, perfect. So I might and there are piles of resources on this website. And I’ve I’ve been monkeying with it this most of this conversation we’ve had there is a lot here in cluding information on how you can get involved with the the in-person meetups that you guys do which I have been involved with briefly and found them incredibly interesting and useful. So everyone I this is a topic that that comes up constantly. I feel like you’ve had an opportunity to hear from two of the world’s leading experts in this which is not something that wage.

Get to do very often on this podcast blue and Versa. Thank you Jared. Thank you as well for joining us. I really appreciate it. And please check out the resources that these guys offer because I think almost everyone who’s struggling with a weight loss Journey. If you’re struggling with the journey, there are resources here that I think can really help you. So thank you everybody appreciate it and down. Thanks for joining the podcast.