OUTWEIGH: Amy and Leanne are back for our final episode of this series where they dive deep into the science of (what feels like) food 'addiction' within your own brain. They'll explore the role of the ACC, your "social brain," and its powerful need for oxytocin, the love and connection hormone. Learn why your brain might crave sugar, Netflix, or other "drugs" when it's really seeking deeper connection. This episode dismantles the myth of willpower and exposes the emotional root of your struggles. Discover how to replace the "fake connection" with genuine connection and emotional support, leading you towards lasting change and true nourishment for your soul.
HOSTS:
Amy Brown // RadioAmy.com // @RadioAmy
Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
To learn more about re-wiring your brain to heal from the all-or-nothing diet mentality for good....but WITHOUT restricting yourself, punishing your body, (and definitely WITHOUT ever having to use words like macros, low-carb, or calorie burn) check out Leanne's FREE Stressless Eating Webinar @ www.StresslessEating.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning to love who I am.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
A gat, I'm strong, I feel free, I know every
part of me.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And that will always out way if you feel it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But your here, She'll some love to the mood. Why
get there?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Take you one day and did you and die out way?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Happy Saturday outwait Amy here and I'm here with Leanne Ellington.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hello, Hello, And that says part five of BFB.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
And kind of the joke every week is that I
can't say binge free brain, So I just been calling
it BFB because I kept going brain free binge. But
something that just clicked for me was that if you
say it that way, it sort of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Now go with me on this.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, because you're sort of living brain free in a bridge.
You're not in a bitch excuse me, like you're not
there's no awareness awareness for sure. So you're you're not
tapping and you're you're like free in your brain.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah. And then when you teach your brain this new pattern,
your brain does the heavy lifting for you and you
don't have to use that brain space to think about it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So now you're brain free. I just wanted to brain
for other things.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
That's how I've been saying. It actually works. You are
a justified sister.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It works.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It may be a stretch, but really what it is
is the binge free brain, and we've been walking through it.
If you miss parts one through four, we'll go back
and listen to those because they all tie into each other,
and we're wrapping with more of the ACC. We're going
to talk more about the addiction side of our brain,
and we spent some time on the ACC last Saturday,
(01:46):
so go listen to that as well, But start with
the disclaimer because I feel like this is a massive
topic for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, just disclaiming like this is a massive topic, and
I'm not here to claim that this podcast episode is
going to be enough to heal decades of food and
body strug but also really reconcile anything that feels like
addiction or close to addiction. But we talked about in
part two of this where one of the beliefs that
comes up alongside binge eating and the kind of binge
restrict cycle is oh, I'm just an addict and we
(02:13):
feel this compulsion and so one of the things that
really you know, going down the rabbit hole of the ACC,
because we talked about how this is a big component.
This is where your self image lives, This is where
your emotional pain center really and physiological pain receptors live.
They live in other parts of the brain, but a
large majority live in the ACC that anterior cingulate cortex.
But also when it comes to this addiction piece of
(02:35):
the puzzle, this is an ACC thing as well. And
when I say addiction, I'm really putting it in air quotes,
because as I mentioned on part two, I believe that
for my experience, at least it was acknowledging that no,
I wasn't actually addicted to sugar. I was practicing a
recipe of thoughts and beliefs and behaviors that were causing
me to use sugar addictively and in turn feel like
(02:55):
an addict.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
But there is a way to practice using it.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Non addictively, because the other side of it, too is
like I don't want you all to ever feel like
you can't have sugar and miss out on the joys
of life and all of that. But also it doesn't
have to be this abstinence conversation where you can use
it as sugar. Right, this is a massive topic, but
to understand, help you understand a little bit more about
why you do what you do and really bringing it
(03:19):
back to Okay, this is not me being weak willed
or there's something wrong with me, but this is an
ACC thing and I can really hinpoint where in my
brain this kind of went awry, So we'll just go
ahead and dive on in. And by the way too,
like we're gonna be talking about sugar as an example,
but maybe you're numbed out on Netflix, maybe you feel
like you can't stop scrolling on social media. Right, these
(03:40):
same ACC principles shopping, yeah, online shopping, all of it,
these same principles reflect that in your brain as well.
So basically, you know, anything can be a tool or
a weapon, and we'll just stick with the sugar example.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Sugar can be a tool of pleasure.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And connection and all of those things, or it can
be a weapon of numbing out, distraction, filling voids that
sugar was never meant to fill all of those things.
But what's happening is in the ACC. Okay, because you're
a human and if you're listening to this and you're
a woman, your ACC is bigger and more active than
it is in men. But your brain, your ACC requires connection.
(04:14):
That's one of the c's of ACC. It requires to
be connected, both feeling connected to yourself but then also
feeling connected to others. Right, and so when you experience
that connection, your brain elicits oxytocin. It's the safety hormone,
it's the connection hormone. Okay, but what's happening is instead
of giving ourselves oxytocin, and we are living in a
(04:34):
world where we are perpetually disconnected from ourselves and perpetually
disconnected from others. Instead, in those moments when we our
brain is telling us that we need oxytocin or we
need connection, we're actually feeding it dopamine. We're giving it
mindless TV, web scrolling, online shopping, compulsive anything. It's really
activities that numb or distract our brain. Right, It's that
over filling it with dopamine. And so instead of giving
(04:57):
it that oxytocin, which it's really crazy, we're giving it
endless amounts of the air quotes high itself, we're giving
it endless amounts of dopamine. And so we're creating a
dopamine serotonin payoff. When our brain is literally like knocking
us on the shoulder saying give me oxytocin, it's really
craving connection, either to ourselves or to others. And this is,
by the way, when you're not hungry, and so our
(05:20):
social brain our acc it's hungry for oxytocin, but we're
overfeeding it with dopamine. So that's why you might eat
an entire bag of chips or an entire bag of hookies,
and you're like, why am I back in the kitchen?
Why do I still feel this emptiness or this hunger,
But I'm not physiologically hungry. You're almost like emotionally hungry.
It's because you're overfed with dopamine, but you're still undernourished
(05:42):
with oxytocin. Your brain still hasn't gotten what it's looking for,
so it's just this endless gap, this endless hole.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
So in turn, accidentally, we're feeding loneliness and stress and
sadness and boredom with fake connection, with TV, with sugar,
with netflix, with things that will never filled, the voids
of boredom, comfort, sadness, loneliness, isolation, all of those things.
And so again, we're perpetually remaining overfed but undernourished with
(06:10):
the one thing our brain is like screaming at us
to get right connection exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
So is that why in certain recovery programs a higher
power is always connected?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah? Absolutely, because the other side of it.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, for me, I guess for most people would say, Okay,
it's a relationship with God, whatever that may be. But
I remember being in a one particular meeting, but they
were like, I don't care if your higher power is
the tree, yeah over there, let it be something.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah like that.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I guess they were just driving home the point that
like something has to be bigger than you that you
were connecting to on a daily basis to have purpose, hope, direction.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Absolutely, stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, And we went into depth in this on the
self imaging conversation. But part of it is like, at
the end of the day, if all you're doing is
valuing and chasing after bank balance a scale size, friends
on Facebook whatever it is, and it's these like kind
of worldly I just aged my niece would be like
facebooks for old people.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
But I mean Facebook. Note that we have all ages,
I mean Facebook generation. I also had a cassette player
when I was younger.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So it's all gonna say, I guess so that we're
you know, sort of hip. Yeah, say you know anywhere
from Facebook to TikTok there you go exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And the gram nap, yes, snaps chat nap is that's
still around.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, yeah, all the kids Okay, all the kids are
into that.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So so when we're chasing these worldly pursuits, it's going
to end up at the end of the day being
It's not that goals are bad, you know, but like,
if that's all we're doing to fill our purpose piece
of the puzzle, or our worthiness or value piece of
the puzzle, it's going to end up being empty and meaningless, right,
And that's why it's so important to root ourselves in
an identity that is bigger than us. And we talk
(07:49):
about that a lot on What's God Got to Do
with It podcast? And again, it's not making any of
those other things bad or wrong, it's just like it's
probably going to end up feeling empty and meaningless if
that's all that you're chasing. A lot of times, this
is what my clients come to is they're filling voids.
Oftentimes they're filling a spiritual void. There's filling an emotional void,
they're filling a social void with food, with Netflix. Maybe
(08:12):
it's a combination of all of it, and what they
come to they realize like.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It's never going to fill that void.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
There's something bigger that I'm desiring that's not of this world,
you know, or that's bigger than me, or that involves
purpose meaning value beyond these quantifiables that I've been chasing.
So yeah, it's a big part of it. That was
a big part of it for me, and that is
your social brain too. I actually go into that in
depth where the science meets the faith piece of the
(08:39):
puzzle in an episode of What's God Got to Do
with It? But that's a big acc piece of it
as well. There's actual scientific studies that showIn that yeah.
So that way people can just s yeah, there's a
big yeah, because that's where my skeptic and cynical brain
needed to see the research as well.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Because that was a big leap for me as well.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And that's actually where a lot of this neuroscience stuff
at me in my faith brain because I realized that
I was trying to you know, out diet and outperform
my own inner cravings as well for just feeling lovable
and worthy and enough as I am. And again that's
the oxytocin piece of the puzzle. Like when you want
to feel connected, when you want to have purpose and
meaning and feel value and worth in your bones, not
(09:19):
just in your weight, that's never going to be filled
with dopamine.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
That is oxytocin.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
It's this heart, this safety, this connection, this emotional safety
hormone that can only be felt.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You can't feed it with the physical.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
It's an inner thing and that's an acc oxytocin void
that again we're trying to fill with food, and that's
what leaves us feeling overfed but undernourished.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And yeah, I think that there's so many times where
speaking of nourishment, I think on the actual nourishment side,
like what food has to offer. Yeah, I was so
undernourished And this is kind of totally flipping.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
The page a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
No, it's good, but I was so undernourished in things
that my body was really craving and needing because I
just didn't have the space because calorically it was being
filled with like so much stuff that was offering my
body nothing. Totally drive It's almost as if I'm picturing
right now in my head like a plant that needs water,
and I it's almost like I was, this is not it,
and I love diet coke. Okay, this is just me
(10:17):
giving you something to picture it.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Given diet coke to a plant.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Yeah, so like, picture this beautiful plant, like when you
are taking care of it and nurturing it, You're going
to water it accordingly with like water, But right now
I want you to picture like popping open like a leader.
Since we're talking about binging, might as well make it
a gallon whatever of diet coke and just dumping it
on the plants absolutely, like Okay, yeah, sure you're giving
(10:44):
it liquid in your way, but you're not giving it
what it needs. Therefore, the plant isn't going to function
at a high level. Or it may even kill over
and die the next day. And that's an extreme that's
not what's going to happen to us. But eventually it's
like a it is a slow burn, yeah death. I
remember even with the you know, we're talking specifically about binging,
(11:04):
you know, the last five episodes. But for me, there
was a part of my disordered eating, my eating disorder
journey where there was bleamy involved and it was a
slow suicide one hundred percent. Yeah, it was in one
of my mind's also that showed me that in She's like,
every time you participate in this behavior, it is a
(11:25):
very slow drip towards something that could ultimately kill you.
And so, yeah, it seems dramatic to like picture drowning
the plant and dit coke in it not being alive tomorrow,
but you're not really living when you're acting in this
way as well. And I don't want you to have
any shame around it at all, because there is hope.
(11:45):
You can't get out and you're not broken and nothing
is wrong with you. But once you do get to
healing street, like I'm picturing myself, like once I made
it to a more healed relationship with food, or once
I finally had that, I could start to make choices
that were actually nourishing to me. I could actually eat
something and know, wow, I actually feel better right now,
(12:07):
Like this is really good for my brain right now,
This is good for my kidney right now, This is
good for my liver, this is good for my heart.
Because foods do have that power. There's a reason why
there's certain nutrients and vitamins and minerals that fuel different
parts of our body. Like when you eat an avocado,
it does this, when you eat blueberries it does that.
(12:28):
Sometimes I would even binge on healthy foods, which was
not going to serve me.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You can have too much of a good thing as well.
If you overwater a plant with good water, it's not
going to be okay. And now I'm starting to really
be like, why did I do a diet coke and
plant analogy? But for no, I think it's great to
picture it like it was helpful to say you would
never go dump a diet coke on a plant.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You just found it in percon.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, And there's a flip side too, because on the
opposite of the binge cycle comes off in the restrict cycle.
And so if you're being carb phobic or fat phobic
or calorie phobic, a lot of our nutrients come from carbs,
plants and vegetables.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And meats, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
And so it's like, but when you're chasing air quotes
skinny or you're chasing air quotes lean, you're not chasing health.
You're not chasing vitality and nutrients and lurish vitality.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's good.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Vitality is such a good word, and I'm glad you
brought that back up because it circles back to my
original point of being when you're so lacking in nutrients,
you're going to chase anything and you're then you're in
this pattern of like, why don't I feel good?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Why don't I feel good? Why don't I feel good? Well,
you're not literally you're not giving your body.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Anything that it needs other than calories, because we do
need that. But then it's what type of calories? And
I will say, once you make it to recovery lane, yeah,
another good analogy, then you know you can start to
have a little bit like you can enjoy some of
those things that you used to not be able to.
But then there's no stress around that because.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
You're not feeling dangerous or you know, you're feel so
out of control. Absolutely, yeah, it's huge, And that's where
I mean, this isn't This could be another series on
its own, Like the definition of health needs to change
because I know, for me, healthy I thought was skinny,
healthy was lean, healthy was small, And oftentimes we're outvoting
health to chase those things, and we're avoiding nutrients not
knowingly or we're overeating nutrient deficient things. You know.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So it's this bigger.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Conversation, but you bring up such amazing points because these
are the things that we don't think about or we
don't talk about because there's so much shame.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
ACC ACC know me BMV the ACC. What's the acronym
you have for that? Again?
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Acceptance, connection, and care because that's what your brain is
really desiring. And it's oversimplified, but it's done on purpose
because if you're filling voids where you are just again
over fed but undernourished, your brain is screaming at you
to give it something that it really needs and it
will never be filled with food or Netflix or online shopping.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Okay, so ACC, pay attention to your ACC and your hippocampus.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yes, all of it.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Never forget your hippocampus because it will never forget you.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Wow, and tell me what what's the short term? It's
hip a campus, short and wrong.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Prefrontal cortex is going to be your short term yeah,
and it'll work on a short term yeah. And then
the basil ganglia is where like your long term memories live,
like where the long term habit. Brain Lives is the
basil ganglia.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And Leanne mentioned last week a program that she has
put together to accompany this five part series. So we're
going to be moving on from it, the BFB, but
if you want to continue your work with it, Land
has a special thing that she put together for everybody, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
And so you know, obviously full transparency disclaimer, this will
not magically heal decades of food and body struggles. But
if you do want to at least stop the floodgates
and really start the process of rewiring your brain and
really take back power from your acc that's doing its
own thing and filling voids of food or filling voids
in your brain that will never be filled with food.
Binge free brain is the perfect place to start. And
(15:57):
so we made it a no brainer by giving you
a discount code. And the discount code is just outway,
so we'll link that in the show notes and you can.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
He me and you put this together, and you were
thoughtful to do the code, because I want people to know,
like this is a gift from you, like you put
them together over.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
At Stressless Eeeding.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Okay, And I'm just making sure I was like, I
didn't thank you. This is great, this is I'm very
thankful for you putting in the extra effort to offer
this to people.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So Yeah, you can head on over to stresslesseding dot
com slash binge and you can find out all the
information about that and we'll link it in the show
notes as well, and then outweigh is the code to
get a super secret Ninja discount code for it.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, and we touched on this last week, but just
having skin in the game when you're committing time to
something and money, because we're not here to sell anything
or land, certainly not.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
In fact, she was like, are you sure it's okay
if I say this.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Like she was very sensitive to that, and I appreciated that.
But even I know that there are times early on
in my recovery when I was investing in something my
time and my money, I was more And I think
last week you said, yeah, when you pay, you pay attention,
and so look at it that way. But also, this
is not something that you have to do at all,
(17:09):
but if you are able, I would encourage you to
check it out. And Leanne also has other free resources
on her website as well that don't cost anything, and
lean where else can.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
People find you? Leanne Ellington over on socials.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
There's a ton of free resource resources over on Stressless
Eating dot Com, including the free masterclass that walks you
through the exact strategy I walk my clients through to
help them turn off the part of their brain that's
obsessed with food and really get the healing process going.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And then What's God Got to Do with It?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Podcast we mentioned earlier and again that'll be in the
show notes and we will be back next Saturday. In
the meantime, in the coming week, I'll have a fifth
Thing episode with Kat coming out Therapy Cat, and then
four Things next Thursday.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
And Leanne when is What's God Got to Do with It?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Load up Tuesdays every Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Every Tuesday. Okay, so I'll go check that out. Okay,
Bye bye,
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning to love who I am.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
A gat, I'm strong, I feel free, I know every
part of me.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And that will always out way if you feel it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But your here, She'll some love to the mood. Why
get there?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Take you one day and did you and die out way?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Happy Saturday outwait Amy here and I'm here with Leanne Ellington.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Hello, Hello, And that says part five of BFB.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
And kind of the joke every week is that I
can't say binge free brain, So I just been calling
it BFB because I kept going brain free binge. But
something that just clicked for me was that if you
say it that way, it sort of makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Now go with me on this.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, because you're sort of living brain free in a bridge.
You're not in a bitch excuse me, like you're not
there's no awareness awareness for sure. So you're you're not
tapping and you're you're like free in your brain.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah. And then when you teach your brain this new pattern,
your brain does the heavy lifting for you and you
don't have to use that brain space to think about it.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So now you're brain free. I just wanted to brain
for other things.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
That's how I've been saying. It actually works. You are
a justified sister.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It works.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It may be a stretch, but really what it is
is the binge free brain, and we've been walking through it.
If you miss parts one through four, we'll go back
and listen to those because they all tie into each other,
and we're wrapping with more of the ACC. We're going
to talk more about the addiction side of our brain,
and we spent some time on the ACC last Saturday,
(01:46):
so go listen to that as well, But start with
the disclaimer because I feel like this is a massive
topic for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, just disclaiming like this is a massive topic, and
I'm not here to claim that this podcast episode is
going to be enough to heal decades of food and
body strug but also really reconcile anything that feels like
addiction or close to addiction. But we talked about in
part two of this where one of the beliefs that
comes up alongside binge eating and the kind of binge
restrict cycle is oh, I'm just an addict and we
(02:13):
feel this compulsion and so one of the things that
really you know, going down the rabbit hole of the ACC,
because we talked about how this is a big component.
This is where your self image lives, This is where
your emotional pain center really and physiological pain receptors live.
They live in other parts of the brain, but a
large majority live in the ACC that anterior cingulate cortex.
But also when it comes to this addiction piece of
(02:35):
the puzzle, this is an ACC thing as well. And
when I say addiction, I'm really putting it in air quotes,
because as I mentioned on part two, I believe that
for my experience, at least it was acknowledging that no,
I wasn't actually addicted to sugar. I was practicing a
recipe of thoughts and beliefs and behaviors that were causing
me to use sugar addictively and in turn feel like
(02:55):
an addict.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
But there is a way to practice using it.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Non addictively, because the other side of it, too is
like I don't want you all to ever feel like
you can't have sugar and miss out on the joys
of life and all of that. But also it doesn't
have to be this abstinence conversation where you can use
it as sugar. Right, this is a massive topic, but
to understand, help you understand a little bit more about
why you do what you do and really bringing it
(03:19):
back to Okay, this is not me being weak willed
or there's something wrong with me, but this is an
ACC thing and I can really hinpoint where in my
brain this kind of went awry, So we'll just go
ahead and dive on in. And by the way too,
like we're gonna be talking about sugar as an example,
but maybe you're numbed out on Netflix, maybe you feel
like you can't stop scrolling on social media. Right, these
(03:40):
same ACC principles shopping, yeah, online shopping, all of it,
these same principles reflect that in your brain as well.
So basically, you know, anything can be a tool or
a weapon, and we'll just stick with the sugar example.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Sugar can be a tool of pleasure.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And connection and all of those things, or it can
be a weapon of numbing out, distraction, filling voids that
sugar was never meant to fill all of those things.
But what's happening is in the ACC. Okay, because you're
a human and if you're listening to this and you're
a woman, your ACC is bigger and more active than
it is in men. But your brain, your ACC requires connection.
(04:14):
That's one of the c's of ACC. It requires to
be connected, both feeling connected to yourself but then also
feeling connected to others. Right, and so when you experience
that connection, your brain elicits oxytocin. It's the safety hormone,
it's the connection hormone. Okay, but what's happening is instead
of giving ourselves oxytocin, and we are living in a
(04:34):
world where we are perpetually disconnected from ourselves and perpetually
disconnected from others. Instead, in those moments when we our
brain is telling us that we need oxytocin or we
need connection, we're actually feeding it dopamine. We're giving it
mindless TV, web scrolling, online shopping, compulsive anything. It's really
activities that numb or distract our brain. Right, It's that
over filling it with dopamine. And so instead of giving
(04:57):
it that oxytocin, which it's really crazy, we're giving it
endless amounts of the air quotes high itself, we're giving
it endless amounts of dopamine. And so we're creating a
dopamine serotonin payoff. When our brain is literally like knocking
us on the shoulder saying give me oxytocin, it's really
craving connection, either to ourselves or to others. And this is,
by the way, when you're not hungry, and so our
(05:20):
social brain our acc it's hungry for oxytocin, but we're
overfeeding it with dopamine. So that's why you might eat
an entire bag of chips or an entire bag of hookies,
and you're like, why am I back in the kitchen?
Why do I still feel this emptiness or this hunger,
But I'm not physiologically hungry. You're almost like emotionally hungry.
It's because you're overfed with dopamine, but you're still undernourished
(05:42):
with oxytocin. Your brain still hasn't gotten what it's looking for,
so it's just this endless gap, this endless hole.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
So in turn, accidentally, we're feeding loneliness and stress and
sadness and boredom with fake connection, with TV, with sugar,
with netflix, with things that will never filled, the voids
of boredom, comfort, sadness, loneliness, isolation, all of those things.
And so again, we're perpetually remaining overfed but undernourished with
(06:10):
the one thing our brain is like screaming at us
to get right connection exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
So is that why in certain recovery programs a higher
power is always connected?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah? Absolutely, because the other side of it.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, for me, I guess for most people would say, Okay,
it's a relationship with God, whatever that may be. But
I remember being in a one particular meeting, but they
were like, I don't care if your higher power is
the tree, yeah over there, let it be something.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah like that.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I guess they were just driving home the point that
like something has to be bigger than you that you
were connecting to on a daily basis to have purpose, hope, direction.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Absolutely, stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, And we went into depth in this on the
self imaging conversation. But part of it is like, at
the end of the day, if all you're doing is
valuing and chasing after bank balance a scale size, friends
on Facebook whatever it is, and it's these like kind
of worldly I just aged my niece would be like
facebooks for old people.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
But I mean Facebook. Note that we have all ages,
I mean Facebook generation. I also had a cassette player
when I was younger.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So it's all gonna say, I guess so that we're
you know, sort of hip. Yeah, say you know anywhere
from Facebook to TikTok there you go exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And the gram nap, yes, snaps chat nap is that's
still around.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, yeah, all the kids Okay, all the kids are
into that.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So so when we're chasing these worldly pursuits, it's going
to end up at the end of the day being
It's not that goals are bad, you know, but like,
if that's all we're doing to fill our purpose piece
of the puzzle, or our worthiness or value piece of
the puzzle, it's going to end up being empty and meaningless, right,
And that's why it's so important to root ourselves in
an identity that is bigger than us. And we talk
(07:49):
about that a lot on What's God Got to Do
with It podcast? And again, it's not making any of
those other things bad or wrong, it's just like it's
probably going to end up feeling empty and meaningless if
that's all that you're chasing. A lot of times, this
is what my clients come to is they're filling voids.
Oftentimes they're filling a spiritual void. There's filling an emotional void,
they're filling a social void with food, with Netflix. Maybe
(08:12):
it's a combination of all of it, and what they
come to they realize like.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It's never going to fill that void.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
There's something bigger that I'm desiring that's not of this world,
you know, or that's bigger than me, or that involves
purpose meaning value beyond these quantifiables that I've been chasing.
So yeah, it's a big part of it. That was
a big part of it for me, and that is
your social brain too. I actually go into that in
depth where the science meets the faith piece of the
(08:39):
puzzle in an episode of What's God Got to Do
with It? But that's a big acc piece of it
as well. There's actual scientific studies that showIn that yeah.
So that way people can just s yeah, there's a
big yeah, because that's where my skeptic and cynical brain
needed to see the research as well.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Because that was a big leap for me as well.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
And that's actually where a lot of this neuroscience stuff
at me in my faith brain because I realized that
I was trying to you know, out diet and outperform
my own inner cravings as well for just feeling lovable
and worthy and enough as I am. And again that's
the oxytocin piece of the puzzle. Like when you want
to feel connected, when you want to have purpose and
meaning and feel value and worth in your bones, not
(09:19):
just in your weight, that's never going to be filled
with dopamine.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
That is oxytocin.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
It's this heart, this safety, this connection, this emotional safety
hormone that can only be felt.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
You can't feed it with the physical.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
It's an inner thing and that's an acc oxytocin void
that again we're trying to fill with food, and that's
what leaves us feeling overfed but undernourished.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And yeah, I think that there's so many times where
speaking of nourishment, I think on the actual nourishment side,
like what food has to offer. Yeah, I was so
undernourished And this is kind of totally flipping.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
The page a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
No, it's good, but I was so undernourished in things
that my body was really craving and needing because I
just didn't have the space because calorically it was being
filled with like so much stuff that was offering my
body nothing. Totally drive It's almost as if I'm picturing
right now in my head like a plant that needs water,
and I it's almost like I was, this is not it,
and I love diet coke. Okay, this is just me
(10:17):
giving you something to picture it.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Given diet coke to a plant.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Yeah, so like, picture this beautiful plant, like when you
are taking care of it and nurturing it, You're going
to water it accordingly with like water, But right now
I want you to picture like popping open like a leader.
Since we're talking about binging, might as well make it
a gallon whatever of diet coke and just dumping it
on the plants absolutely, like Okay, yeah, sure you're giving
(10:44):
it liquid in your way, but you're not giving it
what it needs. Therefore, the plant isn't going to function
at a high level. Or it may even kill over
and die the next day. And that's an extreme that's
not what's going to happen to us. But eventually it's
like a it is a slow burn, yeah death. I
remember even with the you know, we're talking specifically about binging,
(11:04):
you know, the last five episodes. But for me, there
was a part of my disordered eating, my eating disorder
journey where there was bleamy involved and it was a
slow suicide one hundred percent. Yeah, it was in one
of my mind's also that showed me that in She's like,
every time you participate in this behavior, it is a
(11:25):
very slow drip towards something that could ultimately kill you.
And so, yeah, it seems dramatic to like picture drowning
the plant and dit coke in it not being alive tomorrow,
but you're not really living when you're acting in this
way as well. And I don't want you to have
any shame around it at all, because there is hope.
(11:45):
You can't get out and you're not broken and nothing
is wrong with you. But once you do get to
healing street, like I'm picturing myself, like once I made
it to a more healed relationship with food, or once
I finally had that, I could start to make choices
that were actually nourishing to me. I could actually eat
something and know, wow, I actually feel better right now,
(12:07):
Like this is really good for my brain right now,
This is good for my kidney right now, This is
good for my liver, this is good for my heart.
Because foods do have that power. There's a reason why
there's certain nutrients and vitamins and minerals that fuel different
parts of our body. Like when you eat an avocado,
it does this, when you eat blueberries it does that.
(12:28):
Sometimes I would even binge on healthy foods, which was
not going to serve me.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Well.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
You can have too much of a good thing as well.
If you overwater a plant with good water, it's not
going to be okay. And now I'm starting to really
be like, why did I do a diet coke and
plant analogy? But for no, I think it's great to
picture it like it was helpful to say you would
never go dump a diet coke on a plant.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You just found it in percon.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, And there's a flip side too, because on the
opposite of the binge cycle comes off in the restrict cycle.
And so if you're being carb phobic or fat phobic
or calorie phobic, a lot of our nutrients come from carbs,
plants and vegetables.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
And meats, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
And so it's like, but when you're chasing air quotes
skinny or you're chasing air quotes lean, you're not chasing health.
You're not chasing vitality and nutrients and lurish vitality.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
It's good.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Vitality is such a good word, and I'm glad you
brought that back up because it circles back to my
original point of being when you're so lacking in nutrients,
you're going to chase anything and you're then you're in
this pattern of like, why don't I feel good?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Why don't I feel good? Why don't I feel good? Well,
you're not literally you're not giving your body.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Anything that it needs other than calories, because we do
need that. But then it's what type of calories? And
I will say, once you make it to recovery lane, yeah,
another good analogy, then you know you can start to
have a little bit like you can enjoy some of
those things that you used to not be able to.
But then there's no stress around that because.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
You're not feeling dangerous or you know, you're feel so
out of control. Absolutely, yeah, it's huge, And that's where
I mean, this isn't This could be another series on
its own, Like the definition of health needs to change
because I know, for me, healthy I thought was skinny,
healthy was lean, healthy was small, And oftentimes we're outvoting
health to chase those things, and we're avoiding nutrients not
knowingly or we're overeating nutrient deficient things. You know.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
So it's this bigger.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Conversation, but you bring up such amazing points because these
are the things that we don't think about or we
don't talk about because there's so much shame.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
ACC ACC know me BMV the ACC. What's the acronym
you have for that? Again?
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Acceptance, connection, and care because that's what your brain is
really desiring. And it's oversimplified, but it's done on purpose
because if you're filling voids where you are just again
over fed but undernourished, your brain is screaming at you
to give it something that it really needs and it
will never be filled with food or Netflix or online shopping.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Okay, so ACC, pay attention to your ACC and your hippocampus.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yes, all of it.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Never forget your hippocampus because it will never forget you.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Wow, and tell me what what's the short term? It's
hip a campus, short and wrong.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Prefrontal cortex is going to be your short term yeah,
and it'll work on a short term yeah. And then
the basil ganglia is where like your long term memories live,
like where the long term habit. Brain Lives is the
basil ganglia.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And Leanne mentioned last week a program that she has
put together to accompany this five part series. So we're
going to be moving on from it, the BFB, but
if you want to continue your work with it, Land
has a special thing that she put together for everybody, right, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
And so you know, obviously full transparency disclaimer, this will
not magically heal decades of food and body struggles. But
if you do want to at least stop the floodgates
and really start the process of rewiring your brain and
really take back power from your acc that's doing its
own thing and filling voids of food or filling voids
in your brain that will never be filled with food.
Binge free brain is the perfect place to start. And
(15:57):
so we made it a no brainer by giving you
a discount code. And the discount code is just outway,
so we'll link that in the show notes and you can.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
He me and you put this together, and you were
thoughtful to do the code, because I want people to know,
like this is a gift from you, like you put
them together over.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
At Stressless Eeeding.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Okay, And I'm just making sure I was like, I
didn't thank you. This is great, this is I'm very
thankful for you putting in the extra effort to offer
this to people.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
So Yeah, you can head on over to stresslesseding dot
com slash binge and you can find out all the
information about that and we'll link it in the show
notes as well, and then outweigh is the code to
get a super secret Ninja discount code for it.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah, and we touched on this last week, but just
having skin in the game when you're committing time to
something and money, because we're not here to sell anything
or land, certainly not.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
In fact, she was like, are you sure it's okay
if I say this.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Like she was very sensitive to that, and I appreciated that.
But even I know that there are times early on
in my recovery when I was investing in something my
time and my money, I was more And I think
last week you said, yeah, when you pay, you pay attention,
and so look at it that way. But also, this
is not something that you have to do at all,
(17:09):
but if you are able, I would encourage you to
check it out. And Leanne also has other free resources
on her website as well that don't cost anything, and
lean where else can.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
People find you? Leanne Ellington over on socials.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
There's a ton of free resource resources over on Stressless
Eating dot Com, including the free masterclass that walks you
through the exact strategy I walk my clients through to
help them turn off the part of their brain that's
obsessed with food and really get the healing process going.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And then What's God Got to Do with It?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Podcast we mentioned earlier and again that'll be in the
show notes and we will be back next Saturday. In
the meantime, in the coming week, I'll have a fifth
Thing episode with Kat coming out Therapy Cat, and then
four Things next Thursday.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
And Leanne when is What's God Got to Do with It?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Load up Tuesdays every Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Every Tuesday. Okay, so I'll go check that out. Okay,
Bye bye,
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