Begin Again with Davina McCall - I Broke My Worst Habit With Kindness! Behavioural Change Expert

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

Reset Month 3: Habits  In this episode of Begin Again, Shahroo Izadi, award-winning psychologist and bestselling author, shares her deeply personal journey of overcoming food addiction and how self-compassion became her key to lasting change. As part of Reset Month, Shahroo discusses how her Kindness Method goes beyond just food, it’s a powerful tool for anyone looking to find balance in areas where moderation feels difficult. Whether it’s sugar, alcohol, social media, or any other habit, her method helps you break free from unhealthy cycles by shifting away from self-punishment and embracing a more compassionate, mindful approach. Shahroo explains how years of dieting, restriction, and shame led to her struggles with food and how shifting from guilt to kindness brought about lasting change. Through her approach, she shows how small, sustainable changes can lead to freedom in not just food, but any area of life where you're looking to break free from old patterns. This episode is a must-watch for anyone ready to reset their habits and find a more balanced, compassionate way to live. Follow for more Reset Month episodes and leave a comment, let us know how you're getting on this January!💚 Follow us here: 📸 https://www.instagram.com/beginagain 🎥 https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod (00:00) INTRO (02:36) Shahroo Izadi Reflects on Her Childhood Struggles with Weight (07:37) Introduction to Shahroo Izadi & Her Book "Why Diets Make Us Fat" (09:01) How Dieting Creates Restriction Cycles and Impacts Our Health (12:03) Discovering the Secret to Building Lasting Healthy Habits(13:42) The Psychology of Addiction: Recognizing the Patterns(19:26) Shifting Your Perspective on Overeating: A Path to Freedom(22:48) The Damaging Impact of Diet Culture on Our Mental Health(27:19) Diet Injections & Addiction Transference: A Deeper Look(30:26) Introducing the 'Kindness Method': A New Approach to Wellness(34:31) Lint Ad(35:41) Ancient & Brave Ad(38:53) Learning How to Eat Mindfully and Nourish Your Body(45:40) Understanding the Mechanisms of Dependence and Breaking Free(49:24) Shahroo Izadi on Relapsing and Believing in Your Ability to Break the Cycle(53:24) Where to Start with Shahroo Izadi’s Transformative Work(58:56) Shahroo’s Top 3 Tips for Making Positive Life Changes Sponsored by: Discover Lindt Excellence… Expect Delicious. Ancient & Brave - Subscribe and Save 20% + Free Ritual Scoop at Ancientandbrave.earth/planet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're all a number of steps away from doing something we regret. You are an award-winning psychologist, also best-selling author, How Diets Make Us Fat, and that title spoke to me. I'm just decoupling diet culture from weight loss in order to enable people to lose weight. I never thought about that. So I just thought it was normal to be judging other people's bodies, comparing my body to theirs. And I was gaining weight like wildfire thinking, what's going wrong? I know a lot now that I wouldn't have known them.

Put on a diet. You're asking someone to care about an aesthetic in the way. the future when they have a need, physical, like fundamental, existential. You've got to eat. Oh God, that's so interesting. You got to eat. It was infused into us. Be thin, be thin, be thin, be thin, don't eat so much.

And then body positivity came. But our own learning was too deep. Diet culture left me scared of food. And that's when I had started to treat my weight problem as a food problem, not as a size problem. And I was losing weight at speed. Wow. There are millions of people out there who would be able to manage their weight and their relationship with food had they never tried to lose. weight in the first place.

Yes. What's really important is that everyone's got something they want to change, something they feel powerless over. I want to lose weight. I want to stop doing this. I want to not look at my phone in the morning. All day we're engaging in habits. If you didn't choose them, they chose you.

Yes. If you could give people the first steps to making this positive change, what would they be? I have three juicy ones. So first of all. So today I am interviewing the amazing Cheru Izardy. We've had a little exchange. exchange this morning on its store already. We love each other. She is an absolutely incredible woman, an award-winning psychologist, also best-selling author and speaker. You've

tipped the attitudes towards addiction and treating addiction on its head. You help so many people. And we are here at the 15th of January. A lot of people are already punishing them. themselves because they may have fallen off the wagon. So I think this is a time when people really need to hear you. And we're going to be talking about your new book. This is so exciting. I loved on your Instagram page, you had all the different copies of the book from all the different countries.

Of the kindness. Of the kindness method. Yeah, that's amazing. And this is going to be the same. How Diets Make Us Fat. And that title spoke to me in the first. such a massive blow and we're going to talk about that a bit later. But first of all, I'd like to go back because really this whole method came from personal experience. So when was the first

time that you became aware that other people were aware of your body shape? What was it? I can't tell you that there was a specific moment, but I can tell you that, around about eight years old, I became aware that I was comparatively much bigger than the other kids. So they would let you know at school, of course, every time you went to the GP. So we're talking like 1992, 1993. Every time you go to the GP, they would be bringing to my mother's attention like your kid is too large. And that's, that was commonplace. I'm sure it's still commonplace to some degree because no one's recommending obesity, you know.

And so more and more I was noticing. And also you hear people say things like lovely and slim or, oh, she's got such a pretty face. And I think we're more conscious of what kids are listening to now. But I think it was teachers, you know, people's moms. It wasn't evil people going around to upset me. But the reality of it was that I think the concern was based on real things, which was that the world was harder for a kid that was overweight. I was brought up by my grandmother who couldn't give her kids sugar because it was post-war. And so she gave me all the sugar that she couldn't give her own kids as an act of love,

which made me fall in love with sugar and major. I mean, I had golden syrup and sugar sandwiches for tea. Me too. Did you? For snacks. Butter and just like layer after layer until it was like a big doughy ball in my mouth. I know. I know.

I still have it. I still have that palate. Yeah. I really do. Bad. So that's actually quite a tough, tough beginning because it sets you up with a taste for something. And what was your mum like when she gave you these treats? Like was it kind of an act of love for you?

My mum was already very weight conscious herself. And much like myself and a number of... now thousands of people that I've spoken to and heard from, I'm sure that my mom would tell you that she wishes she was the size she was when she started calling herself fat. Yes, when she started dieting. Everyone says that to me, that I wish I was barely even overweight, you know. I looked so great.

And they are also able, on reflection, to see how young I looked, how vibrant I looked, how this, you know. My mom didn't come to associate, because she didn't grow up in a time where diet culture was so pervasive. Right. It didn't seem strange to say, well, just need a little bit less because that happens to do this to you. It didn't feel like it was attached to and therefore you will be able to be successful and people will like you and all of that stuff. It was more of a health thing. And then culturally, I'm Iranian and I feel like, again, it was held lightly. Don't get me wrong.

It's damaged a lot of us, girls. But it was held lightly in the sense. What do you mean by that? It was seen more broadly as an act of self-care to also care about how much one ate and looked and things like that. They had higher levels of like, you should also blow dry your hair every day. And I was like, that's high maintenance, beyond belief. But that, it was an extension of that. Yes.

That said, the way it was held lightly meant that living in this society was harder because, of course, that came really early. And so I just thought it was normal to be judging other people's bodies, comparing my body to theirs. I'd sit on the tube and I looked like, okay, well, my leg is this big and someone else's leg is this big. Because I heard the grownups would be talking about it. Plus, there was like Jane Fonda video all time. She's cool. She's a legend. So I don't feel like the blame game about that is wrong in any sense,

other than the diet industry. I have beef with them. But when it comes to, you know, people talk about their moms and diet culture and stuff. Like, we didn't know any better. No. And we only know what we know now because those people went through what they went through. And these are unprecedented times. We didn't have ultra-processed food.

Stress levels weren't so high. You know, we didn't have all these different interventions that are making us really confused. And I think at the time, my mum was much like everyone else's mum. Yes. It was like, I just want to do what I need to do so my kid doesn't get bullied. And so my kid has a good life. And at the time, the criteria was be slim.

Or rather, don't be fat. Yes, I completely agree. And I think having an very slim mum for me was a comparison. I could see that I didn't look like that. and also I think you just mentioned ultra-processed foods. I grew up in literally the sort of the dawn of ultra-processed foods where they were a luxury. We had no idea how much.

I mean, I doubt very much whether when you were little, you had any idea how much sugar was in these or how many bad ingredients were in them. And a tin of, you know, ravioli was a luxury. You know, God, pour it in the pan and just heat it up. Great. Sorry, we're also calling like jacket potatoes, cheese and beans healthy for lunch. Yes.

Yes. I do that. People be like, I've had a healthy. Brilliant lunch. I've been really healthy. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to have, and I was like, brilliant. And I was gaining weight like wildfire thinking, what's going wrong?

How come? Well, because, well, for various reasons. One of them was that restriction from an early age was making me sort of want to get my hands on the way that one does when you feel like you're not allowed to have something and it's naughty. And I didn't eat. This is unfortunately, before I even understood that it was naughty. I think some people forget that someone has to tell you that what you eat happens to increase the size of some people's bodies and that may or may not impact your quality of life based on

the society you live in. They're so inextricably linked to us. If you don't want to be overweight, why would you eat so much? That's extraordinary. It's like one of the only things you absolutely have to do to survive. and you're asking someone to care about an aesthetic in the future right now when they have a need, emotional, physical, like fundamental, existential. You're asking them to care. Your need came from you being denied or being told.

Put on a diet. Yeah, okay. Put on a diet. So what did your diet look like? When and who put you on it? It was just reducing the snacks. It was reducing the desserts. It was reducing the portion sizes.

But I noticed because, of course, I was hungry. And my mom's not cruel. So she would then, I was able to eat as much as I wanted. But I just noted there were subtle changes, you know. And I think a lot of kids do because it is genuine concern. Like, oh, why don't you have your broccoli first or, you know, things like that? And you do kind of pick up, why is no one else getting comments like that? The other thing that I now know, I've now been diagnosed with ADHD.

So I know a lot now that I wouldn't have known then. Like? Like I would have been looking for dopamine hits big time, especially if I was restricted. And then if I was going to consume sugar on an empty stomach or on a boring, you know, the overcorrection. And then the shame that I felt about that was invariably going to make me more vulnerable, addiction vulnerable, to consume more sugar, to numb out, to distract from what I'd just done. Then I would gain weight, which of course would piss everyone else off. And then that in itself was shameful and upsetting to me. And by that point, sugar and food were becoming my drug of choice.

And the only other drug of choice that was second, but evidently from my body size, not winning, was the control of restriction. Yes. So you had both. I had both. I was getting the dopamine hit off the control of restriction. Wow. Of sobriety. Basically, I had a program.

But that means eating nothing. Yes. So that's essentially what I was doing. And then more and more when I would do that, my periods of restriction would get shorter. And my periods of relapse or rather my last, you know, final binge, that's it, last hurrah, would be intense because there was more shame. This was really the last time.

And I really wanted to eat all these foods for the one last time. I just know that it's, and it's not just going to be women. Men and women are going to be watching this. And just going, oh my God, that either is me or it was me. I mean, what you have just described was me in a nutshell. And the punishment, I mean, I'm feeling uncomfortable, you talking about it, was so real. And the funny thing was in that thing, you know, when you just said, I want to try these foods for the last time because I'm never going to eat them again, that thing. and then you pick out and you are grotesque

and it is ugly and you're just like, oh my God, I'm absolutely, but it's okay because I'm going to stop tomorrow. Then you wake up tomorrow and you hate yourself. And that's where you want to change from. Sorry to interrupt. No, but that's exactly it. It's the same as using. It's the same as having like one big use-up and in the same that...

When you talk about use-ups, can we just explain? Absolutely. So my background is largely in substance misuse treatment. And so I was a recovery worker and I was learning how to be a recovery worker. Essentially I was learning how to help people to stop drinking and taking other drugs. Absinence-based because very much it was about prison work. It was about people who needed to get into the room. Like Alcoholics Anonymous, like Narcotics Anonymous, there was nothing that we were helping people to moderate with at that point.

I wasn't working in harm reduction. I was working in stop prison, social services. this is serious. And so I started noticing who was doing well and why. Okay, so I started noticing the patterns. People who had a program or had a structure and had identified their vulnerabilities and had identified with a humility, if I don't do this, this is likely to happen. And I also noticed that it was the people who were able to identify the distinction

between self-pity and self-compassion. It was the people who were able to see their problematic behavior as a solution and to try to diversify their recovery capital essentially. What does that mean? Like what it is that you've got to come back to? So one of the ways it comes is from going to having a fellowship, having people who support you, sponsors recovery-specific stuff, right? So it's like recovery in the bank.

Recovery in the bank also insulates you so that if you lapse, the bounce back is quick. Oh, okay. Long as you're in recovery. Yeah. And you're reinforcing the importance of your recovery and diversifying it. So now I'm involved in the community. Someone's expecting me tomorrow. Someone's dependent on me.

Someone to love, somewhere to live, something to do. We used to say when I worked in Birmingham. I love that. I know that New Year can feel really overwhelming. And there is so much pressure on everybody to change your entire life overnight. And often no one to help you. you do it, but this year is going to be different because here at Begin Again, we are launching reset month. As part of Reset Month, we're also going to launch the Begin Again newsletter.

Yay! So when you sign up, you're going to unlock exclusive bonus content and tools that you can only get through the newsletter. And you're going to get some behind the scenes moments. And this is so good as a little extra. Everyone who is. signs up is also going to be in with the chance of winning a 500 pound wellness package packed with prizes from some of our favourite partners to help you reset in the new year. So all you need to do is click on the link in the description and pop in your email and join the Begin Again newsletter. Join our gang. Let's get ready for the new year together. So more and more I just became obsessed with understanding what was it that

got people to change after generations of really ingrained habits. And self-compassion just kept coming through because I noticed that the opposite, actually, if you beat yourself up about things, if you're spiraling, yes, it's not kind, but it's also, it's not common sense. It doesn't build a mastery in anything. If I wanted to learn something now, if I said, DeVina, you want to learn to do something you've never managed to do in the past, you wouldn't expect yourself to be perfect. No. But when it's shame driven and you have a legacy of, oh, I always mess up at this point, well, that's just a flu. I'll start again on Monday. You forget that ultimately behavioural change is doing something in a row until it's easy. Yes. It's skill building. It stops

becoming mastery when it becomes personal. This is what I noticed. The people who were able to just go through the motions have smart feet, get to a meeting, do it, do what you need to do, just let the rest take care of itself. So I started going to 12-step meetings myself. I went to Overeaters Anonymous, I went to Food Addicts Anonymous, I went to codependence Anonymous, loads of them. Can I just also say to anybody that's watching or listening, I remember when I first went to Narcotics Anonymous and I got the joys and I was like, I cannot believe that this is available for free, like for a donation if you've got it towards the rent at the end of the meeting. But if you haven't got it, you don't have to, it can literally be for free.

It's not for everybody. Lots of people don't like it. But for some people it is and can be life-saving. So you went to lots. Couldn't agree more. Yeah. Kind of dig deeper into it and see what it was about, but also to get help and support. To me, I was fascinated because I understood the quiet of mind that's saying,

I just don't do any of this anymore. No. No one, no two, no at weddings, no just. on a Friday, just know. The clarity of mind that that gave people and the focus and their ability to stay on track until those new neural pathways are there and things were normalized and flukes were passed

wasn't available for food. You've got to eat. Yes, of course. Oh God, that's so interesting. You got to eat. And SLA, too, to some degree. You don't have to have sex. You don't have to have love in your life. But if you're inclined to... And codependency and interdependency and, you know, you want to be dependent on others

and you want to know where that line is and things. And so my fascination was, you know, do we have to wait until people have hit a rock bottom? So can I just quickly go back to something you just said? Co-dependency and sex and love addiction, these are both things that possibly people don't know that they're addicted to. I mean, they are quite subtle. Sometimes people think, well, I love sex or I might have sex with lots of different people, but that's just free. But it depends how it's making you feel. Is it attached to shame and guilty?

Are you left with these bad feelings after it? Or is it something that you're happy, is your behaviour something you're happy with? So that's quite a common one that people don't really look at. And codependency, would you mind just because I think codependency is massive? Could you just quickly say what that is just in case anybody watching might have a problem with that? Absolutely. I think the way it manifests itself for most of us when we talk about codependency is that our external validation is our day-to-day ability to function at the level that we want to and to calm ourselves down,

it's based on external validation and a relationship with another person. And that dependency on each other to be well can be very damaging and can give people the same feeling that they have when they are in a using, not using active addiction. So, for example, I've had to learn that becoming attached to someone and thinking that more is more is more and thinking that extremes and dopamine hits and feeling anxious and then feeling relieved and then feeling anxious and then feeling relieved is something that will play out in different domains of my life because it's the way that I'm wired. Now, of course, there are different schools of thought as to whether I was born that way

or whether I've come that way, but from the behavioral side of it, that's just the way I'm wired. And so more and more, what I wanted to understand is what's going on on the days where I seem to be able to be moderate in all of these areas. where I seem to be able to advocate for myself to take a moment, to make a decision, like, take a breath, to not be focused that someone's upset with me because I'm focused on something far more important here. What's going on those days? And I realized that there was a lot of alignment between that and what I was learning when I was attending meetings. And these components were not just massively interesting to me, but also they were helping me enormously to give label.

and understand to find my people. My people weren't in Weight Watchers. I assure you my people weren't in boot camps. And this, all or nothing, one is too many and a hundred is not enough. All these sayings, I was like,

hold on, hold on, hold on. This is me. This is me. But I'm not using alcohol or other drugs. I'm using food. And so I started going to O.A. And still I had my resume. And OAS.

OV.E is anonymous. I went to OA and more and more. I thought, hold on, why is this not available to other people? Because as long as I can remember, I was pretty much obese, morbidly so. I was 100, I think, 22, 23 kilos. So I guess that's like 18, 19, so. And I was fluctuating massively, massively between restrict,

I was desperate. Every day was focused on losing weight and white knuckling it to just eat nothing and punish myself because I was gaining weight at speed. And so by the time I got to work in a, addiction services, I was pretty big. And I'd already had a bit of a turning point because prior to that, I'd had a gastric band put in. So I wanted to be as thin as possible, so I thought, like, tight it, save me from myself. Essentially, why am I jaw shut, you know? So they did quite an extreme gastric band for you. The game's, you were saying, like, make it. The band's always

the same. Oh, okay. They inject it so that you can decide how big you want it. And very much self-reporting. So self-reporting from someone with an eating disorder who's just gone to these lengths was like, just close it up. You know, food is a thing of the past. Plus, of course, I found it easier to eat nothing than to eat one of most things by this point, right? Because by this point, also, context-wise, so much more was ultra-processed food.

So I was relapsing on stuff that was objectively more fattening, right? And so the gastric band was such that it gave me a different type of eating disorder. It made the binging and the restricting far more extreme. The things I was binging on, it diversified the things I was binging on because now I could only pick things that were soft and went through the band.

Wow. So let's say before I was eating, I don't know, crisps and stuff, now I'd be eating ice cream. So I was diversifying the bad foods that invariably I would overcorrect on one day. Isn't it? It was just endless. On top of all the diets, the grapefruit, the this, the, I don't know, literally name them, I've done them. And then I went through a hard time and obviously I relapsed on my drug of choice. And for a moment, I dared not care about what it would do to my waistline.

and it went and I just felt like this click and I couldn't I was trying to be sick and I couldn't yeah it apparently that does happen which now I'm not surprised by because a lot of people who've got to that stage will have invariably had a problem with food right yeah so they took it out I was so relieved I was like that's it I'm not doing this there was a part of me that was like enough enough horrible stuff to your body just enough and I went to therapy and I thought that's it something's got to change I didn't think it was going to be about food addiction or anything like that I just thought, maybe I need to work out why I hate myself so much.

This is ridiculous. Maybe I should just like myself big and try. Body positive, let's go for it. But my issue was that I couldn't because the times when I was really big, it wasn't that I just didn't like looking at a bigger body. It was that it was the manifestation of neglect and abuse and not drinking a glass of water and not moving. And so I was all up for body positivity. But I was like, wait, wait, wait, everyone.

Like, I need to first get rid of what body negativity has done has left on me. And then I'm all for it. So can you explain that to me again? So basically you thought, why don't I just relax and enjoy myself the size that I am? But in order to be the size that you were, you were doing things that made you feel bad about yourself. Yeah, I wasn't meeting to feel, I didn't like food. That's fascinating. I think that body positivity, I think that women were given a new thing to do wrong and we were told to turn on a dime.

So it was like, it was infused into us. Be thin, be thin, be thin, be thin, don't eat so much, don't eat so much. Don't look fat. And then body positivity came and we're like, oh, thank goodness. But the world hadn't turned on a dime that way. Our own learning was too deep. It wasn't as easy as now just like what you see and be cool with it because you know that the sauce was rotten and you know about the patriarchy. You know about feminism and you know about health and you know about eating disorders.

And it's like, yeah, but my behaviours are ingrained now. you have taught me to punish and restrict myself. And now I'm resurfacing in a world where you're saying diet culture was all wrong. But I don't know how to eat because, as you know, some of us are only ever making things better or worse at any given time. But we're doing constantly. And you have to eat all day. Now you're telling me I have to eat all day. And I have a list of hundreds upon hundreds of foods that I only associate with relapse because I've only ever had them one last time or I'm eating celery.

Yeah. And you've left me out in the cold here. And I feel there are a lot of women who feel really misunderstood. They're like, I'm ready to be body positive. If the manifestation of me feeling empowered and I can make choices that I'm happy with, if I make those choices and that's to eat cake all day, then I think those people will be fine with the manifestation on their body. It's the powerlessness that they've been left with.

You have left me scared of food. Yes. And eating it like it's being taken away. Yes. Which when it overcorrects essentially is what is a perfect storm for obesity, which we know, right, anyway, just complete restriction and then abundance and you don't know when it's going to come. And then when the abundance comes, you're telling me that the foods are going to be designed to be addictive too. And then I'm going to crave the transformation.

And then I'm going to crave the transformation. So I'm going to make sure that I relapse really badly because tomorrow I'm going to be pure and new and everything's going to be amazing. My laundry is going to be done and everyone's going to love me. This reminds me of when I didn't actually go to treatment. I got clean and narcotics anonymous, but it reminded me of, friends that went into treatment. And whenever they went into treatment for drugs and alcohol, this is what I knew, people with drugs and alcohol problem, they would do the mega binge before because they'd be like,

well, I'm never going to do it again. So I'll do the mega binge before I get to treatment. And then I won't use again. And it was funny, that thing that you're talking about it, it's the same with any addiction to anything before you are going to stop. You do the mega binge. It's your friend. Yeah.

It's your friend. Yeah. That's what people don't get. And in rehab, in residential rehab, I know there's a lot of letter writing to like goodbye. Thank you and goodbye. Not good riddance. But like, thank you. You're letting go of your friend.

You're letting go of the, you know, the thing that kept you safe. Kept you safe. Enabled you to deal with your feelings so that perhaps you didn't do more damage. Yeah. contained you. You are saying goodbye to your friend. So people need to give themselves a break. Yeah.

And say, you wouldn't have done something if it wasn't doing something. You wouldn't have done this if it wasn't doing something for you. And I wish I could say that to people who, the family members and the friends of people who are legitimately fed up with someone who can't stop using. It's like, you know, well, they'll say things like, well, you've stopped using now. So it's been a couple of weeks. So why don't you get job? And it's like, they've just given up. There's a morning going on, a massive, massive morning process going on here.

where someone has had something that enables them to feel calmer, has got them through the hardest times of their lives. You're asking them to be without their friends and then go find other friends when they've not known any other way. And, p.S., all their existing friends and habits and everything are still here. I mean, it is the shame. You know, it's the shame. And, well, I've often thought about the injections,

and how they are like a miracle kind of stop eating. But the feelings are still there, like the depression that would come with not eating to fix the feelings when you have the jab mean that sometimes people that use the jabs get quite depressed. It's a whackamol. Wackamol, yeah. Oh, my God.

It really is a wakamol. Cultural reference there. I don't want it. I don't want. want anyone to now feel ashamed to have to go back to the diet industry to purchase a solution to a problem that they created in the first place. So if you are in a situation where you need to quiet in the food noise by injecting yourself, then you do what you need to do, as far as I'm said. But what I do know is because you can't be abstinent from food, it's very unlikely

that if you got to a stage where you felt that you needed to go to this length, I say this comparing it with the gastrop band, it's likely that you to some degree feel powerless or disempowered around food. It's likely that you are so unhappy with your weight and have been for so long that you're prepared to forego food as a comfort anymore

or, you know, all of those things and you're just happy not to be hungry and not to have the food noise. The difficulty for me is that from everything I've seen and everything I know about behavioural change, if you've spent decades trying to trying to control yourself, if you will, around food

and the only end is to be thinner not to actually change how you eat or make anything easier or whatever. Yes. Just to look thinner. Yes. And that's hard. Behavioral change is hard. Eating differently, shopping differently,

or getting used to different tastes, all this stuff. If someone then takes care of the thinness for you, that tends not to be the point that people like me go, right, well then fabulous. I'm going to learn how to drink water. I'm going to really put the effort in now. Because for 20 years I've been putting the effort in and now something's helping me out and I've not been wired to think that I should care about what's going into my body as much as I care about the size of my body. And so now what's going to happen is I think there'll be a lot of addiction transference. And I think that what does that mean? I think that if food was your

drug of choice, then when you have a hard time, you may be picking something else up. Right. Should be social media, shopping. Yeah. It could be alcohol, whatever. Yeah. But, I mean, you've still got problems if that was solving the problem. The complicated thing becomes that for a lot of people, the problem is that they're not happy with the size of their bodies. So you are helping them to some degree by doing that. The other thing is... Their health.

And their health, massive. Yeah, massive. And this is the other things. I often speak to people and they betray the fact that they weren't quite as big as I was or quite as extreme as I was. And now I've spoken to so many people I can see. I was on the sharp end of the most extreme. and it's harder to exercise when you're heavier. Right.

That's why people scrap weights to their ankles to make exercise harder, right? It's harder to exercise when you've been eating loads of unhealthy food and you're filled with sugar and you've got acid reflux and stuff. So if you're reducing that as well, that it becomes a tool that you use for a period of time whilst you're able to activate other behaviours. In that sense, I think it'll be great or can be great based on what we know so far. What I will say, though, is that you can't be abstinent from food. Yes.

So you need a program after that. And you're going to need a program. To think that you can just be okay because you're thin and you won't want to eat so much because you don't want to ruin being thin is going back to the problem we had in the first place, which is you will be disillusioned. People will stop complimenting you. I don't wake up every day after losing eight stone and go,

oh, marvelous, this will be another perfect day because I'm thin now. Right? You've still got to deal with life. You've still got to deal with life. Yeah, exactly. And also, you still legitimately have problems. And it's because of diet culture that you've been made to think

that all of them will go away if you're slim. And you become disillusioned. And you have to eat. I mean, how did the kindness method, what were the beginnings of that? When did you think, do you know what, we're doing this all wrong? I feel like,

there's another way. Yeah. I started working in prison. And it was with, largely with gang members. In a men's prison? Substance misuse, yeah. I was working with probation. And the idea was that I would be able to help people

who were in prison on remand because of drug use. It's a terrible, I think it's a terrible time for people that are incarcerated. they're not sure if they're going to be released after their trial or if they're going to be charged and go to prison for a lot longer. So remand is a very insecure and unstable time for someone. And temporary. Yeah, it's very hard. It's very hard to help someone at that point too

because also you, whether it's employability or whatever else, like thinking to the future is hard. And I started learning about how you can help people who don't necessarily want to change. So these people hadn't come in for drug treatment. These were ambivalent people. These weren't rock bottom people who'd come to meetings. Right.

So I thought, hold on. These people, this goes against rock bottom. This goes against people saying, you know, when people really want to change, they'll turn up. These people got arrested. Some of them, you know, some of them don't want to stop using. Some of them don't think they're problematic users. Right. Some of them are dealers.

And I can clearly see that, but they've slipped through the net, you know, things like that. And so I had to understand how is it that I help a person who I've, got for this period of time to generally want to take better care of themselves because talking about drugs all day is not going to help this. They have got to have an aspirational model. P.S. They're not going to go to meetings. Right. Because for various reasons, they don't want to share. Right. There's various reasons, confidentiality reasons, all sorts of reasons. So I thought, right, these people need a system. And I started to draw from smart recovery, intuitive recovery. These are all things used in hospitals and bought in as recovery programs, but they're, I believe, all abstinence-based, right?

So the idea is that you help people who are in trouble with alcohol and other drugs to stop altogether from the 12 steps, from the training that I was getting at work, needle exchange, all of it. And I put it all together and I started becoming really good at quickly identifying the combination of evidence-based interventions that people needed in a conversational, chilled, non-judgmental way. that connected with them. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of our new sponsor. No, it's not a chiropractor business. It's Lint Excellence Dark Chocolate, expertly crafted by the Lintmaster Chocolatier. I absolutely love it.

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all generally, like the kindness method is something where you can really take a broad, this works for everybody. It was all the same stuff, do you know? Really? Yeah, it was all the same stuff. It's just we all come at it in different ways. So, for example, urge surfing. What's that?

Urge surfing is when you feel like you want to use and you give it 20 minutes and you imagine there are different exercises used in rehab. Like one of the grounding exercises that they would give you, much like a body scan meditation or something, is to visualize things calming down, to visualize something calm. And one of them that we used to say is imagine that there is a leaf on the water and it's going through the water and a person who's skilled can kind of describe it for you in a way that will calm down your nervous system, the way that you can meditation. And so there were impulse control exercises that would help people understand that if you wait for 20 minutes, you're going to feel differently about this. So allow yourself to see that. But more and more, it was essentially saying there are all these different ways to get people to do something new and scary in a row until it feels familiar and not scary.

anymore and feels automatic. And all of us are just trying to do that. So I recognise that. And I didn't really care about the jargon, if I'm honest, because I knew what I wanted to hear. I wanted to not be shocked. I wanted to know exactly why I was there, what you were going to do for me. I wanted to be reassured that you weren't going to take my drug away.

I didn't want you to act like you knew me better than I knew myself. Yes. And all of those things I brought in. I would be speaking to people on a level the way that they already have a discussion and say, have you tried doing this? So for example, impulse control for me, I can't do body scans and things. I can't. I will have already picked up 10 times, you know, like the trainers left the station.

Do you mean the method just doesn't work on you? Yeah, meditation, things like that. It just doesn't. It's just a bit chilled. For me, it's a bit calm. And when I'm in that state, you know, what goes up needs to come down, but it needs to come out, come down quickly and it needs to really engage me. And meditation doesn't.

It leaves me with too much room for distraction. and I just can't see myself interrupting something really compulsive that way. But singing did. So I broke it down and I was like, right, why are people meditating? They're meditating because they feel present. They're meditating because they want to bring their nervous systems back. What made me do that? Singing.

Because when I was a kid, I used to stammer, I still do to some degree. And singing helped. And it made me calm. So I got a karaoke microphone. At the beginning, I used to take myself to karaoke booth by myself. And more and more, I was like, you can redefine this stuff, Shrew. This is common sense stuff. You know, be still, be kind, know yourself, notice your patterns.

And all these different evidence bases were saying it in different ways. I've got to say there are some, like, maps and stuff in here that are just so helpful. Like, so just in case anybody's wondering. Thank you. This is really brilliant with all you've got all of these tips that we're talking about now in here. So just reminder. You know what it was, Davina, it was acknowledging kind of with the higher power thing, right? Let's, higher power is a concept that's often contentious when people talk about Alcoholics Anonymous and the other 12-step programs because it suggests that you need to be religious and the word God comes up in some of the literature.

I saw higher power originally when I was trying to reframe it for people because I saw the power of it, but I saw it was putting people off. And so I just thought, what you've acknowledged is that there are times when you're not going to want to make the best decision available to you. and you're going to need to hand your decisions over to higher power or the version of yourself that is sitting in front of me right now that wants to change. Someone that cares for you. It acts, yeah, access that self-compassion. And so higher power could be accessing a version of yourself. Yes.

And the humility that comes with, you know, the power that comes with acknowledging powerlessness is extraordinary because then you put things in place. And so more and more I was saying to people like, how are you going to remind yourself through with maps or whatever else? today you should assume that there are going to be times when early on when you want to use or else you would have already stopped.

And it all culminated in me going to the school of life and saying can I pilot a workshop on the third week of January. They were very clever to put it then because it's now. So now. Week. Yeah. Yeah. Always the first week of Jan,

everyone's like, oh, you must be so busy. Nope. Tumbleweed. Because everyone's like, well, I'm going to do it myself. That's it. And obviously they've had a final. blow out. No one wakes up on New Year's Day feeling like, hmm, wonderful, never felt better, right? So they're like, well,

that's it. I'm going to white knuckle it. I deserve it. This year is different. And again, they make the mistake, unfortunately of thinking that desire and desperation and even shame are going to be enough to drive them and to build new behaviours. As if I could say to myself, I hate myself so much, I'm going to learn French quickly. It doesn't make any sense, right? Yeah. And so the third week, the School of Life put on this workshop that was called making changes that last. I lost eight stone. And whilst I was piloting out this making changes that last to the school of life, and they kept selling out and selling out and selling out,

I was losing weight at speed because I had started to treat my weight problem as a food problem, not as a size problem. And the weight was falling off me. The same way, you know, yeah, the same way someone who's using just needs to worry about the behavior of not using today. What do I need to make it easier not to use today? And being in recovery or being clean will take care of itself, right? Yeah. And so I was like, right.

And the turning point actually in that moment was when I was in therapy, my therapist asked me, what if you never lose weight? And I spent my whole lot. And this was, I was at my biggest. And I was like, no, no, no, no. I want to be body positive. But at some point, I will still be losing weight. Like, I want to like my body and not hate it and not be horrible to it.

But I do not think my life's going to be great if I remain at this size. No, I'm afraid not. And then I got really, I was really annoyed with her, really annoyed. I was like, this was punchy, you know. this is a leap. And then I went walking through London Bridge and I saw these people who were overweight and I realized, hold on, hold on. I don't think they should be like not going out to dinner. I don't think they should be like not wearing jewelry or listening to music. Like they're so they don't deserve any care. And so I did an experiment when I thought, what if I behave as though I'm never going to lose weight? And what I realized was, I don't know how to eat. Like I've been on a diet forever. Even if I knew I was never going to lose weight again and I just cared about my health, I'd have to sit down and work out predictable way of eating. I'd have to work out what was healthy for me now. So what would that, so when you say I don't know how to eat, I mean, people think that when they're on a diet, they are learning how to eat, but they're not, they're learning how to

eat in a finite way because you can't diet forever. Yeah. You have to learn how to have a healthy relationship with food. You have to learn how to stop doing the things that cause you to gain weight, not white-knuckle the things that, the efforts that cause you to lose it. Because what that does, this activation maintenance thing, what it does is reinforce this idea that it will be easier to make choices with your hands if you are thinner. So get this done and then learn how to eat differently and then learn how to eat differently. And then learn how to eat.

And it'll just be easier because thin people are better at that. And so the shame that is available there, everyone's applauding you and then you're so fearful. like, no, listen, I'm one French fancy away from this being. Yeah, exactly. Like train spotting over here. Sugar version. Literally.

They were my thing. I would just like mainline them. And I'd never had like one French fancy, you know. And again, it would have been easier to never have one again. But I wanted to learn how to have one and be calm. And so. I mean, to me, even like this quite interesting because you're sitting there saying that, I can't do sugar.

I can't do one sweet. Like, I'm nervous about Christmas Day. I normally fall off the wagon on Christmas Day and then spend, like, the next January, desperately trying to get a handle on my sugar consumption again. And I'm one of those all or nothing because I'm an addict. And I use the same thing as I did on alcohol on sugar. Just don't do it. But that's not realistic.

I want to be able to go to dinner at someone's house and have a pudding that someone made and not have to eat sugar the whole of the next day. This is what's made it really complicated with ultra-processed food and sugar because you need, regardless of what anyone believes, my understanding is that you need to believe

that you're not in control of your second choice. Correct? Yes. Just your first. that framework ideology that way of thinking I assume you credit with you being able to have a manageable life but with that comes an admission or an acceptance of the fact that this is the way I am

after number one the wheels are off and what that does is keep you coming to meetings that it doesn't even need to be fear it can be a humility we're all a number of steps away from doing something we regret and from that point I don't actually have any data of only having had one. So why should you expect that you can? Right?

The difficulty when you apply that to substances that you want to be moderate with is that it starts messing with the can I just have one thinking, which you don't need for your foundational thing that you want to not use. So actually for somebody that maybe had a drug issue, that trying to, or a drink issue, trying to control something might not work. it might not well

well with sugar for me you need a program if you yeah for sugar for me it's like definitely I know that I'm off again yeah and do you know what Alice Devena lots of people

have that with alcohol too and they don't become dependent they just say it's easier for me because the things that would put more people in the addiction vulnerable or all or nothing black and white category

are increasing by the day stress levels reasons to feel ashamed ADHD diagnoses other neurodiversion diagnoses, ultra-processed food, fasting being a version of restriction that we went, like, all these things are coming. You were just talking about neurodivergence there as part of that category. Can you just explain to me about that? We are all a certain number of steps away from becoming dependent on something, right?

If we kept using it over and over again, physically, psychologically, habitually. Some of us are fewer steps away because of how we respond to dopamine and how impulsive we are. And most profoundly, from what I've learned writing this book, how much shame we have. That tends to be what brings us all together and makes that thinking of, first of all, my executive function is just not working right now. I don't care about the future. Right now I need to feel differently. I need to make the shame feel differently.

I need to make the shame feeling go away. Yes. As quickly as possible. And I do everything quickly. I'm only ever making things better or worse. And so if you put that in a, in the context of dieting, that means I'm only ever eating for the last time or I'm eating nothing. Back and forth, back and forth. Except every time I'm eating nothing, I'm heavier, more shameful and I've got more withdrawal.

And the world is reinforcing to me to eat nothing because it's manifesting itself on my body. And by my own admission, I don't want this. So it's just, it's just, I want people to have a step before meetings. Yeah. And I also know, and I don't need anyone to confirm this or believe that it's them, but I'm, I know anecdotally from thousands of conversations that I've had that a lot of the time, if you tell people you're going to take alcohol away and they try to moderate, they end up wanting to not drink anyway because it's simpler. It's just simpler. And not just in the sense of like yes and no

is very clear, but even when they feel completely capable of having one, which some people do, they still think, yeah, but it's mind altering. I'm already getting the downsides. Let's just shut this off. I've had quite an interesting experience sometimes with people. that I can see are potentially in danger of becoming more dependent on alcohol. I can see they're slightly in danger of that. And I've often said, you don't want to get to a point where I am, where I cannot drink alcohol at all. if you want to carry on enjoying, you know, a glass of champagne at your birthday and a couple of drinks on New Year's Eve, just keep an eye on where you're at.

You're going to need a program. Yeah, you're going to need something. And, you know, this is it. Thank you. Right? That's it. You're going to need something. So you need something to support you to help you with the feelings of why you're.

Quite. And you need to assume that for the rest of your life, yes. All day we're engaging in habits. If you didn't choose them, they chose you. Yes. Right. So for the rest of your life, you're going to be running a program.

And you can see it like a software. And that's another thing I learned in addiction treatment. We're all already running a program. The way you do things, the way you operate, the way you eat, the way you sit, the way you see forgiveness, the way you see yourself. All of these things are learned and can be unlearned. And what's really important is that, all of us, with the kindness method, what I wanted to do is to say to people, you don't have to tell me what you want to change.

You don't have to, you don't have to trust me. I just want to give you a process so that step by step you can work out why you're finding it so hard to change even though you want to and you know objectively how to. And the downsides of you're very aware of them. And how to access that version of you that cares about having this conversation with me right now, who you should assume is going to disappear as soon as I leave the room. Yes. Especially if I'm working with addiction vulnerable people who tend to have objective. permanence and black and white thinking too. So what happens right now is what exists. My friend Phillips always says that to me. She says, your whole world is today. And it's true. It's here.

It's everything. And everything else is not there. And so I had to become aware that when I have a conversation with someone, they need something to take away. It needs to be in their handwriting. They need to remember this happened. And that version of them exists and is coming up more frequently. And it once you've started writing your maps, is it possible for you to go back and look at old maps that you've written or do you always have to, because you're a little bit different every time something happens to you that triggers you? Well, I've got maps that you do every day like an inventory. So you wake up in the morning, you spend five minutes thinking about what will test you that day. And if you do that for a period

of time, what that does is the idea from a scientific perspective is it's pattern interruption. You're like, oh, I knew this would happen. Either I've put something in place or just that reminder is enough to remind me that I cared about not doing this, for example. But the maps are to explore and bring up things that you would gain through a conversation with a coach without having to share shameful things before you even know what's going to come out of your mouth, you know? So you're coaching yourself and coach yourself? You're sharing it with yourself. Yeah. And I wanted to make myself redundant. But also, you know, I wanted to make myself redundant. I did because, well, I mean, unfortunately that's not been the smartest business model, but

I will say that I didn't like it, you know, when I'd go into services and obviously I was really green and I wanted to, there were people who'd been working in services for years and years and years and years, but I could also tell that there was some stuff that was kind of messed up and old-fashioned and kind of mean about it. And, you know, just kind of felt like they'll change when they want to. Punish. Yeah, I wasn't there for that. And I didn't like it when someone would come in and they would say that they had relapsed. It was rare, but their recovery seemed very dependent on their key worker.

Right, okay. They're codependent. And I totally understood why the key worker was feeling that way because that's your inclination to do as much as you can and do it and be like, let me just sort it out for you, you know? And it reminded me a bit of what people tell me about parenting, which is like all you want to do is everything, but actually your job is to make yourself redundant. Yeah. And that's what it was like. And so you really have to take your ego out of it and realize that you're doing people a service if they don't need you as quickly as possible. So I wanted to hand them over the tools that they would get from me without having to trust me and that they could use over and over and again that would be free.

And I knew that they were scientifically robust because they were helping in the NHS. And they weren't dangerous. They're literally like, write 10 things you like about yourself because you're certainly not going to remember them when you want to use, you know, but they're true. So you should assume that these things aren't going to pop into your head. And also the basic science around things like, OK, of course you remember the fact that this person insulted you because you're wired from an evolutionary perspective to identify threats, not reinforcing stress. So you've got to write them down, you know. Also, some of these people are using still. So you might not even remember this conversation.

You want to write it down. I think the other thing as well for people who, you know, drink or food or any shopping, any of these kind of compulsive behaviours that you think, oh, don't really want to write it down. Like writing down takes age is what. You've got to like think about stuff. But actually think about how much time you think about doing this. that thing, shopping, eating, compulsively eating, drinking, hiding your drinking. You know, you waste so much time doing it.

Wouldn't it be better to just use some of that time that you would normally spend being compulsive about the thing, writing down nice things about yourself? Quite. But also there's a resistance to that, isn't there? Yeah, well, totally. Yeah, and it's like, oh, I can't be asked. But actually what you're saying is this is too painful. It's hard.

Yeah. And I think also the belief that it will pay off is really important because otherwise you're kind of opening a Pandora's box. Like I need to trust. I need to know that this is only going to do good. Look, we're in the like, okay, it's the 15th of January. We know that people are probably beginning to struggle a little bit now. First thing I want to ask you about if somebody's going to go out and get themselves a book, they've got like a little present or some cash for Christmas or something. what do they do they start at the beginning

or can they jump straight to this one what help us the kindness method is a book that will take you through a process to self coach yourself to achieve any goal change any habit and it's based on behavioral change science

and it guides you through like a self-coaching so this is a book that you can have forever this is like the Bible you just use it forever yeah and you can just use the maps over and over again for literally anything for the rest of your life that's that for any kind of you know I mean, it's not just drink or it's not just food.

It's like literally anything you've got a problem with. Anything you want to change that you can't seem to change. These, everybody, are so good. I love it. And if anyone gets it on audible, the PDFs are all there. The maps are all there. You can download them and do them for yourself. Well, I'm proud of maps example.

I know. But you know what's amazing when people talk about the things that they're proud of? The reason I get them to do that is to remember how capable they are of making the next best choice, right? When they doubt themselves in the domain that they can't change. But even when you get people to say, what are you most proud of? What's the most difficult thing you've accomplished? A lot of the time they'll be like, well, because I had to, didn't I? I didn't have any choice.

And I always say like, but that did demonstrate your capacity. That's the exercise here. This isn't love yourself more because of that. I know that's ambitious right now. I'm always bringing it back to I'm just trying to get you to make the next best choice. Yeah. And you, even if you wanted to motivate someone you hated and you were being paid 100 grand, you wouldn't be like, oh, well, ruined it.

You're screwed. You can't start until Monday. You should probably go ruin everything in the meantime. You'd be like, this is just bad advice. Yes. It's just bad advice. So it's about giving yourself the best advice you can. It's about giving yourself the best advice until you change any habit.

How diets make us fat also has a process of unlearning diet culture in order to actually lose weight. So if you choose, for example, if you chose to say, I know that the way that you're I eat sugar is responsible for my weight gain. And I know that I wouldn't have come to over-eat sugar and binge on it and become emotionally dependent on it and associate it with binging in the last time had it not been for diets making me feel that way. What that means is that whilst you're restricting sugar, be it with the aid of medicines or not, you are still in a place of feeling fearful about being in contact with sugar. Yes. And otherwise very smart, capable human being. And I have seen what that does to women's self-esteem. They're not able to internalize extraordinary

accomplishments because there's a little voice that goes, yeah, but you can't control yourself around a slice of toast. It's almost so silly that for it to be so hard, I need to give them permission to have this be the hardest thing you've ever done. It was the hardest thing I've ever done to change the way I eat. And it requires decisions all day that the deprogramming you have to do is wild because it's been reinforced all day constantly in various. different ways, toxic and otherwise. And so how diets make us fat is basically for everyone who understands that title. Because there are millions of people out there who know full well that they would be able

to manage their weight and their relationship with food had they never tried to lose weight in the first place. Yes. Yes. Because it wouldn't have become emotionally charged. No. And they would be able to implement a new way of eating. When I speak to most people about changing the way they eat, the way that I did when I thought,

how would I eat if I never lost weight? Well, I'd like to be a relatively healthy person. I like to be a person who doesn't have takeouts every night. I'm not having a final binge now. Yes. You know? And I realized that deciding how you're going to eat and implementing it is hard. But if you've only ever associated I'm eating differently with in order to be thin.

Yes. Then you haven't got any association with anything other than perfection in the pursuit of thinness via what you eat to be progress. Whereas if I said to you, you're learning to be a vegan and you take the moral... Vegan's a bit difficult because still there's a moralising element. You know what I mean? Like, you're getting good at something, you're doing your best and you know that it'll end you where you want to go.

If you weren't a perfect vegan tomorrow, you wouldn't have a problem with it. And so I want people to be able to eat that thing they don't think they can eat right now and then go back to eating in a way that they're happy with. And people on injections, people who've liked me find it easier to eat nothing for a period of time than to eat a little bit of these things. not only do they deserve to know that if you choose not to eat them fine, but it's your choice,

but they also need to know how they're going to eat now. Because if like me you've only ever been eating one last time everything or absolutely nothing and celery, you actually need like as a land mammal to find out what you're going to consume, what's healthy. It's relearning everything. And unlearning. I'm going to really give you a massive challenge now. So obviously I'll keep banging on about week three. but here we are, week three of the new year.

We want to make these positive changes. Firstly, get this book. Can I also just say, as a woman of a certain age, loving the slightly larger font. Thank you. Thank you, Cheru. But could you give me, to finish off our interview, three nuggets.

I know, it's a big ask, I know. No. Because you've said so much brilliant stuff, so thank you. But yes, three nuggets. I want to give you three juicy ones. So first of all, when you're planning, a lot of the time, assume that desire for the outcome that you want

is not going to motivate you. Even if it's health, even if it's your kids, that's not how it works for a long-term change. Oh, so the outcome is not going to make it. Once you've identified where you want to get to, you should assume that on a day-to-day, thinking about how amazing that will be

is not going to make you do the hard thing right now. No. Right. So you should, first of all, you want to know where you want to get to, And then you want to work out that you genuinely believe that if you repeat these things, like I want to get here, I want to be able to be a runner. I want to be able to run 5K.

I believe that if I repeat three runs a week for this long, I may not be, I may not know exactly where I'll be, but I'll certainly be in a far better place than I want to be now. Yeah. And so once you've identified that going through those motions literally will get you there, that's your plan. Put that to one side. Yeah.

and assume that that long-term plan is not relevant anymore. You just know, you just trust that if I do the things I said, the individual choices in a row, not only will they get easier, but I will end up where I want to be. Then you need to sit down and work out. What do I need to unlearn? What's going to be hard? What am I going to need to do in a row?

And start to treat it the same way you would if you were learning to speak French. What periods of the day are going to be hard? When am I likely to lose momentum? because I'm going to go on holiday. Like I know, I can't train in the evening. There you go. I train in the morning.

Right. If I don't do it in the morning, it's not going to happen. But do you know how many people, for example, would say to you, let's say, for example, in the evening it's better for you, right? I don't care. Because if you're not going to do it in a row, yes. The same way I would be like, well, yeah, I shouldn't have warm water unless it's got a

slice of lemon in it. It's like, dude, you had Burger King last night. Do you know what I mean? Like, before you start being perfect. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, so the other thing is you need to sit and rather than go, what are all the amazing good things I'm going to do from now on? What are the bad things?

One of the bad things I'm going to stop doing. Yeah. It's easier to stop doing so that those things become a lot easier. Yeah. Right. So what have I learned and what I would ask is, how would I eat if I'd never been on a diet? Sorry. I know that.

Really interesting. That's really hard that. It does a touch on us to see that that's how it's come back. But the way you want to write down is how would I eat. How would I be eating right now? Yes. If I wasn't scared of food, if I wasn't living in the extremes, and most people will give you a pretty reasonable.

Well-rounded. Something's got to give. I probably only have a takeout a week. I probably not have, you know, I probably have relatively healthy breakfast, tends to be good when I do this and that. Yeah. It's actually interesting because you're decoupling diet culture from weight loss

in order to enable people to lose weight. I never thought about that. Because the conditions they've created are a bunch of food addicts and the most people who are desperate to lose weight. And because of that, the people who are becoming increasingly shamed by society for their powerless. I mean, I could get on a soapbox about it. But the second, yeah.

So the second thing is, rather than focusing exactly on what you're going to do to make things better. Yeah. Focus on what you have to unlearn. What if I learned that I wouldn't do my kid, for example, that I need to also not do in a row. Yeah. Until that's easier. Okay. That's the mistake people make a lot of the time.

Yeah. And the third one is, assume that you will mess up. You, for most people, the second choice is what's important. And so I do feel that I want to say to anyone who is. in a 12-step program or sober, when you do want to manage things like food, which often happens where people will be like right now I'm living out those extremes and dating or food or sex or whatever else, identify your relapse as the second choice. Sorry, as the, as yes, when I said earlier, you don't feel in control of your first choice. I may not feel as much in control of my

second or third choice, right? For something that I have to consume. What does that mean? Give yourself a version of relapse that is highly personal. So I know, for example, under these conditions, I can consume this if I'm feeling well, if things are going well. I'm the kind of person who when I'm doing well, I feel empowered, and I can moderate things that are otherwise hard to. Yes. I have purpose. You can see it in my life. You can see it in my nails. You can see it my laundry. You know? Yes. When I'm feeling low and those other things are going on, I'm at much higher risk. And so when other people would comfort eat, I need to know that I'm not about to comfort eat. I'm about to isolate and abuse eat.

And that's on me to know. And so I have the humility to say, I probably need to keep an eye on my first choice right now. I need to go full sober. So it's about really knowing yourself, right? Know itself. And also play the tape forward, you know. If you've done it before. Yes, I always do that.

Play it forward. If you've never done it before, even though it's technically possible, I used to say to myself, you know what, I'm going to eat this, and then tomorrow, I'm going to get up and go for a 10K run. Technically, I suppose I could do that. I've never done it before. Yeah. You know, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

So assume that it's not going to happen. Yeah. It could technically happen, but assume that it's not going to happen. And the self-compassion that comes with that, which is like, I wasn't horrible. I wasn't like stupid and horrible last week. I'm the same person. This is hard. And the other thing I wanted to say is one exercise, which really helps people a lot.

And I always share this is write the name of someone you love dearly and would want nothing but good things for. in the middle of a page and imagine they've come to you and said that they want to throw in the towel because they've had a blip or they've lost momentum

or they've become disillusioned and write down what you would say to them to get them back on track as quickly as possible and then cross out their name and replace it with yours and just practice doing that and it won't feel natural but I can assure you

it will be more likely to get you to the next best difficult choice and through it than the alternative which is well just like you knew you were a piece of crap Yeah. Are you?