HealthyGamerGG - Interview: Masayoshi

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Dr. K Interviews Masayoshi, talks about growing up as a gamer, eating disorders, and shame Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, man. All righty, hey, what's up? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Can you just start off by telling us, what do you go by? You can call me John. I go by John. Okay, you go by John?

And do you want to tell us, I imagine most people already know because you were an awesome content creator on Twitch. But do you want to just tell us a little bit of, about where they can find you and what kind of stuff you do? Yeah, I mainly stream on Twitch with the handle Masayoshi. I'm also on YouTube, but are, am I doing like description or shout out? I don't know. Just like talking about. I was just so, so I was told when I started streaming on Twitch,

I was given some instructions that when you have a guest, you should give the guest to the opportunity to tell people where, they can find you and what kind of work that you do. Okay, okay. What kind of streaming you do? Oh, yeah. I mainly just stream on Twitch and do, uh, I don't know how to explain it.

It's somewhat variety gaming, but I mainly get like attached to one game. So like that initial game was League of Legends. And then around that I would do variety. But now Valerant was ever since Valerant came out, that's the new addiction. and then everything kind of goes around that. Got it.

Kind of just been invited around that game, yeah. Yeah, so it sounds like you're a variety gaming streamer, and if people are addicted to riot games, they should check you out. Yeah. Awesome, man. All right, about right. And is there something in particular

that you want to talk about today? I couldn't really pinpoint one. I don't know if they go full circle. I would be interested in diving into eating disorders. The one I struggle with is binge eating disorder. I think that's

that one I've been struggling with since like maybe middle school high school. I think high school became more prevalent. Okay. Or even addictions in general. Okay, sure. So just a couple of I just a couple of ground rules

You know, the first is that, so first of all, I very much appreciate and I'm also surprised by your ability to just state that you want to talk about eating disorders. Like, I don't think many people are able to do that. Does that make sense? Like, I really applaud you for doing that because I think it's something that people don't talk about because there's so much shame around it, right? Oh, yeah. I think just, yeah. Oh, well, I mainly just like the idea of Benji D disorder, like you said, it is very shameful to bring up.

But I kind of also understand, I don't know, the main reason like I want to do this is like they don't feel alone. Like within dealing with that. Since a lot of, I think influencers don't talk about it. I don't know. I feel like I could map out with that. Yeah. So, and that's what I really want to like applaud and appreciate because I,

I do think you are, I mean, hopefully we can help some people. A couple of other things that I'm just going to sort of lay out just to make sure we're on the same page. The first is that, you know, just because you're here to talk about potentially eating disorders, it doesn't mean that you have to answer any question that I'm going to ask. So if I ask any question, you may feel at some point pressured to answer it because you kind of open the door, but you get to shut that door at any point. Are we, you cool with that? Yeah.

And the other thing, just to clarify, which I know we've already talked about and stuff, is that, you know, even though I am a psychiatrist and I know a lot about eating disorders, I'm not going to be providing you with any medical advice or anything like that. We're just going to kind of have an open conversation about eating disorders. Yeah. If you, you know, you're welcome to DM me after the stream. If you have specific medical questions or looking for like guidance to find a mental health provider in your area or something like that, you're welcome to DM me and we'll try to support. support you to find someone if you decide you need someone or want someone or if you don't already have someone. So I'm just sort of saying that there's kind of a boundary around medical advice on stream, but we're going to do our best not to leave you hanging if there are additional questions that you have that are a little bit more personal. Is that cool? Yeah, it's cool. I agree with that. So, yeah, so I mean, tell me a little bit about when you say you've had,

you've struggled with eating disorders. What does that mean? mainly just binge eating disorder and I guess there's a period where like I just forgot to eat for probably like a year because they're just so focused on streaming initial streaming I believe I dropped from 08 of like

220 to 170 within like 8 months okay it was just pure I felt like I felt like no time to eat because leaving my PC meant just downtime. But then like I slowly like try to think of brainstorming ways to kind of keep entertained or to kind of entertain themselves while I went to go get food and like just overall sustenance by like having them watch the stream,

have them be the streamer and like look over people or I'll like randomly read a name and like, hey, if someone types this, you're banned. Something like that. So it got a little better, but like, it was still something I didn't look back on or reflect on after it happened. When you say it got a little better, what are you referring to? I'm back at like, I would like hover a healthier weight or like, not healthier, like healthier lifestyle of eating.

But I end up just going back to binge. eating. Okay. So what I'm hearing from you is that as a consequence of like sort of needing to stream or not that that there were, I mean, you had to stream sort of is what I'm getting the sense of. Like you couldn't take a break from streaming. And as a consequence of not being able to take a break from streaming, you lost about 50 pounds over the course of a year. Yeah, pretty much. So I think, I don't know, that seems to me a little bit different from a binge eating disorder. Yeah, no, for sure.

I'm not sure what to label that one. Yep. We'll get into it. But I just want to acknowledge and make sure we're on the same page that that's not what you're referring to when you mean binge eating disorder, right? No, because you were asking, I thought you were asking me, like, what other eating disorders? Sure. No. I thought you answered the question really well.

Okay. And so then tell me a little bit about the binge eating disorder. We'll call that the streamer eating disorder. Okay. I like that. So middle school, high school comes around. And I would say like that's like my peak of gaming addiction to the point where I wanted to min-max my eating. And I want to do like hork down all the food I could during lunch towards or even dinner time.

So I could get back to queuing. Or I also like min-max foods that I can make very fast and easily, which ended up being rice. We called it cheesy rice, which is pretty much just instant mac and cheese now that I think about it. But is there rice? It's just rice and cheese. Okay. And it's pretty much just like instant mac and cheese. it feels like.

So you were looking not for food, but you were looking for fuel. Fuel pretty much, yeah. So I could just play more. Time was LP. So, like, yeah, I was just like eating, like eating one meal at lunch and dinner. But then after all of the gaming and, like, stress that it comes with like solo queuing for 12 hours, 14 hours, I would just then like stress eat at night. And then stress eat

Depending on like Because like doing that It led a lot to Doing a lot of assignments last minute So I would stress eat while doing homework or studying And then that also lead to just stress eating If it was like a bad night of solo queue as well Or like because like back then

I'd say middle school high school I was like the first time I was getting like a lot of just like Threatening people just like being pissed at you what does that mean who's threatening that sounds scary or it's like League of Legend

Silicue especially I don't know about other rings but like if I like high diamond everyone just like

was so hungry to win because it was just like it was really hype in like season two and season three um I believe season three

I was Diamond one and yeah it was just like it just felt like a lot of people were just stressed as well and just like taking it on others. I see. So, so, so, but you mean like by threatening people, we're talking about people playing League of Legends, not like some, some dude who's like, I'm gonna fuck you up like in high school. No, oh, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, in league, in league, okay. I was like, I didn't know if we're talking about like a physical abuse situation or bullying or like, you know, you get a jump or like, what's, okay.

So I was like a surfer, chill, like it was not, it was not bad. So people are malding at you on league and it sounds, I mean, it sounds, I don't mean to downplay the stress that causes. You're fine. But I was just going to be used for a second. You're good. So everyone, everyone is like super stressed out. Everyone's hungry to win on league. And like if they don't win, like they're malding and they're going to take it out on you.

Yeah. And it was very new to me because I came from like MMOs and. Yeah, I came from like MMO RPGs and like rhythm games. So it was just like a new space because I never played cod. So I'm sure like everyone is used to like yelling at each other. But I'm like taking everything personally like, whoa, dude. Just let's calm down. Yeah.

And so. Play the game. And so you would try to say that. But I'm hearing that it would actually like kind of like the toxicity would sort of affect you. Like it would get to you. Oh, no. It went into me. I became one with the with the rage.

Wow. What is that? Tell me about that. Through like early. or like, uh, end of middle school and like, early high school.

Um, you just like, I don't know, just like, you're like engulfed. You're just, you're, you're,

you're just seeing red. And then like, you just want to do, like, I feel like what you've, the pain you've been inflicted up with and also just the frustrations. It's so much easier

just like put on someone else than yourself. Displacing the pain and rage. Yeah. But then like at the same time, I'm like, if I can't take responsibility, for mistakes I'm making game. I can't imagine what I'm going to be like in real life.

So just kind of like, I feel like that anchored me off of it or that took me off of it. Anchored you off of it or? Not anchored me off. That anchored me, I guess. So you're saying that saying if I can't take responsibility in the game, I won't be able to take responsibility in life. That thought was beneficial for you.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So sounds like people are being toxic towards you On the one hand, you kind of become one with the rage and you see red Can you help me understand what that looks like or what that feels like Or what's going on in your head when you become one with it?

I don't know, you're just pissed I feel like any stereotype in like a I'm just thinking of like TV shows or movies Like an abusive man like an abusive dude just like kind of deflecting and like projecting everything. Were you doing that? Deflecting and projecting? What does that help me understand?

What does that look like? How are you doing that? Instead of just like, if you're losing the game, what games did you play? Because I'm sure like you've experienced it. I'm just like, sure, sure, sure. If you've experienced it, I was that. So I play Dota more so than league.

So we're mortal enemies in that way. but you know but I absolutely I mean I think I think League is a great game I think Valerun's a great game um never played CSGO uh it seems like arcane is way better than dragon's blood but I'm looking forward to watching it oh yeah so I play primarily single player RPGs Dota um yeah and then let me think about what else I play like I like a lot of co-op multiplayer games like deep rock galap lactic, things like that. But if that helps you.

In Dota, imagine the dude that is just going in, is there a jungler? Not really, but if there is, everyone's raging. Let's put it that way. Yeah. It's not supposed to be a role, but sometimes in games it becomes a role. I'm just trying to think of examples. There's times where like, I would just randomly, like, throw it on Bot Lane because they're just getting dope, but like, that's the natural state of Bot Lane.

It's always been like that. Jungle is just getting outpathed. And then, like, I would have to point it out. Because I'm just, like, frustrated at the fact that he's getting outpathed. But, like, I could have easily helped him. If the person was toxic back, though, that's where, like, I would always, like, match that energy. Yeah. It's on.

If he's open this level, then I'm coming in, too. Yeah. I'm going one step above. Yeah. I'm a child. I'm almost noticing some amount of, like, energy absorption. and then energy reflection. Adaptive.

Yeah. I mean, it almost reminds me of like alt meters from fighting games where it's like the more damage you take. Like they think they're winning because you're at 10% health. They don't understand that you're about to KOM from 100% to zero with your alt. I'm about to dissect their stats and all that. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to, you know, there's no there's no winning you. And the harder they fight, the more they're going to get destroyed.

They just need to understand that they're getting. getting out path or whatever is a jungler. Yeah. Well, yeah, it was a weird time. Yeah. Pretty much though. And so help me understand this term stress eating. Why do you call it stress eating? Because I always talk to as like coping.

It's like I am technically hungry. My stomach is if it is growling. It's like this pain like I need a, okay, my stomach needs to be filled up. Um, and I would just eat so much. that I think I got to the point, it was like a normal to just be like so full to somewhat, some points like almost throwing up,

but like I kind of got comfortable with that feeling. I think that's where the binge eating sort of like was born. Okay. And so you, so when you call it a binge eating disorder, just to clarify, and by the way, we're coming up on one of the boundaries

that you don't have to answer. I'm curious, have you ever actually been diagnosed by a professional or this is just the way that you describe it? Oh, no, I was never diagnosed by a professional. It was just like the way I always, like, yeah, like self-reflection. Okay.

So, and so you would eat to the point, like, what would you eat after like a 12-hour league binge? High school, it was a lot of rice. Rice was like the big, I think just carbs in general. I think carbs is the easiest way to sum it up. pasta, spaghetti. Rice, yeah. Like, like, like, like, Paint me, like, if I walked in, so if you're playing league for 12 hours, I'm assuming that this is like midnight.

Yeah, midnight 2 am. So if I was a burglar hiding in your house, what would I see John do? I just got a bowl of rice on my desk. I'm just doing whatever I need to do. I'm just like horking it down. So you're just eating straight up rice, like just. Cheesy rice. Okay.

Or just marinara, nothing like no angel hair, just like regular spaghetti. pasta. After streaming, it turned to like McDonald's sometimes, even pizza, but mainly just spaghetti. Okay. So, and how would you, I know it sounds kind of weird, but how would you cook it? Like, would you, like, go down to the kitchen and you'd, like, boil water and, like, make pasta and, like, and then you've got, like, a jar of marinerre or something? Yeah, maybe a al dente. Yeah.

That could maybe be an indicator if you see, like, a pasta sauce. the fridge. But yeah. Okay. So you'll, you'll, but so it sounds like there's actually like kind of a, um, you know, there's like a ramen actually. Raman. I forgot Raman was another one too. And, and like how many packets of ramen would you eat? That'd be like two on a like a really stressful day. They could be three. Okay. And, and do you have a sense of like how many calories you would consume like in pasta or cheesy rice? In high school, I had no one. I had no do what calories were. It was until, I think, senior year.

That's like, I was like, oh, everything has stats on it. Like, okay, cool. I was like, okay, now I can like, I can start studying this. That's cool. Okay. All right. So, so, yeah, so remind me at the end to give you, we're going to talk about the stats of food.

This is brilliant. Yeah, yeah. And there's a formula that I think gamers should follow when trying to pick the stats of their food. So, it, But do you have a sense now in retrospect, like how many calories you would eat? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm not sure because I look at old images of me and I thought I was 240, but I've reached 220 recently.

And I definitely didn't look nearly the same weight. So like I think I was like 280 in maybe junior year of high school. How tall are you, John? 5.10 and a half. and do you know what your BMI is? No, not how it is. Okay. And so, okay, so like when you say stress eat, what I'm really hearing is not, I know it sounds kind of weird.

So I'm hearing that you're eating a large quantity of food. Yeah. I'm not understanding the word stress. So like sometimes when I think about binge eating disorder and sometimes when I think about stress eating, what I actually sort of think about is pre-packaged calorie-dense food or I think about someone like being super stressed out so they go to the freezer and they grab like a gallon of ice cream and they just go to town on that you know.

I've also done that too though. But like that's like those aren't the most common ones. But like I've for sure done that. Just like randomly like I have to eat some ice cream or something. Okay. And how often does that like, you know, pounding Twinkies or going. to town on the ice cream like how often does that kind of thing happen uh it happens on like i i think just stressful moments in general uh like during finals it'd pick up recently it's like

if i look at my schedule and i only have like maybe one to two days to do uh like have john time um i think that's where it becomes more prevalent yeah okay so So this is when you're truly stressed out. Yeah. Okay. I think it's just like coping time in general. Okay. So and did you notice?

So when you're eating, let's say, like, so it seems like when you're talking about binge eating, what you're referring to is cheesy rice or, you know, two to three packs of ramen. That's what we're sort of thinking about here. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Okay. and and I know it's going to be kind of a weird question

were you eating to not be hungry or were you eating for other reasons uh I would say both there are times where like thinking like six months ago I was so tired but then like I randomly

but I was also so stressed going to sleep and the hunger got so loud to the point like I was lying in bed for like 40 minutes and I was just hungry the whole time but I had already ate dinner um I had a good lunch I had a good dinner and usually that that will be just fine but uh I just had to get up and eat okay can you tell me about that that's very helpful to hear so like what would you what would be your circumstances like if you can actually paint me a picture tell me an actual time that would be really really helpful for me. So like what's an actual time where you had a decent lunch, you had a decent

dinner, you're laying in bed at night for 40 minutes and you're feeling like super, super, like you've got that gnawing, hungry feeling. Like what was going on? Can you, do you remember an actual instance? Oh, yeah. Like, I feel like even last night. Great. Tell me about it. Uh, nothing to throw a flame here. It was just like, I think I got stressed about like coming on to held the gaming. It was something I tried putting off a couple times because I didn't know if I wanted to dive into it. Sure. And then I just felt stressed to the point where like I wanted to over like I just wanted to overcome it and I just like we have like cookies in the kitchen. I got I grabbed like three

of those. We had some salami. Grab few of those with a Havardi. Nice. And then sparkling water. because I'm trying to like, again, calories. So I'm like, okay, zero calories here. We'll go with that. Sometimes I'm more wary of what I'm eating. But some days just like, I don't care.

So tell me a little bit about the, so what were you, when you say you were stressed and you were trying to like almost like overcome something, like I should come on. But if you're saying you should, there's a part of you that doesn't want to, right? there's a part of me that's like uncomfortable with it but it's also a part of me like I want to get on my shell I also want to be able to like share my experiences and also just learn from it alongside of other people that are struggling with the same issues yeah so I understand that you're motivated to come on and we absolutely appreciate that I still want to kind of tunnel into what is your that stress that you feel about coming on today what kind of thoughts do you have in your head like what is that

look like. If I had a window into your mind, what would I see? Or your body? I guess it's just the unknown. Doing things that I'm not comfortable doing every day. Like, I can go on my stream every day

because I just know what's going to happen. Or I have like a rough prediction. I have like a good ballpark what would happen on my stream if I did something. But on someone else's platform, just the unknown. Okay. And do you have,

Do you have particular fears? Like, does your mind say like, oh my God, what if this happens? Or is it just like, I don't know what's going to happen? I just don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. And then you start to feel hungry? Yes. And have you noticed a correlation between not knowing what to expect and how hungry you feel?

Is that common? I haven't really looked into it. I haven't looked into that close for those two. And so you start to feel hungry, even though you've eaten enough food. And if, for example, you are not coming on stream today, do you think that last night, if you weren't coming on stream, do you think you still would have eaten cookies, salami, and Havardi? Sounds delicious, by the way.

Oh, yeah, it was great. So once. I don't think so. And once you ate the food, how did you feel? Great. How? I was like, tell me. Oh, I was like, I felt like I was tucked in.

I had like my teddy bear, went to my bed. and just like put on some music and they kind of went to sleep. Okay. Did you enjoy eating the food? There's always guilt with it. I think that's the thing. There's always going to be guilt with it. But yeah, I feel comfy.

I am like comfortable at the point. Okay. Yeah. So I know it sounds kind of weird. I understand that you feel comfortable. But do you enjoy eating the food? Oh, no, no, no. It's just like all guilt.

I am like, this is no, this is nothing for nutritional. It's just like pure emotional. Okay. And what does it do for you emotionally? Simmers me down. Okay. Can I think for a second? Yeah.

Also, if it helps in past addictions, I think during the streaming phase, that's where also, there's like, for sure, nicotine addiction. And I think that was the coping with stress. Okay. And I think this is what, and then it was, it was born again after I quit. It was what was born again? The eating. Eating came back after, yeah, I stopped smoking. Okay.

So what I'm sort of hearing is that you tend to bounce around between addictions. Oh, yeah. Okay. So maybe there's something, have you ever thought that you have an addictive personality? Oh, yeah. addictive gaming is always there for addictions but everything else that bounces around for sure um help me understand what what when you when i use the phrase addictive personality and you say oh yeah what is that what do you identify with there like what do you what do you think about like

what is it like to have an addictive personality any hobby anything i purchase anything i put my time into, anything that feels like a dopamine rush, anything I like, even drinking, all of those, I have to second guess and look at and be like, hey, is this addictive and like, do I really want to dive into this? Or should I keep at arm's length? So I know, like, I can't, like, I can't put myself in a situation to get addicted to. Let's say, like, building keyboards, I didn't want to buy too much stuff to just like start hoarding all these things

like okay if I don't buy a soldering kit there's no point of me even building keywords at all whereas I could rent a could rent soldering kits so I know like I have to go out of the way to get it which would then like slow me down on getting keyboards and like stuff like that I'm almost hearing that you've got like this caged beast inside you.

And if you let it free, you're going to like lose so you set up like almost environmental protections to keep your addictions in check. Yeah. Especially even with alcohol, I'd say. I'm afraid of like buying too much of that

or even leaving it like open. Because I'm like, I don't know. I'm afraid. I think in the past I for sure like I dove into that as a coping, but then I just, I felt like shit. So I kind of, uh, weaved off of that. Uh, but even to now, like just to make sure it doesn't happen again, I just, I don't like buying too much alcohol or leaving too much hard alcohol around. John, I'm just beginning to notice that you must be

living life on high alert. Like, always have to think about, you know, I'm just noticing that you can't just like let go like you know you can't be free i mean maybe i'm i'm reading too much into it but i'm just trying to put myself in your shoes for a second and like to always you know some people go to the store and they just like buy a six pack or whatever they don't have to worry about buying too much or buying too little you know some people like on steam you just buy a game and you don't have to think about you know like am i going to lose a year of my life in this like if I'm purchasing a keyboard or I want to pick up a hobby, I don't have to think about what if this goes too far?

Like, I'm noticing that there's almost always some part of you that, I don't know if it's almost always, but it feels to me like it's like on guard. I see it as a good map awareness. I don't eat ganged. But yeah, it does sound a lot stressful thinking about it.

So I totally agree. It's good map awareness. Right? That's brilliant. The outside of it. And at the same time, does it keep you from relaxing? That's a new realization. I don't know. I've never thought about it as like always being tense.

I'm wondering. Go ahead. Yeah. I'm hearing the, yeah, just the way you said of like someone picking up a six-back and not having to second guess it, the only way I've reflected on it is like people just eating in general. like not having to second guess the food. I feel like I have to second guess it.

I don't. I don't know. I lost that train of thought, but yeah. Do you ever wish you were different? Recently, no. I've come to acceptance that this is just what it's like or what it is. It is what it is. And I'm just kind of learning ways to adapt around it.

You say recently? Yeah. What about before? Oh, yeah. I wanted it every other way. Can you tell me about that? It was just the, I just wanted to be normal, the way I put it. And what, what did normal look like to you?

Not having to second guess, like eating, drinking, my environment, uh, child proofing everything. Hmm. Addiction proofing. Yeah. Yeah. And do you think acceptance is a good thing? From all the videos, like, I watch a lot of videos for my self-education.

And it just feels like the most recent one was like the monks. And it was so fascinating to me. And it just felt like acceptance was the only way to not move on, but like kind of improve that lifestyle and like to grow from it. I think acceptance is. Maybe it's not that black and white. When I hear that you've accepted this, it feels incredibly sad to me. what do you think about that? It doesn't feel that's sad to me, like I said.

It does just feel like a lot of, it doesn't feel that's sad to me. I feel like it always keeps me motivated to just self-improve and to kind of overcome these hurdles. Or just like not even hurdles, like who I am. Overcome who you are? No, no, that was the same thing. Just kind of learn to be neighbors with it or also just,

okay, not be neighbors with binge eating. I want that gone, but learn different ways to cope, like knitting. Instead of like, oh, my, I'm so hungry, just like start knitting like really aggressively. Just some, any way to call me down. Okay. I've been looking up different ways for that. I see. It's clear to me, John, that you work really hard when it comes to this. I'm curious, how are you feeling emotionally right now?

Brains, like, clogged with, like, I feel like I opened up a new pathway. The way you worded with, like, I'm caged. Something within me is, like, caged. and that like the way my lifestyle is seems very stressful because I always have to second guess what I get into. And yeah, those two have like very much just made me feel a little more emotional but also more relief that I can put more definitions to John. Do you know what kind of emotions you're feeling? I don't want to say, not sadness, just relief, maybe, that like I have more definitions to. I feel like I haven't been finding answers the past year. It's more so band-aids.

I've found different size band-aids to cover different wounds. And they just keep falling off, but like now, not surgery, but like we're finding, I don't know, just new definitions too. what it is. Yeah, I get the sense, John, that you're really tired, that you've been working at this for a long time. And actually, what I hear is acceptance. This may sound kind of weird is almost defeat. That for a long time, you wanted to be different,

and you kind of resigned yourself, that this is always going to be the way that I am. Even I thought map awareness was brilliant, man, because map awareness is something that's ingrained in you, right? It's an awareness. It's not something you do. it's something that is almost like and you've lived with this for so long

that you've become accustomed to it it is your way of life so even map awareness doesn't even feel stressful to you yeah you know what do you think about that and even acceptance is sort of like well might as well accept it

because that part of you that always wanted to be different well you're fucked there because it's never going to be different. So might as well accept it. And you even catch yourself with some of the self-help terminology because you're like, because that's how you move past it. But oh, no, the monks say you're not supposed to move past it. Right?

I see what you're doing there, where you're trying really hard to incorporate what they've taught you. Yeah. And I think you're doing it and you're putting these band-aids on, but there's still that part of you that is like wounded. You're taking that bleed damage. I've been ignited. Yeah, it's so hard, though, because, like, going into it,

you're hoping it's not a Band-Aid or you're diving into it as if it's not a Band-Aid. And then you walk in the fog of war, it's like, oh, I was a fucking Band-Aid. Okay, I'm going to rip that off and try the next thing. How many, how many, how much, how many chances to plunge into the fog of war do you think you have left? Like how long can you keep this up, bro? I'll keep frontlining. I don't care. It just feels like

what else do I have to lose at the moment? That's about it. I feel like I'd rather overcome this than ignore it. Of course. Can I think for a second? How are you doing, by the way?

Is this okay? I was strong, it was powerful. I'm shaking it off. Okay. I'll do a little stretching. You can think for a bit. Let me know if you need a penis joke. to elevate the mood.

I'll take one actually. That sounds great. Oh, God, now I've got to come up with a penis joke. Okay, we'll come back to the penis joke. You can do whatever you're thinking about. No, I'm sure I've got one somewhere in there, you know. Here's one. There's a penis somewhere inside me.

I just have to find it. That's good. I'm with that. Hmm. Yeah, I'm going to need a second. Mm-hmm. So I'm going to just, I'm going to switch gears in a second, John, unless you have questions, but I'm going to kind of leave us with just this sentiment.

What choice do I have? Okay. Right. I want to just highlight that because it feels really important to me in terms of what drives you. I think there's some amount of like desperation isn't really the, there's some amount of inevitability, right? Because you don't want to give into it. And yet, every time you use swan dive or invade the fog of war, it turns out that their team is there.

G-G-Noop, you're making a move to try to salvage the game. And it's like, back to the fountain, bitch. Thanks for trying. And then you respawn, right? And it's like, oh, let's try this move. And then it's like, guess what? We're still here. Gigi new, back to the fountain.

And so there's something, you know, there's something kind of like tiring about that, right? There's something frustrating about applying Band-Aid after Band-Aid after Band-Aid and trying and trying and trying and kind of like still sort of going back to square one. I do think objectively it's clear you've made a lot of progress. I think you also acknowledge, I imagine that you, you've made a lot of progress.

Like, I think you probably have a lot to be proud of, or no? Uh, the only progress I've kind of come to, or like, been proud of like identifying. Like, identifying, like, identifying it and like catching it in the moment, like, okay, if I eat this, it's emotionally not for nutrition. And I'm like, okay. And then, like, I start nomin, but. Okay, good. That's actually huge.

So this is the other thing, John, I want to point out to you is like you catch your words a lot. And I think that's really important because I think what you mean to, I think instinct that there's a part of you that really feels like the only progress that I've been able to come to terms with. The only progress that I've been able to convince myself is progress. Right? Does that make sense? Like, I don't think that it's, it's not like, it's not like you're bad at English. Right? Well, I'm all right.

No, no, I think this is important because so your neurolinguistic circuits of the brain pick the appropriate words. And so when we're feeling a particular way, right, like when we're raging at our jungler for like not being in the right place at the right time, it picks the appropriate word that captures what we feel, whether it's right or wrong. Does that make sense? So the language we use is an insight into like how we actually feel. And what I'm hearing is kind of a thread is that you've been watching all these monks for so long that you're like you're trying to shape your neurolinguistic programming. Okay, monks was like a, it's been like a two week thing now. Whatever. But yeah.

So whatever, you've been band aiding this shit for a while. Yeah. And so I think it's, that's why I think actually it's huge progress to recognize the emotional awareness. So I think the next step is to recognize how do you authentically feel about this? And like, because I think that's going to be how we ultimately, you know, suture the wound closed. And I think that's maybe what you're looking for. Yeah. Sutures instead of band aides.

It's, it's, it is mostly that I would say. And you are right. There's also times where like I haven't really. sat with the thought yet. And I am putting it one way, but I also actually mean it a different way. Yeah. Okay.

If you say that, then I'll accept that and not overly analyze what you're saying. But I do think you are right about the coming to terms and catching that. Yeah. Okay. So, John, can you tell me a little bit about your upbringing? within birth or streaming let's start with birth

and we'll get to streaming okay I was born and raised in central California Slow County where is central California help me understand what that means well everyone talks about NorCal SoCal but I'm Central Cali

between NorCal and SoCal. I'm like three hours away from San Francisco, three hours away from L.A. Got it. Like that area. And I went to a Christian school from kindergarten to third grade. And then from fourth grade to sixth grade, I went to a Catholic school.

And then I went to a public school and middle school. And high school is also public as well. Okay. I have one older brother. My parents are still together. My mom and dad. And I, my grandma was around a lot. She actually moved in, I believe, when I was in seventh grade, middle school.

That's what she moved in. And she would always cook for me. And I think that's where the ramen comes in because she would always cook me ramen. but she'd always put way too much butter or olive oil she was Italian she just she just she loved olive oil um do you remember how you how it would feel in your stomach when you had ramen with too much olive oil uh dense I don't know

it didn't really I never felt stomach it was more so like just mouth just like okay the just too much oil feel sick? No, I always just kind of sat with me. Okay. Always settled. And so help me understand, John, what is your ethnicity? I'm Japanese, German, and Italian. And what were your parents? My mom's Japanese, and my dad is German and Italian. But he recently did a DNA test and figured out he's like actually 30% French, so I don't know. Okay. Okay. Too much now. And what was growing up like for you? Older brother always had his friends over.

Seven years difference. It was open door. I was very fortunate. I was in a very fortunate house. And it was two-story. And the bottom floor, the basement was like always the cave area. And all my brother and his friends would always be. always be in there playing games.

And I was just being smurfed on for like 18 years, just trying to play games with them. But I would just get shit on. But I'd always grind the game that we were playing until I was just as good. But then they would always swap games. So I would just kind of hop with that. And it was just always kind of that way. Really fun house, though. Had a great time.

So it sounds like What was like school grades Parents? It was weird because since I hung out with people With a seven years of With a seven years difference My sense of humor is very different From kids of my grade

Until around Fourth grade I found that group of people That like had the same sense of humor, but it also turned out that my best friend, he would also hang out with his older cousin, which was seven years difference. And my brother was actually going to school with his cousin. So it's kind of funny how that worked out. So kindergarten to third grade was actually insane. I was heavily inspired by my mom because she skipped the second grade or if she skipped the third

grade, I was like, oh, I want to be like that. I got to skip a grade now. I remember in the second grade, I was actually so fast at math. I qualified for a math tournament. and I feel like that was the peak of my school career because as soon as gaming picked up, it went downhill. I think even the math tournament, I got like fourth place, I didn't even get top three.

But I just remember my mom being so like, my son's a genius, like let's go. But I'm gaming picked up, and that's when school got really hard. No stimulation. It didn't feel like competition. There's like no drive to improve in school, mainly just to get by.

How did you just feel about that? Somewhat acceptance, like she wants me to be happy, but also she wants me to do well because I think when you're raising a kid from her generation, like, if they're not doing well in school, they're not successful. But I feel like nowadays she's more so acceptance with like happiness and just health. I think she's adapted to that. Okay. I'm wondering, and this may be me reading too much into it, but it sounds to me like she accepted your gaming the way that you're doing whatever false acceptance you're doing now. Maybe because streaming ended up working out, but yeah. Sort of accepting it, accepting defeat, but deep down, maybe she came to terms with it. Yeah. Uh, I'm not, yeah, maybe. Not sure.

Um, although it does sound like she's, she's able to be genuinely happy. for you now. Oh yeah, she tunes in a lot. My dad randomly spams my chat. He's a one-man spammer. I have to kind of weird champ at him for that, but I'm glad they enjoy it.

What's it like having your parents and watch what you do? My parents have always been jokesters, mainly my dad. My dad's from, he was a Carney growing up. My grandpa was a foot juggler. I have a circus family It's always been jokes

My fight with my dad's is always like Like dad you did this wrong though he's like Oh yeah but you're adopted and then we would walk away and like laugh at it Are you adopted? No Oh my dad just like to like mess with me Okay And something like that or always joking around

So what you're telling me is that you have a genetic advantage at being a Twitch streamer like you literally have circus genes I guess so. It's entertainment of my family. Yeah. That's cool, man. And so it seems like,

I mean, were they, how would they feel when your grades, like how were your grades, like in, let's say, sixth grade, fifth grade, seventh grade? It's so weird.

Think about it now. I was in this higher, I think it was fifth or sixth grade. I was in like the higher math class. But I saw my best friends in the lower math class. I'm like, this looks way more fun.

Why would I ever want to be in this class? I'm like, yeah, I could do geometry in sixth grade, but this is boring as hell. This teacher's like so strict. And the teacher in there, they're playing with like cars and stuff. I was like, I want to go in there. They're like taught. They're allowed to talk.

Like in my class, I was not allowed to do anything. Like, it was so boring to me. And like, I would just like, I asked my parents like, or I went to my parents like, this is way too hard. Like, or like, I was like, the class is way too hard. I can't do this. And then they talked to the teacher and let me just hang out. They didn't let me hang out, but they let me go to the lawyer class.

Do you remember? Yeah, go ahead. I just did not understand the importance of the higher math class, I'd say. I feel like I should just found more transparency within that with my family. But yeah, I opted for fun. And did you have a sense of how your parents felt about that? there's like oh it's too hard okay we can work on that and they like yeah they just ended up working around it but I feel like my

as time went on my attention span got lower lower and lower to the point like in middle school I did I had to start getting tutoring but even when that even with that like more restrictions just felt like yes less fun but also I didn't get to I there's always just less want for school I always want it there's just I always felt like I wanted a more competitive edge to schooling

like I wanted a ladder system really bad in I think eighth grade I was like I would rather just it would have brought out the best part of you yeah I just feel like it felt like I was doing it for nothing I felt like I was only doing it because social standards for my family. Did you feel guilty at all in disappointing your parents?

Yeah. Knowing that I wasn't doing one school was always guilty. Like just getting by, like, I think it was just season Bs. But like then my parents, some semesters were like really kicked on. Like if you don't get at least Bs this semester, like we at least need to see 3.0, you just can't do Cs to get by. Like, it's not acceptable. I think that's when tutoring came in.

It's a little foggy in that area. But it didn't feel great not getting to the educational standards they wanted. Felt a bit guilty. But my dad always seemed to understand. And actually, my mom seemed to understand.

Yeah, so kind of a weird question, but what was it like to have understanding parents? There's a weird line of definition of understanding parents as well now that I think about it, because there's a lot of threats to breaking my PC if I didn't get off because they knew I at least had some assignment to do. They didn't know what. There's like, I know there's an assignment somewhere.

I just just pull it out, like get off. But I'm like, the season just reset. Like this is a big deal. Big climb, big LP gains. There's a lot of grounding, a lot of grounding. I think after the grounding and then I was able to show, hey, I can put my grades up. I got 3.0 here.

I guess I became a lot more rebellious than more restrictens that came around. I remember they took away my PC for two weeks. And all I could play with was a Rubik's Cube or go outside. But in high school, all my friends got expelled due to, like, drugs or fighting. So I didn't get to make closer friends until, like, maybe junior senior year of high school. Mm-hmm. I did junior year. That's when I started making closer friends.

Did you feel... I don't remember when the restrictions happened, though. Do you get the sense that... I know it's going to be, so I'm going to ask you kind of a leading question here and, you know, feel free to say no. I'd say there's a 20% chance that there's something to this. Did you feel like guilty for having understanding parents? Or maybe not guilty, but most people think that having understanding parents is a good thing and leads to like positive emotions. I'm wondering if you actually had some kind of unusual opposite experience where you actually felt bad in some way because your parents were so under.

understanding. I think I'm explaining it wrong because I definitely never felt like they're understanding. They were like definite outbursts and it actually felt like gaming became like an underground hidden thing. Like I think sophomore year, um, sophomore year I made friends with people and like that's when I started making close friends online. I didn't have a lot of close friends in person, maybe like freshman year of high school. And the only time I could ever concentrate or play games was actually when everyone went to sleep. So around 9 p.m., that was the only time I could play games.

It felt very hidden at that point. But then my parents always noticed I was tired. What was it like hiding gaming? Thrilling. Always on edge. Like even though they're always on edge. Like, even though there are no distractions, there's always that thing in the back of my head, like,

like, what was that sound? I'm like, oh, it was just a cat. Okay. It's like cat walking around. Like, that puts up on the staircase, like, uh, like the fighter flight. They're just like hiding the game.

Hmm. Maybe I'm thinking of weekends because weekdays. It was actually like, I felt like I was on, I was always being watched. Gaming was very restricted. I haven't like thought about it in a long time So it's very it's like coming it coming to mean waves

The memories Sounds like your parents were on guard Yeah They just They didn't not restrict gaming They all they knew is like Gaming is the issue Get rid of it type thing

But it felt like I always needed to find a way to play games I don't know if it's like out of spite. I remember like sneaking my DS and just like playing in the garage or even like

finding a I would like if I knew if my dad didn't need to use his work laptop I would use that. Internet restrictions happened as well.

My dad is he works in IT and he would always find ways to like at on my IP my designated PCIP a password would pop up if I opened up any Chrome extension or anything. It would just block up everything. And I'd have to, that became a game of, okay, what's the password? Oh my God, Dad, I...

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Because I knew he texted the password to my brother so he could use the internet because he has to work. Oh, my God. Oh, thank you. And I like, I looked at the text. I'm like, oh, your password is blah, blah, blah. And I called my phone. Like, oh, I found it.

Thank you so much. And then 8 p.m. comes around. I'm back on league. it became a game of cat and mouse. Yeah. I think my mom and dad, yeah. I don't think they knew about that. But yeah, it went to those extents.

John, did anything, you know, anything happen to you that you feel is like emotionally significant? Like any kind of major things happen to you, like in terms of bullying or, you know, anything happened around seventh grade, sixth grade, fifth grade, fifth grade. that sort of it may not seem significant to outside people but like trust issues came around middle school I'd say

how so bullying I was the only Asian school actually elementary school I was the only Asian guy at school until high school and I met another Japanese guy people would like do like the typical

like I'm going to blindfold you with dental floss or stuff like that I always thought just jokes though Because I came from a joking family I'm like Oh I'm gonna sue you or something I don't know I was just like I was a kid

And then or like It always seemed like a joking manner Because I doubled down with the jokes The bullying didn't go further Yep So you you became the class clown To protect yourself from the bullies Sort of

Pretty much yeah But like you know Actually yes though there's a lot of shit but I feel like I became friends with the bullies because of it and what about you don't have to talk about this if you don't want to

I just want to get a broad strokes kind of approach can you tell me a little bit about dating John dating dating interesting girls started around middle school is always I feel like I was always the least interested in the group.

I think it was like the outcast, the minority, but that was okay. I didn't really care too much about it. I had gaming to worry about anyways. You're about to say league, right? I had LP on my mind. Or even like, I don't know, when I was playing Maple Story, I had like a Mesa on my mind, Guild Wars, wow.

Like, I was chilling. I didn't really worry too much about it. I think middle school was like my first instance of bullying, even for my closest friends. They randomly outcasted me for like a week. They threw my backpack. I just noticed like it was, I don't even know how to explain it. I don't even know what happened. I think it was just kids.

Like I think a rumor got around or something. And then they just like randomly decided to target me. They threw my backpack off a staircase. That's like 40 steps. To the point where like my binder broke. Like everything collapsed. and that day I also happened to borrow my brother's iPod or Zoom or something. That broke and that I just felt super bad about that.

But I think that was like my first huge take on bowling. I was like, holy shit, okay? I'll just do my own thing. Girlfriends. It's cool. My first like official like real girlfriend was junior year. It was a senior. Chad mode, bro.

Oh, yeah. What can I say? We did it for three years, from junior year to first year of community college for me. That ended due to cheating, unfortunately, but I also understood. She did. We saved up for a career trip. I got her Airbnb and then came back. I was like, oh, that happened.

But yeah. And John, how old are you, if you don't mind me asking? 24. Okay. I didn't think. I was like, I was like, he's going to ask me my age. I could not remember if it was 23 or 24. I had to think about it.

Not really that important. And did you finish college? No. I was supposed to give my age. but I just had no interest still. It was still weird. I was just going to accept and be like, I'm just going to do IT, dad, whatever.

I did my A-plus-plus, which is like very fundamental basics of IT. Like where does RAM go? Motherboard, you know motherboard? It's just like stuff like that. I remember going to class for that. But when I was going to finish wrap up, I think I'd like one more full year of Unity. That's when streaming took off.

And I was like, I was like, I'm going to just chase this now and see if I enjoy this. And if this doesn't work out, then I'll just go back. Technically, like, full time. Or like when did I start, start, like as a hobby? Start as a hobby. and when did you go full-time? Own 3D shutdown around.

I'm not sure. Whenever own 3D shutdown, I usually just say that and people are like, oh. I don't know what that means. Okay. 20-15. And how long have you been full-time? Through two to three years.

So you've grown quite rapidly. Yes, recently for the past three years for sure. I went to a thing called Streamer Camp. It was hosted by Boxbox and Fusley. From there, it went to full-time after that. And do you, are you dating anyone now? Yeah, I'm currently dating another shimmer. And broad strokes, we don't need to go into details, but like, how's that going?

Amazing. It's the most secure and transparent, like, confident I've ever felt in any relationship. I'm happy to hear that, man. Yeah. And John, are you happy? As a whole, I think so. But like, I feel like there's no definition to happiness.

I like being busy. I like where I'm at. I'm content. But I always want to... I'm 100% happy now because they cut up With everything, I clean my room, my room's organized, everything's feeling good, everything's back in place. I am currently happy, yes. Okay.

But. I'm happy to hear that. Okay. With sleep, I'm not satisfied. Sleep, sleeping, eating. I just think I'm never going to be satisfied until, like, I get a correct sleeping regimen. And, like, I finally beat the eating. like my binge eating.

Ah, okay. Any questions for me? How are you doing? Are you happy? How do you feel? I'm really enjoying talking to you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm happy. Yeah.

I think some things were different about my life, but for the most part, I'm very happy. I'm glad to you to that. I think, yeah, and I think especially in this moment, I think that, yeah, I'm really enjoying talking to you. And recently we haven't been doing quite as many interviews. And I'm really remembering, talking to you is making me really remember why I love talking to other people. So I'm really happy about that.

Thank you. I'm happy to hear that. Any other questions? No, nothing's having to mind. Okay. So I'd like to share some thoughts with you if that's okay. Okay. Let me just think about where to start.

So, you know, if you want to get evaluated for an actual eating disorder, I think that that's totally fine. I think it's not a bad idea. Although what I'm hearing is, I think, runs a little bit, not necessarily deeper, but just, I don't think eating disorder captures you very well. Generally speaking, when evaluating for eating disorders, there are a bunch of questions that clinicians would ask, which I'm sort of not asking almost on purpose, because that's really more of a medical conversation. And I think that what I'm really hearing from you is, and what I think we can talk about today is like, what is a human being's relationship with food?

And I think that's a better way to kind of describe it because I think there's a lot going on here that may not be as simple as an eating disorder. So part of what I don't like about the psychiatric system is that it tends to like bucket things, I think, which can be very helpful in some ways, but can also be very restrictive. So, for example, if you get diagnosed with an eating disorder, you may go through eating disorder treatment, which is fine it affecting an eating disorder. But there is more going on, I believe, to your relationship with food that I think needs to be explored. So if anything, I'm sort of like an addiction psychiatrist. So like most of my patients over the last few years have been like related to addictions. and this is where if you have an addictive personality, like you can treat the eating disorder,

but I don't know if that's going to fix whatever else you get addicted to. Does that make sense? It's just going to go to something else. Yeah, so this is something I haven't gone into too much detail, but it seems like you play whack-a-mole with your addictions. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I like that. Right? So like it's gaming, then it's nicotine, then it's food. There may be other things kind of rolled in. And so this is where like we have to have a high, level sort of understanding of like what role, what is your relationship with food? And so, and also like, what does food do for you? And then we can start to think about what is it that you need done? Does that make sense? So like food does something for you and that

speaks to a need. But if you really want to get, and then that need gets managed by things besides food. So if you really want to overcome this, I think it's about understanding what are your core needs. And also, what are the structures that you've put in place that adapts? How can I just say this? What are the macros that you've programmed to deal with the fact that you suck at something? Right? So like if I don't know how to last hit, like I'm going to use a macro and I'm going to develop a macro. And so it's sort of like instead of dealing with the core of the problem,

like as human beings, we build like adaptive structures to protect us from it. I see. So. Yeah. I think that's a good, that's a great point. Instead of a, I feel like I'm avoiding the stress and rather focusing on something that's not the core issue. It's, if anything, just a part of it. How do you do that?

So just tell me what's connecting. I'm seeing dots connecting for you. So vocalize those for the sake of everyone else who's watching. It feels like a root, which is the next addiction route is now binge eating to deal with the stress rather than dealing with the core, which is the stress. I feel like I need to find a way to rather deal with the stress rather than deal with the binge eating because that'll minimize the binge eating in the long run. And also maybe ways to cope. Yeah. And this is where things get a little bit.

weird because okay hold on I just realized I was missing a question that I just thought of go ahead say something go oh no I was just wondering like if that is that time about about right of what we're going with yep yep absolutely so let I just had an insight John what are you

has there been a time in your life where so what I'm hearing I'm just going to kind of like start the the more psychological stuff so like basically who used to keep you in check? Parents. Who keeps you in check now? My friends.

Myself? Yep. This is you always being on guard. Right? So you have started, so like they used to do this for you, and now you've learned how to do it for yourself. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense. Right? So you start. started doing, they came up with a strategy that keeps John from falling apart. And that was the strategy that you learned. That was the meta in your household, which is don't let John go off the rails. So they didn't teach restraint. They taught restriction.

And so now in your mind, you don't have restraint. So you have to use restriction. Can't get a soldering kit. Can rent one. Holy. Yeah. Right? Because if the soldering kit is there, I don't know how to not use it.

So I just need to limit my access to soldering, which of all of the addictions I've ever heard of. You take the cake for a brand new one. I've never had someone coming to buy office and say, I'm addicted to make a keyboards. buying retail therapy I didn't want to buy too much whatever you can call it something else if you want to but you're fucking a soldering at it and years from now like like you know your your girlfriend who is then going to be your wife is going to come into a psychiatrist's office and is going to say he was supposed to pick up the kids from school and I found out six hours later that he was in the basement soldering the whole time This has to stop. It got me. Right? So the first thing is that you,

and so this is, and then you come up with the Band-Aid. And, but the Band-Aid is built off of the back of like your, the meta that you're trying to play with your addictive impulses. Right? So like, if you can't,

if restraint isn't an option and restriction is the only thing, now you're like looking for other random shit, but it's like, it's like piled on top of like a meta that is formed. Does that make sense? And I think that's why it's not working. Like, it'll work a little bit,

but it's like an adaptation to an adaptation. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And at some point, it's just like, I feel like it's diluted or saturated. Okay, yeah. What do you mean by that? I don't understand what you meant,

but it sounds 100% correct. It just feels like all the Band-Aid fixes. is that the power of each restriction feels less and less. From this point on, it feels like nothing will be solving it. It will only be minimizing. Right. So this is where I think some of like, this kind of goes back to this like, I've come to terms with it. Like acceptance is the only way.

And that's fucking sad, bro. Yeah. Right? Like you feel that? Like how terrible. Like it's not acceptance. it's defeat. Yeah.

If you don't understand that or want to push back, you're more than welcome to. Oh, no, I totally agree with you on that. Yeah. So it was just very hard. Like, it just, everything I, like, looked into, it just felt like it all ended up coming to acceptance because without the acceptance, it felt like there's no, not happiness, living a satisfying life. Yeah.

So, and all that stuff is right. I think this is the challenge, though, of, like, the self-help stuff is that we don't really appreciate that we filter that stuff through our existing meta. Yeah. And so you're kind of like, you're in this place where, like, I know that, you know, acceptance will help you and we'll get you to acceptance. But this is where, like, there's a, there's a sinister amount of defeatism underneath your acceptance. There's resignation. There's nothing I can do, so might as well accept it. Right?

It's not like actually empowering at all. It's like, sure, it's a way forward, but it's a shit way forward. And I don't blame you for taking it because that's all we know. Because you're a smart guy. You clearly, you know, were a math genius. You've succeeded at many different video games. You were grinding to the point where you were playing against kids who were seven years older than you, which is ridiculous.

And then they would move games because like the second you get good, they can't lose to a kid who's like seven when they're 14. So time to switch games, right? You've risen to become successful as a streamer. So you, and you, I think it's clear that you've done your homework and you try really hard. So you've got good stats. You've got a good work ethic. And I think you've learned a lot.

I think the challenge is that it's all been through this existing structure of like understanding your problems, which I think is off, which is why it feels like a band-aid and it doesn't really work. With me? Yeah. So now let's dig into what it is. My first question to you, or maybe last question to you, is, has there been a time in your life where you've really gone off the rails and you've learned the price of going

off the rails? Yeah. It was when I'm at my peak weight. I still don't know how much it was, but it was like my lowest self-confidence I never wanted to go out. I could even wear pants. I was wearing my, it was when I wore my dad's shirt,

I was wearing my dad's double XL, and that was like the only shirt that felt comfortable to me. That's when I realized, that was the only time I let the rails, I went off the rails. How did it feel to be that person? I wasn't proud. I felt very unhealthy.

Eating just felt guilty. But I approached my parents about it. And then I just learned to, from there, I just stopped drinking calories and went on from there. How did it feel to approach your parents? It wasn't really approach. It was more so like a suggestion. I was like, hey, would you be open to like sugar-free stuff? Zero-calorie stuff.

I don't think I ever faced it head-on. What did they say? I feel like I've always beat around the bush. They're open to it because I feel like we were never the healthiest family. A lot of processed foods, not a lot of whole foods until five years ago. We did like a whole food, a whole foods diet together. I think that's when we learned a lot as a family. And that's when I learned a lot about calories.

Okay. Why do you think you beat around the bush? I just don't like bothering. It always feels like I'm bothering people, but I just want to make it more stressful than it is because I want to deal with it. I want to deal with the stress, and I want to battle it.

I don't be a withdrawal from the day or a deposit. Sorry. I'm hearing that you don't want to be a burden. Yeah. even it's like a small amount i know but yeah i i just feel like i can i should be able to face it which is hypocritical because then i want people to approach me about their things which i've also understood yeah so this is worth exploring deeper um but this is the thing so like when we talk about the root i feel like this is it

So it's going to be weird. I'll explain this in a second because I want to leave you with something a little bit more concrete. I feel like this is opening a door that we may not have time to open right the second. In terms of follow up, if you want to work with a therapist to explore this stuff more, we can. I'm wondering if I'm sort of missing an opportunity here, but I really do think that, yeah, I think that this is probably a conversation for another day. But I'm glad you gave it this much color because I think there's a lot there. Yeah.

So there's a lot about. And so I think basically like the reason that you're terrified to let yourself go is because if we think about the way you feel today and we think about the way that you felt wearing your dad's double XXL shirt. Those are the polar opposites of your life. There's like Masayoshi now, amazing girlfriend who feels secure, professionally successful. eating healthy and then there's that guy there's john and and what i'm getting the sense of is that you are terrified of becoming that person again you were resigned that there may be nothing you can do to prevent being that person again and that all of those thoughts and feelings are things that you beat around the bush with so you kind of keep them at arm's length and so like there's some

questions that I'll ask, which will start to get at that, and then you'll start to feel like emotions. Because there's something inside you that you're just, you're terrified of like what, so like if we think about why does someone have to be on guard all the time, right? Like, why do you need map awareness? It's because you're going to get ganged. Yeah. And what is, what is getting ganked for you? And so generally speaking, human beings don't randomly fear things. they learn to fear things. So your fear of going off track comes from some experience that you've had. Maybe it's gaming.

Maybe it's going to community college. Maybe it's not living up to your mom's expectations of a math genius. And there's a lot of beating around the bush where it's like even coming to terms with it, like your mom probably on some level came to terms that her son is never going to be this thing that for a moment, she was like, oh my God, he's going to be the chosen one. And the rest of your life, you haven't been the chosen one. And I'm guessing that it has been hurtful to be able to see that in her. You know, and this is where things can get super confusing because it's clear she loves you. It's clear she supports you. It's clear she's proud of you. So how can she also

be disappointed in you? It designated with me throughout school, I was very much disappointed. that I every time, not every time, but like in the back of my head, every time I went on my PC, just like, I'm not, I'm not that kid. My mom was destined for or deserve, or, okay, not deserve. Yeah, no, deserve. Nope. Yeah.

That's it. Right? And instead she got. John. Yeah. Right. And so that can hurt. And I don't think that you're wrong when you,

saw all of the times she was a little bit disappointed in you. I think that's why if we talk about, you know, the one feeling, I've asked you multiple times what you feel, and there's really only one feeling that you've been able to articulate. Do you know what it is? No. Guilt. Everything else, I get a brilliant gaming analogy. So you understand what you feel.

You just don't know how to describe it. Right. So you'll use like, and that's great. I mean, your brain is coming up with a gaming analogy to articulate, like, what your experiences. And so there's something going on here where there's, like, there's some amount of, like, and here's the thing, you know, even if we kind of talk about why you don't want to be a burden to people.

It's like, you don't, you know, on a weird way, like, I don't think you really mind too much fucking yourself up. I think it's like what you're really concerned about is like not disappointing other people, like not letting other people down. Like, the guilt that you feel is not. because of the way that you are with yourself, it's because of the way that you don't want to inconvenience other people. Yeah, self-sabotage. That's a hobby of mine. What do you mean like that? Or it just seems like, it seems like self-sabotage. How so?

Having those expectations of myself that I don't be a burden to others, but when people come to it's not a burden at all. I want people to feel comfortable and be open enough. Yeah. So if we kind of look at this, like, why can't you relax? And I think it's because this is where like it all kind of starts to tangle together or come together. It's like the reason you can never relax is because you never want anyone else to be responsible for keeping you in check. So you've never got a safety valve.

You've never got support. You've never got backup. you can't call for lane rotation. You're playing League of Legends, 1V5. You can't count on anyone else. Or you can count on them. You just don't want to because then you'll be a burden. And then you're left like dealing with all this crap on your own.

Like, does your girlfriend know that you struggle with eating? I'm letting you know more and more about it. Right? So if we think about what is that process like for you, I think it's a sign of real growth that you're letting her know more and more. But I would guess that every bit that you let her know

feels like walking through lava. That you're going against every instinct or fiber of your being to let her understand that this is something that you're working on. And I would also guess that you feel guilty when you tell her. I don't like.

mentioning why there's Alfredo in the fridge or like an open jar of Alfredo or like I even in this new place I've like purposely hid not hid but like in a higher spot because she's a little shorter but like in a higher spot like so I didn't have to explain it just like it's a me thing yeah right so it's a me thing that I'm working on and and that's hard and so I I think this is where, like, I don't know exactly how this stuff comes together, but as we talk about the addictive personality, like, I think, by the way, a lot of your eating disorders, I mean, I don't know what's an eating disorder is really like gamer eating disorder as opposed to like binge eating disorder. I haven't like formally evaluated you, but I think there's just like physiologic stuff going on. So for example, when you play League of Legends for 12 hours, so this is, it's, it's interesting. So there's even a physiologic like barrier here. That's really important. So if you game for eight hours, you're fine. If you game for more than eight hours,

your tendency to binge eat is going to go astronomically higher. And there's a very simple physiologic reason for this. So our liver has this stuff called glycogen. And glycogen is a carbohydrate store that supplies our body with glucose over, like when we're living. So glucose is really, really important because it's one of the two fuel sources that our brain can use. And so, like, we want to preserve glucose. It's part of the reason why we love eating carbohydrates because carbohydrates give us glucose.

So we've evolved to be very sensitive to glucose. Now, the interesting thing about the glycogen stores in your liver is that your body can only store about eight hours of glycogen at a time. So if we don't eat for eight hours, we'll be fine. and then once we cross that eight-hour mark, our body starts to go into a catabolic phase where we start breaking down muscle and we start entering literally like the first stage of starvation. Like that's like how it's physiologically described.

I'm a little bit rusty on this, so if there's a dietitian or someone are out there, they may adjust, correct me. But basically, once you cross the eight-hour mark, your body's literally starving. So the drive to eat changes very drastically after an eight-hour period. I know, yeah.

Yeah, so when you're... It makes a lot of sense. And so I don't even know necessarily that you've got a binge eating disorder. I think you do binge eat, but I think there's a lot of physiology, and it's a pattern I see with gamers a lot, which is if you play for eight hours

without eating anything, then like you're going to feel like famished because your body is literally in starvation. And then the signals to eat physiologically and like neurochemically, start to change after the eight-hour mark. I think during streamer, was it streaming eating disorder?

I think that was, but even last night, I had for lunch, burrito, dinner, chicken, mashed potato, broccoli, come four to six hours later because I have to go to bed. The stress and the scream for hunger came in.

Yeah, so you have that shit too. So this is like they're, this is multifactorial. So there's the physiologic thing. There's the cheesy rice that you had as an eighth grader. Right? There's that thing going on.

And there is absolutely an emotional component to eating. Where there may even be like a physiologic component there too. So this is kind of interesting. But when you eat high levels of carbohydrate, your insulin level goes up. Insulin is a hormone that causes you to absorb glucose from the blood. And the other interesting thing is that, that insulin is an anabolic hormone, which means that it causes you to produce things. It's sort of like we're in production mode versus like breaking down mode.

So there's anabolism and catabolism. So one is like we're storing energy. The other was we're using energy. So the other interesting thing is that insulin makes people sleepy. So when we eat food and we have an insulin spike, we'll get into a food coma. So I think that you're physiologically eating salami. cookies and Havardi to trigger a physiologic response that slows down the thoughts in your head and like literally reduces your stress because that's the effect of like insulin on your mind

is that it's going to kind of like slow things down so there's also a physiologic element to your as you put it stress eating and you've got the more traditional like addictive personality where the way that you manage your emotions is through certain dopaminergic or or reinforcing activities. So this can be nicotine, it can be food, whatever. So there's like the more standard like people stress eat, which you occasionally do. But I think there's actually way more going on with you physiologically

than you give yourself credit for. I don't think you're just like an addict. There's a lot of really interesting physiological components to your story, which kind of stand out to me. Thoughts. That was beautiful. Everything you just said out there was art. That was, I'm probably going to rewatch the Vod to like really let it set in, but well said.

That was very intriguing. Good. I'm glad you found that beneficial. So like that's the physiologic component, which is I think part of the downside to self-diagnosis is that there are oftentimes things going on, which I don't, I don't think you're wrong actually about anything. So that's one thing. So now, so that's just to keep that in mind is that if your stress level is high, The coping mechanism that you've learned is to eat food because that's how you sort of calm yourself down physiologically. Now, this is where, let me just think for a second.

I'm going to try to tie together a couple of other things. So there's like the physiologic component. Then there's like the addictive personality thing, which may also be like somewhat genetically determined. Like you may have a sensitivity to dopamine. Have you ever been evaluated for ADHD? Yeah. Do you know if you have it or don't have it? I got diagnosed with an ADHD combination.

Okay. So that doesn't surprise me at all as well because I think the way that you describe your addictive personality is actually a neuroscientific difference that exists in the brains of people with ADHD. So people with ADHD are literally more sensitive to dopamine. So the ability of dopamine to swing your behavior. one way or the other way, like, is variable depending on whether you have ADHD or not. That makes a lot of sense. Right. So you just get, you swing very easily.

Like, yeah. And so I'm not surprised that you have ADHD. Because the story that you're describing reminds me of the people that I work with who have ADHD. So there's a neuroscience component to your quote unquote addictive personality. which has nothing to do with psychology. It's not about, oh, like feelings and guilt and, oh, my God, desperation, restraint. It's like, it's like literally like the way that your brain, it's like an amplification of the dopamine signal compared to the average human being. Then, so there's the physiologic component.

There's the neuroscientific vulnerability due to ADHD. And then there's the psychological component, which I'm going to circle back to now. Somewhere along the way, you know, your parents sort of, discovered that the way to keep John in check is like not by understanding his problem because they never asked you, right? They never were like, John, like, why don't you do your homework? Like, they may have said, why don't you do your homework is an expression of frustration. Yeah. But they never sat you down because it seems like you also have a very beat around the Bush family communication style where you guys joke about things and you refer to things. Like your parents know, hey,

what do you all think about cutting out sugary soda? Your parents know, that they're like, oh, my son, like, realizes he's fat. But we're not going to ever tell him that. Yeah. And he's not going to say that. He's not going to say, like, I'm losing self-confidence, like, I'm wearing a shirt and I feel pathetic. You're going to show up and you're going to be like, and then your dad is even going to crack a

joke to make you feel better. Yeah. You know, and so that's your... That's your communication style. So what that sort of means is that your ability to, like, actually understand what's going on within you. is like sort of not developed. And that's not your, it's not anyone's fault.

It's just like you're, you're, that's not how you all communicated. Every family communication style has advantages and disadvantages. So the upside of your family's communication style, for example, is that your family is actually very resilient. So if people are like super authentic and bad shit happens, it can be like too much. So you need the joking ability, like, joking gives you like trauma resistance, for example. But it may, you know, it gives you like an introspection debuff and it gives you like trauma resistance. So, so, and this is where there's something going on psychologically where you don't want to feel like a burden. You don't feel good about yourself.

You're terrified of becoming a 280 pound whatever. And so those kinds of fears, you don't really know like how to meet them head on. And so you start to like find random ass solutions on the internet about. acceptance, but like you're not accepting the right thing. You're not accepting what needs to be accepted within yourself. You're just like accepting. What you're accepting is that you're going to be powerless and you got to restrict yourself in GG Noob. Right. You're like resigning yourself to just like losing MMR, which is like the wrong thing to accept, which is why acceptance isn't working. And this is the whole problem with like the acceptance movement. People are like,

accept. But it's like, accept what? And if you accept the wrong fucking thing, like you're not going to get better. Damn, that's so true. Yeah. So it's like, I don't even know, like, what are you accepting? The acceptance movement is, like, the perfect wording for it. It, like, everything I do come across is, it boils down to acceptance. But what are you, like, I'm asking you, not rhetorically, not philosophically. Like, when you say, like, I'm trying to be more, like, what are you accepting?

What is it that you're accepting what? The idea is, like, I'm accepting John. Like, where, Moss Hacian and John are shaking hands. as the way you put it. But are you accepting, John? Yeah, like working together, you know. Like, hey, I, I, uh, I'm introverted and I like recharge when I'm alone. Like, we're just working together.

I'm like, okay, we can do that. We can go, we can go hang out and like not maybe play games because I'm afraid of a, let's do a little bit of a dopamine detox. Let's like just chill out for a bit. stare out, look at the window. Like, all right. Yeah, we could do that. Yeah.

Okay. So that sounds actually pretty healthy. So I think you're actually on the right track. And I would say that, you know, when you talk to your girlfriend, that feels to me like the right kind of acceptance. Does that make sense to you? Yeah. She is giving me the space to talk about it. Talk about pretty much anything. It's just like a matter of do I have the strength or to do it. Yeah. The strength to do it. Good. So here's the reason I think that's really good because in order to tell your girlfriend something, you have to accept it. at first, right? You're telling her, hey, this is how it is. You with me? And so you can't say this is how it is. There would be no conversations that induced guilt with your girlfriend if you were in denial. Does that make sense? So like a prerequisite to talking to your girlfriend is the acceptance. And when you say you're letting her know little bit by little bit, you're not letting her know little bit by little bit. You are accepting little bit by little bit. Because every time you tell her, you're actually owning a piece of it.

Wow. Yeah. That makes sense. Right? Because that's when you're like, hey, this is how it is. That is what acceptance means. It's like, now, the, okay, questions. You with me so far?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So going forward for you, John, I think that if you want to get a tackle on your eating behaviors, it's going to be an appreciation of the physiology, which I think you've managed to shortcut, right? Because when you have lunch, when you have dinner, you're not going into that first stage of starvation anymore and gorging yourself on cheesy rice. You know, you were also saying that even though you eat cheesy rice, you feel almost like throwing up. So why wouldn't your body stop?

It's because it's got a starvation mechanism going on. And in starvation, what your body is doing is like they don't want to stop when you're full. they want to stop when they want to go as far as we can without throwing up even if you feel uncomfortable because come tomorrow

there's going to be another famine so what your body is doing in terms of how it determines how much to eat is it's like there's going to be famine tomorrow there's going to be famine tomorrow there's going to be famine tomorrow we go 12 hours without a meal

so we got to pack in as much as we can and like you're eating a fucking bowl of cheese and rice Like that's not that's not binge eating psychology. That's like my body is starving, right? But it feels weird because like I've already had full meals prior to all, to everything. But this is, I'm talking about this is like seventh grade. You wouldn't eat for 12 hours, right?

Yeah, I. Or whenever you wouldn't eat for 12 hours and would eat cheese. Yeah, maybe that's a good stop if I would snack or I feel like I would drink tallies, but maybe that's, yeah, that doesn't count his meal. Yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, there's physiologic stuff. If you're describing a scenario where you go past the glycogen window and the liver, and then you go for hours after that, your body is literally in the first stage of starvation,

and your food drivers, your consumption drivers are going to change drastically, especially if this is a pattern that gets repeated over and over and over again, because then it's almost like intermittent fasting, where your body like knows that we're not going to get food tomorrow. So we better pile up today. Wow. That's crazy. So what you're perceiving is an addiction. You call it an addiction because it's really hard to kick.

But it's not an addiction. It's a survival mechanism, which is absolutely hard to kick. Because that's how your body has evolved to survive starvation. It's a crazy realization to come to terms with. Because like I thought I had identified with this because there's so many like, similarities, almost one to one, but that makes so much sense. Because I was like, this feels like a habit, like, or like, this feels like a habit rather than a instinct at this point.

Yeah. And so just to appreciate that. So the first thing is, as long as you continue eating healthy amounts of food, I don't think the cheesy rice will come back. On the flip side, there is definitely the psychological stuff. So I think you've just learned how to physiologically use food to calm down your mind, which is part of the reason that people get into. That's why binge eating is managed by psychiatrists

because there's psychological drivers, right? They're mental drivers. And then, of course, there's the coping kind of mechanism stuff component, which we haven't really talked about, which is that if you eat food, sometimes you, like, dopamine and, like, you just feel good mentally. It's not the physiologic insulin stuff. It's like the other stuff as well.

So I think you've got kind of all of the above. And the short answer is that I think as long as you continue having conversations with your girlfriend and you acknowledge that like restraint is possible. And I think the more that you sort of start to like give yourself the opportunity to go off the rails a little bit and recognize that the more that you can trust people like your girlfriend to rotate to your lane when you're getting ganked, like if she's going to TP to your lane and you can count on her, then there's this cosmic sense of like being on guard, which will start. to like come down.

And then you're going to feel amazing. Like once you're actually able to understand that there are people in this life that don't have to, that I can count on to keep me in check and you're able to not feel guilty for recruiting them to like keep you in check, then you'll be able to relax and enjoy food in a way that like, I'm sure you do on some level already. But,

and that's really what I envision for you, which is I understand you have a lot to be great. for, but like, I want you to be able to, like, you know, not need map awareness. I want you to be able to count on other people. I want you to be able to, like, not feel guilty and burdened all the time. And I want you to, like, understand that you don't actually, like, you don't have to accept defeat when it comes to this thing. It's not like an endless slog of war against this caged beast. You can actually let the beast out and it'll, like, play with you. And it's And you don't have to worry about it going haywire.

Yeah. That makes sense. Questions. Thoughts. Fascinated. That's my thought. Questions? I got nothing.

I just got stuff to sit with and like, think about. That's, wow. Yeah. It's powerful. Cool. I normally ask people if they want to meditate. Do you meditate? meditate? I've tried. I forgot the app. I did like guided meditation. I've also, I have watched a lot of your videos in the past as well. And I've tried your, um, the point on the forehead and just thinking about that. Uh, that's as far as I've gone though. And so when, some sort of breathing exercises. When you say you've tried, this could be an overinterpretation on my end. But does that mean that it hasn't really worked for

you? Until I dive a month into it, it doesn't feel like I've really experienced it. It doesn't feel like I've gotten the most of it or like I can't really have an opinion on it until I do it for at least a month. So give me just a second. Would you like to learn something today? Yeah, I'd love to. Okay. Let me just think about what kind of meditation will be geared for what you need. Okay. Are you hungry right now? Uh, no, but I usually just like make a smoothie, uh, for lunch. Okay. Have you had anything to eat since waking up? Nope. Okay. I was going to make a smoothie after this. Yeah, that was all like, or oatmeal. Um, let me just think for a second. Okay. So what I'd like to do, John, I don't, this may be the third meditation technique.

that you do, but I'm going to teach it a little bit prematurely. Okay. And so I would definitely encourage you to like practice like a simple like breathing meditation, like alternate nostril breathing or something like that for a month. And then what I would want you to do is do like a more regular meditation for like maybe 10 minutes and then do this for like five minutes afterward. So if you think about a 15 minute daily meditation practice, you should do like regular stuff and then, but this is the practice that's like actually a little bit for you.

Okay. Okay. So it's going to be a little bit more inquisitive. It's going to be a little bit more awareness oriented. And what I really want this technique to do, remember how we were saying that like your family is like taught you or you've learned how to beat around the bush and sort of like address things kind of like tangentially as opposed to like things head. on. And you've also talked about, you know, how John is meeting Masayoshi. You're actually on this journey of like understanding who you are. And so what I'd like to do is give you a practice that really tunnels that down and uses eating and hunger to give you an authentic insight into like

what you are and how you work. Okay. So I want you to sit up straight. I know it's kind of weird. It's going to be both easier and harder than it sounds. So I want you to sit up straight. Your back should be straight. My back's a little, or the back of my chair is a little far back, but yeah. Yeah. So do you have something you can sit on on top of your chair?

Like, do you have a cushion or something that you can? I grab a pillow. Yeah. Game chairs are the worst for meditation. Boom. All right. Okay, so I'm going to, okay. You're like a lumbar?

No, no. We're going to. This is good. Great. We're going to teach you this. Okay. So how does that feel? Oh, it feels great. Okay. So now I'm going to ask you to do something else. What I want you to do is take the bottom 30% of the pillow and like bend it so that you're sitting on it on your butt. I want you to. Oh. Okay. So so like the top half of the pillow should be yes. Very good. Pillar sitting. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Now sit on. Yeah, sit on the pillow. Yeah. All right. Cool. Now see how that feels. I'm going to shift it over to the right a bit. What helps you sit up more easily? The other way.

Okay. Then go ahead and move it back to the way it was. All right. Okay. So back should be straight. Necks should be straight as well. Okay. Okay. I want you to close your eyes. And I'm going to kind of guide you through this. Okay, so this is going to be a meditation to help you understand what hunger is

and the different ways in which hunger, in the satisfaction of hunger, affects you. Okay. So we're going to start off, but I want you to notice how hungry you feel. All right. And just notice, like, where is the hunger? Right? Like, what is the actual sensation? Like if I was an alien and I was inhabiting your body for 30 seconds,

what would I feel? So where is it? What is the quality of it? Is it gnawing? Is it sharp? Is it empty? Do I feel it only in my stomach? Or do I also feel it in my limbs?

It feels dull. Okay. There's not much urge to eat. It's just a dull hunger. Beautiful. Nothing to do. Excellent. You're one step ahead of the game because now the next step is notice that this is a physical sensation.

But an urge is something else. An urge is now a mental driver. So there is a physical sensation which at some point will manifest is a mental desire. And you may even notice that as the urge arises, that the urge is for particular things. And so what I want you to do is notice the relationship between the physical sensation of hunger

and like why it isn't an urge yet. And when will it cross into becoming an urge? So like let's let my thoughts wander. in terms of like, when would I want to eat or just kind of sit with the hunger? Yeah, so sit with the hunger and what I really want you to do is notice so it may not be able to be done now.

So that's why I'm saying this is kind of a more advanced meditation technique. But I want you to watch your hunger as it becomes an urge. And notice that the quality of it changes. And then as you watch it become an urge, what do you think it will be an urge for? And then as you see it become an urge, then you can satisfy it. So you can do this today with your smoothie, where as you have your smoothie, I want you to drink it. How quickly do you drink it?

I'm a fast eater. I know. So how quickly? P.B is probably like, if I'm really in a rush, I just hork it down and then just wash in the sink. If I'm not too much of an in a rush, I just like sit on my desk. So like you think you can finish it in three minutes on average? Is harking it down faster than... Horking it down is like five seconds.

Yeah, so I'm going to give you like three minutes. So when you have your smoothie today, I want you to drink it with your eyes closed over a three minute time span. You could take longer if you feel like it, but minimum of three minutes, okay? And what I want you to do is pay attention to what is changing within you.

So the physical sensation of hunger will change, but also the urge will be satisfied. And this is the really key thing if you want to overcome the binge eating. When you eat, you must have awareness of which urges are being satisfied. Because you're satisfying urges that are not physical. And once you start to eat, you'll start to be able, as you do this practice, you'll start to be able to differentiate out the physical sensation from the psychological urge. and as you gain awareness of the psychological urge,

that will then give you the foundation of what you should accept. Am I able to open my eyes? Yes. Okay. It's hard for me to concentrate. My mind is wondering. Okay. Yeah.

So that's also common thing. So I'm glad you mentioned that. So people with ADHD sometimes concentrate better with their eyes open. So when you drink your smoothie, actually, you can have your eyes open. open if you want. Does it take something? Just have your, whatever allows you to focus on that sensation of hunger, the crossing from hunger to an urge, which if you can catch that, that would be beautiful.

But it may happen over like a longer period of time. And then as you drink the smoothie, notice the sensation of hunger as it changes and notice what you're satisfying. And then you should do this with more than a smoothie. So the next time that you're, you know, it's 2 a.m. and you've stayed up too late. and it's way past dinner and you feel like eating something, then you'll be able to sit with the hunger and the urge. And there are two discrete things.

As you eat a cookie, the hunger, what changes with the hunger and the urge? And what's getting satisfied? And once you understand what it is that food satisfies for you, then you'll understand what is the root of your problem and what needs to be fixed. And as you fix that, the binge eating will fall apart. That's fascinating. Yeah. I like that.

Cool. it's hard. Yeah, it doesn't sound easy, but I for sure want to give that to go. I'll get back to you on that. Awesome, man. Well, thank you very much, John, for coming on today. It was a pleasure. It was a lot of fun talking to you and getting to meet you.

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah, man. I really appreciate it. I think you talked about something that we actually haven't spent a whole lot of time talking about. So I'm really happy that, I mean, I'm supposed to say, I'm really happy you have a binge eating. Yeah.

You know, so I'm really happy that you chose to talk about that. And I think especially talking to you has helped really reinforce for me, like how complex our relationship with food is. And I think it's sometimes way more than just a binge eating disorder, which you may or may not have. And, you know, if you want to get evaluated by someone, you should absolutely do that. That is like a nice ease of mind.

Yeah. No, thank you so much. Take care, man. Yeah, you too. Bye. Later.