The Livy Method Podcast - Getting Through the Holidays with Health & Happiness with Sandra Elia and Dr. Sandy Van

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

In this guest expert live segment, Gina chats with Sandra Elia and Dr. Sandy Van. Sandra is a Certified Food Addiction Counselor, best-selling author, and founder of The Food Addiction Recovery Program. Dr. Sandy Van is a licensed medical doctor in Family Medicine and founder of Haven Weight Management. Gina, Sandra, and Dr. Sandy discuss getting through the upcoming holiday season healthily and confidently.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2024Topics covered:Introducing Sandra Elia and Dr. Sandy VanDr. Sandy shares her passion for treating obesity with her patients. Perspectives on the current diet industry and dieting culture. Nutrient-rich food is foundational for all bodies. Getting through the holidays when there are triggering foods, family, and magical expectations. Planned indulgences: distinguishing pleasure and enjoyment. Is it worth it? Will the indulgence be memorable? How do you want to feel after the event? Using a short meditation practice and sending blessings to others can change the energy around the room. Changing perspective: choosing connection with others over food. Sandra shares a strategy she calls The Great Dessert Escape. When your holiday experience is not the 'magical experience.'  Advice on handling the comments of others about your weight...or what's on your plate. Dealing with family and friends who offer you food or say, "You're no fun anymore!” The "Broken Record" technique to deal with Food Pushers Prepare for events by sticking to your routines, eating regularly, and choosing nutrient-rich foods before the event. Handling people who ask or comment on your success with weight loss. Dr. Sandy shares her thoughts on how we can strengthen our internal narrative about our health and weight loss. Check out the course that Sandra and Dr. Sandy are offering starting in January at www.sandraelia.com/emotionaleating Use LIVYLOSER! for a discount.  Instagram: @sandraelia.ca @drsandy.mdFind Sandra's book Never Enough on Amazon:https://www.amazon.ca/Never-Enough-Pillars-Addiction-Recovery/dp/1990700187/To learn more about the Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple,

and Amazon Music. New year, new me. Season is here, and honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year. Weight loss is more than just diet and exercise. It can be about tackling genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix gets it. They connect you with licensed healthcare practitioners online who'll create a personalized treatment plan that pairs your healthy lifestyle with a little help and a little extra support. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. This is an opportunity to become curious.

To learn some things. How do we help you feel less overwhelmed so you can continue on your journey? Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. Weight loss is hard enough on any given day, let alone through the holidays or any celebratory days. And here to help us through it all this holiday season is Sandra Elia. She is back with us. She is the founder of the Food Addiction Recovery Program and the author of the book, Never Enough. And joining her today is Dr. Sandy Van. She specializes in obesity medicine. She's a medical doctor and founder of Haven Weight Management, which is a virtual clinic specializing in obesity care. And the

two of them are friends, if you can believe it. So hello. Hi. Thanks for having us. Thank you for coming on. So I met these two lovely ladies at the Canadian Obesity Summit last year, I think running on about two years. It's time for another one. It's time for another one, I think. So how about we do a quick introduction? I know, Sandra, many of our members already know you from previous conversations, but maybe a quick introduction for anyone who might just be listening to the podcast. And then Sandy, let's introduce you as well. Wonderful. Hi, everybody. So it's great to be back. This is a beautiful community. And it's such an honor to have so many of you come and join my program. So that's been wonderful to get to know this incredible community. I'm a food

addiction counselor. I'm an author. I'm a speaker. I'm a patient advocate. And I'm a person with lived experience in my 20s. I lived with obesity and all the things that come along with that. And, you know, through my own journey, I've now found my life's passion to help other people walk this path. Love it. Hi, I'm Dr. Sandy Van. I'm a trained family doc and have practiced in obesity medicine since I graduated in 2016. So I've been doing this for a little over eight years now. And so my practice is comprised of using not only medications for weight management, but also infusing a lot of the cognitive behavioral therapy aspects of weight management treatment into it. And so I work out of two clinics in downtown Toronto. One of them is virtual and one of them is in office. One's called Haven Weight Management and the other is called MedCan. And so I'm really excited to be here talking to you

guys today with Sandra Sandra because we have worked together historically for quite some time now doing groups and running CBT workshops together. And so it's always a delight to love the people you work with. So really excited to be here. Is this a friendship that came out of work or were you friends before? What's the story? Yeah.

So I pursued Sandy. I used to say to her, I don't know if you remember when we first met at Obesity Canada, I'm like, you are the coolest chick I know. I need to know more about you. And then actually, that's what I thought about her. It's our mutual friend, Dr. Sean Wharton had a conference and he had us both speak about the work that we do to his staff. And we looked at each other and we're like, we're so aligned. We actually do this work in a very, very similar way. And then I ran over to our friend, Dr. Sean, and I said, you need to have us in your clinic and we're going to run a emotional eating recovery program and he kind of went oh okay and that's when it all

started for us yeah her doing this oh okay is actually how he responds to things when he's thinking he touches he like plays with his head he's actually this renowned obesity specialist like with the biggest heart and so we love poking at him. He's always like twisting his hair. But yeah, that's how we know each other. And then it was, yeah, it was love at first sight. Well, you all travel the world with the brightest minds in obesity research, talking about and trying to find solutions. Where does your passion come for for obesity specifically where where's that come from sandy oh well when i started in uh obesity at that time in residency actually i remember it was in medical school so it wasn't even residency it was in medical school where i told my my mentor at that

time who was a family doc hey i think that I should get into obesity treatment, because everybody who's presenting to our clinics is presenting with something that may be associated with their weight, both blood pressure problems, type two diabetes, cholesterol, like a lot of the things I was seeing and treating with medications every single day were associated with something that was totally being overlooked. Like we offered the, you know, the very antiquated line of, you just got to lose some weight. It might, we tried to like sugarcoat it with, you know what, I know it's hard, but just eat a little less and move a little bit more. And, and I never saw that it was ever effective for anybody to tell anybody that.

And when I told my mentor this, like, I think that we need to address it specifically as its own medical problem and not as like a tag on to all these other chronic conditions that were already established. My mentor told me, well, you should have become a dietician then. And when I heard that, when you think about a young, keen, bright-eyed med student who is really impressionable, to have somebody close the door on like an idea that's a bit novel at the time is pretty jarring. Like it was pretty jarring, but I think I remember thinking there's something off about this. Like medicine is not meant to be just treating conditions when they've already occurred. Like we should be trying to prevent. We are meant, family docs are meant to be preventative care specialists. And we weren't, I didn't feel like I was doing my service of offering that. Now, I don't want to say that family docs are not doing a service. They actually

need to know about everything under the sun. Their work is very, very, very difficult and comprehensive. But at the same time, I just wanted to become a bit more of a master at treating the one thing that I felt a lot of people were presenting with. And so that is why I started looking into more self-directed learning opportunities, where I met Sean Wharton, who we just mentioned earlier, who is an author on the guidelines for obesity treatment. And I started to learn about obesity actually being this chronic progressive medical condition rather than just a lifestyle problem when at the time my mentor considered it a lifestyle problem, but lifestyle problems will often get fixed with lifestyle interventions. Whereas with obesity, I wasn't necessarily seeing that all the time.

And so that's what spurred my interest in it. So how do you feel about – oh, God, I got so many questions. There's so many things I want to talk about. How do you feel about the current state of the diet industry now from your respective fields? So I really see the diet industry, you know, these crazy, super restrictive diets that promise outlandish things, right? Like I'm going to have a six pack by spring. I'm going to lose 20 pounds in a month, do considerable harm on many, many fronts. So somebody who's struggled

with their weight or they're eating for most of their lives, it really chips away at your self-esteem and your self-worth, right? And it's because it's something that we desperately want. And so we may try and fail, try and fail, try and fail. And then we internalize that we are the failure when in fact we have enough evidence to show that these super restrictive diets fail over 95% of the time. So that diet was never going to work. It was never about you. And what I get so fired up about is that the diet industry actually preys on this vulnerable community that is desperate to change. And so it's like the false hope to the desperate is what I what I call

it so um I'm I feel like more and more my work and I think probably for you Gina and Sandy is undoing the diet culture that's what I'm starting to understand I because so many of us grew up in the diet culture decades of it that people are still hanging on to that no I got to count my calories no I got to get it under a thousand no I got it and it's undoing all of that undoing I have to have a goal weight I have to consistently lose two pounds every week till I hit my goal weight we got to undo all that work before we can actually help people in a sound evidence-based way yeah I think that that when I think of diet culture, I think of what Sandra is speaking to, but when I think about diet or dietary patterns,

I don't have the same sort of negative, I don't feel the same sort of negative connotation associated with that. I think that there's a spectrum, right? There's the parties that really gun for the diet and tell you that this is the thing that's going to work. And if you're not doing it right, then you're not doing it at all. And I don't necessarily subscribe to that very all or nothing approach. And I actually think that it generates a sense of, you know, it eats away at somebody's morale when they can't necessarily always adhere to that same diet and see the weight loss outcomes that culture is expecting of them. Because we know there's a lot of things that influence weight, that if you give 100 people one diet, they're not all going to lose

weight in the same way. There's a lot of variability in how people respond. And a lot of variability rests on their genetics and their culture and a number of other things. So, so yeah, I don't think that a blanket approach of one specific diet is going to work for everybody. But I do think that there is like in this day and age now with where we have a lot of effective treatments, diet actually plays a nice role in being able to support some of the interventions that we have to date. So if somebody, for instance, is coming to me and saying, hey, I'd really love to try this diet, or a lot of my patients are actually doing, like they've already come to me saying, I've been doing the GenoLibby diet. I'm like, okay, great. Like I'll support that. But do you think it's a diet that you can actually sustain long-term? And not everybody's going to say I can do this forever

because what can you actually promise you'll do forever? Or do you actually enjoy the diet? Like, do you actually find that it, that it, it inspires you to work towards other like habits in your, in your lifestyle that make you healthier? And does it actually keep you happy? Like, do you find joy out of doing it or at least not despise it? And I think that the other aspect of diets that dietary patterns that I enjoy is that it provides somebody with structure, but it also provides them with nutritional literacy. So it allows them to really just develop like the sense of, okay okay this is how much protein i'm getting today this is how much fiber i'm getting and i think that that's really important to not

have you know those blind spots when we're trying to manage our weight regardless of whether you're on medications or you've done surgery or not you have to know those things um and so i don't mind the structure i don't mind the nutritional literacy and i don't mind the self-discovery process that occurs through like trying a diet. Like I think that as long as you are going in with a mindset of, OK, I'm allowed to just, you know, be a bit more flexible with this or be curious about when I have setbacks rather than I need to stick to it. And if I don't, I suck. Like I think that, that, that it's okay to like discover what you like and what you don't like and what works for you and what doesn't. It's a process of trial and error. You know, I just want to add one point to that because I do so much advocacy work for people living with obesity. And I'm always very clear that it actually doesn't matter what you weigh.

We all, all of us, whether you're four years old or 94, whether you're underweight or 200 pounds overweight, we all need to eat whole natural foods. We all need to move our bodies. We all need to drink water. We all need to have efficient enough proteins. It's everybody. We shouldn't really, in my opinion,

target people who are living with excess weight because this is just the building block of having health. So everyone needs, whether it's a diet or a meal plan, we all need a meal plan, just like we all need a financial plan. Imagine if we didn't manage our finances, right? And maybe we've all done that maybe in our 20s and then we learn real quick, oh, I can't pay the rent now. And we all have to manage how we put our meals together yeah and sandra actually i learned so much from sandra and groups that's why i love doing them with her but i remember you saying these are not when we when we talk about ultra

processed foods you you are short of calling them food you actually just say they're not foods guys they're edible food product they're edible food well they're they're chemically engineered they're made in factories they're nutrient poor they're disease causing and they're highly addictive and they're yeah they're designed to make you want more yeah doesn't that make you want to have more but it we can say that about alcohol and there's many people who enjoy alcohol reasonably and they shouldn't give it up and same with this this food. We're not letting Gina talk. I talk all day, every day. Are you kidding? I am here for this conversation. You know, I think the oversimplification of calories in versus calories out without taking in a lot of

factors, the food industry, our own personal issues and associations and relationships with food, you know, the medical side of things, what's going on with our health and whatnot. It's a very complex conversation. And here, as you know, we're all about, it's about unlearning and relearning and learning new things. It's about that education piece around food and nutrition, but it's really about educating people to figure out what they need, right? Like what do they need? What is going to help them? What can help them focus on, you know, trying to do the things that they need to do each day. So, so our members were week 12 of the program have been working really hard to try to figure that out.

They feel like they're in a good place. Our next program starts in January, but they have the holiday season coming up. And the, although it's the most wonderful time of year, it can bring up a lot of feels. It can bring up a lot of triggers. There's a lot of food around. We want people to enjoy the holidays and not stress about food, but that's a lot easier said than done. So can we maybe talk about, um, how like tips,, what are what are some of the things that your your clients are talking about at this time of year? What are some of the pointers and things that you're suggesting that can help them? So Sandy and I used to do a program called getting through the holidays. And we really identified the three top things that people

struggle with. So the first one was triggering food, right? Those euphoric recall, tradition, abundance. But then there's also triggering family, right? Like sometimes you're going into a situation with strained relationships, or maybe you only see Uncle John at Christmas, and he just pushes your buttons, right? And the third one, which we'll dive into each is expectations. So the Hallmark channel does us no favors, right? Because they make it look so magical. But what if your Christmas doesn't look like that? Or maybe you're far away from family, or maybe you don't have as many plans. So there's that also isolation and loneliness, but let's tackle each one. So there's food, right? I remember, Sandy, you talked about, you were very clear about the euphoric recall tradition over abundance.

And you have some, I love your planned indulgence. I love that. Okay. One thing that I've been talking about with patients more recently is this idea of distinguishing between pleasure and enjoyment. And so when we talk about pleasure, pleasure is something that is, that mediates learning in the brain. So I often talk a lot about the reward circuitry of the brain and how ultra processed foods can interact with our reward circuitry to make our brains learn it. And then we start to like associate cues.

Like if you historically have gone through many Christmases eating like a specific fruitcake, you will associate, you know, the, the sights and smells of Christmas, perhaps with that fruitcake or the, you know, pumpkin spice lattes or whatever it is coming out that I think the local cafe. And so for, for my patients, I often say, what is it that's like, ask yourself, is this an appropriate time for me to be indulging in this, right? Like a lot of the traps that I noticed about the holidays aren't necessarily isolated to that one event or the couple events, whether it's work or family, many of the traps are based on bringing leftovers home or having people gift you things. And then all of a sudden your house, which was maybe a very supportive

food environment in past is now laden with the little, the big lint boxes of chocolate or the advent calendars. And so you start to notice this like relearning of consuming ultra processed foods with a pattern of regularity. And then that's pleasure mediated learning, right? You start to condition nighttimes again with eating in a certain way that wasn't necessarily the way you would maybe eat on track previously. And so, so alternatively going to, for me, going to my family event, I always look forward to the foods there.

Is it an appropriate time. What makes up enjoyment? Enjoyment is made up by family and friends for me, um, in occasion, um, foods that I really consider to be nostalgic and enjoyable. And so, so enjoyment has like certain features associated with it that are worthwhile. pleasure is like it's you know it's like kind of like how the beer is never marketed as like one guy drinking in the basement alone and it's often marketed as him sitting in a bar with his friends there's certain there's a recipe to it you know to the enjoyment factor he's sitting in a bar he's got friends there's music going and it's an occasion and so so i have to think about it in that sense

too so there are no like there are no major like you know don't eat during the holidays like I think that that's a difficult thing for a lot of people to do but I just ask the simple question is this an appropriate time for me to be eating it would I remember and is it worth it too I remember you saying like really looking at the just whatever the desserts out like is it worth it too I remember you saying like really looking at the just whatever the desserts out like is it actually the most you know is it what I like is it home-baked even worth it right sometimes you can in a family parties where somebody brings out the timbits right I'm like that's not worth it yeah that's not memorable yeah like I think about whether it's going to be memorable yeah or also I think that

the other thing is to think about how do you want to feel leaving the event right so um do you want to look back on it thinking oh man I shouldn't have had that extra serving of like pecan pie because I didn't even really like it or do you want to leave feeling like you're ready to wake up the next morning and resume your walks and like your activity and feeling good going to bed. So, so those are some other facets to it that factor into the decision making. And for those of, for those people listening that have maybe strained family relationships, I have a great technique for that. So what I always suggest before you go into a family dinner that you're a little bit anxious of. Maybe your mother-in-law nitpicks at you. Whatever it is, just taking a short meditation and getting quiet.

And what I ask my clients to do is think about the table. So envision everyone at that table. And then silently just blessing them, trying to look at what you do appreciate about them, what you love about them, trying to understand maybe where they're coming from, understand that you're protected, that you can be guided. And then going into the dinner as well, if you really want to change the energy in the room, that you sit down and just silently look at each and every person and bless them and send them love and send them kindness. And you'll change the energy in the room and the way you speak to them, the way you show up, everything, your tone, everything changes. I always say, look at them through the eyes of love and have all your words guided by love for

that dinner. And I know that I think you've tried that, right, Sandy? I've had like family members. Okay, guys, when you're when you're listening to Sandra speak about this, you might be thinking, how am I ever going to do that? Like that is so like sometimes Sandra is on like another spiritual wavelength. And I'm like, okay, I got to climb. I got to get to a spiritual wavelength. But I promise you it works. It works. Because every time like when I've met Sandra for walks, we go on these

walks along the beach. Sometimes she'll come to me and she'll be like, I blessed everybody on my walk towards you today. And she is just beaming, beaming. And she's a whole different energy. And I'm like, oh my gosh. And I've tried it myself before. And I went back home to my husband. I'm like, I tried this thing where I bless everybody that I see. And I feel so good right now. So yes, I agree with you, Sandra, that one's an effective technique. Well, I love it. And it is such a key technique. Because as you know, we are all about taking time, right? Our members are practicing being in the moment before they eat, while they eat, after they eat, when they walk away from eating. But with all this extra noise happening around the holidays or the dinner table, it can be hard to like be in the moment and get in tune with that. I love your approach of looking everyone around the table. It's a different way in. It's a

different way in and being grateful and blessing everybody that puts you in the moment. And it also, to your point, Sandy, with, you know, how you're perceiving food. Is it pleasurable? Is it, are we enjoying it? It's not just the food. It's, it is the company as much as maybe your in-laws are driving you crazy or your uncle you can't stand is there. And this is what I think makes weight loss very hard and difficult is we use food for so many things, yet we need it. We use it for bonding over and showing love and celebrating and straight up just enjoying because it's good. And that's never going to stop. And I think this will help you kind of reconnect. The holidays are an opportunity to see how can I do this differently in a way that doesn't bring me stress. Yeah.

Doesn't bring me stress. I love having the shift be connection over food. Yes, I agree with you. Food is so integral to, I'm Italian, so we do the big fish dinner on Christmas Eve. That's so important. But having the shift be connection over food. And we used to do something called the great dessert escape. So let's say you your family brings out a huge dessert table like mine does, and you want to escape it. So we have a couple of strategies for that. So one, I always look for the mothers in the room. So people who have babies and toddlers. And when I go up to my niece and say, let me take the baby so you can have cake and coffee. They look like, oh my God, I'm going to enjoy a coffee without my kids crawling all over. So I'm giving them a gift. If you don't have kids,

then look for the oldest person at the table. So my, my father had dementia before he died and he would just fade into the background because he couldn't speak as quickly and he couldn't contribute to conversation so dessert came out that meant okay I'm gonna sit eye to eye to dad because nobody's paying attention to him and talk to him while everyone else is having dessert if I'm choosing not to have it or play with the dog or right so what is it maybe it's I clean up the kitchen as a way to divert, divert. Because for me, it's very hard to sit at a table while everyone's going, oh, this is great. Oh, did you have that? I want some more. That I find very triggering. So I look for my escape route that fills me up in a different way. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less

and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year. Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism. with online licensed healthcare practitioners who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A.

Yeah, I'm big on the little white lie that if someone says, you're going to have desserts, I'm like, oh, I ate so much dinner. Sometimes people just don't know that you ate and you're taking part. Oh, I'm so full or I'll grab a piece, you know, maybe for later or whatever. But this is way better because you're almost replacing that need for that treat with something more enjoyable. You're of service to somebody. Yeah. And this is what the holidays are about. That's what the holiday. And so the last piece about what if your Christmas doesn't look like the Hallmark movie and loneliness and isolation. And so I think that, you know, that's something I've always struggled with loneliness throughout my childhood.

And that's probably one of the biggest reasons I would eat for solace just to not feel that loneliness. And I came to a point in my life where I decided I'm about as lonely as I decide to be, right. And so it takes effort to make sure you have the plans that you're doing the charity work that and something that I learned early on was um and that's why I pursued Sandy is when I find somebody that I admire somebody if life is a race I want to be with people who are like five kilometers ahead of me and I gotta work hard to keep up with and when I find that person I pursue them I ask them for coffees I ask them for lunches and then eventually they have no choice. They become my bestie like Sandy did. And you create and you forge.

So taking responsibility for the relationships, because I get it. Sometimes it's not your family of origin and then you have to create your family that you choose. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough making friends as we get older, which is why you all are my new friends. You know, people are in the pursuit of change. When they are losing weight, they are working really hard on all the things to actually make real change. Sure, they may want to fit into their genes, but for most people, I think it's so much more than vanity at the end of the day. And when people are successful, it's not an easy thing to deal with. So can you maybe share some advice? We've had people do the program. Some people have maybe lost 10, 15 pounds. We have some people who've lost 100 pounds over the year.

And maybe this is their first time seeing some extended family. People are going to get all sorts of comments. Some really supportive, some not so much. People say the weirdest shit when it comes to weight loss. Advice on how to navigate that to not then be triggered either way, right? Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of patients who will describe that their family members will either, they're like double-edged comments, right? They're meant to be, they're intended to be positive, but it can be interpreted in so many different ways. And I think that at the end of the day, it's your interpretation that will help, like you have to choose the interpretation that will

allow you to remain at peace and calm because it's an event. And you often, I find that a lot of patients who find that they react negatively in that moment often regret it later and so one of the things that I ask patients to consider is really just just take a pause and if you immediately hear a reflexive in your mind that internal dialogue of what so I didn't look good back then like why are you commenting on my weight now it's none of your business like so if that's what wants to come out how do we um reframe the situation in a way that allows you to deliver that message a little bit more gentler and Sandra actually has this excellent excellent line that I've been telling everybody um who has this problem which is it's either my

weight is not up for discussion like I'd either my weight is not up for discussion. Like I'd rather my weight not be up for discussion. And you can do it in like a little heartfelt way. Or there's so many more interesting things about me than my weight. So let's talk about what's going on, what else is going on in my life. And so yeah, I really trained my family that my body and my plate is not up for discussion. What I put in my plate is not up for discussion. My body is not up for discussion. So I've actually trained them quite well.

But here's the flip side. So my sister has recently lost about 80 pounds. And so when she goes to family functions, nobody's saying anything because they're like, Laura taught us we're not allowed. So I'll be driving my sister home and she's like nobody noticed I guess I haven't lost weight I'm like no you absolutely have yeah so it's at the end of the day I think we all we have no control over what people say but what people say is never a reflection of us it's always a reflection of them that's the important piece

so if someone gives you a backhanded compliment like gosh you lost a ton of weight you must feel great now right that might feel like a back that's about them and not about you right so it's having that at the forefront because it's I don't know how we please everyone I know my for me I didn't want comments. I didn't want my sister. She wants comments. She wants somebody to notice. Yeah. And for me, oh, sorry. When I hear it in it, I'm Chinese. And so for some reason, the Chinese aunties love to comment on people's weight, whether they can be skinny one day and fat next, that's what they will use.

They'll literally use that vernacular. so I have my my um clients like consider you know what is the what is their upbringing like this is where the pause is where you reframe the situation like what's their upbringing what's the culture like oh yeah is it normal maybe they had commented comments from their parents about them in that way so that's that they're limited in the sense to what they feel like they can talk about with you. And so, so there's just ways to sort of take the fire down. I love that you're suggesting that we put the onus on us and take a minute and be like, okay, how am I internalizing this information? It's a weird space because people are taught don't comment. And then some people are like, well, I've lost all this weight and no one said a word so that's weird sometimes I think people um they don't want to jinx you

or they've you know they've seen you be here before or they just don't know what to say and then sometimes people are like like sometimes they could say oh don't lose any more weight you look great the way they are oh yeah because they want you to know that they love you just the way you are. But when you want to lose more weight, it's kind of like, but I, okay, but I want to be able to lose more weight. And then other people are like, bitch, don't lose any more weight because it's pissing me off. Cause maybe I'm a little jealous to your point, Sandra. It's the person who's, it's the person who's saying a little jealous. Just be transparent. Yeah. You know, what I notice is that there's a refeeding effect that people have where if they start to see family members who are getting smaller, their inclination is to actually serve them larger portions.

And it's probably not ill-intended, it's just this and what about marriages i've seen where one spouse gets super upset and angry because the other spouse has changed all the rules right like i'm not bringing this food in i'm looking at you're starting to look good and then sometimes even though the spouse may love you we we start to sabotage. Yes. What about that? You're no fun. Come on, have some pie, have some cake. Come on. You're no fun anymore. Right? Like, come on, I made this for you. You know, your technique is exactly what I will tell people. Well, what I'll offer to people, which is nobody ever wants to make anybody feel sick. So if you say, I, you know what, I'm up to here right now. Like I actually would love to, but do you mind if I take some home? Cause that's, that's very complimentary.

Like I, it looks so good. Do you mind if I take some home? The, what a more difficult situation is this, this is a variant of that, which is if you have some sort of dietary intolerance and somebody goes out of their way to make you like a gluten-free dessert um and you feel forced to eat it on the spot i think that in those situations um like just saying you know what i i feel so sick i actually can't otherwise i'd get a stomach ache but do you mind if i take this back home like i think that that's inappropriate response and whatever you do with it at home is up to you. But we talk about them. So is it somebody that we would classify as a food pusher? So food pusher is relentless, makes you feel guilty, almost shames you and embarrasses you. So for the food pusher, we use something called the broken record. So in the

moment, you're going to be pretty anxious about it, you're not going to be sure what to do. So you have your broken record statement ready to go. I'm full now no thank you that's actually that would make me I don't know what's happened to me but sugar makes me sick right now I like you could go as far as like sugar lately has been giving me diarrhea like who wants to have a guest who's having diarrhea in their house right like that's usually a good thought but with a food pusher you might have to say it several times right so i'm too full now i can't no thank you you're too full you're not too full come on give me a break i made this for you and again it's this exact i'm too full now no thank you wow you're partying for everyone's having it why can't you i'm too full now no thank you because if you change the broken record you start it all over again and

the worst thing you could say is uh i'm actually not eating sugar right now i'm on the i'm on the gina livy program right now because that opens the door yeah don't say that don't be silly this is a no diet so do worse conversation i have to never say i'm following a plan i just find that that is kaboom it's always like have a short statement never change it to say it until the food pusher will go away after the third or fourth time if you hit five they're a real tough they're like toxic food pusher like that's i love that you're just acknowledging the food pusher because i think that's their own i'm not gonna you know diagnose what they got going on in their lives but a lot of times food pushers don't even eat their own food

they they like they need it they want everyone else to eat it they don't even i'm like sally eat your own fucking cake i don't want it i want it can i comment can i comment on an alternative scenario to that? Because let's be honest, this is the trickiest one is that when you have when you have like somebody who's offering you food, and you actually internally the internal experience is all that matters to me when I talk to a patient. It's like, what is it that you want? And what is it that is coming up for you when somebody is asking you to eat? Because a lot of the time, the person in front of me wants to eat it. It's not that they don't want to eat it. And so not everybody comes in with the same sort of resistance, right? So so I think that from a practical standpoint, like leading up to the party, one of the traps that one

of the holiday traps we didn't actually talk about was the fact that some people assume that they should restrict their calorie intake so much to spare, spare calorie intake for the big event, when that oftentimes will backfire. And so they might eat a light lunch or like a light breakfast or not eat it at all or skip their meals until the event because they want to save up their calories. But I think that that is sure that's a surefire way to make you feel a little bit like sick and bloated after the meal. So so I think that making sure you eat regularly throughout the day up until that event is one way to actually ensure that you actually don't have this massive appetite because what generates the highest intensity of wanting or craving real physiological hunger if your brain naturally assumes that there's an energy gap to

close like it hasn't had calories all day it's going to turn the intensity up on your cravings and so it will make it more likely for you to be susceptible to advances advances like that from the food pusher yeah so make sure you have like a high protein snack before you go in so you take the edge off take the edge off have a normal that's why i said the worst thing you can do is go all day long without eating yeah because then your digestive system is under stimulated you're gonna overeat you're gonna feel bloated you're gonna feel awful and you're gonna ruin your good time because you're not gonna exactly yeah you're not gonna your appetite signaling just gets to be really high at that point when you're really hungry so there's no amount of resistance that can be

you know applied in that setting when you're really hungry and i think that's a good point gina because so many of us go to these parties that i just want to have a good time and i'm gonna but then when we eat these foods that make us feel like crap we're not have a good time and I'm good. But then when we eat these foods that make us feel like crap, we're not having a good time. We're not connecting with people. We feel lethargic. We feel awful. Then we're in our head about guilt. So we're actually not having a good time.

Yeah. And then you become really laser focused on the calorie intake because we're built as we're hardwriters wired as humans to actually seek out calories. Kind of like a cell phone. It works. Our brains are like a cell phone. When we go into a place that it's familiar, it's always scanning for the Wi-Fi.

So our brains in these social situations are constantly scanning for pleasure cues or food, calories. We're just hardwired that way. Okay. So I know you guys got to get going. talk about the fact that when people lose weight and we're, the three of us are all about losing weight in the healthiest of ways, physically, mentally doing all of the work, people's perception. Now, when you have been successful for all the people trying to lose weight, when someone is successful at losing weight, people assume they have starved and deprived themselves. They've done some crazy wackadoo diet, or they've done, they've taken weight loss medications, which I know Sandy, you're going to actually come back and have a conversation with us they've done some crazy wackadoo diet or they've done they've taken weight loss medications which

i know sandy you're going to actually come back and have a conversation with us in our january program we've had people taking ozempic for years during the program obviously the dose is different when it comes to uh weight loss um and we we have a lot of our members who are taking these medications and the reason why i want you to come on is because I don't want our members to feel like they're taking the easy route or feeling shamed. I want them to be able to have open, honest conversations. But there is this, where the diet industry is at right now, they believe diets don't work. And if you are successful, you've done some crazy thing, or you are taking some drug for the easy way out. So having been successful at weight loss, what is your tip for people who are maybe

going to encounter that conversation this holiday season? Oh my gosh. I had a patient, I had somebody tell me yesterday, the best quote ever. It was that, um, those who care don't matter. Those who matter don't matter. Those who matter don't care. Isn't that true? Those, the best compliments I've heard, like I've had so many people tell me

when they disclose to their family members that they are either on like, you know, they're trying to lose weight or they're on medications. Family members will often say something negative about it. You should work harder. You don't need to take that. Like, but the best compliment I ever heard was when somebody said, I'm so glad you found something that's working for you. Tell somebody you're working so hard for it. I'm so glad that you

found something that works for you. I really hope that it continues to work out for you, right? So, Sandra, I'm not sure. I think that speaks to being very choosy about who you share your personal information with. Share it with people that you trust, that are emotionally healthy, that have an emotional intelligence, that would say that to you, right? If anybody is going to shame you, they're not safe. And they don't deserve your private information. Full stop.

Yeah. That's a big one. When you're talking years of people who, when you carry excess weight, you feel like you got to prove yourself. You have to work even harder. There's this, you know, people just assume that you are not working hard or you're lazy or you got to, you know, that's hard for people to, I think, own that when they feel like they're always trying to make up for the fact that they carry excess weight.

Your medical history is private. The medicines that you take are private. I don't, you know what, so you have to disclose if you're on an antidepressant and anti-anxiety, if you're taking hormone replacement, what I have to tell everybody, like, that's not right. And if I take an anti-anxiety drug, that is my personal medical information that it is absolutely my choice if I want to share because I was I remember driving home and you know where there's another three of us who are really close and one of them is on an anti-obesity drug and everyone was complimenting her weight loss so the other friend when we were alone is like well I feel like she should have disclosed that she was on Ozempic I said why why because she goes well because everyone's gonna think she's just

exercising and eating right I go she is exercising and eating right because ozempic is not the silver bullet and the fact that she's on ozempic is her own private information not to be shared it's you know like my other friend had to disclose that she was taking the easy route there's nothing easy yes there's nothing easy about it at all. No, you know what? And again, going back to the internal experience of the person who's receiving that commentary, for me, the patient, like I find that the patients who have like a very robust sense of like, this is a chronic condition I've been treating, like trying to manage my whole life.

I've worked really, really hard. I deserve access to a real treatment intervention that's going to work for me, whether it is like a dietary program with community support or whether it's medications. And those are the people who actually can deflect comments really well. And so I think that if you're somebody who's prone to family members or your social circle commenting negatively, like you work, turn inward, don't try to, you don't have to change anybody else's commentary, you turn inward and you start focusing on what's the stuff that makes me feel so sensitive or like a nerve has been struck

anytime somebody comments on it, right? It's oftentimes rooted in some sort of internal or implicit bias that person has, oftentimes it's the people who already believe they're cheating or believe that they don't deserve to treat it this way or feel like they're bad because they're treating it this way. Those are the people who are a lot more quick, quickly react negatively to commentary like that. So start like working on your own internal narrative. Because to be honest, and I say this all the time, I have never met a person in my practice, who I thought, wow, this person lacked a lot of willpower. If anything, it's the opposite. They were oftentimes born into, you know, an environment that's made them susceptible to having higher weight, their family had higher weight, it was

genetic. And people who have higher weight and are have gone through the whole gamut of weight cycling they have they represent the people with the highest willpower of all because lean people guess what never have to do that they never had because they have appetite systems that work and shut down when like they've eaten enough they eat a little bit and it's like shut down and so there's a thing called lean privilege that really exists there. And so, so for people with higher weight who feel like they've been through every diet, I just met somebody the other day who was like, I've been on the Gino Libby program for two years now. And it was like, that for you is like incredible. Like for you to adhere to the structured eating plan, like for that long, like, I'm not sure I could do

that. Like, that's actually pretty incredible. And for her, she, she was able to reframe in that moment, like, oh, yeah, it is pretty incredible. So yeah, like, it's not a willpower problem. Like, in fact, you have a lot of willingness to engage in things like that. You know, when you talk about we always say with the living method, right? It's like the weight loss is the side effect. And so you are being in tune with your body's needs, trying to eat healthy, nutrient rich foods. You're trying to move your body. You're trying to get better sleep, manage your stress, work hand in hand with your, your healthcare provider. I think if we look at these diets of, you know, it's like this thing that you're doing to lose this weight. And then that's the end of it when it really is about relearning, learning new things, acquiring the tools,

this what's happening in your brain with the conversations like we've had today with our members to know, Oh, this is so much more than just calories in versus calories out. It's so much bigger than that. Um, I know you got to go to go. But I want to thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with our members. I am so excited about our future conversations, honestly. I know both you ladies are going to be back. There's so much more that we can and we need to talk about. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and being passionate about this. I know our members appreciate you taking the time today.

I do want to talk about, you have an emotional eating program that is starting actually the same day that we are starting the Libby Method. I can't even imagine what an amazing compliment that would be. Could you guys quickly tell us a bit about that before we go?

So Sandy and I are doing a six week. So only one night a week on Monday evenings. And it is a perfect compliment to the Gina Libby program because that gives you the foundation, everything that you need to do every single day. And then we address what to do when you know this program works and it has worked for you, but emotional eating gets in the way? It's the how. How do I stick to the Gina Livy program when I'm overwhelmed,

when I'm stressed, when I'm sad, when I'm angry? That's the question that we answer because to change your outer world, you have to change that inner world. So Sandy, talk about cognitive behavioral therapy and how that works in this program. Well, I think a common theme that was addressed throughout this session wasn't, you know, we didn't give like, you know, just the surface level practical tools. We talked a lot about the internal experience. That's at the end of the day, the thing that matters.

So how do we bridge the gap with what you know and actually how to apply it. And so working on changing the way you think in those moments, really slowing things down so you can change the narrative in your head so that you do differently and build that resistance muscle and resilience muscle, most importantly of all. Yeah. Yeah. Well, our members are familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy. We have a clinical psychologist who comes on and our program is really great for bringing awareness to these things but this is an opportunity to actually take action which i love which is why it's such a great compliment to our program okay so where would people go to find out information on it i see you got a promo code that's right livy losers exclamation mark gets you 20 off and you go over to my website sandra le forward slash emotional eating. So I

think you're going to have the links all there. If anybody has any questions, you can go on my website and book a free consult if you want to know if it's right for you. But this is a live program where you come on zoom, Sandy and I teach for about half hour and then you can ask your questions get coached directly by us and it's fun it's fun it's not right that's why i do it yeah you're just gonna come hang out with your favorite girlfriend it feels good it's just a feel-good time yeah always that's actually a nice rule now that we don't work with people we don't enjoy like that's the first we actually don't they're not fun yeah it has to be fun that's the only criteria i'm not doing it because i'm too old to do stuff that's not fun yeah same here yeah you're a lot younger than me i did this

today because it's fun look at this setup it's gorgeous well we certainly like to have fun around here yeah we are all working really hard. We're all in the pursuit of change. We are doing hard things. Um, but we also do like to have fun as well, which is why I already am in love with you ladies. Uh, Sandra, Ilya, it's Ilya, right? I want to make sure I'm getting that right. Yeah. Yeah. You could say, I mean, it's Ilya, but either way, I'm not too finicky about it. Okay. Sandra Aaliyah, author of the book, Never Enough, founder of the Food Addiction Recovery Program. Sandy Van, so great to have this conversation with you today.

I'm already, like I said, excited for our upcoming conversations in the January program. Thank you so much for joining me today. To everyone who's joined us live or listening after the fact, I know you got some good tidbits out of this. It's never the, talk about surface level. We don't do surface level around here. It's always the conversation that you didn't know you needed.

Absolutely brilliant. Oh, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good. Thank you, ladies. Thank you so much. See you next time. Have a wonderful

holiday season bye thanks