The Livy Method Podcast - Introducing Food Addiction Counsellor Sandra Elia - Fall 2024

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

In this guest expert live segment, we welcome Sandra Elia, a Certified Food Addiction Counselor and best-selling author. Sandra is the founder of The Food Addiction Recovery Program and the author of "Never Enough: Three Pillars of Food Addiction Recovery". Gina and Sandra discuss obesity, ultra-processed food, and finding peace in what you're eating.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2024Topics covered:Introducing Sandra Elia, Certified Food Addiction Counsellor Sandra’s story and how she came to write her book and develop her programsWhat is food addiction?Why did it take so long to recognize food addiction?When food is used for things other than nutrition - foods chemically engineered to be addictiveIs the food you’re eating peaceful or is it creating an obsession of the mind?How do we recognize if we have a food addiction issue?Looking at our relationship with the scale and learning to love our body todayWeight is not a moral issue - what are the narratives we’ve faced?How can we start to address food addiction today?Healing your relationship with food and yourselfThe importance of pairing weight loss medications with doing the inner workEating for biological needs vs hedonic needsUnderstanding triggersIs there a difference between cravings and triggers?Where to find Sandra’s programs - https://www.sandraelia.com/8week-online-program - Special offer for Livy Losers: discount code LIVYLOSER gets you 75% offFind her 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. Dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton.

Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. When it comes to weight loss with the Livi Method, we are always talking about issues and associations tied into food. We're talking about habits. We're talking about beliefs. And we even talk about traumas. But one of the things we haven't really touched on is food addiction. Today, I have the perfect guest joining us. She's the founder of the Food Addiction Recovery Program. She's a food

addiction counselor, and she's the author of the book, Never Enough. Boy, I mean, this title gives me chills just reading it. How resonating is that? Sandra Elia, thank you so much. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. No better way to start my day. I have my lemon water. I'm ready to go. You have a beautiful community. And I'm so happy that the title Never Enough really resonates with you because it has a double meaning. I think it's almost the human condition. A lot of us believe we're not enough. We're not young enough. We're not pretty enough. We're not rich enough. We're not smart enough. And all of those never enoughs make us reach for solace. And for some of us, that solace is food. It's sometimes

it's drinking. Sometimes it's shopping. And then guess what happens? The drug that we choose becomes never enough. There'll never be enough shoes to make me feel good enough. And I've tried. I have. I love my shoes. But yeah. I just want to say whenever we look for guests to come on, we look for people who are really respective, not just knowledgeable, top of the field, but really respectful of how hard

our members are working. They're not just looking for a quick fix. They are digging deep. They are open. They are doing the work. They recognize it's so much more than what they are eating and when. And always when we have a guest, we do a poster in the group, letting our members know that this is the person coming on and ask any questions. And you so graciously took the time and pretty much responded to everybody who commented on that poster. And there was a lot of comments via like 30,000 people here. There was a lot of comments. It just, I think it just, I just want to start off like a big testament to the fact that you actually truly care? Oh, I love my clients. I truly, truly do.

I lost my mother at the age of 69 to obesity. And through writing my book, it was my publisher that helped me see, you know, I was my mother's caretaker her entire life. And I translated all of the doctor's appointments. And at that time, people living with obesity were fat shamed. They use scare tactics, they blame the patient. And a part of me always feels like I couldn't help her and couldn't save her because I was so young. And so a lot of my work today is to help those people who don't have the advocates who don't understand that it's not their fault, that there's so many contributing factors, so many outside of a person's control. Yeah. So why don't we, this is your first time with us and then you're, you're already family. So you're going to be back. That's just how it works around here.

We already love you. Why don't you talk a bit about yourself and your passion? I understand your story with your mom, but maybe let's talk a little bit about you and how you came to write the book and have such passion for this. Yeah, so we're all going to start where all stories start at conception. But I'm going to keep it short. I promise. When I was born, my mother was living with obesity and bipolar disorder. And I want everybody here to understand that there's a huge genetic component. Because there was obesity in my family, that meant I had up to a 70% chance of developing obesity myself. And I haven't even had my first meal yet. Now, we also know there's a high correlation between elevated weight and obesity when you experience

childhood trauma, neglect, and abuse. And I experienced all of those things because my mother had a mental health condition. And yet the finger of blame was always pointed at me. Why can't you eat less? Why aren't you doing a sport? Why don't you go to the gym? And I got on the roller coaster ride of restrictive dieting in my teens. So I would restrict, restrict, restrict, and I would gain the weight back then some which meant I went on another super restrictive diet and then gain weight, and then some and I dieted my way into obesity by the time I was in my 20s. And I was carrying over 100 pounds of extra weight. And I wish that I could tell you that my only problem

was my eating and my weight, but it wasn't. Food addiction devastated every area of my life. It made my marriage crumble. I was in a very codependent, enmeshed relationship with my mother. My mental health was in the tank. What I didn't know is that ultra processed foods affects my mood profoundly. That's my story. And so I was on a cocktail of mood stabilizers and antidepressants. And they weren't working because I was my diet was mainly ultra processed foods, sugary foods, I was just trying to self medicate, I was in so much emotional pain. And then ended up being on sick leave from work, extended sick leave. And that was probably the best decision I ever made. I took a pause and I just was able to breathe and put my head up and go, what is going on? I am completely insane when it comes to food. I only had two methods of eating.

I was either dieting or I was eating destructively. Like I was using food. And when I describe food addiction, I describe it this way. I use food in a very similar manner to somebody with alcoholism uses alcohol, right? So there's plenty of us out here who can enjoy a glass of wine and move on with our day and not think about it. But that's not true for somebody with alcoholism. One glass leads to two to three and then the whole bottle and they know they're going to be in trouble. And that's the way it is with me and sugar and ultra processed foods that once I get into them, I don't get satiated. It ignites the hunt for more. Where can I have more and more and more of it? And at that time in my life, I could only

stop when I got sick. That was it. I thought my full switch was broken. But the truth is, ultra processed foods are chemically engineered to overwhelm our reward center, and we don't get full on them. They like research proves that so it wasn't that I something was wrong with me. And so I let go of dieting completely and I made a promise to myself because the last diet I went on I lost 50 pounds in six months which was very fast for me you know getting back not only the 50 but 100 100 pounds while I was working for an international consulting firm and I have tell you, Gina was the most humiliating experience of my life, showing up at work, month after month, heavier and heavier, and just seeing it in the

eyes, like people would go, and then Oh, hi, how are you? And I knew I knew what they were thinking. And it wasn't until I treated my weight as an addiction, that I was able myself to lose the weight. And it was identifying my trigger foods. So my trigger foods are foods that I obsess about. Once I start, it's hard to have a reasonable portion and almost always leads to an overeating episode. And I knew if I could just avoid the trigger that I don't go down the path. Yeah. I want to get into that. I love what you said. You dieted your way to obesity. I mean, whoa. And this is such a familiar story with so many. Listen, in my 30 years of helping people lose weight, it is never about what they were eating. It has been that long since I saw

someone who really was carrying excess weight because they were just going through the drive through or they were eating. It's so much more than that. When I met you a couple of years ago at the Canadian Obesity Summit, you and I had a conversation because the medical community or the obesity community didn't quite recognize food addiction. They weren't ready to say it's a real thing. Why is that? And, and where do you stand now? Where does it stand now? Yeah. So definitely when I started in this career 10 years ago, nobody talked about it, but now at the, I do go to obesity conferences two to three a year. It is on the agenda now. And we you had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Sean Wharton at

obesity week. He's one of the Canada's top obesity doctors, if not in the world. And he was the first person to give me a chance. He allowed me to pilot my outpatient program in his clinics in southern Ontario. Why? Because he listens to his patients. And he came to me and he said, I see 1000 patients a month. And there's about 20% I can't help. There's nothing I can do to help them. And I said, I think they're likely food addicts. And he went, what's that? He had no idea. And he listened to me. And I told him about the symptoms and what it looks like. He goes, yes. And it takes a long time for research to catch up. Did you know just to get something changed in the medical training takes somewhere from 10 to 15 years.

And think about how quickly science is moving today. So we're not quite there yet, but we're getting there. I'm on a team at different locations where we're trying to actually get a diagnosis in the DSM so that we can start talking about it more openly. Okay. Where do we then start with the conversation? When we talked last, I told you how I had this post in the group about chocolate. Can I have that square piece of dark chocolate, which can be quite healthy for you. My problem with it is that when I say to my clients, oh, yeah, sure, it's no big deal, then all of a sudden they're having it every day.

And they start to say things like, I just look forward to it every day. It just makes my day. And weight loss is complicated because we do use food for so many things. We use it to celebrate and to show love and to bond and to self-soothe and to cope as well. And it's not like we're going to stop doing that because we need food to survive. So it's a matter of reconnecting. So we're trying here to teach people to be in tune with their actual body's needs and recognize over their wants. And whenever I post that post, because I also have a post on alcohol, because to each his own,

and I highlight, you know, the benefits of maybe minimizing alcohol and what are the better choices when it comes to alcohol. And people are always like, well, why can we have alcohol, but we can't have chocolate or feed into those types of foods. And my response to that has always been, well, alcohol is addicting. It does have addicting properties to it. But what I'm hearing from you today is there are certain foods, especially processed foods, that actually do have addictive qualities. So when we hear that there are people sitting around in labs trying to figure out how to make us addicted to our food. That is a real thing. Yeah, that is 100% real. They're chemically engineered to be highly addictive, so that the food industry gets the greatest share of your wallet. It's a very

competitive, it is a billion dollar industry. And how do they make sure you keep coming back for more. So on our whole natural foods reacts in our body in whole natural ways, we become satiated, there's no way anyone's over consuming broccoli and asparagus and right, we can't, our body puts the brakes on, but we can over consume on the drug like foods. And so I don't try to villainize any food. I really don't. It's about what's peaceful. So I like asking that question more than anything else. Is this food peaceful for you? So that means you have it, you're present, you enjoy it.

There's a beginning, there's an end. And then you move on with your day and it doesn't ignite an obsession of the mind. Because as soon as it's an obsession of the mind, it's not peaceful anymore for me. Yeah. You're right because you don't do that when you have broccoli. Should I eat it? Shouldn't I eat it?

Oh my God, I ate the broccoli. Why did I eat the broccoli? I'm such a failure. I'm never going to lose my weight. I'm going to feel fat forever. You wake up the next day. Oh my God, I ate the broccoli. I'm going to starve myself for a week.

We don't do that with healthy nutrient rich foods. And you just described perfectly the obsession of the mind. So it's not a peaceful food for me. It doesn't matter even if it's healthy, right? So dark chocolate, a hundred percent is healthy, but if it ignites all that craziness inside of me, the mental tug of war, then it's not peaceful. So it doesn't matter if it's actually healthy. And then the other question I think is really important is what is my intention with eating this? So everyone, you know, nighttime eating is a big problem for most people who struggle with food and weight. So then at eight o'clock at night, when we've had the dinner and I feel satiated, I feel good and I want something, I have to ask, what's my intention with eating this? And if my intention is boredom relief, if my intention is stress relief, if my intention is to alter my state, then that's never what food

was intended for. And that's when food becomes never enough. It will be never enough to make you feel loved and soothed and calm. So those are my two big important questions. Is it peaceful, whether it's good or bad? Because listen, if you can eat a bowl of potato chips and has a beginning and an end, and it's a reasonable portion and you love it and you enjoy it and you move on with your day, never give up potato chips ever. Yeah. But if it means you start and you can't stop and you're still thinking about it two days later then it's not peaceful drop the mic drop the mic this live really good nuggets in this live yeah absolutely i love this that's why i love our guests because you it's all about framing it

in a different way that's going to resonate differently. Is it bringing peace? And what is my intention? Because after you're eating six times a day, nutrient rich foods on the Libby method, and you're still hungry at night, and you're sitting there, chances are your intention with the food you're about to eat, isn't actually fulfilling a physical need of hunger. No, no. You should always eat when you're hungry. And I think that the living method, very similar to my program, our main goal is that people have a sane and peaceful relationship with food and that food takes its rightful purpose in life.

And yes, food should be delicious and it should be part of our celebration. And you should look forward to all of your meals. So if that's my intention, if I'm sitting down with my family, and my intention is to celebrate, and I made this beautiful spread, that's very different from I'm, it's eight o'clock at night on Friday, I feel really lonely, I have no one in my life, I feel like a loser, and I'm gonna eat this pint of ice cream. That's a different energy state when I take in that food versus the beautiful celebration where I'm happy and engaged. Well, and this, for us, the conversation here is so important

because we're not just looking to lose weight. We're looking to lose it in a way that's healthy for your body, yes, equally healthy for your mind, and it's going to be able to bring people to that state where they'll be able to easily maintain and sustain their weight because they're in tune to their body's actual needs over wants and work through a lot of what's going on in their mind. How do we recognize? To say what's my intention is like, that's easier said than done, right? And our members can,

because we're all about asking those four questions, being in tune, taking the time. That takes work to get there. Are there other ways that we can recognize that maybe we have a food addiction problem, issue, food addiction? How would you even, what's the verse? So, I mean, it's a bit of a, nobody's addicted to real whole foods.

So we do need a better name. I know Dr. Charman calls it food junkies. I'm not sure if I like that name either. I don't know what the right name is. But if you struggle with food addiction, you know, so it's interesting when you have it, you don't worry about the name, but it is a bit confusing. So one of the hallmarks of food addiction is that you have consequences from your eating and your weight that you desperately do not want, yet you cannot stop. And that you've had persistent attempts at cutting down, which I call yo-yo dieting, right? You keep trying, you try to figure out, maybe I'll just have my trigger foods on the weekend. Maybe I'll just

have it on the cheat day. Maybe I'll just have it on. And inevitably it always snowballs into bigger and bigger and longer times of using the food than I really wanted to. So those are definitely the hallmark. And also it does affect every area of our lives. That's why it's not enough just to put down the food. That wasn't the only, that was like the tiniest step for me because it's not really about the food then I have to shine a light over my whole life I had to look at where was I codependent where did I not have healthy boundaries where is my spiritual practice so I when in my programs it's never about religion because I want it available to everybody but the spirituality is a remembering so everybody comes into this world, a perfect little being. We all do, right? Perfect. We know we have the spark. We know we have a magnificence. We know that, right? When you look at a baby, a toddler, they know. Then stuff happens to us. Sad stuff, traumatizing stuff, scary stuff. People tell us we're not enough. And we lose the connection to that power that's inside of us and so the spirituality is a remembering oh i am worthy yeah not a moral issue weight has never been a moral issue oh i do have the power like at the

end of uh the the movie blinded the good witch you you always had the power inside of you. It is there, but we need to connect to it. And also with the weight before we run out of time, for a lot of people, the scale, they have a toxic relationship with their scale, right? So for some people, it's a data point, and they can be very neutral about it, and they should continue weighing themselves. And then there's another camp where they get on the scale, and the scale tells them, is it going to be a good day or a bad day? Yes. It tells me if I've been good or I've been bad.

If I lose weight, I think, oh, maybe I can eat a little more. Or if I gain weight, I'm like, screw it, I'm eating today, right? This scale, actually, this inanimate object had the power to tell me my worthiness. And the truth is, it's not often the most accurate measure of how hard a person is working. You can do everything right and work as hard as you can. And sometimes it won't budge. And that's part of the journey. So for me, I decided a long time ago that my weight is none of my business. It's none of my business. My business is to eat whole natural foods, move my body every single day. And wherever

my weight ends up, it ends up because the real work, the hard work is loving the body I have today as it is. Why? I'm never getting this day back and I have no more days of waste. I'm not going to not go to the beach or go to that dance party. I can't do that anymore. And the more I love and excel myself as I am today, the more available all the steps are, right? Because when you come from a place of hate or you come from a place of guilt or shame, it depletes all your energy and you don't see what's possible. But love is always energizing and love is healing. 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 redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year.

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dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Yeah, a lot of people are waiting till they lose their weight to live their best life.

And I'm like, if you woke up today, you are living your best life. Can we talk about, and I love what you said about the scale. The scale is not a measure of success. It can be a tool and that is it. We love our non-scale victories around here for sure. But I want to get into this weight is not a moral issue. Can we talk about that for a minute? Yeah. So listen, we all grew up in, so I was born in the 70s.

I grew up in the 80s when my brain was just this fresh sponge what were the images and what were the messages that we all saw I grew up where Kate Moss was the ideal beauty I watched MTV where all the girls looked a certain way and they were having the best life and then I'm like this short, curvy Italian woman. None of them were, they were not making it on the videos. And so I took, I, what I understood was that if you're thin, you are smarter, you're more successful and you're happier, but that's just a belief. And a belief is just something that you think on repeat. And guess what? we own the narrative we have the power now and i the example i use is victoria's secrets so when victoria's secrets

decided to be non-size exclusive they almost got canceled because so dumb right like we are the numbers we are the ones with the money we and you decided not to be size inclusive and they lost 50 of their stores the the runway show was canceled and it just came back this year and guess what they did they had plus size models they had models of all ages and they're like we're sorry we didn't listen to you so it has never been a moral issue. We are strong, intelligent. Like you, I have many clients who are firing on every level. They're successful in their careers. They're super smart.

They've got great marriages. They're fantastic parents. But they struggle with their weight. This one area. And I think your work and my work is undoing the diet culture. Yes. Basically what I do all day. I'm finally getting it. I'm undoing the diet culture. Yes. That's basically what I do all day. I'm finally getting it.

I'm undoing the diet culture. Can we talk about, I want to talk about what people can do on their own to start addressing this. And I think they'll find a lot of similarities between what you do and what I do. And then after that, I want to talk about the resources available and specifically what you do

and what that might look like someone's experience with you. For sure. What can people start doing today? So today, so my, my program's built on three pillars and you, these are free and available for everybody to do. So at the bottom is without the foundation. So many of us grew up with a shaky foundation. So we have to recreate our own and that is forgiveness. And this is where I am today. I was 29 years old.

I was over 260 pounds. I couldn't walk for more than 15 minutes. And I'm like, this is where I am today. And I love and accept myself. And I actually said to myself, I don't care if I ever lose a pound again. I really didn't care. I just can't keep eating this way and living this way. And I got to find something good about me.

Then the three pillars is we eliminate or reduce our trigger foods so we don't start down the path. The second pillar, which is community, which you do amazing. I don't think there's anybody in this field who does community better because it's so highly engaged

and you really take care of them. And then the third pillar is that mindfulness and spirituality that we spoke about. But the mindfulness also, we are supposed to commune with our food. Eating should be sacred. Yes. We take time every day to engage all of our senses, eating in the car, eating, standing up. That's bad news. Eating in front of the TV for anyone who struggles is bad, bad news. And then at the three pillars at the very top is a sane and peaceful relationship with food. No longer using food to alter our state, but rather using food to nourish and honor our bodies. Right?

No longer fearing food, fighting food, wondering. Like, I don't want to be 90 years old on my deathbed going, was I on a diet for 70 years? Did I eat my body every single day? Every day I looked in the mirror and I criticized, I don't want that. And listen, that was the path that I was on. This is a lot of our members' stories. We've talked to so many, started Weight Watchers, started dieting at 12 years old, and they've been doing it ever since. And some people longer than, you know, 20 years.

It's about, I mean, ultimately, you said it's about your relationship with food. And it's also about your relationship with yourself. Self and body. Yes, yes. And shining a light over your entire life. That's the real hard work. You know, I often I work with Dr. Sandy Vann and you know her very well. And she does the medical side and I do the the internal work because I believe you cannot change your outer world without changing your inner world. To change your behavior, you have to consistently change the way

you think. You can't leave the inner world. The inner world can't be like, I'm lazy. This is never going to work. It doesn't matter. I like and expect the outer world to change. And that's the hard work. That is, that's the work.

That is the hard work. That is the work. Yeah. Yeah. That's the hard, that's like anyone can follow a set of guidelines with what's eaten when it's, it's that's, that's the work. You mentioned Sandy Van who are trying to get to come on in the group. And she is a medical doctor. And the medical community knows a lot.

Obviously, Ozempic, all the weight loss medications have been a big conversation. I mean, we've had people taking Ozempic to manage diabetes to our programs for years. It's nothing new. We have people who are currently taking these medications and doing the program. I think this is exactly the kind of program you should do if you are taking those types of medications, my program, your program. Right. So talk about that piece, because I'm thinking about people who are taking the medications and I always say to them, yeah, but that's okay. That can maybe quiet the noise that can maybe like, you know, make you not so hungry, but there's still that work to do.

So can you address our members who are taking Ozempic or any of the weight loss medications, maybe don't have that ferocious appetite anymore, but there's still that mental piece to do? 100%. So first, I want to start by saying there's no shame in the medicine game. And I relate anti obesity drugs to antidepressants. There are many people who have to take an antidepressant every day so that they can get out of bed and get to work and function. And thank God that we have these antidepressants. Is it the silver bullet? No, anybody who has a mental health issue needs to eat whole foods needs to move their body needs community needs a lot of sleep guess what and everyone who takes an anti-obesity drug needs to eat whole foods move their body get

good sleep have community so when you use an anti-obesity drug as a piece of the puzzle it it's it's almost never the complete answer and i have have, you know, I have to be careful when I say that, because I have no evidence. All I have are the thousands of food addicts that I've worked with. The way it works, it works because it's in conjunction with a holistic program. So we got to look at, you know, are you in a toxic work environment? Do you have a toxic marriage? How can you be in a bad abusive marriage and then not use food for comfort even if you're taking an anti-obesity drug right or the other danger with anti-obesity drugs is if you're not doing resistance training you will lose

lean muscle so that's another danger you have to exercise. It should almost be in the prescription because you have to maintain your muscle mass while on these. Now, having said all of that, a lot of people have a lot of success on them and they're lifesavers for some people. So again, I don't knock it. I just think it has to be part of a full program. Yeah, because you can still have it's not going to fix your food addiction. No, absolutely not. Because if all we did was eat because we were hungry, no one would have a weight problem. Like we wouldn't. It's the drive to eat for pleasure. There's there's two, there's biological need to eat. If that's all we had, we'd all be fine. But there's a hedonic reason to eat that is eating for pleasure that has nothing to do with hunger, right?

And we've all been there. Thanksgiving just happened. You have the Canadians. You have all this huge meal. My family's unbuckling their belts. I can't breathe. I've eaten so much. And then someone says, but we have pumpkin pie.

I have room. Yeah. Nobody has room. Like your body's screaming, stop eating. But you have room for pumpkin pie. That's called hedonic eating. Because if someone said, who would like another piece of turkey? You'd be like, I can't. I can't even look at the turkey. I'm so full. Let's talk about, I want to talk about triggers. So I want people to get to a place where they're calm around food, physically, mentally, where they can eventually sit in a room full of their favorite foods, where there is no food

noise. Obviously, that takes a lot of work, right? That's definitely not a quick fix. It takes a lot of work. But something you said about triggers. So although I want people to get to a place where they can have their favorite food sitting on their desk and they're just like, whatever. Do you believe that out of sight out of mind, like people should just avoid their triggers altogether? Like what, how do we manage that? How do we manage that? Because there's

got to be a middle place piece from triggered to not triggered, there's got to be some sort of middle piece. How do we navigate that? Well, it's very similar the journey of somebody with alcoholism in early days, somebody with alcoholism recovering should stay out of the bars, right? If you hang out at the barbershop long enough, you get a haircut. So in those early days, when the drug is leaving your system, you should be very protective of what you have around you. So when we and again, it's just a little bit different for the food addict, when we have our trigger foods, even little bits and bites, it's like kindling, we're constantly fanning the flames of desire of craving of urges to

compulsively overeat. And the further we are away, the more time we have where we don't have our trigger foods then that desire that hunt dissipates and leaves us where it gets a little bit more dicey is sometimes when we're going through a really big emotional upset so if you're going through a divorce or you lost a loved one oh boy your brain knows your brain's gonna go we know what to do we know what's comforting you've done done it for years. Just go eat, just go eat, just go eat. So then it becomes even more complicated where you'll need to up your support and maybe not have your trigger foods in your house. I don't think we should have trigger foods in, in your home. So then this is the typical conversation I have. Sandra, how can I not have potato chips and Oreos in my house? Why would I punish my

children because I have food addiction? And I said, Okay, so you're talking about factory made foods that are nutrient poor disease causing and highly addictive. And it would be punitive not to give your children these foods. Is that what you're telling me? Right? Especially if there's obesity in the family. I have a 13 year old daughter. She absolutely eats sugar, but because she had a grandmother, her mother dealt with it. I can't have the foods at her fingertips. She eats it. Believe me, she has lots of opportunities. She can go to parties. She can, now she can actually take herself to Starbucks and all that, but I should not have it available at her fingertips if I really love her.

Right. Because I am feeding her. Sugar is a poison. We can almost trace every single modern day chronic illness to the overconsumption of sugar. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like, that's huge because you're more predisposed to be an alcoholic if you have alcoholism in your family. And this would make sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, again, it's not everybody, right? So I would never say to everyone, everyone should stop drinking wine. There are health qualities of wine. There's blue zones where people drink wine every single day, live well past 95, 100. But if you have alcoholism, you shouldn't have wine. What is the difference between triggers and cravings? To me, cravings are a message from

your body. Your body's just letting you know this. I would like you to drink more water. I would like you to bump up your fat. I need you to have more salt because maybe it's a hot day and your electrolytes are low. To me, it's not like, what can I have? It's like, why are you having those cravings? But with that said, is there a difference between craving and a trigger? Yes. So they're both, right? So it's a trigger food.

You're usually craving your trigger food. So understand that we live in this super toxic food environment, right? Commercials are put on so that you watch it, your dopamine rises, and you act and you go buy those foods. So if we were talking in the 1950s, managing cravings would be much, much easier. Because today at the hardware store, there's candy bars. When did that start happening? Right. My daughter has discovered Starbucks and I'm showing her how much sugar she bought a drink the other day that had 89 grams of sugar. That's enough for four days of a girl, her size and her age.

Like drinking four pops. Yeah. Yeah. And she had no idea. So I'm kind of, and then she told her size and her age like drinking four pops yeah yeah and she had no idea so i'm kind of and then she told her friends and her friends said fake news that they said that it's okay to have 98 grams of sugar in a day but that's the environment that we're working in so it's not only a predisposition but we also are in an environment that's pushing the food on us um having available 24 7 they're over 80 of all grocery items now contain sugar why does bacon need sugar was not bacon delicious on its own it's pork and it's fat and try to find a package without smoked salmon another vent there's only one that i know of that does not add sugar why because

they want you to pick the their package over someone else's and the sugar makes it more tantalizing so we also have to have a lot of grace and a lot of kindness that we're in this super toxic food environment yeah and because it's really easy to be like well we can't do anything about that we can't do anything about that yeah it, well, we can't do anything about that. We can't do anything about that. Yeah, it may feel like we can't do much about that. It is big business and a lot of big businesses don't want to find the answer to obesity because they make a lot of money off it at the end of the day. But this is where you need to educate yourself, empower yourself. So I love having our guests on, right? You need to learn what you need to do, what's going to work for you, how you can best support yourself. Speaking of support, can we talk about what you offer? Like, how would I know I need to go through

one of your programs? And if I was to sign up for one of your programs, what would that look like? Can you share that with us? So my website is sandralia.com. Super easy to find. And you can always book a short consultation with me because I do have several programs running at different times. But I have a really special offer for your community. So I have Canada's, yes, I have Canada's only outpatient program that right now it only runs in British Columbia. So

I thought this is not fair. I want my outpatient program available to everyone. So I went to studio, I did the eight sessions, I filmed them all. And then they have homework and resources for all eight. And if you go on my website, it is $497. However, because I want to honor the fact that you, it's very important that all your programs are accessible and that they're priced at a place where people can buy it. So I've set up a discount code called Livi Losers and you get 75% off. So I can put the, I can put, I don't know if I put it in the chat there that takes a direct link to the eight week outpatient program, living losers, easy to remember your discount code, and then you get 75% off. Well, that's it. Honestly, the team has it here. We will also link it in this post as well.

And also a link to your book to purchase your book as well. I love that we, you know, people say to me all the time, you should charge more money, charge more money. And not to say that we won't increase prices because, you know, we're a business, we got to make money and, and all of that. But at the same time, we, there is a way to make things affordable and accessible for people and doable and sustainable. Oh my goodness. I have to just, I want to just like honor you for a moment because the value that you give away for $75, but people may not realize because I'm working with another company building an app, not my app, but their app, it costs a million dollars to put an app together. Like the fact that you have this incredible app that tells me when to eat breakfast and it tells me to set my intentions, that has information every single day, live access to you.

This is not available anywhere on the planet. Like, this is very unique. Thank you. Thank you. It's a bit more than a million dollars, let me tell you. I know. Yeah, that's what I was told, but it's more. Wow. Thank you for saying that. Cause you know,

I'm doing this menopause program and people are like, Oh, I wish it was in an app. And I'm like, Oh my God, I can't. I have to charge like a billion dollars for it. Let me whip that up. I'll just create that on the weekend. Yeah, I know we do. We take it for granted because so many of our apps, like we have a math app. I have like, you know, Spotify. I have like, so we don't realize what it takes to put one of those out. So thank you. Yeah. But beyond that, I think, you know, this is where I think your vibe attracts your tribe. And this is why I'm so happy that we finally connected because you care about people.

You want people to be able to make change. You want them to be as successful as possible in their lives. And you want people to get out of their head and not spend their whole lives obsessing about food and their weight. And we are on the same mission. Sandra Alia, everyone, thanks to everyone who has joined us live. Bookmark this conversation. It will be stored in the guides. Come back to it.

You will also be able to download and listen to it by way of the Living Method and share it. I'm sure many of you who are like, oh, I know a person who needs to hear this. So share that podcast available on all podcast platforms. Sandra Alia, thank you so much. You have to come back. I mean, try to stop me. I would love to. All right, everyone. We'll put the link to Sandra's program, The Code, which we should be able to listen to and a link to her book. Sandra Elia, I'm very grateful for you. Thank you so

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