The Livy Method Podcast - Thinking Traps & Compulsive Eating with Sandra Elia - Spring 2025

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

In this episode, Gina and food addiction counsellor Sandra Elia break down the mental weight of weight loss—where real change begins with awareness, not perfection. They encourage listeners to start by simply noticing their patterns without judgment, leaning into curiosity over criticism. Sandra shares why mindset is the true driver of long-term results and unpacks common thinking traps like all-or-nothing thinking, disqualifying the good, and the ever-so-sneaky “I deserve a treat” logic. She also draws a clear line between planned indulgence and emotional eating, offering tools to redefine what a treat really is. Sandra also explores how your environment and the people around you can either support your growth or keep you stuck. This episode is a must for anyone ready to get out of their own way and start showing up with intention—from their thoughts to their food choices.You can find the full video hosted at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspring2025Sandra is the founder of The Food Addiction Recovery Program and the author of "Never Enough: Three Pillars of Food Addiction Recovery".Find Sandra Elia:Instagram: @sandraelia.cawww.sandraelia.com/recovery (Promo code: LIVYLOSER)Find 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.livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livi and welcome to the Livi 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 relisten to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place.

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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. We are seven weeks into the current program, the theme this week talking about getting real about where you're at and the thoughts and the feels that can come with that. And today I'm joined by the perfect guest

for this conversation. Sandra Alias joining me. She is the author of the book, Never Enough, available on Amazon. She's also the founder of the Food Addiction Recovery Program. Welcome back, hi. Hello, good morning everyone.

It's always a pleasure to be here. The first things first, I wanna talk to you about a resource available and that's close to your heart obesity matters because on the weekend you were just at a workshop there. You and I, that's kind of how we have connected and at the Living Method, we're looking to get more involved

and sort of do our part and be part of the conversation. So can you just talk a little bit about that resource that's available to people? It is a beautiful resource. It's a nonprofit. All of our resources are free for community. And we have three mandates. One is to educate, educate people

on evidence-based treatment options for obesity. Two, we advocate. So I have been on a bit of a road show talking across Canada. I'm advocating for private insurance companies to cover anti obesity drugs. And lastly, community. And that's what we did so well on Sunday. So I always say Priti Chawla, who's our founder, she it's the hottest ticket in Toronto. We for $40, you come to the old mill, we feed you lunch, we have networking hour, but the real gold is the lineup. So we have the top obesity doctors who have wait lists of over a year to see come onto our stage and they talk to us, they entertain us, they make us feel a part of the community. So with obesity matters, we talk about weight acceptance and what that means it's very nuanced is that we hold value and respect for everyone,

regardless of your weight and we prioritize health and happiness over a number on the scale. And also we're here to show you a path to evidence based treatment if you want that. And that's why we're excited to partner with the Gene Mill Libby program. Well, you know, everyone knows how to find a diet or a program to follow, but they may not understand the resources available to them. And you might remember about a month ago, I did a talk with Obesity Matters that you hosted, and we had a great conversation there and some of our members joined us. So definitely check that out.

Their Instagram account, Obesity Matters to you, I believe. To us. To us, yeah. To the number two and then you. All right. Okay, great. Let's talk about why you're here. So.

Excited. I won't interrupt you. I mean, no, you know where our members at. You don't just come into our group and share your knowledge. You actually come in and you have conversations with our members. You respond to questions and comments. Not that she's supposed to do that, but you do that. So you have a great sense of where our members at. So here we are week seven. The summer is coming. We still have a lot of time left.

We still have the whole rest of the program, but people are feeling that pressure. The living method is just like any other diet or program where, or any attempt to reach your goals, you start and then you keep going until you reach your goals. People feel the pressure of the end coming. They feel the summer coming. This is where they really get into their thoughts and their feels and really in their head about that. So what's the conversation around that today? Yeah, I think that I wanna really look at our thinking patterns.

So I believe that it's very hard to change your outer world and leave the inner world unchanged. And that's where I spent 15 years of my life in my 20s, just trying to change the outer world. I would sign up for programs and I wouldn't even go for the meetings or want to talk to the counselor. Just give me the freaking diet. Just give me the magic formula. Let me just follow some diet. Maybe I don't even like to eat that way so I can lose the weight. And I never wanted to examine what was happening in here. And that's having worked with some of the top obesity doctors,

that's the real work. That's the hard work. And I know one of my biggest struggles early on was that I couldn't trust my thinking when it came to food. And that's not forever. So you might be in that place too, where you've kind of been a victim to the diet culture and followed all different kinds of schemes and

crazy ideas. And now you know, you have this great roadmap and trusting that just in the beginning saying I can't trust my thinking. So I'm going to follow this roadmap, I'm going to suspend all of my cognitive distortions around food, which we're going to talk about and follow this roadmap. And I get it, summer is coming and it is scary. I too take the summer off, because we like you, we give it all we've got

all year round and we need to recharge. And I know that I'm a better counselor when I take that time off and I come back refreshed with a renewed energy. But community members feel like, where do I tap in for my meeting? Where's my accountability going to be? How do I stick to this program when I'm kind of left on my own? And when we look at people you know I've done a lot of research for my upcoming workshop on June 21st which we'll talk about later. Just looking at research papers of people

and in the research papers is called maintainers versus people who regain. I don't necessarily like those terms but the maintainers do certain things consistently. So they follow a meal plan as best as they can and you know any weight management journey is a roadmap and resilience. You need the resilience piece. Resilience directly comes from the way that we think. So when the roadmap fails, isn't it? Well, who hasn't gone on a road trip and taken a wrong turn or a wrong exit, right? And the resilience is the part that says, Okay, how do I course correct as quickly as possible. And our thinking left unchecked

can drain us. Right. And so that's to me, the barometer of my thinking and my feeling drained and my feeling hopeless, my feeling like I've blown it. Oh, let me check my thinking. Yeah, that's pretty discouraging. What else? What else could I think right now that would energize me to keep going?

Yeah. So did you want me to? going. Yeah, so do you want me to, yeah. No, I just, that part in your brain is so tough to work through. I just, I have a comment here from one of our members I was reading earlier on where she's talking about, she's just constantly thinking about food. Like it just never, never leaves her.

She has breakfast, as soon as she's done breakfast, she's thinking about the next thing. So that's hard to manage constantly thinking about what you're eating, not eating all day, plus all the pressure that you're putting on yourself to do the things that you need to do. That's a lot. Do you have any tips for that part of it?

Yeah, so first of all, I wanna tell that member they're absolutely not alone. And I get it. So much mental real estate is going to food. And if you were in my brain in my 20s, this is what you would have heard. Where am I going to eat? When am I going to eat?

How much did I eat? Did I eat too much? Should I skip dinner? I never skipped dinner. Should I be too little? Should I have seconds? I'll have thirds. Maybe I'll have fourths.

Where can I get something but no one will see me eat. What's for lunch? What's for dinner? It was constant. I wasn't present for my life. And I, I totally get that. Oftentimes there's a couple of things. Ultra processed foods drives compulsion and drives that wanting more and more and more. Whole natural foods reacts in our bodies in whole natural ways where we can actually become satiated. Where our bodies like, okay I got the minerals, I got the vitamins, I got the fiber, I had all that chewing, I'm not interested in food anymore. But you have to understand ultra processed foods have been

chemically engineered in a lab to hit your reward center and keep you wanting more. Why? Why would they do that? Well, they want the greatest share of your wallet. It is profit driven. So there's that piece. Now, for some people who have a lot of food noise, we have medicine that can help. It's a very interesting time in history.

I lost my mother to obesity when she was 69 years old. She died too young because there was no treatment at that time. That's not true anymore. And, you know, of course you'd have to speak to your doctor to make sure if they work for you. But what people, my clients often say is they'll start on, for example, GLP-1 and they're like, Whoa, I haven't thought about food. It's got to its rightful place. And I say, you know what, if you know anybody who has been weight stable their whole lives, we know those people. They won the genetic lottery.

They kind of just self-managed. They're not too interested in food. They just happen to be slender their whole lives. That's how they view food. That's how they view it. They're just like they can take it or leave it. They have their lunch. They move on with their they can take it or leave it. They have their lunch, they move on with their day. Sometimes they forget to eat breakfast. And when people first experience

a GLP-1 who have lived with obesity, they enter this new world. And they're just shocked that it could actually open up that space for them. They had no idea. Yeah. Let's talk about that for a second, because, you know, people are really nervous about taking GLP-1s and that's not what this conversation is about. As you all know, I'm definitely on board with that. They can be a game changer and a lifesaver. I think what's interesting is that people can just perceive that that is normal for

them. That's that normal, that constant chatter in their brain and then gives them an opportunity to see like, oh, oh, okay, this is like getting to that calm place, which obviously helps them with the choices that they're making. We're trying to help through cognitive behavioral change, people get to that point naturally. That can be like a game changer for people

to even understand what that feels like. But any tips for like actually like calming that in the moment, because for lots of reasons, some people can't take these medications, they can't afford these medications, which of course you're working on. The tips for managing that food noise without medication. So I always say there's a few thinking traps

when it comes to compulsive overeating. And I've been at this game for over 12 years and I've kind of distilled them to three, but I'm interested in your comments. If I don't hit one of your, we'll call them cognitive distortions, let me know what yours is because I'm so interested in this work. So first of all, what we know from research is cognitive distortions is a core symptom of somebody who struggles with their weight or their relationship with food. That is a core symptom. We don't talk

about that. What? Right. We always think the core symptom is maybe I'm not eating right. Maybe I'm not moving right. No, it's cognitive distortions. So the first one is, um, diet will start tomorrow. You know, I'll start over on the gene and living in September. Um, I'll, I'll, I'll go back to day one starting tomorrow. I just today, today I need to eat. And that if we unpack that, the cognitive distortion we find is all or nothing thinking. I have never worked with a food addict who doesn't have all or nothing thinking. All or nothing thinking is either I do it perfectly or I don't do it at all. Either the first time I make a mistake, that means this doesn't work and throw it in the garbage. If I have any kind of detour, that means I'm a failure. It's

just black and white. And the world, I used to say in clinic, somebody just reminded me in between black and white is a whole rainbow of colors and you want to live in that rainbow of colors. So the diet will start tomorrow. For me, it would always start with, okay, I started a crazy diet on Monday. By Tuesday afternoon, I'd have my first craving. Cravings are overwhelming. They're immediate. They're hard to manage. And now when we slow down a craving, we know it even brings about anxiety. And the anxiety is the precipice of will I won't I should I shouldn't if I do, does that mean I've blown it for the day if I have one, but I've never had

right that back and forth and what would quiet that tug of war was just eat it. And you know what? Eat it super fast. And I know you talk about what I would like to say is a planned indulgence, which is very different. So a planned indulgence is I've decided to say is a planned indulgence, which is very different. So a planned indulgence is, I've decided to have this chocolate, I'm gonna sit down, maybe put a beautiful napkin on my lap,

I'm gonna savor every bite, I'm gonna chew slowly, I'm gonna enjoy, and then I'm not gonna think about it again. Very different from a craving driven, let me get this in me as quickly as possible because I feel horrible about it. So that is, so for me again, going back, I would be on the precipice, then I would of course,

blow it, eat it really quickly. And I said, screw it, screw it. I'll start again on Monday. Just forget about it. Right. And then Monday would come as the 27th of the month. Who starts a diet on the 27th of the month? Right. So I'd say, no, let's start on the first. That makes more sense to me. I'll start on the first clean slate for a month, but it's December 1st. Who starts, what crazy person starts a diet in December with all the parties and two weeks, you know what, January 1st, because it's a new year and it'll be like a light switch and you know, wake up that morning and everything's going to change. And that's cognitive distortions. Change does not happen like that. This is very complex. Our eating behaviors, our relationship with food, the relationship we have with our body, all the thinking.

It's not a light switch. We can't, there's no magical Monday morning. I wrote about that in my book. I used to, that poor Monday morning, I used to put so much pressure on it like my whole life was gonna change Monday morning. Well, you know, we get this a lot, we get this a lot, even with where we're at in the program, halfway through this program, chances are most people will have to continue their journey. They're feeling like if they are not where they thought

they would be or not where they want to be, they should just wait until our next program. I'm like, that's months away that what are you talking about? Chances are people do this not just when it comes to their diets, but in their life as well. I am very much like a all or nothing. Go hard, go home. I was raised by a father who was like, if you didn't win, if you weren't first place, you didn't win. Second place meant nothing, third place meant nothing. I still deal with this all the time. I'm like, okay, this is either gonna be a huge hit

or an epic failure. And my husband will be like, okay, there is some middle ground there. There's some middle ground. So, you know, the point is your end game here might be losing weight, obviously in the healthiest way, physically or mentally, but this is part, what Sandu is sharing is the tools and the skills that you're requiring,

not just to lose weight, but to be able to maintain and sustain your weight and have them be part of who you are. This is like foundational change, is how you make that change in your brain. But that takes time, that takes time. Like how long has it taken you to get to a place where you're calm around food? Yeah, that took a long time. That takes time. Like, how long has it taken you to get to a place where you're calm around food?

Yeah, that took a long time. So I did it, you know, full disclosure, I did it at a time. So my journey started 24 years ago, 25 years ago. And at that time, we had very little available to us. And I found my way into the rooms of 12 step programs. So 12 step, most people know Alcoholics Anonymous, but those 12 steps have been modified for any addiction that you may have. And I found my way into Overeaters Anonymous. And that's how I recovered. But I have to tell you, I used to

go to those meetings for a year and a half with no recovery. And I'll remember those days. They were so, so sad. This was before Zoom and anybody. So you had to drive. You had to drive to a location. You had to go into a church basement as they all are in. And I leave my house and my husband and I had to stop at the fast food place. And I would go and I'd grab a fast food meal. And then I remember it was in the church.

Beside the church was a school and I would go into the school parking lot first. Eat my fast food. Hope that no one saw me. You know, I would think and then I would go into the school parking lot first eat my fast food hope that no one saw me. You know, I would think and then I go into the meeting I didn't want anybody sitting beside me because I thought maybe I still smelled like the fast food I had so much chain and then on my way back I would stop at a Timmy's and get you know something sugary and that went on for a year and a half but I

kept showing up. Yeah, I just kept putting one foot in front of me. OK, today I still need to kind of use food. I still got to go through the drive-through, but I'm going to go. I'm going to here. And what was so interesting, the reason, not only because the 12 Steps are powerful, but I was surrounded in a room of people

who were achieving their goals. And they would talk about it. And that's the beauty of the Gina Livy program because this community is so vocal and you all share your successes and you share when things are struggling so people support you and love you. But there's something and there is something about a group it's called social learning. So when you have people succeeding, you will inspire others to believe it's possible. So that's a very important part. So if you're having success, put it in the comments every single time. Tell people how you're succeeding, what you're doing, that it is

possible. It's not gloating, it's not trying to show off. You will actually be someone's inspiration. And that's why I do the work that I do because my clients inspire me so much, you know, even recently, somebody told me their biggest win was they cut their own toenails. And I was like, Wow, that is so beautiful. I know it sounds gross. But I was like, I'm just like, I'm actually so happy because it brought so much more dignity back to his life, because that was something he couldn't do for so many years. So there's definitely that piece.

And if we move on to the next cognitive distortion, it's called disqualifying the good. So what does that look like? So you're at day 30 of the Libby program, you're hitting it in every single way and you you're feeling better, clothes are feeling better. You go away with the girlfriends and everything goes sideways, right? Everything, like you just, whatever, you had a good weekend and you drink

and you ate pizza and you ate candy and you went to bed and you feel bloated and gross the next day. And then you hyper-focus on that weekend. As if those 30 days means nothing. It means nothing to you. Because look, I blew it this weekend, so I'm always going to fail.

This is never going to work. I'm always going to be a failure at this. And I'm like, wait a minute. You can never undo the 30 days that you were hitting it and the things that you are learning and how you were evolving. And when I worked at Renescent, which is a treatment house in Toronto for drugs and alcohol addiction, it's been around since the 70s, eight years ago, they opened their doors to food addicts.

I loved working at this center because it was a women's only center and it was people coming in trying to get over their addictions, facing all their demons. And I can tell you, because we had, you know, alcohol and drugs as well, we would have women who would spend 30 days there, tens of thousands of dollars, and they would just make it to the corner and use again. And then they would come back and I would say, you didn't undo the 30 days. There's no way because you face so much you grew as as a person. You transformed in front of my eyes and then you're human and you relapsed. That's okay.

It's your back. You're back. This is what life is all about resilience and I love to watch documentaries. That's one of my like guilty pleasures. It's not even a guilty pleasure because you learn so much. Anybody who's done anything great in this world, moved the needle, changed, inspired, paved in failures.

Paved in failures. But we just see the end result. We just see the poof. Look what they did. But you don't notice how many times they got up. Something you said there, I have a daughter who just got out of rehab. It was interesting because she did all the work. She did all the work. She worked really hard.

When we have conversations about, because we're looking through some old photos and there's some moments where like, oh, she was there, so she was that. That was her, but doing that was that was her then. And she's worked so hard since November. She's done all the work. She does all the homework. All the counselors are like she's she does the work. She's amazing. And she has not relapse yet. Thank goodness. But she may never. And she may never. But what you said there, I think is really striking because what I

love about the living method, you're not just like starving yourself and then you, and then you eat and then, you know, you've ruined everything. That's what, that's what I love. All the hard work, not just the physical work, but the mental work. But I think with diets, we were told like, especially like, for example, keto,

you put yourself in ketosis. The minute you eat something, you've ruined it and you have to start again. Yeah. Right. Did you have the pea sticks? I had the pea sticks. I peed on so many sticks.

I never made it into keto. It was horrible. Right. And so then you feel like now you have to start again or you've lost the way through some deprived diet and then you start, you gain it back and then you have to start again. And we forget like it's all the learning that you are like you're actually trying to make real

change so even if you are unable even if you're eating everything and feel like a complete failure if you're showing up every day and you're watching segments like this and you're listening and you're learning nothing can take that away from you nothing nothing can take that away from you so if you are doing amazing and then you have that one thing and you feel like you ruined everything, you actually haven't. And there's a lot to learn from those moments, too, about yourself, the way you think and the way you feel and what's going on there. It's time for today's podcast sponsor. And this is a company that I can feel good about. It's Bombas. Did you know that socks are one of the most requested items

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I don't deserve to be loved. I don't deserve opportunities. I don't deserve to be loved. What are you talking about? That's stuff. Those things live on different planets. Yeah. So when you get so rock solid in your worthiness that you are beautiful,

no one needs to give it to you and no one can take it away and nothing can take it away. Nothing. So maybe you have, you know, some problems with your relationship with food. That's very complicated. It has nothing to do with your worthiness. That comes from childhood trauma. It comes from the fact that we live in an Obesinogenic world. This world is actually set up for you to gain weight. There is food constantly given to us all the time, even an airplane like I just flew to Calgary, why do they come by with the cookies twice like twice? I got a fight the urge.

It's like we can't go a couple of hours. I went on a road trip with one of my sisters. It was two hours she packed the bag. Like what is happening? We're going to be okay. We're going to eat lunch and we're going to get to our destination two hours later. But that's our culture right now. And when we grew up, at least when I did,

a food had a time and a place. The hardware store couldn't smell chocolate bars. Yeah, right. We didn't, like there was no snacking at school. I used to pick up my daughter at school and grade school. And moms would come with snacks because the kids for some reason couldn't walk home first. starting to eat. I'm like, oh, that's like some programming there. Well, it's that you get to that that's that resiliency piece,

right? Sitting in that uncomfortableness where we have we want everything so fast and so quick. And, you know, there's a week in our program that kind of brings up food waste issues, food scarcity issues. And the reality is most of us can walk upstairs and open our cupboards and open our fridge, and there's a ton of food there for us. But that feeling is real. And I think because we use food for so many things, right?

We use food to show love, to celebrate, to cope. We also needed to survive. We also use it for reward as well, right? And so that makes it all very complicated. Yeah, I agree. And then the last cognitive distortion is, I deserve a treat, right? So again, that's a permission thought. And if you know me, the answer is always yes, you absolutely deserve a treat. And so my hope is to really shift your perception on what a treat is. So if this treat, whatever it is, is going to leave you feeling better than when you started, then it is in fact a treat. But if that treat, you know, for some people, let's say you decide it's chocolate, the treat's going to be chocolate and you're going to sit there and enjoy it and love it. But for you,

you're one of those people who says, but if I have two pieces, it turns to four, then it turns to the whole chocolate bar. And then I'm searching through the things and then I have the whole bag of chips and the ice cream and I don't know what just happened. It was like an episode where that's not peaceful and that's not a treat because you're going to be in a worst condition afterwards. And what's underlining that I deserve a treat. What we also know from research is people living in larger bodies or obesity do not have self-soothing techniques. This is very important and it likely starts in childhood. So if you had a childhood maybe your parents were not available, you experienced neglect, trauma, abuse, food was available to you and it was incredibly comforting. So you used it to self soothe and it got you through your

childhood so it did its job. But then as you got older or maybe even moved out and you're no longer in that abusive situation, you've developed the skill that says when I'm sad, food will comfort me. When I'm lonely, food will comfort me. When I'm angry, food will comfort me. Whereas maybe your peers, because that's what happened to me. I was 30 when I decided not to use food as a coping mechanism. And I was like, I don't know how to do. What do I 30 when I decided not to use food as a coping mechanism and I was like, I don't know how to do, what do I do when I'm sad? Now this is very weird. I was 30 years old and

I had no idea what to do and I had to develop self soothing techniques. Life is hard. Life is stressful. Things were always going to happen and that is a tool in your toolkit. What do you do when you experience strong emotions is another, yeah, part of this. Oh, I can just hear some people right now taking a beat and being like, ooh, ooh, okay, wait a second. And just now realizing, oh, goodness, like think about sitting in the uncomfortableness of not having the thing.

You don't have to not have it. You can just feel that feeling. Think about if you're lonely, what's the first thing you would do to feel better? If you're stressed, what's the first thing you would do to feel better? You know, maybe it's the wine. For me, it's more the wine over the food,

but you don't have to experience that to take a second and think. And that's a good practice for people, right? Like what is what what's your go to when you're sad or mad or lonely or whatever. And if the first thought is food, then that's bringing an awareness to the fact that this is that's maybe a little bit of a deeper issue for you. Exactly. And so I go back to that question that seems to resonate with your community. What's my intention with eating this?

What's my intention right now? And if the intention, intention is celebration, nourishment, enjoyment, great. Those are great intentions. If the intention is, I don't want to feel this. I'm I feel awful in my skin. I need relief. Then then we need better coping mechanisms, because food was never intended for those to be self medicating, because as soon as food becomes self medicating, then we run into problems. And another thing, I don't know why I feel compelled to tell this story,

but I get to tell it. Another thing I had to do because in my twenties, my friend group was a reflection of myself. So in my twenties, I was sad. I was pretty toxic and I hated myself and I attracted those kinds of friends in my life. So I don't blame them. I blame me. It was always a reflection of me. And then I wasn't going to use food. They were my binging buddies. They were my go out to use food. They were my binging buddies. They were my go out and eat buddies. They were my like, you know, screw healthy eating. You're just a loser. You want to go to bed early? Oh, look at that person. They're running. What's wrong with that kind of crowd? And so then in my 30s, I said I got a let go of this friend crowd.

So I remember talking to my counselor. I'm like, I don't use food and now I have no friends, like none whatsoever. And so if you're in that position where you've had to let go of friends, this is what I was told to do and it was a game changer. I had to go out and look for women that had lives that I wanted. So women who were killing it on every level.

So, you know, they were highly educated. I'm not highly educated, were killing it on every level, so you know they were highly educated, I'm not highly educated, so it's not about that, but that was something I had always wanted. They had successful relationships, successful careers, they did charity work, they cared about social issues, that was my like I want to be that. So I went and found a bunch of women and then I had to pursue them. It was like I was dating them. So I had to make all the plans. I had to do all the heavy lifting for six or eight months. And you have to be willing to do that.

You have to get over yourself like they're not asking me and why aren't they coordinating the brunch and wire? No, after six months, if they were not starting to reciprocate, then I got it. And I can tell you right now, they're still in my friend group. 25 years later, one of them is Zaina, you know her. And another one is Sandy Van. I pursued her heart as soon as I met Dr. Sandy Van. I'm like, I need you to be my friend. So that's the other piece. If you struggle with loneliness, loneliness was a big trigger for me because that's something I experienced throughout childhood.

And something I learned through therapy, and this might help other people, that if I don't have plans on Friday night or Saturday, food gets super loud, super loud for me. And I never understood why. And the reason is because when I was a child, if I was alone, that meant I was in danger. But here I am at 52 and I live in a beautiful house and I experienced no, thank God, no danger. But you put me alone on a Friday night, my anxiety goes through the roof, I get upset and food gets so loud. So this is the complexity of food that we have to look at.

And that's it, right? And this is why there are great options like the workshop that Sandra has available and programs that you can follow and do beyond just. I mean, the Living Method is great. It teaches you how to eat good nutrient rich foods. It teaches you that awareness. It teaches you a lot of things,

but some people need a little bit more help and assistance than what we can offer here on the program. I want to go back to the friend stuff, because I shared something when I was at the women's the women's Healthy Living Show on the weekend, I was talking about community and how important it is and how I experienced a shift in friends. And I was noticing that my I wasn't really matching with my friends. And I was noticing that I wasn't really matching with my friends and yet they were like super popular people.

They were the who's who of whatever. Like it was the friend group anyone would want. It was very glamorous and amazing and Instagram worthy. And it just was like not fitting with me anymore. And then there was a situation that caused the friendship to dissolve. And it was so sad for me because a conversation wasn't had that could have resolved it.

And yet now it's the biggest blessing because she removed herself from my life and all my other friends with it. Now they've since reconnected and she's since wanted to reconnect it. And I was like, yeah, I'm good. I'm good, thank you. But that's interesting that you're talking

about how you attract, that's the friend group you attracted, and then you changed, and then you looking to attract something new. And it opened the door to so many incredible friendships and relationships that I'm just so grateful for. I wouldn't change a thing. That sadness is still there, that loss of friendship,

because it was a 20 year friendship is still there. But loss of friendship because it was a 20-year friendship is still there. But man, I wouldn't change it. I honestly wouldn't change it for the world. But it is hard to make friends. And I love that you shared, you pursued it. You like, you pursued it like dating. And I think that's a piece we don't talk about because you have to go out, you have to meet people. That's why I love whenever our members get together, they have a commonality and they end up like meeting each other and and leaving as friends, which is so great. But that lonely piece, it's so difficult. But I love

that you share that you had to actively work at making friends. Yes, yeah. And you are absolutely the sum of the five people you surround yourself with. That is so true. So you have to be very careful about who you surround yourself with. That is so true. So you have to be very careful about who you surround yourself with. And I have like a family member who said to me the other day, oh my gosh, Sandra, like you do all this stuff and you're continuously improving. Like I'm, I do spiritually hard things every year, like whether it's a silent meditation retreat, drink ayahuasca, like it's always something. And then like you're crazy. And I said, No, actually, I'm one of the

team ones out of the people I hang out with, because they inspire me. I remember a perfect example, Dr. Sandy van and I were going to Halifax to visit a friend and it was just two days. So it's just an overnight bag. And she calls me she's like, Hey, girl, you got your runners in your bag? I said, No, because it's just two days. And I like to wear heels. And I can't.

She's like, we're going to the gym. I'm like, OK. The heels came out. The runners went in. And but it was the best thing. And I would never have done that spin class in Halifax, which then actually was such a better morning than kind of just lounging around.

So that's you have to surround yourself with people you want to become. Because people are making real change and you're thinking about who's this because you have to work through old habits that no longer serve you create new ones. You're basically creating a lifestyle that's going to support the change that you want to be at the end of the day. And that's one thing that we don't talk a lot about is who's in, who's in your, who's in your friend's circle. What are they doing? Are they choosing to go drink and eat and whatever you maybe need to find some

friends who are into go walking and talking like that's a big part that we don't think about. Um, someone just, let me say one thing. We are a society that's so hyper focused on what we put in our mouths. Yeah. I believe you should be even more concerned about what you put in your mind. So what do you let in through your eyes? What do you watch on regular? If you're watching CNN, you're not going to have a good outlook. I'm just going to tell you right now. My one of my sisters watches 48 hours

before she falls asleep every night. That's a real murder story. And I'm like, that could be why you think everyone's not trustworthy. So what are you letting in through your eyes? What are you listening to on a consistent basis? So I love this idea called net time. No extra time, because nobody has any extra time.

Let's be real. But everyone stands at the sink. So when I'm doing my hair and my makeup and brushing my teeth, I'm not that's that's the time I could be listening to a podcast right or listening to the Gina Libby stuff while you're getting dressed while you're eating breakfast. What are you doing while you're driving? What are you listening to on a regular basis and what thoughts

do you let yourself ruminate on? I sometimes, right, I can get on a rumination about something. I'm like, breaks. You know what? I'm going to take all this mental energy and I'm going to think about the future I want. And let me ruminate on that. Because you imagine if I ruminate

on where I want to be next year and the things I want to accomplish and the abundance and the love. You can see it already changes in my face as opposed to ruminating on somebody who really pissed me off because I love to do that. That's my favorite pastime. I've noticed that I relish in it. If someone pisses me off, I just get in there and I'm like,

what am I doing? How is this benefiting me? I'm not going to show up in the world with great energy. OK, stop that. What am I doing? How is this benefiting me? I'm not going to show up in the world with great energy. Okay, stop that. Focus on this beautiful vision over here and smile. That's not an easy thing to do. That happened to me the other day.

Someone said something and I was fixated on whatever. And then I realized like, whoa, I just like lost hours of my life. And what am I doing? But our brains, we talked about this with Dr. Beverly David. She's a clinical psychologist and Dr. Dina Kara-Shafer, how we do that. Our brain just immediately goes to that negative space. And also on that point,

like you had this one negative comment. I bet you, you could have found 50 positive comments on that day, right? And the negative comment, I always say, consider the source. So this person who said, is it a person that you want to become, that you value, that has the life that you want, where's the source coming from? Because that's also a consideration.

If it's a source that you admire and respect, OK, let me look. Is there any value in this comment? But if it's a person who's sitting in the cheap seats throwing mud at me because I'm trying something, I'm not interested. Amen. I saw a comment from one of our members who's like, do you have to be mentally prepared for this diet? And I don't think anyone's mentally prepared for the kind of work that we follow through on the living method, because it's about doing the real work, not just physically, but more so mentally. Can you talk about how it's just a process? And it's about bringing, if these kinds of conversations are not to fix you, they're to help bring awareness to maybe some issues and associations that you have

and offer some suggestions and some workshops like Sandra's got to let us know about. Can you just talk about that piece before we go? Yeah, so understand that you're constantly evolving and changing. Sometimes you want to start a project at the end point, right? And so even, I know you've been in business for 30 years and I'm going to venture to guess 30 years ago, the living method looked way different. Yeah, it had to, right. And because you mentioned that either it's going to you're going to hit it out of the park or it's not going to work. But the truth is, the living method, whenever it started, it's constantly evolving.

It's constantly changing. And it's a living organism. It's it shouldn't in five years. This program should not be what it is today. So how can you just hit it out of the park from day one? And that's true of you. You're not going to be at the end state at day one, but you will continually change.

And people take my program, I have people that were in my pilot program at the Wharton Medical Clinic nine years ago. And you might think, well, don't they get it yet? No, that's not about that. They're evolving. They hear the same message but they can now apply to their life or it hits them differently or they understand it in a different way. I'm like if I strike on a book that really changes me spiritually I read it seven or eight times. I'm not I don't want to move on to the next

because I'm like this book holds so much gold for me and it speaks to my heart. I'm just going to keep reading it and reading it and reading it. So the only form of permanence is repetition. So nothing in life is permanent, nothing, including you and where you are today. But repetition creates permanence and you're changing. The material doesn't change, you're changing. And so be that person that's willing to say, this is where I'm at. I got over that fear of doing something that I was going to suck at. So I actually embraced that.

So I took up burlesque dancing, and I can't dance to save my life. And I was like, I'm going to do this because it feeds my soul and I'm going to suck so bad. And that's OK because I only go to welcoming places, right? And just like this program is a very welcoming place. If you happen to do this program and you suck at the beginning, guess what?

Everyone's going to love you and accept you. It's OK. And it's sort of, are you going to stay stuck in traffic or do you want to keep moving? Right? Cause staying stuck in traffic is a horrible feeling. Has anybody ever taken a longer route just so you keep moving? I do. Right. I'm like, okay, I just don't want to stay stuck. And what stops us sometimes from trying is that cognitive distortion of all or nothing. I don't think I can do this perfectly, so I'm not going to do it at all. But if you get on the path, this has happened to me so many times in my life.

I get on the path and I don't know what the next step looks like, but doors open, the right people come, the path gets illuminated. Oh, I'll take a few more steps. Oh, I didn't know what was good. Look what I found here. I didn't know this was good. Look what I found here. I don't know. This was available to me. Wow. And now this teacher came and now this opened and you just keep going. You don't. It's the unknown. It's the unknown. It's scary for everyone. I love that you just summed up. As you know, Dr. Sean Wharton joined us and he talked about

how he had a client do the program seven times. He's like, great, do it 70 times. And it's that repetition. And what you said, like, you are changing the program, the foundation of it, at least it's staying the same repetition, but you are changing. And even our conversations like Sandra here are evolving. She's not just coming back each time and having the exact same conversation. We're building on it. The conversation is evolving. We got to go. We're out of time. I honestly, thank you so much. If you want to sign up for Sandra's workshop on June 21st, you can head over to her website, sandraalea.com slash recovery. You can also follow her over on Instagram, sandralia.ca. Thanks everyone who's joined us live, your comments and your questions,

we see them all of course, Sandra. Thank you so much. Thank you, such a pleasure. Great way to start a day. Bye. Thanks everyone, have a great day. Bye.