NEW: Plant Yourself merch designed by my daughter, Yael Zivan.

PYP 093: Sharon Livingston on Conquering Emotional Eating

SharonLivingstonWhen Sharon Livingston was a kid, her parents were kosher caterers and she had to watch them nourish the world while, often, ignoring her. She doubled her weight between ages 9 and 12, and had to deal with being “the fat girl” all through high school.

These and other experiences and her long road of healing from them, along with her decades of study and practice of psychology, have made her a expert on emotional eating, or as she puts it, “when food becomes a four-letter word.”

In our in-depth and often hilarious conversation (including a quote by the late, great Buddy Hackett), we cover:

  • Sharon's simple and stark definition of emotional eating
  • a bowl of M&Ms and a difficult client: do we feel like we have a choice
  • the emotional function of sweet foods
  • shocker: “there’s no reason for dessert”
  • the gap between our body wisdom and our current food environment
  • the emotional function of dairy
  • food as metaphor
  • the history of Sharon’s dysfunctional relationship with food
  • throwing up a dozen veal cutlets
  • eating to make herself unattractive
  • “no compromise” eating: the best piece of chocolate in the world
  • the million dollar questions: “What do I really want?” “And what does that remind me of?”
  • a cameo appearance by Sharon’s dog Jeremy, demonstrating the emotional gratification available from chewing a squeaky toy
  • why the best diet in the world won’t work if you ignore the emotional reasons for eating
  • the limits of adaptation and “down regulation”
  • Sharon’s anger at invading yeast cells
  • the 72-hour craving window
  • unlikely strategies to deal with emotional eating
  • the value of substitutes
  • Sharon helps me with my chocolate issue (“a series of cheap one-night stands”)
  • the Bat Phone strategy
  • how to deal with thoughts of cravings
  • the magic of a short pause
  • craving textures rather than flavors
  • food choices as clues into how to give ourselves love
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

ChocolateTherapie.com – my local organic, raw, vegan  fair-trade chocolatier

Lekvar Prune Butter

Great article on emotional eating from the Onion (published the same day as this podcast, which surely is significant)

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

Disclosure

This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive compensation from your actions on such links. It don't cost you a dime, tho.

4 comments on “PYP 093: Sharon Livingston on Conquering Emotional Eating

  1. David says:

    Humans are so complex, and yet simple in many regards regards.
    We spend so little time learning about some of the most important aspects of living and health.
    It often takes many years, much experimentation and discovery. The effort put forth often leads to satisfaction through the implementation and/or sharing with others who can benefit.
    It is hard to be expert at all the things that we may wish to gain knowledge in.
    Amazing, as T. Colin Campbell alluded to/and Dean Ornish as well/that once the science has been revealed, how many refute it, preferring to hear/see that which justifies your bad habits. Ketosis? Atkins. Cave Man/Paleo…..

    Thanks for these insights/reflections/tools. From “knowing” to “doing”. As I say “Motivation requires daily reinforcement.”/and, “We are each an experiment of one.”

    Keep up the good works; it is needed more now than ever/and will always be needed – unfortunately even more so in the years to come……

    David

  2. David Sax says:

    Hey Howard
    Really interesting interview. Thanks for being so willing and open. Requires a lot of courage. I’d be curious to know how her suggestions play out for you over time…

    Cheers.
    Dave

  3. Mexie Butler says:

    Dear Howie,
    I love how vulnerable you and Sharon were both willing to be in this podcast. I loved the ‘series of cheap one-night stands’ and ‘is this all there is?’ as ways of talking about the disappointment and betrayal that comes from indulging a craving. I loved the red phone and the bat-light as symbols of the need for connection and love. I love how weird you are (your words)., I’m AT LEAST that weird. When it comes to food, I’m about as weird as it gets.
    Sharon talked about the pause that gives us a space between the craving thought and the action. This is so important in my experience. I am not getting cravings much now, but at times they come up. That’s when I need to remember this ‘sacred pause’ that gives me an opportunity to remember who I am, who I want to be, and all the reasons I have for not falling back into the morass of misery that is obsession.
    You both did such a brilliant job. You stayed human and real while sharing your professional and personal wisdoms.
    Much love,
    Mexie

    1. Howard says:

      Thanks so much for the kind words, Mexie!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *