Glenn Livingston is a clinical psychologist, marketing consultant to Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneur, author, and all-around good guy. Also, a dear friend, colleague, and mentor.
For many of the years of his illustrious career, Glenn guarded a shameful secret: he couldn't stop thinking about food. And his thoughts would lead to actions: overeating almost without limit.
Even when he was in good health and his weight was nothing anyone would notice or comment on, Glenn couldn't stop obsessing about pizza, cookies, donuts, and other, shall we say, non-health-promoting foods. He'd be sitting across from a patient describing his untameable obsessions, and Glenn would be fantasizing about the whole pizza he'd score as soon as the session was through.
Eventually, Glenn had had enough. He was a top-notch psychologist, and if psychology was good enough for his patients and clients, then by golly it should be good enough for him as well.
Glenn scoured the literature on binge eating, obsessive eating, and emotional eating. He explored the 12-Step model as well as other approaches, and began putting together an evidence-based program for himself. After much experimentation and tweaking, Glenn found what worked for him.
He's been coaching friends and clients (including me) on his methodology, and I in turn have been using it in working with some of my own health coaching clients. It's remarkable. It's counter-intuitive. It's powerful. And it's actually fun.
And in this conversation, we explore Glenn's Never Binge Again program, and how it can help people let go of their obsessive and counter-productive thoughts and behaviors around food. We cover:
- Glenn's experience as an “exercise bulemic”
- the high cost of believing that “there's something wrong with me”
- the value of feeling a little bit guilty
- Glenn's very precise definition of binge eating
- the psychology and physiology of binge eating
- the value of defining “the Pig” and giving it a voice
- the four types of rules we can create for ourselves
- the concept of “100% responsibility” for our rules
- the importance – and unimportance – of environment
- the link between cravings and pornography
- the two types of deprivation – and why focusing only on the obvious one can doom our change efforts
- how to balance “never binge again” and “how to recover when you do binge again”
- why you shouldn't keep track of how long you've gone since your last binge (vs the AA model)
- the surprising lack of efficacy of 12-Step programs, and what works much better
- 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
Defeat Your Cravings – website and link to free amazon ebook
Rational Recovery – Jack Trimpey's work on Addictive Voice Recognition Technique
Howard,
Thank You, for this great conversation on this topic. All that Glenn said made a lot of sense. I came to a similar conclusion on my own, over time and with meditation. As long as one can define what is appropriate for them and not identify with the rest. Simply just identify with good habits and do not identify with the rest.
For example, one can identify with eating nourishing and healthy foods. Then when junk food comes along, just say to yourself; this is not what my body needs to be healthy, or simply I do not eat this kind of food. So one can be around junk food and it is not a problem; since one no longer identifies with that kind of food.
Thank You and keep the podcasts coming 🙂