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PYP 117: Glenn Livingston on Never Bingeing Again

glenn-livingstonGlenn 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

Never Binge Again – website and link to free amazon ebook

Rational Recovery – Jack Trimpey's work on Addictive Voice Recognition Technique

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.

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

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1 comment on “PYP 117: Glenn Livingston on Never Bingeing Again

  1. Thank You says:

    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 🙂

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