You are listening to the Shortcut to Slim Podcast. Show details — Hosted by Lindsay S Nixon — Season 2: Episode 8;

Transcript

It's time for Season 2’s mid-season hiatus:

Giving you a chance to listen to all of the episodes this season a few more times (seriously, listen to every episode a few times, it's intense stuff)

And giving me a little extra time to finish up my research on the topics the VIP members requested: neuroplasticity, metacognition, and homeostasis, which is a more technical term for the idea that our bodies have a defended weight range or set weight.

If you're one of those people who can't seem to get yourself to do the thing...

Or if you're one of those people who spends a lot of time learning about and thinking and planning to do the thing... buuutt you somehow still don't get around to the DOING part...

you're going to love these next episodes.

I'm also going to slip in a bonus episode about addiction since I've been getting a lot of emails about that :)

Quickly: almost anything, any substance or process, can become addictive.

Television, checking your rank on Amazon, love relationships, running, or worrying, can become addictions.

However, it is equally true that NOTHING *must* become addictive.

This is why signaling out some foods as "addictive" or looking at what other people are eating to figure out your strategy or culprit is largely unhelpful

And why the famed "enjoy in moderation" is still the worst diet advice.

Not every person can moderate equally. Most of you moderate your use of dehydrated mango beautifully. I can't. But I can have one potato chip and not another, no problem.

The booze industry with their "drink responsibly" message is a better slogan if you need one.

Why? “Drink responsibly” allows for individuality and reassures your personal control.

"Drink responsibly" also includes the very possibility that not drinking at all might be the most responsible thing FOR YOU.

So text responsibly, love responsibly, eat cake responsibly…

The problem with dependency is this: the fix keeps you unaware of what is going on inside... that thing we've been talking about since Watkins mentioned it in episode 2.

Without that awareness (going to the emotional basement as Watkins called it) we go looking for an outside solution:

You look for a new diet, listen to a new guru, hire a personal trainer, decide to never buy potato chips ever ever ever again...

and sometimes these actions help.

But most often they don't make everything alright again, or the success is temporary.

The most mindblowing thing I've learned from my research on addiction and dependency is this:

There is sobriety and there is recovery, and sobriety is often required FOR recovery, but sobriety is NOT recovery.

If you've ever been involved with AA, you've likely heard the term "a dry drunk."

Meaning the person still has all of the same hurtful, self-destructive characteristics, they're just not drunk anymore.

Or I can think of myself and how for a week, or two, I was able to control myself with a very structured routine and a list of rules (behavior modification)...

but then something would inevitably throw that routine off and I would struggle for a hot minute until I crashed... and I'd stay in that hot mess until I decided to try doing this control everything on the outside approach all over again.

Controlling the inside so what happens outside no longer matter or affects you…

THAT is the magic. That is real control.

Lots of good stuff coming, I know.

But before I take a fall break I do have one follow-up food psychology podcast for you in the works!

I'll be co-hosting this episode with my best friend, Chrysanthe Tan.

We're going to discuss how SOUND affects your enjoyment and satisfaction of food.

Is there a certain type of music you should be listening to at dinner? You bet.

Stay tuned!