Christine G. was raised in an alcoholic home and was often compared by her parents to a sibling and was expected to be different. As a child, she began using food to cope with this treatment and she reached her highest body weight of 229.  Her lowest weight was 95 pounds as she suffered many years with bulimia and food addiction. At the age of 13, Christine experienced a traumatic personal violation and didn’t tell anyone for many years. In her addiction, she used food and bulimic behaviors...

Large food companies, previously owned by tobacco companies, know that we are addicted to sugar and ultra-processed foods.  These companies are making large profits using the same tobacco addiction model with items they are selling us to eat. Food companies add sugars to food items, like high fructose corn syrup, and 250 other sugars to the engineered items they call food.  Meanwhile, the U.S. population is over 50 percent obese with many health problems and our children are becoming addicted...

Doris R. grew up in an alcoholic household and as the oldest of five children had a lot of responsibility early in her life. She was responsible for taking care of her younger siblings while her mother worked. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was obese and used food. Her first diet was in the 4th grade. A recovered alcoholic, after Doris became sober and her food use increased.  She realized that she needed to eliminate addictive foods from her diet and has since reached and...

Before recovery, Raena Z. weighed 315 pounds and today she is a recovered food addict which over a 100-lb weight release. As an overweight child, she recalls liking food more than others and using food to manage her emotions. In this episode, Raena shares an experience from high school that caused her incredible shame.  After she married and gave birth to her son, her weight continued to climb higher.   Eating in secrecy, she could not stop once she began and finally realized her...

Do 12-step recovery programs work? Yes!  Dr. John Kelly of Harvard performed a comprehensive study which is one of the most widely disseminated research findings in the last five years and was reviewed by Cochrane. The Cochrane organization reviews research studies and is internationally recognized as the benchmark for high-quality information about the effectiveness of health care. Dr. John Kelly specializes in addiction recovery and has served as a consultant to U.S. federal agencies and...

Amy B.’s highest known weight was 265 as she used food for many years to deal with stress, anxiety and life challenges. While there is humor and a comedic lightness in this podcast episode discussion between two food-recovered food addicts, the messages are serious and important in talking about what it was like and recovery from food addiction. A recovered alcoholic, Amy used food in the same ways she used alcohol, addictively and to numb emotional pain.  Within the laughter, we talk about...

These three incredible professionals have not only personally experienced recovery from addiction, but they have made it their life’s work to help others recover from food addiction and eating disorders.  This podcast panel episode is comprised of three well-known experts in the treatment of food addiction and eating disorders, Dr. Marty Lerner, Amanda Leith, and Esther Helga Gudmundsdottir.  Dr. Marty Lerner is the founder and CEO of the Milestones in Recovery program (Milestones In Recovery...

Lori P. is a recovered food addict who shares the challenges experienced in childhood, during a failed marriage, and after the death of her mother. An accomplished company executive, she had used food and many diets during her life attempting to manage her weight and food addiction. Lori had reached a bottom in her addiction and reached a point of desperation, so she began recovering in a 12-step program.  She surrendered control of food and weight through abstinence from offending foods as...

Dr. Joan Ifland is a leading authority and expert in highly-processed Food Addiction and wellness recovery and has personal experience with food addiction.  When she realized that her mental and physical health was being negatively affected by the food she was eating, she began to make changes involving eliminating certain foods and utilizing recovery.  Dr. Ifland gives practitioners and clients new insights into why food addiction recovery can lead to health improvement from...

Kristie M., a recovered food addict, has been maintaining a 170-pound weight loss for many years.  Having been a child of obese parents and one parent who abused alcohol, she identifies as being obsessed with food early in her life and dealt with the shame and denial of not being able to control her weight or food use on her own.  There were many food behaviors including secret eating that plagued any success around the use of diets to control her weight or food. A work colleague told her...

After losing 130 pounds and gaining it back…twice, on his 34th birthday, Michael Prager had reached 365 pounds.  He was often miserable and isolated and alienated people in his life while feeling the shame of his body size.   After many years of dieting, he finally learned that he has an addictive, biochemical reaction to sugar, flour, and highly processed foods and decided to “get out of the driver’s seat” and surrender his will.  He wrote the book Fat Boy, Thin Man in which he describes his...

Thirty-four years ago, Dr. Debbie Danowski weighing 328 pounds realized that her life was unmanageable and she decided to enter a food addiction recovery program. Today Dr. Danowski maintains a 170 weight loss through a daily recovery routine. In this podcast, we discuss denial, powerlessness and the negative consequences of food addiction.   Getting the message out about food addiction is the driving force in all of her work and the release of her newest book Happy Eating and Food Addiction...

In his book, Recovery Mind Training Dr. Paul Earley cites the statistic that addiction is a devastating brain disease affecting over 23 million individuals including their loved ones in the U.S. alone. He says that the single biggest driver around addiction is genetics and that there is a strong genetic link with addiction in families.  Dr. Earley describes how powerful and insidious the Addict Brain is as it hijacks our brains without us being aware. The Addict Brain is like a computer virus...

When an overweight friend had a stroke, Tony W. realized that if he did not address his own weight and food issues, his health would continue to decline. Weighing 464 pounds, he had many obesity-related illnesses including neuropathy in his feet and five hernia surgeries. He grew up in a family and culture of fried foods and high-calorie foods.  Tony got sober from drugs and alcohol using a 12-step recovery program, then began using food even more than he had. He entered the Bright Line...

Colleen Y. has been recovering from food addiction for over four years having physically released 150 pounds. Like many food addicts, her history involves eating in secret and planning her food binges. She experienced shame and embarrassment about her weight and food use and tried to control her food and weight through diets and lap-band surgery.  During a 2-month relapse, after she had become abstinent from sugar and other foods, she realized how serious her food addiction was and became...

Once weighing 335 pounds, Lisa K. lost 150 pounds and recovered from her food addiction through treatment and ongoing 12-step work and recovery support. Early in her childhood she had a preoccupation with food and loved the sugar, fat and starch food combination. Growing up in an abusive home she learned not to feel emotions. Later as a teenager she became a food volume addict and was often teased and bullied about her weight. Despite the negative consequences including strained personal...

Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson has the unique experience of being an addict along with having studied the science of food addiction. In her book Bright Line Eating, The Science of Living Happy, Thin and Free she discusses the concept of automaticity which is developing important new habits around the way we eat and behave. Her Susceptibility Scale quiz allows clients to determine on a scale of 1-10 how strongly their brains react to the reward of addictive foods."Her book, Rezoom addresses the...

Dr. Guttorm Toverud has a Ph.D. in Counselor Education from the University of North Carolina and a master's degree in Agency Counseling from Appalachian State University. He specializes in teaching that recovery from food addiction is possible using a 12-step program having conducted workshops for 30 years with more than 10,000 participants. Dr. Toverud trains professionals to treat food addicts with a clinical approach by using one of the most published books in history, the Big Book of...

Dr. Robert Lustig has a degree from MIT, a medical degree from Cornell University and a law degree from U.C. Hastings.  He is bold in his messaging: Our metabolic health as a nation has been negatively affected by our nutrition---We are not eating real foods, whole foods.  Sugar is added to ultra-processed foods and it is making us sicker.  75 percent of our health care costs in the U.S. are due to our poor metabolic health which is related directly to our poor nutrition.  Doctors treat the...

Erin K, a recovered food addict was exposed to addiction and 12-step recovery as a child which she believes helped her realize that her food addiction could be alleviated through 12-step recovery work.  She knew early on that she did not use food for nourishment, but rather to soothe her anxiety and to feel normal. Erin’s powerlessness and her compulsive behaviors around food drove her life. It was not until she surrendered to her disease at the age of 18 and stopped blaming others and taking...

H. Theresa Wright, MS, RD, LDN, is the Founder and Director of Renaissance Nutrition Center, in Pennsylvania where she has developed programs to help people develop the skills to make lifestyle changes that lead to freedom from food addiction and encourage a “sane approach” to eating and living. Website:  Sane Food a nutrition therapist registered and licensed dietitian and nutritionist, for more than 36 years, Theresa has helped people struggling with compulsive eating, obesity, eating...

Dr. Nicole Avena is a research neuroscientist, a pioneer, and a world-renowned expert in the field of nutrition, diet, and food addiction. She received her Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University and is uniquely qualified to address the biology of food addiction as well as its psychological aspects. In her books, Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar) and Hedonic Eating: How the Pleasure of Food Affects Our Brains and Behavior, Dr. Avena discusses our...

Sonja B. has been abstinent and sober from sugar, wheat, processed foods and compulsive food behaviors including volume eating, and nighttime binges, having maintained a 100-pound weight release for 18 years after hitting bottom in 2005. She had early evidence that she used food differently than others as a child and teenager and carried 75 pounds of extra weight in high school. Sonja went into treatment for alcohol addiction and became sober at the age of 20. Her food use continued after...

Having struggled personally with food addiction, Amanda Leith entered a food addiction recovery program of the company she ultimately purchased and now leads, Shift, Recovery By Acorn, https://foodaddiction.com/. At Shift, Recovery By Acorn Amanda and her staff help clients struggling with food addiction to find physical abstinence and address underlying issues which produce life-changing results and freedom from food obsession. Amanda talks about the huge diet industry marketing to the...