Food Addiction, the Problem and the Solution Esther Helga Gudmundsdottir

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 how we were numbing ourselves with food and alcohol and found that using a 12-step programs of recovery dealt with each addiction’s negative consequences including carrying excess body weight. As an only child, she was not taught that feeling emotions was OK and learned to escape them in self-destructive ways.  In recovery from food addiction, she learned that her emotions were not going to kill her as she processed them without using food.   We talked about how the transformation in recovery helped her deal with relationships and life stresses in a new way.    Amy learned that she needed to surrender her food addiction to a higher power and get to work on taking action in recovery.  Today she is free from food addiction as she eats no sugar with the use of a food plan which involves eating whole foods that her body needs to maintain a healthy body weight. Listen in to this inspiring story of recovery from food addiction!

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 website // https://www.milestonesprogram.org/) in southeast Florida Amanda Leith heads SHiFT, Recovery by Acorn ( SHiFT website // https://foodaddiction.com/), and Esther Helga Gudmundsdottir, owner of this podcast, leads the INFACT School (INFACT School website // https://www.infactschool.online/). These professionals agree that as we look at the differences and similarities between eating disorders and food addiction, it can be complicated. Yet one thing they all agree on, eating disorders almost always have some basis in an addictive bodily response, and or addictive and compulsive food behaviors.   The absolute importance of complete abstinence from addictive foods such as sugar, ultra-processed foods, flour, and other trigger foods, weighing and measuring portions can be critical to recovery.   Treatment programs for food addiction are quite valuable to help engage food addicts to begin recovery and food plans can vary by individual.   While there are many ways to look at the emotional and spiritual aspects of food addiction recovery, all agree that 12-step programs are important to long-term recovery. Our society focuses on quick fixes for weight control, restrictive diets, surgery, and drugs, yet the solution is getting to the nature of the addiction and the emotional work around food use and behaviors.  Listen to these experts talk about the disease of food addiction and eating disorders and learn how treatment can work, there is a solution to weight control and compulsive food behaviors.  International Food Addiction Consensus Conference, May 17, 2024 // https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/international-food-addiction-consensus-conference-ifacc-2024-registration-732854436347

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 she physically recovered by releasing and maintaining a 55-pound weight loss. 
Today Lori uses a spiritual solution to help her in daily recovery as she says God has shown her love and grace and she has learned to love herself. She left corporate life and realized that she was meant to give back to other professional women.  As she became clean from food use she began to tap into her gifts and purpose as she started her own company. What a story of inspiration and transformation to a life of purpose and joy and out of the food!
https://www.infactschool.online/podcast

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 nutrition-related diseases. She cites a statistic in which 1.6 million Americans will die from diet/nutrition-related diseases each year.  She also says that it was no coincidence that tobacco companies purchased food companies years ago and applied an addiction-prone model as they add sugar to foods and make highly-processed “food-like substances”, all of which are highly addictive.  Dr. Joan Ifland counsels clients by building awareness around severe cravings disorder and how to break the cycle and live a mentally and physically healthy lifestyle.  Her group Food Addiction Reset program information and her company can be found at these websites: Processed Food Addiction  https://www.processedfoodaddiction.com/   Food Addiction Reset https://www.foodaddictionreset.com/

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 about a 12-step recovery program for the disease that she entered. Despite a relapse about five years into her abstinence in which she gained 100 pounds, she came back fully surrendered to her addiction to sugar, flour, and volume eating and today she maintains a normal body weight.  Kristie has experienced tragedies in her life yet today she accepts life on life’s terms.  Recovery has taught her to live for today, not dwell in the past or worry about the future as she has changed how she thinks, behaves, and reacts to people and life events. She says her life has been transformed by finding freedom from food addiction with a program that works for her.
https://www.infactschool.online/

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 journey from childhood through recovery from food addiction and reached and sustains a healthy body weight.  Michael attended a 5-day food addiction treatment program, Shift, Recovery by Acorn. He now offers the service of getting the message out about food addiction, emphasizing that this disease is not our fault.  While he resisted any persuasion to accept a God or Higher Power, he finally succumbed to his version, which helped him release the powerlessness over his food and his weight, and how he had been eating, realizing he had no control once he began to eat certain foods.  Michael is highly intelligent and had to learn how to approach life not only with his keen mind but learned the value of feeling his emotions.  Michael Prager is an author and journalist in Arlington, Massachusetts, and is an incredibly inspiring guest on the podcast.