Linnea Offerman: An Inspiring Journey to Food Sobriety

In the most recent episode of our podcast, we had the pleasure of hosting Linnea Offerman, a nurse and health coach who has successfully navigated the tumultuous waters of sugar and food addiction. Her journey is not just one of personal triumph but also serves as a blueprint for those seeking to achieve food sobriety and reclaim their health. Linnea's approach hinges on the elimination of sugar and flour, the incorporation of whole foods into her diet, and the invaluable role of community support.

For Linnea, the road to recovery was marred by years of battling weight fluctuations and intense food cravings that led to a cycle of binge eating and guilt. Her decision to cut out sugar and flour was pivotal, leading to a dramatic transformation that not only changed her body but also her mental and emotional well-being. Linnea's story is a testament to the fact that despite the pressures of a busy life and the pervasive allure of processed foods, it is possible to break free from the chains of addiction.

The podcast delves into the nuances of adopting a whole foods diet, which Linnea describes as a journey to freedom rather than a path of restriction. She shares how the strict boundaries she set around her food intake created a safe space for her to thrive, much like the healthy limits we set in various aspects of our lives to foster security and well-being. The concept of 'food sobriety' that Linnea introduces is about gaining control over one's dietary choices and, in turn, over one's life.

A crucial aspect of Linnea's recovery was the strength she found in the community. The episode discusses how our host, also a working mother, struggled with her own food addiction and how reaching out on social media platforms like Instagram provided a lifeline. By connecting with others who shared similar struggles, a network of solidarity was formed. This network not only offered support but also held members accountable, which proved to be a powerful tool in combating addiction.

One of the more enlightening discussions in the episode centers around the deceptive nature of flour as a health food. Linnea explains the impact of grinding flour on its fiber content and how this seemingly innocuous process can lead to rapid spikes in blood sugar, much like processed sugar. The resulting crashes contribute to a vicious cycle of cravings and mood swings. The podcast doesn't shy away from tackling the challenges of introducing children to conscious eating habits, emphasizing the importance of teaching the next generation the value of nourishing their bodies with the right foods.

As the episode draws to a close, the focus shifts to the subject of self-love and the transformative power of connecting with our emotions. Linnea shares her personal experiences of learning to cope with life's challenges without resorting to food as a crutch. The discussions are intimate, honest, and serve as a reminder that our relationship with food is deeply entwined with our emotional health.

This podcast episode is more than a conversation about food; it is a celebration of personal growth, health, and the self-respect that comes from making choices that serve our highest good. Whether you're battling food addiction or simply seeking inspiration for a healthier lifestyle, Linnea Offerm

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Transcript

Florence: 0:02

Welcome everybody to the KickShare Coach podcast. I'm here today with Linnae Offerman, who has a sugar addiction food addiction recovery story to share with us. She's been sugar-flour-free no snacks, whole foods for two and a half years, has transformed her life Professionally. She's a nurse, she's a functional medicine-trainedally medicine, functional medicine trained, nearly certified nurse and health coach and she is literally on a mission to help spread the word that processed foods are killing us and that getting off them, even though it seems impossible and that we would be miserable, is actually quite the opposite, that it is totally doable and it is more joyful and more amazing than you could imagine. She's also the mother of two children, so we often hear you know this voice in our head that says, oh, there's going to be a better time when I'm not so busy. Well, linnea is here to tell us that I have kids, I have a full-time job, I'm still training, I am a fully abstinent woman two and a half years and if I can do it, you can do it too.

Linnea: 1:05

Welcome, linnea. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here and share my story Well hit us up with some highlights.

Florence: 1:11

Where would you like to start?

Linnea: 1:13

Oh, so I have. I mean, like so many people, struggled with my weight off and on for years and years and years and tried all of the things all of the diets, all the exercise programs and might lose some weight, gain it back, lose some weight, gain it back but I just always felt trapped and imprisoned and chained by food and the thoughts that I just thought I was going crazy. Right, I would hide wrappers from my husband. I would lie to friends that I couldn't carpool to an event because I knew I wanted to stop and get some binge food for the car ride so that my tummy was a little bit more full for when we got where we were going. I would pre-eat before restaurants. I would put oh, my goodness, the amount of times I snuck into my staff lounge or places that had food and put it in my pockets and would go and eat in the bathroom because I was ashamed of people seeing how much I was eating and how many times they had gone back Like the, the.

Linnea: 2:11

The imprisonment of food was just terrifying and I really felt like this must be what it feels like to be a drug addict, like I really felt like this has got to be what it feels like to be addicted to something, and I learned about intuitive eating and I gave it a shot and I gained 30 pounds in one and a half months and I said nope, like being given permission to eat anything and everything. I want to decrease the cravings. It did not work for this addict. My addicted brain says sweet, give it all to us. And I took it all and it was miserable. And at that point I knew this is a real thing. I don't care if people don't believe that food is not addictive to me, it is. And so I found my path into this sugar, flour free life, with weighing my food and no snacking, and it changed my life, like absolutely changed my life. I've never felt more free, like.

Florence: 3:17

It still is hard, but so is being addicted and constantly feeling like a crazy person in my brain, but now my brain feels calm and and easy and I just, I can just breathe, I know and it sounds, before we take up these so called or they feel like they're food rules and food prisons, and that we're actually going into jail when we start putting these boundaries around our food. Oh no, I only eat whole foods and three meals and no snacks, and no sugar, no flour, no sweeteners, no alcohol, and that feels like we are like literally just walking into into jail and so. But you keep talking about how free you feel. How is that possible, you know?

Linnea: 4:01

I think we get so scared of boundaries, but in every aspect of our life, boundaries are healthy and supportive. I have boundaries in my marriage. Right, I'm not going to put my marriage at risk by going to an overnight retreat with a man and share it. No, I have boundaries in my marriage. My kids have boundaries to feel safe and secured and loved because they're not going to just take their bikes and ride them across the interstate. They have boundaries, something that keep me feeling safe and secure. And if sugar was harming me and creating misery, why would I ever want to put that in my body again? I want to feel free. I don't want to feel miserable.

Florence: 5:01

So I love that. Yeah, to feel miserable, so I love that. Yeah, when, when I, when I think about the definition of boundaries, um, often it's like here's where I end. And you know that doesn't get to come in unless that you're right. And so I think about a lock on our front door or or locks on our cars, or lock you don't get to come in unless I, I give you permission to come in, right? And so we're actually actually protecting ourselves from self-harming food choices, self-harming food behaviors, as opposed to feeling like we're locking out good things. We're actually locking out things that are harming, but we have that backwards in our brain and our out of your brain. Yes, yeah, yeah. And how much safer we sleep at night knowing that door is locked for most of us who live in cities. But, yeah, awesome. So what was it like for you in the early days of getting being sober, as they say, sugar free, flour-free?

Linnea: 6:02

And I do call myself sober, that I consider this an addiction and I say that I'm abstinent and I am sober and I'm food sober and I'm proud of that. It's taken me some time to get there, though. There was a lot of. This feels icky and I feel wrong, but I just kept going every single day thinking it's worth it. I've tried everything else. I can try this thing, I can do this. Let's see how it goes.

Linnea: 6:31

And those first few months, um, for me, you know, being a busy working mom, like I could get through breakfast, lunch, dinner, like, just go through the motions, get everything done, take care of all those people. Like, just go through the motions, get everything done, take care of all those people. But once I tucked my kids into bed and my husband would go for a meeting or he had something going on with his business and I would be upstairs alone at night, that is when I would typically indulge and give myself those permission, giving thoughts. Right, you worked so hard today. You deserve it, you've earned it. Congratulations on surviving a day with your kids again.

Linnea: 7:14

But I locked myself in my room. I didn't really lock, but I closed down the kitchen. Walk in my room, close the door and I would sometimes even pace and say not one bite. Not one bite. You're an addict, just like an alcoholic can't have one drink. You can't have one bite. You're an addict, and this is the only way we're going to give it a try.

Linnea: 7:34

Be tough, you'll wake up in the morning and you'll be proud, and I would. I would wake up in the morning and I would feel so much joy and relief and pride and one of the. I've never been great at self-talk. I can beat myself down pretty hard, but this journey has taught me otherwise. I have never in my life been so proud of myself and I let myself be proud of myself. I, every morning, would wake up, getting through that really challenging evening and I would just be like I did it. I did it. I'm here another day and I didn't die. I survived a day without sugar and flour and without even a carrot off plan, like I did it and I feel great. And giving myself that permission to just be really, really, um, self-honoring and excited did wonders for my mental capacity to get through day by day.

Florence: 8:34

Oh, incredible. Did you, did you experience detox symptoms? Did you have headaches and fatigue and maybe some depression, irritability?

Linnea: 8:42

You know, I was one of the lucky ones and didn't have much at all. I know a lot of people have really really suffer from a lot of physical symptoms, but I did not. I did not and I am very blessed and feel that because I know some people really struggle. Yes, yes, totally.

Florence: 9:00

And then once you started to a couple months down the road and you're just like getting through one day at a time and you start to get some traction, what was your recovery like then?

Linnea: 9:10

Well then I realized that this was really, this was really happening, this was really working, and it just felt everything felt lighter. I still had moments, but I really decided that I wanted to share my experience because I just felt like I'd never heard anyone talk about food as an addictive substance and doing these kinds of things. So I got myself a Instagram account and just started taking. I love aesthetically beautiful things. I love making my beautiful, colorful whole food um plates just look, um beautiful. And I think our, the food we eat, the whole food, real food is beautiful.

Linnea: 10:00

And so I just really enjoyed taking pictures of my food and I thought people always ask me well, what do you eat? Like, I eat a lot, I eat plenty of wonderful food. So I started taking pictures and posting it almost as like a food journal of sorts, one so I could remember if I tried something and I really liked it. But also I just had this desire to get this message out that like, yes, I have issues with food, look at the weight I'm losing, look at the clarity that's coming to my mind and look at this beautiful food. And so I started sharing and on Instagram, I met this amazing community of people that were doing the same thing and I met a wonderful friend.

Linnea: 10:40

She lives in Canada, I live in the States, we have had a vacation together and met. We're like virtual buddies but like she has become one of the biggest people in my life and when we're having a hard day, we're calling each other and supporting each other and crying on the phone to each other, and so finding my, my community was the thing that really took my recovery program to the next level, because the first couple months it was just me in my house doing this completely on my own, no support. I just knew I had to do it. But then, as I realized that this is real, this is I can do this, I can be successful, I realized there was other people doing it as well and I found them and cultivated this amazing community and that has been a huge game changer as well for my program.

Florence: 11:29

Amazing. A lot of people get the sugar piece or science around it. It's processed, it's acidic, it's inflammatory. There's plenty of science now to show it's addictive. But flowers flowers a little bit different. People are like, oh, but it's a whole food. It starts as a grain. It's like I grind my own flour, like why is that a bad thing? What would you say to that?

Linnea: 11:52

Yeah, so flour is still a process Grinding anything is processing really and flour, when we grind it, it removes all the fiber lattice.

Linnea: 12:06

The fiber lattice goes away and it's that fiber lattice like, especially with fruit too. I don't blend any of my fruit, because when we blend fruit it separates the glucose and the fiber lattice and that fiber lattice is what keeps the glucose, the sugar in the fruit, from dumping into our bloodstream and shooting our blood sugars up high. So it's that spike in blood sugar and that gives us that crash which then leads to cravings and that irritability and that grogginess that we feel that lead us to binge. So, yes, that happens with sugar, but flour unfortunately has some of those same effects. Once we ingest it, it's already been pre-ground, so a lot of the digestion has already occurred for us. So it is going to hit our bloodstreams hard and fast, opposed to being the whole actual, real grain that we chew and that our digestive system has to process and destroy the fiber lattice itself. All of that physical process that happens in our gut really does drastically change how it's processed in our body and how it hits our blood supply and affects our blood sugars.

Florence: 13:26

And what if someone said to you but I don't really binge on flour, I mean, I just eat it every now and then, and it's only from home and it's, you know, whole food, and I don't seem to have a problem with it? What would you say then?

Linnea: 13:38

Well, we are all unique individuals and there is this thing called bio-individuality, and so it might be the case, but really, if we're still lighting up that piece of our brain, even in a slight amount, it's going to keep you from seeking that true, peaceful freedom, because the place that it lights up in the brain is the same place that's being lit up from sugar. And so if your brain is getting a little hit of dopamine from the flour, the creating a blood sugar spike, it's the same place in our brain that's going to get that hit from the sugar, making a blood sugar spike. And so, even though it doesn't feel as immediately dangerous while you're eating it, the brain is still activated. And for me, I don't want that part of my brain activated. I want it calm, cool and collected at all times.

Florence: 14:44

What other transformation have you experienced Like clearly you've lost weight, you're at your, you know you're at a weight that you're happy with, it's sustained, it's effortless, you're feeling peaceful, you feel like you've got boundaries that protect you from having your brain hijacked by highly palatable, addictive foods. And what other ways has being a whole food woman transformed your life?

Linnea: 15:06

Yeah, I would say so. A year and a half ago I was working on you know, my program and realized I had this new, intense desire to just make sure the world knows what the standard American diet is doing to us. And even though I was still a full-time working mom previously and now like I felt like I had the brain space and the bandwidth to do more, I wasn't just in a food coma on the couch on Friday night. I had drives and ambitions and I went back to school to get my coaching certificate and I never would have had the time or the space or the mental capacity to do that before, when I was living in my addiction. So that's one big one. I've also really transitioned my family into a sugar-free home and though I do not completely 100% keep my kids 100% away from sugar, they're about 99.5% away and I'm working on teaching them the reasons why, not just saying sugar is bad, but explaining the science and little kids get it. They're smarter than we think we are, than we think they are, and my kids watch what I do and they ask questions and I give them answers and I don't shy around that with them. So transforming my, my home.

Linnea: 16:44

I've always been as a mom, a very healthy mom, trying to keep my kids very healthy. But there were definitely some changes. When I went no flour, no sugar, I mean we we took the honey, the maple syrup out of the house. Um, it's just not necessary. And they eat wonderfully whole, great foods, um, on a daily basis from our house. And when there are maybe special occasions down the road, we consider that and we think about it and we talk through what the best option is to keep our bodies healthy. Consider that and we think about it and we talk through what the best option is to keep our bodies healthy and, yeah, we go from there and it's. It's just been great to see my kids start to understand, even at six and eight.

Florence: 17:28

Yeah, I did. I raised my daughter the same and at some point I would say by the time she was in grade two she started to get very embarrassed and she was partially teased at school. I would send her with soups that had kale on it that she loves at home, but at school it was like, ooh, what's that crane thing? Right, and uh, right. And so she started to feel like, oh, my mom's a food freak, cause I would weigh and measure. I was abstinent, she, she was.

Florence: 17:55

I had an abstinent pregnancy, umapsed after she was born and I was still nursing. I was she wasn't quite one, I don't think and I was still nursing, and it was devastating to me. It was like, oh, it's one thing, it is one thing to be putting sugar and, you know, harming my own body, but as a whole other to bring this little baby into this. I don't want to set her up for this addiction, you know. So it was very devastating but thankfully I got support and I got back on track, but there was this. So she mostly grew up that way, but even then, as she got older, there was this sense of mom.

Florence: 18:29

It's embarrassing that you're always making a scene at the restaurants and why do you have to, like, weigh everything? You know what four ounces looks like, like, why, right? And so it was there's times I've thought, yeah, it probably looks really. It looks a little, a little much over the top for our kids, right? So what? Why? What is your plans with weighing and measuring? Do you intend to weigh and measure for the rest of your life, and why? If not, why? Or, if yes, why tend to weigh and measure for?

Linnea: 18:59

the rest of your life and why, if not, why? Or if yes, why? Yeah, I do, I have. I mean, really, we just have today, right, tomorrow never comes and I can make that decision for today and um, but I do plan on doing this forever because I'm not willing to miss out on my kids growing up, because I am focused on my addiction and in the food and um, so so I do, I plan on it and I have thought about this a lot. Having a little girl, right Like, and even a boy, like boys are hit especially you know the sports plan guys like you know, wrestling is big in Iowa, where I am, and so, like, there's a lot of boys that have issues with food and their weight because of having to stay in a bracket, stay in a weight bracket and um, you know, I do, I do tell my kids, I say I need to, I need to measure my foods, cause I need to make sure I get enough.

Linnea: 19:55

I might not eat enough vegetables, so I need to make sure I get enough. And so far my kids have. They haven't had that experience. It's been good so far. They take tofu to lunch at school and they love their tofu, they beg for tofu and they get a little teased here and there, but so far they've been really good with it. They say I like it and yeah, yeah it's.

Linnea: 20:25

It's hard. I mean, do I want my, my daughter, to grow up thinking she has to measure all of her food? No, she's not a food addict, she definitely doesn't have to. But I want her to understand what she puts in her body makes a difference on how her body acts and how it grows and how it functions and how our brains work. So, um, teaching them the those basic nutrition things and they just know mommy has a hard time with food and I have to weigh and measure it to make sure I'm getting the right amounts Um, so I feel very, I feel very blessed that I have a very supportive husband. He does not, he's not a food addict, he does not weigh and measure his food. He does eat sugar and flour, so so they do see the balance right. They see both of us doing things differently and it's not a one-way street. So I'm hoping that that is supportive for them as well.

Florence: 21:19

Right, right, and that they have each other, which is nice too, yeah yeah, and a husband who's supportive, and there's space and grace for everyone to kind of have their own relationship and to figure out what's the right one. Do you take your scale to restaurants and and how do you? How do you protect your abstinence when you're socializing, or protect your?

Linnea: 21:39

abstinence when you're socializing or eating out? Absolutely, I do not. I have something called the one plate rule. So when I go to a restaurant I always plan ahead. I always know I can get an abstinent meal at a Mexican restaurant because fajitas are my best friend, Peppers, onions they're good. But if I'm going to a restaurant I scour the menu ahead of time. My favorite restaurant trick is I only go to non-chains. I feel like I have so much more luck talking to a non-chain restaurant about specializing my food. If I'm going in the evening, I call it 2.30 pm, 2.30 pm. There's very little people in a restaurant. They're still open.

Linnea: 22:27

I ask to talk to the manager or the chef and I tell them I do not eat sugar, I do not eat flour of any kind. I eat a very large amount of vegetables, more than you're used to serving. How can we make this work? Or I'll say I see this dish on this menu but it doesn't have what I need. But I see you have something else in this dish. Can we make it work? And I have always had nothing. But absolutely, we can do that for you.

Linnea: 22:52

Sometimes I just go in and order my food, but I know that this meal will be this plate. If I know it's too big, I take some off and put it on my husband's plate because he happily eats that for me, and I eat what's on that plate and when I'm done, my meal is done and I move on until my next meal. So I do not bring my scale I know a lot of people do but I have been able to find a lot of peace around just having those structured boundaries, knowing what I'm going to eat when I walk into a restaurant and eating only and exactly what I've said I'm going to eat. Yeah, so restaurants have worked well.

Linnea: 23:29

When I go to families' houses, if a family's having us over for dinner, like some friends or my parents or my brother, I bring my food with me. They feed my family and I bring my food so that I know I'm getting exactly what I need and they don't have to worry about it. They're all super supportive and they would make me whatever I wanted in an instant, but that way they can just make what they want, feed all of the large amounts of people, worry about the hosting and not have to worry about accommodating my needs and I'm happy, as a clam, bringing my food along and when you're all sitting around a table eating, it's just about being with those people. No one cares what I'm putting in my mouth, I don't care what they're putting in their mouth. We're just we're. We're in community around the dinner table, regardless what's on my plate or what's on their plate.

Florence: 24:20

Amazing. Is there anything else you would add about your journey or for people who are, who are still in that place of? Oh, I couldn't do abstinence. It seems too black and white, it seems too extreme. Like what would you say to that?

Linnea: 24:50

that it's extreme to be chained by food. It it's extreme to live a life that is tortured by what you're going to eat next, or in the midst of eating, thinking how am I going to get food next? Or, um, being shameful of what we put in our bodies with our food. That's extreme. That, that that's also extreme. So why not try something that could give you peace and freedom? And, yeah, weight loss, that's a great side effect, right? I've enjoyed having lost 90 pounds and kept it off for a year and a half. Um, the mental clarity that comes and the ability to live at peace with myself far outweighs the restrictions or the boundaries or the feeling like this is extreme. It felt extreme for about three days and since then it has felt nothing but a blessing and a gift.

Florence: 25:56

Amazing. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Linnea: 26:02

Well, I just even for people that are not addicted to flour and sugar. I just even for people that are not addicted to flour and sugar that this is reality, that we're living in a time and a culture and a society that ultra processed food is killing us. It is absolutely killing us and cardio or metabolic syndrome is, I think the last study I saw. Syndrome is I think the last study I saw. One in four American adults have metabolic syndrome, which is high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, whether total or triglycerides, insulin resistance, high blood sugars, excess weight, mostly around the abdominal girth, um, excess weight mostly around the abdominal girth, and this syndrome is 99 percent lifestyle. It is absolutely lifestyle. The food that we.

Linnea: 26:57

You even go on western medicine. I'm a functional medicine nurse, so I'm all about the functional medicine but even the western medicine, um, you go to mayo clinic and all of their information on metabolic syndrome is lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle. You have to change what you eat. You have to change how you live, with activity and stress management and mostly about the food and the risk of type two diabetes and Alzheimer's and stroke and cardiovascular events are just astronomical through the roof with this like cluster of symptoms and diseases and it is all about the food. So even if you do not have a addiction like I do, changing how you eat and the food you put in your mouth and in your body and in your family's mouth and in your family, in your kids' bodies it is so important for not only living longer but living better.

Florence: 28:01

Amazing. Thank you, and you know what sorry, I know I'm kind of wrapping up here, but I thought it would be a great question for you there is, we use our addiction when we're distressed, when we're tired, when we're overwhelmed, right, and it's a really easy, convenient thing to turn to food, for comfort, for numbing, for pleasure, to fit in. And how did you learn to manage your emotions differently? What was that part of your journey like? Right, Because I think there's people that think I need to figure out how to be able to manage my emotions better before I break up with sugar and flour, because then I have nothing. But what was your experience with that?

Linnea: 28:41

Yeah, Um, Ooh, that was a huge piece. I mean, I definitely self-medicated. I have depression and anxiety. I'm an HSP highly sensitive person with sensory processing sensitivity and I tell you, when I took sugar and flour out of my life and I was left with all of that, without my typical self-medication, my medication, it all, it was intensified and so, yeah, so it was a little scary, but learning to sit and experience emotions changed my life. I never sat with an emotion. I never sat with a feeling. It was always shove it down with food you know, put it in the back burner.

Linnea: 29:28

We're not going to like, do your best to cover it up. No, like. We are emotive beings, we are supposed to feel emotions, and an emotion only lasts five to 10 seconds long. It's our reaction to the emotions that keep us imprisoned to those thoughts or feelings. And so, having a supportive community that was experiencing this at the same time, I would, if I, you know, had a depressive moment or was having an exhausting day or feeling really sad about something that happened with my kids, or a rough day at work those were typical things that I would immediately go to the food. You deserve this, you need this. We're going to just enjoy the food and move on with our day. No, now I have to sit and feel, and I started doing that, and it's a little hard at first, a lot hard at first, but I got to know myself a lot better and realized I'm really resilient, that I can do this. I can get through this feeling. I can experience it, acknowledge it and give it the time and space it needs.

Linnea: 30:46

I did a lot of mourning over that, um, but I did almost all of that. I gave myself some time and then I would reach out to my closest, um buddy, and process it out loud, and she would encourage me and she would say she was proud of me for not numbing through the pain, and I would do the same for her. And slowly it got easier and easier and I'm in therapy now and therapy is important. It's just we all have our stuff. We're all people with stuff and junk and feelings and thoughts. And having a therapist that I really trust and love and she, um you know, works with me in my addiction, she totally understands my food addiction, um, that was my biggest thing in finding a therapist that understood it and acknowledged it Um, that has been game changing for me.

Florence: 31:42

Incredible. I love that and I I think I asked that question because I don't want anyone else to make the mistake that I made. Maybe you didn't asked that question because I don't want anyone else to make the mistake that I made. Maybe you didn't thinking that if I could just fix myself, if I could do enough therapy, if I could learn some sort of tool that would enable me to be able to respond to life or stress differently, that maybe the food problem would just sort of sort itself out, that I wouldn't need to be abstinent or it would make getting abstinent easy. But I have found, over 19 years of walking this path 30 years since I first started and read the sugar blues but that it is the opposite, that it is the breakup that comes first. Just right, it's the letting it.

Florence: 32:19

Go first create the void, the vacuum. This you know. And when that door is closed, you're going to be forced to be invited. You're going to have the need to do this.

Linnea: 32:30

Absolutely, and you find new tools to self-comfort and self-soothe. And when you are in the food and in the addiction, your brain is not going to let you find a new pathway. Your brain is just going to say no, I mean it's just all it wants. Is what it wants there's. There's no white knuckling through that until you get it out of your system and become abstinent.

Florence: 32:58

And the process of dropping in and connecting to our feelings actually flows the oxytocin. Yeah, it is such a pleasure. It feels like love. It feels soothing. It feels comforting in ways that the sugar and the flour. It feels like love. It feels soothing. It feels comforting in ways that the sugar and the flour. That feels numbing.

Linnea: 33:12

That feels like a high.

Florence: 33:14

That feels like a you know shut it all down. It feels like a crisis management strategy, whereas what we're talking about really is a deeper, beautiful journey of falling in love with being human being ourselves Absolutely Awesome. Thank you for sharing your story and your time today, lenny.

Linnea: 33:34

Oh, florence, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Bye, buddy, bye.