Food Addiction Recovery Week - DAY 5 | Never Give Up - Restarting After A Relapse w/ Heather Goodwin

hey everyone and welcome to day five of food addiction recovery week on chef aj live i'm your host chef aj and each day we feature at least one expert in the field of food addiction either somebody treating it on the front lines or somebody that believes they suffer from it so either way it's an inspiration to have this week of guess and i hope you're enjoying it so no week on this topic would be complete without heather goodwin she is somebody that knows a lot about this subject and she is going to share her wisdom and what she's learned about it and more importantly what to do if you fall which is basically get out please welcome heather to the show it's so good to see you hi thank you so much for having me i'm so excited to be here well i'm so excited to have you and as i mentioned i got a special shirt because when i think of you i think of butterflies everything i have with butterflies i think of heather why do you love butterflies so much so i there's a janice stanfield song that says butterflies remind us there's magic in every life and we can become what we dream of if fat furry worms can fly and i just really resonated you know um caterpillars from the time they're hatched from their little egg they do nothing but eat they they have to um because when they go in the chrysalis of course they can't so they just do nothing but eat and they're obsessed with eating and all they can think about is where they're going to get their next thing they want to eat um and then when a butterfly when a caterpillar changes from a butterfly to a butterfly it doesn't just go in and sprout some wings it actually in that chrysalis it becomes like a goo so it's trans you know metamorphosis means like a deep transformation a transformation at a super um deep level where you're just you're not even who you were you're not even who you were and i think um as difficult as addictions can be and they are and i'm not minimizing the the pain the suffering the death the destruction like it's bad but with every challenge there's a huge gift and i know that i would not be the person that i am and i would not have learned the lessons that i've learned had i not gone through this and so you know um maya angelou had a quote she's like they wouldn't take anything for my journey now wouldn't take nothing for my journey now and as much as it was as much as it sucked many parts of it sucked i mean let's be real um yeah i would do it again i would do it again but i would do a lot of things differently you know what's interesting is i just happened to mention you were on the same day as dr esser who's very inspirational and people were saying oh god i feel like i'm in church you know so are you i feel like you know like you're almost like a minister in i mean and it's a compliment the way you the way you talk because you're you're very wise and you know i what i love about you is because i remember we were going to have our 20th conference in may of 2020 before the pandemic and i had asked you a long time ago if you'd speak and you you know you've been in different places with your weight and you're very open about that you're struggling so not like i'm saying telling tall tales out of school don't tell anyone and you know you were worried and i said heather it doesn't really matter if you're skinny if you're not skinny because what you teach people is not just about that so wherever you are it's going to be okay because your talk is not really going to be about that it's going to be about resiliency and you know and about your your story so in case people have not heard of you or watched your fabulous fabulous youtube channel plant-based transformation what is your story because i i know how you always say you were at your ideal weight the day you were born yes exactly that's exactly right i was born uh at my ideal weight and that's the last time i saw it until october 18 2017 is when i um hit my goal weight but you know i was i was a chubby chubby baby but i was really cute you know chubby is cute on babies and then chubby's cute on toddlers and then when you get to be a little girl suddenly not cute not funny and um went through it was you know i'm a i'm a really sensitive person um and so it was really hard going through school you know just constant bullying um my weight was always an issue and how did i deal with it i came home i watched brady bunch and gilligan's island and i ate the most heinous kinds of things you know definitely not nothing plant-based lots of hostess products ice cream bologna sandwiches just that's that's what i did you know um and then my parents would come home my parents would insist that we all eat dinner as a family um and i had been eating like since i got home from school and then i would still feel like i had to eat and it just it was um it just became a really bad pattern with how i dealt with my loneliness and how i dealt with my stress and so you know it i by the time i was in um i know when i graduated college i was 180 pounds by the time i had my kids i was up to like when i was pregnant with my daughter i was over i first time i went over 300 pounds and i burst into tears in the doctor's office and then you know the nurse is like oh what's you know pregnant woman alert you know um but yeah by the time i was in my 40s i hit my highest weight which was 436 pounds and so what people need to know about me is that i'm not very tall i'm about five foot two and so i was literally bigger around my hips and my belly and everything were bigger around than i was tall and it obviously you know i was i mean that to put not to be too dramatic about it but i was dying of several things i had type 2 diabetes i had you know rheumatoid arthritis that was not under control i was told that i was going to be in a wheelchair before long um sleep apnea my lungs were lousy i had asthma just so many things going on right and such debilita the main thing that was the biggest problem was just debilitating pain because it hurts when you outgrow your skeleton right you're never meant to be um i like to say stuff i was you know never meant to carry i was carrying around a lot of pounds of pain and i just had really terrible coping mechanisms right so around that time i um i just became convinced that i had to do something or i was going to die and a friend of mine i i will never forget the day i was she was coming from seattle and she wanted to go to a raw food restaurant and i thought what in the world wouldn't i pictured raw bread dough i don't know why i pictured like raw i don't know just really unappetizing stuff and i thought oh this is not going to do i'm going to find i literally looked up on a map like what i was going to go with her to her restaurant have a nice visit with my friend and i fully intended to binge at the end of the of the night and when i went to this raw food restaurant it was called blossoming lotus in portland oregon that is a good restaurant it really is and they have it's not only raw now so they have cooked food too if you're in portland oregon blossoming lotus um and when i saw my friend she had not told me she had taken off 80 pounds she had been half dead with a lot of you know health problems that were gone like she just looked she looked like a million bucks she was glowing she was happy and she and when i tasted the food i had always thought you know vegan meant no flavor or you know um i don't know what i thought but it knocked my socks off it was so good and i i in the car instead of going home and binging i went in the car and cried because i'm like i could do this i love fruit she was telling me how she ate so much fruit i'm like i don't mind salad if it tastes like that you know like it was uh it was really a huge revelation so that started me being this is about 12 years ago i had started being um a raw food vegan for and i did that for a year and oh aj i thought i was i thought i knew everything that's one of the things about this journey is just the the humility all the things i thought i knew i thought like if you ate a bite of cooked food probably you know my health would go all back to how it was because in that year even though i i took off 120 pounds that year which is a lot but i was still like i was about the size i am now right because i you know i was 300 i was still over 300 pounds but my type 2 diabetes went away i stopped having sleep apnea i stopped needing that stupid elephant trunk sleep apnea machine you know cpap um uh my lungs i could breathe i stopped having allergies i stopped getting colds i used to be just plagued with colds and about a few months after becoming vegan i was sleeping through the night and i'm telling you i probably hadn't slept through the night in five years and it was because of pain you know like when you weigh that much you get pressure the pressure of the of just laying down gives you pain and then you wake up and so you can imagine what that does to your life right like my quality of life was just so much better um and then i found this crazy chef named chef aj and i had gotten to a point where i felt like i i liked the effects of raw food but i was i was finding it really difficult to maintain um and i was really craving something else um and that's when a friend told me about uh you i know this is cheesy but it's really honest i got the truth her name is melina evans she was in the group and she said have you heard of chef aj and i'm like no i have not and so i watched i remember the first video of yours i saw was a healthy meals to make you thin and you said you didn't use sugar or oil or salt and i was frankly scandalized i was like what no sugar no salt no oil no flavor which is a big fat lie but i didn't know that so really out of like i started making your recipes kind of on to dare myself i'm like this can't possibly be delicious and it was it was almost like it was a similar thing to when i found raw food like my assumptions were wrong these are this is delicious you don't need um that stuff right and especially by then my palette was a lot cleaner from being a raw foodie um and so everything was delicious and i completely stalked you i looked at every youtube video um that i could find this was you know several years ago um and i and you went on the cruise um the holistic holiday at sea and i'm like i'm going on that cruise it was partially to stalk you but to stalk you but partially because i really wanted to go on that cruise and learn everything i could and over the next few years following the guidelines that of the at the time was the ultimate weight loss program i got i finally got to my goal weight which was to take off 300 pounds so i ended up taking off 300 pounds and completely changed everything i started hiking i started weightlifting um i got to speak at some places and along the way i started this youtube channel and i started it when i was about 360 pounds so this was right around this is right around the time that i found you in fact it was somebody watching my video that said do you know about chef aj and so i am a highly spiritual person right i think i was drawn to that i think i was led to that um but being able to have my youtube channel and and um i felt like i had the support of so many people all around the world and i didn't know anybody else that was that had this much weight to lose you know 300 pounds is a crazy amount like it's a crazy amount to weigh it's a more crazy amount to have to lose right i couldn't even get my head around it on most days like i could do perfectly and follow a plan like absolutely perfectly without a single wobble for a year and i wouldn't be where i need to be you know like that takes a it's a huge lift and i just knew i'm gonna need some support and if i need it other people need it right like this is this is something and i had i didn't know anybody else that was doing it the same way as me um except for i i found them on the way but it was after i started my channel and seemed like everybody was having a gastric bypass which i totally respect people that that's their choice but it wasn't my choice and i and frankly i didn't think it would work for me i thought i'm a smart girl i will figure out a way around that because every time this is i'm a repeat offender aj so having dealt with food addiction my whole life i have taken off a hundred pounds like several times this is not like that's a big accomplishment but i've done it a lot and always somewhere along the line something slips like if you're hanging on by your fingertips you can only hang on for so long right i had to find another strategy um and i and i feel like i might have found it now but um and that's why i wanted to share you know and i stopped um i started gaining back the weight before the pandemic i can't even blame it on the pandemic i started gaining back the weight um it started out just you know just a little bit here just a little bit there i think i was at my goal weight for like 10 minutes and then i started to put it back on and it was it's just the same old thing it was the same old um i know what to do and sometimes i choose not to do it right like i mean people are like why do you think you regained it i'm like i think i got sick of doing what i was supposed to do and um and i'm a food addict and that's that's what food addicts do sometimes they slip i think it's unrealistic to not have a plan for relapse like you you hope and you pray you won't go through it and you try your very hardest and if you don't have a strategy for it when and if it happens you're a fool right because um i lost 300 pounds like that took a lot of it took a lot of time it took a lot of effort took a lot of like self-discipline learning new habits learning nutrition all the things and i still slip down the banana peel because while you're doing well on your plan your addiction is in the corner doing push-ups waiting saying just give me give me a little opening here you know give me one chance and i can take you back down so um the cool thing is so i a couple of things are different this time so i did regain weight every other time that i've regained weight i've regained more than i weighed in the beginning right so this time blessedly gratefully like by the grace of god i only got a i got i still kept off about 100 pounds so i didn't do that same pattern and i and i honestly i attribute that to that i'm vegan this time because none of the other times was a vegan so you know vegan saved my saved my soul on that one um and and i do by the way just to clarify i i eat a plant-based diet but i am an ethical vegan so you can you can be one or the other and um well i guess you can't you can eat a junk food diet and be a vegan right um but i i'm eating a whole food plant-based clean clean diet again um so what happened this time is that i didn't gain it all back right and i started to quietly take it back off again but you know i stopped doing my channel for a while and it just became painful because i could feel like i was sliding i knew i was sliding i knew i was regaining i was losing the plot and i just um i just needed to step back from it you know um i felt like there was a lot of pressure on me to have the answers or to to be this example and i'm the one who's you know i cannot blame anyone i'm the one who stepped up but as much as it was wonderful on the way down taking the weight off on the way back up was kind of sorta horrible and humiliating right like it was super painful because i still wanted to help people i still wanted to be that person and i just felt like i needed to for self-care i needed to just step away from it but i have recently come back and that is because of a couple different things first of all i want everybody to know no matter how bad you slip and fall you're only ever like even if you're in the ditch i call it go i call it falling in the ditch right i picture myself on this like path with a ditch on either side and i want to stay on the straight and narrow path and no matter how long you're on the path you have to stay humble because you're only two feet from the ditch like you can't let your guard down right like you can't let your support down and if you're in the ditch honey you're only two feet away from the path just get back up just get back up are you gonna lay in the ditch and cry and be like this sucks so hard because it does but like that path is always there and it's never too late and just don't give up don't give up and just today would be a good day to get back on track you know like don't wait don't kick yourself i i am a firm believer in self compassion this is a very insidious disease that kills millions of people i s especially in the comments on my channel i see all the time like i can so relate to your story i also took off you know 80 100 200 pounds and put it back on um or put or or i'm slowly putting it on and i don't know how to stop i get so many comments i get so many like personal messages on facebook um and there's so much shame chef aj and like it's the thing is it's not a crime to eat off track right like it doesn't make you a bad person it doesn't make you a weak person um it doesn't mean you're irredeemable it doesn't mean you're never going to get the weight off again it just means this is a super tough disease and the strategies that you were using to do a good job you've either let them slide or you need new strategies because you have new challenges but i feel like there's so much shame and so much just self-incrimination that goes along with this disease and to me it's a medical condition i have a brain that's super receptive to dopamine you know it kept my it kept my uh caveman ancestors alive it was an asset for them it kept them from starving to death for me not so much you know it's a terrible food environment for people like me that have that are very easily triggered to want to overeat and like any medical condition i need to manage it that's my responsibility but does that make me a bad person no i don't think so so i i'm saying too much i want to give a chance now no no you're helping a lot of people and people are people are really resonating with what you're saying and they understand and they love you and they're happy you're back just to get a little bit of context if you don't mind i'd like to go back just a little bit because i'm curious because you know i had chef del on uh to kick off the week and he was saying how he went on his first diet when he was eight years old he was given an 800 calorie diet he couldn't even count to 800 probably at that time yeah did anyone try to help you or you know it medically when you were heavy as a child so really no so when i when i was 11 this is kind of funny when i was 11 i got never say diet by richard simmons it was a it was like a cookbook and a diet book i got that for christmas because what 11 year old would not you know treasure that as a very special gift but um that was the first time my parents um you know really ever said anything and there were two things going on there my mom um really wanted she was you know she's we had a lot of heavy people in our family um she wasn't one of them but she loved one my my my biological father was a very heavy man like and my uh i have half brothers that um are also you know that also struggle and so tons i have i have a hundred first cousins chef aj i have a hundred first cousins like we my bio dad was one of 13 kids and he had a whole bunch of kids i mean they all had a bunch of kids and so they're all they all look like me like they all have their we all have the round faces and the challenges and so i feel like there must be a genetic component at least for me i don't know that science proves that but i feel like there something's going on right um and so i in a way you know i had a lot of company as far as family um it didn't it didn't feel that different um as as far as i'm i know my mom my mom thought i would grow out of it she she said you're going to become a teenager you're going to like boys and you're gonna grow out of it and i did become a teenager and i did like boys a lot and it didn't work i still liked hostess products better or whatever brownies better so um and i i just found boys that like chubby girls you know like that didn't work so um she just thought i would grow out of it and the other thing is that my you know our house was a place where everybody had an addiction and nobody talked about it right so my sister and i struggled with food my parents struggled with alcohol and it was kind of like you don't talk about my food and i won't talk about your alcohol and it was we all just you know we'll all just quietly walk around the elephants in the living room and so um in a way in a way every time anyone did try to say anything to me sent me straight to the cookies right like i don't think um honestly i don't i don't know how to help i i do know how i would help a family member now and that's that like if i had a if i had an overweight child what i would do is i would just make sure that everything in the house was something that they could eat like i would buy lots of fruits and lots of vegetables and have lots of beans and rice and pasta and potatoes and delicious chef aj food right um and i would keep my hands off of their food and off of their like i would just allow them autonomy right because it's really an environment you cannot i i do not smoke but like you cannot smoke if there are no cigarettes you cannot eat sugar if there is no sugar you cannot you know like and if you if the kid wants to eat five apples if i would have been binging on apples i wouldn't have had as bad of a problem right i definitely wouldn't have the health problems even if i was getting too much calories or whatever so um that's how i would do it if it was for me um and people talking to me about it just it wasn't well at least for me it wasn't very helpful i was such a sensitive child that i just took it as like i must be the worst person in the world and where are the brownies it what what age did you first notice that there were some health consequences because you mentioned you had been diabetic at what point of your journey did health problems start to appear it was it was after so again like i stayed you know around like the highest i got was about 200 till college and then once i had kids and i went like i said i went over 300 pounds that's when i really started noticing um the joint pain the um like you mentioned migraines my my um hormones were all off i had terrible migraine i mean i had terrible migraines i had terrible skin um very bad acne um because i was eating you know a lot of animal-based foods um and non-foods but you know how i feel about those but anyway yeah so i started to notice it then and that's when i started to have like mysterious problems with my joints and um started and got tested for inflammation um and it was off the charts it was crazy it was it was like a i think it's like a 10 it's called a c reactive protein it was super super high i was reacting really a lot especially to all the animal products in my diet and just the straight up junk food in my diet um because i was eating a lot of junk food at that time and so then um yeah the by the time so that you know i had my children in my 20s i had my son at 25. by the time i was 35 i was just the sickest person you know like i was um and taking care of two parents in the process of passing away right i took care of them the last couple years of their lives and i had kids and i was a single mom and i was working full-time and so it was just it was it was a lot um i had a lot and so i ate to cope and then that made me have additional problem you know it was just terrible terrible cycle i do not recommend it zero stars do not recommend not a good method you know what i really want to ask you because i asked this to dell i asked this to rebecca and i think i'm going to ask this to every person when when you start to slip obviously your people aren't necessarily seeing you eat but maybe people especially because when you had lost 300 pounds that was significant you were a little bit and yeah and so when you started to gain it back would it have been better if some i mean you know dr lyle says you can't say anything to people but i'm wondering could somebody have reached out to you could somebody have helped you or is it just the kind of thing where we just have to wait and when you're ready you're ready i think for me personally it i'm still that six-year-old that if you tell me i'm chubby i'm gonna run to the cookies yeah like it just the there's here's the thing a person who's regaining especially a person who has like spent the last three years making a very significant effort to take off like a wild amount of weight um there's no way they don't know that they're regaining right and so they're just like please don't notice please don't notice you know and for me at the same time i was going through a lot of health stuff and so i was it was just i was just overwhelmed and so then the fact that thinking every everybody's talking about me you know oh no you know um it just adds to the stress so i i wouldn't recommend it what i would say to the person is hey is there anything going on is there anything i can help you with i'm here if you need anything and i love you exactly as you are i think radical self-acceptance is a huge part of the answer at least it is for me because here's the thing when you love and accept yourself exactly as you are warts and all it's you can start treating yourself in a loving way and then that levels that that lowers that level of stress so then i'm not like eating to soothe the hurt of me being the meanest person i know to me you know like it's it's terrible to feel bad about yourself right um and so by just giving myself the love that i um that i needed from myself giving myself that love and compassion it takes away i'm then i'm happy with my veggies for breakfast then i broccoli carrots cauliflower has been my favorite for 10 years you know and so yeah i think i think that that's i really do think that that's the answers just treat yourself the way you would treat a beloved child if you're if your child came to you and said i feel so bad about myself what would you say to them right um would you beat them up would you call them fat would you hurt their feelings no you wouldn't do that so we're all just doing our best is the thing here i think so for me restarting if anybody because i i know because i read the comments i get i get so many comments i um you know same thing with you like i know you can't respond to them all but i just want to say this if you're hurting one of the things that i think is important to do i like to use the analogy of nasa doing a launch okay so nasa does not just launch that rocket they don't just pick a day and launch the rocket right they do tons and tons and tons of prep work they get ready to launch that rocket right and then they wait for the right conditions so they handled like this they handle all of the different variables and everything and then they make that concerted effort so if you are in a situation where you are starting out the morning i i don't know if anybody can relate to this gonna get an amen in the comments if you can relate okay i'm gonna preach for a sec you wake up in the morning and you're like darn straight i'm gonna eat just perfectly on i'm and i'm never gonna mess up ever again and i'm gonna be this is gonna be a great day and by the end of the day you find yourself eating something that you didn't intend and you find yourself feeling out of control and this is happening for multiple days in a row right some like we get into these patterns where it's like i think it's important to say obviously this is not working for me right now the conditions are not ideal for me to launch right now and i need to do what nasa does when they scrub a launch do they just blow up the rocket no do they just say you know i'm never going to launch another rocket again and so i might as well you know or the equivalent of i might as well just eat all the things or whatever find out what's going on where do you need to level up your support right what do you need to do do you need to get things out of your house that are tempting you like you you say oh i don't even like that thing but if you get desperate you'll eat it right like i've eaten for instance black licorice i hate black licorice but when i was really jonesing for sugar that's what i ate right like it doesn't matter if you like it or if you think you're safe from it just get it out of there why is it even there like if you if you have a choice sometimes it's someone else's that's a whole other issue but what do you need to do you know um i like to i have a little acronym that i call magic and i and i wanted to share this because i've never shared it with anybody but this is what i do in the morning i do my morning magic which is meditation is the m i do some affirmations and the kind of affirmations i like to do is i write in my journal as though i'm doing ev like i'll be like i'm so happy i'm uh i lost all that weight again and now i'm on my way to tahiti you know like in my new bikini or whatever but i i i do my afrom like i visualize what i want to do i don't actually want to go to tahiti in a bikini i don't want to scandalize the locals but you know i write in my journal so we do affirmations you can do affirmations in front of a mirror um and there's a whole like if you don't know about affirmations you should check out louise hayes works louise hey his work so i do some affirmations and i do um so that's the a and then the g is i do a gratitude practice um where you just think about what's something that you're grateful for and here's the thing you have to think about at least three good things and they have to be different than yesterday's so you want to continually be focusing your mind on what's good right like what what you're grateful for and i encourage people to think of individuals that they're grateful for because it's really easy to say i love all my friends and all my family and all my pets but here's the thing sometimes your stars can get lost in your constellations you can stop individu and whereas if you're like i love charles he is so kind he's so helpful anytime i need something i know i can count on him 100 that that feels different than i love all my friends and family right so that's the gratitude then the i is you set your intention like today like even if you made the commitment a thousand times you need to make that commitment again today like i'm gonna set my intention today i'm going to be kind to myself today i am going to help people i'm going to appreciate people people are going to know that i care about them today i'm going to do my best and and that is going to be okay with me whatever my best is so you set your intention and then finally i make a commitment today no sugar today no oil today no flour today i'm gonna eat my veggies so um so like that's i call that my morning magic you know and like if if prayer resonates with you more than meditation i think that that's a very good thing too i do that also um all of these things you're probably like what does that have to do i want to just hear about recipes and exercise and walking here's the thing that's the scaffold that lets you climb your mountain right i love dr lyle says trying to lose weight in this environment is like trying to walk up mount kilimanjaro with a sprained ankle okay so all of the stuff all the support that you can get um all the mental health stuff also just like having being a part of support groups if you get them on facebook i have people in person i have different people that i go to for different things i have mentors you need to cultivate these things right some people like an accountability partner but you need somebody that you can go to that you can be honest with that you can say you know i found the bottom of the bag of that whatever um or uh i'm really thinking of going to this place and making this bad choice and talk me out of it right um it's really like that's when you know your healing to me is when you do it in advance of doing the crime it's very rare it's very rare most people want to confess the crime very few people want to say hey you know what chef aj when i get off this call with you i'm going to go get get the thing and eat the thing you know like so when you have that person that you can be that sincere with that's then you know you have strong support um and so that's what i that's what i put in place i i was in that cycle of i have to be perfect i have to be perfect i have to be perfect and then i switched to i need to create the conditions that will produce success i need to create the environment in myself and in my home and just whatever what's lacking why why am i going to the food right it's because things are hard and stressful and we want to feel good you know um or food tastes good you need to have a life that you don't need to run away from right i i want to have a life that i don't need to escape in a bowl of whatever so that's what i worked on and that's and that's where i am now and and and then when you're ready when you feel strong when you have all of those supports in place then you pick a day and and you start doing it again and i really like um the other thing that i like to to tell people is if you're having trouble abstaining from stuff try edging it out okay so instead of you know like putting up so much resistance try try having vegetables for breakfast if you want to have vegetables for breakfast and then have a vegan pop-tart after that i'm not your food police right but here's the thing i know that if you have your veggies for breakfast you're going to be a lot less likely to have your pop tart okay um if you pick one thing i think master one meal if you're really struggling okay if you're doing good this is not your advice this is i'm in the ditch and i want to get back on the path and i simply don't know if i can do it that's that's who i'm talking to if you're this is for you so master one meal for me i mastered breakfast again i'm like i'm gonna eat and i swear i would never do it but i i just eat a bag of frozen vegetables i don't even put the vinegar on it anymore i just like frozen vegetables microwave them eat them you know like sometimes we make things too complicated other some people are like that horrifies them they would rather jump off a building than eat a bag of frozen vegetables with no anything on them to me i just wanted it to be very simple i wake up very early i didn't want to deal with anything i just wanted to have it be very simple and have it not be optional so i hardwired breakfast and then once i felt like i had hardwired breakfast then i went to lunch i got back to having my salad like salad is not optional right and just moving on from that so if if that's where you are try doing that try edging out the other stuff instead of resisting what you don't want to have be propelled forward by what you do want to have and you know here's the thing about when i eat vegetables i feel great my inflammation goes down i feel like i have more energy my digestion is great and it's been proven that it's correlated with depression like it lowers you know depression people that you thought most amount of vegetables have the lowest levels of depression comparable to medication right um and i really noticed that with myself i if i want to make myself feel terrible all i have to do is eat some sugar like i've let go of the sugar it's completely gone but i'm just saying you know ed put stuff back in i know when i eat berries that i'm vain i like it when my skin looks good i notice if i eat a lot of berries i have nice skin and hair and i like berries who doesn't like berries so like add stuff back in stop being so obsessed with like all this stuff i don't eat this and i don't need that or you know because what's happening is you're keeping that all in the front of your mind all the stuff you don't have or that you're resisting i'm resisting i'm resisting but it's like aj don't think about an elephant don't think about the elephant don't think about an elephant don't think about an elephant you can obsess about what you're staying away from why not focus on what you know makes you feel great what you know is good for your body what you know kills cancer you know lowers inflammation makes you feel better doesn't give you depression don't do it as some kind of punishment do it because it's feels so good when you do it right yeah you know did this last slip did you learn anything or have some systems in place that could help you the next time absolutely so i learned so a couple things i learned is that i did not realize how much i relied on social support because i don't think it would have gotten as bad as it did had it not been for copen i did not i've been working from home for the last couple years i am a person who loves people i love teaching my teaching got you know messed up um i love hanging out with my friends um it just it was hard it was really hard on me and then i had put a lot of supports in place that involved taking my food to work you know like i would bring i would make my salad and i would have my steamed vegetables and i would have my fruits and i would pretty much take it all you know i'd eat something in the morning but then i'd take everything else to work and then i just didn't eat at my house and i know that sounds funny but i i just didn't except for on the weekend because i would eat all the food at work and then by five o'clock it's really a good time to stop eating and that worked so well for me so then when the when the pandemic happened and i was working from home i wasn't used to making good choices at home so another thing i learned was just your habits rule you like you you make your habits and then your habits make you like be careful what you hardwire be really careful and so now i'm getting up in the morning and i'm acting like i'm going to go to work like i make sure that i pre-prep my i have my veggies and then i pre-prep the rest of my food and have it all ready by like 8 a.m as though i was taking it to work and then i eat only that right um another thing i learned is that i do so much better if i only eat at meals that like grazing is a problem for me hand-to-mouth eating is a problem for me so i try to stay away from that even if it's something super healthy like cherries i love cherries and i will eat two pounds of them if there's like two pounds in the bag just i think it's that repetitive motion and um just the yummy taste so i count out i i like put my cherries in a bowl and put the bag away now so things like that i've learned a little bit more about portions and a little bit more about sticking to meal times so that there's definitely a start time and a stop time to my eating so i'm not just eating all day long um and i also the other thing so the social support i missed and then all the activity the the it's called neat right it's the non-exercise something activity thermogenesis right um non-exercise yes yeah something like yeah activity therapist basically it's all the calories you burn from walking around the house loading the dishwasher walking around a store i wasn't walking around a store i wasn't walking around my office i wasn't you know going down to the bathroom at my office and then going and seeing my friend who's on another floor and taking the stairs all of that my activity level went just like in the tank you know during covet i was still walking my dog in the my dogs in the morning but um that still my activity level just went so far down and it isn't even that i was using that to burn calories though of course i was it's mental health like you need exercise is very important for mental health um at least for me so what i just just a lot of my supports were out of um i didn't my supports went away and my and my scaffolding fell down and i fell down um and so now i'm just making sure that i sometimes you have to reassess right like if you keep trying the same thing and it's not working you need to take a step back from it at least this is my this is my opinion um so i needed new strategies i needed a new why when i when i took off weight the weight the first time i was really worried i had been diagnosed with lung cancer and it's a neuro neuroendocrine kind so it it reacts very strongly to fat and and estrogen like products that are made by your fat cells and so i was just really desperate to get the weight off quickly um that was a big why for me now my my health is thank you god has stabled uh has stabilized and hasn't gone um it went a little haywire when i regained some weight but it didn't go as haywire as i thought and i don't feel like i'm gonna die which is a wonderful thing but it also that was a big why right and then that that kind of faded right i also thought i would like to start dating when i took off weight and then guess what i took off the weight and i was like i don't want a date [Laughter] so some of the things that i thought you know like some of my why's they lost their punch and i had to come up with new wise right um and the one that stuck with me was i will conquer this food will not conquer me i will not i'm not going down like chumbawamba baby that chumbawamba song tub thumping i get knocked down but i get up again you're never gonna keep me down i'm not gonna let this kick this is not gonna be what i die of like i'm going to kick its booty it's going down and so that's like um that that why has not gone away like i will get this under control this will be i don't want to be beholden to anything i will figure out how to do this and i will a new why for me is i'm gonna figure out how to do it and then i'm gonna to the best of my ability help everybody else and we're all gonna do it together and we're all just gonna like walk away from obesity together holding hands and and we're going to do it and i believe in it i believe that i believe that a plant-based diet is the healthiest diet and that we're all going to overcome this and we're going to do it together and i want to be there with everybody that's doing this with me that's beautiful heather did you when you were struggling keep a clean environment and are you keeping one now because we talked about that a lot with the guests this week um i did not when i was so at first i did and here's the thing with me like i can't like we're talking about a three-year like almost three years right so some of the times i did and some and uh and many times i didn't no i went back to vegan junk food um and again a lot of the strategies that i was using to keep myself away from it grubhub became a friend portland oregon god bless us it's a really great place to be a junk food vegan we have 75 vegan restaurants you can be terrible with pretty much any cuisine you want to in the world you know like that was that was a thing that was a treat for me like i can't see my friends i can't go teach my classes i'm gonna have this treat of this thing and it will the the nice person will deliver it right to my house so um and also getting groceries delivered like i didn't even have to go through the shame of having the person see what i was buying you know like i know there's i know instacart is not magic like there's a person who puts them in there they still know that i'm getting all of the of the things but it just felt pretty anonymous like you can just have all this junky stuff just show up at your door it's kind of magic and so um no i was not keeping a clean environment many times i would like more than one occasion because i know how important environment is at least for me um i think things are very individual and i think we i think that's just something that i've learned but for me i would go through the house and i would get rid of this stuff and i would also get rid of like the wrappers i used to bury the bodies right and get rid of the evidence but also because i don't want it to trigger me i don't want to pull i don't want to open a drawer to get out an extension cord or something like that and see the wrapper from the the vegan sweet that i shoved in there because i didn't want everybody to know i was eating it there's so much there's shame around the weight but there's also shame around the actual eating of the food and so i would do it in secret i would you know bring it in my room um and stuff like that so i think it's really helpful to get rid of all of that stuff and get rid of the wrappers and stuff like that and you might need to go you might need to go on a little bit of a treasure hunt to find all of those um but yeah that's i think that that's important when you first get the idea to eat something non-compliant especially after a long string of abstinence do you do it with the thought like well it's just going to be this one time and then i'm going to get back on track and then what happens is you just get so pulled in by the pleasure trap that like they say once you pop you just can't stop that that's that's that sounds very familiar um yeah especially in the beginning so when i took off all that weight i thought and then i i took off all the way and then it was right before chris so it was in october so then around christmas i was like i'm gonna have one or two things that aren't compliant you know um just during the christmas season with the full intention of january will come and new year's has always been a magical time for me like i always i always do well around new year's and so i was like i feel safe having these things um famous last words famous last words like here's the thing if if i was a person who could do that then i would do it but i i'm not i'm not that person right and so i ended up it's it it breaks my heart that i unraveled all that hard work i'm glad it didn't go all the way away you know like i'm still i'm i'm about a hundred pounds down from a little bit more than 100 pounds down from my highest weight now yay i'm gonna celebrate that right but i'm not gonna risk that i already risked two-thirds of what i was so proud of i'm not risking i'm not willing to put any more money on the table right um so yes i think that food addicts lie to themselves and we don't do it intentionally but there's there's a couple of different things that we do one of the things we do is i'm going to hurry up and gobble this up before i can talk myself out of it there's so there's like a a feeling of urgency like i i have the impulse and then i want to i'm just going to do it i'm not going to think about it right like it's it's kind of a panicky feeling um when you know you're deliberately acting not in your own best interest you can have this like hurry up and do it before someone can stop me especially me so there's that the other side is um there i did especially you know all my life i did a fair amount of lying to myself of it's just going to be this one time i'm going to have a cheat day or i'm going to have this and then i'm going to get right back on tomorrow but here's the thing if you think that veggies for breakfast are gonna taste good after you've just eaten vegan pizza and cashew ice cream or whatever you are not correct you are not gonna want that you're gonna want more vegan pizza and more cashew ice cream and i'm sorry if i'm triggering anybody but that's it's a lie so now that's actually one of my triggers for my to myself i have made an agreement with myself that i will be very honest with myself when i hear my brain saying those things to me i'm gonna be like oh that's one of the lies right there that's like no you won't i'll get right back on tomorrow no you won't no you won't you won't want to and you'll have a freezer full you'll have a fridge full of perfectly wonderful vegan food and you'll have a freezer full of things and you'll be and you'll just let your veggies rot because you'll be right back in the pleasure trap so it's kind of like you can picture that guy from star wars saying it's a trap or whatever it's a trap how do we get you or someone else that's going through this process back on track faster because dell was talking about his story how he literally after he quit his job at the wellness forum basically sat in his house for two years and gained 200 pounds how do we help people so that instead of 200 it's 150 or one you know what i'm saying yeah you get it so what what is there some is there some secret that we're missing so that's what i was uh that's what i was trying to say and i don't know that i said it very well with the nasa launch like make the conditions perfect for you to succeed right to the best of your ability so do you need to do that magic process in the morning like how is how what are you doing the reason that i the reason i like the magic stuff is there there are hundreds and thousands of white papers about the benefits of meditation for it helps you build willpower it helps you build you know like it's serenity it lowers your stress level lots of it makes you feel more compassionate lots of things that uh i think a lot of times food addiction is we're eating to change our state right i feel agitated and so i'm eating because i want to not feel agitated or i am bored and so i want entertainment or so being able to just sit with being bored and not feeling like i need to eat for entertainment or being able to sit with sad feelings or be feel lonely and not feel like i have to you know the ice ice cream loves me you know whatever just being able to be okay with that i think is a really important thing same thing with the gratitude practice this is it's very proven to that we when we focus on what's going well in our lives that it it gives us it increases those abilities too so it helps us overcome things like addictions so having that i feel like you have to you're like it's not just the food and the exercise it's a huge thing you gotta have you gotta have the food you gotta educate yourself but if you've done if you know what to do but you can't get yourself to do it that's when i think that it becomes knowing that exactly what i'm saying like i know that i need the vegetables because that will make my mental health equipped to be able to do this hard thing that i need to do right if i don't eat the vegetables i'm my my depression will take over and that will make me want food right will make me want things that aren't in my best interest i know that i need to take a walk not only just like to burn calories but because that's my time to talk to god and like solve my problems and i i need that walk like you need me to have that walk so i'm not a crazy person my family needs me to have that walk right um so just yeah i think it's all that stuff and there's so much evidence that it works and here's the thing about both the gratitude practice and meditation and prayer is it's efficacious at a small dose sorry i work in medical field but you know even five minutes of meditation has a lasting benefit even thinking of three things that you're grateful for every night before you fall asleep that's a very small dose of a treatment right and it has a huge effect and it lasts for a long time and so once you have the food and the and the movement in place i really think we need to work on raising our support level so you know having people on the path with you that love you and accept you no matter how you are that's the you know can i just say when i started my channel i thought i was going to get crucified i really did like i was 360 pounds here's this fat girl going on this go fat all her life has regained the weight so many times and i just was like i'm gonna do this and i'm just gonna be really honest about where i am and i'm going to use plant-based diet to take off this weight i don't want to have a gastric bypass i just i wanted to do it this way and i'm not sure if i can but i'm going to try i thought people were going to be so mean to me right because i had heard about the viciousness of the internet i cannot tell you the overwhelming amount of loveliness and support that i have felt from that channel like the comments are just bombs to my soul just just love love love i just feel love and light every time i read the comments it's been such a blessing to me and people say oh you help me and i'm like not as much as you help me honey you don't even know you don't even know um and honestly i think that that's part of why i got my cancer under control like just i needed that love and support so um if you don't have enough love and support in your life you need to get some you need to find your you need to find your people um and we need to take care of the people that take care of the people i think a lot of us are caregivers in our lives we have that caregiver kind of personality especially lots of lots of moms lots of dads and um we love everybody and we take care of everybody and here's the thing if you the best thing you can do if you love your kids is take care of their mom right the best thing you can do if you love your spouse is take care of his wife take care of her take care of her husband um people need you we don't belong to ourselves right so many can you imagine if there was i can't imagine a world without a chef aj in it like people need you to shine the light animals need you people need you fat girls need to find you and find out that they don't need sugar salt and oil like i would that blew me away you know like we we need each other and we belong to each other and we nobody can be left behind we can't let this disease of obesity kill us because we're too important speaking of sugar salt and oil which is you which which is it that you brings you down first of the three of the evil trinity the weird thing is that that has changed i don't know what happened with i mean i i do know i know that sugar sugar is not a problem for me sugar has always been a problem for me but just recently let the sugar go i'm not going to go into it because we're already past time and it's on my channel but i let the sugar go sugar is not a thing for me anymore now weirdly it's oil and it's because of processed food and it's because and i thought about it because like i let the sugar go and i really really sincerely feel like it's just gone i'm just not gonna have it anymore and i'm totally fine with it thousand percent fine with it but the oil means that i can't go get a vegan burrito at my favorite mexican place the oil means that i can't have like a fake hamburger or a fake hot dog right like some things that i used to enjoy it's something some things that i weirdly went back to like those were so out of my life i was so off a processed food but like um processed foods sneaked back in and so weirdly it's oil this time um salt went com is pretty much a way too i never saw anything anymore i just finally after you beat it into my head for years ago i finally gave up the salt and honestly i feel so much better without the salt i'm a person who really struggles with water retention and and blood pressure and all the stuff but when you lose 300 pounds your skin gets real loose and then when you have loose skin you retain water like the hoover dam you know like and so i just um letting salt go was is such a blessing especially like my breathing i just noticed my breathing is so much better when i don't have um because i still have those tumors in my lungs and i still have trouble with breathing sometimes and i have to let the salt go so weirdly it's the oil and sometimes the flour sometimes it's the flour and it's really um it's really like it's a convenience thing like i i wanted the ability to still be able to go to a restaurant or you know basically when you have something that you're having resistance to i feel like like i was off of sugar salt and oil for a long time and i took off a whole lot of weight uh just saying and then now now i'm having a harder time giving up some of the things okay you're getting something from it right so analyze like why are you not willing to give it up like what why is it pulling you um and can you give yourself that thing without without that substance that you know is not for your highest good and if you're not there yet can you pray for willingness can you like get ready you know like have you can't and or can if you if you're not a prayer like can you set an intention by the end of this year i'm going to be ready to give up oil by the end of this year or i don't know pick a month pick a time pick a time when you're you'll know it's a really inside process but analyze what are you still getting out of that thing that you're not ready to give up adele would like to know if she's watching live if you still have the bbs oh i'm so glad she asked because here's the thing i so there's a test they give you to see if you have diabetes that's it's and it spies on you for the last three months it's called the ha1c a lot of people just say a1c okay my highest one was like nine something which is terrible it's really bad anything under 5.6 i think means you're normal you're not diabetic or whatever um and so i went from terrible down to really great like in the low like in the low uh in the high fours and the low fives and i've stayed there and i was wondering if it would go back up because i gained weight but because adele i eat a lot of vegetables and because i walk and because i am plant-based okay there is a big difference between eating poorly eating eating a bad diet that is animal based and eating a bad even if you're eating a bad diet it's a lot of protection there i remember dr greger he didn't i feel bad saying this because he just said it to me personally but he said the worst plant-based diet is better than the healthiest animal product diet and the reason why is because a lot of the animal products it's they're they're ins they're diabetic they you know the fat that's in animal products is more of a problem than even oils although oils are not your friend you know fats are not your friend if you're if you're diabetic and so i really think that there's a lot of protective qualities in all the fruits and the vegetables that i eat even though i regained the weight i might my ha1c is still great so it has been for 10 years um and people will tell you that if you have type 2 diabetes that you'll have it for the rest of your life i will say you'll probably have to manage it for the rest of your life but stay vegan eat lots of fruits and vegetables and do a lot of ex you know do a lot of movement a lot of steps um get your walking in and you can you can you can walk away from it yeah that's fine i'm not a doctor though i'm not a doctor i'm not pretending to be but i'm just saying that's been my experience you know yesterday when rebecca martinez was on who recently lost 200 pounds yay she yeah fantastic you know she struggled for a long time too and she said you know i can't be perfect like you meaning me like and i don't know if i'm that perfect but i do stay compliant and i'm wondering heather if you're familiar with dr lyle's concept of the ego trap that if we set the bar too high yeah over the table and with that in mind like rebecca says she she can't be perfect so she will go off plan but her secret to success has been that she gets right back on i'm wondering do you think that food addiction sort of exists on a continuum with some people being more or less vulnerable and for some people going off means not getting back on or not getting back on quickly enough before some deleterious effects occur yeah you know um i'm sure i'm sure that i i haven't i haven't felt the effects of the ego trap but i have done is i felt like um i had some all or nothing thinking that i think is really it's it's again it falls under what i call like the i have my four lies that if i hear myself saying those i'm like oh that's a true you know that i've taught myself to be aware if you're if you're thinking that thought that means you're in danger right um i see i see that as like the canary and the coal mine and one of the thoughts is that i've already messed up and so i'm going to eat all the things right so what have i been denying myself denying myself now that i'm off today because i'm going to go back on tomorrow i don't have offer on anymore right like i do think um i i i don't think that way anymore um it's just not true if i eat a cookie in the morning and that's all i do and then i eat healthfully the rest of the day that is negligible even though it keeps me from being perfect or whatever whereas if i say the breaks are off and it's just gonna eat my way through the day and eat everything that i can possibly get in and you know but here's i love this expression i'm not jesus and i don't need a last supper like it's not i don't have to like eat all the things because i'm gonna be on tomorrow when i'm what i instead i focus the the thing i was talking about before like i say to myself you ate that thing but you're still gonna eat your your vegetables because that's that's non-negotiable so even if i think i'm going to eat those vegetables and then i'm going to eat something that's not on my plan after that right and i'm not going to even say that i haven't done that but i'm going to tell you i am much less likely i am if if i can just be like keep my sanity enough to get something in that that's going to be helpful for me i think that that's a good way to keep from that all or nothing thinking and just and just realize it's a lie when you had taken off 300 pounds what what what did it feel like what was the best part for you mainly on so having lived in an overweight body my whole life just being and especially you know at 436 pounds i walked with arm crutches because i couldn't hold my weight up i couldn't um i was walking but i would like walk in a park that had a had a quarter mile track you know how they have them and it had benches at like twelve three nine and six and and i would just walk from one bench to the next bench because that's all i could do and i'd be puffing puffing out of breath red-faced girl um in total pain just every every step was like walking on you know nails or walking on lego bricks in bare feet whatever it was just my knees my hips my back everything hurt everything hurt um so when i when i got that weight off and i was walking like five miles for fun and i was hiking up uh i went to one of the most beautiful places on earth crater lake in oregon crater lake is this amazing and i did i think i did like 25 000 steps in one day 25 000 right like and just being going from the girl who couldn't walk um from who had to walk from one bench to the other and like if i did a quarter mile around that track like i was so flippin proud of myself and you know what if that's what you can do do it because i went from a quarter mile track stopping every you know a quarter of the quarter mile track um to being able to do to to being able to hike crater lake and and it's like a big elevation and lots of switchbacks and um that felt amazing that was that was the best part that and the clothes oh my gosh i loved the clothes um when you're really heavy a lot of times what you pick is like what fits like they don't make the most beautiful sometimes they make beautiful things in your size but they cost three times as much as other stuff and i just had so much fun with the clothes um just feeling so happy when stuff would fit and um those were those are the two biggest joys and just when i didn't have to use that cpap anymore oh and go the other one was going to the doctor just felt like the princess of the world when i would go to the doctor because they'd be like did you have a gastroparent no you didn't you just ate healthy and exercised like we tell people to do and it worked you know like and i was telling my doctors about vegan diet and they're like can i send my patient to you and um that was that was huge that was huge yeah do you think you'll get back there and how can we support you in your journey i am going to get back there so from my highest weight so i i regained back to about 360 and i'm i'm down to about 310 now so took 50 of it back uh so it's going the right direction um and different things like you know if you leave me a comment on my youtube channel i would love you for life um that so i it's the butterfly effect plant-based training weight loss it's still plant-based weight loss on there but i want to focus more on like all the ways i'm changing and not just my weight um because just focusing on the weight it didn't stick and i feel like i need to change myself at depth does that make sense i have to have that real transformation that real metamorphosis that we talked about at the very beginning of the show um so yeah just having peop people support me um just love me warts and all you know like there's a lot of pressure to and it's hard it's hard when you mess up right like well especially publicly yeah exactly yeah it's hard but um i if we can like i i feel the love and support and i and and just come with me let's let's do it together you know it's so much easier when other people are doing what you're doing i think let's do it together i think people really love you i don't know if you can see the chat but you can go back and i'm going to go back and they didn't want you to succeed and i think to you and anyone else that has struggled i mean of course i think it's not always what you say but how you say it i think when people at least that love you have said things i think it's because they're concerned about you yeah absolutely and i get that and i get that it just i really it's terrible but i think it's an inside job you know like every person who deals with addiction whether it's alcohol or drug or whatever they have to come i don't i don't know about the rock bottom thing but they have to come to a point where they're like you know what the balance has tipped and it's more painful for me to stay the same than it is for me to heal it takes a lot of it's that escape velocity like if we're talking about the nasa launch it takes a lot like you have to have rockets to push you like explosions you know controlled explosions are required that much energy is required to launch you out of that in into a new trajectory and so i think that sometimes it takes that like it has to get more painful to stay the same than it does um to to change and i think each person has to come to that i think it is fair to say i really love you and i want to do everything i can to support you what what do you need what can i do yeah that's a good one well i have i have an idea when you're done taking off 300 pounds well first of all you can write a book saying now i only have to take off 200. right but when you do the whole process the second time now you can write a book saying i lost 300 pounds twice totally totally yeah that's you know like that's that's where i'm at now it's like i thought i would be of service by doing it once and apparently i'm supposed to do it twice that's all that's all i can say but it is happening it is going to happen and and it and it might look different like i might be happy at 150 pounds i thought i looked pretty good at 150 pounds so my goals might have moved the goal post might have moved a little bit but i'm getting back there it will happen i think we always look better than we think we look when we look back like when i think about how i beat myself up how i looked in high school and i'm looking that wasn't too bad actually yeah have you ever heard that i i wish i was the weight i was when i first thought i was fat well when you get the rest of your weight off you'll just come in move in with me and um that sounds good we'll just do it whether you're up or down or sideways we still love you you're an inspiration and we thank you so much for being vegan and for you know you just you really have such a wonderful heart and you do help a lot of people i mean you can take this question if you want because i know i do i believe it or not you guys don't know this because i didn't announce it i have another show today it wasn't scheduled but kathy hester wants to come on and make ice cream and i'm never gonna turn that down with the ninja creamy but if you'd like to take this question you can which is what do you eat in a day and you're getting that not because of your weight because if you've ever watched chef aj live i i mean i had a vegan exterminator on and he wasn't an exterminator but you know what i mean everybody gets that question just so you know it's just a question that everybody gets so i'm making a video on that and so just i would just say since we are over time and i don't want to take anybody's watch my channel i i know it sounds like a just a plug for my channel but i i'm going to go through it i'm going i'm in the process of going through it step by step i've done some of the footage and i just need to edit it so look for that on my channel i'm going to talk about what i eat in a day now what i used to eat in the day you know those giant giant salads things have changed a little bit but um yeah i'm definitely gonna share that it's no it's no mystery um but yeah let's not let's not get into that now because i could talk for another like hour on that you can come back and like i say if it'll help you you know there's a few people that are on a weight loss journey now that have asked to come back regularly just because they go i'm going to be on chef aj i better not have that you know hey that might not be a bad strategy you know we might have just like uh like i don't know i was thinking of it like check in i wish that day of the week started but but the idea is is you know just you know to keep them on a schedule so they're like yeah exactly well i'm glad you're back i'm glad you're feeling good and i'm glad your channel's back i was so delighted because i don't subscribe to very many youtube channels so when you came back i'm like because people thought you were dead yes yes that was one of the reasons i came back is i heard first i heard that i was dead and i was like okay but i don't think so and then the other one i heard was when people started saying that i wasn't vegan anymore that's when i got mad and i'm like i'm i'm coming back i gotta say something because you you know i we we both have such a heart for animals and like that's not that's not okay look at look at chef del he got up over 500 pounds on a vegan diet so it's not good it doesn't happen animals yeah you know what uh like what do they say manatees are vegan elephants are vegan like this doesn't mean you're gonna be skinny absolutely yeah so kathy says have around for monday imagine i'll talk to all the people in this group maybe we can do something that will inspire everybody to you know want to just stay the course for we'll do it yeah well heather thank you so much all right fun connecting with you and uh congratulations on being able to review jerry just subscribe to her channel everybody hit this like button and subscribe to heather's channel the link is in the show notes take care heather i hope to talk to you soon all right love you guys take care thanks bye-bye and thank all of you for watching another episode of chef aj live just so you know tomorrow as we continue with food addiction week we have two guests at 11am we have chuck carroll who lost an extraordinary amount of weight he's going to tell you his story he was once eating 10 000 calories a day and my doctor to discuss food addiction at 2pm is frank sabatino but as soon as i reset my channel here in just a few minutes if you'd like to come back kathy hester who is the queen of the ninja creamy is going to be showing us some ice cream recipes that are not going to trigger you at least for me my food addiction because they're made from the fruit the whole fruit and nothing

Channel: CHEF AJ

Views: 20,119

Keywords:

Id: c4atP7HRCFM

Length: 86min 19sec (5179 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022