Dr. Vera Tarman – Author, Speaker & Food Addiction Expert

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Food Junkies Podcast Episode 98: Dr. Daniel Lieberman

Dr. Daniel Lieberman

Dr. Daniel Lieberman is an award-winning educator, researcher, and professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He received his medical degree at New York University, where he also completed his psychiatric training. As a researcher, he provided insights on mental health topics for the US Department of Commerce, the Office of Drug and Alcohol Policy, and the US Department of Health and Human Services. Daniel has published more than 50 scientific papers and book chapters, and he shares his expertise on the neurobiological basis of human behavior as a frequent guest on podcasts, television, and radio.

Daniel Lieberman co-authored the international bestseller The Molecule of More, which has been translated into 16 languages. His second book, Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind, reveals how to join forces with your unconscious mind to find more meaning in everyday life, make better decisions, and develop a richer and more balanced way of living.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • What is dopamine?
  • What is its value in the human mind?
  • What is Reward Prediction error and why do we need to be aware of it?
  • What are some of the dangers of dopamine dysregulation?
  • What is the role of dopamine in addiction?
  • Can you explain control dopamine over desire dopamine?
  • What is the rule of dopamine in willpower?
  • How is addiction logical to a person with Substance or Food Use Disorder?

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 97: Dr. Kerstin Uvnäs Moberg

Dr. Kerstin Uvnäs Moberg

Kerstin Uvnäs Moberg got her MD and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She has been employed as a full professor of Physiology at the University of Agriculture in Uppsala, Sweden. She has worked with research on the physiology of labor and breastfeeding for more than 30 years. The focus of the research has been on the role of oxytocin and sensory stimulation, in particular, stimulation of cutaneous sensory nerves during labor, skin-to-skin contact after birth, and breastfeeding. She has worked with animal experiments and also studies involving humans. She has studied the physiological mechanisms involved in birth and breastfeeding and short- and long-term physiological and behavioral maternal adaptations induced during birth and breastfeeding. She is also working on the role of oxytocin during human-animal interaction and in menopausal women.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • Dr. Moberg’s personal and professional journey
  • What is Oxytocin?
  • The Satiety System
  • Volume/Comfort/Emotional Eating
  • The Anti-Stress System
  • What Ultra-Processed Foods are doing to humans
  • Grazing
  • Oxytocin Deficiency Syndrome
  • Pharmacological Interventions
  • Raising Oxytocin
  • Fasting
  • What’s next?
  • Signature Question

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 96: Dr. Bunmi Aboaba

Dr. Bunmi Aboaba

Dr. Bunmi Aboaba is a Food Addiction Coach who helps clients achieve a healthy relationship with food to meet long-term health goals. Dr. Bunmi’s work covers the full spectrum of disordered eating, including overeating, compulsive eating, emotional eating, and other associated patterns.

She runs seven-day self-care retreats for clients suffering from food addiction and is the author of ‘Craving Freedom’, a book for those wanting to build a healthy relationship with food.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • Bunmi shares her personal and professional journey
  • Her recovery journey at the beginning vs. now
  • The book! Craving Freedom
  • How Bunmi works with clients
  • What Bunmi found helps her clients be successful
  • What she has become more flexible around in treating Food Addiction
  • What Bunmi offers that is different from other Food Addiction Professionals
  • What she is still working on
  • What’s next?
  • Signature Question

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 95: Esther Helga Guðmundsdóttir

Esther Helga Guðmundsdóttir

Today, in this reprisal episode, Vera interviews a mentor and colleague – Esther Helga Gudmundsdottir.

Esther is a pioneer in the field of food addiction treatment. She opened one of the first food addiction treatment programs in the world, MFM. The MFM program in Iceland has treated approximately 3000 Icelanders. Esther’s program gives them hope and the tools to achieve long-term recovery and is based on the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Esther is the founder of INFACT, an international training program for any type of professional willing to learn about food addiction and how to help those suffering from it, and Executive Director and Chair of the Food Addiction Institute, an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to support the healing of all food addicts.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • Esther’s personal and professional journey
  • A message of Hope
  • The Food Addiction Institute
  • MFM/Food Addiction Counseling Center
  • The International Food Addiction Counselor Training (INFACT) program
  • The components of Food Addiction Treatment that Esther feels are essential
  • What Esther has had to change in how she treats Food Addiction
  • What are Esther’s unique contributions to the Food Addiction Field
  • What’s next for Esther
  • Our Signature Question

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 94: Dr. Cali Estes

Dr. Cali Estes

Today, Vera and Molly interview Dr. Cali Estes, an interactive, solution-focused Positive Psychologist, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. She is a best-Selling Author and a highly sought-after Celebrity Coach, Counselor, Life Coach, Transformational Coach, and Wellness Guru that blends talk therapy with forward and positive change to assist her clients in unlocking their true potential. She offers a unique service of combining holistic modalities with talk therapy that gets to the Root Cause of the issues you are experiencing and helps you simply “Unpause Your Life”.

Dr. Estes has over 25 years of experience working with clients that want to ‘UnPause their life and Unpack their Backpack’ to combat issues and behaviors that keep you ‘stuck’ in life and limit your goals and dreams in both your career and personal life.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • Personal/Professional Journey
  • Harm Reduction
  • Client programming
  • Training Coaches
  • The Disease Model
  • Coach vs Counselor
  • Working with Celebrities
  • What it’s like working with Dr. Estes
  • Coaches, Sober Companions, and Ethics
  • Dieting and Food Addiction
  • Meeting Clients where they are
  • Aftercare services
  • What’s Next
  • Signature Question

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 93: Anne Poirer

Anne Poirer

Today we have guest Anne Poirier who talks to Molly and I about how to become body joyful. Anne overcame her own eating, food, weight, and body image challenges. And, drawing upon close to 4 decades of experience, she wrote the book The Body Joyful to share her highly personal and life-changing journey. Furthermore, Anne is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, Body Confidence Coach, and Eating Disorder Specialist

Anne is the leader of the Body Joyful Revolution, a non-diet, weight inclusive community for women who want to feel more comfortable and confident in their bodies and selves. Listen and learn how a simple shift of perspective around our thoughts and beliefs leads to completely different behaviors and outcomes. Also, you can choose to think differently about yourself. Our bodies are amazing vessels we get to experience our lives in, and they’re not a measure of our worth.

Anne’s mission is to support, encourage and inspire women of all sizes, shapes and to say ‘no to diets’, ‘reject society’s thin ideal’ and heal from diet culture. Her book the Body Joyful provides insights and strategies and is a roadmap to help you shift the way you think, act, and live. Inspiring and empowering, this relatable story offers the reader permission to find self-worth, hope, healing, and transformation, regardless of weight, size or shape.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • Why Body Neutrality rather than Body Positivity and how can the Body Positivity movement be harmful?
  • The Steps to Body Neutrality
  • How do we break free from diet culture
  • Some coping strategies/tools and/or actionable steps you teach around emotional eating, stress eating? (Self-Care practices?)
  • Her thoughts on the scale.
  • How can we clean up our social media
  • Some actionable things anyone can start doing today to work on their body image. Body Joyful Revolution

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 92: Dr. Bret Sher

Dr. Bret Sher

Dr. Bret Scher is a board-certified cardiologist and lipidologist practicing in San Diego and licensed to practice in seven states.

Dr. Scher’s main focus is on preventing and reversing heart disease naturally rather than putting patients on medication and performing surgery. When he started his own preventative wellness center he was introduced to the whole low-carb world. Being a bit skeptical at first, he was soon convinced by the benefits of a low-carb diet.

In Dr. Scher’s many patients suffering from heart disease, he found that there was a big overlap with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance. It was all very interrelated. When he started treating his patients who suffered from heart disease with a low-carb diet, he could quickly see signs of improvements or even full reversal in all of these diseases.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • The Personal
  • The Traditional approach and what you actually do differently now
  • The medications and lifestyle changes
  • The Lifestyle Approach
  • Low carb / Keto diet
  • Food Addiction
  • Intermittent Fasting
  • Advocacy and Education
  • Medical community response to the low carb approach
  • Higher Satiety Eating Plan

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 91:  Dr. Ben Bikman

Dr. Ben Bikman

Dr. Bikman’s research focus is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that mediate the disruption that causes and accompanies metabolic disorders, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and dementia. Driven by his academic training (Ph.D. in Bioenergetics and postdoctoral fellowship with the Duke-National University of Singapore in metabolic disorders), he is currently exploring the contrasting roles of insulin and ketones as key drivers of metabolic function. He frequently publishes his research in peer-reviewed journals and presents at international science meetings.

Dr. Bikman’s lab employs numerous pharmacological and genetic tools to better understand the origins and consequences of ceramide accumulation on various factors related to metabolic function, including signal transduction, substrate utilization, and energy expenditure.

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • The personal/professional journey
  • The Fat Cell & The Role of Insulin
  • Free Fatty Acids & Fatty Liver Disease
  • Weight Gain
  • The China Study
  • Insulin Resistance
  • Cutting Carbs, Prioritizing Protein, and not Fearing Fat
  • Fasting, Ketones vs Glucose
  • Food Addiction
  • What’s next?
  • Signature Question

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 90:  Dr Vera Tarman

Dr Vera TarmanSince our Vera needs no introduction we would like to take this opportunity to let you know of a few other ways YOU can receive support around food addiction.

Another incredible opportunity for a community and ongoing support is the 3-week course Dr. Vera Tarman is teaching on Sugar and Food addiction. The next enrollment starts September 26th – October 3rd. The course costs $167 US and the program is made up of 2 essential components: Modules and Lessons partnered with an Ongoing Support Group. Your own new recovery community led by the three of us!!

In This Episode, you Will Learn:

  • Why your self-destructive behaviors around food are not your fault.
  • How specific foods are engineered to hijack your brain chemistry.
  • The role of hormones and neurotransmitters in creating and perpetuating cravings and urges around food.
  • How “wanting,” “knowing,” and “doing” are controlled in the brain and how to make this work to your benefit.
  • The differences between food addiction and various eating disorders and why this matters for diagnosis and treatment.
  • The different stages of food addiction and which treatment approaches are best for each.
  • The critical importance of social support in recovery from food addiction – why treatment must go beyond just the food.
  • How to create a recovery plan that’s realistic, enjoyable, and sustainable, so you can achieve food freedom and reclaim your life.
  • There is hope: no matter how far gone you feel, no matter how alone or out of control, you can recover from sugar and food addiction.

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 89: Dr. Shabnam Das Kar, MD, FMNM

Dr. Shabnam Das Kar, MD, FMNM

Dr. Shabnam Das Kar MD, FMNM is a doctor, a specialist in Functional and Metabolic Medicine and an international speaker. Before transitioning into Functional Medicine she was practicing as an Obstetrician Gynaecologist for more than 20 years in Mumbai. She lives in Calgary, Canada, and Mumbai, India.

In this Episode:

  • Dr. Kar’s personal and professional journey
  • Bioidentical hormones
  • Vitamin & Mineral Deficiency and Therapeutic Supplementation
  • Protein & Fats
  • Ketones & Glucose
  • Fasting & Time Restricted Eating (TRE)
  • What to expect when working with Dr. Kar
  • Sugar & Mood
  • What’s next?
  • Signature Question

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 88: Dr. David Wiss, Ph.D.

Dr. David Wiss, Ph.D.

Dr. David Wiss, Ph.D., RDN is the founder of Nutrition in Recovery and Wise Mind Nutrition, a group practice in Los Angeles specializing in substance use disorders, eating disorders, body image, mental health, and general wellness. Mr. Wiss has contributed numerous articles to peer-reviewed journals and book chapters on his various topics of expertise, including nutrition for substance use disorder, food addiction, and eating disorders. He has spoken at dozens of academic conferences on these topics and his dissertation describes links between early life adversity and mental health in adulthood. Mr. Wiss is passionate about helping people achieve long-term recovery.

In this Episode:

  • What Trauma-Informed Nutrition is
  • Different types of trauma
  • ACES & Food Selection
  • Whether or not weight gain is a protective measure
  • Interventions for Food Addiction or Disordered Eating that are helpful or harmful
  • Events, Effects, and Experiences
  • How trauma alters the brain
  • Responses to presenting Food Addiction research to Eating Disorder professionals
  • Whether or not trauma may be the bridge for the Food Addiction and Eating Disorder camps

Food Junkies Podcast Episode 87: Dr. Sandy Van, MD

Dr. Sandy Van is a licensed medical doctor in Family Medicine and diplomat of the American Board of Obesity Medicine. She is the founder and medical director of Haven Weight Management, a virtual medical clinic focused on obesity care. Additionally, she co-founded 3 Sails, a social learning program for mental resiliency in weight management, and is a staff physician at MEDCAN, an Executive Health Clinic. She dedicates her practice to helping individuals achieve sustainable weight loss with the use of psychotherapy tools and medical management.

Dr. Van offers a unique voice for the medical community regarding behavioral treatment for obesity. Her professional initiatives have included speaking engagements regarding the application of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for weight loss and providing consultation to healthcare practitioners. She is also a frequently invited media guest on national television and radio. Her mission is to evolve the field of behavioral weight management and effect lasting change in the many individuals who struggle with weight.

In this Episode:

  • Dr. Van’s personal/professional path to bariatric medicine
  • The psychological & behavioral aspects of obesity medicine
  • Dr. Van’s hybrid program
  • Different phenotypes for eating behavior
  • Weight bias/weight stigma
  • Precision Nutrition
  • Volume eating
  • Obesity medicine guidelines
  • Post-surgery interventions
  • CBT in the medical setting
  • How to support the concept of food addiction acceptance in the medical community
  • Leading promise of obesity medicine
  • What’s next
  • Signature Question

Addictions Unplugged, The Power Is Ours