Decoding the Brain's Role in Weight Gain: A Paradigm Shift

[00:00:00] What if I told you that everything you thought you knew about weight loss was wrong, or most likely? You see, I understand as a personal trainer a lot about weight loss, and I've helped people lose weight. I've also had my weight go up and down for years and had to manage that. And I know that you can go to a thousand different channels or more on YouTube and find all kinds of weight loss secrets.

But guys, I promise I'm not going to blow smoke up your skirt today. I sat down with Dr. Jason Stanley, who has studied obesity for more than 40 years. And I was shocked. He told me things I never heard before. He suggested that obesity comes from a totally different place than I've ever even thought about it being possible.

We're going to talk a lot of neuroscience. We're going to talk some biology. We're going to talk a whole lot of science. So if you need to like pause, cause there's going to be a lot for you to process today. In this episode of the fallible man podcast, I invite you to listen for a little while, pause, think about it, come back [00:01:00] because there is a lot guys.

I'm not going to lie. I got 90 minutes, 90 solid minutes for you guys. Now, if you like to skip over the get to know you section of just fun, getting to know Dr. Stanley, there's timestamps down in the description of the show notes, whatever platform you're on. But guys, lace it up because I promise Dr.

Stanley is going to share things with you that you've probably never heard in your life about why you may struggle with your weight going up and down and keeping off that weight. Check out this thought from Dr. Stanley and let's get into it. Weight loss is a symptom and, uh, don't beat yourself up. It's not your fault.

It's something that's hardwired into your brain. And so if you're, if you can't beat this monster, don't beat yourself up. It's not your fault. It's just understand and believe it, that it is hardwired and you're not flawed. You're not somehow [00:02:00] bad or wrong or immoral or any of the things that comes with the condemnation of being even morbidly obese.

Now, look, let's be fair and honest here. Some people are slovenly. Some people do just use it as an excuse. But if you have tried and worked hard and actually lost the weight and gained it back, that's That was not your fault. Here's the million dollar question. How do men like us reach our full potential?

Growing to the men we dream of becoming while taking care of our responsibilities, working, living, being good husbands, fathers, and still take care of ourselves. Well, that's the big question. And in this podcast, we'll help you with those answers and more. My name is Brent and welcome to the Fallible Man podcast.

Welcome to the Fallible Man podcast. You're home for all things, man, husband and father. Big shout out to Fallible Nation. Those are our long time listeners, and we'd love to have you be a part of that. A warm welcome to our first time listeners. Hey, there's a lot out there fighting for your attention these days.

So thanks for checking us out. We really do appreciate you giving us a chance and we hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to connect with me [00:03:00] at the Fallible Man on Instagram or any other social media. Let me know, tell me what you thought of the show. I'd love to hear your opinion. And if you really enjoy it, share it with a friend, somebody who needed to hear the show or leave us review on app podcast that helps us reach more people.

My name is Brent and today, my special guest is Jason Stanley. Jason, welcome to the fallow man podcast. Thank you so much, Brett. Glad to be here. Jason, we're going to start out nice and light today. How's your trivia skills for, Oh, good. Technically, technically they're piss poor. One of these days I'm going to be like, someone's going to jump on and be like, I'm the trivia master.

I'm like, which is the highest grossing Broadway show of all time. Is it a lion King B wicked C kinky boots D Hamilton or E Phantom of the Opera Phantom of the Opera. Okay. Now guys, you know, the rules don't cheat. Don't jump ahead. Don't look it up, make your guess. And for [00:04:00] God's sake, don't write it down.

If you're driving, that's a really dumb idea. Now, Jason, I don't do big introductions because that just confuses people and turns them off today in this moment. Who is Jason Stanley in your own words? Oh, golly. I'm Bradfield guy. Um, was, uh, uh, As we just said a minute ago, I, I'm old, I'm 74 years old, and I still don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up.

But in this moment right now, I am deeply involved in a lifelong pursuit. Uh, that's been kind of a hopscotch thing, but I'm, I'm researching obesity and running a clinical trial on that. So I guess if I had to put a title, although I don't deserve it educationally, it would be that I'm a, um. a researcher, a research scientist.

And I'm researching this from a social science perspective that has bled [00:05:00] into the biological sciences. But I'm not a biologist, I'm not a medical doctor, in fact I'm not a medical anything. So, but I am a research scientist and that would be the number one thing that kind of identifies me today. I'm living in the Philippines, having a great time.

So you live in the Philippines? Yes, I do. Wow. Okay. So what led you there? Well, being a divorced man in, um, yeah, five years ago. And I had been married for 37 years. Wonderful woman, uh, just wound up. We just moved apart over the years. And, uh, I was in my late sixties, tried to date a few American women. And the scene had changed so radically that, um, I just didn't recognize it.

And so I won't go into the details, but it turned out I just felt, you know what, this [00:06:00] is not for me dating in America and I had the freedom. So I came over here and found. That yeah, the women here are much more traditional and I'm kind of a traditional guy. Like I said in the intro, I'm 74 years old. So I come, I was born in 1950, you know, and I was raised in the 50s on John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and that kind of stuff.

So that's, that's really in my DNA at this point. So I, I just couldn't date, but I like women. I want to be around women and, and, uh, but traditional. So that's why I'm in the Philippines. You know, there are a lot of men in the United States who are dating outside of the United States that aren't even close to your age, who have found the same issue, uh, dating American women.

I've been married for 23 years. I, I talked to my single friends and I can't imagine what even trying to date in this era. Uh, after 23 years of marriage, there's [00:07:00] such a jump just in that time alone. So on to more entertaining subjects, Batman and Superman. Oh, it's gotta be Superman. I know Batman is like the coolest and Superman is like, he's a dork, but let's face it.

If you could, if you could, if you really could fly, if you really could do the things that he could do, I don't care how cool you are, you know, uh, I, I have to go with Superman, you know, just thinking about what I would, what would I do if I had the choice, I'd be Superman, you know, invincible and, and immortal.

I'm not sure we can be friends. No, just kidding. My best friend's a Superman guy. We have a lot of. Back and forth because I'm a Batman guy. So he's too cool. He's just rich, filthy, filthy, rich and smart. So there is that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what it is, but in the superhero genre, but it's, it's, [00:08:00] you know, aliens are like, you know, freak accidents to give them superpowers are rich guys, that seems to be the options.

What's your favorite holiday movie? What does that say about you? Oh, it would have to be white Christmas. And what's that say about me? It's just the era that I grew up in. You know, I subscribe to those family values, which is a little odd. I was raised in a solid Democrat home, liberal forest day. Uh, and today it's, it's.

absolutely centrist. But, uh, yeah, so white Christmas is kind of the family values that, uh, that I grew up on. So that would be why, you know, I love watching white Christmas. I've got a nine year old and 12 year old and they love what some movie too. So it's just a great movie. But yeah, I like it. I don't like many holiday movies.

But that was pretty up there. I haven't watched that most of my [00:09:00] life. Now the super important question is cereal, soup, cereal, or soup. Is that the question? Is cereal actually just soup? Oh, golly. Now we're really getting into some fun stuff. No cereal. You're talking about breakfast cereal, right? Yeah.

Alright, uh, , can I, can I say breakfast cereal is just poison ? Yes, you can. . Okay. Cereal is poison . It's fair enough. , it's poison, so No, no, it's not soup. Soup can be, uh, nutritional and healthy cereal and I don't care if you go from oatmeal to Cheerio. So, so the boundary is, is not nutritional. It's absolutely, I'm sure there's some nutrition somewhere in there.

I'm not sure there is, but well, you know, if you, if you get out, you know, say, okay, we're going to do oatmeal. We're going to call that cereal. There's some good in there, but you know, [00:10:00] really it's, it's still poison in my, in my humble opinion. I like it. That's a good answer. What purchase of a hundred dollars or less have you made in the last year?

That's had the most significant impact on your life. The microphone I'm speaking on. Yeah. Which model is that? I don't know. You don't know? No. I'm a nerd. You don't have to look it up. It's fine.

It's a Samsung. Okay. Q something. Q2 something. Yep. I know exactly which one that is. Okay. It's allowing me to do this. It's allowing me to do this. That's why I chose that. There are about two microphone quality microphones in that range and it's the samsung one and there's one made made by audio tech And they both cost the same.

So yeah right at 100 bucks. Yeah, right That that's the that's the starter mic for anybody who wants to do this kind of stuff for sure you get a decent [00:11:00] sound biggest personal pet peeve

biggest personal

god, I don't know that I have one I, I'm sorry, the, the, for the audience, I'm stumped. . Oh, okay. I, I've got one. Yeah. It just came to me. Um, as I mentioned, I'm in the Philippines and the Philippines has its own culture as you go anywhere in the world. There's, they have their own culture and just drives me batty is when I'm talking to an American or any Westerner Canadian, whatever, and they start ragging.

On the Philippine culture, especially the driving. Oh my God. And they're just carry on and on and on about how there are no, the people don't drive right and they drive wrong. And then this, well, hang on this. I live in a little village [00:12:00] right outside of Duma Getty. Do mcg Getti is, uh, the, basically like the county seat for the island.

It's a good size island. There's, I don't know what the population is, but there's like three major hospitals, four or five universities and a half a dozen, uh, colleges here. So that gives you a sense for the size of the town. Yeah. It's a good size town. Yeah, it is pretty good size. And you know, you have morning rush, hour, evening, night, rush hour, all the things you'd have.

Oh, but except there's not a single traffic light. Hang on, there's not a single stop sign in the entire city, and traffic works. It just works, but everybody whines and complains and carries on as if they had some God given right, because they're the right way of doing it. Shut up. We, we can't even agree from, you know, uh, first world nations about what side of the street to drive on.

So, you know, what do we know? Right, exactly. Right. I found when [00:13:00] you start dealing with different cultures, do you get anybody outside of. Let me rephrase that. You get Westerners journaling outside of their comfort culture. And the assumption is everybody else is wrong. That's, that's why people don't like us as tourists.

It's just fact. What is the worst song ever made? The worst song, the worst song that actually made it big was Jeremiah was a bullfrog, the original or the remake of the original. I go, I go back far enough. What are they talking about?

Oh, I love questions like this because it's just so personal, right? Yeah. My, my brain automatically goes to don't worry. Be happy. Okay. Just, just for the earwig value. Like once it's there, you're stuck with it. It sure is. [00:14:00] Jeremiah was bullfrog was the vocal was impressive. Yeah. The song is pointless for sure.

Yeah. All right. I love it guys. We've been getting to know Jason just a little bit, see who he is, what he's about and how he takes, and this part of the show, we're gonna dive into the obesity epidemic and why is the men's issue now, gentlemen, full disclaimer, I actually hate this subject because there's so much information out there.

But nobody's getting skinnier. We're all still a little too heavy or a lot too heavy in some cases. And there's a lot of conflicting opinions out there as to why this is. And honestly, like health institutions, I don't think want to fix the issue because it's a very profitable industry. Like it's a billion dollar industry a year to have us unhealthy.

But you know, there are those who think I'm a little bit of a conspiracist on things like that. Uh, but. I used to be a personal trainer [00:15:00] and I can talk calories in. I can talk calories out. I can talk all this stuff, but I've always had a little bit of extra weight. Even when I was eating really good, even, I mean, I dropped down, I lost 45 pounds to join the military when I was 20 and like, you could count my ribs, but I still have this little pudge down here on my belly.

My mom was like, you look sick. Like I was that gaunt to get down to that weight. Uh, cause I was always a big guy. So this has always been like kind of a. Weird and uncomfortable subject. And I think a lot of people feel that because there's just everywhere you look, right? There's a diet. There's a fad.

There's do this exercise. That's right. Jason, you've been researching obesity for 40 years and you're coming at it from a different angle, which is why we're having a conversation about this day. But before we dive into that, we talked a little bit before the camera started rolling. Why, what, what drove you to being willing to dig [00:16:00] 40 years of your life into looking into this issue?

Well, I'm a returning student or excuse me. I was a returning student. I came out of the military. I dropped out of high school, joined the army and spent my years in the army and, uh, came home from Vietnam and wanted to go to college. Excuse me. And I had the, uh, the GI Bill. So I did not come from a. wrong side of the track.

So there was no money. I was, I was absolutely thrilled to be able to go to college. So there I was in school and, and, uh, had to do a term paper. I was in my third year of college, had to do a term paper. It was the first one I'd ever done. And it just scared to be Jesus out of me. So I talked to my professor, I was taking anthropology and ask her if I could talk to people in the local community and, and do an anthropology field research.

And she says, sure. I've been reading about medical anthropology. At the time, so I said, okay, well, [00:17:00] I'm going to one of the articles was a medical anthropologist who had hypothesized. You know, they came up with this guess that people were overweight because they continued to eat the same heavy diet when they moved into the city that they had back on the farm.

So I wrote it up and got it okayed by my professor, went out and talked to women. What I actually advertised, and this was up in Northern California, I advertised for obese women to talk to me and give me their life story. Well, I got an overwhelming response and when I started talking to him, the third person in just blew the whole thing apart.

First of all, she was a macro bio, a macro biotic vegetarian. I had no idea what that was, but I knew her parents weren't. And, Uh, I started talking to her and she had this, I asked her about her father's diet. Well, I gotta tell you, I haven't heard a young woman swear so much. Back then, this is in 1979, [00:18:00] that was unusual.

And so she just cussed up a blue streak about what kind of a horrible man this guy was. And I won't, you know, tell you what all she said, but it was something else. So here it was very clear that there was a childhood problem. And it wasn't diet related. So I then changed up my whole thing and started asking the women.

Now I still had, uh, well, at that point, about 20 something more women. I wound up getting 54 women in this program by the time I finished and said, well, tell me about your childhood. Tell me about your childhood. And it turned out I had a 100% situation where they were all had, uh, consolation or solace or joy or at least acceptance around eating.

So it, it came to me at that time. Well, this is different than anything I've ever heard. This is a childhood phenomenon. It's patterned [00:19:00] in childhood. And as a social scientist, that made perfectly good sense to me. Patterned in childhood, you would have a compulsive behavior. As an adult, but I went into, uh, from, I was in the anthropology department and went over to the psych department, you know, in the college and said, Hey, what can we do about here?

Because I think we need to repattern the subconscious mind. And they basically laughed at me, said, well, no, when, when you finish adolescence, the brain is a brick, there's no changing the brain. It's done. So I put it away and that was in 1980. It moved fast forward about 20 years and things are changing.

People are talking about reparenting yourself and talking about changing your subconscious and, you know, doing different things. And there was a lot of forgiveness work going on. forgiving your past, forgiving your parents, et cetera. So, uh, I got a hair and decided, Hey, I will, let's put this together. And I did a lot of work with, with [00:20:00] forgiveness work and the process of forgiving.

And, uh, uh, you know, this makes sense. And I was in a church at the time and we did a lot of groups with forgiveness work and it actually worked. People changed their lives. So I said, okay, I can put this into the obesity thing. Repatterning this subconscious mind. And, um, so I wrote the books, 250 pages. It was a real book.

And then did the clinical trial. What an idiot. You know, because it failed. It didn't work. It absolutely did not work. Uh, but yeah, what got me started back in the day, Was that I found against all, all of my hypotheses didn't work about the diet and lifestyle and all. It just none of that worked. It was all tied to childhood since then.

I've interviewed over a thousand people with these long depth. Lifetime interviews, and I can tell you without any [00:21:00] feelings of, uh, that's not quite. No, it's true. It's absolutely true. 100 percent of the people. who I have interviewed have this situation. Now, it's not stress. It's real easy to think, Oh, they have a stressed childhood.

No, it isn't. About half of the people who are obese had a highly stressed childhood. And that's not my research. That's other research that we can point to. Uh, that's, then that's well, well known and well documented. But that means about a half of the people had a normal, healthy, happy childhood. But what happens is everybody, everybody has this situation where while they're eating, they are accepted.

And it can be kind of a semi negative. So it doesn't have to be like the Mexican American family. I'm thinking of a particular person in my research right now. She was the middle of seven kids and come home from school. Everything was fun and games and joy at the table. Now, before that, she was at school and, and you know, what school is for a seven year old.

It's like, yeah, [00:22:00] don't call on me, please. Don't call on the teacher. Cause I don't, you know, I'd be nervous and scared. And then after dinner, it was chores and cleaning up and homework, etc. So dinner time for her was the pinnacle of joy. The whole family came together and they just had a great time. That's on one end of the spectrum, but it can be the other end.

And we've got people who say their parents were dictators. And you had to clean that plate. If you didn't eat everything, you would sit there with those lima beans for three hours until you ate that last lima bean, or you'd even get hit. Now that's the negative. But if you say, okay. I'll eat those lima beans and what happens to you?

Well, you get your little head rubbed and oh What a good little eater. You're my little boy and big smiles and uh, you know, or even if just It's not even that nice. It's okay. You can go now So you have done what your parents wanted you to do and you're accepted now That's kind of [00:23:00] extreme and it's usually some somewhere in between those two but always always always it's a situation where Consistent it has to be consistent You have this acceptance.

Most often in America, it's love, but you have this acceptance as a child. Now, if you go back into early childhood development, if we don't get acceptance, we are neurotic as a bug for the rest of our life. Children who are raised by, say, narcissist mothers, they have a lot of trouble because That fear of not being accepted as a child is huge.

You know, if you're three years old and you're not accepted by your parents, you're going to die. And that's kind of built, wired into us. So that's what has kept me. And, and that, that early thing, I knew I was onto something. I just knew it. And everybody I talked to, uh, I got awards for it at the university.

But I couldn't do anything with it. And, uh, so now [00:24:00] I'm, I'm having an introspective moment here. Like just plain meal times through with my kids in my head. It was like, am I doing this to my kids? So, okay. So, so far guys, if you're not thinking about how you're handling meal time, already in this conversation, you're, you're missing something.

Just, just saying, go back and listen to that last segment again. Uh, so let me speak on that from your real quick minute, because I'm, you're talking to the dads. Now we're talking to the dad. Okay, when I was a kid, I was born in 1950, so in 1955 years old sitting at the table. Not me particularly, but my generation.

We had to sit up straight at the table. We had to keep our elbows off the table. We had to eat with a fork the right way. You know, so rather than grabbing it like this, you had to hold it like that. You know, there was manners were required of my generation. Now, take a loving family that's wonderful and loving and dad's there and he's [00:25:00] talking to his kid and the kid's feeling seen and heard and it's joyful, but there's this little bit of stress that I have to act right.

And that counterbalances it. That's what you're looking for. Now, I'm just using manners as the example, but it could be anything. Tell me why you said that thing, that ugly thing, to your friend. What was going on? Why did you feel bad? So there's a little bit of tension, Expectations from dad and dads are really good at that while we're having this wonderful, joyful, loving meal.

Interesting. Terrifying. At the same time, I'm a Southern boy. I grew up in a Southern family. Like community was food. The kitchen was where the social hub of the entire house was. Uh, everything from regular meals to like, God forbid, like people coming over big family gathers and stuff. And as, as a [00:26:00] Southern kid, I mean, we're talking like we had a family Christmas one year with my aunts and their families over, so there were like 18, 20 people in the house, we baked 17 pies for that weekend, like there was just a conveyor belt in the kitchen of all of us doing different parts of the various pies we were making.

Uh, so I, I grew up with, it took us years to stop frying everything, but it was like, I was eight or nine before we started doing anything other than frying food or grilling it. Uh, we, we moved. That's the, that's the only reason that changed. We moved from the South to the Northwest. The first time I saw broiled fish or baked chicken, I looked at my mom.

I'm like, what's wrong with it. There was no fried skin over. Right. It was like, I don't even know what that is. That's not food. Um, so I've, I've like, I am a clean, I know it is something I don't want to pass on to my kids. So, [00:27:00] um, I've been interested waiting for this conversation since you and I started talking about it.

It's like, ah, yes, I need to learn. So statistically 70 percent of Americans are overweight. Right. And 40 percent are a beast. Consider it. Yes. And that's a thin line. I don't actually subscribe to the BMI chart because I know how that came into existence. I know the backstory of that. So I don't buy that crap with the doctor.

Um, like I said, I dropped down to 200 pounds to join the military at 20 years old. I looked like a walking skeleton. Like I looked like one of those, you know, starving kids in Africa or something. It was weird. My body was just not made to be that petite, uh, my frame. Bye. I definitely carry more weight than I should now.

So we have this problem and we've been talking about this. This is why it bothers me. So there's so much information out there. There's so many people selling this diet, selling this fad, selling this. And [00:28:00] like I said, I've, I've talked calories in versus calories out and good calories versus bad calories with clients in the gym.

All that talking, the conversation is not changing. The outcome is not changing. We're getting heavier if anything. So help us out just in this moment. Is there anything you want to debunk that's just out there right now as a normal? We can start with the first, the, the whole idea of weight loss. That's that's the first thing we've got to just get to wrap our heads around.

First of all, weight. Extra weight is a symptom and we'll get to what is the symptom of in a minute, but understand that's a symptom. And when you go on a diet, it doesn't matter what the diet is. It doesn't matter if it's medication. They're going to give you ozempic or something or if you go on a One year fast, or if you go under doctor's orders, or you just do a home baked diet, or you do weight It [00:29:00] doesn't matter how you lose the weight, including bariatric surgery.

You have, you've only been treating the symptom. You haven't touched the The cause. So that's the first thing we've got to get our heads around. Forget losing weight right now. We've got to heal the problem. If we don't heal the problem, then the weight will always come back. How much? Well, if you go and get into addiction, by the way, it's not addictive.

Food is not addictive. Sugar is but food is not. But if you go and talk to addictive counselors, they'll say yeah when we're when things are rolling pretty good We in cocaine we've got a 30 Success rate of five years now go and check out your your weight Loss and gain and regain you have a hundred people who lose that first 10 or 15 or 20 pounds Come back in 18 months not five years, but 18 months 3 percent [00:30:00] have kept the weight off.

97 percent failure rate. That says it's 10 times stronger in a shorter period of time than cocaine addiction. It's not addiction. It's compulsion. And then we have to look at what is compulsive behaviors. See, and how does that get created and how does that work? Now back to the addiction thing when you talk to addiction counselors again, or you can see it on their on their websites They will say that compulsive behavior is the end stage So along the way, someone who's addicted, whatever the substance or behavior is, they can get help.

They can get social help. They can get, uh, uh, counseling. They can get all these kinds of things and control the addiction long enough to overcome it. All the way up until the very end stage. And that's what we see, you know, in our mind's eye when we say, Oh, he's a crazed addict. You know, he's out there running in the streets.

Well, that's compulsive behavior. Well, [00:31:00] overeating is the same power because there's an underlying issue. And it's a physiological issue. It's not a mental issue. It's a physiological issue, but it is in the brain. Okay. So, and guys, this is exactly why we're having this conversation. Jason's coming at this from a whole different perspective.

His research has shown him that the current way we're doing things or the way we've been trying to do things is not ever been successful, which is why I wanted to talk to him about this. You said obesity is a men's issue. Now I can look around most men's groups or churches and go, definitely. Right.

Because most of us, once we pass 30 are definitely carrying around a little more weight, if not a lot more weight than we should, but I don't know that that's what you're talking about. [00:32:00] So why, why do you say it's a men's issue? Well, the way in America where we have pretty good stats. A little over 50%, like 51 and a half percent of the obese population is male.

Um, okay, so that doesn't make it a men's issue, but in my research and in my program and in every other program that I've ever felt dealt with, over 90% of the people who go in and actually lose the weight or come back the second, third time are women, men don't participate. That's what makes it a men's issue is we don't go to the diets.

We don't get involved. We don't do that. My own personal research. I'm doing, uh, I'm in, uh, just past two years in this current, uh, research study, I've got over 100 people, four men. All the rest of them are women who have volunteered to be research, uh, participants. And men don't do it. Now, [00:33:00] if I can go through a little quick aside here, think about how women grieve and how men grieve, you lose somebody in the family, women will sit face to face and they'll chat and they'll have a glass of wine.

They just talk and talk and talk and talk. Men turn out and face, you'll stand there at the, in the, in the backyard or at the front yard, looking out the banister over the, and you're talking to the guy who's standing shoulder to shoulder to you. You don't turn and face him when we face each other. It's a little too intimate.

It's almost a little threatening and you know, we can get into a dominance issue and all that. When we're grieving, we're really raw. We face out. Now, that gives you an insight as to how men deal with, uh, things that are, could be embarrassing, things that could be challenging, things where they have to become vulnerable.

And let's face it, most weight programs are run by women, and they're the modern American woman, and they want you to go ahead and cry, [00:34:00] but if you do, they're going to disrespect you because you're no longer a real man in their eye. It's, it's a catch 22. So that's why I call it a men's issue. Men need to find a way to get out of the, that trap.

Show up. And I say men need to find a way there that we need, we need, I need to develop a way to bring this to men.

So we, we just don't show up. We're like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, whatever. Or I'm embarrassed by it and I'm not going to talk about it. Or literally a lot of guys, uh, want to carry an extra 30 pounds because it makes you bulk up and feel a little stronger, a little, a little bigger, a little more masculine, you know, it's all fat, but it, it, you're bigger.

And so there is that too, you know, that whole frontal thread gesture. I was going to say, you're, you're, you're not bigger in the right places though. Right? No, you're not. [00:35:00] Um, you know, it's funny cause there is There is basis for bigger is stronger. Uh, if you, if you live in the gym world, like I frequently do, you won't find skinny guys with big bench presses.

It doesn't happen. Uh, even carrying the extra fat will actually increase your bench. Now, guys, listen, that's not a good reason. Really? Like no one gives a crap. And by the time you're 40, by the time you're 60. No one gives a crap what your bench was. It's not a good reason to carry the extra weight, which is unhealthy for you.

Just FYI, not encouraging that, but there is that correspondence to even if it's fat, there is some extra strength that comes with being bigger. So I can see kind of the, but like, I, I. You know, I, I wish my belly was not as big, [00:36:00] right? I I've got fairly broad shoulders. I'm a pretty big guy, but I wish, you know, when I turned from the side view, it was like, no, squeeze that in a little bit.

Uh, so I'm, I definitely think, I think that's a big issue for a lot of things. It's getting men to show up and being open to. doing something different or something uncomfortable. Now, I said I'm an emotional eater and from what I was reading in your research, there's some correlation to what you're doing in emotional eating for people who don't understand what we're talking about.

Can you explain emotional eating? Sure, absolutely. People will call it either emotional eating or sometimes they'll call it stress eating. And, uh, in, in just in, in the regular day to day conversation, let's leave my research aside for a second. What happens is people get stressed and, uh, they will [00:37:00] overeat.

So when emotional, they eat. And you'll also hear people talk about comfort foods. So when they're emotional, they'll eat a comfort food, and it's a relaxing thing that helps them feel comfortable. Now, uh, let's take the other side of that for just a second. There are people when stressed, and you probably know somebody like this, who when they're stressed, they lose their appetite.

They can't eat. Now let's talk about the stress for a second. Let's say you've got somebody who's a real emotional stress eater, and they get into a wreck, maybe even a bad wreck, and the car goes off on the, you know, towed off, and they're in a cab on the way home. Along the way home, they'll stop and get two double cheeseburgers and go home and eat them because they're so stressed out.

They're emotionally just, ah, so they're eating. But then, tomorrow, they're not back at it. That's crisis or peak stress. That doesn't make someone obese or even really heavy. Thank you. But somebody goes through an ugly divorce. [00:38:00] That's a year long of this deep grinding, just grinding stress. It doesn't have to be high level.

It's just there and always there, and it's kind of grinding. It wears you down. That's the kind of stress Where emotional people, people who are emotional eaters, gain a lot of weight. It's also the kind of stress where the person who is emotional non eater, when they're emotional, they lose weight because they lose their appetite.

And then there's the third type, and that's the person who is that person we all love to hate. They pretty much eat anything, or they look like they eat anything, and they just, they're what we call a natural eater. Now that, give me just a second on this one because what happens there, think of, think of Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner if you're American, and everybody is almost a contest to say how much I ate.

You know, and after dinner you're, you're, you're doing, Oh, I had three pieces of pumpkin pie, while we're sipping our [00:39:00] eggnog, which is just nothing but a glass full of calories, right? I mean, it's, and we're all whining or bragging either way. Watch what happens the next day. Let's say it's a big family. That group of people that showed up for you when you're making those 17 pies.

And watch what they're doing. Now the thin people come lunchtime, and if everybody's eating together, and say the couple of the ladies, uh, got together and made, you know, turkey sandwiches and all that stuff. So everybody's eating the same thing. But the thin people have only eaten half their sandwich.

They pushed it away. Where all the heavy people, ate it all and the chips and munching off the chips of the guy next door. And you say, well, why didn't you like the sandwich? Wasn't it good? Oh, it was delicious. I'm just too full. I'm full because they overate last night or yesterday. And now their body, they're listening to the signals.

They haven't, don't have decades of overriding, they're listening to those [00:40:00] signals and they're just full. They're uncomfortably full, so they'll stop. They may even do that for two or three meals in a row to kind of make up for having over eaten so much at that celebration. Now we all overeat in celebration times and we all eat when we're not hungry.

A popsicle at the beach with our kids. You know, I'm not hungry, but hey, I'll have a popsicle with the kids because this is fun. But then that same person will tend to push away a little bit, just a couple of bites early at dinner time. So that's the emotional eater. To start off with that is the emotional eater that when stressed, they eat to feel comfortable.

Now when we dig into this, it's actually to feel safe. But for just our regular conversation is safety is not the issue. And our regular conversation is comfort. I just feel more comfortable while I'm eating. I can kind of relax and let go and breathe out kind of that sigh of relief when I'm getting my bowl of spaghetti.

Does that [00:41:00] answer your question? Yeah. Yeah. It's a positive feeling. Like I said, I, I grew up in, in a family culture where food is, food is the social hub. It's where we talk, it's where we play, uh, growing up, even, even as adults, we'd go back to my parents house and for holidays and stuff. Right. Well, we'd start and have big family breakfast and then we'd sit around the table all day and play cards and play dominoes.

And drink coffee and then switch to iced tea. And we weren't doing a lot of munching, but like the around the table, that is where we all were. There was always food coming in and out, right? We weren't necessarily munching, but we might have a piece of pie part of the way between mill or whatever, right?

There was always something available. And this was the time when we are all connected. because that's where hospitality was. It's around food. And so there was always excessively large amounts of food around, [00:42:00] and it was always a positive thing because this is when we're together, this is, this is family to us, this is relaxation to us.

Uh, so yeah, I definitely, definitely get into the emotional eating. I also like to tease people that, you bod issue is All of us, dads are cheap and I actually ordered less food. If I think about it, like at a restaurant or if I'm making plenty of my food and I think my kids aren't going to eat their plates, I will try and play as often as I should.

I tell the guys like just play half the food you normally would because you're going to eat whatever your kids don't because you don't want to throw it away. Right. I can't count how many desserts and half or quarter plates I've eaten. Even when I'm stuffed. Yeah. Because we're out at a restaurant and it's like, I mean, restaurant prices in the U S have gotten ridiculous for [00:43:00] even, you know, media media, like Red Robin type restaurants, right?

Meaning ground restaurants. I'm like, I paid 25 bucks for that. And they're not reheating that. I guarantee, you know, that goes home. I'm either going to eat at home or eat it here. So I like to tease my wife. Like that's, that's what the dad bod came from. Yeah. Just, just cause I'm cheap. Yeah. Well, you nailed it there when you said, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Finishing off their plates. That's what it was like. Yeah. But when you said you would eat it either there or at home, see, that's, that's where the natural leader doesn't. The natural eater, uh, even if they take it home, they'll eat it the next day in lieu of something else. They don't eat it when they get it home and they don't snack on it.

And, uh, so it doesn't matter if you eat it there or take it home and then finish it off later on. Hey, there's some of that apple pie in there. I think I'll go have [00:44:00] that. That's, that's, you know, that's the emotional eater who's eating anyway, way past full. And you, you said it, you're so full. But you keep eating and see, the natural leader doesn't do that.

They're so full. They just stop, even though it's 25. Yeah. The money means something and they'll take the food home, but they won't eat it until they're hungry again. Now you said normal solutions fail for 97%. That's right. 18 months or less. That's, that's horrifying. Yes. It definitely explains why the diet industry is thriving.

Yes. It's, it's, I mean, it's just demoralizing to realize that, right? Now, I was looking at some of your quotes and said, you say obesity, it's not lazy or lack of discipline, exercise, metabolism, diet, food, addiction, hormones, bloat. They have an impact, but none of those are the root cause. [00:45:00] So all these things like this is, this is what the diet industry thrives around.

This is what we're told. It's like, Oh, you don't have enough discipline, right? The emotional leader. You, you don't have enough discipline to say no, uh, or you're just being lazy. You don't exercise enough. Your metabolism slow, insulin resistance. These are all the things we hear all the time, but you don't think this is the root cause, we're barking up the wrong tree entirely.

Entirely. Yes. Now let's be fair. Um, if somebody has been obese, significantly overweight, for 25 or 30 years and they heal. We're going to get to the healing, but they heal that all these other things come into play and they may keep you heavy. You'll still have to somehow lose the weight because weight loss or weight retention as a better term for it, weight retention is very complex once you've been overweight for a couple of decades.[00:46:00]

But all of those things are only feedback loops and input. They are not the root cause. Yes, the root cause is, you have to ask the question. You ask me, what is an emotional eater? But then the next question is, why are some people emotional eaters? Why are some people emotionally cannot eat? And why do some people, emotion has nothing to do with their eating?

the natural eater. So that's where we get into the into the real meat of we're trying to locate now because people there's a lot of information out there about emotional eating, but that's not the root cause. That's an intermediate thing. So that's in the middle. Oh, I'm an emotional eater. Fine. But why are you an emotional eater?

That's where my work comes in trying to Nail that and it's fairly complex. Do you guys uh, this may seem like i'm talking out of left field here But it it applies because i'm trying to [00:47:00] help people understand how this works Do you guys get into PTSD at veterans and that kind of thing? Have you talked about that much here?

Uh, I've talked about it. Some we've, uh, had a guy named Donald done on the show to talk specifically about that. He works with, he has a media production company for veterans and their families to give them a creative outlet. To express themselves and process things whether that's like he's actually just expanded.

He has a group that helps Uh writers now But he also like he runs a multi channel radio station for veterans the place nothing but veterans music Made by veterans with no deals. He helps them do podcasts stuff like that. So we talked about it some um With a couple different veterans i've worked with

Excellent. Um, most of us don't really understand [00:48:00] PTSD, so let's take a look at that from the outside, not the inside, what's going on in the brain, but the outside. When a person is triggered, There's always, they will go to a high, high, high level of anxiety, and often they will have a behavior, and that behavior is compulsive.

So I've mentioned the veterans. I'm personally a Vietnam vet, boots on the ground vet. Well, a lot of guys, and I picked that because it happened 50 years ago. So a lot of guys who have PTSD will, when they get triggered, whatever the trigger is, they will have a behavior. Maybe they start a fight, or they punch out their boss, or they climb on top of the roof with their shotgun and sit up there for 48 hours.

Now there's no chance that after 50 years they don't know that that's illogical. They know it's also dysfunctional. Their wife has left them, their kids won't talk to them, they've lost another job. But when triggered, they can't not, not do the behavior. So that's compulsive [00:49:00] behavior. And what I'm hypothesizing, and I have to say this very clearly, I am hypothesizing this childhood thing.

There's no data that supports my research at this point. But when we look at the, getting into the neural process of PTSD, what we see is, In the amygdala, which is a piece of the brain in the, call it the mammal, mammalian brain. Sorry, but I'm going to have to go a little technical here. Now, if I ask you this again, it's going to seem off, off base, but if I say, uh, are all of the organs of your digestion, the same organ, the same system, they're not the same organ system, but the stomach is not the same thing as the intestine, right?

Right. The esophagus or the mouth. These are all unique organs. Okay. I know it seems crazy, but the reason I say that is when I say, how many brains do you have? Everybody says one. [00:50:00] Absolutely not. You have three. You have three brains as unique in their function as your stomach is from its intestines and as the small intestine is from the large intestine.

So you have the top bulby thing that you see up on top with all the wrinkles in it. That's your cognitive brain. It has a bunch of pieces to it. But that's the cognitive thinking brain, thinking where language and sight is. Then down in the middle you have this mammalian brain that's purely emotional, and language is not part of that.

It does not understand language at all. Doesn't, Chinese, English, it doesn't care. It speaks no language and language, so all of the talk therapy won't touch that. Then you have the base brain, which is called the reptilian brain, and that's where it's purely responsive. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. That's that whole, what we typically call fight or flight thing.

So, they're unique. brains within [00:51:00] this structure. And, uh, when you get talk to brain guys, which I'm not, but you talk to them, they say, Oh, wait a minute. Hey, the eyeball is part of the brain. It's just external, but it is part of the brain. It's, it's, it's not as you it's so that gives you a sense of this thing.

Well, okay. Now I take you there because this middle brain, this middle part, that's called the limbic system. There are neurons in there in the, amygdala. You've got the hypothalamus, the amygdala, and a whole bunch of other little pieces. Well, in this one area, what happens is the you've got neurons, which are nerves, and we've all seen pictures of these little thready looking things with a bulb on the end, kind of like my, like my arm, you know, and it's just got the bulb and electricity shoots it down and a molecule jumps from one side to the other, and it soaks in, goes inside and goes on down and repeats, repeat, repeat.

Well, you don't have neurons for [00:52:00] a thought or a way of thinking. Your neurons are naive. They will take any kind of thought that comes through, except under certain circumstances. And what happens is that part of the neuron, think of it like the palm of your hand, it's just a smooth surface. And when that molecule lands on there, it's It won't go in unless a door is created for it.

So in the chemistry of your brain, it creates a little opening, and that goes in, and then it goes on, shoots on down, at the same time that little opening closes. And it gets the chemicals that create it gets sucked back inside that little tiny neuron and, uh, it closes up and it's waiting for the next thought.

So it's a naive, but when you have PTSD, which is this high stress situation, these little portals get welded in. It's called an [00:53:00] Amp R receptor for anybody who's real geeky. And what happens is the proteins, then you get little proteins around it and they hold it on and it's there permanently for life.

Back to our veteran who gets triggered. He knows he's been getting up on that roof for 50 years with a shotgun and he knows it's illogical. He knows it's crazy. He knows that it's going to cost him. He's going to lose another job. Because he doesn't show up for work for two days, but he can't not do it.

That's compulsion. My hypothesis is that the ability for the brain to create PTSD in the adult is a holdover from the natural ability for the brain to create this compulsive behavior. in childhood as a normal, natural, highly functional process of the brain. We're looking at it from the thing of, I'm overweight or obese.

Well, how can this compulsion be normal and healthy? [00:54:00] It's not. But if you go back to hunter gatherers, which we were for hundreds of thousands of years, if you were a compulsive hunter, that was a good thing. You get snowed in if you're in the northwest, and you got 15 feet of snow, but you're compulsive because you've been snowed in for six weeks, and you're going to burrow out and go hunt something.

Or if you're in the middle of the outback in Australia, where you have droughts, You're going to go on that run. You're going to go out there and go and go and go and go until you find a kangaroo to kill. And, because you're compulsive about it. There's no, oh, I'm tired. It doesn't matter if you're tired.

Your brain is making you do this thing. And so hunter gatherers populated the world. Because they had adult compulsions that were created during childhood. Well, mom, the Iroquois Indian told her little boy, Hey, you start shooting the mice because the mice come in and they fiddle and they poo on our food in the wintertime.

And you [00:55:00] know, I'm the medicine woman, so they're going to mess up my herbs. So in the next time he shoots a mouse, she hugs him and rubs his head and says, Oh, you're my great little hunter. Go tell your dad and everybody in the village tells him what a great guy he is when he's five years old. And this happens all of his childhood life and every other boy in that village.

So all the men are compulsive about their hunting. They have to get out and hunt. Now, if they're not stressed, that compulsion isn't particularly activated. That's the emotional part. But if they're snowed in or there's a drought, depending on where they are, now you're getting a little stressed. My kids haven't eaten in a week.

What's going on here? I'm getting, I'm a dad. I gotta feed my kids. That's when that compulsion kicks in. And it makes them. They don't get rest until they've hunted something. So you see it's a very functional part of the brain having this thing. And by the way, we see this in lesser animals. Rabbits are a good example.

See, [00:56:00] rabbits aren't born with a fear of coyotes. Because in England, there are no coyotes, but there are rabbits. They have to be able to adapt to the stresses of their environment, just like we did. Stresses of their environment. So if your little brother, 'cause there's 10 of you that was born in this clutch.

You know the kits, uh, just got hit by a coyote. The next time you get whiff of a coyote, you're hiding. It works the same way. I know that was a whole bunch, but that's kind of, that's the crux of it. No, I like it. It's a

it's chasing through all of it because there's a lot to process in all that. Um, but guys, we're going to process that actually some more. We've been discussing the obesity epidemic. What's causing it? Why is a men's issue? In this part of it, we're going to keep talking about this finding that Jason has that obesity is much more tied to your head than [00:57:00] the rest of what you're doing.

Now, we're not saying that the rest of what you're doing doesn't matter, but, uh, Jason sharing with us that the root cause may actually be much different than what we thought it was. And Jason, you just wrapped up a two year clinical study first, just because the last few years have really kind of screwed us up on this concept.

What is a clinical study? In this case, in my clinical study, I have a little over a hundred participants. These are people who are meeting with me on a weekly basis. We do a therapy, and so we go through. Now, I did a depth interview with them, and then we're doing a particular therapy, which I'll explain in a moment, and then we're we're looking at the results.

So it's a situation where we're not doing a backward look in the diet world or the nutritional world, which is horrible. [00:58:00] Uh, they often will say, well, what did you have to eat last year? This last year, the nurse's study, which is one of the biggest quoted studies in America, in nutrition, That's literally what they will say.

They send these questionnaires out to the women. There's like some thousands of women that are in, or nurses, I should say, nurses who are in this thing. And that's literally the thing. How many vegetables do you eat on a daily average for the last year? Uh, well, I should eat a lot of vegetables, so I eat a lot.

You know, it's ridiculous. Uh, so that's a retrospective, uh, type of a study. That's not what I'm doing. I'm taking people, we are doing a very specific therapy and looking at the results. So that's what we're doing in a clinical trial, and then the results are telling us where to go. And the, uh, yeah, we can let go of [00:59:00] how bad the results are in some of the other areas in the last few years.

But yeah, that's, that's a clinical, a true clinical trial is where you, you have participants who are volunteers, participants who, in my case, volunteers, and they go through a particular protocol, whether it's a biological protocol or sociological protocol. Or in my case of brain protocol, and then there is, is, or is not a result.

Okay. I just, there, there are a lot of people like myself who are, I, I've, I'm, I'm about done with trust the science. Uh, yeah. So the last few years had, have definitely made us all skeptic. So I wanted some clarity on what exactly you're doing. Uh, so just that way it puts that dress for anybody. Like I was doing actual research here, uh, with an actual trial.

This isn't like, I read this paper and this paper and this and that. [01:00:00] Yeah. And these are my results. Nope. I get real people. Um, as I said earlier, over a hundred people and, and by the way, it's, it's, I'm not wrapping it up. I'm close to wrapping up. I'm going to, uh, because the, the average, the average person in the program, they run for roughly six months in the weekly meetings.

And Of monthly meetings and then an additional two years of email follow up So this is is ongoing and it's been group by group by group So i've had cohorts most of the cohorts are roughly around 25 people And the last cohort is about uh, three months in about 12 14 weeks in so that's It's this is the last group.

The study is closed. I can't bring any more people in, but that's where we stand. So it'll be a two and a half years before I'm actually finished with the weekly and I'll still have people for [01:01:00] on the monthly for quite a while. Yeah, that's way more credible to me. Right? The fact that you're continuing on this.

Right into that long term two year port follow up portion Right that that just to me leans a lot more credit credence credence. However, you say that both of what you're doing, right? Yeah, thanks. We we didn't do this for three months and then walk away. No for this In one of my clinical trials because i've done this is a third major clinical trial And on the first two, after a couple of months, I walked away because they were failing an absolute failure once you're there.

He said, okay, this isn't working. Stop, but this one is working. So yeah. Okay. Now, before we took a break, you were taking this down into the brain and your hypothesis is that this is. Imprint over from our [01:02:00] childhood into our brain. Yes. Can you explain this? We, we've talked about how the brain works, where it's at, and you related it into PTSD.

Yes. How does that translate into what your hypothesis is? Okay. Now, when we talked about PTSD, I talked about the actual, the neural network. The neuron, which is what? What? When you have a thought this. You have a molecule that goes down the neuron. So let me put my hand up here and it'll think of this as the neuron and this inside There is a molecule going down the inside of that and it's getting pushed by electricity when it comes to the end There's another neuron On the other side and it that molecule has to get zapped across To the other side, and then when it lands on the other side, it gets sucked in, and in the case of PTSD, that we know that the thing that gets opened up to bring, allow that [01:03:00] molecule inside is, in a normal thing, it gets, it goes away, but in PTSD, it gets welded in, and then that is what creates compulsive behaviors that will go all the way down, so when you're stressed, Whatever the trigger is, you'll get stressed and you'll have that behavior.

Same thing with obesity, which is created in childhood. And I talked quite a bit about how that could be a positive thing. Now, what happens is that's there for the rest of your life. But what we now know is that Uh, if we introduce delta wave into the brain. Hang on just a second, let me talk about that before we go any further.

Right now, most likely, I'm in probably beta. We have multiple brain waves. If you're in like that really panic, fearful, crazy state, your brain is just going, zam, zam, zam. It's really, really fast and real high peaks. That's a gamma. [01:04:00] Then you come down to the normal thinking place and it's, it's a rapid. But not quite so crazy and that's beta you go into a deep meditation That's alpha and then you when you're first falling asleep.

That's theta. So and then You go all the way down into real deep sleep. That's you're not dreaming there. It's called the deepest sleep and that's And so we have these brain waves. It's the frequency of what the brain wave is, and that's a very normal thing. We go into Delta every night, several times a night.

And when we go into Delta, uh, that's that deep sleep, the brain does a lot of healing and cleansing and things. Just, here's a real weird thing, just to kind of give you a sense of it. When you sleep, when you're in deep, deep sleep, your brain physically shrinks. It shrinks. So it can suck up the spinal fluid to run it through and clean it.

Otherwise it just stays down there in the little [01:05:00] because you get contaminants or what have you in the spinal fluid So that's kind of what's going on. Is that amazing what's going on in the brain? So when we have delta wave in this real deep sleep if the delta wave is present while That neural pathway is shooting down and then it's got the on the opposite side is those portals You are welded into place.

The delta wave causes salt. Uh, it's a very special, special kind or specific kind of salt, but basically a salt to come up out of the soup that's inside the nerve. And then it dissolves those proteins that are holding that portal in. And then the portal goes back away, either goes out into the brain or back inside the neuron.

And now your neurons, are back to the naive state, like most of your brain is. So that dissolves that, that pathway or that highway that's in your brain. And [01:06:00] now that's gone. So, and we know this works. There are two types of therapies that work real well with PTSD. One is called EMDR. I don't practice it. Um, and the other one is havening, like safe haven.

And that's kind of a street name because it's actually called neural depotentiation. Well, who wants to talk about that? But, uh, so EMDR is recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Now, what happens in that is you get these blinking lights. And so one light blinks and you'll look at it, but you don't turn your head.

You hold your head still and turn your eyes and your eyes go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth while your head is being still. And that creates Delta wave. Strange, but it does. Yeah, and this is not woo woo, this is not um, you know, this is real science. Okay, now the next part is, uh, there's another way to create delta [01:07:00] wave in your brain.

You can do it right now, and it'll create delta wave, is you rub your across the forehead, this skin across the forehead, and on the planes of the cheek above the cheekbones, and on the sides of the arm, right, and on the palm of the hand. Now, what in the world am I talking about? Well, there's a name for this kind of skin, and it's called gametic skin.

Same thing on your forehead as on the palm of your hand. And their nerve endings here are different than the nerve endings in the rest of your skin. Now, that's what you can't see, but just for those of us who are just kind of like, okay, well, look at your own hand and look at the palm and look at the back.

Skin is very, very different. This has hair follicles. This has hair follicles. Okay, and so that's just kind of a clue. But the skin is different. So when you rub the skin, it's creating the delta wave in the brain. I, you know, [01:08:00] there's some geek, there's a professor that did this. They put vibrating pads over the entire body, and they had an encephalograph on top of that, you know, hooked onto the brain to record what kind of brain waves were getting created.

And so they've got a map of the body, but you know, that's way, way beyond me. I'm a social scientist, but I take this stuff and say, okay, cool. Now, uh, some other doctors have taken this and put it, put the, that energy that, that's that delta wave stuff together, they figured out doing this will create the delta wave, which will then wash the neurons with delta.

And but you have to be activated. So in the case of PTSD, the therapist will say, well, tell me what happened Tell me what it is that triggers you. Oh, when I see a blue shirt, I go into this panic. I can't, you know, the blue shirt. Okay. So start telling me about the blue shirt and start doing this. Start rubbing your forehead.

Right. And tell me about how you're feeling. Oh, I'm panicked. I'm panicked. And then it'll [01:09:00] go through. There's more to it than, than what I can explain here, but that over the course of some period of time will depotentiate that neuron, that neural pathway. Think of you're out in the desert and you're out there and there's a little road that's been there and every so often you go over a wash and they put a bridge in.

You just keep on chugging. You're going this little two lane highway out there. You're cruise along at 60 miles an hour. Somebody comes and blows up all those bridges. You're in your little four wheel drive, cruise along at 60, come up to the wash, oh crap, you're down, pull into the four wheel drive, go down into the wash and come back up to the other side, hop back up on the highway, and off you go.

Well that's like your brain. When you have the PTSD or you have that portal that's welded in, those are the bridges and you just fly down that pathway. When they take the bridges out, now it's back to a naive situation. [01:10:00] So it's kind of like going, having to go down through the wash drive up, come up on top.

You're in four wheel drive, you can make it, no problem. Well, same thing with the brain. And what I'm finding is that I'm trained in this, this therapy. And it works when we do the same thing. We activate the brain. the pathway. We're sitting around the table and we're all eating 17 pies and I'm happy. I'm feeling love.

I'm feeling all this goodness or and go back to when you're a kid, you know, and I'm here and I'm eating ice cream because I was a good little boy because I cleaned my plate and mom loves me. So I'm thinking about this thing and I'm feeling seen I'm feeling heard, you know for the child that doesn't get a lot of that And i'm all while i'm eating so they're remembering eating or even imagining eating and they're um in this good place And they're creating the delta wave at this point, which now it takes longer, [01:11:00] interestingly enough, to deconstruct these pathways with the eating process, because it was, my hypothesis is because it was developed over the course of your entire development years, age 3 to age 12, then it does to heal PTSD.

Severe PTSD can be healed. In a couple of sessions, two or three sessions, but that's an incident. It's a single incident that happened to you. You know, you're in the car wreck and you rolled over and over and over and you thought you were going to die. Uh, so that's an, that's an incident and you're only healing one pathway.

But when you've got this, this thing that's been going on and when I'm stressed, I eat and when I eat, I feel safe. I feel good that's been going on for 30 years and a lot of other things There's a saying in this world that says neurons that fire together wire together So if you're have this thing i'm [01:12:00] when I eat, uh, I feel safe or good But then there's other things that are going on around it.

And so these other habits start getting wired together So it's more complex and what I'm finding takes somewhere between 12 and 25 sessions But it works. I've got an 85 percent success rate with people, and they'll say, I've never, I've never had scraps before, but I get to the place where I'm full and I just Am not Interested.

I just don't want it. They're the people's dogs in my program are getting fat

So Based on your research and your findings so far. Is this something that people can start doing for themselves? No, i'm, sorry to say I wish I could no and um, and I I know I say that really firmly I did do that. Uh, actually the first cohort in this study I really wanted to do that. My [01:13:00] thought was, Hey, let's, let's, let's figure this out.

And we can just, I can create a, uh, you know, a video program, put it online. Sell it really cheap, you know, 50 bucks or something. So people it can be accessible to everybody and It failed hundred percent. You have to have somebody who's like a counselor somebody who Not so much that they're trained in the havening process That's fairly simple, but they have to be a counselor so they can talk to you about what are, what are the things that you're not aware of.

Um, I had a woman in my study, just to give you a kind of a quick example. I had a woman in my study who, uh, we were in three or four months into it. And for the first time she said, Oh, well, we were having coffee and cake. And I said, well, what's that? She said, well, every day after school, mom, we would sit at the counter in [01:14:00] the kitchen.

And we would have coffee and cake. And we've been doing this every day since I was a little girl. And this was the only time I could be naughty because it was kind of naughty to have coffee and cake. And she had a very stripped home three months into it before this came out. And people are very, very blind.

And I say, people, I'm talking about myself here. We are all blind to the things we sometimes do. So you need a counselor, unfortunately. to work with you and kind of help you see what it is. And, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've talked to men, uh, who won't hear. Here's one. I talked to a guy today and I was having this conversation, right?

And we didn't talk about this earlier, but, uh, bariatric surgery that has an enormous failure rate. Almost 100 percent of people who have bariatric surgery lose all the weight they were after. They lose [01:15:00] that 150 pounds. Okay, so it's 99. 99. And that weird one that doesn't probably died on the table from, you know, some kind of infection.

It's, it's really, really effective. Yet, five years later, over half of them have this. They, they're heavier than they were when they had the surgery. Now here's the deal. If you hold your own fist up and look at it and say, Okay, that fist. is about the size of my stomach. Well, I was telling this to a guy and I said, well, here, just, just look at your own fist.

He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't just look at his own fist. He would look at mine all day long, but he wouldn't just follow up his fist and look at it. And why don't men want to do that in public? I don't know, but we don't, we don't want to. So, but the rest of the story on that is now with the bariatric surgery, you stick your thumb up.

That's what the [01:16:00] size of your new stomach is. Okay. Now, so it used to be this, and imagine the amount of food you can pack into there, as it gets soft and gushy and all that, versus this, yet people have the ability to push enough food through that little thumb sized stomach. That they gain 150 pounds back that tells you weight loss is not the issue.

It's whatever is driving it That's back to my theory on compulsion, but back to the guys Well guys, they they just don't want to try these new things. They're out of their comfort zone and they won't do it um, so When you talk to them in and say here This is this thing going on into the neurons and if you just rub your head like this You You know, you'll start changing your brain.

It's not going to do it. They're going, yeah, that's BS. You know, uh, the, the more polite men will say that's BS. Have you considered, [01:17:00] uh, possibly collaborating with a hypnotherapist? Uh, hypnotherapy does, uh, what I consider personally, the wrong thing on weight loss. Now, as far as working with men so that they're more amenable to it.

No, I have not. And that's a very interesting concept. I haven't thought of it. But hypnotherapy like NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming, they operate from the wrong perspective. What they do is they create a barrier, so they make that food ugly to you. So, if you look at a chocolate bar, you get sick to your stomach.

I work, you love chocolate and what's the cravings are gone. And that's very specific kind of a thing. Uh, you still get to eat your, your chocolate or your ice cream. You just don't overeat when you're full. Are you done? I had a hypnotherapist on, I didn't actually think hypnotherapy was a real thing until I interviewed a hypnotherapist.

Like I thought, I thought it was some crap they made up for movies. I didn't know it was a real legit [01:18:00] practice. Yeah, it is. Yes. Um, Kate was spectacular because. She works with people to help, you know, smoking or whatever. Right. And has a two to three session success, right? Usually, but her approach is let's find out why you want to smoke.

What, what that trigger is. What is that emotion behind it that gives you this compulsion to do? So that's the way she goes with her hypnotherapy, not putting in a block, but actually finding out what's driving that. Okay. So you can actually bring it to the surface and deal with that. Um, so that, that's my experience with the hypnotherapist.

So it, to me, when you were explaining it, it was like, wait, so that, that's what you're trying to do is get to this root cause and help people get down here and actually address this and start to heal this there. Yes. [01:19:00] But I want to make a distinction here. And we talked about the brain a minute ago. Uh, this person you're talking about that.

I'm, I'm so excited to hear how, how she's approaching it. However, it's, she's approaching it from the cognitive brain, so she's digging into what's, where the language matters. Right. And what's driving you linguistically, where, where you can access that from language perspective. And that's in all of this, this, uh, the cognitive, the thinking brain, and including memory, where in the brain that I'm dealing with is that middle brain, the limbic brain, there is no language.

So it's all, see, the amygdala, its job is to, it's like a sentry, an army sentry at the, at the gate. And it senses danger. It's the first part of the brain that recognizes danger or safety and What it does is if it you've walked around the corner and seen a garden [01:20:00] hose or a piece of rope on the ground or jump Back thinking it's a snake, but you weren't thinking it you were responding and before your brain, your thinking brain, could respond to it.

And you go, oh, what? It's just a rope. And because that amygdala operates at 25 percent the speed. Am I saying that right? One, one quarter of the speed. Four times faster than the thinking brain. There it is. Four times faster. So in like, I'm just gonna make up numbers. Let's say it takes 25 nanoseconds for the amygdala to react and 100 nanoseconds for the brain to react.

Now that's your kind of thing. I don't know about those numbers, but that's the way it works. And, um, so it's job is to keep you alive and safe. So anything, you've got the saber toothed tiger or the big guy with a balled up fist coming at you, Your amygdala senses that and it brings the whole body on on line.

Well, you've got the five senses You know [01:21:00] taste something really bitter you spit it out because it's poison. All righty brussels sprouts We spit them out for a reason. So, uh, anyhow, um, emotions are sensed by the amygdala. If you're happy, you're safe. If you're stressed, you're in danger. And that's, so when you have stress, the amygdala stands up and says, Hey, we're in danger, respond, and it will take you down the pathway that's in the amygdala to the place of safety.

Whatever that safety is. And you have this potentiated pathway from childhood or from a high stress trauma, and you'll go to that behavior, right? So that that's sub linguistic. There's no language is simply stress. So my thought was you said you need a counselor to go through it with you. And you have the patient who didn't tell you until like three and a [01:22:00] half weeks in right?

To find those thoughts that are occurring, that are causing those emotions. My, my thought was she could go down to that and find that root cause first. Right. And I, it was just, it was my brain connected to those two. It was like, okay, so if you could find that root cause faster, so you can coach your clients faster.

Right. That might speed up part of that process. Uh, I don't know. Very interesting thought. Very interesting. Probably my brain pin pinball. I talked to a lot of interesting people. My brain pinball is between them. It's like, I can see collaboration here. That's a great idea. Yes. It's certainly worth checking out.

Um, it works. Turns out that, that you don't always have to get to the root issue. It's just that this particular woman, it was one of those things. And when we got there, it's, Oh my goodness, let's work on that. And it was, yeah, that would be helpful, right? [01:23:00] Yes. It would be very helpful. And those things, and those things are important, right?

Cause the brain is really powerful when it comes to creating memories. Um, I was just thinking you were talking about her coffee and cake. My father and mother lived with us last year and a half of my dad's life for two years, my dad's life, uh, before he passed away. And I worked in it for a lot of years before I was doing this.

And I would come home every day and go sit on my back porch. I love sitting on my, I love being on my back porch and sitting and drinking coffee or iced tea. That's just, I like to be outside fresh air. And I would come home from every work every day. I sit down and drink a cup of coffee before I started working on the show back when I was launching the show.

And my dad has always been a, was always a social coffee drinker. He didn't like coffee except in social occasions where I drink it nonstop, but he learned he would, I would get home and he'd be sitting [01:24:00] on the back porch waiting for me because if he was there to have coffee with me, I would sit and talk to him before I started working.

And he just coveted that time for us still to be able to visit and right? Those things in print because I have those conversations now with my dad. He's been gone two and a half, three years. I have those imprinted in my brain and that brings a positive feeling of sitting drinking coffee with my dad after work talking.

And so I can see how that would start to draw a really, really powerful Connections, right? The same things that create really deep, good and bad memories, accessing those. So, you know, what you're dealing with, it could be interesting, Jason. I'm incredibly interested to see, to follow your progress on this.

Uh, I think you're onto something because obviously we haven't been fixing things right for a long time. Like I said, I don't actually believe they [01:25:00] want to fix this issue. There's, there's too much money involved. And it's a bucket of money. Yeah. A big bucket of money. And you mentioned a billion, you know, no, it's closer to 10 billion a year.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I won't even pretend to guesstimate the value of that kind of market. I know it's, I actually can't conceptualize 10 billion. And I don't think most people can. I can't. Um, just, just jumping from a million, a hundred million to a billion like that. Phenomenal. I saw someone illustrate that once, like on a video and it was, it was beyond comprehension that jumped from a million to a billion.

So Jason, what is next for you? You're obviously continuing your study. Is this something that we're going to see? You're going to be able to offer, you're going to be able to [01:26:00] train people in. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Uh, in June, which is coming up real soon, I'm going to, uh, be at the annual Havening Convention.

Havening, as I say, that's the therapy that I use. Uh, and I'm delivering a paper on this research and this is my first time out in, in the Havening community. So I'm, I'm doing a professional paper on that. I have a, um, I'm building a brand new website, it should be done before this podcast is released. Uh, the new website will be up.

There will be a primer of my book that will be on that and it's free. It's absolutely free. Uh, so, and it's the, uh, the first five chapters out of the book. So just come in, sign up, take the book, go home with it. I am writing the book. And for those of you who've ever written a book, you're kind of smirking.

And those of you who don't, you have no idea how much work it is. I've written 11 books, so I know what I'm in for. And, uh, [01:27:00] so yeah, I am writing the book, uh, and that will be coming out sometime, probably end of the year. Uh, I wish it was sooner, but it isn't. And because of the training that it requires. I'm putting together a full training program, and it will be just because of the complexity of it.

It will only be available to people who have Bye. Certified Havening training, but now the value of that or the significance of that is that first of all, Havening, while not a common household name, is worldwide. And so there's people all over, all over America, all over Europe, et cetera, that are already certified.

And it's not really difficult to get certified. If this is something that says, hey, somebody, wow, you know, I, this is, this seems to me. And I would love to be able to help people. For those few people who want to do that, they can go to [01:28:00] havening. org and find out how to get certified. It's, it's, it's not hard.

You know, if you, if you, if you've got a year of college, you, you've done as much work as it would take to do this. It's kind of like the trade school versus the university. And you know, you go through trade school and you make a bucket of money, and you go through university and you pay off a whole bunch of bills.

It's that kind of an analogy. Anyway, um, so that's what I'm doing. I'm creating the training program for people who are certified Haveners. It will be available again about the same time the book is out But the new website will be up in in another week or so. So the same name different Pardon same name different website.

No, no different website. The name is never gain the weight back Never gain the weight back and that's gonna be the new website. That's the new website Never give it back. [01:29:00] Okay. But that's the one I had up for you. So yeah, that's, that's it. Yeah. I I'm, I'm replacing the one that's there that you saw by the time that people see this, that will be a viable website.

There'll be a link there for the free ebook and other connections and information. And guys, of course, we'll have his Jason's contacts all in the description or the show notes, whatever platform you're listening to this on, or watching this on, uh, because it's on a YouTube channel as well. We'll have Jason's information so that you can connect with him, find out more about what he's doing.

If this is striking in court, right? If you're tired of this rollercoaster, that is the normal attempt at weight loss journey that most people deal with. This might be something that, you know, Hey, it's. Come at it from a different direction. I'm a huge, huge fan of the idea of think your way around a [01:30:00] problem, right?

If you're coming at something one way and it's not working, let's think our way around it and find a different direction to come at it. And this is showing tremendous possibility with 85 percent success rate. That's that's incredible. in the industry with a 97 percent failure rate. Uh, so I think you're definitely going the right direction with this.

I would love to see this become more widely known. I'm excited that you're going to release the paper on this conference. Um, now I'm thinking, Hmm, how do, how do we get this. Down into more people, right? I love that you wanted to release a video, a course at a low cost, uh, make this available to people. I think that would be the next hurdle is how do you get trained practitioners to keep costs at a reasonable level.

Uh, so we [01:31:00] can, you can reach more people with this. Jason, I know you're super concerned about what the highest grossing Broadway show of all time was. Actually, I've been thinking about it. I wonder what it is. I was hoping you were going to tell me. You said the Phantom of the Opera, which would totally make sense because it is the longest running Broadway show in history, continuously running Broadway show, they actually closed it last year.

I was very upset about that. Uh, I've seen the traveling production of Phantom several times, but. Never been to New York for that. They finally took it off Broadway for the first time. And who knows how long, but Lion King actually is the highest grossing Broadway show of all time. Oh, Hamilton's on track, but it's still a young enough show.

It hasn't been around the length of the Lion King. It's just proof. People have no taste. Phantom of the Opera is way better than the Lion King. That was why I was wincing. Right. Yeah. I could have lived with Wicked. Wicked was pretty [01:32:00] good, but I, The Lion King now. Proof people have poor taste. Yes. Jason.

Well, thank you.

We, we've talked a lot of science. We've talked a lot of knowledge today. If the people listening heard nothing else, what do you want them to take away from the show? Weight loss is a symptom and don't beat yourself up. It's not your fault. It's something that's hardwired into your brain. And so if you're, if you can't beat this monster, don't beat yourself up.

It's not your fault. It's just understand and believe it, that it is hardwired and you're not. flawed. You're not somehow bad or wrong or immoral or [01:33:00] any of the things that comes with the condemnation of being even morbidly obese. Now, look, let's be fair and honest here. Some people are slovenly. Some people do just use it as an excuse.

But if you have tried and worked hard and actually lost the weight and gained it back, you're That was not your fault guys, as always, thanks for hanging out with us today for Jason and I be better tomorrow because what you do today, we'll see you on the next one. This has been the fellow man podcast, your home for everything man, husband and father.

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