Episode 39: Dr. Joan Ifland

Thank you for tuning in for another episode of Life’s Best Medicine. Dr. Joan Ifland is a food addiction specialist—she literally wrote the textbook on Processed Food Addiction—and is widely considered to be the leading expert on the subject worldwide. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Political Science from Oberlin College, an MBA in International Finance from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a PhD in Addictive Nutrition from Union Institute and University. Since 1996, Dr. Ifland has helped people recover from diet-related disease by focusing on addiction to processed foods. As both an academic and a front-line guide, Joan has taught thousands of compulsive eaters how to find  peace with food and recover from diabetes, heart disease, cancer, depression, fatigue, isolation, and obesity. In this episode, Joan shares her own personal experience with food addiction and the struggles she has faced with the disorder since she was a small child. She goes into the details of how her brain became addicted and how her behaviors reflected this reality. One day in 1996, at the prompting of someone she knew, she tried cutting out sugar and flour from her diet. What she experienced from eliminating these substances was miraculous! Drs. Brian and Joan discuss the relationship between diet and mood, the staggering 140 medical conditions associated with addiction to processed food, the equally staggering hundreds of thousands of studies on the reality of this kind of addiction, the power of immersion recovery for healing your brain from a lifetime of food addiction, the importance of an understanding community that supports you in order to have a successful recovery, the neuroscientific reasons behind why community support is essential, practical steps you can take to reset your addicted brain by simply drilling index word-association cards, how to set achievable goals, and the Addiction Reset Community. Life’s Best Medicine According to Joan: “Community.” Thank you for listening. Have a blessed day and stay healthy!   Links:   Dr. Jaon Ifland: Website Food Addiction Reset Processed Food Addiction Website Processed Food Addiction Book   Dr. Brian Lenzkes:  Website Low Carb MD Podcast   Simply Snackin’