Food Junkies Podcast

What if your cravings aren't the problem, but a message?
In this episode of the Food Junkies Podcast, we sit down with Luis Mojica, somatic practitioner, nutritionist, and founder of Holistic Life Navigation, to explore how food, trauma, and the nervous system are deeply connected.
Luis shares his powerful personal story: growing up intersex, surviving bullying and sexual assault in silence, and turning to food as his only "witness" during 20+ years of binge eating. He describes how a $20 guitar became his first somatic experience, and how that moment sparked a lifelong path into psychology, nutrition, and Somatic Experiencing.
We talk about his framework of stimulants, depressants, and balancers, a way of understanding food by how it changes your state rather than whether it's "good" or "bad." We also explore why people in recovery often shift to overeating whole foods, and why shame may be harder to metabolize than any food on the planet.
🎧 In this episode, we discuss:
- How unresolved trauma and a dysregulated nervous system can drive food addiction
- Why addiction is an attempt to find safety outside of yourself
- Stimulants, depressants, and balancers: what they are and how to spot yours
- "Volume eating" of whole foods and why it can still be a survival response
- How restrictive eating can be a way to escape the body
- Why a calm, open body can feel unsafe at first, and how to titrate safety
- Conscious choice vs. compulsion: where pleasure fits in recovery
- The biology of shame and why it fuels the craving cycle
- Active pendulation: a one-minute nervous system practice you can do anywhere
- The "roots of your cravings" practice: a gentle way to meet the need beneath the urge
- Why food may be the most overlooked tool for nervous system regulation
🔗 Connect with Luis Mojica:
Website: https://holisticlifenavigation.com
🔗 Connect with the Food Junkies Podcast:
Find us on Apple Music, Spotify, and any other platform where you listen to podcasts.
✉️Email us: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com
💜 Looking for support with sugar and ultra-processed food addiction?
Sweet Sobriety offers live recovery groups, coaching, and the Foundations Program:
Sweet Sobriety: Foundations – https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/sweet-sobriety-foundations
Sweet Sobriety: Liberation - https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/sweet-sobriety-liberation
Hosts: Dr. Vera Tarman, Clarissa Kennedy & Molly Painschab
⚠️ Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice. If you are struggling with an eating disorder, addiction, or trauma, please reach out to a qualified healthcare provider. Content includes discussion of sexual assault, bullying, and disordered eating. Viewer discretion is advised.
#FoodAddiction #FoodJunkiesPodcast #SomaticHealing #NervousSystemRegulation #FoodAddictionRecovery #UPFUD #TraumaHealing #BingeEating #EmotionalEating #HolisticLifeNavigation

Felicia joined CJ today for an incredibly open and honest conversation about recovery, resilience, and the complicated role food played throughout her life. Her story is heartbreaking at times, but it is also filled with strength, perseverance, and hope. For years, food remained intertwined with the recovery she was searching for, keeping her from experiencing the freedom she truly wanted. Felicia shares how she kept moving forward, continued learning, and discovered new ways to care for herself. The contrast between the life she once lived and the energetic, hopeful life she lives today makes her story deeply compelling and inspiring.


If you're considering personalized assistance, CJ, a Certified Addiction Professional specializing in Food Addiction, is here for one-on-one coaching. Reach out to CJ at cjnguy@myfoodaddictioncoach.com 
Interested in sharing your recovery story on our show? We'd love to hear from you! Please email FJRecoverystories@gmail.com 1

Molly and Clarissa sit down for another Clinician's Corner to dig into shadow work — what Carl Jung meant by it, why it's not just a "woo-woo" concept, and why it belongs in food addiction recovery. They talk about the parts of ourselves we learn to hide (anger, desire, ambition, even joy), how those exiled parts often drive the very behaviors we're trying to recover from, and how projection, envy, and even compliments can point us straight to what we've buried. This episode previews the Shadow Work module inside Liberation, Sweet Sobriety's brand-new 10-module program launching this fall.
WHAT WE COVER
Why Molly built a shadow work module into Liberation, and how it connects to the Shame module covered in a previous episode
Carl Jung's quote — "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate" and what it means in practice
The iceberg metaphor: the curated 10% we show the world vs. the 90% underneath driving our behavior
Where the shadow comes from (genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger) and why this isn't about blaming parents
How substance use, food behaviors, and other compulsive patterns often exist to manage and suppress shadow parts
Recovery work doesn't make the shadow disappear — and why it can get louder, becoming a high-risk time for return to use
Projection: how "accusations are often confessions," and why the people who irritate us most can be mirrors
The Golden Shadow — the positive traits (confidence, joy, ambition) we also learn to suppress or deny
Why receiving compliments can feel unbearable, and what that has to do with shadow work
Envy and jealousy reframed as information rather than something shameful
Individuation and integration — Jung's idea that the goal isn't to eliminate these parts, but to become a whole person who can hold all of them
How return to use fits into this: not a moral failure, but sometimes a shadow part that hasn't been integrated
A personal moment on privilege, shame, and how rejecting a part of ourselves can limit our ability to help others
What to expect from the Shadow Work module inside Liberation
LIBERATION — SWEET SOBRIETY'S NEW PROGRAM
Liberation is the next step after Foundations — a deeper 10-module program covering shadow work, shame, anger, guilt, the inner critic, ADHD and the nervous system, trauma, highly sensitive people, and more. You do not need to have completed Foundations first.
Modules release the week of September 21. Live sessions begin October 15 at 1:00–2:30 PM Eastern. Starting price: $400 USD for this first round (early participants help shape the program, same as the first Foundations cohort)
Learn more and join us: https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/sweet-sobriety-liberation
RESOURCES & LINKS
Catch our earlier episode on Shame: https://open.spotify.com/episode/44sTxYKeVv7r01wtSKkYtm?si=7557f537d5314ebd
Sweet Sobriety Foundations Program: https://sweetsobriety.newzenler.com/courses/sweet-sobriety-foundations
Sweet Sobriety website: https://www.sweetsobriety.ca/
Have a topic you want us to cover? Email us: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com
POLAND 2027: https://fundacjabraciarodzen.pl/products/international-advanced-training-programme?variant=56860764078458
ABOUT FOOD JUNKIES PODCAST
Food Junkies is hosted by Dr. Vera Tarman, Clarissa Kennedy, and Molly Painschab, exploring food addiction, ultra-processed food use disorder, and recovery from a clinical, compassionate, and lived-experience perspective.
Subscribe for new episodes and hit the bell so you don't miss our Clinician's Corner series.
Our show is for educational purposes only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

Why do older women show the highest rates of food addiction, while older men are more likely to meet criteria for alcohol and tobacco use disorder — and why does that gap flip when it comes to weight? In Episode 292, we sit down with Lucy Loch, a doctoral candidate in Psychology at the University of Michigan, to unpack her research on food addiction in older adults and what it reveals about decades of diet culture, marketing, and an under-screened generation.
Lucy studies the life course development of addictive-like eating — how early-life experiences and exposure to ultra-processed foods shape appetite, self-regulation, and long-term health outcomes. She's supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, works under Dr. Ashley Gearhardt at the University of Michigan, and her research has appeared in Addiction, Current Obesity Reports, and Physiology & Behavior.
In this conversation, we dig into her recent study from the National Poll on Healthy Aging: why older women meet criteria for food addiction at higher rates than older men, why overweight men in the study were 19x more likely to meet criteria (compared to 11x for women), what a small but striking finding on underweight older adults might mean, and why isolation and food addiction may feed each other in a bidirectional loop. We also talk about why food addiction is so often invisible in geriatric medicine, what it would take to get it screened for the way depression and falls already are, and what decades of "low-fat," heavily marketed diet products may have set up for the women who trusted them.
This one is for anyone who works with older adults, anyone who's ever been told "just eat healthier," and anyone who's still unlearning the idea that this comes down to willpower.
About our guest:
Lucy Loch is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on the life course development of addictive-like eating, examining how early life experiences and exposure to ultra-processed foods influence appetite, self-regulation, and risk for later-life health outcomes. She is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and works to uncover why certain foods and life experiences may make some individuals more susceptible to overeating. Her work has appeared in journals including Addiction, Current Obesity Reports, and Physiology & Behavior.
POLAND 2027: https://fundacjabraciarodzen.pl/products/international-advanced-training-programme?variant=56860764078458
Connect With Us
Subscribe to Food Junkies Podcast for new episodes
Email us at foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com
 
The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcare provider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, substance use disorder, or mental health concern.

In this episode, CJ sits down with April for a thoughtful, reflective conversation about recovery. April brings a quiet intentionality to the way she understands healing, growth, and the ongoing work of becoming. Her perspective is introspective, honest, and at times existential, inviting us to slow down and consider what recovery truly asks of us. This conversation has a different rhythm—less about quick answers and more about meaningful questions, self-awareness, and the space between where we have been and who we are becoming. April's calm presence reminds us that recovery can be both deeply personal and profoundly transformative.
If you're considering personalized assistance, CJ, a Certified Addiction Professional specializing in Food Addiction, is here for one-on-one coaching. Reach out to CJ at cjnguy@myfoodaddictioncoach.com 
Interested in sharing your recovery story on our show? We'd love to hear from you! Please email FJRecoverystories@gmail.com