Food Junkies Podcast

In this month's Clinician's Corner, Molly and Clarissa take a deep dive into the fix response—a lesser-named but incredibly common nervous-system survival strategy that shows up as over-functioning, urgency, problem-solving, and "doing something" to make discomfort go away.
This episode explores why fixing isn't a personality flaw, control issue, or codependency—but a biologically wired, trauma-informed self-preservation response that once helped keep us safe.
Together, we unpack how the fix response shows up in food addiction recovery, relationships, work, parenting, and even helping professions—and why it so often leads to burnout, resentment, and cycles of shame when left unexamined.
In this episode, we discuss:
What the fix response is (and what it's not)
Why fixing feels regulating in the moment, but often backfires long-term
How fixing differs from healthy problem-solving
Common fix patterns in food addiction recovery (constant plan changes, "starting fresh Monday," adding rules after lapses)
Over-functioning, hyper-responsibility, and lawn-mowing other people's problems
Why fixers struggle with rest, delegation, and asking for help
How ADHD, dopamine, urgency, and novelty-seeking intersect with fixing
The developmental and trauma roots of the fix response
How fixing pairs with fawn, hyper-independence, and people-pleasing
Why optimization culture and biohacking can reinforce dysregulation
The cost of living in constant "fix mode"—burnout, resentment, disconnection, and relapse risk
How to recognize fix mode in the body (jaw clenching, shallow breath, tight chest, restless urgency)
Why the goal isn't to eliminate fixing—but to update it
How to build awareness, pause, discern responsibility, and bring choice back online
This conversation is especially relevant for clinicians, coaches, caregivers, helpers, parents, and anyone in recovery who feels exhausted from always being the one who "handles things."
📺 Watch on YouTube and please subscribe—it helps us reach more people who need this conversation. 
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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, Molly and Clarissa welcome back Dr. Ann Saffi Biasetti for a rich, grounded conversation on body forgiveness and why it can be a turning point in embodied healing. Drawing on her clinical work, research, and lived experience, Ann shares that "forgiving your body" isn't a mental exercise or forced positivity—it's a felt shift that helps move people from control and correction toward listening, trust, and reconciliation with the body as an ally.
Ann also introduces themes from her upcoming book, Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm: A Somatic Guide to Forgiving and Healing Your Relationship With Your Body, and revisits the foundation of her work from Befriending Your Body—offering an informed, non-pathologizing approach for anyone healing from disordered eating, chronic dieting, trauma, shame, illness, or body distrust.

What you'll hear in this episode
How Ann's postpartum autoimmune illness became a doorway into deeper embodiment—and body advocacy
The difference between interoceptive awareness (noticing signals) and standing up for your body when you're dismissed
Why embodiment is a psychospiritual construct—and how "being beside your body" can be a practical starting point
How to tell the difference between mind fear-stories and what your body is actually communicating
Entry points for people who feel body connection is inaccessible: curiosity, regulation, and "giving your body a chance"
What it means to find your center—and why being "off-center" fuels critical thoughts and body war
How diet culture targets predictable times of day when people feel more vulnerable in body image
A clear breakdown: body forgiveness vs body acceptance vs body neutrality
Why pushing the body to "comply" before safety and trust are built can feel re-traumatizing
The clinical risk of "behavioral recovery" without embodiment—and why unresolved embodiment work can look like "relapse" or "symptom swapping."
Ann's powerful reframe for "my body failed me" (and the deeper words that often live underneath that phrase)

Memorable takeaways
Body forgiveness is not forced forgiveness. It's a mind–heart shift that often arises from understanding, regulation, and compassion rather than effort.
Curiosity is an access point. It creates space where judgment collapses and new options become possible.
Words land in the body. Shifting language (from "failed me" to "became unwell," "changed," "declined," "disappointed," "let me down") can soften the adversarial stance and open an embodied conversation.

Mentioned in this episode
Befriending Your Body (Ann's book and the evidence-informed compassion-based program)
Your Body Never Meant You Any Harm (Ann's forthcoming book on somatic body forgiveness)
Embodiment as a "container" for recovery (not just behavior change)
Self-compassion components (mindfulness, common humanity, kindness) as supports for body repair

For listeners who want to go deeper
If you've ever felt like your body is the problem—or you've done everything "right" and still feel distrust—this conversation offers a different path: not fixing the body, but rebuilding relationship with it. Ann's approach emphasizes safety, steadiness, and the kind of compassion that can hold grief, regret, and shame without getting stuck there.

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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.

Why is it so hard to lose weight—and even harder to keep it off?
In this episode, we explore groundbreaking research showing that fat cells can retain an epigenetic "memory" of obesity, even after significant weight loss. This emerging science helps explain why weight regain is so common and why willpower alone is not the issue.
We're joined by Ferdinand von Meyenn, Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich, where he leads research on nutrition and metabolic epigenetics. Prof. von Meyenn has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, with work featured in top scientific journals including Nature and Cell.
Together, we unpack what "obesogenic memory" really means, how epigenetics allows fat cells to adapt—and remember—past environments, and why long-term exposure to excess calories can biologically prime the body to regain weight faster in the future.
In this conversation, you'll learn:
What epigenetics is and how it differs from genetics
How fat cells adapt to chronic overnutrition—and why those changes can persist after weight loss
Why short-term weight changes are easier to reverse than long-term weight gain
How this research challenges the idea that weight regain is a personal failure
What current data suggests about bariatric surgery, GLP-1 medications, and long-term outcomes
The role of inflammation, adipose tissue signaling, and the brain in body-weight regulation
Why prevention matters—and why compassion matters even more for those already affected
What researchers hope to uncover next about rewriting epigenetic memory
This episode offers a powerful, science-based reframe: difficulty maintaining weight loss is not about weakness—it's about biology adapting to past environments. Understanding this may open the door to more effective, humane, and sustainable approaches to metabolic health in the future.
🎧 Whether you're a clinician, researcher, or someone who has lived through the frustration of weight regain, this conversation brings clarity, validation, and a forward-looking perspective on where the science is headed.
If you found this episode helpful, consider subscribing on YouTube and sharing it with someone who could use a science-grounded reminder that their struggle is not a moral failing.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FoodJunkiesPodcast
💌 Please email us at [email protected]
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, Dr. Vera Tarman spoke with Adrienne Sprouse, MD, a Columbia-trained physician with extensive experience in emergency medicine, toxicology, and environmental medicine, as well as more than four decades of stable food recovery.
Adrienne reflected on how growing up in an alcoholic family system shaped her early coping strategies and how food became a primary source of comfort and regulation. Over time, she began to notice that certain foods didn't simply soothe emotional distress but instead triggered a predictable cycle of cravings, symptoms, and relapse. This realization led her to distinguish between compulsive overeating as a behavioral response and food addiction as a physiological reaction to specific foods.
A central focus of the conversation was Adrienne's Prouse Rotational Eating Plan, a structured four-day rotation approach rooted in the concept of cyclic food allergy, originally described by Dr. Herbert Rinkle. Adrienne explained the difference between fixed food allergy—where symptoms occur every time a food is eaten—and cyclic food allergy, where symptoms depend on frequency and amount. She described how repeated exposure to the same foods, common in modern eating patterns, can "stack" in the body and contribute to escalating symptoms such as bloating, edema, headaches, joint pain, and the familiar experience of temporarily "getting away with it" before relapse.
Adrienne also outlined the 24-day home food-testing process described in her book, which was designed to help individuals identify their "sober foods," clarify which foods destabilize them, and create a rotation that supports long-term stability without relying on willpower alone.
The conversation extended beyond biology into emotional and spiritual recovery. Adrienne shared why she believed that a food plan alone was insufficient for many people and how 12-step recovery supported her ability to cope with stress, trauma, and relational dynamics that previously fueled her eating. She described 12-step principles as a stabilizing force that helped her maintain honesty, accountability, and resilience alongside her eating structure.
Adrienne's book, 50 Years of Twelve Step Recovery, was discussed as a synthesis of lived experience, physiology, and recovery practice, offering both individuals and clinicians a broader framework for understanding relapse cycles, abstinence, and whole-person healing.
In this episode:
How Adrienne differentiated compulsive overeating from food addiction physiology

What she meant by "sober foods" and why identifying them reduced chaos and cravings

Why cyclic food allergy patterns are often overlooked

How the four-day rotation was intended to reduce food "stacking" and stabilize symptoms

An overview of the 24-day food testing approach outlined in her book

How certain foods might be reintroduced medically, while acknowledging psychological and spiritual considerations

Why chemical exposures and non-organic foods were discussed as potential contributors to craving

Adrienne's perspective on GLP-1 medications, including their limits in teaching coping skills

How 12-step recovery complemented biological interventions and supports long-term maintenance

About Adrienne Sprouse, MD
Adrienne Sprouse, MD, graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and trained in emergency medicine at Bellevue Hospital, toxicology at the New York City Poison Center, and Nutrition/Allergy/Detoxification/Clinical Ecology with the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. She later served as faculty for the Academy, educating physicians internationally for 17 years. She was Medical Director of Manhattan Health Consultants for decades and was featured in major media outlets including ABC, NBC, Fox Good Day New York, and The New York Times.
She is the author of 50 Years of Twelve Step Recovery, drawing on both long-term personal recovery and decades of clinical practice.
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.

What if the biggest breakthroughs in mental health didn't start with more effort—but with better timing?
In this deeply grounding and wide-ranging conversation, we're joined by Ignacio Cuaranta, a board-certified psychiatrist whose work sits at the intersection of psychiatry, chronobiology, metabolic health, and lifestyle medicine. Trained in Argentina and working internationally, Dr. Cuaranta brings a refreshingly non-dogmatic, biology-forward lens to mental health—one that prioritizes rhythm, regulation, and compassion over blame or biohacking extremes.
Together, we explore why sleep and light exposure may be the most powerful psychiatric interventions we have, how ultra-processed foods disrupt not just metabolism but emotional regulation, and why afternoon crashes, anxiety, impulsivity, and insomnia are often rhythm problems—not personal failures.
In this episode, we discuss:
Why morning light and nighttime darkness are foundational for mood, impulse control, and nervous system regulation
How ultra-processed foods hijack reward pathways, especially when the brain is already fatigued
The overlooked role of chronobiology in psychiatry—and why timing matters as much as content
Afternoon crashes, cortisol dysregulation, and the myth of "low motivation"
Time-restricted eating as a clinical tool, not a rigid rule
Why consistency often matters more than perfection—especially for sensitive nervous systems
Sleep as a keystone habit that makes every other change more accessible
Practical, harm-reduction strategies for winter, shift work, and modern screen-heavy life
Sauna, temperature, and seasonal rhythms—what actually helps and when
Why reducing physiological "noise" can ease cravings, emotional volatility, and mental fatigue
This episode is especially supportive for anyone:
Early in recovery from ultra-processed food use
Living with anxiety, insomnia, or mood instability
Feeling exhausted by self-optimization culture
Curious about nutritional psychiatry, metabolic mental health, and nervous system regulation
Wanting evidence-informed strategies that honor individuality, sensitivity, and real life
Dr. Cuaranta reminds us that regulation is not weakness, sensitivity is not pathology, and recovery doesn't require hacking yourself into submission. Often, the most meaningful change begins by restoring order to the basics: sleep, light, food quality, and rhythm.
If you've ever felt like your nervous system is doing its best in an environment that's working against it—this conversation is for you.
💌 Email us at: [email protected]
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.