ANEW Insight

Overeating Tools & 7/11 Breathing: Can You Beat Cravings? | ANEW Ep 106

• Dr. Supatra Tovar • Season 1 • Episode 106

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In this episode of the ANEW Insight Podcast, we explore the tools, techniques, and 7/11 breathing technique that helps people break free from overeating and emotional eating. Psychologist and author Dr. Glenn Livingston returns to share practical strategies from his book Defeat Your Cravings—empowering listeners with methods to overcome cravings, manage guilt, and build lasting food freedom.


🔑 Episode Highlights

  • How to start with one simple rule to build identity and resilience
  • Using the 7/11 breathing technique to calm the nervous system and reduce cravings
  • Spotting the lies of your “food monster” and reframing them with truth
  • Why guilt and shame after overeating can fuel the next binge—and how to stop it
  • Insights from Dr. Glenn’s landmark 40,000-participant cravings study
  • How processed foods are engineered to hijack your brain and what you can do about it

⏱️ Episode Notes / Timestamps

00:00 – Welcome back with Dr. Supatra Tovar & Dr. Glenn Livingston

01:00 – The power of one simple rule to build sustainable change

04:00 – Mastering the 7/11 breathing technique to calm cravings

09:00 – Insights from a 40,000-person cravings study

12:00 – Guilt, shame, and how to turn them into responsibility

16:00 – Food industry tricks and processed food pitfalls

22:00 – Mindfulness, small changes, and self-awareness in eating habits

24:00 – How to find Dr. Glenn and his resources at defeatyourcravings.com

📚 Resources & Links

 Subscribe to the ANEW Insight Podcast for more science-backed conversations on food psychology, emotional eating, and sustainable health. Follow us on social media and explore our resources to continue your journey toward freedom with food.



Thank you for joining us on this journey to wellness. Remember, the insights and advice shared on the ANEW Body Insight Podcast are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making any changes to your health routine. To learn more about the podcast and stay updated on new episodes, visit ANEW Body Insight Podcast at anew-insight.com. To watch this episode on YouTube, visit @my.anew.insight. Follow us on social media at @my.anew.insight on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads for more updates and insights. Thank you for tuning in! Stay connected with us for more empowering stories and expert guidance. Until next time, stay well and keep evolving with ANEW Body Insight!

Dr. Supatra Tovar:

Welcome back to the ANEW Insight podcast. We're back for the second half of our interview with overeating specialist and psychologist, Dr. Glenn Livingston. Glenn gave us some really invaluable insight into his history with overeating, how he was able to overcome that, and what inspired his eighth book, you guys, his eighth book.

Dr. Glenn Livingston:

You would start with one simple rule and I, let me just say that in the book itself, there are a lot of ways to address concerns over rules, and I know that probably a lot of people listening will have concerns over rules, but let's just assume you can get over that. I'd have you start with one simple rule. This is something that you could and would do that wouldn't be too burdensome, but will really let you know that you're moving the ship in the right direction. I'll never go back for seconds again. Or I'll always put my fork down between bites. Or I'll only have pretzels at Major League baseball, stadiums, something like that. Or I always put my gym clothes out before I go to bed. You want a low bar because what most people tend to do is set up a whole diet with high bars, a difficult thing to do 'cause they really want to get the weight off fast. And besides the fact that puts you in a feast and famine environment and your brain's going to want to hoard food the moment that you break, it, it's also difficult to maintain. It's easy to maintain when you have your mojo. But one day you're gonna wake up without your mojo and just not feel like it. And if you have a low bar, then you can jump over it when you don't have your mojo as well as when you do. The reason that's important is that you trigger what we might call the identity function. if you see yourself putting your gym clothes out every night before you go to bed, after a month, you're gonna start saying to myself, I must be someone who wants to go to the gym. I must be someone who wants to go to the gym. I wonder what else someone who wants to go to the gym might do. Before you know it, you're drinking a little more water or doing a couple of pushups before you go to bed, or you know, actually going to the gym and you've got this. If you've got this identity that really directs your behavior. Identity is a collection of character traits. A character trait is nothing more than what you do at the moment of temptation habitually. So you're developing this as a personality so that you don't have to white knuckle it all the time. This is just who I am. Ask people, could you give up chocolate forever? Absolutely not. You ask them, could you become a person who doesn't need chocolate? They'll say, maybe. Really interesting. So once you have that one simple rule in place, you use it to bifurcate your thoughts. So any thought that suggests that you will follow the rule is your higher self or you, any rule that suggests that you're going to break the rule. Any thought that suggests you're gonna break the rule is your lower self or your food monster, or your inner pig or whatever you wanna call it. It sounds kind of silly it. If you don't know when these thoughts are active, then you don't know when you have to take action. And so setting up this kind of an alarm makes all the difference in the world. Once you set up that bifurcation, then you start to listen for that rebellious part of you to this is what we want. You would start with one simple rule and I, let me just say that in the book itself, there are a lot of ways to address concerns over rules, and I know that probably a lot of people listening will have concerns over rules, but let's just assume you can get over that. I'd have you start with one simple rule. This is something that you could and would do that wouldn't be too burdensome, but will really let you know that you're moving the ship in the right direction. I'll never go back for seconds again. Or I'll always put my fork down between bites. Or I'll only have pretzels at Major League baseball, stadiums, something like that. Or I always put my gym clothes out before I go to bed. You want a low bar because what most people tend to do is set up a whole diet with high bars, a difficult thing to do 'cause they really want to get the weight off fast. And besides the fact that puts you in a feast and famine environment and your brain's going to want to hoard food the moment that you break, it, it's also difficult to maintain. It's easy to maintain when you have your mojo. But one day you're gonna wake up without your mojo and just not feel like it. And if you have a low bar, then you can jump over it when you don't have your mojo as well as when you do. The reason that's important is that you trigger what we might call the identity function. if you see yourself putting your gym clothes out every night before you go to bed, after a month, you're gonna start saying to myself, I must be someone who wants to go to the gym. I must be someone who wants to go to the gym. I wonder what else someone who wants to go to the gym might do. Before you know it, you're drinking a little more water or doing a couple of pushups before you go to bed, or you know, actually going to the gym and you've got this. If you've got this identity that really directs your behavior. Identity is a collection of character traits. A character trait is nothing more than what you do at the moment of temptation habitually. So you're developing this as a personality so that you don't have to white knuckle it all the time. This is just who I am. Ask people, could you give up chocolate forever? Absolutely not. You ask them, could you become a person who doesn't need chocolate? They'll say, maybe. Really interesting. So once you have that one simple rule in place, you use it to bifurcate your thoughts. So any thought that suggests that you will follow the rule is your higher self or you, any rule that suggests that you're going to break the rule. Any thought that suggests you're gonna break the rule is your lower self or your food monster, or your inner pig or whatever you wanna call it. It sounds kind of silly it. If you don't know when these thoughts are active, then you don't know when you have to take action. And so setting up this kind of an alarm makes all the difference in the world. Once you set up that bifurcation, then you start to listen for that rebellious part of you to this is what we want. You would start with one simple rule and I, let me just say that in the book itself, there are a lot of ways to address concerns over rules, and I know that probably a lot of people listening will have concerns over rules, but let's just assume you can get over that. I'd have you start with one simple rule. This is something that you could and would do that wouldn't be too burdensome, but will really let you know that you're moving the ship in the right direction. I'll never go back for seconds again. Or I'll always put my fork down between bites. Or I'll only have pretzels at Major League baseball, stadiums, something like that. Or I always put my gym clothes out before I go to bed. You want a low bar because what most people tend to do is set up a whole diet with high bars, a difficult thing to do 'cause they really want to get the weight off fast. And besides the fact that puts you in a feast and famine environment and your brain's going to want to hoard food the moment that you break, it, it's also difficult to maintain. It's easy to maintain when you have your mojo. But one day you're gonna wake up without your mojo and just not feel like it. And if you have a low bar, then you can jump over it when you don't have your mojo as well as when you do. The reason that's important is that you trigger what we might call the identity function. if you see yourself putting your gym clothes out every night before you go to bed, after a month, you're gonna start saying to myself, I must be someone who wants to go to the gym. I must be someone who wants to go to the gym. I wonder what else someone who wants to go to the gym might do. Before you know it, you're drinking a little more water or doing a couple of pushups before you go to bed, or you know, actually going to the gym and you've got this. If you've got this identity that really directs your behavior. Identity is a collection of character traits. A character trait is nothing more than what you do at the moment of temptation habitually. So you're developing this as a personality so that you don't have to white knuckle it all the time. This is just who I am. Ask people, could you give up chocolate forever? Absolutely not. You ask them, could you become a person who doesn't need chocolate? They'll say, maybe. Really interesting. So once you have that one simple rule in place, you use it to bifurcate your thoughts. So any thought that suggests that you will follow the rule is your higher self or you, any rule that suggests that you're going to break the rule. Any thought that suggests you're gonna break the rule is your lower self or your food monster, or your inner pig or whatever you wanna call it. It sounds kind of silly it. If you don't know when these thoughts are active, then you don't know when you have to take action. And so setting up this kind of an alarm makes all the difference in the world. Once you set up that bifurcation, then you start to listen for that rebellious part of you to this is what we want. We wanna stimulate that rebellious part. You start to listen for what it might be saying. When you hear it say something like, come On. It's genetic. Your parents were fat, so you're doomed. You say, wait a minute, that's not me. That's my inner pig. Let me take a breath. Let me breathe in for a kind of seven and out for a count of 11. I'm not doing it now 'cause it takes some time. But that helps to get you into your, relaxed self, into your parasympathetic nervous system. Another way of saying that is that it tells your brain that there is no emergency. Overeating is your brain thinking that you know, binging is gonna keep you alive. That chocolate bar is gonna keep you alive, that there's an emergency that it has it right now. That's what people feel like they're not there. That's why they feel like it's so automatic. So we're trying to de automate that. So you breathe in for a kind of seven and out for a count of 11. that works is that if you were being chased by a hungry bear, you'd be going like, and you wouldn't have time to breathe out for longer than you breathed in. So we call those 7 11 breaths, and Lori Hammond taught me that. Then what you wanna do is ask yourself, how is the pig lying to me? Right? And besides, if I was dealt a bad hand of cards, does that mean that I should give up and get as fat as I can? Or should I play like the hand of cards the best that I possibly could? So you ask why is the pig wrong and you acknowledge the true part of it so you don't waste energy trying to fight the truth. Then you take another 7 11 breath. You should be feeling calmer at this point. You should be feeling less interested in overeating. And you say, well, what would make me feel happier or like a better person if I stayed with my rule right now? And usually you've set this up beforehand and kind of run through an exercise to figure out what would happen in a year if you could stay with this rule. And you really kind of believe in the value of this rule But for argument's sake, let's say, if I if I don't have chocolate on a weekday or yeah, if I don't have chocolate on a weekday and I do that for a year, then, I'll probably be at least 20 pounds thinner and I'll have less worries about cardiovascular disease and diabetes and kidney problems, and my skin will be clearer and my, immune problems will be gone. And I'll feel proud of myself. I'll be able to be present without obsessing about food all the time. You kind of connect to your big, why. You connect to the reason that you're doing all this in the first place. Take another 7 11 breath and then ask yourself, do I need to eat something like there, a lot of times the pig will present it as, look, you can have this chocolate bar or you're gonna starve. And that's what overeating is about. You can say, you know what? I don't have to have that chocolate bar and I still don't have to starve. So maybe, maybe I need a green smoothie or maybe maybe I need some protein or maybe I need some fat or whatever it is.

Dr. Supatra Tovar:

Oh, I love that. And I think that we are in alignment on a lot of that, even though you're using the word rule, for me, it's not about a rule, but it is about, increasing that self-awareness in the moment that you are, experiencing the craving. If you were to just slow down for a second and really analyze what's going on in the moment what's what is that trigger?

Dr. Glenn Livingston:

Right. That was a long, that was a long time. Well, I didn't see them. I did a survey with 40,000 That's what led to that conversation with my mom. intercepted 40,000 people at a time when internet clicks were cheap. And I asked them what they were feeling stressed about 'cause they were searching for stress solutions and foods did they have difficulty stopping eating when they felt stressed, and I found some correlations. People who struggled with chocolate tended to be lonely or brokenhearted or depressed. People who struggled with soft, chewy, starchy things like bread and bagels or pasta or even pizza, they tended to be stressed at home. People who struggled with crunchy, salty, snacks, they tended to be stressed at work. And I, I actually thought that was going to lead to the solution because then I just asked people what they were eating and I would kind of know what was happening. But they, there were small correlations that were significant, but they were small. And I kind of stumbled into these techniques instead, which worked to sever the link rather than solving the stress problem. And then, like, I would liken it to building a really strong fireplace. if the emotions are the fire, you could work to put out the fire or examine the fire, or you could build a really strong fireplace. And I found it was faster to build the fireplace. I still think it's really valuable to put out the fire or make it smaller. But I find that takes longer and people are less likely to be interested in doing it. It's more valuable in the long run to do that, but most people, because it can be painful, they don't wanna do that. So

Dr. Supatra Tovar:

Well that's so fascinating that these correlations exist, that, and I've seen that with my clients as well when you were kind of relaying people who are brokenhearted tend to struggle more with chocolate. People who want salty, crunchy things tend to be stressed by work and people that want that kind of starchy, chewy thing struggle with things at home. Yes. Well, let's talk about guilt and shame. Because that's a huge part of the work that we do, and many people struggle with guilt when they deviate from eating plans. Now you have kind of the rule, and we're gonna use, we're gonna use that word kind of loosely because it's a rule that these, people are making for themselves.

Dr. Glenn Livingston:

People think they're alone and they're really ashamed, but they're almost never alone. More importantly, it turns out when you really examine that shaming negative voice after you've had a binge, that it's got a purpose and its purpose is to make you feel too weak to resist the next binge. Like, oh, you're so pathetic. You can't control yourself. might as well just, go to town, eat as much as you want, at least until tomorrow, right? That's the only thing that's gonna make you feel better anyway. And so there's a secondary gain associated with the guilt and shame, and I like to say the pig just wants more. That that's what's happening to the pig wants more. Then remember that, there are no prisons for overeaters. You're not gonna wake up a cell with four gray walls and your new husband, Bubba because you had too many donuts. Also remember that when food is your drug of choice, you're largely choosing to harm yourself as opposed to other people. People that drink can get behind the wheel of a car, they could mame or mutilate someone, um, at very least blow out the family finances and Is a real burden? It's a stretch to argue that people who have too many donuts are doing that. They're mostly hurting themselves. So I tend to find that overeaters are nicer people than drug addicts that, I mean, addict like some drug addicts also but but I tend to find that they're just more inherently nicer people and then the last thing is how can you commit with perfection, but forgive yourself with dignity? So think about an Olympic archer aiming at the target. they don't go, maybe I'll ahead it, or maybe I won't. They don't let go of the arrow. they see it going into the target, they commit with perfection. People think they're alone and they're really ashamed, but they're almost never alone. More importantly, it turns out when you really examine that shaming negative voice after you've had a binge, that it's got a purpose and its purpose is to make you feel too weak to resist the next binge. Like, oh, you're so pathetic. You can't control yourself. might as well just, go to town, eat as much as you want, at least until tomorrow, right? That's the only thing that's gonna make you feel better anyway. And so there's a secondary gain associated with the guilt and shame, and I like to say the pig just wants more. That that's what's happening to the pig wants more. Then remember that, there are no prisons for overeaters. You're not gonna wake up a cell with four gray walls and your new husband, Bubba because you had too many donuts. Also remember that when food is your drug of choice, you're largely choosing to harm yourself as opposed to other people. People that drink can get behind the wheel of a car, they could mame or mutilate someone, um, at very least blow out the family finances and Is a real burden? It's a stretch to argue that people who have too many donuts are doing that. They're mostly hurting themselves. So I tend to find that overeaters are nicer people than drug addicts that, I mean, addict like some drug addicts also but but I tend to find that they're just more inherently nicer people and then the last thing is how can you commit with perfection, but forgive yourself with dignity? So think about an Olympic archer aiming at the target. they don't go, maybe I'll ahead it, or maybe I won't. They don't let go of the arrow. they see it going into the target, they commit with perfection. And then you make those adjustments. You turn guilt into responsibility. You learn all you can. You absorb all the information you can from the miss, that makes it easier to let go of the guilt when you've turned guilt into responsibility. I think that the brain holds onto guilt. As a protective mechanism I like as a survival mechanism. I think that if you touch a hot stove, your brain is gonna tell you that you're a pathetic hot stove toucher until you analyze what happened so that you don't touch the hot stove again. 'cause it's worried you're gonna get hurt again. I mean, first of all, my work there was 25 years ago, so this has evolved a lot since then. But there are evolutionary buttons they are really working to press something I like to call the variety impulse, So it would look like it had all these vitamins, so they're preying in that impulse, but it's predatory, there's no, there are no vitamins like that, or very few vitamins like that in there. The variety impulse also works to keep you eating if you come across a field of vegetables with slightly different tastes because you're looking for slightly different micronutrients. So when they manufacture a bag of potato chips, it's usually on multiple assembly lines with very slight variations in flavor. that. The second chip, your taste is gonna be just slightly different than the first one, and you're gonna keep going. Then. Then there's plausible deniability, which is all the brain needs in order to justify indulging like these potato chips are good for you. You see, because they're made with avocado oil and everybody knows avocados are good and avocado oil is good. So this heated avocado in these potato chips are really good for you. That's all the brain needs is to see a little star that says with avocado oil, and it's not in rational evaluative mode, so it just is okay, stamp of approval and let's go to town. Ignoring the fact that most heated oil studies show that they're carcinogenic, ignoring the fact that nobody really thinks potato chips are nutritious. There's no way around it. It's not really healthy for you to have a bag of potato chips. But I would fight for your right to do it if that's what you, if that's what you want to do. So, I mean, and there are chemicals in some of the packaging that turn off your ability to know when you're full. So, this is a this is an obstacle to mindfulness. Like we wanna just eat as mindful as we can. But when you're trying to eat a bag of potato chips, mindfully, those chemicals are busy trying to interfere with your ability to be present and aware and know when you're actually full. So, yeah, and they're all types It's really start with an awareness. You start with a general principle the more processed food you eat, the more processed food you're going to crave. I tell people my program is diet agnostic. I'm kind of a whole Foods plant-based person myself. but my program is diet agnostic

Dr. Supatra Tovar:

Exactly. That's why I don't have like food rules for my clients because a lot of them struggle with highly processed foods and that kind of addictive quality in them. And I recommend them. I say, we don't need to take that off the table. compare them so that they then can become their own best expert. And they don't necessarily have to say, I will never eat this thing again. I don't know if that's realistic. I don't think that's necessarily, like a fun way to live, but maybe they can incorporate it into their diet in a more healthful way so that they feel the of that type of food versus highly processed foods. big, giant, changes or rules. So you and I think, have a lot in common and we're aligned in a lot of ways. We just tend to use different terminology. I don't know if I'd ever use the word pig because I really love little piggies, and I think they're adorable.

Dr. Glenn Livingston:

Oh, it's easy. It's easy. Everything's at the website defeatyourcravings.com and I'm delighted tohave been here defeatyourcravings.com. you Click on the big blue button, it'll take you to a page where you can sign up for the reader bonus list. You'll get a copy of the book for free in a Kindle no PDF format, or you can get to the traditional formats for traditional charges if you want. you Also get food plan starter templates that walk you through coming up with your own food plan, or behavioral plan. And I know that it's weird that Supatra has a doctor on with a pig inside of him. So I recorded a whole bunch of coaching sessions so you can hear what that's like. You can hear how people go from feeling kind of desperate and confused and hopeless to feeling powerful and excited, and confident in just one session. So it's defeatyourcravings.com. Click the big blue button.

Dr. Supatra Tovar:

I love it, Dr. Glenn. I'm so proud of the work that you're doing and how you are helping people. I think that if more of us can do this. It's an inner work, it's an inside job. We may not be as reliant on external sources to try to get us to where we want to be in terms of our health. I think we're headed into some real weird, dangerous, not so great territory with a lot of these weight loss medications and just this.

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