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welcome to the food junkies podcast here we aim to provide you with the experience strength and hope of professionals actively working on the front lines in the field of food addiction the purpose of our show is to educate you The Listener and increase overall awareness about food addiction as a disease with abstinence as the solution here we talk about all things recovery most importantly how to thrive rather than just survive so stay positive make a change for yourself tell others about your change and hopefully the message will spread [Music] happy Friday food junkies listeners this is Clarissa Kennedy here to give you episode number two with Julia Ross today today Molly and I asked Julia some more clinical questions about how to practically apply some of the amino acid therapy she talked about in our first episode with Vera so today we dive a little deeper we ask her to kind of start from the beginning with her personal and professional Journey what was addiction treatment like in the 70s and 80s and how is that different than how she treats addiction today we also ask her about the trauma caused to the brain by the frequent junk Foods assaults that many of us used to partake in we wondered how she improved the questionnaire over time also what is that link between stress and Cravings we also asked how long does the relief from Cravings last when do we need to adjust or return to this Pro protocol do we need to take breaks can amino acid therapy be used in combination with medication and he or she really gives us some some very helpful answers we also asked about eating disorders and whether there is particular amino acids that help support eating disorders in the best possible way and I just want to really encourage anyone starting trialing these amino acid watch Julia’s clinical trials that she has on YouTube and be patient as I certainly scored high in low endorphin and started to implement phenylalanine it wasn’t the right fit for me I scored the highest in stressed Craver but Gaba seemed to make me a little anxious and it actually turned out that for me the low serotonin tryptophan was the game changer for me so pay attention listen ask questions and reach out if you need support thank you so much for being listeners and enjoy this episode all right welcome to this episode of the food junkies podcast today we have Julia Ross from the craving cure and the mood cure and like I said in the introduction she’s just we are so excited to have her on the show so Julia can you share with us your personal and professional Journey why amino acid nutritional therapy I’d be glad to share that with you although it might take a while because I was fortunate enough to be recruited uh to the staff of the first addiction recovery program inpatient residential in the San Francisco Bay Area uh it was housed in a four-story Victorian on a hill in San Francisco and the director was very forward-looking but didn’t know much about what the possibilities were for developing anything beyond supportive living and 12-step programs so he gave us carte blanche and we we launched into the most creative development you know all kinds of therapy we got the whole family in we had groups every night we did weekend workshops we had art therapy it we tried everything we were learning and had learned in graduate school and Clinical Psychology which was the most exciting development in Psychotherapy you know since Roy and we had a model that we were Loosely facing ourselves on and that model is called the Minnesota model so it was in the 70s what was developed in the state of Minnesota gratisk for alcoholics and their families and there were many out inpatient programs a few outpatient programs a lot of supportive living after being inpatient programs and that model had a 50 success rate over time just with alcoholics and we decided we could do better and so we made much more lab therapeutic program everyone was excited about it of course we didn’t do follow-up the weakness of most clinicians is uh you know they don’t they don’t do research well but we were very happy with what we were experiencing and our clients were very happy and we didn’t hear back from them you know they didn’t come back ask for treatment a lot of them stayed in the program on an outpatient follow-up kind of basis for a long time it was lovely and then in the early 1980s uh crack cocaine hit and it hit hard and there was no one in the country who was claiming any success I mean specifically all of the inpatient programs were reporting 100 percent relapsed within 24 hours people leaving treatment not even able to stay for a day or two and so the whole field really went interested depression we were we were right there and we had all these tools but they weren’t working so we were fortunate enough to be a city that was visited on a regular basis by the neuroscientists in the country it was a new field and they were just going out into the public uh specifically those who were addiction specialists really interested in the brain chemistry and behind addiction they were lecturing two addiction professionals all over the country and we were on the lecture circuit and we discovered that the missing piece that was preventing us from helping our clients was neurochemical that it was the pleasure chemistry in the brains of our addicts that was the hurdle of the problem the the brain chemistry was not allowing them to get into recovery it was actually the main cause of their craving experiences so at that point we dropped into another state of depression because it seemed to us that we would never be able to treat that level of the addiction and since what we could treat was not working again you know sort of a state of despair and then one of those neuroscientists came around and lectured to us and told us there is one thing and I’ve been researching it and that is that the brain chemistry that is aberrant in addicts can be corrected nutritionally and the process is really simple it’s very well known every biochemist you know human biochemist knows that these chemicals that create pleasure in the brain the neurotransmitters like serotonin and endorphin are made out of their specific nutrients and not a lot of them so the chemistry is really really simple and I’m doing this is Dr Blum saying that he was doing clinical research and he proceeded to tell us how successful it was being just using a simple combination of these amino acids so Kenneth Blum was our hero and those of us a few of us in the addiction field who are already working with addiction so there was someone in Minnesota Joan Matthews Larson and I was in San Francisco we were both employing nutritionists along with all of our psychotherapists addiction specialists and so forth to support people nutritionally but we had noticed that uh over time they were less and less able to eat a good diet so that soon as they tried to put down the cocaine for example they would pick up the sugar and and and everyone gained 30 pounds in the first 30 days because they were trying to support this crazy brain chemistry with a drug food instead of a street drug and it was keeping them sober although obviously unhappy with their body shape if nothing else so she and I uh both began to use these few nutrients really there was only one nutrient for cocaine addiction and so we were familiar with one supplements you know were available in readily available and so we just got some tyrosine which was the amino acid that fueled the part of the brain that stimulated us and gave us focus and energy and specifically gave us dopamine and norepinephrine and the minute that we gave our cocainetics tyrosine three times a day morning mid morning mid-afternoon in relatively moderate even doses but certainly going up to four four times three times a day we saw a complete turnaround and so to think immediately they were saying this is the first time I haven’t slipped on crack in two years of hard attempts at recovery so once we got the crack addiction organized we figured I don’t think any other type of addiction is is going to be too hard if we can fix this one so those people continue to get supported counseling their families were coming in there was a lot of damage that had to be repaired just from the years of cocaine addiction and whatever trauma may have you know preceded that so all that and 12-step programs that was all part of it but without the amino acids they weren’t doing the other stuff and when they did do the family work for example they were just lying you know to protect their addiction and they stopped doing that you know they started having genuine interactions with their families and healing could take place so I’ve continued to experiment with the nutrient supplements that Dr Blum introduced us to originally in the late 70s early 80s and I’ve never looked back because I might as well slit my client’s throats is my feeling about it as to not tell them and and provide them you know with at least Trials of the immune lessons yeah I think that makes sense I mean I feel like if I would have been in your position I would have done a lot of the same right when you see that kind of miraculous like change in somebody why would you not want to keep showing up and doing that for people and wanting to learn more and can this apply to other you know Outlets of this disease of addiction and so I’m really wondering because I do and so does Clarissa we both come from backgrounds of treating addiction and mental health you know and now we’ve transitioned into food specific and so I’m really curious to know like what what was addiction treatment like in the 70s and 80s versus how you treat it today you specific like how how did that differ that experience then versus how you do it now or is it still a lot the same well uh it’s a lot easier because the minute they walk in uh they have been you know accused of all sorts of Character defects and and they are exhibiting them they are live stealing cheating and so forth they go to the 12-step meetings under giraffes and you know often quit or find that the other addicts in the room aren’t that happy even in sobriety you know whatever and so I just skipped that initially and say you know we haven’t had an easy time with addiction either and we’ve had to learn what really worked and what really didn’t and here’s what we’ve learned that we were missing that everybody you talked to so far and we were among the missed this the central feature of addiction which is in your brain there’s something wrong with you yeah but it isn’t your character it it it it’s probably not your past history of trauma either although they can be combined because trauma does alter during chemistry but you for whatever reason uh some of some of it was obvious you know they came from a long line of Alcoholics you know so there was a genetic component and more and more there’s a nutritional component of people’s diets deteriorate early on in life and and so the brain just isn’t isn’t being supplied for whatever reason with adequate amounts of the nutrients that make you happy that create pleasure in ordinary things so that you don’t have to go to the street to find it and but in the process of becoming addicted a lot of and perhaps earlier you know especially growing up in an alcoholic family and so forth there are there’s a lot of damage that needs to be repaired so the first thing we want to do is repair your brain Meanwhile we’re making a plan of action to support all that to help your family to recover they need help you know you’re not the only one who suffered because of this disease and so we’re going to do counseling uh you and your family individual Group whatever is seems to be the most appropriate or a form of counseling and we’re gonna urge you to try the 12-step programs again uh especially if we guess and we have somebody who’s use was very social you know who whose only friends were users and so forth you know especially single people at any rate so uh we do you know full service uh work but as soon as we mention brain chemistry their defensiveness disappears they they totally Focus they are not lame and sometimes their family members you know insist that no it was always a loser you know even as a kid or whatever you know but that is unusual usually everybody’s riveted there’s something new well how long does it take to fix and when we say it’ll start the first day you’ll be able to feel it the first day and so it’s made the whole process so much easier for you know adults and and for children too I have to say you know who are addicted I had a little girl uh 10 years old who was addicted to Mac and she’s in similar uh Dairy and gluten and her mother had had some serious health problems that went away when she got off of those foods and she’d been trying to talk her daughter into going off of them for over a year when they came to us and she said she brought her in and uh the kid was in a range with her mother and apparently this happened all the time she was just really angry and I said well why are you angry with your mother and so she gave me a line you know that and I said you know what I don’t think that’s really why you’re angry as a matter of fact I think that you wonder why you’re angry all the time your mother really isn’t that bad and she didn’t know anything so I said I think that there’s something else going on I think your brain is making you angry because it’s not working quite right your brain’s supposed to control your mood you know how you feel and it’s not doing a very good job right now is what I think and it would be really fun and it would just take minute or so a few minutes for us to see if I’m right would you be willing to try a supplement very low dose of a supplement that gives you more of the brain chemistry that makes you feel happy and sunny and positive and let’s see if it works is that okay with you is she nodded and she uh she took it was a chewable and she had the expected you know what actually happened was after a few minutes she got up and sat on her mother’s lap and uh then she sang song and the song was you are so beautiful in every way no matter what they said everyone was in tears including her uh and her mother called the next week and said you know what we don’t really need to come in again right now because it’s holding you know she’s taking this little chewable twice a day and really she’s who she used to be and I I asked her um again the other day whether she’d be willing to try and go off the foods that she’s so addicted to and love so much and she just said okay so no more mac and cheese for this little girl and she had a similar response to her mother’s response no more tummy aches that was the thing her mother was the most concerned about so so that’s beautiful that that can happen we love that idea of early intervention right and however I find when people come to us they tend to be in that late stage end stage and you know you refer to it in your book as the trauma caused to the brain by the frequent junk food assaults and so how is the brain traumatized or injured by these food products well I I was thinking about this and and I think that the the best way to explain it is by talking about uh junk food intoxication so everybody relates to that everybody laughs when you talk about it you know why does a whole room full of people burst into laughter or huge smiles when I mentioned the word chocolate that’s all I have to do so uh that’s a very potent drug effect but there’s a toxic core to it in order to get Force the brain to over produce use its natural opiates is what chocolate does it’s got to be uh over excited over stimulated this is not natural levels of happiness normal optimal and if if these Foods just overexcited us and there was no downside we wouldn’t be here talking about it but the problem is that all of that over excitement changes the brain chemistry instantly and it can’t be sustained so the brain is ready for this over excited experience and after you know a half an hour say sometimes less sometimes more it’s left on empty there is no ability to sustain that level of overstimulation and so the signals of the brain starts to give are Cravings depression anxiety stress you know all of the different kinds of neurotransmitter deficiency that we can feel in terms of mood in in terms of of compulsion towards having another experience of intoxication as soon as possible yeah so then that kind of leads me into your work thinking about how this like can hurt the brain this injury that can occur or this traumatization because of these foods and in your books and on your website you have these craving screens and I’m wondering are the screens sensitive to these injuries what should people know and understand how to use these screens what makes them unique and how have they changed over the years well when you say screen some people aren’t going in the United States aren’t going to know what you mean so I’m going to use the word questionnaire symptom questionnaire or symptom screen and this is uh just life-saving Tool uh we found and it it had to be developed over time so when we first met Dr Blum and started to apply his research with various amino acids we looked at the research on what are the deficiency symptoms of Serotonin we know that we can give people tryptophan or 5-HTP in their serotonin levels will rise but what does that mean you know in real life and so there were some studies showing you know what is adequate serotonin like experienced as and how does somebody feel whose serotonin levels drops of Serotonin being our natural antidepressant we call it the inner Sunshine uh neurotransmitter so we began to build an inventory you know okay uh here’s a study that says they feel depressed pessimistic irritable frightened panic attacks so we began to accumulate the research that showed what efficiency symptoms were like and then we would compare it to our clients experience by putting it in a little questionnaire and over time we you know we were we’ve been able to identify the key symptoms that are almost always there but some people have you know like two-thirds of them and there are some they don’t have but in general none of them you know we would throw out anything that most people didn’t really identify with so one of the more recent additions was OCD for example and so we’ve added and subtracted a little bit and created a five-part questionnaire that’s simply the symptoms of deficiency in that neurotransmitter so they’re low in serotonin there are about 10 indicators and so food craving is right there but if they’re low in serotonin they also have the mood problems that those Foods eliminate so there’s you know for one person a donut would be perfect for an endorphin deficiency type who pretty sensitive maybe tears tears up easily feels lonely and sad even though life circumstances aren’t supportive in that you know whether it’s organizers are pretty good and uh so when we put those symptoms together with the craving and then we know which part of their brain is being over intoxicated and is not producing enough anymore so what we’ve done over time is then keep improving it not so much the symptoms they stay pretty pretty consistent for years and years now of each of the five types but we’ve added um something that’s been invaluable and that is instead of a checkoff mark next to the symptom we have a score between zero and ten so our food addicts typically come in and one or all of the five symptom lists have very high scores you know somewhere between seven and ten on almost everything or maybe in three of the five they really have low scores which helps us narrow down well what do they really need so maybe if they just were checking off we wouldn’t know they’d all look the same but now with the zero to ten we know oh yeah they have that score but it’s it’s a two and this you know this area is mostly tensed and so that’s where we start we’ve identified what part of that brain is malfunctioning and needs something very specific to eat uh and then we provide it as a supplement and then every week we have them redo the questionnaires and we watch the numbers go down so our goal is all zeros and we reach it now with our food addicts at 95 of the cases within three months that’s great I mean I love hearing that and I think for a lot of people it’s going to give them some hope if they’ve especially been like maybe struggling or stuck with one particular thing that hasn’t been working for them but one thing I know is like I can’t eliminate the stress in my life so I how are stress and Cravings linked and what are some things we can do to maybe you know negate the effects that stress causes okay well let’s let’s just review that we’ve talked about our natural antidepressant serotonin we know some of the symptoms of deficiency there and we’ve talked about our natural opiate the endorphins so there’s a part of the brain that is supposed to supply Tranquility it is our stress reducing neurotransmitter it’s called Gaba and very specifically it turns off adrenaline you know that’s one of you know most that’s most of what it does but that means a lot of things are relieved the tension in the shoulders and neck the the feeling of over stress and tension even when the stressful situation has been removed or you know they go home after work or of course during covet there was no escaping it so stress was probably the number one complaint you know has been for a while so the first thing we want to know is have they been using food uh to over intoxicate their Gaba production you know let’s assume that they were just over stressed and they don’t have a gamma anymore and their diet is very unlikely to give them the very food that they need the most to make their neurotransmitters whether it’s serotonin endorphin or Gaba and that is protein so and that’s because protein isn’t addictive it’s not going to give you a high it’s going to actually take away some of the pleasure of your addictive food it’s certainly not going to give you that high so a high carbohydrate high fat diet which is what most people are on now and addicted to almost guarantees the kind of protein deficiency that will make it impossible to to keep levels of Gaba High during a time of constant stress so how do we know we look at the symptoms they have all these symptoms of over stress and and then we try them on some Gaba turns out the Gaba is an amino acid a protein as well as the neurotransmitter so it doesn’t even require the kind of transformation that other proteins or amino acids have to undergo to become say serotonin or endorphin and in fact very low doses of Gaba work beautifully for for most people and so I’m just going to I’m just talking about trialing a low-dose supplement of Gaba and getting this almost Universal response from people who are over stressed of relief stress relief so does that translate to stress relief of stress eating yes so the brain chemistry malfunction behind stress eating has been corrected and it’s just the most natural transition into normal eating and first of all reduce stress so that you don’t experience as much stress as easily and when you do well you know you can take some Gaba to uh to relieve it and so most of these people will take gavel two or three times a day for a certain number of months however long they needed each person is different and so it most of the time resolves the problem now there are some people that come in with very high stress but they’re not eating over it so it turns out that about 30 percent of people who are over stressed and in fact deficient in Gaba don’t respond entirely to it and those people have and adrenal over stimulation problems so they’re burned out and they need some attention some some glandular attention and specifically they have abnormally high levels of cortisol which is you know our natural stress coping hormone and it’s typically over secreted so they can’t let go and they can’t sleep and fortunately there’s an amino acid that corrects that but first we do a very simple saliva test to measure cortisol levels and throughout the day and night and then if those things if the cortisol is too high or too low then there’s some very simple things you can do to correct that but the vast majority of stress eaters respond to the gather well that’s exciting news for sure because stress stress Craver is what I got and uh I’ve ordered the gab I know I’ve tried Gaba before I think we’ve talked about that briefly in a previous meeting so I’m still waiting for that to come but I’m excited to try that again and if it doesn’t work then I’m going to try your next suggestion that you’d given me but it is good to know that that there’s a course of action that can be taken you know again I’m going to use Clarissa’s word from earlier you know it gives you some hope that even if something isn’t working that there are other things that we can try it’s not just our lot in life to be stressed out and eating over it all the time there are things that we can do so I’m wondering you know do you based on your years of working with addiction in general but also you know since I think the 90s in with food addiction maybe the entire time with food addiction what do you think or what have you found to be the number one cause if if there is a number one cause of carbohydrate Cravings like where does that come from in particular like is there one particular place that seems to really yeah come up for you when you think about carbohydrate craving no it’s not like cocaine craving which really just over excites one part of the brain carbohydrates and and when we say carbohydrates carbohydrates are not all alike at all and I’d like to just take a a moment to go down my memory lane which is you know as a child in the 50s no one was overweight no one was overeating but we were having dessert every night and we really liked it we were having a Coke on the weekends and we were fine with that you know we liked it but we didn’t have to have it and in fact it you know our our parents were really clear that we need to keep this to a minimum you know they I don’t know how they were so clear but probably because they grew up in the 40s where there wasn’t any food you know and they know the difference between real food eaten three times a day and this kind of sort of recreational eating so uh it turns out that in the 1970s we for the first time ever in human history exposed to a new an entirely new kind of sugar that was 10 times sweeter and more addictive than the table sugar that we had been eating and that was the the free fructose so initially the corn syrup but also fruit syrups and Agape syrup all tremendously high in fructose that is free to roam and do damage and to the entire body particularly the liver the brain and it’s as I said much more addictive so it’s it’s affecting more of the neurotransmitters and when you put it together with the other kinds of addictive substances that for some people it’s Dairy it’s it’s gluten uh you know so starchy things it’s it’s chocolate you know they’re you know there’s a variety there are a variety of foods that will impact the brain in this addictive intoxicating way and what we’ve learned so we started treating food addiction with the neurotransmitter targeted nutrients in the early 90s before that we’ve been treating it but just with you know OA and lots of counseling and a diet that removed all trigger foods but was very generous and usually generous and it it it worked well for over 70 percent you know even long term but that’s different than 95 which is what we see immediately without a lot of struggle now and what we’ve seen since we’ve stopped doing any kind of addiction work except food addiction work in 2014 is is that the low endorphin Craver what I call the Comfort Craver is the most common kind of single you know common denominator among food cravers that they may eat for stress relief also but this getting the pleasure getting that enjoy the joy and enjoyment you know they they talk about it as their best friend so that’s an endorphin effect and when we can raise endorphin levels naturally in the brain those desires for comfort and pleasure and they just disappear and they feel pleasure all right but it’s in the kind of traditional foods that gave us pleasure from the beginning I mean this is a kind of a world of creative Crux right with all kinds of fascinating ingredients put together and they’re still healthy but they tickle a palette you know and please us so there’s no deprivation here when you’re in your levels are high enough that you’re easily pleased it doesn’t have to be chocolate you know it doesn’t have to be M M’s so when we’re talking about implementing some of these whether it’s supplements or you know protocols and then say how long do we expect to get relief should we be doing these screens ourselves once a week I mean we were speaking a little bit before about like well you get relief and you almost don’t want to let go because you feel like I don’t want to go back but but can we let go of some of these supplements because we’re afraid the Cravings might return right well we don’t want anybody to jump off a cliff uh and everybody’s different so we wait until that questionnaire or scoring has dropped to pretty much all zeros and that it stayed there at almost all zeros for a few months and then we suggest let’s say someone has 4 of the five neurotransmitter deficiencies or the hypoglycemia we just say let’s try one you know don’t go off of the other three amino acids just go we want you to go off of one or if that’s too scary then just cut it and see how that does for a day and if you’re completely comfortable without it keep going but keep filling out that questionnaire so that you’re clear that your scores are staying at zero if they start to creep back up then it’s premature and you want to go back to your original dose or maybe at half the dose you were fine but when you tried to go off completely you’re just ready for that so there’s no reason to rush it unless there’s a question of what you maybe over time you you’re getting an adverse because you don’t need it anymore and you’re still taking it so occasionally we’ll get that you know a gavel will make people kind of anxious after you know a long time and they stop the Gaba and realize oh my stress is gone I didn’t really need it anymore so it was kind of irritating my brain does that answer the question yeah I think so because that would have been like my follow-up clarification question was going to be wow that was a lot of syllables in one sentence I was going to be like how long do we try the protocol but it sounds like we keep going until we get to zero and then you know whether or not we take a break really is determined by get to those zeros and then kind of titrate ourselves down like half a dose whatever feel comfortable but then keep checking in because if those scores start creeping back up up or something is going on we may need to go back to that that therapy protocol and and that can happen for example uh with the our all of our endorphin low endorphin cravers the Comfort cravers if uh let’s say they’ve they’ve gone off or cut their amino acid that raises endorphin levels in half and they’re fine and they quit seeing us and then we hear from them again and they say you know my husband died you know this has happened you know or someone very close and the grief is just too much and they’re starting to think about foods and we encourage them to go right back at least temporarily and what they find is that their grief continues but it’s not at the unbearable so for whatever reason they’re not the best endorphin producers and under duress they perhaps they’ll never be able to completely face super severe pain without some help so we’re wondering can amino acid therapy be used in combination with medication so like if I’m on an antidepressant or someone’s on ADHD medications is there anything that they should be concerned about when you know if they want to try these protocols yes the first thing you want to do is get that questionnaire filled out uh and uh one of the columns on the questionnaire lists the kinds of medications that also affect that particular part of the brain that particular neurotransmitter so for example antidepressants whether they’re ssris or snris Target serotonin and activate uh activate serotonin in you know a drug-like way but we have the nutrients that will supply more serotonin so without forcing it into overactivity we can just Supply more serotonin which will have the same effect or better so we want to know how is your medication you know helping you know on is it relieving 50 percent of whatever you’re experiencing before you got on it or 25 or nothing anymore but it did in the beginning or and are you having side effects that are you know disturb you so for example some people want to get pregnant but they don’t want to be taking an antidepressant while they’re pregnant even if it has helped them so the first thing we want to know is what kind of a drug is it what is it Target in the brain and how is it affecting the person so we don’t encourage people to take the antidepressant nutrients for example that raise serotonin levels on a regular basis while they’re taking serotonin targeted medication so what do we do you know it’s up to them if they’re feeling they’re getting a lot of benefit then and not much side effect then just don’t take you know that particular nutrient and we’ll know from their symptom responses whether they are full of Serotonin or not you know and from their response to their medication so it’s really up to them but this gives them an alternative so if they for example would like to get off of their antidepressant and and know whether these amino acids were going to be a viable alternative then it would be okay to trial the antidepressant amino acid away from the medication by four to six hours so let’s say they take their effects or or Zoloft in the morning so four to six hours you know later anytime after that they can trial a dose or two of the tryptophan which means emptying it out into a little bit of water swishing around in their mouths and then swallowing it and noticing over the next five or ten minutes how they feel and so they’re not you know overdosing on on it and it’s away from the drug so uh we often have a psychiatrist are you okay to trial it like this and they always say yes in fact they always say well it’s not going to help but it’s not going to hurt you so that’s good enough for us so then we give them that opportunity they get to see what it’s like uh what it would be like if they took that supplement and raise their serotonin levels until they didn’t need it anymore which would you know require them to get off of the medication gradually and most psychiatrists are perfectly comfortable with them taking the antidepressant amino acid four to six hours away from the drug while they’re tapering the drug down they will increase the amount of the amino acid that is indicated as needed and it usually goes very very nicely and smoothly and we don’t care how long it takes you know we don’t want them to rush off the drug and take you know too little too quickly so you know gradual paper and once the medication is out of there then we can really optimize the doses so it’s kind of a complicated answer but uh it gives you an idea of there are some kinds of medications that are not that are very use can be very useful but they’re not really neurotransmitted targeted like lithium so if someone has had a really good stabilizing experience with lithium we would not suggest that they ever go off of it you know that is not our Arena they’re working with the doctor who’s more familiar with that but we would have them ask if in addition to that it would be okay with their psychiatrist if they trialed some amino acids if they had symptoms on the questionnaire I think that’s a really great I think it’s a really great question that you had Clarissa but I also think it’s a really great answer because we have to understand or our listeners need to understand right that some folks are going to have some more complicating factors so when we are on these kind of medications they’re very serious medications and they’re not prescribed lightly so to be working with like this this may not be a time guys when you want to pick up one of Julia’s books and start doing this on your own this is when you want to reach out to Julia and her trained professionals to work with somebody one-on-one to get your doctor on board all of that because there’s just more factors there are more factors that go into those situations am I understanding that correctly yes perfectly yeah okay so to bring up another complicating Factor we have definitely we most likely have listeners but definitely we’ve worked with clients who have eating disorder histories and we’re wondering are the nutritional amino acid therapy protocols appropriate for individuals who maybe are also working to find recovery from eating disorders whether that be anorexia bulimia binge eating disorder orthorexia any of those kind of more quote unquote traditional eating disorder diagnoses we don’t make a a hard distinction when we’re talking about cravings for intoxicating substances uh that are part of the picture then we’ve found that we give people the same questionnaire and we trial them on the indicated amino acids and they get a lot of benefit now bulimics uh definitely uh do beautifully with this approach they typically have some problems with digestion so the diet you know they have to work with the diet sometimes it has to be pureed initially until they get the you know the the stomach and the whole digestive early digestive process normalized but in terms of the cravings and the mood problems bulimics are very responsive binge eating is something that we found too often of course there are Cravings so you know some of the amino acids can be helpful but when the person isn’t craving all the time they’re craving sporadically we have often found that they are suffering from some degree of bipolar Spectrum Disorder so same with binge drinking you know when it’s uneven when it’s not always there that’s when we are looking for combining whatever amino acids work with a mood stabilizer and if they’re not already on lithium or a Lamictal and they’re an awful lot of people who are in this category who are not never been diagnosed but the spectrum is getting wider and wider and we see a lot of people who we call subclinical bipolar disorder clients so with them we would trial them with lithium orotate which is an over-the-counter extremely low potency form of lithium which often Works beautifully and we will if that’s not totally successful we will refer them for some psychiatric support now with anorexia that is the most profound nutrient deficiency condition there is and if you don’t give an anorectic aggressive nutrients you might as well not even begin we have found that we can’t intervene on their compulsion directly so we don’t even talk about eating initially we just talked to them about okay we have some non-caloric supplements that will make you feel better and they they’re dying for that literally they want to feel better they just you know are so afraid so once we get particularly tripping which is the most easily depleted of all of the amino acids because there isn’t that much even in the highest protein foods and it’s our antidepressant anti-compulsion anti-fear neurotransmitter it’s it’s critical for anorexic anorexics to get enough of it and so when we give it to them and sometimes they need a tremendous amount initially we had one gal who was a ballerina who unbeknownst to us you know we said start with four tryptophan four times a day which is aggressive and she went up to 19 a day you know so she went from she went from uh 12 to 19. and she only did it one by one she did it until she said the voice stopped and I didn’t need to take anymore and now she said I’m calling you because you didn’t tell me to go up that high and I did it anyway and then I was afraid to call you but now I’m calling you and I’m I’m I’m down to 12. I don’t need the the 19th just to give you an example of what it can take when the primary problem is you know starvation brain starvation and I guess what you’re saying makes a lot of sense that you know this type of nutritional therapy would have such a big impact on bulimia when we look at the research and they say a food addiction and bulimia are the most co-related right so a treatment for food addiction makes sense that you would have similar positive results for bulimia so that I mean that just pretty much validates what you do Julia so can you let us know uh where can our listeners find you well uh they they can search on uh craving cure and all of my books and all of my information is all on one website now it’s Julia Ross cures.com but I would want them to go right to the craving cure section of that website and get the book it’s my most recent book but the questionnaire that is you know the question we’ve been talking about the screen we’ve been talking about is on the website so this five-part screen they can take it and uh right there they can get some more information about what else to do and I I should say that part of uh this our initial screen is to identify if there are any amino acids that they shouldn’t take you know do they have any conditions or uh you know are they pregnant for example that really limits the kind of amino acids for the day so that’s got to be factored in and there’s chapters 11 and 12 in the creating cure are the how-to chapters so a lot of people just take the question and they go right to those chapters and get a lot of guidance and then our virtual Clinic is always there to support at any point you know some people call us and say everything’s really great but there’s this whole termination thing and would you help me figure out how to terminate without relapsing so there are you know lots of pieces that that may come up or somebody has kids you know they’re doing really well they want to get their kids on board but they’re not so sure about the dosing for kids and it in fact is less so teenagers over 14 and over are typically adult doses but the younger the the lower the dose needs to be and the shorter they need it the shorter time amazing well we’ll make sure to get that all in the show notes so that people can find you easily and hopefully reach out and get some help but before you go we have a signature question that we like to ask all of our guests we always tailor it to our guests but for you today we were wondering if you could tell a younger version of yourself something about food addiction what would it be well I was always too thin and as I say I was raised in the 50s and 60s where nobody was really overweight and the people who were going to get teased if they were going to get teased were people who were so thin so I had no understanding of weight problems or overeating problems when I got you know went to graduate school and and learned to be an addiction counselor and there was no training in food addiction at all so actually one of my staff members came to me and she was in Overeaters Anonymous and said we need help just like you’re helping people in AAA and n a and CA and whatever we need help and she began to take me to meetings and so forth so I would say the most important thing is that I finally learned that addiction is involuntary and food addiction is no different in fact it’s more involuntary there people have more motivation to not overeat nobody wants to gain weight in this culture but I was into the common approach to overeating and overweight which was blaming you know what’s the matter with them For Heaven’s Sake you know kind of thing and so I would spare my clients that I I actually was smart enough to hire Eating Disorders Specialists rather than trying to do it myself but as much as possible I would love to spare people the blame and the self-hate and and of course the ill health and the the deaf you know by diabetes and everything that goes along with it and we do you know as a culture tend to blame people even though the majority of the population is now overweight 80 and half diagnosis some form of diabetes so to to be so clear that there is a clear-cut solution and it doesn’t have to do with changing your character or yeah yeah sounds like reducing the stigma which is exactly what we want to do in this field right and and just get out of that shame and give people hope and and solutions right thank you so much for being here today Julia thank you my pleasure thanks for joining us this week on food junkies recovery from food addiction make sure to join our Facebook group sugar free for life support group I’m sweet enough you can subscribe to our show in iTunes or stitchers that way you’ll never miss an episode while you’re at it if you found value in this show we’d appreciate a rating on iTunes or if you’d simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too don’t forget to pick up your copy of Dr tarman’s book food junkies which is available on Amazon if you have any additional questions both Molly and Clarissa are food addiction professionals and work one-on-one with clients you can find their websites and email addresses in the show notes be sure to tune in every Friday when our new episodes drop as VR loves to say the power is ours …