Can You Be Addicted To Food?Can You Be Addicted To Food?
Addict II Athlete Podcast
The conversation looks at everyday overeating through an addiction lens, contrasting comfort eating with classic substance abuse patterns. Coach Blu, Marissa, Brian and Jared talk about core emotional pain, team support, and replacing food as a drug with movement, service and a new athlete identity.
1:36:20•31 Dec 2020
Can You Be Addicted to Food? Turning Comfort Eating into a New Kind of Strength
Episode Overview
- Food can function as a substance, with abuse (self‑medicating) and dependence (feeling unable to live without it) showing up in very familiar “I’m not addicted, but…” statements.
- Real change starts by identifying the core issue behind overeating – the beliefs and hurts underneath feelings like stress, not just the feelings themselves.
- “Erase and replace” means removing addictive patterns and intentionally filling the gap with healthier behaviours, roles and values, rather than swapping one addiction for another.
- Community and environment matter: you tend to become the average of your closest relationships, so building a supportive “team” can be crucial for lasting recovery.
- Counting milestones and growth, rather than obsessing over days or the scale, helps people see how far they’ve come and keeps the focus on a new way of living.
“People who’ve overcome weight loss and addiction are the most strong, resourceful people known to man because they begin to master themselves.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This candid conversation asks a question many people quietly worry about: can you actually be addicted to food? Host and therapist Coach Blu Robinson teams up with host Brian Schallenberger, recreational therapist Marissa Robinson and long-time weight‑loss struggler Jared to look at overeating through an addiction lens.
You’ll hear Brian read out everyday phrases like “I’m not addicted to food, but…” and Blu calmly label them for what they are: classic addiction patterns, just with cake instead of cocaine. Blu breaks addiction into abuse (using food to cope or self‑medicate) and dependence (feeling you genuinely can’t live without it), while Marissa keeps bringing the focus back to one key question: what are you using food *for*? Stress, comfort, reward, escape – they all show up here.
One caller, Elizabeth, opens up about turning to food after her baby’s lifelong diagnosis, and Blu gently shows how feelings like “stress” often hide deeper beliefs about capacity, fear and self‑worth. Rather than leaning solely on 12‑step ideas, the Addict II Athlete approach is all about "erase and replace" – removing an addiction and intentionally filling that gap with things of greater value.
For their community, that means movement, service, family connection and a team mindset where "no one finishes alone". The athlete identity isn’t about medals; it’s about small wins, like driving past a fast‑food place, and letting those victories build real motivation. There’s plenty of humour (including a golden retriever that eats an entire pumpkin pie) but the message is serious: using food like a drug is common, it’s changeable, and it doesn’t mean you’re weak.
As Blu puts it, people who overcome addiction “are the most amazing, powerful people that walk the face of the earth.” If food feels less like a treat and more like a trap, are you ready to ask what you’re really hungry for?
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