From Big Food Insider to Binge Eating Expert: The Psychology of the ‘Food Monster’ — with Dr. Glenn Livingston

After decades spent on what he now calls “the wrong side” — using his psychology training to help corporations hook consumers — Glenn turned his focus toward helping people take their power back, drawing on his own lifelong battle with binge eating and a self-funded study involving over 40,000 participants.

Glenn offers a perspective few others in this space can: he’s seen the food industry from the inside, and he’s lived the binge eating struggle from the inside too. His approach isn’t about willpower or restriction — it’s about building a personal set of simple, bright-line rules that take the decision-making out of the moment of temptation.

We dive into ideas like:

• What it’s actually like consulting for Big Food and Big Pharma — and the moment Glenn realized which side of the war he was really on.
• Why he believes there’s “evil in the food system” — but also why the responsibility to navigate it ultimately falls on each of us.
• His own decades-long journey through Overeaters Anonymous, therapy, and medication — and why healing his self-hatred never actually stopped the bingeing.
• The “food monster” — Glenn’s term for the part of your brain that rationalizes, minimizes, and talks you into “just this once.”
• Why insight and self-understanding alone weren’t enough for him, even as a trained psychologist — and what finally was.
• How to respond when you slip: figuring out the upstream cause instead of spiraling into character attacks from your own food monster.
• “Commitment, not perfection” — why a handful of iterations can lock down 90% of the problem, and why forgiving yourself with dignity matters more than getting it right the first time.
• His single best piece of advice for getting started: pick one rule so easy you can follow it even on your worst day — and let the identity shift do the rest.

Glenn speaks with the candor of someone who’s been on both sides of the food industry’s battle lines — part reformed insider, part fellow traveler in recovery — offering a system built on structure and self-compassion rather than sheer willpower.

If you’ve ever felt like understanding “why” you binge was never quite enough to make it stop — this conversation is for you.