A neuroscience approach . . .

Neuroscience has shown that the drive to overeat is triggered by wires.

These wires are strings of neurons that are among the easiest to rewire in the brain. The Joy Method will give you simple, proven techniques and warm, effective support to change that wiring.

As you change your wiring, your relationship with food will change. Your eating will naturally become healthier. Stress eating, compulsive overeating and mindless eating will fade.

. . . to losing weight.

The Joy Method is a fresh new approach to weight loss because the focus is not on food, but on the drive to overeat.

That drive is caused by our wiring. A "crossed wire" in our brain that was encoded by random events becomes activated by the stresses of daily life and tells us to overeat.

Rather than trying to diet, a new neuroscience-based strategy is to rewire those circuits using emotionally-based mindfulness techniques to target and rewire them.

Eating intuitively, needing less food and naturally losing weight follow, because we have addressed the root cause - our wiring.

The problem is not us. It’s our wiring.

Most of us are frustrated by how hard it is to stop overeating and lose weight. The reason is that our approach has “left out” the brain, which is the controller of our eating and weight.

When we "stress eat" that desire is fueled by chemicals that are controlled by our wiring. Life stresses activate a wire that tells us to overeat.

We blame ourselves for overeating, but the problem is not us. It’s that wire! Now there is a fresh approach to weight loss that is based on neuroscience.

The method is based on Emotional Brain Training (EBT), which is the only non-surgical weight loss method ever to show lasting weight loss. It’s accessible through telegroups and online memberships, so you can easily access the tools to change your wiring. Those changes will make it easier to eat healthy, lose weight and keep it off.

We can change our wiring

How can you learn the EBT techniques to stop stress eating, mindless eating and food binges?

Take the 30-Day Joy Challenge. You will learn one small but important skill each day for 30 days.

When the brain is in a state of connection, we feel joy. So, the first few days of the course focus on using emotionally-based mindfulness tools. You’ll not only be present and aware of your emotions, but you’ll rapidly change them in real time. When you feel that joy, the drive for mindless eating, food binges and sugary cravings will fade.

In the next few days of the 30-Day Joy Challenge, you’ll identify four brain circuits that fuel your overeating. You’ll discover their hidden messages, then craft personalized messages that change those wires. The wires begin to change so they stop telling you to overeat and begin encouraging you to release extra weight.

As you complete the 30-Day Joy Challenge, you will feel more peace and power from within. You will understand "why" you overeat, stop blaming yourself for overeating and be on your way to a new relationship with your food in which you intuitively eat healthy, lose weight and keep it off.

The 30-Day Joy Intensive

We offer four options for taking the 30-Day Joy Challenge, including self-study online videos, 30- and 60-minute weekly telegroups, and, for those who want quick results with optimal support, the 30-Day Intensive, a daily 30-minute telegroup.

The most important factor is that you learn these tools so that you move to a new brain-based approach to weight loss. The tools are life-changing and as you begin to think differently about your eating and weight, you will stop fighting against the drive to overeat and discover that by using emotionally-powerful mindfulness tools, you can shut down those cravings, appetites and drives.

The Joy Intensive is a life-changing experience because of the combination of daily support, warm community and accountability. These wires are stored in the reptilian brain and we benefit enormously from daily support to overcome that reptilian brain and rewire those circuits.

The meetings are so convenient. They only take 30 minutes and you can call in from home, work – or even in transit. Our technology makes learning the tools and connecting with other group members easy, and private, too.

Many people start with an online self-study membership, then upgrade for more support when the time is right for them. Whatever membership you choose, we welcome you to join others who are choosing a neuroscience approach to weight loss!

More people want natural weight loss

Our emotional brain controls our eating and our weight. To lose weight, we need to coax the update the memories in the emotional brain so that we naturally stop overeating and naturally release extra weight.

The emotional brain includes a mammalian brain that has survival memories that tell us to learned to seek safety and loving connection with sugary, refined foods and a lower brain, a reptilian brain, that activates fight-or-flight drives to overeat when we are stressed.

If we try to lose weight without changing those memories in our emotional brain, it can work in the short term, but as soon as our life becomes stressful again, the emotional brain returns to triggering overeating, and we regain the weight we had lost – and more!

A fresh, new approach to stopping overeating and losing weight is to learn how to foster changes change those memories in our emotional brain.

By changing our emotional brain, the mammalian brain learns to connect to life's deeper joys rather than relying on sugary, processed foods to feel good. The reptilian brain calms down and is less apt to trigger stress eating, sugar addiction, and mindless eating.

As our brain changes, healthy eating and weight loss naturally follow. We adapt to a new way of approaching food that is flexible yet healthy and a body size that is comfortable for us, so that weight and food stop being issues in our lives – and we discover that we can have more joy than we ever thought possible.

Try EBT for 30 days

The Seven Joys

Joy is the warm glow inside that is not a momentary flash of pleasure but rather a feeling of lasting contentment based on experiencing the deeper meanings of life. There are seven of these deeper rewards, and as you work with your emotional brain to stop overeating and release extra weight, you will experience more them.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary is peace and power from within. As the emotional brain connects more deeply to the thinking brain, we are in a state of neural integration, where every cell of our body, our entire physiology, is at its best. Sanctuary is the first joy of life.

Authenticity

Authenticity is feeling whole and being genuine. As the brain connects more deeply, we feel free to be ourselves. The tendency to “split” and see ourselves and others – as well as eating and weight – as all good or all bad fades. Judgments stop and we warmly accept ourselves, others and life. Authenticity is the second joy of life.

Vibrancy

Vibrancy is being healthy with a zest for life. The connected brain makes us sensitive to our inner messages, so we give ourselves what we need and start discovering new interests and activities to delight our senses and improve our health. Vibrancy is the third joy of life.

Integrity

Integrity is a deep sense that we do the right thing. When we move forward and make decisions not just based on immediate benefits, but the greater good, we feel an abiding joy. The connected brain sends us messages that guide us in finding those right answers and following through with them with more ease. Integrity is the fourth joy of life.

Intimacy

Intimacy is giving and receiving love. When the brain is connected, the stress-fueled patterns of merging, judging, rescuing, people-pleasing and distancing fade. We can give love and receive it with less fear of rejection or surrender. Intimacy is the fifth joy of life.

Spirituality

Spirituality is how you define it, but it naturally deepens when the brain is connected. We are more aware of the grace, beauty, and mystery of life. Daily life nourishes our spirit, soothing and comforting us from within. Spirituality is the sixth joy of life.

Freedom

Freedom is the joy of having a brain that is so connected that we not only stop overeating and release extra weight but no other excesses take their places. We have the freedom to move forward with our purpose in life and make our dreams come true. Freedom is the seventh joy of life.

A Highly Effective Method

The cause of overeating and weight gain is the emotional brain in stress. The purpose of Emotional Brain Training is to give us simple tools to make peace with our emotional brain and enhance our resiliency. The whole range of stress-related problems can fade when we change our emotional brain.

Studies of people who have used EBT suggest that the strategy of addressing the cause of a whole range of problems can promote an improved quality of life and better health. Also, method research supports the idea that by changing our brain, we are likely to see improvements in our lives sustained after the treatment ends.

Emotional Brain Training (EBT)

You will be learning how to relax your emotional brain, the center of eating, weight, relationships, reward and the deeper meanings of life.

The skills you will learn, the brain concept you will use, and the approach you will take to eating and weight will all be based on Emotional Brain Training (EBT). You might wonder, “Where did this come from?” or “Why have I not heard about this before?”

EBT comes out of the scientific literature and has been developed slowly over many years. In fact, EBT started more than 30 years ago, when Dr. Laurel Mellin, the method's founder, sought to discover the cause of the drive to overeat in children. She is a health psychologist and faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco and an international authority on stress, obesity, and neuroplasticity.

Dr. Mellin traced research on drives to overeat back to 1940. A specific study by Baylor College of Medicine’s Hilde Bruch, MD, sparked her excitement about a potential solution. Dr. Bruch's research showed that it was the child's early emotional connections that could be the cause of that drive to overeat.

Dr. Mellin thought, "Why not develop skills of emotional connection? Perhaps that could change the drive to overeat." She developed tools that mirrored exceptional emotional connection, and when children who used them spontaneously improved their moods and drives, Dr. Mellin was intrigued.

She devoted her research to refining these techniques and extended their use to adults as well as to all stress-related problems. Her collaborators, including EBT scientific director, Igor Mitrovic, MD, Lindsey Fish, MD, and Lynda Frassetto, MD contributed to the method and it became fully neuroscience-based EBT in 2007. The EBT Team made advances in technology and simplified the method so that by 2017, the rapid-results 30-Day Joy Challenge was launched.

Now, two programs apply EBT. One is this program, The Joy Method, which addresses overeating and overweight, and the other is The Power of One for overcoming stress symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, relationship issues, and behavioral health. For more information about the EBT stress program, please visit the the Power of One website.