How Gut Health Is Driving Your Porn Addiction: The Gut-Brain Connection Explained
- Jake Kastleman
- 3 hours ago
- 29 min read
There’s a belief that quietly shapes the way most men approach recovery from porn addiction.
It sounds something like this: “If I could just be more disciplined… I’d finally quit.”
I believed that for years. And if you’re here, chances are you’ve believed it too.
You’ve tried to push harder, resist more, control yourself better—only to find that the same cycle keeps repeating. You get some traction, maybe even a streak, and then something shifts internally… and you’re right back where you started.
What if the problem isn’t just discipline?
What if you’re trying to win a mental battle… in a body that is working against you?
This is where most recovery conversations fall short. We focus almost entirely on behavior, mindset, and willpower, while overlooking something that is influencing your cravings every single day—your biology. And more specifically, your gut health.
Porn Addiction Is Not Just a Willpower Problem
Let’s start by reframing something foundational.
When men struggle with porn addiction, the default explanation is almost always psychological or moral. We think in terms of lust, self-control, and discipline. We assume that if we could just “get it together,” we’d stop watching porn and finally move forward.
But what I’ve seen—both in my own life and in working with men—is that this explanation is incomplete.
Because addiction is very often not a failure of character. It’s a symptom of internal dysregulation.
When your nervous system is overwhelmed, when your body is inflamed, when your brain is undernourished and depleted, your capacity to make clear, grounded, value-based decisions goes down. That doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means your system is under strain.
So instead of continuing to ask, “Why can’t I control myself?”—which often leads to shame and frustration—I want you to begin asking a different question:
“What is happening inside my body that is making this harder?”
That shift alone opens the door to a completely different level of recovery.
The Body-Mind Connection: You Can’t Separate Them
For a long time, we’ve operated under the assumption that the mind and body are separate. That your thoughts exist in one category, and your physical health exists in another.
But modern psychology and neuroscience have made it clear that this simply isn’t true.
Your digestion, your immune system, your hormones, your sleep, your nervous system—these are not just background processes. They are actively shaping your emotional experience, your mental clarity, and your ability to regulate impulses.
If your body is in a state of chronic inflammation, if your energy is unstable, if your system is overstimulated and undernourished, your mind will reflect that. You’ll feel more anxious, more irritable, more foggy, and more vulnerable to cravings.
And this is where many men unknowingly sabotage their own recovery. They’re trying to overcome porn addiction with the right mindset… while living in a body that is constantly pushing them toward relief.
The Gut-Brain Connection and Porn Addiction
Now we move into the core of this conversation—the gut-brain axis.
Inside your digestive system is a complex ecosystem of bacteria known as your microbiome. And this system is not passive. It is deeply involved in regulating your mental and emotional state.
Your gut communicates with your brain continuously through chemical signals, influencing everything from mood to motivation to impulse control. It produces key neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin—chemicals that directly affect how you feel and how you behave. In fact, the majority of serotonin in your body is produced in your gut.
So when your gut health is compromised, your mental and emotional stability often follows.
This means that your cravings are not just psychological urges that appear out of nowhere. They are often the result of biological signals—your system trying to regulate itself in the only way it knows how.
When we ignore this, we end up fighting the wrong battle. We try to suppress cravings instead of understanding what’s creating them.
How Gut Health Drives Porn Cravings
Let’s make this practical.
When your diet is built around ultra-processed foods, sugar, and low-fiber meals, your gut microbiome becomes less diverse and less stable. This leads to increased inflammation, unstable blood sugar, and disrupted neurotransmitter production.
And when your internal system becomes unstable, your brain looks for relief.
That relief often shows up in the form of quick, high-stimulation behaviors—scrolling, binge-watching, overeating, or porn. Not because those things are deeply fulfilling, but because they provide a temporary escape from internal discomfort.
So what appears on the surface as a “porn problem” is often something deeper.
It’s a regulation problem.
It’s your body saying, “Something is off. I need relief.”
And if porn has been your learned method of relief, that’s where your brain will go.
Why Vegetables and Fiber Actually Matter
This is where something simple—almost overlooked—becomes incredibly powerful.
Most vegetables are rich in fiber, and fiber plays a critical role in feeding the beneficial bacteria in your gut. When those bacteria are nourished, they produce compounds that reduce inflammation, stabilize energy, and support brain function.
This isn’t abstract. It’s direct.
When your gut bacteria are fed properly, your body becomes more regulated.
Your energy becomes more stable. Your mind becomes clearer. And your capacity to handle discomfort increases.
So when we talk about nutrition in recovery, we’re not talking about perfection or extreme dieting. We’re talking about creating a biological environment that supports your ability to live according to your values.
Because when you don’t feed your gut, you feed your cravings.
Inflammation, Brain Fog, and Loss of Control
One of the most overlooked contributors to addiction is chronic inflammation.
When your body is inflamed, your brain doesn’t function optimally. You experience brain fog, fatigue, irritability, and a reduced ability to regulate impulses. You don’t feel like yourself, and because of that, your decision-making suffers.
This is where men often misinterpret their experience.
They assume they’re lacking discipline, when in reality, their system is under strain.
By the end of the day, when your energy is depleted and your body is overwhelmed, your brain naturally looks for something that will provide quick relief. And if porn has been that outlet, it will feel more compelling in those moments.
Not because you truly want it—but because your system is trying to stabilize.
Blood Sugar, Energy, and Relapse Patterns
There’s a pattern I’ve seen over and over again.
A man wakes up tired, skips breakfast, relies on caffeine, eats processed food throughout the day, experiences an energy crash in the afternoon, and then feels irritable and depleted in the evening. That’s when the cravings hit hardest.
That pattern is not random.
It’s biological.
When your blood sugar is unstable, your emotions become unstable. And when your emotions are unstable, your ability to stay grounded and make aligned decisions weakens.
This is why I often say:
Low energy leads to low standards.
When your body is depleted, your threshold for discomfort drops, and your desire for escape increases.
Lust Is Not the Root Problem
This might challenge the way you’ve thought about addiction, but it’s important.
Lust is not the root problem. It’s a symptom.
Attraction and arousal are natural parts of being human. There’s nothing inherently wrong with them. What becomes destructive is the compulsive, obsessive pattern of using sexual stimulation as a way to escape internal discomfort.
That pattern is driven by dysregulation.
It’s driven by a system that feels overwhelmed, undernourished, or out of balance.
So instead of focusing solely on suppressing lust, we need to start addressing the underlying environment that is creating the need for escape.
Because you don’t crave porn—you crave relief.
Recovery Is About Integration
At a deeper level, addiction is a form of internal fragmentation.
One part of you wants relief. Another part judges you. Another part feels shame.
Another part tries to hide what’s happening. You end up divided, pulled in different directions, and exhausted by the internal conflict.
But as your body becomes more stable—through nutrition, regulation, and intentional living—something begins to shift.
You feel more grounded. More present. More aligned.
And from a spiritual perspective, this is where we begin to move toward wholeness. Not perfection, but integration. Becoming a man who is not at war
with himself, but is led from a place of clarity, strength, and purpose.
Change the Environment, Not Just the Behavior
Most men try to change their behavior without changing the environment that produces that behavior.
But your recovery doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens inside your internal ecosystem—your biology, your nervous system, your daily habits.
When you begin to support that system—through nutrition, sleep, movement, and connection—you create a foundation that makes recovery sustainable.
Your mind becomes clearer. Your emotions become steadier. Your cravings become less intense and less frequent.
And most importantly, you gain something many men feel like they’ve lost:
Choice.
Build a Body That Supports Your Recovery
You still need discipline. You still need emotional awareness. You still need to grow, stretch, and lead yourself well.
But when your biology is aligned, everything becomes more accessible.
You have more energy to do the work. More clarity to see what’s really happening.
More stability to handle discomfort without escaping.
So if you’ve been stuck, if you’ve been frustrated, if you’ve been trying to overcome porn addiction and feel like you’re constantly fighting yourself.
Don’t just look at your behavior.
Look at your body.
Because your recovery lives inside your biology.
And when you begin to care for that—consistently, intentionally, and with purpose—you don’t just reduce cravings.
You become someone who no longer needs them.
Onward and upward.
Visit nomoredesire.com/tools for recovery tools and training, including my free eBook, Workshop, The RAIL Method ™ and more to help you break free from porn.
For community support, you can Join the April Challenge. During April, the NMD Brotherhood is learning to stabilize the brain, improve energy, and decrease urges through simple daily nutrition habits.
If you'd like to understand the neuroscience of using nutrition to fuel recovery, and get step-by-step exercises, learn more about The Gut-Brain Protocol Online Course (Use code "APRILCHALLENGE" for 15% off).
And finally, if you're serious and ready to commit, join the No More Desire ™ Intensive Porn Addiction Recovery Coaching Program with group coaching, coursework, online support, and recovery skill-building.
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Full Transcription for Episode 112: Heal Your Body, Heal Your Desire: How Foods Shape Your Recovery
Jake Kastleman (00:00.106)
Welcome to No More Desire, where we build the mindset and lifestyle for lasting recovery from porn. My name is Jake Castleman, and I'm excited to dive in with you. Let's get started, my friend.
Jake Kastleman (00:19.628)
Your mom always told you, eat your veggies. We all know that vegetables contain nutrients and that help our bodies feel strong and healthy. But what if I told you that eating vegetables is one of the best things you can do for your recovery from porn addiction?
Now what if I told you that a lack of these amazing plant foods greatly contributes to your cravings for porn? Chances are, your mom didn't tell you that. Once I understood and practiced what I'll share today, my friends, my life opened up and my recovery from porn became easier. And the same thing has happened for many men in my program. To be clear, what I share today is not a quick fix, it takes work.
but it is founded upon principles as old as the earth itself. And if you are willing to open your mind and make a few changes, it can decrease your cravings for porn and help you feel happier and more vibrant than ever. Before we dive in, a reminder to follow and rate this podcast so that others looking for help can find it. And make sure to hit that notification button so that you can keep finding it. All right, let's get started.
Jake Kastleman (01:41.262)
Before we dive into the episode, quick heads up, this month inside the No More Desire Brotherhood, we're running a challenge focused on reducing cravings through nutrition. I'm teaching members to stabilize the brain, improve energy, and decrease urges. When you fuel your body right, your mind gets clearer, your emotions get steadier, and recovery gets easier. If you want to join us, become a member of the free online community, the No More Desire Brotherhood, where you can commit, support, and grow alongside other men.
As a free member, you'll also get 15 % off the Gut Brain Protocol online course using code AprilChallenge this month only. To join the challenge, go to nomordesire.com slash community. All right, back to the show. So I have to admit as I was putting together this episode, when I first thought of the idea for it, it felt kind of funny to me. Like, how am I going to make this episode about vegetables and porn?
How am I going to make this episode about eating your veggies can help you stop watching porn? And look, it sounds strange, but for those who've been listening to the podcast for a long, long time, I don't think it will come as a surprise. And for those who are new, I think that this is going to absolutely transform your life if you listen and open up your mind and comprehend these...
very basic mechanisms in the body, very complex mechanisms as well. And I should say these complex mechanisms with basic kind of understanding of the inner workings of the body and mind as one. So in entering into this, I really wanna start with this frame of where we are at today in society. I'm gonna get a little bit on my soapbox.
In a few ways, I feel strongly about where we've come to as a society when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to the way that we care for our body. Frankly, I won't address this in the episode, but with the way that we treat the earth, we have totally neglected the earth and we treat it like, I won't use the word that I'm thinking, but we treat it like garbage. So many of us,
Jake Kastleman (04:01.26)
because of what we've done with nutrition, what we've done to our soil, what we've done with our food. Again, I told you I'd get on my soapbox. Because of this, we live in a constant state of mild to severe anxiety, depression, and ADD or ADHD. These things have become so commonplace, and this is where it becomes very practical and very centered on you.
and your recovery and what you go through. We are told that things like anxiety, depression, and ADHD are genetic conditions.
that falls short. Our grandparents didn't experience these things anywhere near to the degree we do now. Now there are some people that argue for, they weren't diagnosed as often back then. I don't agree with that, just to be frank. If this is the case that it is genetic, why has there been such a rapid change in the last couple of generations? And this is not revolutionary in any manner. I think that
There are plenty of voices out there speaking on this right now about the mental health of our current generation, millennials of my generation, and then the Gen Z and now Generation Alpha, which are growing up in a time. You know, last month we did dopamine overhaul, which was all about the nervous system and our technology. A lot of what I talked about and the neuroscience.
behind how this is impacting our cravings for things like porn. All of this, the ways that we spend our days scrolling social media, playing video games, watching TV, all this impacts our use of porn dramatically. We are prone towards these easy to come by pleasures. And then we come to the nutrition side, which I addressed very briefly a couple of times last month. We are eating processed foods.
Jake Kastleman (06:03.63)
We're eating junk foods. We've denatured our food so severely and heavily. And only over about the last 30 years, we've started to come back to nature. And it makes me so happy. It makes me just joyous. We haven't come far enough in my opinion, but we're coming back. And why that makes me happy fundamentally is I care about the brain. I care about our brains. I care about the health of humanity. I care about recovery and what we have done with food.
has absolutely destroyed our mental health. So we're going to talk all about why that is and why things like anxiety, depression, ADHD and other mental disorders are not just genetic. There are so many factors playing into it and our nutrition is one of them and it's a significant one. Older generations sometimes say that these mental health disorders come down to a lakh.
of mental strength. They say we've become soft. And look, I admit that there's truth to that. I'm a special snowflake. I'm a millennial. I get all this. I've been working on this throughout my life. We live lives. I have lived a life of such ease in so many ways that it has weakened my nervous system, our nervous systems, our minds.
to the point where we have trouble encountering adversity. And we have to voluntarily do this now. It was very much more just a part of life, but now it's something we need to voluntarily choose to encounter adversity and to grow. Life often will not do it for us. We can be very comfortable, which leads to severe discomfort because that's how our neurology, our nervous system works.
And we're getting into the biology of that today when we choose foods that are only for comfort and pleasure and not those that are whole and bring joy and strength to the body. Now, we're taking a broken foods, we feel broken inside. We need to pursue whole foods that help us feel whole inside. And I think it's interesting we call them whole foods when we are seeking for wholeness. If you go to scripture in the Bible and you actually make a connection here,
Jake Kastleman (08:28.264)
eating whole foods and feeling whole inside like mental health, mental disorder is disorder. It's not ordered, right? So it's broken. It's not whole. Christ in scripture says, be perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect. Perfect, you take it back to the original Greek and Hebrew. One of the meanings is whole. Another word, another is trustworthy, which is interesting, but specifically the word whole.
is something that I work consistently with my clients on. Nervous system integration, emotional regulation and integration. We need to integrate every part of us as one. And when I eat well, this makes it so much easier to do that because addiction is a disintegration of the parts of us. One part of us is acting out, another part of us berates us and...
and criticizes us for that. And another part of us feels loaded with shame and fear about what we're doing and trying to hide it and feeling that others would reject us and not love us. There's so much that goes into that. And so when my food is broken, much as my emotional state is broken in addiction, it feeds the entire issue and it perpetuates the cycle. There's a lot of complexity there, but hopefully that makes sense. So we have a culture, right?
kind of going back to this idea briefly of encountering adversity. We have a culture that has taught us what doesn't kill us makes us weaker. I addressed this last month. because of that, we've done this with our food as well. We believe that, you know, it is helpful. We call it comfort food.
We say, you know, self-care by eating desserts and things like that. I don't want to harp too much on that. I understand we can have treats on occasion. I don't choose those things pretty much at all in my life because again, they lead to brokenness in my body and in my emotional state. It's an extreme view. I know that, but I feel better eating whole foods. Not that everything I eat is whole entirely.
Jake Kastleman (10:52.886)
Sometimes I eat processed things, I do eat out sometimes, but I'm picky about where I eat. So again, kind of this idea of our grandparents' generation thinking your mental disorders come down to mental weakness.
Yes, we live in a generation of comfort, et cetera, but these, this is not what's all behind it. This is not just an issue of psychology, but of biology, which is what we're talking about today. Went off on a lot of tangents, I think. I tend to do that sometimes. To understand the connection between eating vegetables every day. Eating vegetables of all things.
and decreasing porn cravings. We need to crawl down deep into the digestive system and define its connection to brain health. You are what you eat is a common phrase, right? We've heard this, we hear this and it holds deep truth, which many of us don't really know we haven't been taught to the smallest degree. The makeup of our body is determined by what we consume. I want to say that one more time.
The makeup of our body is determined by what we consume. Okay, fairly reasonable. These are the building blocks that make up our body. But what we often are not taught is that that is also what makes up our brain. There's a disconnect that's occurred over generations, over maybe generations, yeah, but also especially over the last several decades, I think.
We've denatured our food over the last several decades. It started happening before that, but for simplicity, the last several decades, especially this, so this, what this is leading to, it doesn't bode well for us. It's why so many people have been gravitating towards whole foods because they don't like what it's been doing to their bodies and how they're feeling. And so how this impacts recovery,
Jake Kastleman (13:00.558)
Many of us today are in a chronic state of inflammation. It's a buzzword. Okay, I won't go into all the specifics of that. But chronic diseases have become incredibly commonplace. Along with this, chronic mental disorders have become commonplace. Many of us don't know that there is a direct correlation between chronic physical disease and chronic mental dis-ease. Right? Our chronic physical unwellness and our chronic mental unwellness.
One of the simplest truths many of us were never taught again is that the brain and body are not separate. This is not the first time you've heard me say this on the podcast you've been listening for a while. The brain and body are not separate. This is so hard to get through our heads because we've been trained over a lifetime. Really since we were born and we started to learn language, we were taught that the brain and body were separate. They are not separate. They are deeply integrated. often call this the mind-body complex.
Okay, this is well known in psychology now, plenty of people are talking about it. Other people call it the body mind, the biopsychology, psychobiology, the study of how biological processes like nervous system function, hormones, digestion, immune activity, and genetics shape our mental and emotional lives. Okay, notice digestion, immune activity, these are heavily involved.
For centuries, Western culture often thought differently. In the 17th century, René Descartes gave powerful expression to the idea that mind and body were fundamentally distinct. That framework shaped generations of philosophy and influenced the development of psychology as we know it, even though it was incomplete. Over time, the split began to break down. Thinkers like William James,
recognize that the body is not just affected by the mind. The body helps create the felt experience of emotion. And today, modern research confirms what many ancient traditions intuited long ago, especially if you go back to Chinese medicine, they talked about this plenty, it was well known, they practiced it thousands of years ago, guys. Our psychological life is inseparable from our biology and we
Jake Kastleman (15:25.208)
backslid on this in our knowledge of this. We just absolutely trashed how we understand the mind-body connection. And we're coming back because this has been confirmed by many experts. Now we understand the mind and body are one. Experts like Bessel van der Kolk, he is a trailblazer. His book, The Body Keeps the Score has sold millions of copies. I highly recommend it. He's brought this into the mainstream. People are starting to see it.
My mood, my mental state are shaped directly by my digestive health, my immune system, my hormones, my neurotransmitters, my sleep and the condition of my microbiome, which we're going to talk more about. A living community of microbes inside and on my body. We'll talk more about that. We have just as many bacterial cells. Okay, the microbiome, it's made up of bacteria in part.
We have just as many bacterial cells as human cells that make up who we are. And the research on how crucial these bacteria are to our mental health is astonishing. That means recovery is never just mental. If my body's inflamed, exhausted, overstimulated, undernourished, then my mind feels it. I feel it from a mood perspective. And if my body is supported, on the other hand, through sleep,
Nourishment, movement, gut health. Gut as in the intestines, my intestines, my stomach, right, my organs. My psychology then becomes more stable, more resilient, more capable of healing. So what is the actual link? How do vegetables affect the brain, mood and cravings? The answer again starts in the gut. Inside your digestive system, there's an entire ecosystem of bacteria and other microbes.
called the gut microbiome. Contrary to popular belief, bacteria is not bad. This is another way that we've fallen severely short that we've come to understand is false. Bacteria is required. It's crucial. It's part of the overall ecosystem, the micro to macro ecosystem we live in within the earth, right? Which we are a part of even though we like to pretend that we're not. Again, soap box there coming forward.
Jake Kastleman (17:55.33)
Bacteria is required, it is crucial for both in a way that is physical and mental. If you've never heard of this before, this might be a little confusing. So let me explain how the gut and brain connect. Trillions of microbes in your gut help digest certain parts of food. They produce important compounds. They interact with the immune system and they send signals that affect the brain.
They actually produce hormones and neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. Over 90 % of the serotonin in the body is produced in the gut by microbes. Scientists now talk openly about the gut-brain axis, the gut-brain connection, the constant two-way communication system between your digestive tract and your nervous system that is communicated through chemical signals. In other words, your gut and brain are communicating all day long, and I would venture to say it goes beyond chemicals.
that gets more contemplative and a little more intuitive than scientific. So here's where vegetables come in. These little microbes in your digestive system are alive, right? They're alive, just like animals, just like us. So they need to eat and poop, just like we do. But what do they eat and what do they excrete? What is their waste? It's a fascinating thing. Super weird.
if you don't know about it yet. Most vegetables are rich in fiber and fiber does something that a lot of us don't know about. It feeds the good bacteria in your gut, these microbes in the microbiome, right? You are not just eating vegetables for vitamins and minerals, you are also feeding an internal ecosystem inside of you, trillions of bacterial organisms. And these organisms have a, what would you say?
a mutual kind of relationship with you. There's a word that I'm looking for. I'm going to think of it. And if you're listening, you're like, it's this word, Jake, and I can't think of it right now. But it's a relationship that is mutually beneficial. You are feeding this internal ecosystem that helps regulate your mood and stress response through hormones, through neurotransmitters. When gut bacteria digest fiber,
Jake Kastleman (20:20.076)
And I say through hormones and neurotransmitters, that's not the only way it does it. It does it in many other ways as well. That's one of them. When gut bacteria digest fiber, they produce compounds called short chain fatty acids. Okay, so this is another way. You don't need to remember that phrase necessarily, but you can, short chain fatty acids. SCFAs, they're also called. But essentially these acids are crucial for gut health and energy production in the body.
Energy production, think about that. How energized I feel. Do I feel fatigued? Do I feel overwhelmed? Do I feel brain fog? Do I feel unclear, impulsive, not able to make value-based decisions? Notice how all of that is involved in relapse. If I feel those ways, I'm far more prone towards relapse. Okay, so when we used to eat healthy and eat really, really well and consume plenty of fiber, we didn't go through as much of this.
Right? This is a new epidemic in our current culture. Bacteria consume fiber. When they do, they excrete these short-chain fatty acids. Butyrate, acetate, and propionate are a few of them, the main ones. These are waste products from the bacteria, stuff that they can't digest. But what is waste to them is treasure to our human body. These acids enter our bloodstream. They travel to our liver, our brain, our immune system. They help.
calm inflammation, they regulate my appetite, they manage blood sugar levels. All this impacts my mental health as well. Before we get back to the show, I want to take a few minutes to share a story of one of my clients. Because if you're someone who's been battling with porn addiction yourself and feeling stuck, I think that you'll relate to this. My client, Gabe, came to me discouraged about the impact that his porn use was having on his life. It got in the way of his productivity at work.
made him feel more distant from his wife and kids and caused him to experience brain fog, lack of motivation and a lack of confidence. All things that I relate to deeply and personally. Gabe was a good man. He valued his family, served his community. He had a good job and he had ambition. He could even get a decent streak of sobriety sometimes, but nothing long lasting. Gabe's problem was not discipline. It was a lack of knowledge and skill. He didn't understand how to regulate his emotions and train his nervous system properly.
Jake Kastleman (22:44.044)
so that cravings, anger, and other painful emotions could be moved through effectively. By the time he finished my program, Gabe had five months of sobriety without a single relapse. His perspective on life had changed dramatically, and for the first time, he felt fully connected and in harmony with his principles and who he was. I'll share a few of his words directly. I would leave every session with Jake feeling like my eyes had been opened to a new level of understanding that changed my self-talk.
my relationship with my spouse, and my ability to connect with my children. The program felt incrementally tailored to my needs and had the exact building blocks I needed to live a sober lifestyle and mindset. I've kept in touch with Gabe since then. His success has continued and he is now seven months sober. Gabe's story is one of many. Men who've joined my intensive coaching program and experienced sobriety. If you want to join these men, dig deep.
And finally be sober for good. Head to nomordesire.com slash program to learn more. Back to the show.
Jake Kastleman (23:53.006)
When we eat more whole plant foods, especially vegetables, we tend to feed the kinds of gut bacteria that help the body function well. When we eat very little fiber and a lot of ultra processed foods, sugar, convenience foods, that inner ecosystem can become less diverse. Diversities, I could do a whole episode on that, there's whole books on it, but becomes less diverse and less stable. And when that happens,
we often see more inflammation in the body and the brain, worse metabolic health and poorer signaling between the gut and the brain.
ineffective communication. So what we eat is shaping the internal environment our recovery has to live inside. And this matters because inflammation does not just stay in the body. It is not just a physical problem. Remember the body mind complex, it can affect how we feel when the body is inflamed and dysregulated. Many of us feel more foggy, more irritable, more anxious, more emotionally fragile and less able to handle discomfort.
We're not just being weak. We may actually be in a body that is making self-control harder because it's suffering. It's not getting what it needs. The system is under more strain. Okay, and when the system is under more strain, the brain looks for relief. For many of us, porn has been one of the fastest relief mechanisms we've been trained to reach for. We didn't mean to train it that way. We didn't want to. We just didn't know a better way.
at the time when we were younger, right? I know that very well from my years of addiction. I felt forced into it. I felt I didn't have a choice. I needed regulation. And I didn't feel capable of pursuing a different direction. Once I started to change my diet, my life opened up. My choices opened up. I then had more focus, energy, ability. My cravings decreased, became less frequent and less intense.
Jake Kastleman (26:02.252)
Now I have a choice. This is one of the big points I want you to understand. Your cravings are not just about lust, guys. The world will keep you distracted on that forever. From religious perspective, Satan will keep you or distracted by that forever. this lust you feel, you gotta stop lusting. Don't lust anymore. Okay, I know how difficult an illusion this is. It's a deception, I believe. Lust and arousal are not the same thing.
Okay, arousal is great. There's nothing wrong with arousal. Lust is overwhelming. We tend to see cravings as a symptom of lust. The cravings and lust are kind of the same thing. Okay, here's what I mean when I call it a symptom. It's just, lust is just a symptom. I would say it's a symptom of internal dysregulation.
If you didn't gather this from last month, if you listen to the episodes, I don't know what you gathered, right? Nervous system dysregulation. Now we're talking about biological dysregulation. We don't obsess sexually because it's enjoyable. Sure, there's a pleasure and fantasy. I get that. But meaningless obsessiveness is not enjoyable on any kind of real significant level. Perhaps carnally enjoyable, but not when it comes to what we really crave in life.
Wasting our energy on meaningless pursuits is not enjoyable. Okay? It's enjoyable in just a, again, that carnally pleasurable way. I get that, but we do this not because we really, really want that pleasure. It's because it's an escape. Attraction and arousal is one thing. This is inherent to being human. We appreciate beauty and we feel sexually aroused.
Great. Sexual energy is erotic energy. Eros, that word comes from, if you heard my episode with Patrick Devos, it's eros. Well, I actually have an episode coming out the end of this month with Todd Smithson, where he talks about the roots of this word. That's the episode it was in. It's hard to keep it straight when we record ahead of time. But eros means life energy.
Jake Kastleman (28:33.134)
Creative energy, okay? Not inherently sexual, okay? That sexual energy, that life energy or creative energy is inherent to being human. We want to express, we want to create. This is perfectly manageable when it comes to sexual arousal. It's an enjoyable feeling at its core. It's the obsession that is not. Arousal is innocent and happy, lust is destructive and painful. We lust because it is just another obsession.
Our nervous system is using to try to distract us. Our brain and body is feeling overwhelmed, undernourished, inflamed, exhausted, lonely, overstimulated. We are feeling disharmony inside and so many of us feel this now. And just like we can go to food or overeating or obviously TV or shopping or whatever, you name it, to try to handle this feeling of disharmony inside, we can go to porn for this too.
Now there are other reasons that we go to porn that are specific to that addiction when it comes to sexuality, but there's so much the same patterns here and it comes down to dysregulation, neurological, biological, emotional, relational, until we know how to regulate our body and brain voluntarily. We will not stop watching porn.
Nutrition is part of this. Vegetables are part of this. Porn becomes attractive because it offers quick stimulation, a quick escape. So if we want to lower cravings, we have to stop thinking only in moral terms. Stop lusting and start thinking in biological and emotional terms, right? Change your internal body. Change the environment you're in, the ecosystem. We have to ask what kind of internal environment am I living in? What is my body feeling right now?
What is leading to this feeling of lust, this internal dysregulation? Okay. Now it's important to just add fantasy and sexual obsession become a habit. I recognize that. I get it. There's plenty of science out there on this. Billions of people are talking about it. Billions? That's an exaggeration. A lot of people are out there talking all about this and they harp on it and harp on it and harp on it. I get it. Fantasy and sexual obsession are a habit.
Jake Kastleman (31:01.496)
that we build and we become attached to the pleasure. But the inherent pleasure of the experience is just a component. We didn't begin endlessly pursuing it simply for pleasure.
This is why eating vegetables every day, again, back to the veggies and porn, eating vegetables every day can matter more than it seems. It is not because broccoli is some magic anti-porn pill. It's not what I'm saying. It is because whole foods help create a more stable body and a more stable body supports a more stable mind. When my blood sugar is steadier, my gut is healthier, my inflammation is lower.
I am simply in a better position to make clearer decisions. You still need to grow discipline. You still need to do daily emotional and spiritual work. I practice this with my clients every day. I practice it in my own personal life every day. You still need to get out and form relationships so you can feel connected to people. You need to get support. But now when you make these shifts to your nutrition, your biology is helping you instead of hindering you. That's a big deal.
I want you to think about how this plays out in ordinary life. I'm to share a quick example and then we're going to wrap up. A man wakes up tired, skips breakfast, lives on caffeine, grabs fast food, eats hardly any fiber, crashes in the afternoon, feels irritable by evening, and then wonders why his urges feel so intense at night. This might describe you, maybe fully or in part.
This may describe your spouse, if you're a spouse who's in betrayal.
Jake Kastleman (32:52.654)
That is not random, the experience of relapse that evening for that man. Compare this to a man who starts the day with real food, eats vegetables, balances healthy carbs, proteins, and fats, feeds his body, feeds his brain, knows what nutrients are needed in order to fuel recovery, drinks water, supports his gut. He may still face cravings, but
Often these cravings are going to be far less intense and far less frequent. And he feels clearer, he feels calmer, he feels less vulnerable. That is what I want for everybody. Recovery doesn't become a cakewalk because of that, pun intended, but it becomes far easier and more sustainable. And this is what really turned me to gut health a decade ago.
Well, longer than that, I guess. 15 years. Has it been 15 years now? 15 years ago, I turned to gut health as a powerful way of supporting my own recovery.
When I realized that I could reduce the number and intensity of cravings I had each day through simply changing what I ate and bringing in specific foods in order to bless my body, empower my recovery, reduce cravings, that was amazing to me. It is not easy to change your diet. Okay, I'm not saying it's easy. It is simple in some ways, but not easy.
But the cravings I used to feel 24-7 for porn and masturbation felt impossible to overcome. When people told me, stop watching porn, that felt impossible. But changing my diet in small incremental steps was at least possible and far more approachable.
Jake Kastleman (34:59.266)
So if you are listening to this and realizing, man, I've been trying to recover while living in a body and having a lifestyle that are constantly working against me, how do I change this? How do I get a different diet that actually supports recovery rather than addiction? I wanna encourage you. You can make steps to change, but this doesn't just happen. You need support. If you wanna change your diet,
and you want to know exactly how to do this step-by-step, I have resources for you. If you want to know where to start, I invite you to come join us in the April challenge. During April, the No More Desire Brotherhood is learning to stabilize the brain, improve energy, decrease urges through simple nutrition habits, day by day. If you want to go deeper, I have an online course, The Gut Brain Protocol, which you can get for 15 % off using code AprilChallenge this month.
I've integrated within this course my story, a grocery list for recovery, foods you can eat to reduce cravings, foods you can eat to prevent relapse, okay, not magic pills, but things founded on clear science, neuroscience, biology, right, and supporting recovery. I have links in the show notes for both to join the April challenge. It's free to get support and come check it out.
Or to get the Gut Brain Protocol. You can learn more about what the course includes. have tons of information on that. The links are in the show notes. Lastly, if you are ready to commit to your recovery, I have an announcement. No More Desire for the first time is launching a group coaching program. I have been beta testing this group for a while, this coaching program for a while, and it is going to open to the public soon. This is a private community.
with group coaching sessions each week, exclusive teachings, guided meditations and practices, access to all of the online courses, all of them, including the GutBrain Protocol, daily emotional and nervous system regulation practices, and more. Collectively, this will be called the Intensive Recovery Coaching Program.
Jake Kastleman (37:18.368)
maybe the recovery group coaching program. I haven't decided on that yet. I want to differentiate it from my one-on-one, but this will be the new group coaching program. I'm excited about this. Up to this point, I have only done one-on-one coaching. This new program opens an option for many of you that was not there before. If you're interested, I plan to launch the intensive group coaching program soon. If you are interested in getting on the wait list, email me at jake.com.
at nomordesire.com or DM me in the No More Desire Brotherhood. And I look forward to working with you, my friend. God bless and much love. Thanks for listening to No More Desire. It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners, so thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell, and shoot me a rating.
The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons. If you want to take your sobriety to the next level, check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Porn, or my free ebook, The 10 Tools to Conquer Cravings. These are specialized pieces of content that will give you practical exercises and applied solutions to overcome porn addiction. And you can find them at nomordesire.com.
As a listener of the No More Desire podcast, you are part of a worldwide movement of men who are breaking free of porn to live more impactful, meaningful, and selfless lives. So keep learning, keep growing, and keep building that recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.
Jake Kastleman (39:17.25)
Everything expressed on the No More Desire podcast are the opinions of the host and participants and is for informational and educational purposes only. This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you're experiencing thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a desire to harm others,
please dial 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.