Bright Line Living™ - The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

When I was on the Sunday morning Accountability Call recently, a mother with two young children asked for help. She wasn’t Bright, and ate when she felt depleted or needed a rest. How can we stay Bright when life’s demands just feel like too much? This vlog lays it out.

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Doing BLE When You Have Young Kids | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

We had an election last night in the U.S., where I live. I suspect that no matter where you live, you know about it. I’m not going to talk about the specifics, for many reasons, one of which is that I’m recording this on Monday, before the election. 

I wondered, since we don’t talk about politics in Bright Line Eating, if I should just ignore the election and talk about something else. I decided to address it, though, because I have four thoughts to share.

First, I will watch the election returns with my daughter at my dad’s house. We’ll watch late into the night. I remember doing that for two other presidential elections. For one of them, I was happy with the results and for the other, I wasn’t. But in both cases, I binged my brains out while watching with a big bowl of sugar and flour. 

I’m not doing that this time. Maybe I’ll have a cup of ginger tea. Maybe I’ll have nothing and just cuddle with my daughter. I feel like there are two separate tracks: Life is happening over here on one track, and on the other side, I’m eating Bright, avoiding sugar and flour, on a totally different plane from all the life-gets-lifey stuff.

I wasn’t always able to do that, and I have no judgment on you if you ate your way through election night. I thank God that I don’t need to do that now. 

My second thought is that this election brings to mind the Serenity Prayer, and the difference between what we can and can’t control. We do have some control with this election: we can vote, we can canvas, we can donate. But we can’t control the outcome. The results are out of our hands. But research shows that people are happier when they focus on outcomes that are within their control. 

So, this is a good opportunity to ask ourselves how much we’re focused on things that are out of our control. Leading up to this election, I’ve been reading a lot of political news and receiving lots of negative inputs. I realized I needed to stop, so I broke the cycle and stopped reading the news for a night. I have control over how much of that stuff is in my sphere.

My third thought is this: I am so grateful for our Bright Line community and how we handle politics here. Just so you know, if you post comments about specific candidates, how people should be voting, or anything contentious that’s not about how we Bright Lifers navigate life, we will remove them. We do a beautiful job of staying focused on our primary purpose: creating a safe space for people to find a healthier relationship with food through Bright Lines. 

Our people participate in numerous groups: Mastermind groups, Gideon Games groups, and other forums, and we come from many different backgrounds and perspectives. We love each other and get along. There may be topics we don’t discuss, but we see each other as humans and are reminded that people are good. We can have a lot in common with people we don’t share political views with. We have a common challenge with food and a common solution with our Bright Lines. That binds us together. 

At Bright Line Eating, we’re connected to others in a loving, trusting way, regardless of our political views. Many people do not have that kind of connection. It’s a blessing to have a safe, protected space, without political ads or other distractions, where we can connect. 

My final thought is something my mentor brought up recently related to the election. It’s what she’s been asking herself regularly: is this self-inflicted pain? Am I torturing myself mentally? That’s what I had to ask myself when I was reading too much political news. 

So happy day after the election! I’m grateful to be in community with you, to have carved out a little piece of the world where we can be together focused on our own healing. We stay Bright so that we can be happy, calm, and useful. If outside events are shaking us, it’s our job to bring ourselves back to our center. 

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The Morning After Election Day | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

The holidays are coming, and with them come a great deal of socializing—often around food. It can be daunting. But what’s the worst that can happen? 

I have three stories for you about times when the worst did happen. 

Here’s the first: a friend told me a story about being around a campfire with his family. A family member offered him something they were cooking—it was NMF (not my food). He said, “No thanks,” but the person just shoved the food closer to him and insisted he take it.

When they shoved it into his face a third time, he got mad. He was rocked by the fact that his “no” wasn’t honored. 

Another story: When I lived in Sydney, Australia, I was going through the worst relapse I’d ever had. I finally put down the sugar and flour and got peace, but I was fragile. During that time, we were Baháʼí—I’m not anymore, but I was a devout member of the faith then—and frequently went to religious gatherings. 

There was always a large contingent of Persians at these gatherings. In Persian culture, there is a rule of hospitality called taarof, where the host offers a guest food several times, which they turn down twice, and then accept the third time. It’s a sort of dance between host and guest. It’s woven into their culture. 

I’d go to these gatherings, and invariably the host would bring a tray of baked goods around and I’d refuse, as clearly and strongly as I could. And they’d lift the tray higher and insist. And by this point, tears would be in my eyes and I’d be looking for a way to escape. It was very hard to not have my “no” respected, and I eventually stopped going to these events. 

And one more: There was a man I didn’t know very well at a camping event. I told him that I didn’t eat sugar or flour. After that, he took a chunk of NMF and shoved it in my mouth. He meant it as a joke. He thought that since I wasn’t initiating the action, it was a freebie and I’d enjoy it. 

I freaked out and ran to the sink to spit out the food. He didn’t get it—he didn’t understand that I wouldn’t appreciate a freebie.

If you’re not a Bright Lifer, what support can you get for these circumstances? First, there is the vlog archive. Go to BrightLineEating.com, click the vlog tab, and use the search box. There’s one called “How to Talk to Your Partner about BLE.” It can help you if someone is obstructing your progress.

You can search the vlog archives on terms like “holiday,” “Thanksgiving,” and “Halloween.” There are good tips there to help support you.

There is also support in the books: Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin, and Free and Rezoom: The Powerful Reframe to End the Crash-and-Burn Cycle of Food Addiction. Get them from the library or cheap on Amazon.

If you are a Bright Lifer, there’s even more support. We have a whole course called “Bright Line Holiday,” and it goes into depth about navigating the holidays and staying Bright. 

If you’re in Boot Camp, there’s a module Called “A Full, Flourishing Life: Navigating Friends, Family, and Social Situations.” There’s also the Friends and Family video—you can copy the link and send it to your loved ones. They get an explanation from a neuroscientist—me—on why your brain is different. 

Insults and misunderstandings are hard to navigate but it is not, after all, the job of others to understand what you’re doing with your food. And they may never. But you can stay strong in your “no, thank you” regardless of whether they understand.

Think about it this way: If you were allergic to peanuts, and someone made you a peanut butter sandwich, you wouldn’t eat it no matter how much they urged it on you. You would say, “No thank you, peanut butter makes me sick.” That’s helpful language because sugar and flour make us sick. It warps our minds, spirit, body, and brain. 

I want to leave you with a quote from the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

We have a food landscape that is sick. People eat themselves into illness and early death. For us, it’s even worse because we have an addictive relationship with ultra-processed foods. It’s not good for us, even on the holidays.

So stay strong in your “no, thank you.” Appreciate the people who accept this and God bless those who don’t. And bring it here. Bring it here. Bring it here. We get you, we love you, we support you.

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When They Won’t Take Your “No” | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

Today I’m coming off a near-all-nighter at the emergency room with a loved one. It’s my second night this week in the ER—with two unrelated circumstances. 

Sometimes this happens. And it occurs to me that it might be helpful for you if I describe how I navigated going through a situation like this while staying Bright. So let me lay out how I managed, in the hope that when you’re facing moments like this, it could help you out.

The first incident happened Wednesday night. David and I were woken up at 2 am with the news that one of our loved ones was on the way to the hospital. I knew it would probably be a long time in the ER, so I packed my breakfast. I don’t leave the house without my food any more than I’d leave the house without pants on. There’s always a moment to pack a quick meal.

I didn’t pack the breakfast I had written out the night before. Instead, I threw some nuts, an apple, and a portable grain in a Tupperware. It took me only a minute. 

A day and a half later, I was still recovering from that long night. I had a meeting that morning and didn’t think I could face it. I meditated and cried and crawled back into bed for a little while until my Highest Self told me it was time to get up. I went to the meeting…super late, but better late than never. And it was essential that I stay sensitive to my need to fill my tank back up after the ER experience. 

Then, last night, I was out with one of my kids and some loved ones, and one of them passed out and fell face first into a concrete floor. It was 8 pm, and we were on our way to the ER again. 

I’d had my dinner and did not need to pack food. I thought, rightly, that we’d be done before morning. If needed, though, I could have swapped out with David to get home for breakfast. 

A word about my food thoughts and food cravings this week. I shot a vlog a while ago on dragonflies and dragons. A food craving is like a dragon that swallows you up; it demands that you eat. A food thought is like a dragonfly that lands on your shoulder. It feels like an invitation to consider food. When the dragonfly lands on your shoulder, you’re at a choice point. You have the option and the ability to brush it away before it grows into a dragon. As soon as you turn toward it, however, it opens the door to further thinking about that food and before you know it, you have a dragon on your hands.

In the past few days, it felt like I was walking through a swarm of dragonflies, particularly when I was in the grocery store. So I called a Bright friend, just to tell her that I was grateful to be Bright, but that the food was calling to me. A two-minute phone call. I used my mantras: that’s not my food, that’s poison to me. And I got out of the grocery store Bright. 

After I got home last night at 3 am, I went into triage mode and began canceling things. What was most urgent, and what could I put off till later? I canceled a bunch of meetings. I slept a bit, then woke up, meditated, and had breakfast. Then I went back to bed. I needed a nap and then my lunch. I am giving myself the grace of doing this vlog in my office rather than going into the studio because it feels more gentle. 

I feel like there’s a part of me that is a very effective, kind, skilled Girl Scout troop master. When the Girl Scouts are on a hike and things go awry, the master needs to handle bruises or broken bones, while navigating the route, and making sure everyone stays engaged and safe and well. And I have a part of myself that reviews the calendar, cancels non-essential events, changes plans, and reorganizes my world when life gets lifey. That Girl Scout master in me knows that staying Bright is the top priority. 

The habits and routines that staying Bright includes are all negotiable, but breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the right times with the right foods—that must happen. I’m grateful for the part of me that takes over and makes that happen.  I’ll be in that mode for a few days, I suspect. We’ve been through a lot in the past few days.

Today I’m going to go spend time with one of my kiddos and stay close to family. So when life gets lifey for you, I wish you gentleness and care and hope you have a Girl Scout master who can shepherd you through it.

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Two Visits to the ER | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

In today’s vlog, I want to talk about fiber tracts. These are neural pathways that your brain builds every day. Your brain is always changing. You are either learning new things or strengthening pathways that exist. 

Say you begin piano lessons. You create new fiber tracts for piano playing. It’s as if you’re in a dense jungle with your machete, and you need to hack your way through to create a path. This is hard at first but gets easier with time. Repetition beats down the path and then widens it more and more. 

We come to Bright Line Eating with fiber tracts for the way we used to eat. Maybe it’s a fiber tract for swinging by a cafe on the way to work, scrolling through a delivery app, or rummaging through the cabinet for snacks before watching TV.

When we start Bright Line Eating, we abandon those old behaviors and start building new fiber tracts—new paths for writing down our food, assembling meals, weighing our food, and more. 

The Bright Lifer has two sets of fiber tracts in the brain: all the ones for the old way of eating, and the newer ones for how they eat now. The old ones never go away; you’re just not using them. They’re like an old, dried-up riverbed that no longer has water in it. That’s the reality of “once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic” or “once a food addict, always a food addict.” 

There’s also a third type of fiber tract. We have the old and new way of eating, but there can also be a fiber tract for relapse if you break your lines repeatedly and fall back into old ways of eating. 

When you’re Bright you get a clean slate with your new ways of eating. After a few months, if you’ve been squeaky clean Bright, eating off-plan is actually hard—your brain doesn’t want to leave the new path. I live right by the Erie Canal, in Rochester, NY. Canals have thick cement walls that keep the water in. Your brain is like that when you become Bright. It has thick walls that keep you from deviating, like those canal walls. 

These walls are so strong that after a few months, you might find it hard to reach out to something that is NMF (Not My Food). But if you do choose to reach for that NMF, you start to create a third pathway, an off-ramp from the Bright fiber tracts back to the old fiber tracts. And every time you deviate, that path from the new to the old gets wider. Before long, you have fiber tracts going from trigger to relapse.

After a while, those new fiber tracts may be so strong that without even realizing it, you suddenly have a handful of nuts in your mouth. So you end up with three sets of fiber tracts: the well-worn old set, the new, Bright set, and a third path that goes from Bright to not Bright. 

If you find yourself in this position, what do you do about it? The same thing you did when you started Bright Line Eating. The way to create a new reality in your brain is to dam up all the water that was going down into the dry riverbed and become very intentional with your behaviors. 

Dam the water upstream by recommitting to your Bright Line journey. Do not allow any deviations. This might mean putting yourself in a new Bright environment. This may involve more support, a lot of intentionality, and maintaining firm, cement-like barriers to keep the water from flowing where you don’t want it to flow.

You can’t allow any water to leak out, even though it’s easy for that to happen. It’s going to take time, along with maintenance of your Brighter than Bright Lines. You’ll need to up your game a lot.

And if you’re not in that situation, keep your canal walls thick and strong, and don’t let any deviation happen. Savor that experience, and protect it. Because the minute you deviate, you’re starting to create new fiber tracts.

I spent from 2015 to 2019 in and out of relapse. I built pathways from Bright to not-Bright. But today, I’ve been as Bright as possible, even in restaurants, for two and a half years. I changed by putting myself in a different environment with stronger support and more guidance, and I drew the line in the sand.

It took a lot of work. There’s a mysterious grace involved, too. So if you’re in this state, don’t give up. It’s not easy, but you got this. I know how it feels. And you can get Bright again, with vigilance, a stronger program, and time.

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The Pathways to Relapse | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

I want to introduce you to something called arousal theory. Understanding the arousal mechanisms in your nervous system can help you see how you may have used food in the past to moderate it, and how you can avoid doing that now.

Here’s what arousal theory is: we all have a mechanism that works like a see-saw, moving us from high arousal to low arousal. The sympathetic nervous system, our “fight or flight” response, is associated with high arousal. The parasympathetic nervous system, the “rest and digest” response, is associated with low arousal. 

The sympathetic nervous system can be active from events that range from being bitten by a spider to riding a roller coaster—activities like these are high-arousal and may involve fear, excitement, sexual desire, or other high-octane emotions. 

What does low arousal look like? It can include being bored, relaxed, sedated, sleeping, or vegging out on hour eight of a Netflix binge—all these activities turn down our mental dial. 

Generally, the brain goes to great lengths to keep your state of arousal moderate. So, if you have been watching TV for a few hours, for example, it might feel great to get up and move around and take a hot shower. Or if you’ve been riding roller coasters all day at the amusement park, you might pass on a friend’s offer to go out dancing that night. Your brain has had enough high arousal. 

There are a few wrinkles to this. Here’s one: the level of arousal that’s optimal depends on the task. A moderate level of arousal is fine for a moderately difficult task. So if you’re helping your kid with their math homework, you want a moderate level of arousal to function best. But if you are taking a calculus exam or trying to pass the Bar exam, you want a lower level of arousal to help you perform your best. 

Or picture someone at the Olympics: on the high dive, right before they jump, they’ll close their eyes and breathe deeply, doing whatever it takes to bring down their nervous system to an optimal low-arousal state. That’s because the task at hand is extremely difficult.

What about easy tasks? Let’s say you’re working for a charity and you’re stuffing envelopes for ten hours. You need to perform fast and consistently. You might want to have your favorite dance-party music pumping to keep yourself in a state of higher arousal. It’s a super-easy task.

One last factor: People’s baseline level of arousal varies. Some people are high-arousal naturally. They don’t have enough of the neurotransmitter GABA that dampens arousal in the brain. These people are constantly seeking arousal-dampening experiences. And they might be more drawn to flour products, which have a sedating tendency. 

Others run low-arousal. They may look for more stimulation. These are the people who ride motorcycles and jump out of airplanes. They do this to supplement their low-arousal brains. I’m one of those people—I’m a hard-core extrovert, have owned a motorcycle, and have had my skydiving license. 

I remember when I was writing my first book, I was alone in a cabin on a writer’s retreat. When I went to the grocery store I drove like a banshee, with the music as high as it would go! My brain was flipping out from way too much time in a state of low arousal. I needed stimulation.

That’s the same thing as eating a lot of sugar. Sugar produces high arousal; flour produces low arousal. Notice how you may have self-medicated in the past to obtain an optimal level of arousal. And notice that sugar and flour aren’t the best ways to achieve those ends. 

Turning on fast music in the kitchen and dancing while you chop your veggies is a great way to increase arousal. Taking a bubble bath is a lovely way to get some low-arousal gentleness into your evening. 

So as you go through your day, I want you to look at ways you’ve used food to change your brain state. Notice that food isn’t the sharpest tool you could use. You can do it better with awareness, without toxic foods. Make a conscious decision to find a pick-me-up or a slow-me-down that’s not toxic. If you used to turn to sugar, try dance, or play. If you used to turn to flour, try aromatherapy, a meditation track, or a gentle walk with a friend.

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Arousal Theory | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

Today’s a big day: it’s the start of registration for the Fall Food Freedom Boot Camp. It’s usually our biggest cohort of the year. It’s a wonderful time to start because it takes you through the holidays— the hardest time of year for food. Boot Camp gives you the support you need. And when January comes and you’ve lost weight and are feeling amazing in your body, you’ll be on top of the world. So many of our successful Bright Lifers started with the fall Boot Camp.

Every year, we send out a survey at this time to find out what’s challenging you. What we noticed this year was that there were a lot of people who have cursory experience with Bright Line Eating, but who haven’t done the Boot Camp, or tried it but drifted away. They haven’t gotten traction yet.

Boot Camp is the strongest foundation for a Bright life, and because registration is starting today, I want to give you my four best success tips for making sure that you start strong. So if you’ve made an effort but are floundering, or haven’t started yet, here’s what you should know:

It's daunting, perhaps, to start Bright Line Eating. But it doesn’t have to be. You just need to start with action. And the action you need is to get yourself into the Boot Camp. That’s where the magic is. If you’re one of the people who said in the survey that you’re struggling with the basics, with food prep, with letting go of sugar, with stringing your first few Bright Days together, with cravings, with feelings of self-doubt, let us help you. This is what we do, all day, every day—help you transform.

Here’s the link to get started with the Boot Camp: https://www.brightlineeating.com/programs Imagine it’s January 1st and you’re soaring. You will have had the best holiday possible, focused on family, the camaraderie, the joy, with the food in its right place as a supplement.

Be with us. I love you and can’t wait to see you on the inside.

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4 Essential Tips to Kickstart Boot Camp Success | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

Restaurants are my Achilles’ heel, and I want to share with you a few meals recently that didn’t go well—and what I did about it. I used to try to game the system and get the biggest, sexiest meals when eating out, but that was giving me near-panic attacks afterward. In 2022, I started to analyze my restaurant behavior and decided to go back to day one because I wasn’t being honest about how I was navigating it. Eating out has been a breeze since then. 

Here’s how I achieved that: I partnered with someone who has peace with eating in restaurants and we went through my behavior with a fine-tooth comb. Then I stopped triggering myself. 

An example: at my local Japanese restaurant, I used to order a salad with dressing that had a little sugar in it. I rationalized it as part of my vegetable portion. But when I cleaned up my habits, I started ordering my salad without dressing. I eat it plain now with soy sauce. 

I also started being more honest about proportions. For example, I used to order French onion soup, (without the big crouton, of course), on the theory that 8 ounces of broth is fine, and I wouldn’t count the cheese as anything. Now I don’t eat melted cheese at all.

So fast forward to about a month ago. We went to a restaurant to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. She had been talking about how good their deep-fried Brussels sprouts were. I ordered them without cheese. This was a rationalization. Mind you, the place has steamed broccoli. That’s what I should have ordered.

I ate the Brussels sprouts and they were great—but I left the restaurant feeling all swirly in my head. The next morning, my ring didn’t fit because I was swollen from that oil. My thinking didn’t feel right for several days. 

This was not a big deal, but I didn’t have peace about it. So I talked to several people who have peace in restaurants to debrief. One asked me, “What do you have going on? What is that indulger part of you trying to get from those greasy Brussels sprouts?” I hadn’t noticed that my food indulger part was active, trying to please me and make my life better.

But a few days later I walked out of a restaurant again feeling panic and shame. I ordered salmon sashimi and ate it with soy sauce and wasabi. Afterward, I picked up the bowl of soy sauce and drank it. I had a bowl of vegetables with a little butter on them, and I drank that bowl of buttery soy sauce too. 

I called a friend to talk about it, and I remembered something from my childhood: when my father and I would go to get Chinese food, I’d pour soy sauce and white vinegar together, take my fork, and eat the liquid from the fork. 

My motive, in all these cases, was a food addiction motive: More. Can I get more of this food to soothe, to calm, to satiate me? Can the food do something for me and help me achieve some level of okay-ness?

But food doesn’t do a good job of that. I need to find my okay-ness inside, instead. So I rezoomed. I didn’t break; I just didn’t make good choices. If you need more information on breaks, check out my book REZOOM—there’s a section there on what makes a break. 

I’m glad I used my tools, talked to people, wrote about it, and sought the lesson. I want to claim the win that keeping my quantities in restaurants has now become automatic. 

If you’re not high on the Susceptibility Scale, this may all sound crazy. That’s fine. Do what gives you peace in restaurants. For me, analyzing food is vital, because I’m a 10+++ on the Scale. I have to keep my behavior really clean. But keep doing what’s working for you.

For me, what’s been working regarding my quantities in restaurants is to HONESTLY eyeball my portions, taking what I’m not going to eat off onto a side plate. Then I start eating. But if, while I’m eating, I start to second-guess my quantities and think I may be about to eat too much, I take more away. I keep taking bits away until I have peace.

If you have a restrictor part of you, and taking away food could be an act of anorexia, then don’t do this. I’m an overeater and don’t have a strong restrictor part. So for me, taking food away is healthy. If it’s the reverse for you, you may need to surrender and eat all your food. 

I share these specifics because I think it’s helpful to have this boots-on-the-ground understanding of what it’s like to live a Bright Life and have these long stretches of freedom. Sometimes, that freedom may get interrupted, and it’s good to know what to do when that happens. For me, it was time to check my motives.

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Motives in Restaurants | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

I was coaching someone yesterday on an Accountability Call who is going to Italy, and it reminded me of something I wanted to tell you about my very first trip to Italy this past summer. 

While I was in Italy, I posted on the Bright Line Eating Facebook Community. It was the morning of our last, long day of tours and I wrote this:

“My beloved Bright Lifers: I haven’t done this in a long time, but am posting because I need support. I’m in Italy with David on our 25th anniversary trip. Long days, in the hot sun, powerless over when we stop for lunch. Lots of watching people eat NMF (not my food) and drink NMD (not my drink) and my knee hurts and I’m feeling run-down. We are in Florence and have one more 10-hour day of sightseeing. Tomorrow is a day at sea, with time to journal, make calls, and recharge. I told David this morning that I’m depleted. I cried. I’ve posted like this in the past and have been buoyed up by the flood of support that comes in. I’m breathing, and praying, and trusting that I can make it through this day. It feels so good to be Bright no matter what. Thank you in advance for your love and support.”

I was thinking I might not go that day, skipping out to rest and recharge. I think the day before in Rome had really weakened me—it had been a hot, long day with a disastrous tour guide. I was exhausted. 

After I posted, though, David and I joined the tour. And then a miracle happened. The tour guide was amazing: organized, calm, and clear. The day was laid out beautifully. I felt calm. I kept checking my phone and finding comments of love and support—dozens of them. They urged me to hang in there and keep moving forward.

It was the easiest day I’d had. I had so much reserve in my tank. Putting that post out to the world and letting the love flood in gave me tangible support. 

It reminded me of another time in my life when I put out a call for support and found myself living and floating on peoples’ prayers and support. That was when our twins were born prematurely. A nurse practitioner in the NICU told me they were the sickest of the 54 babies currently there, with a four percent chance of survival. My heart was breaking. But the substance of the prayers we received was so palpable. 

Last night I went for a walk with a friend. It was a bright, hot summer evening. As we turned a bend, the sun had set and the sky was the most gentle, pastel colors. It was a precious light-filled moment. The moon was almost full, hanging on the horizon, and the air was gentle.

That’s what the air felt like in Florence when I was walking through the day supported by all those prayers. Suddenly, the quality of the day turned gentle, positive, and fresh. The Duomo was so beautiful I wept. I was so glad I didn’t miss that day. It was incredible.

I bring this to you because an SOS post in our online community gets so many responses. And the results are not what you might expect. It’s not that you get advice. Instead, it activates mysterious forces that change the tone and tenor of what you’re facing, that melt difficulties and buttress your strength. 

The reality is that, sometimes when we’re living Bright, we’re content to watch people eat and drink stuff that we don’t eat and drink. And sometimes, it wears us down. An SOS post to our community activates a flood of responses that generates energies that my scientific brain is convinced have spiritual and physical substance to them. Something happens to make it possible to get through gracefully and Bright.

The next day on that trip, I was fine. I was buzzing from what a great day I’d had in Florence. So if you’re one of the 400+ people who posted, thank you. If you said a prayer or sent strength, thank you. If you do that for anyone in our community, thank you. 

And if you post an SOS post, thank you for allowing us to show up for you, to rearrange the molecules for you. We are there for you. 

This is another tool in your tool belt when you’re feeling worn down. Ask us for help. We’ve got your back. Always.

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An SOS Post From Italy | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

Wendy Reynolds wrote in with a great question about diet mentality: “This term is used repeatedly in coaching calls. I have asked several people in my own circle how they would define it. And I'm hearing so many varied explanations. So I decided to search through all the vlogs, all 3 books (minus the cookbook) and I found only one entry, on Feb 13th in "On This Bright Day" which was fantastic. I would love a more in-depth, clear understanding of what diet mentality means in BLE. THANK YOU.”

In essence, diet mentality is an approach to eating that is short-term and focused on weight loss. 

Your Bright Transformation happens at the physical level, for sure, but also at mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. If we focus only on the physical, we are missing pieces of the whole picture.

You can focus on weight loss even to the exclusion of health. For example, consider someone who is on a GLP-1 medication like Wegovy. They could be in a state of diet mentality: taking it for weight loss, and not caring about other health benefits or detriments. They might not eat healthy foods, or perhaps they save up points so they can eat desserts. They aren’t trying to stay healthy; they’re trying to lose weight. That's diet mentality. 

Diet mentality is common in BLE as well. There are people, for example, who break their Bright Lines occasionally, but still lose weight because they have a strong metabolism and they’re following the plan 90 percent of the time. They might not even notice that they’re not allowing themselves to experience the full mental, spiritual, and emotional benefits. They may think it’s going great and not even know that they are not really doing Bright Line Eating. They’re just using it as a diet.

When we focus on the mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits we have a different experience—sometimes in direct contradiction with diet mentality. Spiritually speaking, surrendering to the Bright Life can lead to tremendous peace and freedom. Emotionally, we can let go of resentments, judgmentalism, and criticism of ourselves and others. We may do deep emotional work. We work our Bright Lines not as a diet, but as a way of life. 

What we are talking about here is an issue of identity. Who are you really? Are you fundamentally the person you always were, who is just adopting this food plan to lose weight? Or are you fundamentally someone who does Bright Line forever, as an identity? It’s the difference, when the platter of food is passed, between “Oh, I can’t, I’m in a weight loss program right now,” and “No thanks, I don’t eat sugar.” Do you hear the difference?

The model that I get from James Clear’s book on forging new habits is this: at the core of sustained behavior change is identity. The next level is the system or process you’re following—which for you may be Bright Line Eating.

If you’re here with a diet mentality, you may be less interested in the rest of the system, like getting a buddy, doing Gideon Games, or other support we offer. You might overlook the routines like meditating or starting a gratitude process. You may gloss over anything not directly related to losing weight. 

What it comes down to is this: is this a short-term or a long-term thing for you? Any of the popular weight loss plans can be done as a diet or they can be worked on in a deeply identity-rooted way and not just with a diet mentality. It’s not the plan you adopt that identifies it as a diet or an identity shift. It’s your orientation toward it. 

So you need to ask yourself: why am I doing this? If you just want to lose weight, it’s a diet mentality. And if it’s a diet, you will regain the weight, because that’s how diets work. They’re short-term things. 

If you have a diet mentality, though, don’t beat yourself up. A lot of people “come for the vanity, stay for the sanity,” as the 12 Step saying goes. Just consider working on it a bit. You want to develop a deeper identity as someone who does this long-term, one day at a time. Move from diet to lifestyle mentality. Do some WOOPs—wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. Visualize yourself ten years in the future, still doing this. 

Really, truly, ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Think about who you want to be as a person, and what you want your life to mean. Weight loss is always for a reason. Why are you here, really? When you have the answer to that question, you’ve moved beyond diet mentality.

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Diet Mentality | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast