I have exciting news! We’ve had the Food Freedom videos, the books, and now: our new Masterclass, which updates the information available on the science behind sustainable weight loss. Have you been wanting to know what those who KEEP THEIR WEIGHT OFF long-term are doing differently? This Masterclass is the deep-dive you’ve been waiting for. Watch this week’s vlog to learn all about this invaluable free resource. Click here to reserve your seat in the Masterclass! FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE:...

Today’s topic was suggested by a conversation I had with a Bright Lifer. She said she had recently gone back to sugar and flour … and it kind of worked. She didn’t intend to keep it up but was surprised that she seemed okay. It reminded me of a time in Australia when I was deep in the throes of late-stage food addiction. I’d stop eating sugar and flour and could only last a few days. I remember that when I went back to the food, it was such a relief.  A good way to think of this is with the...

I want to introduce you to a lovely mindfulness meditation practice. I learned it in a training session for leaders by the Xchange Group. This method is called the Unified Mindfulness approach to meditation. It’s very widespread, used by Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, and other universities that do research on the benefits of meditation.  There are many approaches to meditation, but Unified Mindfulness revolutionized my experience. It’s the one and only approach that I find I can use as I move...

PECS is Post-Event Collapse Syndrome, and it’s what happens if your Bright Lines get wobbly after an event or holiday. But what does this have to do with Maintenance? Turns out, quite a bit… learn how to protect yourself in this week’s vlog.  FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/6vkVHsPECS and Maintenance | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

I attended a leadership training session recently that featured a lovely mindfulness meditation practice. In this vlog, I’ll teach you how to use this method, which involves noticing and then labeling what you see, hear, and feel, so that you can better engage in the moments that make up your daily life. FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/KiaNsaSEE, HEAR, FEEL | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast

I am thrilled to announce the publication of an academic review article I wrote with Dr. Andrew Kurt Thaw: “The Badly Behaving Brain: How Ultra-Processed Food Addiction Thwarts Sustained Weight Loss.” It’s a chapter in the forthcoming academic book called Weight Loss: A Multidisciplinary Perspective and the chapter is available online now via Open Access Publishing.  The article speaks to the science of the relationship between food addiction and weight loss. It’s similar to the science I...

A few weeks ago, someone wrote to our customer support center. She wasn’t a member, and she’s not in the Boot Camp, but she found us and wrote in. Her email said: “How do I stop the amnesia that sets in when I’m off sugar and flour and go back to thinking I can eat it ‘just once,’ but then my life falls apart all over again?” Aaaaah. Such a great question! You’ve stumbled onto one of the defining features of addiction. Almost 100 years ago, some men discovered this phenomenon. In the 1930s,...

 A Bright Liner named Katie recently sent me a message with a great question. She wanted to know if, when you make Bright Line-compliant foods that would normally have sugar and flour—but you’re making them without—the brain has the ability to “fill in the blanks.” In other words, will the brain trick the body into creating the illusion of flour and sugar, so that it produces higher levels of insulin? That’s exactly how it works. The brain does this all the time. It’s called top-down...

A few days ago, I was on an accountability call with our Bright Lifers community. One of the people participating shared that when she was a child she sucked her thumb. Later, she switched to eating addictively for comfort. She went directly from using her thumb as a source of comfort, relief, and soothing to using food for comfort, relief, and soothing. As she was sharing this with the community, all I could think was “Oh my gosh, me too! Why don’t I ever think about this or talk about...

I recently had the opportunity to take my 12-year-old, Maya, to the Super Bowl. I was born and raised in San Francisco, and we’re huge 49ers fans. I grew up in the golden era of Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Steve Young and I remember the thrills of those years. I have three BLE-related lessons to share with you from this once-in-a-lifetime experience.   The first lesson has to do with planning and preparation. We flew into Vegas on Saturday morning. In my carry-on suitcase, I packed seven...

I want to share a bit about my own story and recent events that illustrate what Bright Living looks like. I’m really Bright right now but that hasn’t always been the case. I’ve been in food recovery for 28 years. That was about a year after I got clean and sober from drugs and alcohol, and I’d gained a ton of weight. I went to my first 12-step food meeting, and it didn’t turn everything around the way the drug and alcohol recovery did. That was the beginning of about 7 1/2 years of...

Register for International Food Addiction Consensus Conference: https://ble.life/4DURJTRegister for Ador@BLE: https://ble.life/PY9sf5Donate to the International Food Addiction Consensus project: https://ble.life/PVOw1B A miracle has happened, and I can’t wait to tell you about it!  First, some history: we used to put on an annual conference called the Bright Line Eating Family Reunion. They were great fun. And then COVID happened, and we haven’t done them since. Our team loved meeting all...

Once in a while a book comes along that I predict will revolutionize our community—and I’m excited to tell you about one such book. It’s called Ultra-Processed People by Dr. Chris van Tulleken. This book educated me so much. In fact, I reached out to the author after reading this book, and I have a nice surprise for you that I’ll tell you about in a bit. Here are some key takeaways: First, I never realized the full extent to which the explosion of ultra-processed food is driven by economics....

A Bright Lifer™ recently wrote in, and I want to address her question because it's on a very important subject—Maintenance. She says, “I've lost over 60 pounds with Bright Line Eating. Since I'm more sedentary during the cold winter months, I've gained about seven or eight pounds back, but the scale goes up and down within a 10-pound window. In the warm summer months, I love to walk and hike, so the weight drops back down. Is this what Maintenance looks like? I'm not quite sure as I'm afraid...

Today’s vlog topic comes courtesy of Michael, who writes: I am shocked that you don’t mention dairy, especially cheese, when you talk about food addiction. Studies have shown that cheese is the most addictive food there is, as it releases the most dopamine. When I went to a whole-food, plant-based diet, it wasn’t sugar or refined grains I had a hard time giving up, it was cheese. And of the three—sugar, processed grains, and cheese—cheese is the worst. Not only is it mostly saturated fat, but...

This week, I want to weave together three topics for you. First: I’m co-writing a book chapter on ultra-processed food addiction for an academic book on weight loss. I’m writing right now about the 11 DSM-5 criteria for substance use disorder. Research indicates that ultra-processed food addiction meets each of these criteria. A large meta-analysis of hundreds of studies showed that about 20 percent of people in the general population qualify for a diagnosis of food addiction. But the...

I want to address something from an email I received this week. It said: “I hear you use the phrase ‘Is my food too sexy?’ Please explain this term! I have a feeling it will be very helpful as I am new to the eating plan, and am still feeling my way.” What a great question! “Sexy food” is a term I use all the time, and it’s worth explaining. It breaks down into three dimensions: the reward value, the level of processing, and complexity. First, the reward value. Generally, sugar, flour, fat,...

As we begin 2024, I want to share a letter from Val which is apropos for the start of a new year. Here’s what Val wrote: Please do a vlog on getting past the brain chatter that says “I will start next week” or “I will start next month” or “I can’t do it because I’ll never be able to eat cake again.” I keep wanting to start, but I can’t seem to. Val, many people grapple with this. So to start, I want to encourage you to use the January 1 “fresh start effect.” We’re past January 1st by a few...

As we head toward a new year, when people often work toward new beginnings, I want to share with you a message I received from a woman named Kim. Kim writes: I have read, and thought I have digested, Bright Line Eating. But how do I commit? I feel like I’ve had 100 “day ones,” literally. I know what to do. BLE teaches me what to do. But I can’t make it stick. What are some suggestions for getting it done? I’ve had hundreds of day ones. I started my food journey when I was 21 years old, a...

I was writing in my five-year journal recently and noticed that I started my entry with, “it was a super-sweet day.” I’ve been writing the same thing for a while. The thought came to me then that this has been the happiest year of my life. That’s a bold thought—but I checked and double checked, and it’s true. And in this vlog, I want to share what made it so, because so many of us are striving for happiness. I came into the year shiny Bright and doing well, and all I wanted through the year...

*Applications for a Boot Camp 2.0 scholarship are now closed. We don’t talk about exercise a lot on the vlog, because Bright Line Eating is mostly about what and how you eat. But many people think they need to be more active when they’re trying to lose weight. The science indicates otherwise. Consider the phrase “calories in, calories out.” There are flaws to this idea: your body is not just a step counter that totals up your activities to determine weight loss. It’s a very responsive,...

Click here to donate. I’d like to share an opportunity for our community to do so much good in this world. Right now, we can change the course of history. On my next birthday, I’ll be 50, and perhaps because this big milestone birthday is coming up, I’ve been thinking about my legacy. I have two things I want to do before I die. First, I want Bright Line Eating to outlive me, so that it will continue to help generations of people after I pass. Second, I want to help get food addiction...

I want to talk about a Dutch proverb today that dates back to 1622: Live and let live. The general idea of this phrase is to be tolerant and accepting of how other people live their lives, especially if it’s different from how you live yours. This is particularly apropos during the holiday season. We have our own version of this motto in Bright Line Eating: Keep your eyes on your own plate. Sometimes when people start their Bright Line journey and are excited about it, they may be a little...

As someone who supports thousands of people in staying Bright throughout the year, I’m sensitive to this time of year. I’ve talked about Thanksgiving before in these vlogs. Go to Brightlineeating.com or YouTube and type in “Thanksgiving” and you can find all my past vlogs on how to navigate Thanksgiving shiny Bright. This year, though, I want to talk about a particular facet of eating Bright: whether or not to change your food plan for a holiday or special occasion. For example, let’s say...