Bright Line Living™ - The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast Susan Peirce Thompson

I can’t believe I’ve never recorded a vlog about one of our community’s most-used acronyms: JFTFP! What is the true significance of this phrase—and how does it help you establish your Bright identity and achieve your Bright Transformation? Listen to this week’s Vlog to find out.

FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/SyX4xoEpisode: JFPFP | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast 

It’s been a while since I gave you a big-picture update on what’s been going on behind the scenes at Bright Line Eating. So, let’s dive in. 

Initially, entry into Bright Line Eating consisted of the Boot Camp course, which was incredibly transformative. Then people would go into Bright Lifers, which didn’t have more content but had a lot of additional coaching and connection opportunities. Additionally, there were a la carte courses available to purchase.

Then in November 2021, we decided to fold it all into one membership and dramatically reduce the price. We were thinking of scale. We wanted to reduce the barrier to entry, improve access, and thereby increase the number of people who would experience the Bright Line Eating transformation. 

We brought in a couple of executives to help us in this endeavor. It turns out there was a significant misalignment of values, though, and one of those executives tried to change our values dramatically and commoditize BLE. 

Through this experience, we realized that we really value the high-touch, boutique way we provide service to our community members. It matters to us that we know our community members. 

We also realized that the new lower price was not working out. People did not flood in the way we expected them to. It turns out cost was not the barrier to entry—the barrier was giving up sugar and flour. 

More important, it wasn’t supporting the success of our members. With the low economic investment, people signed up without getting invested in their journey. They came in mentally unprepared. Also, the new membership experience was too much for people to take in all at once. It was too overwhelming when they came in and had access to everything. 

We realized that having the Boot Camp course as the initial experience served people better. They’d go through it with a cohort of people and get sequestered in their own little world focused on doing the Boot Camp. 

So, after much soul-searching, we’ve decided to bring back the Boot Camp. But this is not the old Boot Camp; we’ve completely rebuilt it—for the first time ever. It’s the all-new Boot Camp 2.0. 

And we’re bringing back the name Boot Camp. No, it’s not a bunch of extreme exercising, and I won’t be yelling and screaming at you—it’s not a Boot Camp in that way. But, like the military sense of Boot Camp, it is a short experience at the beginning of your journey that takes you from the civilian world and introduces you to a new way of living in a very intensive, rigorous, transformative experience.

When you graduate from the Boot Camp, you’ll have the option to join the Membership then and become a Bright Lifer, which will still have the complete Bright Roadmap folded in. 

Plus, we’re introducing a new scholarship program to accompany this course. For the first time ever, we’ll have ten full scholarships available on a need basis. Anyone who truly wants to achieve their Bright Transformation and doesn’t have the financial means can apply for one of these scholarships. The scholarship application for the June 2023 Boot Camp 2.0 course is open May 17–May 24, 2023.

So, what does this mean for the big-picture vision of BLE? For a moment, we were ambitiously aiming for 1 million Bright Transformations by 2025. That’s not our goal. But we’ll still aim for 1 million Bright Transformations, and we’re just pushing that goal back to 2030 as we originally had it. 

Right now, our bigger focus is serving our community in the high-touch way we do and helping those community members successfully realize their Bright Transformations. And Boot Camp 2.0 is going to be incredible!FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/28DOqyEpisode: The All-New BLE Boot Camp 2.0 | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast 

I was coaching one of our community members recently, and they told me they’d been using cranberry juice to help treat recurring urinary tract infections. They didn’t think it was triggering because it was pure, unsweetened cranberry juice, which is pretty unappealing to drink. But they know juice isn’t technically BLE-compliant, so they wanted to ask me about it. 

This reminded me of the giant jug of sugary drink that my doctor wanted me to drink when I was pregnant to test for gestational diabetes. Another similar situation is colonoscopy prep. 

There are these borderline treatments: cranberry juice, colonoscopy prep drink, sugar-free cough drops. My friend Ari Whitten’s Energenesis supplement falls into this category as well. It has clear health benefits, especially for someone who struggles with fatigue, but it is sweetened. I’ve been suffering from a lot of joint pain lately, and my healthcare provider has me using this cleanse product to help deal with it. Of course, I read the label—and it includes apple juice powder.

If these were foods, they would definitely not be considered BLE-compliant. But because they are remedies or treatments, they are questionable. 

There are four principles I recommend applying if you find yourself needing or considering a  remedy or treatment that falls into this “questionable” category:

Principle #1: Try to find an alternative. Throat coat tea instead of cough drops. Cranberry capsules instead of juice. 

Principle #2: Tread cautiously. What’s the status of your BLE program? If my Bright Lines are wobbly, a questionable remedy might throw me completely off-course. So, it might not be worth it. 

Principle #3: Motives matter. How the substance triggers or doesn’t trigger the addictive centers in the brain can depend on why you’re using it. It’s as if the nucleus accumbens knows whether you are taking an opiate for pain from a recent surgery or because you are a dope fiend looking to get a hit. 

Principle #4: You are responsible. There’s no BLE police, no judge and jury. You have to weigh your options and consider all the factors in play.

FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/VG5PtBEpisode: Questionable Remedies | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast 

I just returned from the 35th reunion of my 8th grade graduating class. I know that might sound a little silly, but I bounced around to several high schools and then dropped out, so this is the only reunion I have. 

Even so, I wasn’t close to the other students at this school. I did great academically, but I wasn’t popular and I didn’t fit in. It was painful, but that makes this story even more poignant.

This was a very exclusive, all-girls, private school. I attended on a scholarship because we were living at the poverty level at the time. They told my mom that I was bright and tested well, but that they were concerned about my social prospects because I was so different from the other girls at the school. My mom warned me, but I really wanted to go to this school. 

So I went. And I wasn’t popular, nor did I have any solid, sustained friendships. I was so different from the other girls. 

Then ten years ago, I got an invitation to the 25th reunion. And I hesitated. I wasn’t close with any of these people. But I listened to my recovery voice inside that told me to go, to be open and curious, and to learn about the other people there. I was nervous, but I went… and I had a blast. The other girls had grown up into gracious, kind, lovely women. And I finally felt like I belonged. 

The conversations with those women gave me perspective. I told them I had felt like an outsider and a loner. Then one woman offered that those years had been hard for all of us. She said she had envied my athletic ability. Another remembered me as being smart. Some assumed I had myself together and just didn’t really need them as friends. 

So, I went again this year for the 35th reunion. Afterward, four of us went to dinner. We stayed and talked for nearly five hours. And again, these weren’t people I was friends with back then. But we all belonged that night because we showed up. We became the “in crowd,” simply because we showed up and participated. 

This got me thinking about how most adult spaces are places in which anyone who wants to belong can belong. It’s the people who show up and participate who become the “in crowd.” And people are welcoming to anyone who wants to be there. 

In Bright Line Eating, the notion of belonging is so critical. We thrive when we belong. Social connectedness matters so much to our well-being. And that’s what we see in BLE. It’s the people who belong who do better, those who stick and stay and thrive. 

Belonging matters, and it’s a matter of choice. You choose to belong … and you belong. 

FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/Z5xXFlEpisode: Choose to Belong | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast 

 

I had the opportunity to meet with some Bright Lifers this week, members of our Bright Line Eating community. Among them was Dr. Betty Rabinowitz, a retired physician from the University of Rochester. As we chatted over lunch, she shared a concept with me. 

In Bright Line Eating, we talk about food chatter: what have you eaten or not eaten, are you on your plan or off, whether you’ve eaten too many calories or not enough, can I eat my next meal yet…or how about now…or how about now….and on, and on, and on.

And Betty said that the chatter is not just food chatter; there’s also scale chatter. I countered that it was weight chatter. Then I thought about it more and realized she was right—it most definitely is scale chatter. Measuring my waist has a different effect than obsessing about the number on the scale. That number does something in our heads and creates chatter. And it’s corrosive.

The whole purpose of Bright Line Eating is to eliminate the chatter. This is the freedom that we talk about. 

Scale chatter robs us of the ultimate feeling of success in Bright Line Eating. To succeed, you need to land, to arrive, to solve the food and weight problem. Scale chatter causes us to overly fixate on that last little bit of weight. And we forget, temporarily, all the weight we have lost so far and magnify those last few pounds. 

I’ve coached folks who’ve lost more than 100 pounds but then do themselves a disservice by not framing that as successful. And the scale chatter keeps us from feeling successful. We need to find a way to let go, to get out of it. Part of the identity we need to adopt in Bright Line Eating is that of someone who has arrived, someone who has solved the food and the weight problem. Someone who has let go of all that chatter.

I want to hear what your experience has been. How is food chatter different from scale chatter? How have they both impacted you? In your journey, how have you learned to stop fixating on the numbers on the scale?

FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/Z9YZngEpisode: Scale Chatter | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast 

A recent study examined what physicians say to patients who present with chronic obesity. Physicians usually don’t address the issue at all because of time constraints. They have very short appointments and specific things they have to cover, plus perhaps they fear being offensive or have ambivalence because they don’t know what would actually be helpful for the patient to hear.

This new study looked at what physicians say when they’re aiming to address a patient’s clinical obesity and give advice. As it turns out, even when they had to give guidance, they gave almost none at all. In 80% of cases, they gave general advice along the lines of “you might want to eat less and exercise more.” Only 6% of the time did they recommend a specific protocol or program to follow. So they were giving basically no actionable information. Why? Perhaps they don’t know what to say that will be helpful and that won’t offend.

I have a small ray of hope to share, though. This past week, I gave a talk to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Lifestyle medicine is a sub-specialty in which physicians can get board certified. My friend Dr. Mark Goetting is a physician who is board certified in obesity medicine, sleep medicine, and lifestyle medicine. And he did the Bright Line Eating Boot Camp back in 2015. He also ran a bunch of hospital-based weight-loss programs for the State of Michigan. 

Mark reached out to the leaders in the member interest groups in lifestyle medicine to ask them to support me giving a talk. So I did. I went and I gave a talk about helping your patients overcome overeating. What do you do when your patient presents with obesity? What do you say? I gave them some new tools. I talked about the science of food addiction and gave them assessment tools they can use, including the Susceptibility Quiz. I talked about the benefits of patients adopting a structured approach to eating, like the Bright Lines in Bright Line Eating. I talked about these behavioral interventions and how they compare to modern weight loss drugs.

FOR THIS EPISODE and MORE: https://ble.life/JgrN4yEpisode: Helping Doctors Talk to Their Patients with Obesity | Bright Line Living | The Official Bright Line Eating Podcast