Bright line eating

From the website:

"The four Bright Lines are sugar, flour, meals, and quantities. In other words, no sugar (whole, fresh fruit is okay, but fruit juice and dried fruit are not, nor are any artificial sweeteners or added sweeteners such as honey, agave, stevia, maple syrup, dextrose, sucralose, aspartame, saccharine, and similar products); no flour (of any kind—not even whole grain flour, oat flour, almond flour, or coconut flour—because it's the processing that dictates how it will affect our brains); eating only meals (for most people it's three meals a day with nothing in between—snacking and grazing are not allowed); and weighed and measured quantities (food is either weighed with a digital food scale, or a "one plate, no seconds" rule can be adopted)."

The weighing food part sounds great! The creator of the program is a psychologist. I find the non negotiable rule thing interesting. The idea being there is no decision to be made and so you don't expend your finite supply of will power. At the end of the day, it's an interesting blend of woo and unnecessary restriction...

It's nonsense. You're seriously gonna avoid a donut your entire life because you're scared you'll eat more than 1? Have a good life.

t54annie wrote: »

I've been following Bright Line Eating for almost a year now and it's a process for sure. But the goal is progress not necessarily perfection. Yes, there is a cost, but it is cheaper than most other plans I've tried and you actually can get the entire plan just by purchasing the book and then you don't need to make any further investment if you don't want and you can still follow the lifestyle. And like any other plan when you work it IT WORKS. Here's the thing though - it's not for people who need it it's for people who want it. It is a drastic lifestyle change but it is definitely for those who feel out of control when they are eating sugar and flour. Studies show that those do have an effect on the brain.

Can you give us some links to the studies that show eating sugar and flour specifically have an effect on the brain please?

drinkwater13 wrote: »

The scientist behind Bright Line Eating is not a psychologist, she’s a neuroscientist, who has researched brain function and food. It’s not woo; it’s science. Read the book. Those who follow it lose a lot of weight, and then it’s sustainable on a real food maintenance regimen once you reach goal weight. The program includes lots of support. Anyone who has weight to lose should check it out.

Science is one thing, practically applying science is another. I'm currently reading a book about brain neuroscience around food and brain systems and it's fascinating. I'm really enjoying it, but I know better to recognize what is theory and what is practical.

If you want to take what neuroscience has to say about what drives people to overeat and apply it without accounting for social and psychological aspects of being human you will end up eating extremely bland foods with no seasoning or salt prepared using extremely bland cooking methods with very little variety and palatability. I'm not sure why she focuses on sugar and flour when the human brain also responds favorably to high fat foods (seeking fat intake), umami flavors (seeking protein intake), and salty foods (seeking sodium intake).

ETA: This reminded me of those old diet plans where you ate only one kind of food each day. I remember it was one of the first diets I attempted for social reasons (my friends were doing so I more or less did it with them - for a whole 3 days) and how miserable the lack of variety was.

drinkwater13 wrote: »

The scientist behind Bright Line Eating is not a psychologist, she’s a neuroscientist, who has researched brain function and food. It’s not woo; it’s science. Read the book. Those who follow it lose a lot of weight, and then it’s sustainable on a real food maintenance regimen once you reach goal weight. The program includes lots of support. Anyone who has weight to lose should check it out.

I don't remember any science in the book with which I disagreed. But her conclusion is that it is impossible to lose weight unless you only eat three meals a day and stop eating flour and added sugar/dried fruit/fruit juice, which just isn't true.

How many here who have comments or criticism of Bright Line Eating have actually read the entirety of the book?

The tenets of BLE aren't new, they are part of many 12 step programs relating to food, Food Addicts Anonymous, Overeater Anonymous, e.g. What BLE does is support those tenets with the recent findings on the psychology of habits and willpower depletion.

Finally, the conclusion is not that there is no other way to eat and lose weight, but those who have some level of susceptibility to addiction will find a greater degree of success in losing and keeping weight off by creating hard and fast rules around their foods and their food habits.

I am one of those people who can't eat one donut or 6, or one slice of bread without then eating half a pizza and a gallon of ice cream. BLE has brought sanity to my life. And, if you can stop at one of any of the aforementioned, BLE doubtless appears borderline crazy.

I don't know the cost of the books (I got a library copy), but it is easy enough to find BLEs program on-line, as it is Food Addicts Anonymous. BLE has several paid support options, FAA and Overeater Anonymous are free.

I looked into this out of curiosity one prior time it came up, and it seemed super scammy to me. First, to get information you have to take a quiz to see if you are a food addict. I had successfully lost weight and was in maintenance (NOT cutting out added sugar and flour, I ate pasta and ice cream off and on the entire time I was losing weight, and have pie on holidays, occasional bread, various other such foods, etc.). Unsurprisingly, I got an email back telling me I was likely a food addict and would benefit from the program.

She also won't tell you the cost of anything unless you watch her (promotional) webinar and get on the mailing list, and then it turns out to be super duper expensive (seriously, I think around $1000, although I'm going from memory). (On the website now there's a FAQ about the Boot Camp that has a question "what does it cost" that does not give an answer and what if I can't afford it (answer: bummer for you! (paraphrased, of course), and "what forms of payment do you take" (that one is answered).)

Re her telling people what to eat -- I think it's sad that that is seen as some benefit of this scammy program, as just reading Ann's wonderful thread would be a better approach to figuring that kind of thing out. I figured out for myself (using methods like Ann describes) that I am more satisfied eating only at meals (I like 3 most days) and not snacking, and so I don't, and I think what a balanced meal is (unless one is low carb) tends to be protein, starch, lots of vegetables, and that's the pattern my meals are built around. I sub fruit in for the starch sometimes or may have both, and often I have vegetable protein that tends to also be starchy (although it serves the role of protein then so in that case I will often have a second starch -- beans and grain, beans and tuber).

I think prepackaged programs don't account for individual differences. For example, having to write down in advance what I will eat is something I dislike. I have templates for meals (as noted above), standard breakfasts and will usually pre-make lunch, and I cook from what's on hand, but I like to be able to wing it depending on what I feel like in the evening -- for example, today I was going to have some leftovers (I will have for lunch tomorrow), but decided I wanted pasta (oh, the horror), so I'm going to make some pasta with white beans, asparagus, zucchini, and mushrooms, and probably have a side salad with some dressing I made a few days ago. The meal I'm not eating involved brown rice as the starch, but I really don't see why the pasta meal is somehow supposed to be bad and the rice good -- I don't have any different reaction (and remember, Susan claimed I'm a food addict!).

lemurcat2 wrote: »

I looked into this out of curiosity one prior time it came up, and it seemed super scammy to me. First, to get information you have to take a quiz to see if you are a food addict. I had successfully lost weight and was in maintenance (NOT cutting out added sugar and flour, I ate pasta and ice cream off and on the entire time I was losing weight, and have pie on holidays, occasional bread, various other such foods, etc.). Unsurprisingly, I got an email back telling me I was likely a food addict and would benefit from the program.

She also won't tell you the cost of anything unless you watch her (promotional) webinar and get on the mailing list, and then it turns out to be super duper expensive (seriously, I think around $1000, although I'm going from memory). (On the website now there's a FAQ about the Boot Camp that has a question "what does it cost" that does not give an answer and what if I can't afford it (answer: bummer for you! (paraphrased, of course), and "what forms of payment do you take" (that one is answered).)

Re her telling people what to eat -- I think it's sad that that is seen as some benefit of this scammy program, as just reading Ann's wonderful thread would be a better approach to figuring that kind of thing out. I figured out for myself (using methods like Ann describes) that I am more satisfied eating only at meals (I like 3 most days) and not snacking, and so I don't, and I think what a balanced meal is (unless one is low carb) tends to be protein, starch, lots of vegetables, and that's the pattern my meals are built around. I sub fruit in for the starch sometimes or may have both, and often I have vegetable protein that tends to also be starchy (although it serves the role of protein then so in that case I will often have a second starch -- beans and grain, beans and tuber).

I think prepackaged programs don't account for individual differences. For example, having to write down in advance what I will eat is something I dislike. I have templates for meals (as noted above), standard breakfasts and will usually pre-make lunch, and I cook from what's on hand, but I like to be able to wing it depending on what I feel like in the evening -- for example, today I was going to have some leftovers (I will have for lunch tomorrow), but decided I wanted pasta (oh, the horror), so I'm going to make some pasta with white beans, asparagus, zucchini, and mushrooms, and probably have a side salad with some dressing I made a few days ago. The meal I'm not eating involved brown rice as the starch, but I really don't see why the pasta meal is somehow supposed to be bad and the rice good -- I don't have any different reaction (and remember, Susan claimed I'm a food addict!).

And just in case you missed it (the bolded) on page 1, here it is again.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm

Free, and it works. (I'm still doing it, in maintenance, 3 years after losing nearly 1/3 of my bodyweight, 5'5", 130s, now age 63, hypothyroid, after decades of obesity.)

AnnPT77 rocks.