Weekly Vlog: Sometimes Addictive Eating Works
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- Опубликовано: 16 апр 2024
- 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 hourglass analogy. Before we start BLE, the hourglass is wide, symbolizing all the freedom we have because we can do 100% what we want with food. Then we learn to become Bright and our options narrow. We may reach a point where we’re feeling very restricted-eating out feels hard, traveling is scary, dinner parties aren’t fun. Then, as we practice eating in new situations and learn to be Bright no matter what, we develop automaticity with restaurants, travel, and dinner parties, and the hourglass gets wider again. Now we have the ULTIMATE freedom-we’re in our Bright Bodies AND we can live freely in the world. we can successfully navigate life.
If you’re in the earlier phases of recovery, it can feel great to give up the constraints and go back to the food. But this “freedom” can be deceptive.
Some people may go back to the food when they’re at the bottom of the hourglass. They feel great-and so they get overconfident. It’s a pernicious feature of addiction: when we’re in recovery, we forget the horror of what addiction was like.
When the brain wires up to do anything, neurons fire together, synapses develop and connect, and fiber tracts develop in the brain. I think of these as riverbeds. The riverbed grows deep over time, as water wears down the soil. This is how addiction forms.
When you want to quit, you have to dam all the water upstream. That dam is the Bright Line program. Over time, as the water is diverted, you develop a new riverbed with the habits you learn from BLE. At first, it feels awkward and unfamiliar, and you’re in the narrow part of the hourglass. Over time, however, it becomes comfortable, because the riverbed is deep thanks to all the practice and automaticity you’ve built up.
But what if someone who is comfortable with their Bright habits decides to let some water back into the old riverbed? At first, it feels like it’s no big deal. The grasses and shrubs that have grown up in that dry riverbed keep the water from flowing freely. But eventually, the grasses and shrubs wash away and you’re going to get all the negative consequences of that old river.
If you go back to eating sugar and flour, it may work at first. But eventually, it won’t. How long it takes to get back to misery is based on multiple factors, most notably where you are on the Susceptibility Scale.
If you have any amount of addiction-if you’re a six or above on the Susceptibility Scale, say-remember that addiction is progressive. Over significant periods, it gets worse. The periods where it works will get shorter. The consequences will become more severe as you age.
Addiction is like flushing a toilet-the water swirls around and goes down, down, down the drain. Sometimes the water might head up a bit at the beginning of a flush…before it swirls ever further down.
Finally, what if you’re stuck in a cycle where some parts of you really focus on how the food works, and other parts of you want to live Bright? That can be a terrible inner conflict to experience. You go back to the food in cycles and can never stay Bright for long. Getting out of that cycle requires a deeper surrender and a fuller application of the Bright Line Eating tools.
But don’t be surprised if, sometimes, being in the food seems to work. Hopefully, this helps you to see the big picture, so that when you think that addictive eating might be working, you can zoom out and see what’s coming, eventually.
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That is so me. SO much ‘wanting food’ and so little ‘liking food’. I often get ZERO pleasure from actually eating. I eat quickly so it all just goes down without being EVEN TASTED.
So apropos to where I am right now. Thank you, Susan. I've been on a new experiment for the past eight months and I now have a big enough picture to see how much it isn't working for me. While I've rezoomed several times during the course of it, today was the first day that I could see the surrender that I need. I've done it before and I hope this will be the last time, but just for today, I commit to no sugar, no flour, no exceptions, planned and weighed meals. I surrender the foods that I started planning on having six months from now. I used PHEW and I am not peaceful, not healthy, it is escalating and I know it will impact my weight negatively if I continue. Good luck to all of you, wherever you are.
One day at a time indeed! 🧡🧡💗💗
I'm right here with you.. yikes
. I liked the honesty of this vlog without sounding sanctimonious..
Oh my goodness…it’s as if you are reading my brain. Thank you Susan, for your vlogs. I needed this today ❤️❤️
Thank you for watching! 🥰🧡💗
Thank you, Susan, fot teaching me more about addictive eating!! Love from Norway 🇧🇻💕
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SHE IS SO HONEST
21:32 This came at a very appropriate time for me. I very much appreciate the reminder of the river bed. I’m about to do a lap of Australia and thought about NMD, especially in those little outback pubs. I needed the meta picture reminder. Thanks Susan!
Thank YOU! 💗💗
You are a huge resource for amazing analogies, but this one is especially apt! Really helps me visualize the reasons I do NOT want to etch that riverbed again!
Happy this helps! 🥰🥰
Thank You, Susan! ❤
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So much value here! 👍
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Thank you. The timing of this is video is spot on. I’ve binged the past 2 days and felt horrible physically and mentally.
Your illustrations make perfect sense. I know what I need to do.
Time to get back to BLE. Thank you for the encouragement.
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Thank you so much for this amazing great vlog
We appreciate your kind words 🥰
This was a really helpful vlog! Thank you, Susan!
I am nearing my 3 year BLE Anniversary. My first year was great, but major life changes in year 3 made me re-open the dam and let some water into the dry riverbed. It has been harder to regain my sense of food freedom. I have read BLE, and I'm now reading Rezoom for the first time. It is helping me on this return journey. I haven't gained a LOT of weight back, but I did gain about 15 pounds, and it's a little harder to take off this time. Thanks for the encouragement and clarity.
We're so glad to hear that REZOOM is helping you! Sending you love 🧡
Wow Wow Wow! I FINALLY get it! No one has ever talked about this! I’m going to stop side eyeing the freshly baked bread at the grocery store! I haven’t caved and I’m not going to! Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom! ❤️
Thank you for commenting! 😉😘
YESSS!!! I am at a 'healed brain' and knew this was a possibility....but this provides a few more fantastic analogies for my brain to hold tight to as my addictive brain attempts to sweet-talk me if I have a bite off plan. My higher self knows better, and is grateful for all of these fantastic analogies!
We're grateful you're here--thank you for watching 🧡
I read your book for the first time a few days ago. It made perfect sense to me! I’m a 9 on the scale and if I was completely honest, I probably would have been a 10. That helped me realize I will ALWAYS have to view myself as having food addiction and my food choices will ALWAYS have to be made conscientiously. No more grabbing a handful of anything (good or bad). Thank you so much!
Thank you for being here! 🫂
Do you happen to have a visual of the dry riverbed that is blocked snd the new flowing riverbed?
Great topic. I slid out of my Bright Lines and gained 7 pounds. I can't fit into my Bright Line clothes. Costly mistake on a lot of levels. Thanks for the insights into how this happened.
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This is so interesting. I am studying addiction in general with an eventual eye to helping people with problems heal holistically. I want to address dual diagnoses, which many times involve food issues as well as drugs/alcohol and mental health concerns.
I would love to see a vlog about Dr.Thompson's take on Dr.Robert Lustig's Pleasure vs Happiness theories. They make very good sense to me, and pleasure is marketed as happiness in our world. Too many are taken in by it.
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We appreciate you taking the time out of your day 🧡
@@Brightlineeating Done, and thank you!
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Before I continue, I want to say I’m not a 10. I truly sympathize with those of you who are. While it’s good to flex in and out of our eating programs, I think reengaging our dopamine receptors is dangerous. Of course we feel good when we’re feeding those! Gaining the weight back is ALL too common and it doesn’t take much.
I am using my husband's YT account. Anyway, I am a 10 pm on the susceptibility scale and I haven't ever made it more than a week on the BLE plan. I've never been able to afford the classes courses or coaching resources but I was given the book, read it, and loved it, I was so inspired to make a start. Long story short... I've been trying to enact this way of eating in my life for 5 years! No dice! I've stayed the same weight (overweight) For years! It's been depressing and frustrating, at times infuriating while other times I just give up and try to enjoy my life with my husband and children.
I feel desperate to lose weight, to be in my bright body, and to finally get past this blasted food and Coke zero addiction!!!
I don't know what sort of response I would hope to relieve to this comment, I suppose I'm just confessing my woes.
In case you didn't know, we do offer at least 10 full scholarships every Boot Camp 2.0. Please be sure to apply. 🧡
We're sending you so much love and holding space for your struggles 🫂 💗
I’m just dipping my toes in the water now because I heard of BLE for the very first time through a website that deals with CPTSD. I’m signed up for some BLE boot camp happening in June? so I’ve been receiving your emails and deciding if this is right for me. There is some research out there that states that denying yourself food or anything else in a rigid way is just asking for rebounding, but I’m open to learning more. Thanks for the river and hourglass and especially toilet bowl analogy, which is where I am forever temporarily raising up at the beginning of the flush/high, then ultimately spiraling down to the depths. (Hopefully I’m able to water the underground roots of those bushes in the dried up riverbed that BLEs have escaped from 😕.)
Welcome! Thank you for watching 🧡🥰
Hi Rebecca
A lot of the medical profession and diet programs are committed to a moderation model - saying that ‘restriction leads to rebound’, and that’s true for diet mentality eating plans.
Some of us cannot do moderation - I tried for decades 🤷♀️.
Because this is an addiction model, we use abstinence from flour and sugar - just like an alcoholic uses abstinence from alcohol. One drink could send an alcoholic into rebound crisis - and flour and sugar works like that for food addicted people. So we build a supportive permanent structure to support the abstinence. It’s a lifetime plan for successful
Living.
I don't want to risk it, quite frankly. I feel so much better. I can't see myself even experimenting.
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That was an excellent vlog Susan! I really needed to hear that. I love you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for being the voice in the wilderness saying this is the way u should go. You are one of my heroes. ❤️🔥 ps, I’m a hard 10 on the scale. This info means tons….. 🙏
Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment. Sending you love 🥰🥰
ruclips.net/video/Q6afLK8J4IE/видео.html
Pleasure vs Happiness, short version. aka dopamine vs serotonin