Everyday Systems

My friend felt he owed me a book because he heisted my book about Bridge for Dummies... He gave me, Bright Line Eating. I am on page 3, I hate it all ready. Every other diet on earth sucks, but Bright Line, and only Bright Line saves lives, all of them. Here is the gyst of the diet from what I have learned. Do not eat refined food. Gee, that is a first. Second no sugar or flour, but...what about white bread, it has flour, and I like it! Salami, mayo, mustard, onion on white! Here is the next step. Eat only three meals a day. Hey kids, no one year has heard that! I will read more and be more serious. No I won't.I

See you in a few days!

Because I continue to have some issues with overeating, even after I all my years here, I did look for quite awhile at BLE. I even got the newsletter with her frequent (daily?) video logs. I felt cruddy just seeing the email in my inbox. I feel much better since I ended my subscription.

Which is not to say there are not some health benefits to the restrictions. Most of the long-lived, long-healthy cultures of the world eat very little sugar and only one eats flour items, and those "processed" with a souring process. If I were in trouble with my health, I might go commando. But until then...

Good luck with OUR bright lines.

Good luck with OUR bright lines.

Ain't that the truth?! We all must find the lines we want to stay within. No one else can find them for us or keep them between them.

If I were in trouble with my health, I might go commando.

Well, I have taken the book off the shelf. The same friend who gave it to me does not want it back, but he talked me into to taking a class on it for a college credit. So, I am committed for 6 weeks. He did not want to be the only guy in the class. I am a schmuck. So, 5 classes, I think I learned what I need to learn last night. To be successful I think, you need to have a very concrete personality. What else did I learn? Of course no wheat flour (or any flour) or sugar. Three plates of food a day. Along with three plates you are supposed to weigh your food, but, if you stick to the three plates you do not have to weigh (but optimally, weigh your food, even in restaurants...and keep it to three plates.) 14 oz. of salad a day. I had not had salad yesterday, and let me tell you 14 oz. of salad at dinner is over the top. With just tbs. of salad dressing (Low sugar...fortunately I am a Blue Cheese/Roquefort guy.).

Also, daily calorie intake is 1200-1400 cal. a day. (Remember this is for life.) There is a "Not My Food" mantra. So unlike No S, if you are at a birthday party, or Super Bowl party, those are Not My Foods. (Yes they are...) One of the more bizarre "suggestions" that I came across while reading a critique, but not in the book yet, if you are cooking, and are tempted to take a bite, tape your mouth shut. My wife would like to tape my mouth shut sometimes, but not for taking a bit of dinner, pre-dinner.

What is Bright Line? It seems to be a conglomeration of Atkins/Sugar Busters!/old Weight Watchers/No S/Low Calorie, all wrapped into one. Plus taping your mouth shut apparently.

I know, I do these things so you all do not have to.

thank you for doing this so I can have a good laugh and as no way would I want to

Hilarious

Jx

I am not surprised that BLE people have to tape their mouths shut. So would I if I was trying to exist on 1200 -1400 cals a day with no time off for good behaviour. And it is not necessary to eat that little to lose weight, unless one is a tiny, bed ridden/utterly sedentary female (I am talking about average intakes here, not just what one eats on "good" days.)
Some people can eat that little consistently while losing weight, and good luck to them. I am not one of them.

Oh my gosh this is fabulous. Thank you for making all of our days!

Actually, there are probably a fair number of women who need to eat that little or even less to lose weight. Tough to take, but true. I would probably have to, especially since I have lost weight, so it takes less to sustain me than if I had never lost. (When I looked at BLE, they were saying 1100 calories a day for everyone. And people were surprised they were losing? But what happens when some start having stalled loss, as stats show some will?)

There is no doubt that her program has and will have some success, maybe even a bit higher than the average, but it will take over five years to really see. It doesn't take much to do better than the abysmal results overall. Right now, at five years at goal (and most people who try never get to goal, which is probably too high for a lot of people), there is still a 27% relapse rate.

Zeal can do a lot, and for some people in dire- I mean present or imminent health conditions, or really serious compulsive eating- straits, sometimes drastic measures are needed.

BTW, her claim that AA is extremely successful or whatever she says about it? Well, in the field of alcohol abuse treatment, insisting on starting with abstinence is NOT the most successful strategy.

Hi everybody, usually I read here and do not post, but since I have some experience with BLE, I'll give my two cents.

Just for a bit of framework, I tried BLE to get a grip on my sometimes raging emotional/addictive eating patterns and had some success - 10 pounds lost in 12 weeks and I still keep them off. I still eat my BLE-compliant breakfast because I really like it, it keeps me full until lunch and it can fit on one plate (it's 4 ounces rice fried with 2 eggs, 6 ounces mixed berries and a dollop of yoghurt plus a hot drink). The amounts of food are actually quite much, too much fruit for me personally actually and lots of veggies which fit my taste quite well. But it is very little fat (1 ounce or 30 gr total, if measured only in butter or oil) and sometimes I missed protein to stay full.

The program is doable BUT there are a few caveats:
a) It is very hard to keep up without a buddy. The buddy system is not established where I live and since I never did a "14 day challenge" or a "bootcamp" (more on why later) I did not get access to online support groups. After some identity theft issues I quit using facebook, so these support groups also are not for me. A buddy is needed to "confirm" the food choices you planned for the next day, to "report" about compliance and in urgent cases (if you fear you are gonna slip up).
b) You need to plan your food for the next day. Write it down in a planner and stick to it. Commit it to a buddy or yourself.
c) The initial amounts of food are for the weight loss phase. When you get near your goal weight you are supposed to up the amounts of protein and carbs, but not the fat.I cannot imagine the rest of my life measuring oil or butter.
Also, I've seen quite a few cases where getting into "maintenance phase" was tricky, because somehow the very rigid pattern had messed up people and they were somehow afraid to eat more, or their bodies could not handle more carbs well.

Now, my personal irks with the whole thing:
a) I cannot stand Dr. Thompson. She always comes across like a phony to me and I could not make myself watch her talks or her vlogs. In the book, she writes likes she speaks (literally drawn out words with multiple vowels or fullstops. after. every. word. [ugh!]) and her whole story about her addiction and recovery seems embellished.
Unfortunately, there is quite some "cult" around her persona in the BLE community and people are willing to pay large amounts to partake in online programmes (14 day challenge or bootcamp) and live meetups (summercamps).
b) I quickly developed a strong resistance against the planning ahead, because I like to eat EXACTLY what I feel like and cannot say 24 hrs in advance what I'd enjoy for dinner (tomatoes? zucchini? soup or omlette?) I stuck to the amounts but after two weeks I did not care to specify which fat or veggies I'll have.
c) Those personal quirks pf Dr. Thompson like "tape your mouth shut while cooking" or "I did not find sugarfree cough drops, so I chose not to take any because they'll make me addicted again" + the goal to make BLE a worldwide movement + the advice to not do exercise altogether seemed a bit too cuckoo for me and I slowly withdrew from the programme.
d) I cannot imagine living my life without taking part in social aspects of eating and enjoying food for special occasions. I can eat greens and eggs for any lunch, but not on my husband's birthday or at family Christmas.

Good points. I like the three meals a day. Of course that has been suggested before (obviously). And, even when you go back and read "diet" books from the 70's and 80's, the likes of Kenneth Cooper and Ellington Darden (The Nautilus Diet) recommend three plates of food a day, no snacking (etc.).

What rubbed the cheese grater over my duff was her lack of originality. Originality in regards to 3 plates of food a day (No S), weighing food (Weight Watchers), eating low carb (in many ways), restricting calories but eating optimally (the CRON diet), and probably one or two other areas I cannot think of. I did type about that above (previous post). So I am just rehashing. Having typed that again, she may very well not have been familiar with No S (Or Cooper and Darden), or Roy Walford (CRON).

I have tried to be more serious however, about the diet and the class. Being 30 pounds overweight does not put me in a position where I should be complaining, I should just shut up and do it. Even though, when the class is over, next week, I am going to stick with regular old No S.

I also agree with your assessment of Dr. Thompson herself. Her videos are, for me, unwatchable. She is is selling her business. I have also wondered about her addictions. Being hooked on, coke, meth, and booze and going cold turkey would have to have been excruciating, yet she makes it sound like she just walked off and started binge eating, no problem. "Embellished" does seem to be a possibility.

I am the only one of two men in the class. The other fellow has buddied up with his wife, and no one wants to buddy with me. I am sure a pal would be helpful.

Thank you for your post.

Part of my pathology that I keep getting drawn to this.

Can't believe you didn't mention NO sugar or flour and permanently weighing and measuring all food, including restaurant food. I would have to be trying to combat a fatal disease to do that. (Ironically, because I have been measuring my food for non-weightloss reasons, and I have had a tiny urge to be able to do it in restaurants recently! But the urge passed. I am doing it for the rest of this month and taking pics of my meals and portions to really get them in my head so that when I'm out, I try to copy the amounts. I'd done that before on No S with good results.

And in full disclosure, I admit that I am going almost no sugar/no flour in this first quarter of 2020 as an experiment. It sure does cut down on having to make decisions about how much or what to have when out. And without trying to copy her plan at all, my meals have evolved to include as much if not more veggie than her recommendations.

I also did not like her vlogs. That squeaky voice! Sometimes she was disarmingly honest, but still hard to watch. I guess under that was just a sense of distaste for the money being made and a perceived smugness about the success. And this is hard to admit, but I did not like what she wore! Am I that much of an old lady? Honestly, I am fine with low V-necks in many situations but for someone promoting herself as a neuroscientist? I do appreciate that she doesn't seem to be promoting ultra-thinness.

Over43, I will be your buddy, if you like. Would you do it by PM, if you choose to? I do not get email alerts about updates to any threads.