Bright Line Eating: The Science of Living Happy, Thin and Free

This book. THIS BOOK! Wow. It's a game-changer. It changes everything. Not only is Susan Peirce Thompson's approach to getting control of your food and your weight powerful and compelling and based on brain science, she also presents it in a clear, convincing, wonderfully readable way.Thompson overturns so much -- so much! -- of what is standard, unquestioned, deeply ingrained thinking about weight loss (the old canards like "you can eat anything, just in moderation," "exercise promotes weight loss," "sugar, eaten in moderation, can be part of a healthy diet.") No, no, and no. At least, not for the majority of us.In her compelling argument, people struggling with their weight aren't lazy or lacking in willpower. They don't need to get off their lazy butts and get to the gym. They don't need to just stop eating so much. No. Their brains have been high-jacked. And the substances doing the high-jacking are NOT fat, salt, or simply an excessive consumption of calories. The substances are sugar and flour. Period. Fat people aren't sloths -- their brains are addicted to these substances and practicing moderation can be as much a no-win solution as practicing moderation in drug use would be to a brain addicted to heroin.There are two things I especially love about Thompson's approach. One, that it's based on science. She's not guessing here. She's not making things up based on what seems reasonable. She's looking at the science. And what the science suggests is pretty persuasive: Sugar is addictive to your brain. And flour might very well be too. We live in a toxic food environment where sugar and flour are everywhere and in everything. As with other addictions (in varying ways depending on your own brain susceptibility), the way forward is to remove these substances from your diet.The bright lines are simple, clear, and unambiguous: no sugar, no flour, three meals a day, and weighing all your food.The second thing I love is that her style is so wonderfully loving, supportive, and inspiring. Thompson writes in a way that is never condescending or dryly scientific. She tells stories, she shares her own experiences, she makes academic scientific studies easily comprehensible. The whole book is highly readable and accessible. Her warmth and love and understanding shine through her words. Writing this way is not easy to do and I am wildly impressed at her ability to do this.My only singular concern, which she does address, is that for all that this approach is simple, it's not easy. It's no easier than quitting cigarettes would be for a cigarette addict. Or quitting alcohol for an alcoholic. This is hard to do. And she does say so, when she notes that (I'm paraphrasing here), if a food plan is all it took to lose weight, everyone who wanted to get thin would be thin.Still, I worry that readers might fall in love with her wonderfully supportive, upbeat tone and think that simply deciding to follow the bright lines is all it takes. Make no mistake, this is hard to do, and it requires a TON of support and self-love-and structure and help (the bright-line eating approach provides that, but you have to be diligent about seeking it out and getting it).Bottom line -- this approach works. It simply works. And no other program for addressing the general public's weight and food issues does. Not in terms of long-term, sustainable weight loss. There's a reason why commercial weight-loss programs, all of them, are vague about how many people who sign up achieve and maintain their weight-loss goals.I wasn't 1/4 way into her book before it all was making SO MUCH SENSE. There's a reason why major weight-loss organizations don't publish their success rates. There's a reason why I've failed SO often on SO many diet programs.It's not often that a book comes along that has the potential to cause a seismic shift in our thinking, but this book does that. Bright Line Eating should have as profound an impact on our thinking about weight loss and the obesity epidemic as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring had on our thinking about pesticides and the environmental movement.I really hope that everyone struggling with weight and food issues, whether they have a modest problem or a serious food challenge, gives themselves the tremendous gift of reading this book.Like so many other reviewers, all I can say is thank you thank you thank you Susan Peirce Thompson. My deepest wish isn't that this book will help me (although I hope it does); my wish is that this book changes the world.

It's actually hard to know where to start with this review. I joined Susan's program, Bright Line Eating, in February of 2017. In just over a hundred days, I've lost 25 pounds. I've also watched my sister (the person who introduced me to the program) and my friends (the many people that I introduced to the program do the same if not better - one of this friends just emailed me to say that she's lost 17 pounds in less than a month).I came to the program with relatively "low numbers" - that is, less than 35 pounds to lose. Despite previous attempts at weight loss that had been painful and slow, this time the pounds are literally melting off. My weight loss has been totally linear - with the exception of one 1 pound gain that I lost the very next week. This program is easy, sustainable, and improves every area of your life. I sleep better, my skin is better, my emotions are more stable, I'm happier, I'm more emotionally resilient, and most importantly, I am no longer obsessing about food. Trust me - as someone who lost 100 pounds 31 years ago and more or less kept it off through a variety pf methods. including fasting and over exercise - the value of being free of from food obsession is priceless.One of the things that I could not believe as I was reading this book is how much of the information that is in the more expensive on-line programs that she included in this book. You could literally take this book and do the program (and several of my friends have done exactly that) without every having to sign up for her online course (which is amazing, by the way). She gives you all of the necessary tools, the tricks, and the science behind every recommendation that she makes. She explained my own behavior around food better than I could ever explained it myself and provided such a simple way out of what could easily be described as madness.I must admit, when I first looked at the food plan, I thought, "No way." However, once I understood how sugar and flour work in the brain, I was willing to try. Once I had an understanding of what was going to happen once I let those two substances go - that had ben scientifically proven - I was willing to take the chance. And within just three days, my cravings had all but subsided. And, today, I have zero interest in ever going back to the way I used to be around food. Now, if someone had just told me to do it,without bringing to bear all of the science and wisdom behind it, I would have never have done it. But the scientific background and justifications that Susan bring to the table really sold it for me.When I bought this book (the first time), I ordered six copies. I've given them all away to people who were dying to know what I was doing, many of whom are now also doing Bright Line Eating. I recently bought three more. One for me and two more for the inevitable requests that I'm going to get as I continue to lose these last ten pounds or run into friends or colleagues after not having seen them since my healing journey began.They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will come. I must have been ready, because I can't imagine a more knowledgable, generous, transparent, or committed teacher on the subject of long term sustainable weight loss AND the science of living happy, thin, and free than Susan Peirce Thompson.

The science behind why we eat what we eat is fascinating and this book is SO easy to read. And offers a solution. Which you can do for essentially FREE. Life changing.

Me resonó totalmente la información contenida en este libro. Estoy aplicando sus principios. El plan alimenticio me parece algo extremo pero hay personas que necesitamos eso.

Desde luego, una forma original de enfrentarse al problema d ela obesidad y las dificultades a la hora de perder peso. El que tenga un enfoque científico, explicando exactamente por qué es difícil y cómo superarlo es lo que me ha llamado la atención y me ha hecho leer el libro entero, poco menos que de una sentada. Ahora a aplicar lo aprendido y ver los resultados

I paid a couple of thousand for the course of a few years ago. It was very good but you become dependent on people or that is the purpose of different groups and calls etc. I’m not really into that kind of thing so it’s about five years later and I’ve bought the book and I think it’s great. So easy to follow.

Omg, what can I say about this book. It's life changing. This is the right one. Stop right here. You've found the solution. Everything one needs is in the book. I bought extra copies to give to friends. Thus far lost 17 kg in about 4-5 months