In my previous post, I compared Bright Line Eating with all my experience with other diets, (Update: in the follow-up to this I posted a review of BLE.) If all of the other systems are failing, keep in mind that the one that might work for you will look radically different. As I gained more experience with this way of eating and living, I had some surprises along the way.

Also: I want to mention, I hit one-derland today! This means I’m 199.8 or 14st 3lbs. Down from 213.9 (or something) 15st 3lbs.

If any so-called diet had made these claims I would have been suspicious. But this is what I have discovered through seven weeks.

• Changing the way you speak, changes how you think, which changes how you act.
• Improved sleep instantly.
• You don’t need to exercise to lose weight.
• The portions are huge, like really huge.
• Save money – it will be £2500 in a year if I stick with it!
• Discover self confidence through integrity.

Some BLE (Bright Line Eating) terminology I found surprising

I like that BLE has a special vocabulary. It helps you think differently. I also noticed how it changed my behaviour too. I feel like there should be a Bright Line Eating glossary to collect all the new terms. I like these five terms the most.

• NMDs – Not my drinks – you say this instead of the name of the drink, so you don’t spark a craving in your self or someone else.
• NMFs – Not my foods – same as NMD. If you say the flour/sugar food, you might spark a craving.
• Rezoom – “Resume” meaning to just “get back on track”. Don’t be derailed.
• Released X lbs – You don’t “lose” weight, you release it. Nice imagery!
• BLTs – Bites, Licks, Tastes.

How do these terms change how you think? Here’s two examples.

Not my Food: Changes your self-perception

Part of the goal of applying Bright Lines is to change your self perception. Just like someone quitting smoking needs to think “I’m not a smoker”, you need to be able to say “I’m not a person who eats sugar and flour, that’s not my food.” It turns out that for a long time, psychologists thought behaviour leads from self-perception. I was surprised to learn from research cited in Susan’s book that we judge our own actions the same way we judge others. Our self-perceptions lead from our behaviour.

The practice of referring to “NMD” and “NMF” extends to not ever naming or mentioning the food at all. I learned you can’t even link to sites with food photos or recipes at all in official groups. In our unofficial group, we have a separate group just for sharing recipes.

Calling it NMD and NMF you start to see it as not food at all. Susan said eventually you’d start seeing that food as “plastic” and sure enough, it does start to look a little ridiculous, and that simply isn’t something you eat.

BLTs – Bites, Licks, Tastes

You have to get out of the habit of sneaking in food. Having a clear line around “bites licks and tastes” helps.

From week 1, I started tracking each day if I was resisting BLTs. Then I switched it to tracking with each meal prep. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. Did I sneak a bite? Did I lick a spoon? And I’d mark it in my BLE bullet journal.

I would catch myself usually AFTER the fact, and curse. UGH! It would happen so mindlessly. Sometimes I could catch myself and spit out the strawberry or piece of pepper.  Eventually, I was able to stop myself. Now, if I get stuff on my fingers, they’re just dirty! I clean them off. I noticed in Week 6, even if I’m sitting down to eat, I think twice about licking my fingers now. They look dirty to me, and not something I would “eat.”

My biggest challenge is in cooking new recipes. Most times, I can get my husband to taste the food! (Don’t worry about him, he’s losing weight and he’s not even on BLE.) I’d like to work a way that I can taste as I cook new recipes, but for now, I am keeping a strong line there until I can make this automatic.

Delicious Sleep. The BLE fasting period helps you sleep.

Improved sleep was one of the biggest changes I had at first. If someone told me that Bright Line Eating was a way to make sure you got 7-8 hours of sleep, and feel SLEEPY when you go to bed, I would have signed right up. Apparently, the fasting period from dinner (for example, 6 pm til 7 am) helps your body regulate and generate the melatonin you need.

Susan has a great vlog about How Bright line Eating improves sleep. Who knew that late night snacking was the culprit? One of the Bright Lines is eat regular meals at meal time and no snacking. Hunger isn’t a crisis, the next meal is coming soon. Cravings come in waves. Actually learning the difference between cravings and hunger was a huge help.

Now – I get deliciously sleepy now which is something I would rarely feel before. I used to take anti-histamines to get deliciously sleepy, and my sleep was often disturbed and thrown off. I wouldn’t be able to wake in the morning, and then I couldn’t get to sleep at night.

I wake up in the morning now, and I’m awake! I still get cuddles in the morning, but I don’t feel like I need to linger long in bed.

Bunny Slippers! You don’t need exercise to lose weight.

You don’t have to boil the ocean with Bright Line Eating. I really would like to be fit and strong, and I know that will come in time. In Bright Line Eating, you tackle the weight first. Weight-loss is physically exhausting, adding exercise can actually make weight loss harder.

Susan explains why Exercise won’t make you thin. And as she said, most plans incorporate exercise, so we come to expect it.

It turns out, there’s also a limit to how many new life-changing habits you can tackle. Usually, around my birthday, I’d kick off a series of lifestyle changes. September, my birthday month, reminds me of freshly sharpened pencils, clean copy books, and a fresh start. So I’d heap on all the effort and just GO.

Each new diet meant a new eating plan, more exercise, tracking, new recipes, etc etc. Each diet I tried seemed to incorporate both calorie restriction and exercise.  Slimming World and Weight Watchers encourage you to take up exercise, which you trade on a points system — so that you can eat more food.

With Bright Line Eating alone, I had to change these habits. I still have to course-correct because they are so ingrained.

• Get 7-8 hours sleep.
• Stop drinking booze.
• Stop night time snacking.
• Stop having a biscuit with my tea. Or just stop having tea!
• Stop sampling what food I was preparing. BLTs are so hard to break! (bites-licks-tastes)
• Plan my meals the day before.
• Eat three relatively MASSIVE meals, regularly, at regular times.
• Stop zombie-grazing in the kitchen.
• Plan ahead when eating out.
• Tracking goals and behaviours in a notebook/nightly checklist.
• Weigh regularly. (I weigh daily, but most seem to weigh weekly.)
• No sneaky snacks when I’m out at cafés, shops, etc.
• No rewarding myself with booze or food.
• No stress release with booze or food.

If I had to include adopting an exercise regime, and all of the habits I’d need to adopt to get there, it would be much much harder. Susan’s argument is that exercise depletes your will power reserves as well.

The portions are HUGE

Like, really huge. Most of my lunch/dinner meals look like this example from Katie’s Bright Kitchen: A big dinner salad with a tasty dressing.

Every week or so a new person joins our group and asks what to do if they can’t finish the whole meal. Do they have to eat the whole thing? Yes.

I asked the same. I found the feeling of being full uncomfortable. I was so used to eating smaller dinner portions and then being slightly hungry for the rest of the night. Then we’d snack in front of the telly. I was lying to myself. You have to make sure to get all the food you need at your meal times.

These are the ways I improved it:

• Divide your veg servings so you’re having more at lunch. You can’t change your meals on the fly, but you can plan ahead to try it.
• You can eat higher density vegetables. Steamed broccoli instead of bulky romaine lettuce.

I Saved Money on Bright Line Eating!

More money in our pockets is one of the first things we noticed in our house. We’re saving money. Significantly! I see old reviews of Bright Line Eating complaining about the cost of the Boot Camp. Now you can do Bright Line Eating for the cost of the book (I recommend the audio book!) However, I’m saving enough that I can justify signing up to the Boot Camp.

How are we saving? We’re not buying snacks, crackers, crisps, biscuits, cinema candy, popcorn, etc. Less packaged food, fewer purchases in cafés. The grocery bill was easily £50-60 cheaper right off the start.

Of course, the trade off with getting more fresh vegetables is that we have to stop to the shop mid-week. We’re moving soon, so that means I will be a short walk from a few shops.

We also cut down on booze, though I have to admit for my first six weeks, I wasn’t able to let go of it. Especially when we had guests visit there was always a reason to “celebrate,” which usually involves booze. By Week 7, I feel I’m completely fed up with it. I dumped out a bottle of (really nice!) cider and just said no. I also asked my husband to not have booze at home. This means he may be enjoying the pub more, but at least I’m not near the temptations.

Try it yourself! Check out David Bach’s Latte Factor calculator. Estimate the amount of money you spend on drinks, snacks, etc. and see how much you’d save giving those habits up.

Even if you just saved £20 or $20 weekly, you’ll save over a grand in a year.

Discipline leads to Confidence

I’ve been craving discipline, and the tracking with Bright Line Eating has found its way into other parts of my life.

I had an epiphany on about day 7 or so. It was very emotional at the start. The cravings were powerful. I was hungry. I was tired. Crankypants! And I was also feeling self-loathing. How many times had I said “I’m going to do something about this” and then NOT stuck to it? How was I going to do this? I didn’t even want to tell anyone I was trying because in my head I was judging myself for past failures. I felt “I wasn’t a person who could do something like this.”

This is what I wrote at the start of my first Bright Line Eating journal. Discipline leads to integrity, which leads to trust, which leads to confidence.

“I don’t just need the weigh tloss from the program, I need the discipline to establish my integrity to trust myself so that I can build my self-confidence. I don’t just want to be in a right-sized body; I want to be happy and free too.”

I didn’t expect this from a “diet” and that’s why I think Bright Line Eating isn’t a diet at all. I don’t want to make gigantic claims since I’m only 7 weeks in. But I can tell you that my anxiety is more tolerable than it was after 7 weeks on antidepressants.

SSRIs had really bad side effects for me. I had this constant feeling of needing to “sneeze” but it wasn’t a sneeze, it was me trying to THINK. The brain fog was deep. They also did nothing for my anxiety, and actually made it worse. I was having a panic attack sitting on the edge of my bed one morning. Nothing was on fire, why was I feeling this way? I decided then this wasn’t working at all, and my doctor advised me how to wean off.

With Bright Line Eating, I’m getting better results. It relates back to the fact that I am sleeping and eating more regularly. I think it’s also down to improving my self-perception through changing my behaviour. Now I can see “I’m a person who can do something like this.”

I do feel more resilient now.  I see with the re-zooming practices, you just have to course-correct. And by surrendering to the plan, I have confidence I will get there.

I want to write more about the specifics of Bright Line Eating and what it’s like to do it, and how this all works. I’ll save that for my next post!

Bright Line Eating is relatively new. Like most new ventures, the early adopters tend to be experienced in the domain. In this case, many Bright Line Eaters are experienced dieters. Yoyo dieting is what we know. Swinging between faithfully applying dieting practices and then gaining it all back and then some. I’ve tried Weight Watchers, Slimming World, Dr Furhman, and plain old calorie counting with My Fitness Pal.

I got the idea to write this review for sceptics and to give people an idea of what BLE is. Especially if you’re familiar with other “diets”, you might be wondering what to expect. Because Bright Line Eating isn’t a diet at all, it’s a complete change for good.

I’ll compare:

• Slimming World/Weight Watchers v Bright Line Eating
• My Fitness Pal v Bright Line Eating
• Precision Nutrition v Bright Line Eating

My “dieting credentials”

I should first explain my previous diet experience. I don’t really talk about health much on my site. But this is a learning journal, and this is what I’m learning about now.

I’m good at dieting. With each new effort, I found that I was able to apply the concepts and lose weight, but there was no way to develop consistency. As time wore on, I struggled immensely.

It turns out, it doesn’t really matter which diet you choose! Researchers have known that all diets work (if you stick to them), and the differences between them are small. The best diet is one that you stick to. The problem is that people lose most of their weight in the first six months. They plateau and then regain over the next six months. I could see this played out over and over again in my own “dieting” experience.

I seem to be perfectly capable of disciplining myself enough to stick to a food plan to lose weight, but I never got to my right sized body, and at some point, I’d konk out and gain it all back – and then some. 

I’m at the point now, (one stone released!) that I have reached with all the weight loss plans before. My next phase will show me if BLE is different.

What is Bright Line Eating?

In case you haven’t heard of it before, here’s the founder’s official explanation. Four bright lines: No flour, no sugar, regular mealtimes, measured meals.

Susan Pierce Thompson, who founded the program, says that for real transformation a diet would have to look radically different than other diets. Indeed, Bright Line Eating seemed quite extreme when I first heard about it. No sugar, no flour, three meals a day, perfectly measured quantities?? It sounded like it verged on disordered eating. But surely our culture of constant snacking and hyper processed food is disordered eating.

My friend Sharon was applying the practices, and I was asking for clarification, NO COOKIES EVER AGAIN? The thought of giving up buns, bagels, biscuits and bars for ever, for life filled me with dread. As Katie says on her Bright Kitchen blog: You will mourn food-centred rituals. Though now, on day 45, I can say that I’m coming over to realising those things are not treats, they are not nice.

Here’s a full explanation:

Bright Line Eating versus Slimming World or Weight Watchers

I’m going to lump Weight Watchers and Slimming World into the one thing: low-fat nightmares and horrible in my experience. My sister, on the other hand, lost four stone on Slimming World and loved it! She loved the community, the meals, the diet plans. And she was able to stick with it. Two years since her loss, and she has maintained her weight loss. Another friend lost loads of weight on Weight Watchers and has had no trouble keeping it off for years.

Their experiences were very different from mine. I was always, always painfully hungry on these diets. I lost 2 stone (30 lbs) on Slimming World but it was a waking nightmare. I not only gained back that and then some, I got some horrible habits in the process.

I never ate so much crap until I started Slimming World in particular. They push packaged food, including their own-brand and affiliate brands as well as sweeteners, and low-fat meals. They come in with packaged branded food, little packets of quick noodles- just add water! And these cardboard-like high fibre crackers. I also started eating “good for you” snack food, and started a crisp habit I never had before Slimming World. Started with “healthy crisps” but I just wanted the real thing.

I ate more fake sweetener in the time I lost on Slimming World than in my life combined. It’s so gross. Bright Line Eating doesn’t allow sweetener because the effect on the brain/insulin is the same as if you’d eaten sugar. Yay for science! See this short video on the Effects of Sugar on the BLE blog.

Slimming World gets you into daft concepts like “SYNS” (sounds like sin for a reason), where your most pleasurable foods feel like cheating. The guilt feelings were horrible. You weigh in public, which is supposed to be supportive, but isn’t. And no one talked about binging. I never binged before Slimming World.

• In BLE, there’s an emphasis on whole foods. So that rules out those silly packaged foods “Tesco Takeaway sticky jasmine rice” being a Free Food!
• There’s NO flour or sugar or sweeteners of any kind. So that rules out all those silly Muller Corners they push on SW.
• There are no exceptions like “Enjoy a Milky Way (5 Syns for a 21.5g bar)” or “A 300ml bottle of Carling is 5 Syns.” (as they say on their site, sample menu Day 4!)
• There’s no snacking, no “Free Food Snack – Nibble on a punnet of grapes.” With Bright Line Eating, you don’t nibble on a punnet of anything!

The big overall difference is the BLE emphasises no guilt and no bad feelings around food. Just rezoom (resume in BLE speak). Examine why and how, and give yourself permission to be human. There are no “sins” and “cheat days” and “being good” and all that crap. There are also no exceptions. No freebies.

There is no snacking on BLE. “Hunger is not a crisis” is one of my favourite mantras. BLE emphasises improving digestion with fasting between means and from your dinner time to breakfast time. My sleep was *instantly* improved. And over a few weeks, I wasn’t having horrible hunger pangs from sugar withdrawal. Oh! And when I did later break my bright lines, I could instantly see the ravenous cravings come right back. It was a horrible reminder of what my life was like before.

Bright Line Eating versus My Fitness Pal (calorie counting)

After Slimming World, MFP (My Fitness Pal) was a revelation. Someone trotted out the old “guy who lost weight eating McDonald’s” example, and I thought, hey cool! I can eat whatever I want as long as it’s within the calories allotted to me. Is a calorie just a calorie?

I adopted MFP to track my meals, and through that, I learned about “macros.” I also learned that fat wasn’t bad for you, in fact, a slightly higher fat proportion left me feeling more satisfied than on Slimming World. I was having cream in my coffee and losing weight. *sigh* so good.

You can follow absolutely any kind of diet on My Fitness Pal. Low carb, low fat, etc. It’s just a tracker. It doesn’t prescribe any method, except for calorie counting. it does have some funny features.

My Fitness Pal has an optional setting which tracks your activity and represents it as estimated calories burned. The calculation encourages people to eat back their exercise. For example the other day I walked 20k steps, and the app said I was up 421 calories. That adds X number of calories to your allotted calories for the day. You can turn this option off in MFP, but it does suggest that you can top up your regular diet with some extra calories and it would be “ok.”

BLE doesn’t allow for that. You don’t change your diet daily to adjust to activity levels. There’s no snacking and no exceptions.  Susan gives some examples, such as the time she hiked Half Dome in Yosemite Park. In that case, she ate six meals that day.

It took an enormous amount of willpower to implement. My Fitness Pal NEVER became automatic or easy. It felt like it was getting more difficult. I was measuring AFTER prep, and struggling to calculate the proportions. I also started using things like “protein powder” to balance my macros. I was mixing it up in smoothies. More weird processed food habits!

I started to hate weighing my food. And eventually, I just stopped. I gained it all back and then some. My Fitness Pal didn’t work for me, but I still like to use it to track my weight.

The main differences with Bright Line Eating and straight-up calorie counting with My Fitness Pal is:

• Yes, you’re still weighing, but it’s so much easier to calculate and plan.
• The proportions of your macros are just worked out by design. Much easier! Protein, Veg/Fruit, Fat. Voila.
• Again, BLE emphasises whole foods, so you won’t see anyone talking about protein smoothies or supplements to balance macros.
• You build in automaticity with BLE. You plan your meals; everything is sorted out ahead of time. So, instead of feeling under more and more pressure, your mind becomes less obsessed with food thoughts.
• There’s no “eating back your exercise” option on Bright Line Eating.

Food wise, the big overall difference is you’re planning forward, instead of monitoring as you go. You build in habits for food planning so you are relieved of thoughts of food. So there’s no more -“Will I, won’t I?” dialogue happening.

And that is the main difference with plain old calorie counting and BLE. Susan knows the problems that people run into when they fall off the waggon. What helps when you have low willpower? Meditation/prayer, social contact, a change in your self-perception and most importantly automaticity.

With Bright Line Eating, there’s an emphasis on building in habits with a nightly checklist which tracks behaviours. Bright Line Eating is not just calories in, calories out.

Yes, you can use MFP to plan your meals in a Bright Line Eating way, but there’s nothing in MFP that will guide and support you in the way BLE can.

Bright Line Eating versus Precision Nutrition

The before and after photos for Precision Nutrition are amazing. I got the sense it would be great for someone who wanted to be fitter, but maybe not so much for people who are going from obese to slim. I should say I am not a Precision Nutrition expert. I signed up for the emails, I bought the starter pack ($60 USD I think?) and tried to follow it on my own. It was a complete failure for me.

The biggest difference which affects all aspects of the program is that Precision Nutrition includes weight loss and exercise in the same program. You’re shaping your body at the same time you’re losing weight. You’re building in fitness habits at the same time you may be completely changing your diet. You adjust your meals with Precision Nutrition based on your activity levels (post-workout carb-heavy meals.)

In comparison, Bright Line Eating explicitly advocates to NOT exercise during the weight loss period. Unless you have depression/anxiety, or you were already doing it automatically. In the Weekly Vlog, Susan talks about how Exercise won’t make you thin. It sounds like when your body is ready, nearing your “right size”, you will get urges to be more active. Your body hormones will change. I’m looking forward to that, but for right now, especially in my first few weeks I felt wiped out as I was adjusting to Bright Line Eating.

Bright Line Eating advocates for wearing figurative “bunny slippers” during the weight loss period. Be gentle on yourself. Recognise you’re changing many many habits. Precision Nutrition seemed sort of badass, with all the HIIT (high-intensity interval training) and weight lifting, and whoah.

Next big difference is that portion control is very different when you compare the two. Precision Nutrition emphasises eye balling portion sizes. They have a guide which seems really easy to follow. A portion of protein is the size of your palm. Women get x1 and men get x2. Bigger palms? Bigger portion.

Bright Line Eating says this is where you can introduce uncertainty about your meals, and your “Saboteur” can argue that “Hmm, that wasn’t a full palm size, I’ll just have another wee slice.” With Bright Line Eating, you simply bust out the scales and measure. Men and women have different portion sizes. And as you come in for landing at your goal weight, you start to alter your portions. Everyone is on the same meal plan, same measures.

Bright Line Eating focuses on “automatizing” as Susan calls it. You want to take any guesswork and planning out completely. It’s amazing. I had the experience one morning (day 39) of automaticity. I’d written down I was going to have a different breakfast than normal. I started preparing it (involved chopping nuts) and then without thinking I had measured out and made my “standard breakfast” without even thinking about it. I saved the nuts for another meal, but it was so funny to see that I was on autopilot. You want to get to that point, so that you shut down the “will i/won’t i” conversation in your head. It’s pure magic.

There are some other differences regarding the meal plans. Bright Line Eating only includes grains for breakfast. Higher carbs gives you a boost of energy you need for the day. Out of curiosity, I’ve calculated calories, and breakfast is my highest calorie meal of the day. On the other hand, with the exercise included on Precision Nutrition, they have accounted for that in the meal planning. You eat your carbs in proportion to your activity levels.

Another difference is that Bright Line Eating emphasises whole foods, whereas Precision Nutrition includes recipes for things like protein smoothies. You do not drink smoothies on Bright Line Eating at all. This would give you too much of sugar hit, which is what you’re trying to avoid. When I was trying PN, one of the first habits you adopt is taking daily supplements. I spent lots of money on supposedly high-quality fish oil supplements, multivitamins, etc. This adds to the cost of PN considerably.

In comparison, you don’t augment your diet with supplements, franken-foods and processed foods on Bright Line Eating. The macros are calculated with each meal. Susan recommends supplements only in cases of deficiency or body imbalance. We get the nutrition we need from what we eat.

To recap, these are the main differences with Bright Line Eating and Precision Nutrition:

• Most importantly: With PN, exercise is built-in. Whereas, there’s no exercise on Bright Line Eating. You aren’t adjusting for after-exercise workouts. Think “Bunny Slippers.”
• Portion control: With Precision Nutrition, it’s quite variable. With Bright Line Eating, you measure everything and eliminate any guesswork.
• Bright Line Eating emphasises whole foods. No smoothies, no protein powders, no supplements.

Conclusion

I don’t think being a yo-yo dieter makes me an expert. This comparison is from my experience. And I’m relatively new to BLE (Day 45 today!) Of the diets I tried before, I probably liked My Fitness Pal the most, but I got the best results from Slimming World. However, I experienced the pure daily torture of constant cravings on both.

I’m following Bright Line Eating after listening to the book in June. In July, I did the 14 day challenge. I joined an unofficial Facebook group which has also been super helpful. Bright Line Eating has so far overall been lower cost than any diet plan I have done before. It’s more effective and it’s much more satisfying. 

Bright Line Eating has also had a knock-on effect on other parts of my life. No other system had these fantastic knock on benefits:

• Improved sleep. Delicious, delicious sleep!!
• Released from cravings, when I stick to my bright lines.
• Saved money (about £50 a week not buying snacks, booze, etc.)
• Improved self-discipline, a sense of integrity, and more confidence.

I’ll write some more about the Bright Line Eating surprises in my next post.

Anyway, I’m so grateful to my friend Sharon for introducing it to me. I’d recommend if you’re unsure about investing the time into Bright Line Eating, try listening to the audiobook to start, or check out the blog on their site.