The Official Bright Line Eating Cookbook

Weight Loss Made Simple
by Susan Peirce Thompson | HAY HOUSE © 2019 · 343 pages

I LOVE (!) Susan Peirce Thompson and her work. A few years ago, we featured her New York Times best-selling book Bright Line Eating. <- A book that combines the science of willpower and nutrition?! I’ll take it! In that book, we learn about the fact that Susan used to be obese and addicted to everything. As in... EVERYTHING. What makes her especially awesome is that she went antifragile on it and got a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences so she could understand what the heck was going on. She’s now an Adjunct Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. She’s also an expert in the psychology of eating and is the creator of Bright Line Eating Solutions— a program (and community!) that has helped thousands of people live “Happy, Thin, and Free.” This book is the Cookbook to her Bright Line Eating movement. Of course, this book is packed (!) with Big Ideas. For now, I’m excited to share a few of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!


The purpose of this kind of precision [of Bright Line Eating] is that you’re building up integrity and credibility with yourself.
Susan Peirce Thompson
What the research shows is that if you have a brain that is highly susceptible to the pull of addictive foods, you need to take advantage of ALL the science, ALL the support structures built into the program, and ALL the information on HOW to do Bright Line Eating.
Susan Peirce Thompson

The fact is that losing weight is exhausting. By definition, it requires eating fewer calories than you expend, which forces your body to undergo the effortful task of harvesting fuel from within. Plus, since fat cells store our toxins, shrinking them dumps waste into our bloodstream, making us very tired. Not fun. Which is why I want you to have to do it only one more time—ever. Then I want you to stay at your goal weight for the rest of your life. It is truly, realistically possible.

Five years in, what we’re seeing is that Bright Line Eating (BLE) is unusually, outrageously successful for the people who continue to do it—the people who commit their food daily, keep their Bright Lines shiny, and surrender to the plan as it was designed. But if you cut corners at the beginning, or give it a good start and then succumb to the overconfidence bias and drift away, the weight will return, along with the disappointment, the joint pain, and the despair.

Those of us who succeed follow the formula. We trust the plan and do it. We let go of our old ways of relating to food, conceptualizing food, and using food. We realize that if we had known how to succeed we would have done it already. So we embrace this new way of eating wholeheartedly, allowing these new habits to reshape our brains. At the same time, we invest in this community. This places us in an environment where our new way, which flies in the face of our entire food culture, is normalized, reinforced, and refreshed all the time. Because society, which we are still a part of, works to erode our resolve DAILY. So we have to replenish it daily as well.

Starting right now, you are a part of this community. Let us help you become everything you were meant to be. Let us help you live Happy, Thin, and Free.

~ Susan Peirce Thompson from The Official Bright Line Eating Cookbook

I LOVE (!) Susan Peirce Thompson and her work. A few years ago, we featured her New York Times best-selling book Bright Line Eating. <- A book that combines the science of willpower and nutrition?! I’ll take it!

In that book, we learn about the fact that Susan used to be obese and addicted to everything. As in… EVERYTHING. What makes her especially awesome is that she went antifragile on it and got a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences so she could understand what the heck was going on.

She’s now an Adjunct Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. (Note: Mr. Intrinsic Motivation (author of Why We Do What We Do) Edward Deci is also at the University of Rochester. So is one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of relationships—a guy named Harry Reis with whom Sonja Lyubomirsky is writing a new book.)

Susan is an expert in the psychology of eating and is the creator of Bright Line Eating Solutions— a program (and community!) that has helped thousands of people live “Happy, Thin, and Free.”

This is the Cookbook to her Bright Line Eating book. I’ve never done a Note on a Cookbook before but a) this isn’t your normal cookbook and b) the topic of the importance of optimizing our metabolic health (and how that correlates to our visceral fat which is tied to our waist-to-height ratio) has been very salient for me as we continue to figure out the central tenets of (and standards for) our Heroic Coach program.

So, when Alexandra got our pre-ordered copy (Thanks for being you, Babes! :), I flipped it open and was like, “Wow. This is REALLY good. And REALLY important.”

And, well, here we are. The first 70 pages of the book are a really powerful overview of “The Revolutionary Neuroscience of Sustainable Weight Loss” that quickly unpacks “Why Bright Line Eating Works,” “How to Do Bright Line Eating,” and “The Science of a Simple Diet.”

Then we get recipes and techniques on everything from Breakfasts, Vegetables, Perfect Plates, Dressings and all that goodness. It’s the perfect complement to the core book. If you and/or a loved one have ever struggled with your weight, I HIGHLY (!!!) recommend Susan’s books and Boot Camp. (Get a copy of the Cookbook here. And her first book here.)

Of course, this book is packed (!) with Big Ideas. For now, I’m excited to share a few of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!

Note: Although this book provides an ASTONISHINGLY (!!!) concise look at the neuroscience of food addiction (hello, leptin and insulin and dopamine and nucleus accumbens!), we’re going to focus on the fundamental, big-picture motivation side of things so check out the other Note for more on the four Bright Lines: 1. No Sugar + 2. No Flour + 3. Meals + 4. Quantities along with the neuroscience of food addiction, the Willpower Gap, etc. And, of course, get the book.

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About the author

Authors

Susan Peirce Thompson

NY Times Bestselling Author, Bright Line Eating Founder & CEO.