Bright Line Eating: Part 1

In this gripping 2 part episode of All Fired Up, I explore the shadowy world of "Bright Line Eating", a super extreme diet cult which cherry picks neuroscience to convince people that they are 'food addicts', and then sells one of the world's most restrictive (and expensive) diet regimes to keep people hooked on the dream of achieving 'goal weight'. Bright Line Eating is the lucrative brainchild of neuroscientist Susan Peirce Thompson, a charismatic saleswoman who holds nothing back when it comes to the hard sell. Join me as I ask the question, who IS Susan Peirce Thompson - a food addict who has finally found the answer to her addictions, or someone who is still desperately stuck in her eating disorder? We also speak with neuroscientist Dr Sandra Aamodt, who literally attended the SAME UNIVERSITY as Susan Peirce Thompson, and has also experienced eating and body issues, but found peace through mindful and intuitive eating and body acceptance rather than continuing to white knuckle the revolving door of weight cycling. Dr Aamodt has very different ideas regarding this whole idea of food 'addiction'. Spoiler alert: Food addiction models = Binge Eating Disorder rebranded! DO NOT MISS this story, it's a ripper! But CW - these 2 episodes have a lot of talk about weight, details of diet rules, and eating disorders, so take care if you think you might be triggered.

Shownotes

• Hello listeners! Remember me? I’m back! What a year we’ve had. I am back from a break where I was taking care of life for a while. Now I’m back and angrier than ever. Today’s episode is a two-parter, and we’ll be keeping the energy and the rants going on a regular basis again.
• Remember the Crappy Awards earlier this year? One of the nominations has been gnawing away at me. This is from Dr Martina Zangger, who sent us a rant about Bright Line Eating, a program by Susan Peirce Thompson. Bright Line Eating is a severely restrictive diet, and a very expensive program. Martina shares with us that she experienced Orthorexia and was at risk of Anorexia while engaging with the program - she was obsessed with every bite of food that passed her lips, and says she became a ‘not very nice person’ while so hangry and feeling superior to other people. That feeling of being superior and special was encouraged within the program. After two years, Martina was able to move away from the program and regain the weight she lost, and that process was so disheartening. However, two years after leaving that program, Martina is so much more at peace with her body. She’s able to find enjoyment in food, and in sharing food with friends and family. Bright Line Eating is making Susan Peirce Thompson rich and is such an unethical program from a practitioner who should know better.
• I’m still simmering with rage over this Crappy nomination. The impact of programs like this is devastating on people’s lives. Martina lost two years of her life and experienced an eating disorder, and her story of recovery needs to be heard. How are programs like this still happening, and being sold at such enormous profit?
• After I heard Martina’s story, I’ve been neck-deep in Susan Peirce Thompson and Bright Line Eating. It’s more than a diet, it’s more like a cult. There’s a variety of techniques being used in it to sell problematic ideas and encourage eating disordered behaviour in an apparent attempt to free yourself from ‘disordered behaviour’ - a mindfuck of the next level.
• So, I’ve been reading and researching and I’m ready to dive into a two part series - this episode is about Bright Line Eating and Susan Peirce Thompson. We’re going to talk about her story, her book, and more broadly talk about the topic of neuroscience as it applies to body weight, and also dive into food addiction models. In the next episode, we’ll talk more with Martina and her experience with the program, and we’ll round out the deep dive with a closer look at the incredible amount of money Bright Line Eating has made.
• I really need to preface this episode with a trigger warning, a content warning, about numbers and weight. If that’s particularly triggering for you, maybe these two episodes are ones to avoid. Usually we avoid numbers, and in this instance we’re using them as examples of the harm that diet culture can cause, and as examples of inaccuracies.
• We’ll be talking with neuroscientist Dr Sandra Aamodt about addiction and regulating body weight.
• So, the book. I’ve read the whole thing. ‘Bright Line Eating: the Science of Living Happy, Thin and Free” by Susan Peirce Thompson, 2017. To begin with, Susan is a really good storyteller and has a compelling personal story of how she came to this way of living. And that’s the thing with so many of these diet gurus, isn’t it? They’re quite compelling, charismatic, often good writers. Susan is from California and her parents were reformed hippies. She grew up i...