This week, Robin wrote in with an interesting question: Could someone have two different Food Addiction Susceptibility Scores, one for Bright Lines One and Two, which address sugar and flour, and another for Bright Lines Three and Four, which are related to meals and quantities?

Can You Have Two Food Addiction Susceptibility Scores?

Robin feels she’s a 10 on meals and quantities, but has occasionally made planned exceptions with sugar and flour without experiencing problems. She wonders whether some people are more susceptible to the process of eating rather than to particular substances.

Robin, you’re on to something here!

Two Different Systems in the Brain

I recently coached a woman who took the Food Addiction Susceptibility Quiz during our conversation. She scored high on questions about cravings and food obsession, but low on those involving hunger and appetite. That’s almost the opposite of what Robin describes.

Bright Lines One and Two—no sugar and no flour—primarily address what I call the substance addiction side of food addiction. Sugar and flour affect the brain’s reward pathways, including dopamine signaling. Repeated overstimulation can contribute to dopamine downregulation, which helps explain why cravings can become so powerful.

Bright Lines Three and Four—eating meals without snacking and keeping quantities within boundaries—address hunger, appetite, and satiety. This system involves hormones such as leptin, GLP-1, and GIP, along with stretch receptors in the stomach that help regulate how much food we want to eat.

The systems overlap, but they’re also distinct. And some of us, like me, struggle intensely with both. I’ve always considered myself a late-stage food addict and I definitely have challenges with sugar and flour and with quantities.

Can the Quiz Measure Them Separately?

The short answer is no. Our Food Addiction Susceptibility Quiz produces one overall score, using a nonlinear scoring method. Some questions relate more closely to cravings, while others reflect hunger and volume eating. Questions about food obsession and binge eating can apply to both, so we can’t simply divide the quiz into two separate scores.

But you can look at your individual answers and notice where your greatest vulnerabilities lie. Someone who struggles primarily with cravings may benefit most from firm boundaries around sugar and flour. Someone like Robin may find that structured mealtimes and measured quantities are especially important.

Making Bright Line Eating Your Own

This brings us to something I’ve emphasized for years: you’re responsible for finding a way to work your Bright Line Eating program that brings you peace.

The goal isn’t to follow a formula indefinitely or compare your Bright Lines with someone else’s. It’s to find freedom from food obsession, a healthy weight, and the ability to focus on living your life without constantly thinking about eating. 

I’ve been distinguishing hunger from cravings since the earliest Bright Line Eating webinars. They involve different biological systems, and it makes sense that people can experience difficulties with them to different degrees.

So, Robin, thank you for raising this important question. You’re already doing the work of understanding your own brain and finding what works for you. And that’s exactly what I encourage everyone to do.