In this “Best of the Vlog” fan-favorite, I introduce you to one of the most unique features of food addiction—something that makes it different from all other types of addiction.
The Hardest Addiction to Kick
In my third book, Rezoom, Chapter Three is titled “Food Addiction is Hardest.” In it, I explain why food addiction, in my professional opinion, is the toughest addiction to overcome. In this vlog, I want to share one specific reason why that is the case, using an analogy.
Here’s the analogy: imagine a world where drinking alcohol causes serious, disfiguring acne. Not just one drink, but steady, daily drinking. It leaves acne that scars your face and body. There’s no way to get rid of the acne while you’re drinking—you need to quit first. But even then, there’s a catch: imagine that this acne causes serious, deadly health conditions that lead to death. And even more problematic is the fact that the only treatment for getting rid of the acne has, as a side effect, a powerful compulsion to drink alcohol.
What Does—and Doesn’t—Happen When You Stop Eating Addictively
That would be messed up, right? But that’s exactly how it is with food addiction and weight gain. Eating the highly palatable, ultra-processed food in our environment causes weight gain. That’s clear. And that weight gain is associated with all kinds of other conditions that can absolutely kill you.
But when you stop eating addictively, the weight doesn’t just go away. You need to do something else for that to happen: you must eat fewer calories than your body needs.
However, if you sustain weight loss over time, the brain decides there’s a famine, and a few things happen: the thyroid goes down to slow your metabolism. Leptin goes down, so the fullness signal doesn’t come. Ghrelin goes up, so you get hungrier. Neuropeptides are adjusted to drive you to eat more and push your weight back up to where it was. The brain works to drive you back up to where you were on the scale.
In essence, the brain makes adjustments to bring the food obsession back into your life and you find yourself addicted all over again.
So once you have developed food addiction and a weight problem, you are trapped in a cycle. That’s why a clear and potent program like Bright Line Eating is necessary. It is a maddening cycle, and if you are stuck in it, even within Bright Line Eating, I have some advice for you—though you may not like it.
The Best Way to Tackle Cycling Within Bright Line Eating
This advice isn’t for people who are working a strong program and doing well; it’s for those who try their hardest, work their program, lose weight, and then go back to the food. Maybe they do this more than once. If that’s not the case for you, just keep working your program and you’ll be fine. We have an excellent track record with those who work their program strongly.
This advice, instead, is for the small percentage of people who are doing everything they can to follow their Bright Lines, but are still cycling and struggling. If that’s you, here’s what I suggest: consider following a Bright Line program, but changing your eating to not try to lose weight. Do that for six months or longer. Stay on a maintenance Bright Line program.
In other words, solve the food addiction first, with all the healthy habits it entails: morning and evening habit stacks, connection with other Bright Lifers, writing down your food, eating exactly what’s on your plan—but with no weight loss. Just tackle the food addiction. Six months in, when it’s all automatic, take out just a little bit, not a lot, and see if you can get to a place where you lose about a pound a week.
With that kind of approach, I predict you will have your Bright Transformation.
Food addiction plus a pernicious weight problem is a vicious circle unlike any other I know. The only analogy I can imagine is the acne/alcohol one. If you’re stuck in that kind of hell, know that I wake up every day for you. You’ve got this. There is a way out. And I love you.
The Acne Analogy was originally published on September 22, 2021: https://www.brightlineeating.com/blog/the-acne-analogy
