Hey there, I'm Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson, and welcome back to the Best of the Weekly vlog. We have got a fan favorite for you today. It's a vlog called Diet Mentality. In this world where we're really looking forward to the launch of the book, Maintain, that's all about the opposite of diet mentality, the antidote to diet mentality, which is the Maintenance Mindset, becoming devoted and resourced and liberated so that you move past the food and the weight struggle altogether. In that world, it seems very fitting that we would revisit this fan favorite vlog called, "Diet Mentality." What is diet mentality exactly? How does it manifest? What's the definition? How do you not fall prey to it? Take a listen.
Wendy Reynolds sent in a question. She says, "I'm writing in about the notion of diet mentality. The term is used repeatedly in coaching calls. I've asked several people in my own Bright Line Eating Circle how they would define it, and I'm hearing so many varied explanations. So, I decided to search through all the vlogs, all the books, and I found only one entry on February 13th in the book, On This Bright Day, which was fantastic. But I would love a more in- depth, clear understanding of what diet mentality really means in Bright Line Eating. Thank you." Oh, my goodness, Wendy, what a great question. What a great question.
In essence, diet mentality is an approach to eating that is, by definition, short term and focused on weight loss. That's the essence of it. Okay? This manifests itself in so many different ways in our Bright Line Eating® journey. We can think of our Bright Line Eating journey as being deeply rooted and ourselves as being motivated by underlying drives that are varied and rich and nuanced and that go way beyond the food and the weight. Or we can really think of ourselves as being here to lose weight. Of course, the transformation, the Bright Transformation happens at the physical level for sure. And also though, at the mental level, at the emotional level, and at the spiritual level. If we're focused on the physical and not just the whole physical, but just the slice of the physical that has to do with weight loss, that will show up in specific ways. I'm going to try to give a lot of examples in this vlog because we see it manifest in so many ways.
For example, you could be focused on the weight loss, even to the exclusion of health. Let's take someone who's on GLP-1 medications and they're on a GLP-1 drug like Wegovy or Mounjaro, some sort of tirzepatide or semaglutide drug, these new weight loss drugs, Zepbound. Let's say they're on the drug for weight loss. Well, they could be truly in a state of diet mentality and just doing it for the weight loss. And they could be not even caring about other types of health benefits, which would show up as they're not even trying to eat healthier foods. They're just enjoying the appetite suppression effect of the drug. And so, they're eating sugar and flour in smaller quantities. Someone could do this with another type of diet as well and count points and save up all their points for some sort of dessert, right? And not even focus on I'm trying to be healthier, I'm trying to reverse or prevent cardiovascular disease or diabetes. I'm just trying to lose weight. By that yardstick, if the number on the scale is going down, they would gauge the whole enterprise as a success, even if there's no other benefits other than weight loss. That's an example of diet mentality.
When we focus on the mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits that we're getting, in addition to the physical benefits, we have a whole type of different experience. Sometimes diet mentality and a more holistic approach are in direct contradiction to each other. So, for example, the Bright Line Eating Food Plan really works. Some people have a robust enough metabolism that they can do the Bright Line Eating program and break their Bright Lines repeatedly all the time, let's say every day here and there, and still lose weight because they're following the food plan 90%. If they're really engrossed in diet mentality, they might not even notice that they're not allowing themselves to experience the mental benefits. Mental, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Mentally, they're using intermittent reinforcement and keeping the addiction alive. So, their mind is constantly asking, "Oh, do you want to try a little of that? Oh, you've already had your weighed and measured dinner, but you could have a little bit more." And it worked. Yes, the scale's still going down, and then they eat a little more and they're keeping the mental, "Will I? Won't?" "I should. I shouldn't." "Have I eaten enough? Have I not eaten enough?" "Am I going to have a little more?" Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're keeping that mental chatter, that insanity alive in their head and they may not even notice because if they're weighing themselves every day and the scale is still going down and they're mostly following the food plan, they might think, "What a success. This is going great. I'm doing Bright Line Eating." They may not even notice that they're not really doing Bright Line Eating. That they're using Bright Line Eating as a diet. They're not doing Bright Line Eating. Again, they're using Bright Line Eating as a diet, which is very possible to do. We have a lot of people around here that are using Bright Line Eating as a diet. They're not really doing Bright Line Eating, spiritually speaking.
What do I mean by spiritual? Well, the freedom that comes from surrendering to the Bright life. Really, really doing it wholeheartedly can result in us having so much peace and so much freedom and so much availability to be present to the awe of the magic of being alive, to connection with our higher power, to connection deeply in relationship with others, to spiritual growth. We might notice, we will notice if we're engaged in the Bright Line Eating journey on that level, we will notice that at times aspects of the food or the weight come up again as static, that mars that experience, and will be called to a deeper level of spiritual surrender. It might be something as trivial as some food starts to light us up. We start to notice that our lunch of sausage and corn and figs is really delicious. And we start to think about that, "Ooh, when am I going to get that sausage and corn again?" If that attachment to those foods that are Bright foods, but sexier than grilled chicken and steamed green beans, if we notice that our attachment to that food is creating static in our mind, in our spirit, we can breathe, we can surrender it and sink into yet a deeper level of our Bright Line Eating journey. If we notice that we're attached to the scale again, that we've got some scale chatter going on, we can weigh ourselves less often. We can just let go of whatever few pounds might be disturbing us. We can decide to change our goal weight range so that we have peace again and celebrate that our clothes fit and move on with our lives. We can surrender. That's the spiritual component.
The emotional component is that there's a lot of emotional work to be done. For some of us, trauma healing work, for all of us, emotional work on the order of letting go of resentments, addressing our codependency and our judgmentalism and our criticism of ourselves and others, doing deep emotional work, letting go or addressing our sense of shame or fear or unworthiness, our imposter syndrome, these are aspects of the deep emotional inner conflicts that we can start to work on and resolve by not working Bright Line Eating as a diet, but really working it as a way of life and putting the food in its place to create space to do that deeper level of work. We won't even notice that that work is there to be done, not certainly to the level that we could, if we're doing Bright Line Eating as a diet.
If we're doing Bright Line Eating as a diet, is the scale going down? Will I? Won't? I should. I shouldn't. In terms of breaking our Lines or staying on our Lines or maybe just the celebration of Bright day after Bright day after Bright day, but focused on the weight and the scale will take up all of our focus and we won't hear the call of our deeper emotional selves asking us to do that next level of work. That's the essence of the framework.
Now, this is all operating at the level of identity. Who are you really? Are you fundamentally the person you always were who is now adopting this food plan temporarily to lose weight? In which case, when the platter of dessert is passed, you say, "Oh, I can't. I'm doing this Bright Line Eating thing right now." Or are you fundamentally someone who does Bright Line Eating and plans to forever as an identity? You are a Bright Lifer™, in which case when the platter is passed with dessert, you say, "No, thank you. I don't eat sugar." Do you hear the difference? "No, I can't. I'm doing this Bright Line Eating thing right now until I fit into this dress for my son's wedding." That's diet mentality. "No thank you, I don't eat sugar" is a very, very deep identity. If you're doing this at the level of identity, then it's not a diet. One of the hallmarks of this is whether you're in a rush or not. If you have diet mentality, then the metric of whether it's working is whether the weight is flying off. Again, you might have a metabolism that allows the weight to fly off even if you're working a totally half measured program, like a sloppy, slocky program and you're barely even doing it for real, but the weight could be flying off because you're doing it a lot and the food plan works.
Now, not everyone has a metabolism that will allow for that, but some people do. But if you are doing this with diet mentality, your yardstick for whether this is working is whether the number on the scale is going down, irrespective of whether you're attaining mental peace, irrespective of whether you're really sticking with your Bright Lines, et cetera. If you've changed fundamentally as a person, you no longer think of this in terms of good and bad. I'm being good by sticking to this food plan. There's no such thing. There's no moral judgment on any of this. But that's a very diet mentality way to frame it. "I had a good day." "I'm being good." "I've been so good lately with my food." All of that is diet mentality language. Bright Line Eating Identity language, really doing this for real, you would say things like, " It's been harder lately to stick to my Bright Lines." "The food thoughts are really up for me." Or," I've been breaking my Lnes and I don't know how to surrender that and get back on track. I need help with a strong Rezoom™." That's all identity language. "I've been good, I've been bad" is diet mentality language. So, the level of identity is really where the rubber meets the road.
Then there's this other aspect, and this is the model that I got from James Clear's book, is that at the core of sustained behavior change is identity, and then the level right out from that, one concentric circle out from that, is the level of this system or process that you're going to be following. Of course, that system is Bright Line Eating. And so, diet mentality is focused on the food plan aspect of the system or process because the assumption is that's where the weight loss comes from, is "I'm now going to be adopting this food plan." If you're here with a diet mentality, you may put way less emphasis on the rest of the aspects of the whole system, like all the support aspects, getting a buddy, having a Mastermind Group, doing the Gideon Games, being on the Accountability Calls, etc. You might overlook to a significant degree, the aspects of the morning routine and the evening routine, starting a meditation practice, starting a gratitude practice, really looking at honing your habit stacks so they become as automatic as brushing your teeth. That's all part of the system as well, but if you don't see directly how it's going to impact your weight loss, of course it will long term. That's what it takes to become the kind of person who's still doing this five and 10 and 20 years later. But if you don't really think of it that way, because you've got diet mentality and you're thinking of this as a short-term fix, a short-term solution, just to lose weight, then you're going to sort of gloss over or push aside or pay less mind to those other aspects of the whole system. If you don't have diet mentality, if you're here for real and you're really doing Bright Line Eating, you're curious and intrigued in focusing on the whole system and you're like, "Oh, I haven't started a meditation practice yet. I should do that. Let me start to carve out 10 minutes in the morning to sit and start to meditate." "Oh, I think my evening habit stack needs work. What do other people put in their evening habit stack before bed? Maybe I should reach out and learn a little bit about that and develop an evening habit stack." So, someone with diet mentality will just focus on the food plan aspect of the system and think that that's the system. Think that the system is the food plan. As a matter of fact, they might pick up the Bright Line Eating book and skip the whole beginning and just jump right to the part with the food plan. And as a matter of fact, in the book, there's a little blurb that says, if you just skipped right to here to say, "What's the food plan already? Please stop and go back and read from the beginning of the book because you won't have the mindset shift that you need to have." In other words, you won't really be adopting this as a new identity, as a new lifestyle, really understanding why you're doing this if you're just looking at the food plan. That's definitely diet mentality.
I think the net/net comes down to, is this a short-term thing or a long-term thing for you? I just want to point out that a lot of things that people think of as quick fixes and diets can be done in a deeply identity rooted sort of way and not with diet mentality. Any of the popular mainstream diets can be done as a diet or as a deep lifestyle change. It's not the food plan that determines the difference at all. It's really the underlying motivation and intention of the person who adopts the plan. You can be counting points or I don't care, eating grapefruit. Now, eating only grapefruit would not be healthy long term, but let's imagine that you're eating lots and lots and lots of grapefruit plus some protein and some vegetables, and that's your food plan. And you consider yourself to be on a grapefruit diet. Well, you can do that kind of diet as a diet, or you could do it as a lifelong identity change for real, for real. You could, 15 years later, someone could run into you and say, "Boy, you look great." And you say, "Yeah, 15 years ago, I took this food plan out of a magazine and I decided I was going to change my life and I decided this is how I'm eating now and I've been doing EMDR therapy and lots of trauma grief work and I started training for triathlons and I just kept this food plan up on my fridge with a poster of the seven chakras and now I just focus on staying cleared out in my chakra column and doing my trauma work and doing these triathlons. And that's who I am now." Identity shift through and through. Through and through.
You could do GLP-1 medications as a deep identity shift, holistically speaking. Or you could do them as a diet. Diet mentality is, and this is actually becoming quite common now, is people who are going on and off GLP-1 medications as a diet, going off them when they're going on a cruise and they want to enjoy the food because GLP-1 medications kill your enjoyment of food and drink entirely pretty much. And so, some people go off them for the holidays, go off them when they're going on a vacation, and then they go back on them as a diet. The essence of diet mentality, short-term focused on the weight. But some people are adopting GLP-1 medications as a part, as a strategy, a part of an entire identity-based lifestyle change. They want the support of the suppressed appetite and the reduced cravings, and they're using that medication to allow them to create space in their life for healthier eating and for deep mental, emotional, and spiritual transformation to become a better version of themselves. They're using that medication to create enough peace with the food that they can finally stick with the type of regimen they've always wanted to adhere to.
It's not really the plan that you adopt that distinguishes it as an identity shift or a diet. It's really your orientation toward it. The question you need to ask yourself is, why am I doing this? Really, truly, why am I doing this? If the answer is, "I just want to lose weight," then that's a diet. What will happen is you'll get to the end or close to the end of the weight-loss phase and the Parts of you that still identify as being the person you've always been will start to say, "Well, now I get a little more. Now I get to eat those foods again. We've been good long enough. Now we get some treats because the weight's just about off or the weight is off and now, we get to indulge ourselves again a little. Because we were good all that time on our diet."
The bottom line is, if it's a diet, you will regain the weight. That's how diets work. They're short term things. If you're not fundamentally a different person doing a different thing long term, then you go back to your old ways and you get your old results. So, that's what I think diet mentality is fundamentally. It's something you do for a short period of time just to lose weight. The people who really do Bright Line Eating are not doing that and they have patience with their long-term journey. They are calm in the face of very, very slow weight loss or prolonged plateaus because they know the reality is they're not going anywhere anyway. They're not going to do anything different with their food anyway. They might get on a coaching call and try to troubleshoot like, "Hey, my weight has plateaued for a while. Is there something I should do about this? " Absolutely. But since the whole point of the journey wasn't necessarily just to get the weight off, it's not a five-fire emergency. It's like, "Well, okay, let's see if there's anything to be done about this." But in the meantime, they're engaged with the mental, the spiritual, the emotional transformation, enjoying all the non-scale victories that go along with their new way of life and enjoying the weight that they've already lost and how much healthier they feel. All the physical benefits health wise of living Bright Line Eating are there, whether the number on the scale is going down or not.
If you notice that you have diet mentality, first of all, I just want to say, don't beat yourself up. A lot of people come for the vanity and then they stay for the sanity. I love that saying. It comes from 12-step programs. You come for the vanity, you stay for the sanity. So, if you've come for the vanity, don't beat yourself up. That's common, super common. But you're going to want to consider working on that a bit because if you want this to be a long-term solution and not a quick fix that then vaporizes in front of your eyes, again, you're going to want to develop a deeper identity as someone who really does this long term. And the way you do that is one day at a time, because identities are built by watching yourself take the actions that a new type of person would take. And so, with each Bright meal that you weigh and measure, and each time you rebuff that Part of you, put off that Part of you that says you can deviate a little because it won't matter because the scale's still going down. If you say, "No, no, no, I'm not doing this as a diet. I'm doing this as a deeply held identity shift. I am now someone who eats Bright and lives Bright, and this is what I do." That will help. If you focus on all the other aspects of the system of Bright Line Eating beyond the food plan, that will help. Get yourself support. Look at your morning and evening habit stacks, start meditating, develop a gratitude practice, start using a five-year journal. These are some of the things that make it a lifestyle. If you start to visualize yourself, do some WOOPS, W-O-O-P. Look at the first book, Bright Line Eating. Look at module seven of the Boot Camp. I explained the WOOP. WOOP is wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. It's a way of visualizing yourself in the future. Start visualizing yourself 10 years from now, still doing Bright Line Eating. And the obstacle that keeps you from getting there is your diet mentality. Then think about what would help me overcome this diet mentality and see what comes to you. Spend some time in visualization, doing a WOOP about you doing Bright Line Eating 10 years from now and see what comes up for you.
These are all actions you could take to really deepen your program and also fundamentally ask yourself, why am I doing this? Really, truly, why am I here? Why am I here? And see if you can push yourself to come up with some very soulful, heartfelt reasons that resonate with you that have nothing to do with the weight. Start thinking about the other aspects of health and more fundamentally who you want to be as a person, what you want your life to mean, how you want to be able to show up for yourself and for others. Aspects of your life you may want the opportunity to change, to heal, to transform. Ask yourself, why am I here really? Because weight loss was always for a reason. Whether it was to be more attractive in the eyes of others, why was that? To get more love? Why are you here really? And once you have a deep and rich answer to that question, you've moved beyond diet mentality, and that's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
