Hey there. It's Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson and let's talk about safe, or maybe wise, versus unsafe, or maybe unwise exceptions or deviations to your Bright Line Eating® plan or a plan of structured abstinent eating. People ask me all the time things like, "I'm just not always hungry. Can I just sometimes not eat my third meal?" Or "Can I just maybe switch my grain up to dinner sometimes if I'd rather have it at dinner?" Or "What about mints or gum? Can I just have those?" People sometimes grab some food after dinner, like a handful of nuts is a common thing. I typically say, "No, don't do that." "No, I wouldn't do that." "No, I wouldn't do that." Those are all things that I would call unwise or unsafe exceptions or deviations. The reason is that they create something called intermittent reinforcement, which is a brain that hounds you for food. Just like an addict to gambling is sometimes in Vegas pouring quarters into a slot machine, just pulling that lever, pulling that lever. They're looking for the intermittent payoff. They know that sometimes it pays off and they're thinking maybe now, maybe now, maybe now. Our brains are the addicts and they hound us for food if we reinforce intermittently. They think, "Well, maybe now you'll give in, maybe now you'll give in." And so they hound us. They say, "Maybe eat something. How about now? How about now? How about now?"
We have what's called food noise these days, right? Like a life of no peace. And the four Bright Lines that we follow in Bright Line Eating, some of what they do is they lessen the food noise way down to levels like the GLP-1 medications create really, really low levels of food noise. They give us peace. So, when we don't eat sugar, we don't eat flour, we eat only meals and we don't graze or snack in between and we bound our quantities, usually weighing our food with a digital food scale, those crisp, sharp boundaries give us peace. Okay. So that's all clear.
Now I'm going to lay out some exceptions to that plan that I've found that people in Bright Line Eating have found work for them and let's look at why. I fly a lot from the East Coast to the West Coast and back. When I fly out to California from New York, I typically leave first thing in the morning like a 6:00 AM flight. I often get up at 20 AM or 3:00 AM for that flight because I got to get to the airport by 4:00 AM, blah, blah, blah. And I live in Rochester, New York. There're no direct flights. So, I've got a connection by the time I get out to California, it's noon California time. I'm getting to bed at 9:00 PM Pacific Time, which is midnight East Coast time. I'm living a long day and I've learned to add a fourth meal. Now, if you just ask me, "Hey, sometimes I'd love a fourth meal. Can I just add a fourth meal?" I would say, "I wouldn't do that. That's not wise." But on travel day out to California, I do add a fourth meal. What's the difference? Hold that thought.
What about the fact that in Bright Line Eating we don't do artificial sweeteners? That's included in the no sugar Bright Line. No sugar includes artificial sweeteners of all kinds. And yet, right before this vlog, I was sucking on a sugar-free cough drop and I use sugar-free cough drops to keep myself from having a tickle in my throat and needing to cough or clear my throat when I shoot videos. I don't chew gum. I don't use breath mints. I've discovered that Listerine breath strips, those get super addictive for me. I tend to then have two at a time, three at a time, seven at a time. Okay, I have to quit these. They don't work for me. Cough drops, I use. What's the difference? Hold that thought.
Another one is what's now called a replenishing meal in Bright Line Eating. Someone bikes 50 miles. Well, they're going to need some extra fuel for that, right? So, people have created little ways to get light, nutritious, power packed meals. Some people are like mashing yam and almond butter or something and a little baggy so they can like whatever, that people have these replenishing meals that they have. If you'd have just said like, "Oh, I want a spoonful of peanut butter in the middle of the afternoon." I would have said, "No, not wise. I don't recommend that." But the replenishing meal gets a thumbs up as a wise option. So, what's the difference here and why do these things that people are doing that by all rights look like exceptions? Why are they not activating the intermittent reinforcement effect? I got asked this in a workshop that I was giving recently.
I was giving a workshop called "Aligned" and it was about how to get aligned with what you're doing with your Bright Line Eating program. Because I know that people do all kinds of things. I'm not the Bright Line Eating police. People ask me for my advice, and I tell them what I've seen typically work and not work, but I'm always reminding people, "Hey, you're self-responsible. Do what works for you. Work your Bright Line Eating plan or slight line eating plan or whatever you prefer to do in a way that works for you." So, someone asked me, why do these things that you're telling people is like kind of thumbs up wise approved, why aren't they triggering intermittent reinforcement?
Here's the difference. Each of those examples that I gave, the replenishing meal, the cough drop, the fourth meal when you fly from East Coast to West Coast, each of those examples happens in a specific context or environment or situation. It's as if it's not really a deviation, it's just a new rule. It's like, no sugar, no flour. This is my food plan. I always follow it. But if I'm flying from the East Coast to the West Coast, then I add a fourth meal. If I'm about to shoot videos and it's my profession and it would be a massive pain in the you know what, if I happen to cough mid-sentence because you know I don't script these things, right? There's no teleprompter here. I'm making this up on the fly. If I were to cough mid-sentence, it would be totally a bummer. I would not know where to pick back up again. I'd be tempted to start the whole video over, like no bueno. So, I'm really trying not to cough. If someone's biking 50 miles, right we need to give the body the fuel that it needs. So if we're in this situation, then we do X, Y, Z. It's a rule, right? It's a specific clear context. You'll also notice that in each instance the motive is really pure. The motive is not to get a hit. The motive is to have the sanest, most rational, Bright Line day under the circumstances and there's no other better way to achieve that. You've exhausted other options and you actually need to carve out a new rule for that kind of circumstance.
In all of the other things I was mentioning, like I want to choose some gum, I want some peanut butter in the afternoon, I'm going to take a handful of nuts after dinner, those all have a more addictive motive and there's no specific context to them. They're just willy-nilly. They're just like, "Well, sometimes I'd like to have an extra meal or whatever." It turns out that it can really work well to create a rule under certain circumstances to handle an environment that's different. So, in the slot machine case, the reason it doesn't trigger intermittent reinforcement is it's as if there's a slot machine across the street that pays out always and a slot machine right here that pays out never and you know which one to go to, right? It's a different environment. It's a different context. Your brain knows that if you're flying from Rochester, New York to California on a 6:00 AM flight, you're going to get a fourth meal and the brain's going to ask for it, the brain's going to expect it and it's going to pay out, it's going to happen. And when you're now living in Rochester, New York, waking up, having a regular day, the brain's never going to ask for more food under those ... It's not going to say, "Can I have a fourth meal now? Can I have a fourth meal now?" Because it's now in that other casino across the street that never pays out. So, it's like, why would I bother asking now? The slot machine doesn't pay out. My brain doesn't ask me for Listerine breath strips or for gum or for cough drops if I'm not about to shoot a video or I'm not actively coughing with a massive tickle in my throat. My brain knows better. I don't just have cough drops willy-nilly.
Here's the final thing I want to say about this, be careful with your "if/thens," because if you start making them all the time, you will ... If you're an addict like me, I'm just going to say how my brain works. If you're an addict like me, you'll start to have the symptoms that need the drug. You'll start to be like, "Oh, I sure need an extra meal on days like this." "Oh, I sure need some fruit with my meal when I go out to this friend's house because it's just so hard that they all have dessert and I don't get any, so I need to add fruit then." No, no, no. I sit there, and I have some herbal tea, or I sip water, or I do nothing, and they have their food and I don't have any. That's part of living the way I live with food is some people are eating and I'm not eating all the time. I suck that one up, buttercup. So, be careful. If you start to create if/then rules with the motive of getting a little more, getting a little sexier and having a food addiction gremlin monster in play, you will train your brain to always be looking at scenarios where it makes sense or it's a new context. That's the only thing. I just want to say is there are limits to the effectiveness of this or the wiseness of it, but there's a rationale why some of the exceptions or deviations that have emerged in our community as being effective are effective. I just wanted to explain the science of how that works to you because I know that y'all like the science. All right, that's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
