Today on the podcast:
Dr. Susan Peirce is a two-time New York Times bestselling author and brain and cognitive scientist specializing in the psychology of eating.
Her new book REZOOM: The Powerful Reframe to End the Crash-and-Burn Cycle of Food Addiction talks about her radical and science-verified approach to weight loss and eating that has seen widespread, sustainable success and has twice been covered in The Journal of Nutrition and Weight Loss.
Susan is also the founder and CEO of Bright Line Eating. The Bright Line Eating program approaches overeating as an addiction and draws a “bright line” around problem substances like flour and sugar.
Episode Outline
- 04:12 Her incredible story as a drug addict and prostitute to starting the Bright Line Eating movements that’s helped hundreds of thousands of people change their lives
- 06:01 Food addiction vs crack cocaine – how your brain works on both
- 12:12 Substance addiction vs process addiction and why food addiction is so difficult to overcome with eating being the actual behavior
- 16:44 How long it takes on average for people to recover on the Bright Line Eating program
- 20:34 Why accepting the label of “food” addict can be the first step towards recovery
- 22:38 Setting up food boundaries and surrendering to a plan
- 25:37 How accepting the label of “food” addict makes everything else easier
- 26:27 How sugar and flour feel like drugs to your brain and if you should remove them completely or use moderation
- 32:44 Why writing down your food the night before is a massively underrated weight loss strategy
- 34:16 Why Dr. Peirce wrote REZOOM
- 38:38 Silencing your inner critic
- 45:04 Advice that Dr. Peirce would give her addicted 18-year-old self
Key Points
- The brain never forgets. If you suffer from food addiction and start taking steps to change today, whether that’s through establishing new habits, getting into a better environment, and/or finding a support group, that susceptibility is always going to be there. You’re always vulnerable to it. Once a food addict, always a food addict. This means you need to be extra-vigilant and never rest on your laurels so that you don’t fall back into old patterns.
- The first step to overcome food addiction is also one of the most overlooked and underappreciated steps: accepting the label of “food” addict. You will be more empowered than you think once you own what you’re going through, simply because it gives you the motivation to actually go seek recovery and do whatever it takes in order to at least put that condition in remission.
- Avoiding the shame spiral that you fall into once you fall off your bright line comes down to self-compassion. Talk kindly to yourself, especially when you blow it, just as you would talk to a dear friend or family member. That inner critic is incredibly harsh, but funnily enough, it is actually trying to help us with whatever we’re working on. Your inner critic is not “all of you” but “a part of you”. This makes it so much easier to shrink it down and silence it.
Powerful Quotes by Dr. Peirce
- It’s one of the frustrating things—even though there are benefits to it—about the brain: It never, ever forgets.
- Food addiction is unique in the world of addiction in that it is both a substance addiction and a process or behavioral addiction.
- There is something very empowering in owning a condition or disease that you have because it makes you willing to treat it.
- When you conceive of that inner critic as not “all of us” but “a part of us” and you start getting curious and calm about what its motive is and why it’s talking to us that way, you can do helpful things like shrinking it down.
Guest Info
