Losing 34 lbs with Bright Line Eating

Feeling like vs actually doing

I’ve never considered myself ‘fat’, but I’ve always been inclined towards overeating. That is, there’s a gap between what I feel like eating and what I know is good for me. If I let myself eat whatever I felt like all the time, I’d be a lot heavier and more unhealthy.

I think this is pretty normal, though I guess I’m on the other side for some things. I enjoy drinking beer, but not all the time, and when I do I rarely “feel like” having more than ~2, so it’s not hard to control. I’d guess this is how naturally thin people feel about food.

For most of my adult life, navigating the difference between what I felt like eating (e.g. a big DQ blizzard) and what I actually ate (a smaller blizzard, once in a while) has been a mild source of tension.

What I’ve tried before

I’m big on self improvement, and over the past ~15 years (post college) I’ve played around with various ways to make this easier, including:

exercising
the No S diet (no snacks, sweets, or seconds, except on weekends)
counting calories and logging food
intermittent fasting
using a “do it or face a penalty” app like Beeminder/Forfeit
weight loss bets with friends
tracking measurements

All with varying degrees of success. They weren’t failures, because who knows the counterfactual, but the whole thing never seemed optimal and I wouldn’t describe it as easy.

Mostly I did No S, but often felt like I ate too much on the weekends. Or I’d do something with a consequence (a bet with friends to get down to a certain weight, Forfeit) but it’d feel pretty hard, like I was making a big push at the deadline vs. something more sustainable.

Then one day I remembered a girl I used to work with saying she lost 50+ lbs doing Bright Line Eating. As part of my ongoing list of things to try, I bought the book and read it.

Bright Line Eating

The author of Bright Line Eating, Susan Peirce Thompson, is a former drug (crystal meth, heroin) and food addict, who has kicked both via 12 step programs and (in the case of food) incorporated some of those lessons on dealing with addiction into Bright Line Eating.

My understanding is she started with an online, 8 week “boot camp” around 2014, then followed it up with this book in 2017.

I didn’t realize this before writing this post, but apparently a lot of Bright Line is based off of older food addiction programs (Overeaters Anonymous, GreySheeters Anonymous, FA). It seems like she took those, took out the 12 step/God/sponsor/service parts, and made it an online product/bootcamp. (Which I’m totally down with, by the way — unlocking good-but-not-as-accessible ideas with improved distribution is a valuable thing to do.)

I only read the book. I didn’t do any of the bootcamps.

The basic premise:

There’s a bunch of stuff going on chemically with modern food and brains and insulin and dopamine etc. that makes it easier for a lot of people to overeat.
That, plus insight into how people overcome addictive behaviors (plus trial and error), went into designing the Bright Line Eating program.

Rules

No sugar, ever (if added sugar in e.g. a salad dressing is the 4th ingredient or later, that’s minimal/fine).
No flour, ever.
Three meals a day.
Everything is weighed out, with prescribed amounts of protein, fat, veg, fruit, etc.

I think rule 4 is the most interesting. It’s pretty rigid.

When you start out you’re allowed:

Breakfast:

one protein
one fruit
1 serving of grains

Lunch:

one protein
one fat
10 oz of salad/vegetables

Dinner:

one protein
one fat
10 oz of salad/vegetables

A ‘protein’ can be a bunch of different things, e.g.

8 oz of Greek yogurt
3 eggs
6 oz of meat
6 oz of beans
3 oz of nuts

And a ‘fat’:

2 oz of salad dressing
1 oz of cheese
0.5 oz of nuts
2 oz of avocado

Fruit:

an apple
a banana
6 oz of berries/other fruit

Grains:

1 oz of uncooked oatmeal
4 oz of sweet potato
4 oz of rice, quinoa, etc.

That list isn’t exhaustive; she goes over more options in the book.

So you start out eating that, and exactly that, and lose weight.

Then, depending on how quickly you’re losing weight, you slowly add stuff back in — e.g. a serving of grains at lunch, then at dinner — until you’re basically at the weight you want and aren’t gaining or losing anymore.

As for the other rules: 3 basically means you can’t divide all the stuff up and graze on it throughout the day.

The no sugar, no flour rules are more restrictive. They’re partly baked into why BLE works (not eating sugar, which is a lot of empty calories). But it’s interesting, and not something I would have necessarily thought going in, that it’d matter whether I ate e.g. a 1 oz piece of toast vs. 1 oz of oatmeal.

My view is these rules are in there for a reason (and after a lot of trial and error by other people), and that by following them and not eating sugar or flour I’m making the whole thing easier to follow.

I haven’t tested how much they actually matter, e.g. how much flour I could get away with.

What I eat

My steady state (after adding like 7 different things back in, in the order she specifies), and what I have most days, is basically:

Breakfast:

2 servings of grains (2 oz of dry oatmeal)
one protein (8 oz of plain Fage Greek yogurt)
one fruit (6 oz of berries, which I allocate between the oatmeal and the yogurt)
1 oz of nuts (in the yogurt)

Lunch:

2 proteins (2 oz egg, 8 oz egg whites)
one fruit (usually an apple)
2 servings of grains (8 oz of sweet potatoes)
2 fats (some combo of: 0.5 oz of peanut butter on my apple, 1 oz cheese for the eggs, half an avocado)
10 oz of vegetables

Dinner (what I have varies):

one protein
one fruit
2 fats
2 servings of grains
10 oz of vegetables

Results

I started BLE in early November 2025. I was ~200 lbs, with a peak weight of ~214 earlier that fall.

I lost weight pretty quickly. By January I was in the 180s, and by February I had reached my goal weight of 180 (this was even lighter than I had been in college, at 185). Throughout, I had been adding food back in (the book describes a formula for that).

Early on I felt noticeably better, with more energy. I think I still feel like that, but I’m just more used to it now and it’s not as noticeable.

In December I had my annual (overdue) physical, where I got blood work done. My cholesterol numbers were better than they had been 10 years before, in 2015. Note I had only been on BLE ~6 weeks at that point.

I’m still (as of this writing, July 2026) doing BLE, and am currently ~180.

Benefits and costs

Generally I’m happy with BLE and think it’s worth it (you’d hope this would be the case, since I keep doing it).

Benefits

healthier generally
feel better, with more energy
less tension/mental energy re: what I feel like eating vs. what I actually do
cosmetic/look better — would be a bigger deal if I were younger, single, or coming from a more overweight baseline, but still nice
more maintainable; feels like something I can do long term vs. a temporary push or something hard

But that’s not to say there aren’t costs.

Costs

Holidays

Food has a big social and cultural role, and it’s harder in large family holiday type gatherings when everyone brings a dish or appetizer and grazes while watching football or whatever.

Mainly I deal with it by eyeballing a regular meal, and then grazing on raw vegetables and dip. Also I still drink beer, which helps.

Misc family ice cream outings

My family still will occasionally go out for ice cream. On those occasions I abstain. This is a real cost — I like ice cream, and these are fun family things.

Separate meals

I have three kids and a wife who are not on BLE. I also do most of the cooking. The reality is me doing BLE and them not often means making two meals. Mostly I just deal with it; it’s not that onerous to me.

No “let’s just get pizza”

Often we’ll be in a group of people, with families, and decide to order pizza or something.

It’s fine, and I don’t want to make people work around me, but I obviously don’t eat pizza and have to figure something else out. This is why I usually have some MealSquares when traveling.

Overall these costs are sort of part of the deal. It’s really a marginal thing.

I heard something once, in the context of alcohol, about how when people think of someone drinking they always picture (and the commercials portray) someone on their first drink — vs. the later, more sloppy/sleepy/fuller feeling of someone on their 6th.

It’s like that with eating. The whole system of BLE has worked for me. Yeah, right now, after doing it 9 months and losing a bunch of weight, I could go out and order an ice cream cone with my family, and that ice cream outing would be pleasant, and I’d be a thin guy eating an ice cream cone or whatever.

But I don’t think long term I could really do that consistently and keep up the benefits. So I don’t.

Not costs

Some things that aren’t costs:

Early on I was mildly self-conscious about doing BLE. I thought people might view it as extreme, or judge me, or view it as inflexible or whatever.

I’ve found this isn’t really a problem. Most people are intrigued or mildly supportive and happy to accommodate or work around it. “Oh, we’re ordering pizzas but they have salads too, does that work?”

Hunger

I don’t ever really feel super hungry or like I’m depriving myself. That’s the part that’s probably related to the chemistry stuff. If I were eating moderate amounts of sugar sometimes, I’m sure my brain would crave it more.

Deviations

My view on deviations from BLE: you’re not really supposed to deviate ever, and it’s possible the optimal number of deviations is 0.

But if you are going to break it, doing it in the moment (vs. consciously planning it out for some rare or special occasion ahead of time) is much worse.

Sugar and flour

Since I’ve been doing BLE (9 months now) I’ve consciously broken the sugar and flour rules 3x, all planned out ahead of time:

My birthday (I’d only been doing it for a few weeks and the kids were excited to give me a cake).
Thanksgiving (a few weeks later), when my extended family had a bite sized dessert contest. I was planning on having one of each. We ended up getting snowed out, but my daughter and I made a bite sized key lime thing from scratch, so I tried one.
My sister’s wedding cake.

If there really is some chemical mechanism — where eating sugar or flour makes sticking to it more difficult — then breaking the rules doesn’t get around that. But it does deal with the rules/behavior/willpower side.

Quantities

Normally, when I’m away from a scale (e.g. in a restaurant) I’ll at least shoot to ballpark something in the right quantities, even if my brain probably stretches it.

But very rarely I’ll consciously choose to go beyond the quantity limits. One example: my cousin’s wedding, where they had a ton of fancy food and a bunch of different meats, cheeses, appetizers, etc. In that case I felt fine trying a bunch of different things (for sure going beyond my one protein, one fat limit). But even then I still didn’t have anything with flour or sugar.

Tweaks

I adhere pretty closely to BLE, but there are things I’ve changed.

Planning out meals

Technically you’re supposed to plan out all your meals the night before. It makes it easier to stick with.

I have never really done this. Partly I do it implicitly (my breakfast and lunch are basically the same every day), but my view is that sticking to the proper weighed amounts is the important thing.

Drinking

You’re technically not supposed to drink alcohol on BLE, though apparently some people are fine with the occasional glass of wine. I’m one of those people, except for me it’s beer.

I only drink in social settings, rarely feel like having more than 2-3, and this part hasn’t really been a problem for me.

If I’m in a non-social setting (watching a baseball game at home or something) and feel like a beer, I’ll have an NA.

Weighing food

I pretty much weigh all of my food at home. I’ve been more or less strict on stuff outside of that — e.g. in the past I occasionally have:

eaten an apple slice my kids didn’t eat
licked the knife after making a peanut butter sandwich for one of the kids

Where I’ve landed: it’s just better to be really strict and weigh everything, forgo the apple slice or the peanut butter trace. The whole point is getting away from having to actively think about it, from dealing with the tension between what you want to eat and what you do. Once you start going beyond what you weigh out, that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Restaurants

I eyeball things in restaurants, which is official BLE policy. Realistically it often probably ends up being more than the prescribed amounts, but whatever. It’s not like I’m going to stop going to restaurants.

If I order a healthy-ish meal (still sticking to no sugar, no flour) and eat all of it, it’s not a big problem for me. Thompson recommends avoiding restaurants for the first 30 days of BLE, which I could see being good advice.

Gum

You’re not supposed to have it, but I felt like eating all these vegetables was making my breath more questionable sometimes, so now I have xylitol gum. Seems fine.

Milk in coffee

If you do this, you’re supposed to take it out of your protein allocation. I drank it black for a while, but I like milk in coffee and now put a splash in most cups. Seems fine.

Practical tips

Some things that have made following BLE easier for me:

Avocado oil cooking spray

Per the book, oil sprays don’t count as fats because it’s such a minuscule amount. They cover everything, though, so you can cook fine with them.

I use avocado oil spray from Costco for making vegetables, frying diced sweet potatoes in the air fryer, eggs, etc.

Overall it’s way easier and more pleasant than if I used liquid cooking oils and then had to forgo, e.g., an avocado or cheese on something.

Air fryer

I cook a lot of vegetables and sweet potatoes (for my grain) in an air fryer.

MealSquares

Every few weeks I get a box of MealSquares from mealsquares.com.

I use these when traveling, or when I don’t feel like cooking a grain (per my calculations, one MealSquare counts as a grain plus 1 fat, though it also works as a protein on the go).

I ate more of these a few years ago, and picked them back up when looking for something quick and Bright Line compliant. In general, I agree with their nutrition philosophy.

Technically they have chocolate chips in them, but overall sugar is lower than the 4th ingredient, so I think it’s fine.

When I need a MealSquare-like thing in a pinch but don’t have an actual MealSquare (if I’m at a gas station or an airport or something) I’ll do RXBARs.

Exercise

In the book she recommends not starting any new exercise regimen alongside BLE.

I already had been pretty good about exercising though, so I kept doing what I had been doing (mostly basketball for cardio and lifting weights).

As I lost weight, I didn’t want to also lose muscle mass, so if anything I put more of an emphasis on strength training. Prior to BLE I maybe did 90% of my scheduled workouts and lifts; now it’s probably more like 95%. I also added lifts and started taking creatine.

Conclusion

Overall, Bright Line Eating has been well worth it to me.

I play around with and try a bunch of different tweaks to habits, routines, etc. In some ways I view myself as a VC. VCs make a bunch of investments, lose money on most of them, but have a few winners that pay off and make up for all the rest.

It’s that way for me: I try a bunch of different stuff, or read a bunch of books. Most of it doesn’t work, or isn’t something I stick with, whatever. But some things end up clicking — and BLE is definitely one of the winners.