If You Are Addicted to Sugar and Need to Lose Weight, Bright Line Eating Could Be the Answer

This means no added sugar including white, brown, and coconut; natural sweeteners like maple syrup, honey, and agave; and artificial sweeteners. Sugar elevates insulin levels, which block the hormone leptin and overload your dopamine receptors, which leads to insatiable cravings. This is why you eat cookie after cookie and still want more — eating sugar makes you crave it. In order to break this cycle, you need to stop eating sugar, and the cravings will disappear.

Fresh fruit is allowed since the fructose in fruit doesn't affect your brain the way refined sugar does and because fruit also contains fiber, which slows down digestion. Dried fruit, fruit juice, and blended fruit (like smoothies and frozen banana ice cream) are not allowed since the sugar is more concentrated. Remember: we want to keep dopamine receptors quiet.

Like sugar, flour raises insulin levels and is one of the most addictive foods. When grains are processed, the surface area is increased, so it hits our system too fast and too hard. So this means no flour — not white, not whole wheat, not oats ground into flour, not gluten-free or lentil flour — none whatsoever. You are instead encouraged to eat whole grains, which take longer to digest.

The third bright line involves sitting down to eat three abundant, delicious, planned-out meals — no snacks and no grazing all day long. This helps with willpower issues because it becomes a habit to only think about food three times a day, allowing your brain freedom from food and decision making the rest of the day.

This also increases fasting time between eating, which can help control hunger and help you burn fat. This bright line will be difficult to follow at first if you're used to eating between meals. But when you focus on eating enough food at each meal, hunger won't be an issue.

This brings us to the fourth bright line, which outlines specific quantities for each meal. There are two options: one for weight loss and one for weight maintenance. You use a food scale to measure out your food, and the portions are generous but finite, which prevents you from overeating.

It may sound obsessive and extreme to measure out your food for each meal, but it can actually have the opposite effect and offer emotional freedom. You can feel good knowing you ate just the right amount.

It sounds shocking to be told never to eat sugar or flour, but this isn't just another diet telling you what not to eat. In the Bright Line Eating book, Susan explained that Bright Line Eating is designed to shift eating behaviors from the prefrontal cortex (decision-making part of the brain), to the basal ganglia (the part of the brain where things are automatic). It does take willpower to begin and set up, but after consistent repetition, it requires no willpower at all because eating becomes automatic.

Research shows it takes an average of about 66 days to form a new habit, so if you feel like Bright Line Eating might be for you, give it at least two months. Reading the Bright Line Eating book is helpful, and Susan also offers a 14-Day Challenge to get you started. After that, there's an eight-week boot camp so you can get the support you need to be successful and live "happy, thin, and free."