My twins, Zoe and Robin Thompson, turned 17 on May 2. We celebrated their birthday at Plum Garden, the restaurant my family frequently visits for celebrations. Plum Garden epitomises how I’m working my program now that I’m peacefully Bright, as opposed to before, when I was mostly, but not always, Bright.
This vlog is for you if you’ve been around Bright Line Eating for a while, but are not getting the results you want. You’re not able to stay Bright consistently, or maybe weight loss is not happening as you’d like. For you, I want to talk about mixtures.
Plum Garden is a Japanese hibachi house. That’s where you have a big skillet surrounded by a table and chairs, and a chef comes out and cooks the meal—rice, vegetables, meat, or tofu—right in front of you, and then puts it on your plate from there. He puts on a show for you while he’s cooking.
It’s easy to be Bright there, because you watch them prepare it, so you know if they’re putting sugar in it. But back before I was consecutively Bright, I had a hard time in Plum Garden, and frequently overage and felt out of control. I ate in a way that I didn’t feel good about.
What I do differently now when we’re there is that I don’t eat the mixtures, and in particular, the fried rice. When they make it, they chop up and add egg, butter, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and bits of vegetables. These are all things I eat, but when you put them together, you have a mixture that crosses food categories.
You’ve got rice, which is a grain; egg, which is a protein; butter, which is fat; and vegetables. Four categories in one concoction.
The longer I’m Bright, the more I realize that I work my program similarly to the women in Boston in a 12-step program I attended, which I thought was rigid at the time. They used to talk, in derogatory terms, about mixtures and concoctions. These were what they were drawn toward in their food addiction—and so was I. I’d make a big concoction and binge on it. I wouldn’t use measuring cups, I’d just dump everything in a bowl and eat it raw.
I didn’t see anything wrong with mixtures. But the research is clear: the number one factor that allows the brain to heal from food addiction is the simplicity of the food we eat, and the lack of triggering “reward value” of that food.
Sugar and flour have a high reward value. So do refined carbohydrates. And so do mixtures and concoctions. You don’t find these foods in the wild. It’s not how nature makes food. The layering of all the ingredients has high reward value.
If I have a grain in my food plan at dinner these days, when we go to Plum Garden, I order a bowl of white rice and eat it plain. Similarly, their salad dressing has sugar and other ingredients. I don’t eat it. I have a garden salad with a bit of soy sauce. The butter on the vegetables is my fat.
And now I have not a whiff of an out-of-control feeling there. It’s gone—that attachment or obsession. This is such a win for me. I’ve reclaimed a cherished family space, and I can show up fully for my family. I don’t feel triggered or obsessed, and don’t need to stress about getting through the meal.
I offer this as an invitation for you, if you’re not getting the results you want in your Bright Journey. Have you kept your food complicated? Could you try for a week to keep your food separate, not mixed together, even your vegetables? A six-ounce pile of steamed green beans, four ounces of grilled tofu or chicken, and a beautiful eight-ounce salad with a tablespoon each of olive oil and balsamic vinegar? That simple. So it’s clear what each of the foods on your plate is. For breakfast: 8 ounces plain Greek yogurt, 1 ounce of simple oats cooked up into oatmeal, and 6 ounces of blueberries?
Can you try that? And see what happens to your brain as you let go of mixtures and recipes. Bring down the reward value of your food to hit the point where your addiction is matched by the strength of your program. Keep your food simple enough to let your brain heal. Give it a try—what do you have to lose?
