Susan Peirce Thompson is author of “Bright Line Eating.” This is a podcast all about “aha” moments. Most have no understanding of how their bodies take in, and absorb food. Susan’s BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) is to make sure that all those who want to put forth the effort of losing weight and keeping it off have a road map. Susan had trouble losing weight starting at age 12. She found early on that the only thing that worked for her was using drugs, specifically crystal meth. During her 20’s she was able to get off the hard drugs, but then became addicted to nicotine, sex, flour, and sugar. The turning point for her was when she decided to do a bikini body 12 week challenge with her husband. They were suppose to work out 6 days a week and eat 6 times a day. Her husband did great on the program, Susan did not. She wasn’t able to keep with the eating schedule. She ended up running into an old friend that told her about a different way of eating. Her friend gave her the cliff notes version of a no flour or sugar diet—combined with weighing your food. Susan ended up quitting the bikini challenge and started down this new path of eating. She began losing weight instantly. This lead to her going back and reverse engineering why the program worked. She started Bright line eating in 2014 and started doing a scientific study on the results of the participants. 80% of food sold in the super market has added sugar. 60% of one year olds are fed sugar every day. Susan explains why it is so hard to have the brain let go of the need for sugar. The dopamine release in sugar is the same type of dopamine release that occurs when using drugs or having sex. Doughnuts and pornography give a dopamine release that is larger than the body is trained for. What happens over time is your need for stimulation rises. There is a need to keep it sustained. What is the solution? You need to automate your eating just like brushing your teeth is automated. There is no impulse control, just automatic. There needs to be no choosing involved. 80% execution of this program is so much harder than going 100% all in. It’s a system. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: BHAG Sugar is an addiction How to handle withdrawal from sugar Drinking calories vs. eating calories The radish study Willpower is a finite resource Regulating task performance