The unique struggle of starting BLE from a smaller number

Bright Line Eating recently added special interest groups and I'm thrilled. Hooray! A way to make the big Bright Lifers facebook group seem smaller and less intimidating. A way to connect with people who share your struggles.

And ... there was no group for me.

Sigh.

I was hoping there might be a group for people who have relapsed repeatedly (yeah, that would be me). Or introverts who avoid phone calls the way vampires avoid the sun (also me).

Or ... for people who began with smaller numbers.

Now, that last statement might make you pause. Aren't the people coming from larger weights the ones who need Bright Line Eating most? Isn't their weight often a serious health issue? Even a life-and-death situation?

Yes. Yes. And yes.

And.

And I am convinced that people who begin the program at lower weights have unique struggles and challenges. I don't say worse. Not bigger. Not more important. But unique and absolutely challenging struggles.

I've been thinking about this a lot ever since I read somewhere that some members of Overeaters Anonymous feel resentful of people who come into meetings and don't look obese. That broke my heart, because my fight with food (and I bet many others' fight) has been decades-long and immensely painful, even though you might not see it as clearly on the outside.

So here's my attempt to address the issues, for those curious about why people who struggle with food addiction but don't have huge weight problems have unique challenges:

1. It's easy for us to tell ourselves "it's not that bad. I don't need to address my food issues."

I've been a food addict for at least 39 years, going back to the days when I hid candy in my childhood puppet theater and sometimes bought two ice cream cones pretending one was for a friend, even though I planned to eat them both. I once bought a box of cake mix so I could eat the whole thing out of the box. In high school, I never ever ever wore pants without a long sweater or tunic over it, to hide the "enormous" size of my butt (I wore a size 12 at the time). Food issues tortured me through high school, college, graduate school, my early career. Years and years.

Still, with restriction and deprivation, I managed to keep my weight in the "overweight" category. At my heaviest, I wore a size 18 on my 5'7" frame — very upper limit of overweight-but-not-obese. But thoughts of food consumed me. It was my best friend, my go-to resource, my constant companion. I hid food from my roommates so they wouldn’t eat it. I panicked if the kitchen didn’t have enough sugary treats in it. I carefully planned trips according to what I could eat on the road.

But when you're not obese, it's easy to tell yourself that your problems just aren't that bad. If you really had a problem with food, you'd be heavier. You're not, so you must be someone who just really really really likes food.

So committing to any food recovery or weight-loss plan was incredibly difficult for me. It was so tempting to quit when it got hard. I would look at people who were obese and reassure myself that I was not as bad as them. They had a problem, but clearly I didn’t.

Except, of course, I really did.

2. Since we're not as heavy as other people, it's easy to make little exceptions that lead to big falls.

I relapsed about 2 weeks after my first Bright Line Eating bootcamp ended.

Yep. Two weeks.

It was Christmas. All my favorite treats were around. I told myself, "hey, I did this thing successfully for 8 weeks. I did great and after all, I'm not as heavy as some of the other people in bootcamp were when we all started. I afford to make one exception. I don't have all that much weight left to lose. Besides, these goodies were made by my niece, who I adore. It would hurt her feelings if I didn’t eat at least one. I can afford to have just one."

So I did. That "just one" led to a string of bright-line breaks, which led to 18 months of heart-breaking, challenging, unsuccessful attempts to resume Bright Line Eating. Eighteen. Months.

Actually, I'd told myself all through Boot Camp that my issues weren't as bad as some others. I hadn't even started Bright Line Eating in order to lose weight. I didn't mind the idea of losing weight, but I'd be OK if I stayed where I was (at the time, at 181 pounds).

So I'd made some little exceptions right from the beginning. Kept the won-ton strips on my Asian salad. Ate some popcorn a few nights when the hunger was really bad. Had a piece of bread in a restaurant if it was a special occasion.

Not surprising, others in my Boot Camp House hung on to their bright lines afterwards for much, much longer. Whenever I poked into Facebook houses, they were talking how they still had squeaky-clean bright lines 10, 25, 50 weeks after boot camp ended. I read the stories of how they'd lost 30 pounds, 50 pounds, 70 pounds. They were wearing smaller clothes and posting photos of huge celebrations.

And there I was, stuck, not moving down any further than my initial 17-pound loss, consumed by my addictive food voice, unable to lose any more and completely unable to resume successfully.

3. It’s easy to feel guilty for being in a weight-loss program, like you’re doing it for selfish and vain reasons, rather than addressing a serious food issue.

One of the first Bright Line Eaters I met in person, rather than virtually, said to me, not long after we met, "Oh, you're in maintenance, right?"

At the time, my BMI put me still in the "over-weight" category. Not even close to the weight goal of 140 I’d set for myself. Miles away from the goal weight of 120-130 for the French plan Susan Peirce Thompson described in Boot Camp.

I felt like a loser, so miserable since I was having so much trouble resuming Bright Line Eating. Her sweet comment, clearly intended as a nice complement, should have made feel proud to be where I was.

Instead it made me feel selfish and vain. Why did I think I even needed to keep doing this food plan? Clearly, I looked fine to others. Was I just wanting to get a handle on my food for vanity's sake, so I could wear skinny jeans and look like a model? It felt like I didn't have a right to want this -- I just needed to get over my vanity and accept my body where it was.

Final Thoughts

Again, I don’t say that food-recovery issues for a person beginning at a smaller number are worse or larger or more painful than for others. But I do say that there are struggles and they are unique struggles.

My particular struggles with relapsing over and over have a lot to do with these challenges.

So in a variation of what Susan Peirce Thompson says about the temptation to monitor what others are eating — I say, when it comes to how much weight a person does or does not have to lose, I really have to keep my eyes on my own plate, not compare myself to others, and remember why I'm on this journey.

[Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Bright Line Eating or Susan Peirce Thompson. The ideas expressed here are my own.]