Hey there, it's Susan Peirce Thompson, and welcome to the Weekly Vlog. Oh my goodness, dear one, oh my goodness. This, right now, is the week of the 10-year anniversary celebration of Bright Line Eating®. Bright Line Eating is 10 years old as of August 5th, 2024. We were born August 5th, 2014. How we come up with that date is what I've been thinking about. Actually, I just came up with this in my head this morning, literally this morning as I was thinking about what I was going to say on this vlog, the conception date of Bright Line Eating is January 26th, 2014, when the Universe said, write a book called, “Bright Line Eating.” That was conception. That was the beginning of an idea. That was the moment that Mysterious Forces came together to create the first inkling of an identity of a thing called Bright Line Eating.
Then, a long gestation period began where I started to try to write a book proposal and then learned that in order to get that proposal accepted by an agent and a publisher, I was going to have to build some sort of following to prove that people would buy this book. A I resolved to start an email list, and I spent months way too long writing this free report called, “The Three Huge Mistakes That Almost Everyone Makes when They Try to Lose Weight.” I ended up buying a domain, HappyThinandFree.com, and I got that free report loaded up onto that website so that anyone could download it. When they downloaded it, they got added to an email list, the Bright Line Eating email list. My pledge was to just send out an email, not a newsletter, but an email from my heart to yours as a scientist explaining an aspect of the psychology and neuroscience of sustainable weight loss, what really works and what the secret is really to keeping your weight off long term. In the months that it took me to write that free report, I think it's like 96 or something people that I talked to, friends, family acquaintances, people on the sidewalk, I was talking about it everywhere, said, “Oh, I'd want to be on that email list. Let me know when you get that launched. I would read that. I'm curious. I'm interested.” When I finally got all the tech done and ready and I was ready to get this website, HappyThinandFree.com up with this free report loaded there, I sent out an email just from my work account at Monroe Community College at the time to these 96 people. And I said, it's there, it's live. You said you wanted to be on the email list. Go download this free report and that will add you to the email list. I can't wait to be in communication with you. I don’t know, something like 75 people or something joined the email list by that night, and that was August 5th, 2014. So, that is the date that the “me” became a “we.” I think that's really fitting because a huge theme that was present palpable in the celebration that we had this past weekend.
On Sunday, August 4th, we had a 10-year anniversary celebration in the city of Rochester where I live. It was a luncheon followed by a book signing at Barnes and Noble, and there were 158 people or something like that, registered for it. The feeling of community that was in that room for the luncheon was so just vibrant. Vibrant. We had groups that had printed off T-shirts for the 10-year anniversary celebration. Whole Gideon Games teams had flown in to stay with people who lived in Rochester to sleep in air mattresses and use sleeping bags on their floor. They'd spent days here in commemoration. I wasn't there, but I heard that the night before the luncheon, there were 50 people on the Erie Canal mingling and socializing and spreading Bright cheer and just enjoying each other's company. There was so much community, so much camaraderie at the Barnes & Noble for the book signing. The manager afterwards was saying he's hardly ever seen anything like it. Our line for this book signing went out of the store and down the way to the nearby Starbucks. It was like all the way down. He said, what he's never seen before, oh, I feel choked up. He said, what he's never seen before, ever at any other book signing, was the quality of the communication and the connection and the fellowship amongst the people standing in line. He said, someone went and bought a case of bottled water for everyone because people were getting thirsty. He said that people were watching the front and running back and reporting. She's spending time with everybody. It's going to be so worth it. Stick around.
People were meeting each other. There were people that had flown in from Los Angeles and from Fresno, California and from multiple places in Oregon, people from all over the East Coast, people from the Atlantic Coast, people from Florida. There were people from all over there. It started to attract the vibrancy of this group standing in line started to attract passersby. At the end of the book signing, there were several people who were like, I don't know who you are, but I've bought several of your books here. Would you please sign these three books? People were telling me in line what they've done. They were showing me their pictures. I think that I need this. I think I'm kind of blown away. This one woman was like, “I'm on Zepbound right now, but nothing's ever worked for me. This is kind of working for me, but I know I need more. I can feel that I need something and I think this might be it. So, I'm buying these three books.” It was, oh, it was so, so sweet.
The community that we have created is so loving and so precious and so sweet. And for me, I think the signature, the signature difference that I experienced on Sunday at this luncheon and the book signing was that two of my three kids were there. Robbie and Zoe were there. Maya's at summer camp. Maya would've loved to have been there, but Maya was away at sleepaway summer camp. So, Maya wasn't there. None of my kids before this weekend had ever in their whole lives been amongst a group of Bright Line Eating people. They had never witnessed firsthand what their mom does for a living, why she works so much. I gave an address, a little talk a little, went up to the podium. It wasn't a big fancy deal. I didn't have a long PowerPoint or anything, but I came up to speak and the first thing I said was, thank you to my kids. They came up and they stood by me on either side of me and flanked me right there, standing there for the length of my whole address. Everything I said, they just stood there. When I said, I looked at them each individually, and I said, I know how much you've sacrificed for this, they nodded solemnly, they know too that their mom wasn't as present as she would've been if Bright Line Eating hadn't been soaking up so much of her time and focus when they were little. They were little. I didn't have a big PowerPoint, but I did show just a few PowerPoint slides. What I showed was pictures of our family in 2014 when Bright Line Eating started in 2015, the year after some choice family pictures to say, this was my kids when this all started, and this is them now. I also gave voice to that. I hope that watching me do what I've done in Bright Line Eating can bear witness to how a person who's committed to something, who gets an idea can bring it to fruition and really do a lot of good in this world. I think some people really are not sure whether one person can change the world, whether one person can have a measurable, meaningful impact on the world. I said that I hope that this is showing you that whatever you decide to do with your life, it can have good impact. They nodded as well, right then. We had fun up there. They were correcting me. They were interjecting here and there. They were delightful. I was nervous, honestly, about them being there in the sense that I didn't know what it was going to be like for them. I didn't know, because fame is a little weird. And I knew they were going to be treated differently than they'd ever been treated before by virtue of being Robbie Thompson and Zoe Thompson. They were surprised by how many people knew them and said things like, it's amazing how much you've grown. They're like, I don't know you. But it was beautiful. It was beautiful. I heard through the grapevine that Zoe was telling people, I want to learn how to do public speaking like my mom. It was sweet. It was so, so sweet to have them there.
The theme of history was really present there too. I'm honoring that in this vlog by wearing a pendant that I've hardly ever worn in this vlog. This pendant was given to me by the Bright Line Eating Team at the book Launch Celebration, the first book Launch Celebration in New York City in 2017. We've come full circle. This is another kind of theme that's happening here. Bright Line Eating has come full circle. Arianna who runs the amazing Bright Line Eating Emporium, has sourced a jewelry maker who will make these for far more affordable than these were in beautiful metals and two beautiful different designs depending on how you like it. And yeah, it was just sweet. There were a lot of people there wearing these original pendants that were only available custom made by a jeweler here in Rochester back in the day. I mean, God, that was eight years ago or something, that these were being made. It was sweet to see people who were wearing those pendants. There was someone there who was in the first Boot Camp of 40 people, literally 10 years ago. There were people there who were holding our history, for example, in the book signing. A couple came up and had me sign their books, and then they said, she said, Susan, the vlog that you shot, and I just looked it up. It was four years ago, exactly. It was August 5th, 2020 that this vlog came out, and it was called Talking to Your Partner about Bright Line Eating. She said, you shot that vlog about how to talk to a spouse who's having a hard time with you, doing Bright Line Eating after coaching me, and here's my spouse and we're good now. Her spouse said, yep. He said, it was rough at the beginning and now Bright Line Eating is good, and I enjoy helping to prepare her meals and we're all good. I was just like, wow, look at that. Look at that.
I guess lastly, I just want to share something that, it's funny. When I got up on the microphone at the podium on Sunday, this didn't come up at all out of my mouth. I was planning to say something about it and I just forgot. But the theme of embracing imperfection was also visible, which is something we do in Bright Line Eating, right? We hold simultaneously the commitment to maintaining Bright, Bright Lines against sugar, against flour, while knowing that some of us will falter at times and need to Rezoom™. Some of us will hold that Line, those two Lines in particular, flawlessly. And yet, we're not striving for perfection. We're striving to be unstoppable™, that there is a grid and fortitude in being on this journey, that Bright day, not Bright day challenge, struggle, joy, celebration, whatever it is right now, our job is to be unstoppaBLE. That came up on Sunday as I was in this line, I was sort of in a receiving line. People were coming up and hugging me and taking pictures, and most people were in line for the buffet, and most people had already gotten their food. Chris Davis, the Chief of Staff of Bright Line Eating comes over and whispers to me, the kitchen forgot to cook, didn't forget, but the kitchen never cooked any cooked vegetables. And I was like, what? We had been back and forth so many times emphasizing how many raw and cooked veggies this crew is going to eat, right? You need a minimum of six ounces of cooked and six ounces of salad veg for each person who's going to be here. You have no idea how much vegetable we're going to eat. And she said, yeah, they didn't cook any cooked vegetable. I said, how come? And she said, you know that little line in the email when you were describing how to make the black beans, and you said, just whole black beans. Some seasoning is fine, but no other vegetables, just black beans. She said, they took that to mean no other vegetables in the whole meal. I was like, oh my God, you've got to be kidding me. I was like I said, I was in this surrounded by Bright Lifers™ getting pictures with people, and I just turned to people and I was like, there's no cooked vegetable. They looked over at the salad bar, they said, there's a lot of vegetables there, Susan. Then they said to me, it's not about the food, Susan. It's not about the food. We're just here having fun with each other. There’s salad. We're fine. We're fine. Produce is produce. I just went, oh my gosh, I've trained them. Well, it's not about the food. Susan let it go. I guess I did let it go. I didn't even bring it up when I made my remarks.
The embracing imperfection thing came up again a little later when a beloved Bright Lifer came up at the book signing and had me sign her book that had clearly been chewed up by a dog. I mean, just a corner of it. But there was this ear where the dog slobber had bled the ink in the cover of the book. What she'd done is she'd taken this chewed up corner of the book and she'd made it into a work of art. She'd used some colored pens and made that bleeding spread further and created a little moon shape. It was actually quite lovely. Some of the pages underneath were a little chewed with teeth marks and stuff. She said, Susan, I've been struggling so hard with this. I just wanted to get a fresh book for you to sign, but I'm making myself make you sign this book. I wrote something in there about not being perfect, about being unstoppaBLE and embracing the imperfection. It really stands out to me of all the books that I signed, that's the only one I really remember.
That's not true. A couple of people brought really dogeared cookbooks with tabs and flags and wearing, I mean, clearly, they'd been cooking Bright meals out of this cookbook four or five years. It was so beautiful. Anyway, oh my gosh. So yeah, it was a sweet celebration. I know odds are, if you're watching this, you weren't there because by percentages, but maybe you were. And I really, really enjoyed being with everybody. There's nothing like a gathering of people in Bright Line Eating. We are the most loving, most joyful, most grateful group of people. I cannot tell you how many people I met who said, I've lost a hundred, 130 pounds. I've been keeping it off for years. People who got up to the front of that line at the book signing and said, I used to not be able to stand for longer than 10 minutes, and I just stood in line for two hours, and I feel great. I feel fine. I'm ready to go for a walk. People are so, so grateful to have found this, to be living this way of life. I'm excited to see what the next 10 years hold. We've reached a place in Bright Line Eating where there's so much peace and so much wellness and so much steadiness, and we're just doing good stuff in the world.
Over the next year or two, I'll be talking more about our bigger global ambition to get ultra-processed food addiction acknowledged as a legitimate disorder, and the impact we're going to have on the fields of bariatric medicine and obesity medicine, and just so many lunch programs and so many things are going to be impacted. The tide is going to shift here. We're pushing a big boulder, and it's at the top of a hill, and it's about to roll down a hill and get a bunch of momentum is what's happening. We've laid a lot of groundwork in the first 10 years. That's what we've done. We've changed a lot of lives, and we've laid a lot of groundwork, and truly, truly the best is yet to come. That's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
