Hey there, it's Susan Peirce Thompson and welcome to the Weekly Vlog. I have kind of a provocative topic to talk about today, and I'm going to talk about it in a way that I don't usually talk about things, especially these days. I used to more in the past, and that is to say from the middle of the river. Let me tell you what I mean by that. My dear, dear beloved friend, Sage Levine, who was not my very first business coach, but my second business coach, and she was my mentor during the year that Bright Line Eating? exploded from late 2014 to late 2015 or something. Anyway, when that year ended, she said, I am so glad this contract is over. I just want to be your friend, and we've just been best friends ever since. Well, she's one of many people I would consider a best friend. All that said, she told me once, "Susan, you're very vulnerable with your community and it's great to get vulnerable, but you've got to do it from a certain position. You don't pick up the microphone when you're wading through the river and you're neck deep and you're like, okay, everybody, I'm not sure I'm going to make it coming to you from the middle of the river. You cross the river, you can still be wet, but you got to be sitting on the rocks on the other side. You say, okay, everybody, I just crossed this river. It was really harrowing. Let me tell you all about it." I said, "Sometimes I like to pick up the microphone from the middle of the river." And then over the years, she kind of saw the relationship I have with my community and the results that I get when I do that and that it just seems to go well when I'm super vulnerable. So, she said, "Susan, you do, you pick up the microphone from the middle of the river if you must."
I wouldn't say I'm super middle of the river, not that distressed or distraught right now, but I do have a topic that is not resolved. I'm in the middle of it. I may have a different take on it next week, I'm not sure, but it's been going on for long enough now and this vlog has been percolating in me and I just have no resolution, but I think you might really relate to it. I want to talk about the topic of what if you're not fully satisfied with your weight and you're in Maintenance? What if you're experiencing weight creep in Maintenance? What if you never got down to the weight you wanted to get down to, but you're declaring Maintenance? How do you live with that? How do you reconcile yourself with that? What is there to do about it, if anything?
Here's my situation. I'm 21 years into Maintenance. I used to live with Class 1 obesity. Now, I'm slender. I'm in a normal BMI, I'm a US size four. No one would look at me and say, "You're overweight." I mean, maybe some people do on these videos actually, if I'm a weight-loss expert, and they might look at me and say she could lose 10 pounds, whatever, the camera puts some pounds on me, but whatever. When I'm at the mall, when I'm at the grocery store, when I'm walking down the street, nobody looks at me and says, "Ooh, she needs to lose a few." Even if they did, let them. So what? Right. Okay. But still, my weight is not as low as it used to be by quite a bit, by, I would say, well, I mean 15 pounds up from the lowest of what I used to be, but more like five to 10 pounds up from what it used to be, and it's actually been higher in Maintenance as well. I remember there was a time when I went off the pill and David and I were trying to have children, and I never got a period back after I went off the pill. I'd been on the pill for a long time. I mean, I was pretty old when we decided to start having children. I mean, relatively speaking, we'd already been married for nine years and I'd been on the pill all that time and when I went off the pill, I just didn't get a period and it took quite a long time to figure that out. One of the things I tried was dramatically increasing my fat intake and dramatically increasing my weight, and I gained probably 10 pounds or so during that period of time. I know there was a time when I hovered at a weight that was 2, 3, 4, 5 pounds heavier than I am now. I know that there was a time when I was eating off my Bright Lines and binging periodically again on sugar and flour back in 2016, '17, '18. There were times in there when my weight got up to where it is now and even up to five pounds heavier. That said, all my clothes have fit. Not all of my clothes, but my general wardrobe has fit. I have not had to wear or buy a new wardrobe of clothes. I've been a US size four for 21 years, and I'm not saying that a size four is the only right-size body. It happens to be right size for me. I'm 5'3", 5' 3 1/2", and I have very small bone structure, so that is right sized for me. That's my Bright Body.
But for the vast majority of those 21 years, my weight has been somewhere between 110 and 119 almost the whole time. There was a brief time when it got down to 106, I was working out seriously heavily, and there's been sometimes when I've been in the low 120, but generally speaking, my weight has been in the one teens and lately my weight is hovering around 120 plus or minus one or two pounds. So it feels to me like I'm five to 10 pounds overweight, not overweight, erase that. I do not feel like I'm five to 10 pounds overweight. I feel like I'm five to 10 pounds above my ideal weight, and I honestly can't figure out if I care that much. I really can't. Sometimes I do. One of the questions I've asked, is this real? Is it real or is it just that I'm lifting weights a lot, which I am, and I can do four pull-ups in a row now and I couldn't do one a year ago, so I know I've added at least some muscle, but some of it is real in that my waist measurement and I am a person of a body type where excess weight immediately goes to my barrel chest, like my waist and my mid-back and my upper hips right in my midsection. That's where weight goes on me. If I gain a lot of weight, I look like an apple with two toothpicks sticking out for legs. That's what my body shape generally is. I'm apple shaped, so when I have excess adipose tissue on me, the way for me to tell that is to measure my waist and my waist is up. It's not up hugely, whatever. It's up a little bit. So, I do think it's real. I haven't gone the extra mile to tell if it's real. I haven't gotten gone to do a body composition test. I should do that. I need to get off my duff. The thing is that it's just a pain because my morning routine is very structured and I'd have to do it first thing in the morning to make it consistent with the old measurements I've gotten, which were also in the morning. And those impedance tests are very unreliable unless you take them under the same exact conditions. And I just haven't been willing to disrupt my morning routine to get that test done. Not really an excuse, but just true.
Okay, so is it real? Yeah, I'm pretty sure some of it's real. Okay, have I done anything about it? Well, I have actually. In Bright Line Eating, here's how we manage our weight. When our weight creeps up, we take out food out of our food plan when our weight trends down for a while in Maintenance. This is in Maintenance, folks. In Maintenance, we add food to our food plan. Well, I've taken out almost all the food I can. I mean, that's not true. I could take out more food. I could take out more food. You can always take out more food, but I'm on a Weight-Loss Food Plan. I don't even have fruit at lunch right now. I have one fruit a day at breakfast. I have one grain a day at breakfast, and the only thing I've added to my plan is my vegetables are 12 and 12, so 12 at lunch and 12 at dinner, and I have half an ounce of ground flaxseed at breakfast in addition to the one other protein. So, I have one-and-a-quarter proteins at breakfast, and the extra quarter protein is a half an ounce of ground seeds. That's my food plan right now. Other than that, it's the standard Bright Line Eating Weight-Loss Food Plan, and I'm not losing weight and I'm working out. I'm 50, I'm perimenopausal.
I'm not hungry, I'm not tired. I'm not losing hair, I'm not sleeping poorly. I'm not any other signs of too little food or my weight being off. My hormones seem fine. I'm menstruating regularly even though I know I'm coming up on hopefully, a hopefully, knock on wood, the?gods, are you listening?...hopefully coming up on a menopausal transition here sometime soon, but still menstruating regularly. So, no other signs that anything is off. I feel great. I feel frickin' great. I feel so great, and I feel like I look good too. I look at myself and I'm like, you look great, sweetheart. You've got nothing to worry about and I don't want to be worried about it. This is the essence of actually what I want to talk about here.
In order to be someone who can succeed at Maintenance, you've got to undergo three fundamental identity shifts. Now, this is what my fifth book is talking about. I'm writing it right now. It's called "Maintain," and it's scheduled to be released in just a little bit over a year, April 21st, 2026, which is the 10-year anniversary of Prince's death. The publisher chose that date, and I was like, "Ooh, that's eerie. That's the 10-year anniversary of Prince's death. Okay, we'll take that date. That sounds good. April 21st, 2026."
The book Maintain is all about how to succeed at Maintenance. There're three identity shifts, the third one, the third one is you've got to be willing to be someone for whom the food and the weight problem are solved already, and you've got to move on. I've done that and there's a Part of me that is so hesitant to pick that issue back up as an issue that I'm just not seeming to be willing to go there. I mean, what would I even do about it if I did? Well, I went to Maui recently for a week with my daughter Zoe, which I shot a vlog about. It was something like an epic vacation in Maui or something like that just a few weeks ago, like a month ago or two months ago or something. I lost three pounds while I was there. Now, I was pretty active, but not that active. I actually wasn't exercising, so in a way, I was less active. I didn't do any weight training sessions or anything like that. But what was really different was how simple my food was. I didn't cook anything and I didn't have a microwave. That simple; just clean food, no spray oil in a pan. I wasn't cooking anything. It was super clean food and I lost three pounds.
So, I know that there're ways that I could clean up my food, eat lighter proteins, my proteins there for lunch and dinner were cheese or edamame. That's what I eat for my lunch and dinner proteins, and that's lighter than some of the things that I eat on a regular basis. Like salmon is so healthy, my brain cells feel great, my cell membranes are loving all that Omega, I'm feeling great, but heavier choice, whatever. There are things I could do about it. I could clean up my food plan, whatever. I could cut out food. I could go get that body composition test. Do I care enough? Does it matter? Does, I guess there is a Part of me and a part of us probably maybe you too, on this Bright Journey that is sort of the Manager Part that really loves Bright Line Eating. That Food Controller Manager Part is also, there's a Weight Controller in there that's sort of like what numbers are acceptable, what numbers are not acceptable? I kind of love that my weight Manager Part has relaxed enough to go, yeah, maybe this is acceptable. Maybe we don't care. I would way rather not have a weight issue anymore. I I don't have a weight issue, so who cares?
A lot of people don't ever get to the weight they want to get to initially in Bright Line Eating like their metabolism and their body composition. They just stall out before getting there. It's hard because a lot of people in Bright Line Eating do get all the way to their exact target range or even under, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, help me. I got to put on some weight. I'm getting too gaunt." I think that's really hard. I've coached a lot of people for whom that was their experience. That was actually my experience initially when I very first lost my weight 22 years ago, I couldn't quite get all the way down as far as I wanted to go. My body stalled out just like three, four pounds above where I wanted to go, and then it would not budge and it was pretty maddening. Then I relapsed and broke my Bright Lines before I solved it finally. Then when I lost my weight again, the next time a few months later, after three months of binging my brains out and gaining back all my weight, I lost my weight again, and then I blew past that number and got even lower. Turned out it was an undiagnosed thyroid issue for me, but that issue is solved. Now I'm on medication. My thyroid's great, so I don't know.
Some people in Maintenance lose weight. At a certain point they experience Maintenance, weight drop, their weight starts to drop. Well, that's pretty easy to solve. You just add food, right? You add food. If you're experiencing Maintenance weight creep. I would say the first thing to do is just take out food. Take out food. At the point at which you get to the Weight-Loss Food Plan, you might want to look. There might still be food to take out, and that might be my story too. I'm looking at my little mama who does "slight line eating." We'll say she's way lower on the Food Addiction Susceptibility Scale? than I am way lower. She's always been able to moderate her quantities, for example, which I never have, but she's a bit of a thing. My little mama, well, I don't know how tall she is anymore. I think we need to measure her. She used to be 5'2". She seems Sorry, mommy, you seem way shorter now. She's so little. She's so little. I'm not sure exactly, but I think when she weighs her food, I think her protein isn't four ounces anymore. It might be two-and-a-half or three ounces. She eats little portions. I might need to eat littler portions. I'm a little person. Maybe I do. Maybe I need to take out some food and if so, that writing will be on the wall because at some point my weight will continue to creep. My Maintenance weight creep has actually, is more like a Maintenance weight creep plateau. It just kind of crept up to about five to seven pounds higher than I'm used to. Five to 10 pounds higher than I'm used to. And now it's just hovering and it's just staying there. Every week. I'm 118, 119, 120, 121, kind of somewhere in that range, and it doesn't seem to be going down. I have tried other things like sauna use and supplement use and hot cold and just different hormetic stressors, that kind of thing. That could be helpful. I don't think I've done anything consistently enough to really see that impact the scale.
I have several times resolved. You know what? I saw that weight come down in Maui. I'll just clean up my food plan, make cleaner choices, streamline my food plan, get this weight off, and then I don't do it. I'm so peaceful with my food. The four questions could really be adapted to the situation a little bit. Do I have peace with it? This is the four questions are what you ask yourself if something in your food plan is working or not working for you, but you could amend them to look at your weight. Do I have peace with it? I have mostly peace with it. A Part of me has a lot of peace. A Part of me doesn't. A Part of me is over there tapping her foot going, this isn't what we're supposed to weigh. So, do I have peace with it mostly? I don't know. Is it healthy? Yes, I'm healthy. All the signs point to I'm healthy. That's a big deal. Is it escalating? Well, not anymore. It's not continuing to creep. If it were continuing to creep, I am certain that I would take out food. So, note, for any of you who are experiencing steady continuous weight creep in Maintenance, my advice absolutely is to look at your food plan and how you're eating. Get Bright. If you're not Bright, don't change your food plan. Get Bright, really, really Bright. I am really, really Bright right now. Get really, really Bright. Step one, if it continues to creep, take out food. Super clear. So, is it escalating for me? It's not escalating, it's just hovering. And then is it messing with your weight? Well, obviously that's kind of the whole topic of the vlog. So I'm in the middle of the river. I don't feel like I'm up to my neck. I'm wading through the river and it's up to my shins, but it's whitewater and it's rushing past my shins, and I'm having to watch my step and we'll see how this pans out.
I'm a little different than you are probably in that. I'm a weight-loss expert who goes on camera every week, so that plays on my mind. I'd rather be thinner. The camera does put 10 pounds on me, so I would way rather be a little thinner, but I'd rather be right-sized than too thin. The worst thing for Bright Line Eating would be as if I come up on camera looking too thin. That's the worst thing because eating disorders experts and the intuitive eating community, they're already looking at us saying, this is extreme. This is diet mentality. What we do around here is not diet mentality, but they'll say it is. The last thing we need is someone who looks like they're a food restrictor who looks too thin as a spokesperson for this way of living. So, I'd way rather be, if I'm a little fleshy right now, great. That's preferable to looking a little too taut. Anyway, I don't need to keep rambling on about this.
I will say, if you are struggling with this, I feel you. It's hard, and I don't have a lot of scale chatter right now, although this vlog probably makes it sound like I do. I don't hugely look forward to way day, which for me is Wednesday mornings I see the number and I don't care that much. If it's up in the 120s, then I tend to be more inclined to think, geez, should I take out some food? But really, I see that number pretty much and I move on. I have relatively minimal levels of scale chatter, almost no food chatter. My life is so busy and full and wonderful. I just cannot bear to pick up this problem again. I don't want to be someone who has a weight problem. That problem is solved for me. I am not heavy. I used to be, and I'm about to go on a vacation with my whole family on a cruise, a Disney cruise, and there's a formal night I'm going to put on a smoking hot dress and feel great in it. I just want to focus on that. I'm fine. I'm fine. I've got so much life to live that I refuse at this moment to deem this a problem. That's how I'm framing it right now. If I change something and I end up getting these five or 10 pounds off and figuring out how to do it, I'll update you.
It might just be that this is my new normal and that's fine. I probably have bragged to you before that. I'm hanging, literally hanging from a pull-up bar for a minute a day, and I'm a little taller now. I'm 5'3 1/2", not 5'3", which I'm pretty proud of as a 50-year-old that I'm taller than I was 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Not many 50 year olds probably could say that. Maybe that five pounds is going there. I don't know. Anyway, I'm already so sick of talking about my weight. I can't even stand myself. So, I'm going to end this vlog, and I just hope that something I've shared has been helpful for you.
I know there are a lot of people in our community that love living Bright, that love being thinner than they used to be, but are not happy with their weight still. I shot this vlog for you, and if my numbers make you mad, you're like, "Oh, Susan, I'd be so happy at those numbers." Please take the comparison out of it and just know that you're not alone. A lot of us are still wrangling in some kind of way, whatever that looks like with our weight. Many of us aren't and have decided to just move on. And some of us, like me, are wading through the river a little bit, still wondering. I'm not sure which bank I'm walking toward here. The problem is solved, or I'm still in process and there's something I want and need to do about this. I don't know. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe I'm not even walking across the river. I'm still stuck in the river. Oh, God bless. Okay, I'm done talking about this. That's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
