Welcome to the third preview lesson of the You Can Heal Your Life Summit, with the creator of Bright Line Eating, Susan Pierce Thompson.

She examines why our psychological makeup and the concept of change blindness make overcoming food addiction so difficult.

She also shares practical advice on how to shift your mindset in order to make progress on your health journey.

We hope you find this inspiring.

As of the writing of this book, I have been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for 27 consecutive years.

Prior to getting clean, I was a 20 year old high school dropout, addicted to crack cocaine and selling my body to stay high.

After committing to recovery, I was able to complete my PhD in brain and cognitive sciences from one of the top three schools in the world in that field.

To get married and to become the mother of three incredible kiddos.

I know that everything I have in my life is dependent on one consistent mandatory commitment.

I have to stay clean and sober, but it isn't just a commitment. It is a daily practice.

It is the application of a series of habits I have and choices I make every day that support my recovery.

I have also been abstinent from sugar and flour for 18 years, but not 100% perfectly.

I estimate that for 94% of those days, my food recovery has been intact.

Some of the stretches have lasted for years and years.

And then there were times when I was white knuckling to string two abstinent days together.

But my commitment to living free from the stranglehold of sugar and flour has allowed me to live the last 17 years in a slender body to move through the world with energy and freedom.

Then to lose that freedom and watch myself win it back.

I return to a place where every day I am making life affirming choices about how I care for myself with food.

I define food recovery as a way of eating that creates as much peace around food as the long term sober alcoholic has around drinking.

It is attained by eliminating sugar, flour, and any other foods that have hijacked the brain's reward center and putting boundaries around when and how much we eat.

Now, I see myriad ways that food recovery parallels drug and alcohol recovery and important ways that they are qualitatively different.

Frankly, food is uniquely wily and relapse more likely for a host of reasons.

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