It was in October 2019 that I heard about Bright Line Eating (BLE) and immediately downloaded the book from audible. Here it is almost five years later, and I am so grateful for the ways it has changed me. Parts work, the ability to feel things in the moment instead of bottling them up to eat over later, and maybe most importantly of all to know I can reach out for help, that I am not alone in my struggles with weight. But the one thing I haven't been able to do is to 'stay Bright' and lose all of the weight I want in order to feel healthy and in my right body so I can move.
Intermittent reinforcement is what they call my predicament. I do well for days and then the food chatter begins, and I finally break my lines to just make it go away. The relief of eating in that moment is hard to describe, like an elephant has decided it no longer needs to sit on my shoulders and I can breathe. There is a lightness that comes over me even as I stuff my face with...whatever. But regret always follows soon after and I immediately rezoom, and my next meal is Bright, and the pattern begins all over again. In this way I have gained back most of the 30 pounds I originally lost back in 2019. It felt so good to lose that weight, and then to maintain that loss through the covid years. Looking back through my journals I could see that from when I visited my Mom after covid in February 2022 to another visit to her in February 2023 I was exactly the same weight on the same scale in her kitchen. But I had at least another 30 pounds to lose, and while I was grateful to have maintained my initial loss while a lot of the rest of the country was gaining weight through the pandemic, I was frustrated to be stuck.
Then in May of 2023 we lost my grandson Cal to leukemia. I can't write about it, which is why there have been no entries here, but I mention it because I've tried so hard in the past year and a half to stay Bright, to keep focused on something so I don't completely fall apart. I have a wonderful master mind group in the program who let me grieve without apology, and a couple of buddies who are generous with their time as I struggle. But despite all of that I have regained most of the weight.
Then, like so many others, I saw the Oprah special on GLP-1 medications, and just like Bright Line Eating had resonated with me so did what they were saying on the special. This time, that for the participants using the new drugs, their food noise went away. Wait, what? There was a biological cure for that?? I knew that day that I wanted to try the new medication, but it took me months before I actually emailed my doctor asking for the prescription. Long story short, I jumped through the hoops they required trying oral medication first which of course didn't work out. When I finally got to the point of being prescribed an injectable, they instead tried offering Phentermine as a weight loss solution. I said no stimulants, I already had Bright Line Eating, I just felt I needed a little help making the food chatter go away, and that if they had a pill that could do that, I would try it. They didn't. Finally, after reviewing new blood work, Ozempic was prescribed, but I had to fight for it.
Through the months of trying to get a prescription, I had asked my doctor, the weight loss clinic, and plan administrator what the cost of this would be. No one could tell me. I did see some of the new medications listed on the drug formulary for my plan, but no pricing. Since I was at this point pre-diabetic, I was hopeful there would be a manageable co-pay. But it wasn't until the charge hit my debit card that I knew the cost. For one month, just four injections, it was $738. I was floored. Why was someone else getting this for a $30 co-pay but I had to pay half my mortgage payment? Probably because I am on Medicare - what a slap in the face. (I even tried getting prescribed through Weight Watchers, but they don't take Medicare either.)
The next day, mad and stressing over the price I would have to pay, I was walking with family back to the car from Home Depot. We had picked up a new skeleton to add to the Halloween decorations, and the car was all the way across the parking lot. I was limping along in pain, and it came to me that yes, for one month, I would pay the $738 just to see if it worked. To see if this could be what I needed to help me stay Bright and lose weight and hopefully be rid of the pain stemming from the arthritis in the weight bearing facets in my back. The pain that kept me from doing... almost everything I loved.
So, my Ozempic pen arrived Wednesday, and after reading through everything in the box I did the first poke. In preparation for that day, I had split the food from my three daily BLE meals into four - everything I was told or had read said I wouldn't be able to eat much at one time- and for days I had been eating smaller meals. I actually should have done this sooner as it fits in with my new life, but that's another story. And both plans call for the same things; balanced meals of lean proteins, whole grains, fruits & veggies, healthy fat. I can do this; I've been practicing for years!
Bottom line, my plan is and has been from the first thought of using this drug to use it to stay Bright. No flour, No Sugar, No Snacking, Portion controlled meals. To get rid of the food chatter that attacks like a monster after three days of being Bright so I can get four, then five days in a row. A whole week, and then a month. I feel that if I can do that, if I can string together one bright day after another with the support of the GLP-1 meds then I will eventually be able to stay Bright without them.
Because long term, I am not depending on the drug to change my life, I am depending on the way I eat, and how I have changed the way I look at food. I know BLE has worked for thousands, and that it will work for me too. I just need some help, and I am so hopeful. But if the food chatter goes away, and I can stay Bright this month, there is no way I am paying another $738 for next month. I will seek out an alternative - I know they are out there. And if the food chatter really does go away after 50 years of disrupting my life, I will be ever so grateful.
With hope in my heart, and a need to record this new journey, I once again turn to writing to help me think.
