RISE LEAN

04/28/2026

Two women joined me recently. One is 20. One is 50.

They have never met. But sit with their stories long enough and you realize: the 50-year-old is the 20-year-old, thirty years from now, if nothing changes.

The 20-year-old is a national volleyball champion. She studies econ at the country’s top university and is heading abroad this summer for an internship. She has worked relentlessly since elementary school. She has a bright future.

Underneath, since adolescence, she has been bingeing. The loss of control around food has eroded the one thing all her achievements were supposed to build — trust in herself. A national champion, quietly doubting herself at the deepest level.

The 50-year-old represented America in figure skating at the Winter Olympics thirty years ago — at the age of the other woman. She has since built a remarkable company — the natural extension of a life accustomed to excellence.

Underneath, for thirty years, she has been bingeing. Body shame, much of it self-inflicted. Weight cycling. As her world expanded, her exposure expanded with it: toxic relationships, abusive dynamics, depression. 1,500 hours a year — the equivalent of a full-time job — spent at war with herself over food and weight for three decades. The same story I have heard thousands of times in the past decade.

I know this would have been my story if I hadn’t solved binge and weight struggles at 20.

And it is the life waiting for the 20-year-old, if she weren’t sitting across from me now.

Here is what surprises people about working with extraordinary clients — the kind whose struggles no one around them can see:

All the victories, the badges, the countries lived in, the zeros in the bank account — most of it is promises kept to other people.

Confidence doesn’t come from any of it.

It comes from the mirror. Not from the reflection. From the the promises one keeps for himself.

When you cannot keep your most basic promise to yourself — to eat normally — every other achievement starts to feel like fraud.

This week, the two of them will be on the same coaching call.

The 20-year-old will see her future.

The 50-year-old will get to give her younger self what no one gave her.

—-

Leslie Chen — Neuroscience-Based Food Addiction and Weight Loss Expert. 10 years. 400+ transformations.

09/25/2025

It’s easy to say, “I just want to drop 30 pounds.” It’s much harder to admit, “food controls me.”

Because it cuts into identity. And if you’re strong-spirited, Type A, driven—a leader—saying that out loud can feel like admitting you’ve lost control in front of the most basic thing. That’s a real stigma. And it hurts.

I understand it because I’ve been there:

Years ago, I was a daily binge eater who was 50 pounds heavier. I had the discipline and willpower that won me national level awards, scholarships, and recognition. Yet with food, I felt powerless.

- At 2 p.m. every day, I had to walk to Down The Road café for a cookie.

- If I ate a square of chocolate, I had to finish the bar.

- I cleared every plate, hungry or not.

- I said ‘no’ to social life because I feared eating in public.

For the whole time, I believed I was weak. And I felt embarrassed because no matter how much effort I put in to ‘manage’ my food issue, I still couldn’t trust myself.

Here’s what I want you to know: You are not weak. And you are not alone.

Strong, successful people struggle with food control more often than you think. In fact, if you’re a high-achiever, chances are you’re also more impulsive. And this very trait that fuel your success is scientifically linked to food addiction.

I see this every week in my Zoom classroom: Fortune 500 executives, TEDx speakers, bestselling authors, entrepreneurs with seven- to nine-figure exits, physicians, neuroscientists, and rising corporate stars. All extraordinary achievers. All wrestling with food behind the scenes.

You aren’t struggling because your mind is weak. You’re struggling because your powerful mind has been wired—psychologically and chemically—to:

- believe food is the enemy;

- unconsciously turn a simple thought of food into powerful cravings;

- make you crave the wrong things;

- push you to finish everything hungry or not;

- tie emotions to eating

The good news? Circuits can be reset.

And once they are, food stops running your life, and you’ll finally live life on your own terms.

————

I’m Leslie Chen — an award-winning neuroscience-based weight loss and food addiction coach.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve helped 400+ high-achievers sustainably regain their food freedom and body confidence with ease and fun.

09/09/2025

Your brain’s predictive coding is what keeps binge-eating on repeat. Period.

That’s why most people wrestle with it for years — even decades — stuck in methods that ignore the most basic principles of brain science.

But here’s the difference: when my clients start Lean Instinct Formula™, they finally break free. Not by fighting harder, but by rewiring the very system that kept them stuck.

In today’s article, I’m pulling back the curtain. You’ll see exactly why common approaches fail, and what it really takes to stop binge-eating for good. If you’ve been struggling, this will help you understand the path out — and avoid the traps that keep so many spinning in circles.

I’ve worked with people who have binged for 10, 20, even 30 years, and as soon as they start Lean Instinct Formula™, their bingeing stops. Lots of my clients find this amazing, and the question I hear the most is: “Why did this work when nothing else ever has?” There are several powerful wor...

08/25/2025

The culprit that allowed me to permanently drop 50 lbs in just one year (20 years and still counting, maintenance-free) is something I’ve rarely talked about.

Because most people can’t see it — they’re too hooked on the irrelevant things: diets, calories, workouts, food rules.

👉 It wasn’t a secret diet (I break diet rules daily).

👉 It wasn’t exercise.

👉 It wasn’t “Asian genes.”

It was my upbringing in China — specifically, 20 years of living in a world where staying fit while eating freely was the *default*.

That experience shaped my core belief:

Losing 50 lbs was simply returning to normal.

Here’s the biggest problem most Americans face:

You’ve been told since childhood you must fight for this most basic norm of life.

When obesity, deprivation, and dieting are everywhere, you end up believing

⚡ Being big (while self-depriving) is “normal.”

⚡ Counting every calorie, tracking every gram, is the only way to function.

So you over-think, over-analyze, over-correct, and over-deprive, and sabotage yourself.

To see the absurdity of it, imagine someone counting every second of their breathing so they don’t “over-inhale” oxygen.

Ridiculous, right? Yet diet culture has taught you to do exactly that with food.

Here’s the neuroscience truth:

Your body’s autonomic nervous system is designed to regulate eating and metabolism just as smoothly as it regulates oxygen in → CO₂ out.

It’s *instinct*.

The only reason it’s not working for you is that years of deprivation and dieting have derailed the mechanism. When your engine and GPS are broken, no amount of effort gets you to the right destination.

So what's the biggest force that traps you in the cycle?

👉 The inability to believe the instinct can be the default. The belief that you can eat freely and slim down.

Neuroscience 101:

Your brain drives consistency at all costs.

If your belief contradicts your behavior, your brain bends your experience until it matches the belief.

So if you believe you’re destined to struggle, your brain automates behaviors to make that your reality.

This is why willpower is irrelevant. And why every diet has failed you.

The moment you shift the belief, the results follow.

Here’s what it looks like in real life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmk1Gdkfk74&list=PLnH6P_lIEiG0NHOj9AH16VvtYJLtEf3Md&index=5

Weight started dropping effortlessly. 30 years of confusion gone. The excitement, zeal, confidence — priceless.

For me as her coach, it’s like watching someone blind for decades suddenly see again. And after 10 years and 400+ clients worldwide, I still never get tired of that moment.

The most common sentence I hear on graduation calls?

“Why did it take me decades to realize it could have been this simple?”

Frustrating, yes. But at least you don’t have to waste more decades on this battle.

____

Leslie Chen — Creator of Lean Instinct Formula™, which breaks generational weight and eating struggles via neuroscience.

05/19/2025

My weight loss journey was SLOW.

I lost 50 pounds in 12 months.
Some months, I only lost 2 or 3.

But here’s the part no one tells you:

Most people spend 20 years wrestling with the same 50.

Or they lose it… only to gain it back.

Or they lose it, but feel miserable and obsessed the whole time.

Diets control their life. Food controls their feelings.

Even when they “succeed,” they’re not free.

But for me — I didn’t have to control everything to lose the weight.

And for the past 20 years, my body has stayed in balance.

That gave me the mental space, energy, and drive to pursue everything I’ve wanted — with no more weight and self-esteem drama.

In this video, I walk you through exactly how I dropped those 50 pounds.

And how my clients are doing the same — dropping 20, 30, even 50 pounds…
Without restriction. Without burnout. Without obsession.

Watch the video.

There’s a big difference between working hard for results… and just getting results.

My name is Leslie Chen. I’m a neuroscience-based weight loss and food freedom coach.

For a decade, I’ve helped high-achievers gain the next-level life by removing the chronic, generational weight and eating problems.

Follow for more.

Repost if this helps someone.

03/05/2025

I don’t teach you how to own it in the boardroom and the bedroom—at least not directly.

But when you master what I teach? You walk in like you own heaven and earth.

When food owns you, confidence isn’t just shaky—it’s shattered.

Because let’s be real:

🔥 You can’t command a room when you don’t even feel at home in your own body.

🔥 You can’t be fully present when part of you is always calculating, obsessing, regretting.

🔥 You can’t lead, seduce, or inspire when you secretly feel like a fraud in your own skin.

Every binge multiplies guilt.

Every failed attempt tightens the chains.

When freedom evades you, power isn’t just missing—it’s in retrograde.

And if you’ve had power retrograde for 20 years because food and weight have been your silent war?

Understand this:

⚡ Some people build empires in that time.

⚡ Some rewrite history.

⚡ Some gather a full album of beautiful memories—the kind their children and grandchildren will look to as a legacy, not a cautionary tale.

I’ve led people through what once felt impossible.

I’ve seen them rise lean and free, and reclaim everything they thought they lost.

And the most costly idea you can believe?

That you have to walk a thousand miles when you could simply step into the right vehicle and arrive.

Successful people aren’t just hard workers—they take lifts.

You can walk away from this post, and you’ll still have a good year.

But if you’re done settling for good and want extraordinary…

We shall talk.

P.S. Before you book an appointment, go watch the ‘6 Minute Quantum Leap’ video in the comment area— so that you at least get a sense of what kind of results we are talking about here through real voice, real people. ❤️

03/01/2025

Celebrating a client. I remember our first convo when she said: “I have a big focus issue, I’m also highly obsessed due to my ADHD, but I’m willing to take a chance on myself.”

If you didn’t know it, I help people overcome year-long food addiction problem so that they can eat effortlessly healthy and reverse the weight issue.

ADHD often poses a big challenge to a person’s transformation due to the strong positive association between the condition and impulsivity.

Therefore we do see a lot of binge eaters have ADHD. The impulsivity fuels the obsession. And since these people are more vulnerable to stress, which induces overeating on its own, they are extremely susceptible to food addiction and often go through a harder path to move pass it.

I’m highlighting this point because often people with food addiction blame themselves for a lack of willpower. But when these tendencies are sponsored by brain chemicals, willpower is often irrelevant. You can’t fight your biology.

This client, who had struggled with a decade-long self-control issue with food had the determination to solve it, because her health was at a tipping point. And she realized that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy her life, after all the years of hard work in building her career, if she couldn’t stop eating to the level where her stomach felt sick and spirit was torn. Some of the bio markers she received last year made this lurking fear a half manifested reality.

I took her in, we worked on the critical steps together. The first three weeks were, for a lack of the better word, chaotic because she had huge doubt in herself and had to make big logistics changes to start a new chapter. Every change could be a stressor, and her ADHD didn’t make things easier.

But she chose to trust the process so that she could regain trust in herself in this area of life again.

After 5 weeks since she has joined, this is what we heard on a group call last week:

- Enjoying a vacation, in an environment with lots of uncertainties, and finding peace and ease while naturally making the best choices. Effortless as her body wants only the right things.

- Not feeling attached to psychological cravings and food anymore. This detachment from impulsivity is the first time in many years. Exactly how many years? She couldn’t remember.

- Her body feeling so much lighter, not just in a physical way although that’s very obvious, but also the deep sensation of toxicity and burden being removed from it which makes it vibrate differently…it’s real, euphoric.

- Feeling very positive and at ease in her relationship with food, witnessing in her 3D that she’s capable of achieving something she felt she needed to be delusionally optimistic to believe in.

At this moment we’ve ignited detachment from food reliance and addiction, and planted a new eating ‘template’ in her mind which is already projecting and funneling the new ‘algorithms’ and outcome for her.

Still more work to do, but want to celebrate big time!

FULL DISCLAIMER: I can’t cure ADHD 😂 But we can: 1) sever the obsession towards food while 2) create new psychological, physical, and sensory patterns that make eating and slimming down easy, while 3) redirecting the impulsivity and passion to an area of life in a very positive way so it helps you achieve mighty things instead of being stuck in something as basic as eating.

Want to know if Lean Instinct Formula is the right one for you? Go to www.riselean.com/weight-loss-coach to find out the details. The information I've provided is very thorough there.

DO NOT schedule a call if the problem-solution match isn't there.

02/19/2025

10 weeks ago, this woman in the video thought two things:

1️⃣ "I’ll be Leslie’s toughest challenge ever."�

2️⃣ "If I ever break free from food and finally feel fit, I’ll be jumping up and down with joy."

Today? Neither came true.

🚫 She wasn’t a challenge (which is a win for her!)�

🚫 She’s not jumping up and down… because what once felt like a dream is now just her new normal. She’s simply happy. Confident. Content. Free.

Let’s rewind to where she started:

❌ Miserable with stubborn weight that nothing seemed to fix�
❌ Binging almost daily since college (she’s now in her 50s)�
❌ Family history of weight struggles�
❌ Life revolving around food—not living�
❌ Rock-bottom self-esteem from years of self-sabotage�
❌ High-pressure, toxic work environment draining her daily

And now? Just 10 weeks later:

✅ Her body effortlessly drops close to 1.5 lbs per week. �
✅ No restrictive diets. No grueling workouts.�
✅ Eats what she wants, when she wants.�✅ Two vacations (Hawaii & Paris) + Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays... and still on track.�
✅ Food no longer rules her life. She no longer thinks about it as if she had never suffered from the weight and eating struggles.

👉 Struggling for decades doesn’t mean change has to take decades.�

👉 When your body and psychology are rewired to work for you instead of against you, results feel effortless.

💥 This is normal inside the Lean Instinct Formula community. Curious if it’s right for you? Book an appointment and let’s find out.

_____

I’m Leslie Chen. For a decade, I’ve helped high-caliber individuals around the world drop the stubborn pounds while regaining food freedom — via Neuroscience tools which transform instinctive patterns of the body and the mind.

10/30/2024

Client: “Are carbs bad for health?”

Me: “Is dopamine good for happiness?”

Client: “Yes, I’d think so! Too little dopamine causes depression.”

Me: “Well too much dopamine causes schizophrenia.”

It’s all about balance….

Regarding the carbs-makes-me-fat connection, don’t forget rice is the everyday staple for East Asian countries. You see a problem with demonizing food?

10/24/2024

Guys, get onto my newsletter….If you are struggling with weight/eating, I don’t know why you haven’t got onto my email list.

I have a transformational coaching program (expensive by many people’s standard). However, even in my newsletter, I’m trying my best to share value from a place of good will and preeminence.

This is not the first time people applying for my coaching program telling me this, which makes me wonder: What are you waiting for?

10/22/2024

October has been incredible, with students around the world achieving remarkable results:

* One lost over 18 pounds while traveling overseas, savoring local cuisines without restriction—and continues to lose more weight effortlessly.

* One has, for the first time in her memory, become naturally detached from sugar.

* One has just started our signature ‘nightstand exercise.’ Once he completed it, his life-long food freedom is sealed.

* Another shed 2.3 kg (5 pounds) in just two weeks—completely naturally.

And these are just a few of the stories.

The pattern is the same: automated weight loss combined with maximum food freedom.

It’s because we’ve created deep, algorithm-level changes in both mind and body that allow results to happen on autopilot—and these results are built to last.

Years ago, I made a promise to myself: I’d only enter coaching relationships that are win-win, and would only extend an offer when I could clearly see the person being successful 3 months after we start.

My students know how rigorously I qualify every potential client to ensure we’re a perfect match. The Lean Instinct Formula™ is a winning system, but it requires the right person to unlock its full potential.

My goal as a coach is simple:

I want to work with the top 10%—people who are mentally and physically ready a once-a-life-time experience, not another hamster wheel ride.

I want my 10 weeks of working with you to be joyful and meaningful, and your 10 weeks of working with me to be nothing but profoundly transformational.

And I will not settle for less ideal candidates, just like you should not settle for less outcomes.

09/26/2024

Intuitive eating can cause weight gain because the ‘engine’ causing over-eating is still running.

This engine consists of underlying physical and sensory patterns that drive you to crave the wrong amount of the wrong thing at the wrong time — without realizing it.

And by eating intuitively, you allow them to run unchecked.

Result? You either gain weight or fall back into the exhausting cycle of self-deprivation.

It becomes another failure either way. And that’s why you believe there has to be a trade off between food freedom and a fit body, which also mess up your relationship with food big time.

But when that engine is switched off, something incredible happens:

You stop responding to “triggers” and your body stop craving more food than it needs.

You don’t think about it because now everything becomes truly intuitive — towards the direction of automatically getting fit.

This is when people say “I’m losing it while I sleep.”

But to my clients, weight loss is just an organic byproduct of blissful liberation from a self-sabotaging cycle, which they truly desired.

Ready to make a profound shift? Apply for a Clarity Call.