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Posts Tagged ‘your best life’

Think Yourself Thin….The Complete Beck Diet for Life

January 13th, 2009

A few days ago, I introduced you to my Better than the “Best Life” Weight Loss Plan.

In that post, I told you why diets and workouts simply don’t work for most people.

I told you that unless you address your personal weight loss roadblocks, you may be trapped forever in a cycle of yo-yo dieting….well, that sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

I told you how it all comes down to lifestyle.

And to make things just a little bit easier, I divided those lifestyle factors into 3 groups:

Physical Factors
Mental / Emotional / Spiritual Factors
External Factors

Today, I will be discussing your mental/emotional roadblocks to successful weight loss.

In particular, I will be discussing Dr. Judith Beck’s psychological approach to successful weight loss.

Who is Dr. Judith Beck?

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., is:

The author of the textbook, Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond,which has been translated into 20 languages and is the basic textbook in the field for most students in psychiatry, psychology, social work, and psychiatric nursing in the U.S. and around the world.
Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania
The Director of the non-profit Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research
The daughter of Aaron T. Beck, M.D., the founder of cognitive therapy, with whom she has worked closely in developing its clinical applications and theoretical advancements.
A consultant for research studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health
The past president of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy

The author of the best selling diet books: The Beck Diet Solution, The Beck Diet Solution Weight Loss Workbook and new for 2009, the complete Beck Diet for Life.

And what is the Beck Diet all about?

According to Dr. Beck, the Beck Diet:

Frees you from guilt, worry, self-consciousness and self-blame
Frees you from your fear of hunger and your fear of losing control
Frees you from overwhelming temptation and emotional eating
Frees you from feelings of deprivation, unfairness and discouragement
Frees you from obsession about your food choices, weight and appearance.

In short, Dr. Beck’s CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) approach to weight loss attempts to free you from your controlling thoughts and emotions. There techniques taught in this book have been successfully used as a treatment for many clinical disorders, personality conditions and behavioral problems.

To this point, only Dr. Beck has applied these techniques to treat the mental issues behind obesity.

Her step by step approach allows you to make gradual changes to your thoughts and behaviors. Over time, her techniques build upon themselves and “lead you to make the psychological changes you need to be satisfied with your food choices, your ultimate weight and yourself.”

I have used these techniques on a number of my clients, and what I love about Dr. Beck’s techniques is how they help dieters avoid the pitfalls that happen to all of us.

She teaches you how to transform your psychological “giving-in” into a psychological “stick to it” muscle.

The Plan

There are 5 stages to Dr. Beck’s program.

Stage 1 – The Success Skills Plan

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In Stage 1, you will learn and practice Dr. Beck’s nine “success skills”. Those skills include:

Motivate yourself daily
Weigh yourself daily
Eat slowly or mindfully
Give yourself credit
Get moving
Overcome hunger, cravings and emotional eating
Plan and monitor your eating
Follow your plan, no matter what
Get back on track – right away

To help you develop these skills, you will have to complete various tasks and techniques.

And believe it or not, in Stage 1, there is no dieting. That begins in Stage 2.

And before you can proceed to Stage 2, you HAVE to master the 9 success skills.

Stage 2 – The Think Thin Initial Eating Plan

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In Stage 2, Dr. Beck introduces her “Think Thin Eating Plan”.

I will go into more detail on Dr. Beck’s eating plan in a future post.

However, I have to say that this is the one area of Dr. Beck’s book that I disagree with. Her recommendations are typical of most of the other diet books on the market. It all comes down to the typical Food Pyramid / Caloric Restriction theory that has been failing dieters for decades.

Obviously, the nutritional guidelines weren’t drafted by Dr. Beck. I can only assume that a nutritionist associated with her practice put this together.

In her defense, I have heard through the grapevine that Dr. Beck’s readers complained that her previous book didn’t have this information and that they were shocked that a “diet” book wasn’t telling them what foods to eat. So, in an attempt to make them happy, Dr. Beck added this chapter.

Personally, I still recommend that you complete Stage 2. I just think that you should follow another diet. This one or this one.

You will spend 2 to 3 weeks in Stage 2. And like Stage 1, you need to fulfill specific requirements before moving on to Stage 3.

You will also continue to work on the 9 Success Skills from Stage 1.

Stage 3 – The Challenging Situations Plan

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During this stage, you will learn how to apply the skills you have learned in Stages 1 & 2 to various challenging situations:

Eating outside the house
Entertaining at home
Or when you are psychologically or emotionally stressed out.

There are a wide variety of skills to work on in this section. I will go into these skills in greater detail in a future post.

In my opinion, the skills you will learn in this stage should be required reading for anyone trying to lose weight and still have some semblance of a social life.

Stage 4 – The Think Thin Lifetime Eating Plan

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To enter Stage 4, you need to know that you can follow your plan in any situation.

If you have achieved that level of self control, you can now loosen things up a bit, knowing that you are in charge of your thoughts and feelings and that if you start to put on some extra weight, you have the skills necessary to turn things around.

And not that she doesn’t trust you, but Dr. Beck still has a few more experiments to make sure that you are ready to graduate to Stage 5.

Stage 5 – The Motivation for Life Plan

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Stage 5 is Dr. Beck’s Maintenance Stage.

During this stage, she asks you to follow 1 of 3 different plans:

Daily Motivation Plan – when dieting/maintenance is going well
Re-Motivation Plan – when dieting/maintenance becomes difficult
Get back on Track Plan – when your skills slip and you gain weight

And like all of the other stages, Dr. beck has a series of daily tasks designed to maintain your success skills and your weight loss.

Conclusion

Some of you out there don’t need this book. Those extra holiday pounds are probably already melting away as you have returned to a more “normal” day to day schedule.

This book is written for those people who need to re-gain control over their thoughts and emotions.

If that sounds like you, I can heartily recommend Dr. Beck’s new book.

Except for the dietary recommendations.

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Posted in Diet/Nutrition, Mental/Emotional, health

Tags: beck diet best life best life plan cbt cognitive behavior therapy cognitive behavioral therapy cognitive therapy diet Exercise fitness health judith beck obesity oprah psychology weight loss workout your best life your best life plan

A Better "Best Life" Weight Loss Plan

January 8th, 2009

In yesterday’s post, I rambled on and on about Oprah’s “Best Life” weight loss plan.

And what I found most unique about her new weight loss plan was her focus on how our emotions and thoughts impact our relationship with food.

While I and others have written about this before, somehow I think that Oprah’s opinion carries just a little bit more weight with America’s obese.

In fact, because of Oprah’s influence, I predict that the next big wave of popular diet books/programs will all include some form of psychological/emotional/spiritual philosophy.

And this could be a good thing…or it could be just another gimmick to sell books and supplements and pills and gym memberships and…..well, you get my point.

We all know, that for most of us, losing weight is not as simple as reducing our intake by 500 calories and increasing our output by 500 calories. If it was, all of us would be lean and fit and earning extra money posing as swimsuit models.

While weight loss is easier for some of us and incredibly hard for others, we all know that it isn’t simple. There are many factors at play.

And, as a personal trainer who relies on word of mouth to earn an income, I need to figure out which of those factors are keeping my new clients from being as fit and healthy as they want to be.

If they don’t see results, my bills don’t get paid.

But, seeing as none of you are my clients and, in the spirit of everything being free on the internet, I hereby present to you, my multi-faceted, mind, body and spirit, guaranteed to work, new and improved for 2009 Health Habits Weight Loss Plan.

Enjoy.

And if you are reading this prior to January 16, could you please click here and throw me a vote for Wellsphere’s Health Blogger Award. As of today, I am sitting at #16 and I could use a little charity.

The Plan

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When it comes to losing weight, it always comes down to lifestyle.

I can give you the most effective diet and exercise plan known to man (just send $19.99 to…), but unless you are willing to address your negative lifestyle influences, you and I are wasting our time.

You might as well join a fat acceptance group and learn to embrace your inner fatty.

Your Formerly Fat Lifestyle

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To begin, I am going to break your Formerly Fat Lifestyle into 3 parts:

Physical
Mental / Emotional / Spiritual
External

Let’s start with the physical:

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Nutrition

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This may sound strange, but thanks to our Western Diet, most overweight people are actually undernourished. Overfed, but undernourished.

What do I mean by this?

I mean that the food that most of us eat doesn’t even deserve to be called food. Sure, it provides calories, but it doesn’t actually provide the nutrients that our bodies need to perform at their best.

As a result, even though our bellies may be full, our cells are screaming for more. And in their quest for more nutrients, they call on a whole bunch of hormones and brain chemicals and food-related memories to MAKE YOU EAT MORE AND MORE AND MORE.

So, one of the first things I do is to change the types of food my clients are eating. We don’t even discuss calories. For most people, improving the quality of their diet drastically reduces appetite.

Note – I will go into much more detail in future posts, but if you can’t wait, check out these archives:

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Exercise

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This may sound strange coming from a personal trainer, but up until fairly recently, human beings had no need for “exercise”. Our ancestors stayed fit through their daily activities.

But, unless you are planning to quit your desk job and take up a life of hunting and gathering, you NEED to exercise. You will never get enough exercise in your day to day life.

NEVER.

And when it comes to weight loss, not all exercise is created equal. Oprah was on the right track when she decided to cut back a little on the cardio training and replacing it with more resistance training. While cardio is vital for the health of your heart and lungs, it is a poor choice for weight loss.

Now if only we could get her to quit the bodybuilding-type program Bob has put her on. Considering her goals and her schedule, she needs to find a program that maximizes fat loss and strength and minimizes bulk and wasted time. And her current program…is at least 5 years out of date.

For most of my clients, we are trying to:

Build strength without bulk
Focus on functional strength that improves “real life” activities
Improve balance and coordination
Increase short term and long term metabolism
Improve joint mobility and muscular flexibility
Increase speed, quickness and agility, and oh yeah…
Burn a lot of calories

And like I said before, I will be going into more detail. Here are some links for the impatient:

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Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation

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At first, this topic may not seem to have much to do with a weight loss program.

But when your knee is killing you because a tight IT band has caused your patella to track laterally and grind away causing pain, inflammation and swelling, you may see the benefit of including some pre-hab / re-hab training in your weight loss program.

We are all getting older. As kids, we could abuse our bodies and count on them bouncing right back. As adults, we need to use some of that wisdom we are supposed to have been accumulating to avoid the problems before they happen.

More info to come. Here are your links:

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The Mental/Emotional/Spiritual aspects of weight loss:

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This is the part of Oprah’s new program that I found the most interesting.

Whether or not it proves to be effective, Oprah’s search for the mental/emotional/spiritual reasons behind her eating disorder is a big step forward.

click pic for Oprah's weight gain confession

And while the psychological community debates whether or not disordered eating patterns (like Oprah’s) constitute an actual psychological condition, it is obvious to those of us who struggle with obesity, that obesity and emotion go hand in hand.

So, as part of Oprah’s new weight loss program, she asked herself 5 not so simple questions:

Why are you overweight?
What are you really hungry for?
Why have you been unable to maintain weight loss in the past?
What in your life is not working?
Why do you want to lose weight?

And assuming, that she/you/me answer those questions on a deep & meaningful level, we may be able to understand or even release some of the emotional “stuff” that has been contributing to our weight gain.

Or maybe not.

While I think these 5 questions may be psychologically enlightening and a source of motivation at the start of your program, I question whether they will have any staying power. What happens in 3 months when the initial “aha” moment has worn off? How is knowing the “truth” about your weight gain going to keep you from falling off the wagon?

You need some tools to take you from enlightenment to realization.

And one of those tools could be the Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Weight Loss Program by Dr. Judith Beck.

In fact, it’s likely that some of you may already have seen this book. It’s been one of the big sellers at my local bookstore. And with good reason.

If people are excited about Oprah’s new psychological/emotional approach to weight loss, they should be overjoyed to find Dr. Beck’s program.

Next week, I will post a review of the book.

But for now, I will let Dr. Beck provide a brief description of her plan:

Most people struggle with losing weight and keeping it off because no one ever taught them how. It’s not just a matter of willpower and a healthy eating plan. To be successful, you have to learn a set of cognitive (thinking) and behavioral skills. Other weight-loss programs assume that dieters know how to keep themselves from cheating. Dr. Beck respects that dieters are human; she expects mistakes and her unique program teach dieters exactly what to do immediately following mistakes, and how to solve and prevent them in the future.

By following the Cognitive Therapy techniques dieters learn to:

think differently and overcome common dieting pitfalls and sabotaging thoughts

eat favorite foods while steadily losing weight

feel in control in the most challenging situations

feel confident in their ability to follow a healthy diet and exercise plan

remain motivated to maintain weight loss for life

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

But, to be fair, I am a little biased. While I don’t agree with every part of Dr. Beck’s program, I have, in the past few years, weaved aspects of Dr. Beck’s program into my own pseudo-psychological mind control program. And it has been very successful.

In fact, one of my clients is following Dr. Beck’s program. In the coming weeks and months, I will be reporting on his progress.

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The External Stuff

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Time Management

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So, you have the perfect nutrition plan and the perfect workout plan and your thoughts and emotions are all pointed in the perfect “let’s get ready to burn off some body-fat” direction, but…… you are swamped at work and the kids need to go to soccer practice and you just don’t have time to make it to the gym and you “had” to stop at the Golden Arches and pick up one of those new McCoronary meals.

And the next thing you know, you have gained another 10 pounds.

Let’s face it.

Your regular day to day schedule does not have any available space to add in daily exercise and meal prep and meditation and sports massage and all of those other things that you should be doing to get your body in tip top shape.

Something is going to have to go.

You need to prioritize.

You need to exercise. Cancel something else.

You need to eat real food, not grab take-out on the way home from work. Cancel something else.

You need to calm your mind…be it meditation, prayer or even a good foot massage. Cancel something else.

If Oprah can do it, so can you.

It won’t be easy.

But you need to make this commitment to your health.

And it doesn’t stop there.

There will be other roadblocks in your road to physical fitness.

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The Cost

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Each January, like lemmings, hordes of people trudge down to their neighborhood health club and fulfill their new Year’s Resolution by purchasing a brand new 1 year membership.

And 60 days later, 80% of those people are never heard from again.

Weird, huh?

But wait, it gets weirder.

We may be the worst trainers in the world, but damn, aren't we sexy?

In the past 10-15 years, the biggest money maker in the fitness industry hasn’t been those wonderful people who overestimate their desire for fitness.

It has been the personal trainer.

And boy, have they made a lot of money for the health clubs.

And boy, can they cost you a lot of money.

But, if you find a good trainer, who has a good reputation and is willing to stand behind his work, the benefit can outweigh the cost hundreds of times over.

Remember, if you are going to pay for fitness, make sure that you are paying for results…not promises.

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Social Support

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Will you be able to stick to your diet as your husband shovels another slice of greasy pizza into his pie-hole?
Will you stick to your workout schedule when your kids demand a ride over to their friends’ house?
Will you go to bed at a decent hour when your posse has just fired up the dvd player for a Quentin Tarantino movie marathon?
Or will your family support your decisions to re-gain your health?, and
Will your friends join you at the gym in a show of support?

Unless you have some sort of unshakable iron will, your friends and family will impact your weight loss success or failure.

So, you need to sit down and discuss your plans with those people in your life who might just throw a monkey wrench into your weight loss plans. Let them know that you need their help. Let them know that your health is at stake. Let them know that you love them and appreciate them and…..

Get them on board. You know them better than I do. Figure out what buttons need to be pushed and get pushing.

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Okay, that’s all for now.

In the next few weeks, I will be fleshing out the bones of this “better than Oprah’s” Your Best Life weight loss plan.

In the mean time, if you have any questions, please comment at the end of this post

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Oprah's "Best Life" Weight Loss Plan

January 6th, 2009

Mark my words people; you are about to see a huge shift in the “weight loss” industry.

Yesterday’s Oprah Winfrey show is going to completely change how people (mostly women) approach weight loss.

Soon, every diet book and weight loss program is going to include some form of psycho/spiritual approach to determine the hidden motivations behind your extra flab.

All because of this.

Wow, you really have to hand it to Oprah.

It takes a lot of guts (no pun intended) to get up in front of millions of people and talk about the 40+ pounds that you have packed on in the past year.

And now, we’re all going to be watching to see if her quest for balance is going to help her drop that weight and whip that soon to be 55 year old body of hers into shape.

So, What’s the Plan?

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Unlike past attempts at weight loss, Oprah isn’t simply diving into another Bob Greene approved diet and weight loss program.

Before she even begins to change her lifestyle, Oprah had to take a long, hard look at the emotions behind her weight gain.

And in her own words:

“It’s not about the food. It’s about using food—abusing food,” she says. “Too much work. Not enough play. Not enough time to come down. Not enough time to really relax.”

Over time, she discovered what she was really hungry for. “I am hungry for balance,” she says. “I’m hungry to do something other than work.”

And as the new year gets off to a fresh start, Oprah is making the commitment to have more joy and balance in 2009. “This is the year of hopefulness,” she says.

Oprah’s says her new goal isn’t to be thin.

“My goal is to be the weight that my body can hold and be healthy and strong and fit and be itself.”

Healthy and strong and fit…sounds good.

So, once again I ask, what’s the plan?

Oprah's New Plan

Oprah is scheduling time in her schedule for “me” time. Insteading of booking back to back meetings, photo shoots, television show tapings, Oprah and her assistant are making sure to include scheduled workouts, meals and other self-care activities.
Oprah is also scheduling her nutrition for the week. In fact, in the video, we see Oprah’s detailed weekly food schedule taped to one of the cupboards in her office kitchen.
Her nutrition plan involves 5 daily meals based around chicken, fish and vegetables.
Her exercise plan has been altered by reducing the amount of cardio-vascular training and replacing it with an increased amount of strength training.

And of course, Oprah wants YOU to jump on board:

But before you rush out and buy overy Bob Greene “Best Life” approved health & fitness product on the market, Oprah and Bob want you to answer 5 little questions:

Why are you overweight?
What are you really hungry for?
Why have you been unable to maintain weight loss in the past?
What in your life is not working?
Why do you want to lose weight?

And Oprah doesn’t want to see any obvious, surface answers like…”I am overweight because I like to eat donuts while watching re-runs of the Oprah Winfrey show.”

Dig a little deeper people…we expect some tears and some truly deep personal insights.

Click here for your official “Bob Greene’s 5 Questions” Workbook

In Conclusion

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I think that Oprah’s massive social influence is going to cause a huge change in the weight loss industry.
I think that for effective weight loss, most of us do need to look beyond diets and exercise and look at how our emotions and thoughts affect our eating and exercise habits.

However, I also think that Oprah and Bob’s approach may prove to be too simplistic to be effective. To be fair, they are marketing this program to millions and millions of people. This makes it a little tough to personalize.
I also think that Oprah gave the impression that since she has done the emotional work to discover her need for balance, she is on the path to effective weight loss and improved health. I think that she may be in for a few rude surprises along the way.
And I think that her buddy Bob knows that. Where Oprah seemed supremely confident about her chances of success, Bob seemed a bit more circumspect about the whole affair. This earned him huuuuge points in my estimation – for what that’s worth.

In tomorrow’s post, I am going to lay out the approach that I use with my training clients to help them achieve their “Best Life” _tm.

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