The Complete Beck Diet for Life: The Five-Stage Program for Permanent Weight Loss [Hardcover]

Judith S. Beck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 2008

Bestselling author and weight-loss expert Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., has inspired thousands of dieters to lose excess weight and keep it off using the power of Cognitive Therapy to prepare the mind and alter habits before starting any diet. Now, for the first time, Dr. Beck outlines the next step: a specific, balanced diet plan that teaches you how to EAT THIN and keep excess weight off for life.

Based on the eating choices of Dr. Becks most successful dieters and maintainers, The Complete Beck Diet for Life includes comprehensive suggestions for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and bonus foods including 150- or 200-calorie treats such as sweets, alcohol, bread, and fries--and a Think Thin menu formula that allows you to easily adapt to any situation. Everything you need to stay on track is provided, including a sample strength-training plan and interactive elements such as Response Cards, daily eating logs, and charts and graphs to track your progress.

The Complete Beck Diet for Life also features Dr. Becks signature Cognitive Therapy tools, organized in a 5-stage program designed to teach you how to EAT THIN. The program details precisely what to do to stay motivated, overcome emotional eating, eliminate bingeing, and immediately get back on track when youve made a mistake. If youve struggled with dieting in the past, its only because you never acquired these essential skills. Once you learn to master these skills, you will be able to successfully maintain your new weight for life.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Judith Beck is the daughter of the influential founder of Cognitive Therapy, Aaron T. Beck, M.D. She received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania where she is currently a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry. Director of the Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy, she is also past president of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxmoor House; 1 edition (December 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 084873274X
• ISBN-13: 978-0848732745
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., is an eminent clinician and educator who previously served as director of Clinical Services at the Center for Cognitive Therapy and now serves as president of Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy. She is also clinical associate professor of psychology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her doctoral degree from Penn in 1982.

Dr. Beck directs the three major functions of Beck Institute:

Professional education and training in cognitive therapy
Clinical care
Research

Professional activities

Dr. Beck divides her time among administration, supervision and teaching, clinical work, program development, research, and writing. She has been a consultant for several National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) studies, has developed widely adopted assessment scales for children and adolescents, and has presented hundreds of workshops nationally and internationally on various applications of cognitive therapy. She is also a Distinguished Founding Fellow and Past President of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy.

Publications

Dr. Beck has written nearly 100 articles and chapters on different aspects of cognitive therapy. She is the author of the primary text in the field, which has been translated into 20 languages, as well as books, workbooks, and pamphlets for consumers. Her publications include:

Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond (2nd ed)
Cognitive Therapy for Challenging Problems: What to Do When the Basics Don't Work
The Oxford Textbook of Psychotherapy
Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders
The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person
The Beck Diet Solution Weight Loss Workbook
The Complete Beck Diet for Life

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

225 of 228 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking Thin for LIFE!, October 24, 2008

By 

Sleepless (Anoka, MN) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Complete Beck Diet for Life: The Five-Stage Program for Permanent Weight Loss (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I am a veteran of the Beck Diet Solution book and Workbook. I used it successfully last year while I was dieting. I ended up losing 120 pounds (yes, really!! I went from a size 28 down to a size 8 and I have successfully maintained for the past 6 months). Beck's techniques and tools work with ANY nutritious, well balanced diet. The key is getting you to start thinking like a normal person instead of a fat person. You learn the skills you need to solve your own problems and learn to avoid the mind traps that make you gain weight and sabotage yourself.
It is true that I have a different mindset as a thin person than I ever had a fat person. I am a new person and I owe a lot of that to the Diet Solution.

So the question I had in my mind was.... I already have the Diet Solution book and workbook, do I really need this new book?? Is this book different in any way from the Diet Solution?

The answer is yes -- Even though this book uses many of the exact same techniques and therapy, it is presented in a whole different way and uses a different time frame. I actually think that the way the stages are presented in this book is more logical to me and seemed easier to follow than the Diet Solution book. They are both great books in different ways, but if I had to choose one over the other, I like this one better.

I made myself new set of cards when I went through this book and it has amazed me how much my thinking has changed over the past year from my last cards and how many more things still need to change. I have only had the book for a week so far, but I have read through it twice and I plan on re-doing the entire program from scratch, using the stages.

This book also addressed some of the issues I was having with maintaining my current weight because it addressed my motivation issues directly in a way that made sense to me.

Beck's approach to weight loss is different than anything you have ever done in the past. She never talks down to the reader or makes the reader feel inadequate. She is a very realistic, positive voice that is no nonsense about what needs to be done and how to go about doing it. She sets forth very clearly defined, straight-forward tasks for dieting that if they are followed correctly, step by step, you WILL lose weight and you WILL follow your plan and you WILL stay on track. You can change your thinking.

140 of 141 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I needed, December 23, 2008

By 

Laurel (Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Complete Beck Diet for Life: The Five-Stage Program for Permanent Weight Loss (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I have read, and followed, a lot of diet books. Honestly, they all worked for me, though they varied in ease, speed of weight loss, and entertainment factor.

Do you see the problem in this? While I am able to lose weight following a specific diet, it doesn't stay off, and I wind up having to go back onto "a diet" once more to lose what I've regained.

When I ordered this book, I was not aware of its particular premise, that of lifetime weight loss. (Yeah, the title should've been a clue, I know!) But I had noticed the scale and thought, "Uh oh, time for another diet." I picked this simply because it was a diet book, but I think this is the answer to my on-and-off weight problem!

So what's it about? Well, Dr. Beck -- a psychologist, expert in Cognitive Therapy -- methodically teaches you the tools to rethink how you approach food, how you think about yourself and your weight, and what it means to "diet." I was initially concerned that this was merely a follow-up book to her previous release. While it builds on those concepts, it is completely stand-alone.

The book is clear, gentle, deliberate, and yet firm. Start by simply reading the book. Next, begin Stage One, which has you set up motivational cards to read every day, track your weight, learn to plan your meals, realize that getting hungry is not a disaster, eat slowly, exercise daily, and work with a diet buddy. Sounds like a lot, hm? We're not even actually dieting yet! I lost five pounds doing this stage.

Further stages add eating a certain amount of calories per day -- a surprisingly generous amount! -- and learning how to fit the initially rigid meal plan into real life, with restaurant outings, parties, and stressful times.

I adore this book, and I'm immensely grateful that I discovered it. That said, it is probably not the ideal book for all dieters.

PROS:

* Virtually guaranteed lifetime weight loss and maintenance, if you follow the system.
* Simple, painless system -- once you take the time to learn it.
* Extremely flexible in the later stages.
* Very uplifting concepts. You will feel good about yourself and what you can accomplish.
* The Cognitive Therapy tools learned here can be adapted to many problem areas of life.

CONS:

* Not for quick weight loss. If you have an upcoming event you are trying to get slender for, this is not what you want.
* Takes considerable time and commitment initially. Dr. Beck herself says that if you're overly busy or stressed right now, get your life under control first, then you can start to learn these skills.

NEUTRAL:

* Takes a lot of paraphernalia and setup: note cards of various sizes, a notebook, graph paper, daily worksheets to fill out, advanced meal planning, food-measuring tools. For me this is fun and a benefit, but others may find this a hassle.

In conclusion: If you are serious about losing your excess weight and keeping it off -- and are willing to commit a bit of time and effort -- get this book.

74 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Did you really think permanent weight loss is easy?, November 19, 2008

By 

K. Robertson (southern Virginia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Complete Beck Diet for Life: The Five-Stage Program for Permanent Weight Loss (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I picked up this book with an "oh boy -- here goes another diet book...." This is NOT another diet book. I was struck by the reviews where readers complained about "too much work" with this book, but I must say that it DOES take work to achieve lasting change. My previous attempts at weight loss (lost 155 pounds) resulted in my gaining some back when I stopped paying attention to working at it. Yes, Dr. Beck encourages much soul searching, learning new skills, affirmations (gathered from your own past successes kept in a "memory box"), and daily planning, but, for many of us, we must break through years of doing it all wrong to achieve permanent weight loss.

I was hit with hard reality by concepts in the 1st few chapters that I've never read in other books. For example, Dr. Beck says: "Every time you don't feel like practicing a skill [that she teaches you] but you do it anyway, you strengthen your resistance muscle...every time you eat something you hadn't planned to eat, you weaken your resistance muscle, and strengthen your "giving-in" muscle." ALso, this is the 1st book I've ever read that termed that feeling we have when told "you need to only eat 1 piece of that pizza" as simply "rebelliouness." This was eye-opening for me, as I thought of giving in to a craving as "weakness" -- a totally different beast. She stresses that rebelliousness and the resulting "I don't want to do that" can't co-exist with permanent weight loss. This, then, puts doing the daily skills needed to lose weight in the "NO CHOICE" category.

I wanted to read this book through once and then go back to read it a second time to begin learning the skills that she teaches, which I will do shortly. Even though I have read similar books that discussed skills like eating slowly, getting rid of trigger foods, etc. which Dr Beck does in her book, she recommmends these techniques as only part of a complete plan that seems to fully cover all areas of one's life where changes need to occur to finally be successful at weight loss. I am currently on Weight Watchers, but I believe this book will be an excellent companion to that program.