The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person (Hardcover)

by Judith S. Beck (Author) "If you've had difficulty losing weight or have lost weight in the past only to gain it hack, did you blame yourself (I'm too weak..." (more)
Key Phrases: sabotaging thought, thinking mistake, base weight, Helpful Response, Response Cards, Advantages Response Card (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Can thinking and eating like a thin person be learned, similar to learning to drive or use a computer? Beck (Cognitive Therapy for Challenging Problems) contends so, based on decades of work with patients who have lost pounds and maintained weight through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Beck's six-week program adapts CBT, a therapeutic system developed by Beck's father, Aaron, in the 1960s, to specific challenges faced by yo-yo dieters, including negative thinking, bargaining, emotional eating, bingeing, and eating out. Beck counsels readers day-by-day, introducing new elements (creating advantage response cards, choosing a diet, enlisting a diet coach, making a weight-loss graph) progressively and offering tools to help readers stay focused (writing exercises, to-do lists, ways to counter negative thoughts). There are no eating plans, calorie counts, recipes or exercises; according to Beck, any healthy diet will work if readers learn to think differently about eating and food. Beck's book is like an extended therapy session with a diet coach. (Apr.)
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Product Description
The Beck Diet Solution is the Missing Ingredient in Weight Loss

Lose weight with confidence and keep it off for a lifetime!

Battle your sabotaging habits!

Resist tempting food - even if it's right in front of you!

Confidently say, "No, thank you" to food pushers!

Put an end to emotional eating!

Confidently say, "No, thank you" to food pushers!

Conquer every excuse you've ever used to overeat, binge, or backslide!

Any sensible diet will help you lose weight, but the challenge for 90% of Americans is actually staying on the diet they choose. Enter Dr. Judith Beck and The Beck Diet Solution. Dr. Beck, one of the foremost authorities in the field of Cognitive Therapy, has created a six-week plan that will help people stick with their diet, lose weight with confidence, and keep weight off for a lifetime. This program is not only based on the author's personal success and on her success with her many clients, but also on published research. It all starts with how you think. With other programs, you think about nothing but food: counting, weighing, and worst of all, food you can't have. This way of thinking inevitably contributes to diet failure. The Beck Diet Solution is the only program that helps dieters use Cognitive Therapy methods--scientifically proven over 20 years--to forever change those treacherous thought patterns that lead to overeating, cheating, excuses, and other dieting downfalls.

Features

This breakthrough six-week plan assures success by helping you assess the advantages of weight loss, pick a sensible diet and exercise program, set a goal, line up support, and prepare your environment--all this before starting any diet. This unique approach is key to preventing the downfalls that so often lead to failure.

A new task is presented each day to build psychological skills to deal with the challenges of hunger and craving, overeating, alcohol, eating out, special occasions, vacations, stress, and much more. Healthy habits are established with to-do lists, reasons and ways to do the tasks, and how to deal with negative thoughts. One day a week is designated to "Take a Breather."

Easy-to-use, flexible, and proven tools are found throughout the program, including daily goals; weekly planner pages; and motivational coping cards for handling time/energy hurdles, eating out, and other high-risk situations.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxmoor House; First Edition edition (March 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0848731735
• ISBN-13: 978-0848731731
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,704 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

262 of 272 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making it Happen, April 2, 2007

By	minniecatt (Fort Washington, PA USA) - See all my reviews

I have lost 90 pounds using the principles and techniques in this book. How can that be true when the book has been out for only one week? No tricks here - early in 2006 ( a year ago) I began a self-designed plan of eating right and exercising based on 2 things: 1. my many years of familiarity with every new diet and nutritional research discovery regarding weight loss; and 2. participation in a cognitive therapy-based group called DBT which teaches skills to increase emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, etc. A couple of months ago I started getting the Amazon plogs regarding Dr. Beck's new book, and I enthusiastically pre-ordered. After almost a year of steady weight loss and working my way up to walking 3 miles a day (with Leslie Sansone DVDs)I had stalled out at minus 90 lbs, and need to lose about 30 more pounds. Receiving the book, I was amazed, because almost everything I did to motivate myself over the last 13 months was contained in this work. Of course, the principles are set forth much more methodically, professionally, and with more of a well-developed theoretical basis, than in my home-made plan, but every sentence in the Beck Diet rings with honesty, integrity, thoughtfulness, compassion and hope.
To be more specific, the book does not contain a "diet" and you are told to find a suitable nutritious food plan to follow, along with an exercise plan of your own. The strategies presented in the book do indeed 'talk' you through cognitive retraining techniques which change your thoughts about food and eating and hunger: identifying positive outcomes; ways to make a choice NOT to indulge; how to effectively deal with set-backs and limit the damage done; how to say no to friends /family who show love by sharing good food (I'm Italian; I know a LOT of them!)
Interestingly, in the first 2 weeks you don't diet at all - this is time spent planning and strategizing to re-train your thoughts. This involves completing motivational cards where you write statements to counteract any sabotaging thoughts that will come up. I found the process to be so similar to the strategies I used when I was successful in meeting the inevitable temptation, so I know that it works "in action."
On the 15th day you start your eating plan, and each day you have a checklist for reviewing the motivational materials (Advantage Cards, for example, list what YOU want to accomplish in losing weight.) Some of the basic concepts are to pre-plan for dangerous situations, acknowledge your accomplishments even if not perfect, and realize that resisting hunger and cravings is possible when you commit to using the skills Dr. Beck presents.
I have read many, many books both on weight loss and psychology, and this book is "the one" for me, and I hope for you. You have to be willing to think ahead about eating, hunger and cravings. You have to commit to following the techniques daily. If you do, this WILL WORK!!!!
I am going to be bold enough to add one additional technique that worked very well for me, and that is to "Redefine Your Treats." I admitted to a friend one day that I am basically 'treat-driven.' That is, I feel deprived and inferior in some way if I can't have a dessert, or eat a hearty portion of food. So I redefined treats - to me now it is buying bottled water; drinking Harry and David Tiramisu Coffee (no calories!!); playing Sudoku on the computer for 20 minutes. I feel like I'm indulging but it has nothing to do with actual food. So if you are "treat-driven" like me, try defining and then indulging in your own rewards.
Reading this book made me feel positive; it made me feel like I can make it happen to lose the remaining pounds; it made me admire and respect Dr. Beck for producing a non-judgmental, encouraging, 'mindful' book that is written in an engaging style. I recommend it with 90 stars and more to come.

104 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE Diet Book for me!, May 15, 2007

By	B. BESER (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Six to eight years ago, I stopped spending money on diet related products. Because nothing has worked for me. Maybe initially they seemed they were working, but it was just temporarily. I saw one diet book, while I was just browsing around on amazon, "you on a diet", I thought I might wanna try that, thinking like "who knows maybe this is the thing for me", so I bought it. Even though I spent lots of money on diet products, as a book, "you on a diet" was the first book for me on dieting. And, in couple of months I purchased some other diet books, hoping one would include the missing ingredient on those.
This book,Beck Diet Solution was just released, and was at the best sellers list. I read the description. It sounded very promising, but since, at that moment I already had couple of diet books which none of them really fit in to my problem, I was skeptical. For two weeks, everyday I read the reviews, trying to see if some of the reviews was gonna convince me. I finally got it, I am so glad I did. Because that was the kind of help I was looking for.It is tryin to solve my physchological problems about eating and it is triying to re-program my brain about food.
I knew myself, I can never count calories, I can never follow a menu plan written by some other people, I can never count my steps, I can never count carbohydrates, etc...etc... My diet should be without all these stuff. So that's why this is the book for me.
She, the author asks you to make your eating plan, or if you want you can use any diet that already is out there. For me, I created my own eating plan.
Then, she just teaches you some skills which is the missing skills in people who struggle with weight and skills which all the thin people has. And these skills/behaviors are not difficult to adopt. All you need to do is just practice, practice and practice... until they are your habits. Everyday, for fourty two days, you keep learning one skill at a time, until you complete all of them in that given order. You may take your time if you need, as she suggests. For example I am in my 13th day, but it has been already 23 days since I had started. Some examples of the skills are, first day you write down the reasons you wanna get thin; third day, you learn and practice sitting down whenever you eat; fifth day, you start to practice to eat slowly, and so on. At the end of the program, you have all the equipment to think like a thin person, and to be a thin person. So far I have lost 6 pounds, and I feel like I will be able to follow my plan for a long time. She gives you that confidence. She sounds very sincere about the advice she gives. And she just takes you step by step through the journey and to the very end of the journey. With other diet books, I felt like I am just left somewhere with the tons of information I did not know what to do with, or maybe they just dictate you what to do, or sometimes have fun with your eating habits, and you feel insulted and hopeless. But in this book, BDS, I felt some love and caring about the people, she sounds like she truly wants you to lose weight.
By the way, I never write a review even though I enjoy reading them. That's how happy I am, it made me write one:) I hope this review is helpful for the people who cannot decide whether to buy it or not.

64 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Guide for Motivated Dieters who want to make lasting changes, April 15, 2007

By	Scott VonDuhn "svonduhn" (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am a medical student and have a bachelor's degree in psychology. It is widely known in both medicine and psychology that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the most successful type of therapy intervention, which is why I decided to give this book a try to help myself with dieting.

Much has been made about the reasons people eat. I've heard obese people on TV say, "Food was my best friend," or "I ate to fill a void." This book does not focus on the emotionally-based underlying reasons for eating that may plague a minority of overweight people, but rather the more mundane reasons that most overweight people have for overeating - boredom, fear of hunger, cravings, etc.

The book provides very useful ways of countering overeating do to various causes. Dr. Beck asks the reader to change both sabotaging thoughts (the cognitive portion) and sabotaging behaviors, such as eating quickly and eating standing up (the behavioral portion).

The book provides a day to day guide with predetermined goals and homework assignments. You must be motivated and very willing to submit to following someone else's advice. In addition, as the other reviewers have pointed out, the book does not give you specific advice for what to eat or to avoid. You must pick a separate diet to follow.

I am about half way through the book and I feel that it has definitely helped me to control my overeating. I tend to eat out of boredom in the evening. I lacked the willpower to deny myself the snacks that I knew I didn't need. Now, I look at my advantage card (which is a list of reasons I want to lose weight) whenever I feel like snacking in the evening. The book also made me realize that I ate something right before I went to bed because I was afraid that I might be hungry later. I used this "fear of hunger" as an excuse for eating when I wasn't actually hungry. As the author points out, food is almost always around, so it hardly ever makes sense to eat just to avoid getting hungry. The author really does a great job of examining the reasons why most people overeat and gives solutions for how to overcome those sabotaging thoughts by countering them with more rational, helpful thoughts.

I had been trying unsuccessfully to diet prior to starting this book. Now, since I got it 7 days ago, I have lost 2 pounds. I am recommending this book to my family and friends, and in the future I will recommend it to my patients.