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Today we are honored to consultation Dr. Judith Beck on how cognitive proficiencies may be used to give rise to a number of essential mental skills. The latest application of these?. Losing weight. Dr. Judith Beck is the Director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Cognitive Therapy: Basics and Beyond. Her most recent book is The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person. Alvaro Fernandez (AF): Dr. Beck, thanks for your time. What does the Beck Institute do? Judith Beck (JB): We have 3 main activities. One, we train practitioners and researchers through a potpourri of training programs. Two, we provide clinical care. Three, we are involved in exploration on cognitive therapy. AF: Please explain cognitive therapy in a few sentences JB: Cognitive therapy, as formulated by my father Aaron Beck, is a comprehensive scheme of psychotherapy, based on the idea that the way persons grasp their experience influences their emotional, behavioral, and physiological responses. Part of what we do is to support persons solve the troubles they are facing today. We likewise instruct them cognitive and behavioral achievements to change their dysfunctional thinking and actions. AF: I understand that cognitive therapy has been tested for a heap of years in a potpourri of clinical applications. What motivated you to fetch those proficiencies to the weight-loss field by writing The Beck Diet Solution? JB: Since the beginning, I have principally treated psychiatric outpatients with a assortment of diagnoses, specially depression and anxiety. Some people who are in need of medical care indicated weight loss as a secondary goal in treatment. I found that some of the same cognitive and behavioral proficiencies that helped them win a victory over their other difficulties could likewise aid them to lose weight-and to keep it off. I became exceptionally fascinated in the problem of overweight and was competent to discern specific mindsets or cognitions when it comes to food, eating, hunger, craving, perfectionism, helplessness, self-image, unfairness, deprivation, and others, that necessitated to be purposed to support them reach their goal. AF: What exploration results back your finding that those proficiencies help? JB: Probably the best published study so far is the randomized controlled study by Karolinska Institute’s Stahre and Halstrom. The results were striking: closely all 65 persons who requires medical care finished the program and this short-term intervention (10-week, 30-hours) showed significant long-term weight reduction, even larger (when equated to the 40 people in the control group) after 18 months than right after the 10-weeks program. AF: That sounds impressive. Can you explain what makes this approach so effective? JB: A distinguishable feature is that the book doesn’t offer a diet but does provide tools to create the mindset that is required for sustainable success, for modifying sabotaging thoughts and behavings that specifically follow people’s original good intentions. I support dieters acquire new skills. We have sold over 70,000 books so far, and are planning to release a associate workbook this month to further support readers apply the 6-week program and track progress. AF: So, in a sense, we could say that your book is complementary to all other diet books. JB: Exactly-it will aid readers at setting and reaching their long-term goals, assuming that the diet is healthy, nutritious, and well-balanced. The main message of cognitive therapy overall, and it is application in the diet world, is straight-forward: difficulties losing weight are not one’s fault. Problems plainly reflect lack of skills–skills that may be acquired and mastered through practice. Dieters who read the book or workbook learn a new cognitive or behavioral skill each day for six weeks. They exercise a heap of achievements just once; they mechanically comprise others for their lifetime. AF: What are the cognitive and aroused accomplishments and habits that dieters need to train, and where your book helps? JB: Great question. That is precisely my goal: to show how everyone may learn a great deal of critical skills. The key ones are: 1) How to motivate oneself. The original task that dieters do is to write a list of the 15 of 20 reasons why they want to lose weight and read that list each single day. 2) Plan in advance and self-monitor behavior. A typical reason for diet failure is a strong preference for spontaneity. I ask persons to prepare a plan and then I instruct them the accomplishments to stick to it. 3) Overcome sabotaging thoughts. Dieters have hundreds and hundreds of thoughts that lead them to engage in unhelpful eating behavior. NOTE: the consultation proceeds now in the article The Beck Diet: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person (Part 2). |
Most helpful customer reviews
340 of 363 people found the following review helpful.
Making it Happen
By minniecatt
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.
132 of 144 people found the following review helpful.THE Diet Book for me!
By B. BESER
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.
40 of 40 people found the following review helpful.Inside the Mind of the Thin
By Western Gal
This book uses cognitive psychology to help you lose weight. Cognitive psychology is based on the concept that the way you think affects how you feel and what you do. Cognitive therapy, then, helps you identify your self-defeating thinking and helps you respond to it so you can feel better and behave in helpful ways. Instead of leading you step-by-step through a diet plan, this book addresses the psychology behind why you can’t get yourself to follow one and lose weight. In this book, you pick the diet (and an alternative as a back up), and the book helps you follow it.
The set-up of the book is a six-week plan. Week 1 is laying the groundwork, where you pick 2 diets. Week 2 is getting prepared to diet, Week 3 is starting the diet, Week 4 looks into responding to sabotaging thoughts, Week 5 is about overcoming challenges, such as staying in control when you go out to eat, and Week 6 is fine tuning things.
All-in-all, I’d have to say that its a great resource to address the psycholgical side of eating. There’s no magic to it, just a little looking inside yourself and addressing any barriers you have that may be holding you back. Readers may also benefit from Exercise Beats Depression as well.
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