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 - If you are psychologically attuned, this book will work for youI'm a neuroscience researcher and a therapist, and I must say that this is the first diet book (of many) that worked for me, and it is the only one I recommend to others. The formula is simple: you must make a 100% commitment to changing your relationship with food. Once that is choice is made, the rest is easy-except for all of the old voices in your head that will tell you to eat the way your old self used to eat. What do you do? You go to war against those voices, devising personal strategies that keep you focused on what you truly want, which for me was to lose the dangerous belly fat that would eventually threaten my health. I won the war; I'm keeping the weight off, and I bow deeply to Dr. Beck for bringing the power of cognitive-behavioral therapy to the world of conscious eating and dieting. And yes, I had to surrender my craving for sweets. Now my wife, dog, and scale are my best friends (and a 40 calorie fudge bar for dessert). Rating:  - This isn't what cognitive behavioral training is for. I have very mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it clearly has helped some people to succeed at dieting and to lose weight, although there has never been a study on well this works in the long run. (One year is not "the long run"!) On the other hand, I think it promotes some incorrect ideas about what cognitive behavioral therapy is actually for, and what it can accomplish. In my (informed) opinion, CBT in its original form, as first pioneered by Dr. Aaron Beck, really only works for things like minor depression and adjustment disorders. (Yes, Dr. Beck wrote the foreword, too.) I lead PHP (partial hospitalization groups) for a very large mental health provider. These are designed for people with very serious mental health issues-- bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder. We use CBT techniques a lot, and it's true that CBT has been proven to show results for people with these serious mental illnesses. The problem, though, is that the way it works in this context is just not the same as the way it works for people who are, say, depressed because they have specific problems in their lives. This is a really important point, because I think it explains why this diet technique isn't any more likely to work for most people than any other technique is. Nobody with minor, low-level depression has a biological need to think negative thoughts or make negative evaluations of situations. So a therapy like CBT, which is designed to correct these types of thoughts because they tend to lead to negative feelings, will work very well. But there is NO psychotherapy-- whether it's CBT or anything else-- that will work to control the symptoms of severe and persistent mental illnesses all by itself. The reason is that these symptoms ARE biologically based. It would be considered malpractice for any doctor to use only CBT for these mental illnesses. It can help, but there is just too much of a biological reason why the symptoms are there. Similarly, people DO have a biological need to eat (quite apart from the whole world of psychosocial reasons why people eat how and as they do.) You just can't use CBT to control a biological urge. It doesn't work. If it did, then we wouldn't need drugs like lithium, Lamictal, and Seroquel. But trust me, we do! Some people with mental illnesses really are able to control them with therapies like CBT for a limited amount of time. A good example is a bipolar woman who becomes pregnant and can't take her normal medications. CBT can work in the short term to control her symptoms. (I have to be honest, though-- I've never actually seen this work very well at all.) But in the long run, it just doesn't happen. I have to say it-- I just plain don't believe that this diet works in the long run any more than any other diet does, except for a very small number of people. And I'm afraid that it provides the same setup for failure and self-hatred as all the other diets do. That's my .02 cents, and I'm sticking to it! Rating: - One of the best decisions I ever madeI'm so glad I got this book. I am actually a therapist, and very familiar with CBT, and the idea of applying it to weight loss makes profound sense. I heard Dr. Beck on NPR, and I was not in the mood to listen to what she had to say, but then it made so much sense, I started to take notes! And even though I didn't feel like making an effort to follow a diet, I got the book anyway. And I liked how it went one day at a time, and very slowly. I recommend this book because it's just plain reasonable, useful, and it works. So far I've lost 27 pounds, since the first point in the book where I had to weigh in, so at this point, I've probably actually lost at least 30 pounds. I'm doing this with a friend and she's lost 15 pounds. Before I read this book, I believed I was overweight because I was the wrong kind of person to be thin: too in love with food and addicted to it and I'm too fun and too spontaneous for a diet, etc., etc., but it was encouraging to find out that I can learn how to think like a thin person. Now I know how to "strengthen my resistance muscle and weaken my giving-in muscle" and it's paying off! I look forward to moving along five pounds at a time until I reach my ideal weight. I'm really proud of what I've been able to achieve by following this. I'm using many concepts from this book in my own therapeutic practice for cognitive and behavioral skill-building, also, and finding it helpful in that way, too. Rating: - Mind Over Matterby Rosally Saltsman Ever wonder why no matter what you do, you can't lose weight? Dr. Beck has the answer - it's because you're not thinking like a thin person. According to Dr. Beck, the problem isn't the diet you're on. In fact she says her program works with any diet. What's different about her program is that it focuses on cognitive nutrition, about thinking about food and eating in a new way. For example, a thin person eats till they're full or slightly full and stops. An overweight person keeps on eating even if they're not hungry. Why? Because they perceive food differently. In a six week program comprising 42 succinct lesson plans, Dr. Beck gives people the tools they need to change their relationship with food so that they can follow a diet, lose weight and keep it off. Using cognitive therapy, she teaches how changing your thoughts changes your behavior. It's simple, it's straightforward and it's easy to implement. Well, not terribly difficult anyway. Dr. Beck provides techniques, choices and troubleshooting tips to help insure a successful result and continued maintenance once you achieve your goal weight. She also discusses how to set realistic goals. The Beck Diet Solution isn't about food, it's about food for thought. We mistakenly believe that dieting is about eating less and how long we can stand it. But Dr. Beck provides techniques for life that will keep us - if not reed thin - at least in control of the food we consume and not the other way around. This is a diet plan that works because it's all in the mind. Well, you might have to eat some rice cakes. An added bonus is that the theory can conceivably work on any bad habit. Though the tools are geared toward weight loss, they can be applied to help quit smoking, overspending or any bad habit because the program works on changing your behavior by changing your mindset. If you follow the recipe for weight loss in this book and apply the cerebral strategies outlined therein, it is likely you will lose the weight you've been unsuccessfully trying to lose, especially if you haven't been thinking along the right lines. I highly recommend it and that's not to be taken lightly. [...] [...] [...] Rating: - You won't believe it until you are able to do it!I have been using the skills taught in the Beck Diet Solution for about three months and have lost over 20 pounds. This solution is no quick fix, but helps a person lose slowly over time, which is the way to change lifestyle behaviors. The most effective lesson taught in the book for me personally was making an Advantage card listing all the reasons why I want to lose weight. When I am tempted to eat something I know is not on my own unique eating plan and is unhealthy, I dig out my card and review the 30 reasons I came up with for why I would rather be thin than eat that Twinkie or that piece of pie. Self talk really works to overcome temptation. Also Judy Beck suggests phrases to repeat, repeat, repeat when that little voice inside tells you it is okay to "just this once" have a little bite of something (which leads to disaster!) The book isn't a diet in the sense that it tells you what to eat. Most people know what foods will be convenient to prepare and what they like to eat and even what is healthy. Beck lets us be adults and do it our way, in moderation of course. She also recommends counting calories, because every bite does count. There are many internet sites that will count the calories for you if you just enter what you have eaten that day, every day. Also get a good digital scale and weigh every day. Even if you have only lost one-tenth of a pound the previous day, at least you know you are making progress. I also record my weight on a chart like she suggests, which is hugely motivating. Don't expect to drop 10 pounds in a week. That would not be healthy. Hang in there and re-read the book when tempted to weaken. Honestly I can't believe I have been able to do this without getting hungry and giving up. This book has been a miracle for me. I am 60 years old and decided it was time to do something besides take pills for high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the obesity diseases. I still have 20 pounds to go and have every confidence that I will make it this time. Highly recommend this book to anyone who has tried and failed over and over. Try it, what have you got to lose besides weight?
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