The Beck DIET

Solution Newsletter
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2 NOVEMBER 2009

A Letter from Dr. Judith Beck

Online Support Communities
Friends,
It's so gratifying to see that a number of online support communities have sprung up, quite
independently from me, in which members post (usually daily) about their experience using
one of the diet books I wrote. The participants, mostly women, are so supportive of one another. I have
a recommendation about how to use online support communities more effectively. Dieters should start
out their postings by recording their change in weight (up half a pound, down a pound, etc.), the skills
they practiced that day (or the day before, if they're not posting at night), and the skills they should have,
but did not put into practice. One of the most important keys to success in using The Beck Diet Solution is
accountability. If you know you have to post what you've done on a website, you're much more likely to
be able to answer back your sabotaging thoughts. For example, you might have the thought, "Oh, it
won't hurt if I eat this apple standing up." If you know you have to report on your eating behavior,
you're likely to tell yourself, "No, I'm not supposed to and I want to be able to post to the group that I
ate everything sitting down." Or you might be at a party and be tempted to eat a larger slice of cake than
you had planned. Again, it's so helpful to be able to say to yourself, "No, I don't want to have to post a
message that says I didn't follow my plan." Following your "accountability" statements, it's great to ask for
support and offer support to others, especially in terms of being able to stick to your diet. Right now, I
think the support about family, work, health, and other problems is lovely but it dilutes the potential
power of the community by putting a major emphasis on dieters' non-dieting problems and their
emotional reactions to these problems instead of what they need to do to reach their goal!

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 Our Diet workshop in September was a Success !
Our diet workshop in Philadelphia on Sunday, September 13th, was a success! We had over 120 dieters
and health and mental health professionals, from 20 US states and 3 countries. We’re excited to an-
nounce that Julie Soller, from UCLA, filmed the workshop, and will use part of it for a documentary on
The Beck Diet Solution. Soller also interviewed a number of people who have been using the book to
lose weight (some have lost 60 pounds or more!), are successfully maintaining their weight loss, and pre-
dict that they’ll never regain what they’ve lost.

The most enjoyable part of the workshop for me, besides getting to meet so many people, was doing
role plays with dieters. We roleplayed, for example, how to motivate yourself everyday, overcome feel-
ings of deprivation, get yourself to make dieting a priority, and be nicely assertive with people who
sabotage your efforts. There was an excited energy in the room all day and we’ve received such positive
feedback.

The Magic Bullet

Stacy was upfront with her ambivalence about starting to work with me. When I asked her what went
through her mind when she thought about dieting, she told me she would feel deprived, as she had so
many times in the past. In the transcript below, I ask for a specific example, collect more information
about the problem, and offer Stacy a choice:

Dr. Beck: Can you give me an example of something you think you’ll have to deprive yourself of?

Stacy: [thinks] Like I really love having orange juice and a sweet roll every morning, but I know I really
shouldn’t.

Dr. Beck: Why shouldn’t you?

Stacy: Because I know it makes me start craving and I get really hungry by about 10 o’clock.

Dr. Beck: You could experiment with having a protein snack then—maybe that would fill you up until
lunch.

Stacy: Yes, I’ve tried that. It works pretty well, except then I have to eat less later on because I’ve al-
ready had so many calories before lunch.

Dr. Beck: So you’d like to be able to have orange juice and a sweet roll and not be hungry or have crav-
ings mid-morning AND be able to eat more later on. Is that right?

Stacy: Yeah, but I know I can’t lose weight if I do that.

Dr. Beck: I know, it’s hard. It’s hard to accept the idea that you [repeating advantages Stacy had listed
earlier in the session] can’t have better health and feel more attractive and have more energy and feel
better about yourself and have fewer aches and pains and be able to walk up stairs and hills easily, and
be able to run around with your children AND eat as much as you want.

Stacy: I just keep thinking that there must be some way. Maybe I should try that new over-the-counter
medication.
Continued on page 3
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 The Magic Bullet—
Bullet— continued from previous page
Dr. Beck: You could. Research shows that most people lose about 10% of their weight at best, so it’s rea-
sonable to expect that you’d lose between a couple of pounds and 25 pounds.

Stacy: But 25 pounds—that’s not so much.

Dr. Beck: True, and the medication does have some really uncomfortable side effects and as far as I can
tell, you may have to take it for a very long time if you want to keep off whatever weight you lose.

Stacy: (sighs) That doesn’t sound so good.

Dr. Beck: It sounds like you’re looking for a magic bullet—that thing that will allow you to eat whatever
you want and lose as much weight as you want. [pause] Do you think that’s right?

Stacy: Yeah. I just keep thinking—if I just find the right diet or the right pill.....

Dr. Beck: How long have you been trying to find this magic bullet?

Stacy: Oh, forever. Probably since I was 20.

Dr. Beck: And you haven’t found it yet?

Stacy: No.

Dr. Beck: Why do you think you haven’t found it?

Stacy: I don’t know. Maybe there isn’t such a thing.

Dr. Beck: If there were a magic bullet, don’t you think the person who invented it would be a billionaire!
And then you wouldn’t ever see any other diet books or diet pills or weight loss surgeries—there would
be no need!....Do you think I’m right?

Stacy: (sighs) I guess so.

Dr. Beck: So how many more years would you like to spend searching for the magic bullet?

Stacy: I guess I still have this hope....

Dr. Beck: What a shame, though, if this hope didn’t come true. And for the rest of your life, you contin-
ued to gain weight, your energy just got worse, you never felt attractive, you didn’t really feel good
about yourself, you weren’t able to climb a flight of stairs easily, you couldn’t run around with your chil-
dren. . . How would you feel about missing out on all these things?

Stacy: [sighs] Bad. Yeah, pretty bad....You know, every January, I start out really hopeful. “This will be
the year that I finally do it.” That I finally lose weight.

Continued on page 4

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 The Magic Bullet—
Bullet— continued from page 3
Dr. Beck: And then what happens?

Stacy: I lose about ten pounds in a month, but by spring, I’ve gained it all back.

Dr. Beck: You know, a lot of people don’t want to give up their orange juice and sweet roll, or whatever
they like, because they think, “What’s the use of trying? I’ve given them up before and then always
gained weight back so it just wasn’t worth it.”....Are you feeling that way at all?

Stacy: Yeah. I mean it feels like it would take so much effort.

Dr. Beck: It will take effort. I don’t want to fool you. But once you master the right skills, dieting does get
easier and easier. And we’ve also found that it’s important to start changing gradually. Learn one skill at a
time. Don’t even change your eating very much until you get really good at these skills. And I think that
by the time you do change what you’re eating, it won’t be so hard. Plus, you can just change just one
meal at a time, if you want.

Stacy: Hmmmn.

Dr. Beck: And we’ll do lots of problem-solving and experiments. For example, maybe you’ll have a sweet
roll, or part of one, every night, instead of in the morning. You’ll have it, then brush your teeth, and get
in bed. That way, you may very well fall asleep and not feel any cravings....I think it’s important for you
to know that you DON’T have to give up any food forever. In fact, I don’t want you to. You may have
to eat smaller portions, but no food should really be off limits.

Stacy: I guess that sounds a little better.

Dr. Beck: In any case, this week, do you want to read this list of advantages you made up and keep eat-
ing just as you have been? Or would you rather wait for the magic bullet and not come back?

Stacy: No, I want to come back.

Dr. Beck: Okay, and in the meantime, if someone does invent the magic bullet, then you should quit
coming here. A magic bullet would be great! I’d love to be able to eat whatever I wanted. So if you
come across any legitimate research that shows there really is such a thing, let me know!

Stacy: Okay.

Dr. Beck: You know, I gave up the notion of a magic bullet a long time ago. I figured it wasn’t worth
waiting for, even if someone did invent it some time. I didn’t want to wait to be thinner. And honestly,
I’ve been glad every single day that I didn’t wait.

Stacy: [sighs] It makes sense.

Dr. Beck: Okay, now if you have any more ideas about a magic bullet, make sure and let me know next
week, so we can talk about them.

Do you find you're lacking in self-

self-confidence? A new book by my colleagues,
Leslie Sokol, Ph.D., and Marci G. Fox, Ph.D. can help!
Think Confident, Be Confident
Visit: www.thinkconfidentbeconfident.com
4
 A Question and Answer
A physician from Brazil who treats patients with sleep apnea wrote to me recently with a request for
more information about exercise and The Beck Diet Solution. He was concerned with the acceptance of
my program within the sleep apnea population and revealed that many of his patients give up when they
reach the exercise part. He also expressed concern for acceptance of the program within academic circles
that demand a scientific basis for the therapeutic recommendation of exercise for weight loss.

Question:
Question Do you have unbiased evidence of the effect of exercise on weight loss?

Answer:
Answer While I do not know the literature on exercise very well, my sense is that most people signifi-
cantly overestimate the number of calories burned during exercise, and therefore, give themselves permis-
sion to overeat. In my latest book, The Complete Beck Diet for Life, I have a small section on exercise,
encouraging non-exercisers to take a 5 minute walk every day—not to lose weight! But for good health. I
think most people should separate diet and exercise. They should eat a healthy diet so they can be
healthy, and separately, they should exercise, so they can be healthy. Unless they exercise strenuously, I
don’t think people should eat more on a day they exercise and less on a day that they don’t (they’ll feel
deprived when they can’t have extra food). I would rather people eat about the same amount daily,
whether or not they’ve exercised.
Though I haven’t worked with sleep apnea patients, I hope that they would be able to take a 5 minute
walk daily, and gradually add minutes—again, not to lose weight, but to be healthy.

Letters From You . . .

Tzafra’s Weight Loss Story
My name is Tzafra and I just wanted to let you know how much your book changed my life! I have been
heavy for most of my life and after struggling to lose weight I just gave up on myself. Before I realized it I
was 24 years old and 250 pounds. One day I decided that was it, I had to lose this weight. I purchased the
Beck Diet Solution a couple of years ago but I never read it. Once I decided I was truly going to lose the
weight I started the program. As I began completing the daily tasks I realized how easy it was to lose weight.
Never in my life had it been that easy; I always struggled to lose even one pound.

Today I am 25 years old and 170 pounds; I run 5K's and I'm currently training for a 10K. In addition to
finding my love for running I have begun helping others at my work to lose weight. I instruct a fitness class 4
days a weeks as well as help them with nutrition information. I use the tools and skills that the Beck Diet
Solution gave me. I cannot thank Dr. Beck enough for the new life she helped me achieve!

Do you have an inspiring Beck Diet Solution weight loss story

you would like to share with us and have featured?

We would love to hear from you!

Email us with your story (dietprogram@beckinstitute.org)—

Feel free to add any thoughts about which one or two techniques
helped you the most, or what change in your thinking helped you
the most. And of course," before and after” pictures (or just “after”
pictures!) are always welcome!