The Thin Commandments Diet: The 10 No-fail Strategies For Permanent Weight Loss

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Dieting is about losing weight--food strategy is about ending the problem.

The First Thin Commandment:

Strategy Is Stronger Than Willpower

COMMANDMENT ESSENTIALS

. Use strategy to stay in control.

. Stop self-defeating food talk.

. Weigh yourself on the New Scale for Dieting.

. Keep a food diary.

. Listen to a power tape.

THE SINGLE GREATEST SURPRISE of my professional life has been the discovery that success at weight control is not about willpower. Indeed, those who succeed at weight control do not have greater willpower than those who fail- -they just have better strategies. This is the most powerful lesson I have learned in 25 years from almost 15,000 clients.

Like you--and many of my colleagues--I once had quite a few preconceptions about people with weight problems: They lack willpower to control their eating; they have psychological or emotional issues that keep them from permanently losing weight; and they lack the food smarts to follow a healthy diet.

When I actually began to work with these individuals, I discovered that almost all of my preconceptions were wrong. They were successful in their professional lives, enjoyed many interests, and had meaningful personal relationships. They were creative people with vision, who cared passionately about their goals and were dedicated to excellence. They epitomized the American ideal of determination and success.

Far from lacking nutritional knowledge, many of my clients already knew what to eat and what not to eat. They'd read diet book after diet book, were aware of calories, carbohydrates, and fats, and knew how to read labels. Many had lost hundreds of £ds over the years. But despite all their knowledge and weight loss, they had never been able to keep the £ds off permanently.

I struggled to reconcile my clients' success in every other area of their lives with their failure at weight control. How could these people--many of whom had overcome tremendous obstacles to achieve greatness--still lose control with chocolates or a breadbasket? They knew what they had to do to lose weight, but they were living in misery because they couldn't do it. Such repeated failure takes a terrible toll, even on the most successful individual.

WHY WE FAIL

By looking back across the years at my clients' dieting, weight loss, and gain, I've seen that there are distinct and predictable patterns of behavior and food choices that have led these men and women to failure. I have conclusively discovered that the particular diet an individual follows is secondary to success at weight control, which is why people can so easily switch diets from year to year. The most important factor for winning is having strategies--not the particular diet you follow.

In a recent article "The Diet That Works" in the Wall Street Journal, Tara Parker Pope captured the truth that resonates for a large number of individuals who struggle with weight control. "If sticking to a diet were easy, so many of us wouldn't be so fat."

The men and women who have avoided a weight problem--or conquered one on their own--instinctively use strategy to stay in control. It's the common thread that unites everyone who has ever won at weight control, including myself. Food strategy has saved me again and again in my own life.

Obviously, no one who has lost weight intends to gain it back. After every diet, every one of my clients was completely committed to maintaining his or her weight loss. But the commitment was overcome by a combination of powerful forces: biology, our value system, and advertising.

Recent research shows that our ancestors passed on powerful biological programming that may predispose us to crave and seek out certain foods, as many of us who are sensitive to sweet, salty, and bitter tastes know well. These differences in sensitivity, not willpower, may explain why some people are able to maintain control around certain foods--such as chocolate chip cookies--while others find that these foods actually trigger increased appetite and losses of control.

And unlike many of our ancestors, who had to struggle to find food, we are literally surrounded by it. Yet we still carry the ancestral mindset of "waste not, want not" in our modern society where food is overly abundant and always present. Just consider all of the food stores, fast-food chains, airport and shopping mall food courts--many of them open 24 hours a day! Overconsumption is the name of the game, and "all-you-can-eat" has become a national mantra. We have been steadily programmed to believe that it is our birthright to eat whatever we want, whenever we want. We're also bombarded by slick commercials that reinforce the belief that foods are the goodies and treats that make life worthwhile and wash away stress--and that any limitation of them is a horrible deprivation. Even the language of love is expressed in terms of food--honey, cookie, peaches, sweetie. And when you fall out of love, that person becomes a crumb!

Saddled with this powerful psychological and biological programming, surrounded by messages that food is the answer to every problem and the reward for every success, it's no wonder so many people fall back into the habits that lead to weight gain. And it's totally clear why so many feel instantly deprived when they think about weight control.

STRATEGY: THE KEY PRINCIPLES

Food situations are a part of every life. They come up again and again, and there's an amazing amount of predictability to what you can expect to encounter. Most of us rely on a very small assortment of foods--the same vegetables, the same meats, the same snack foods that satisfy an eat-and- run diet. Despite the fact that we can buy practically any food at any time, no matter how exotic or out of season, few of us venture beyond the limits of our favorite foods. And most eating occurs in only about seven situations: at home, in the workplace, in restaurants, in others' homes, when traveling, on vacation, and at celebratory events, such as holiday dinners, weddings, and parties. The realm of food is not a big world, but a small village.

The same scenarios come up over and over again. You face the same foods, the same temptations. However overwhelmed you may feel in the land of abundance, there is another more powerful truth at work as well: You have seen it all and tasted it all before. It may come in different shapes, varieties, and new presentations, but there's very little that's new in the world of food that you will face today. I will teach you strategies to deal with each situation. And I'll show you ways to develop your skills so that your responses become automatic. Rather than a constant tug-of-war that drains your willpower and resolve, you will have a set of tools to rely on, no matter where you go or what foods you may meet along the way.

Although food strategies vary depending on the person, the techniques share common themes. This chapter and those that follow will teach you a new way of dealing with your weight that involves key principles that have enabled so many of my clients to turn a lifetime of failure with weight into a lifetime of success.

. Food history. In a world of thousands of types of food, my careful research has revealed that only a handful are at the root of most weight problems. Food history shows that weight control is not a mountain to climb, just a few patterns to master.

. Food desensitizing. Techniques to defuse the power of cravings so that you can be around food that would normally tempt you without feeling deprived.

. Breaking through food "baby talk." Methods to transform self-defeating food talk learned in childhood--that can rule and ruin adulthood--into a new script, with phrases, thoughts, and values that work in the real world and prove that anyone can overcome feelings of deprivation.

. The New Scale for Dieting. A unique and effective tool for measuring the shifts and changes in your attitudes, skills, and motivation that can result in increased £ds, to be used as an early warning system before you step on a real scale. The New Scale for Dieting predicts in advance if you'll be gaining weight and makes it possible to prevent the seven most critical mistakes that lead to weight gain. This has never before been done in a weight program.

. Containment. The powerful technique that turns slips into success and teaches you how to cut off an error and never again feel the guilt of "I blew it."

. Keeping the pleasure of food. Enjoying favorite foods and not feeling deprived is critical for your success. Through recipes and food preparation techniques in my diet plan, you'll discover how to preserve the joy of eating without excess calories, and you will learn the best of the best of the new light foods, which my clients and I have tasted for you. Of the thousands of products we've sampled, only a handful have merited our Taste Is King award. And the gourmet recipes will prove that success at weight control is not about giving up the pleasure of fine dining. Indeed, not to enjoy the foods on a weight plan guarantees failure!

Whenever I teach new clients the techniques for weight control, I know that I am training them for "diet fitness." For, just as you can become physically fit and train for a sport, every overweight person has the ability to become psychologically fit and train for long-term weight control. These strategies, along with many others that I will teach you, make it possible not only to dramatically increase your likelihood for success on a diet but also to maintain that success for years.

Some of these strategies may seem unusual or contradict what you have been led to believe about dieting and weight control. But successful weight control is not about doing what's "normal"--it's about doing what works for you. You should not be concerned about the norm--that's the preoccupation of the insecure--but about what brings you the success you deserve. As Chairman Deng responded when criticized by the Communist hardliners for introducing capitalist initiatives into China, "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white; it only matters if it can catch mice."

DIETS ARE JUST WORDS ON A PAGE

Most of the diet books out there today focus on only half the equation: the right foods. But that leaves out the most critical element for success-- you! Diets are just words on a page, a list on paper of what to eat. They don't help you plan what to think or say, and they don't tell you how to behave. They ignore the right behaviors, the critical issues of how to stay motivated and how to bounce back from a lapse, and how to avoid cravings and feelings of deprivation, and they don't change your thinking about food.

Strategy deals with how to make weight control easy. The right techniques actually encourage you to want to continue. They lead you to a way of eating that makes you feel happier and brings about permanent results by changing your mindset. At the core of the lessons I teach is changing the food programming that you've been taught since childhood.

The Lure of Food "Baby Talk"

When faced with cravings and feelings of deprivation, most dieters slide straight back into childhood--and that language that goes with it. "But it's my favorite." "It's not fair that I can't have it." "But I've been so good." "It's my comfort." "It's my treat." "I'll reward myself." This food "baby talk" is at the heart of many people's weight problems, drowning out their common sense and even their desire for health and sometimes life itself.

For many of my clients, this is the only area in their lives still run by the childhood patterns of thinking and conditioning. Indeed, for so many of us, it is the single area of living where childhood thinking has never been updated. Where food is concerned, even the most mature adults often act like children--like children who want their way no matter what, blocking out the negative consequences of their eating. They focus instead on a few minutes' worth of taste that fills the mouth and lingers for a short while, while completely denying the obvious and discomforting cost.

For these foods are not free--you have to wear them for years to come. You can't eat it all and still be thin. This is a fact. But you can be a selective gourmet and never have to give up the pleasure of fine dining.

Food is everywhere, and because it so often looks and tastes great, it's easy for us to continue to live in this childish mindset, telling ourselves "these are my goodies and treats." And we often listen to the message-- until it creates disaster. The challenge is that the food is immediate, but the cost is often paid on the "layaway" plan. And like most layaway plans, the interest is high. Perhaps you have only to look in the mirror?

Only children live their lives believing they can have it all without any cost. Now it's time for you to bring this part of your life into the adult world. All of life contains adjustments and tradeoffs. In accepting this, you not only establish a framework for lasting solutions to your weight problem, but you become a more resilient and mature human being. It's time to stop resenting what you do to keep your body healthy and attractive. Everything you value in your life--your relationships, your children, and your career--has taken work, focus, and endurance. Why should it be any different when it comes to managing your weight? Strategy, however, minimizes the cost and maximizes the reward.

The winners have come to this realization, and they no longer feel deprived, but liberated. In a recent survey of my clients, 86 percent said they felt no sense of deprivation. Without taking this step of growth and maturation, there can be no permanent weight loss, no permanent freedom. They've taken a turn in their evolution--evolving from childhood thinking and values into the adult thinking in the world of foods.

If you've come this far, you are already well on your way to that understanding and sense of freedom. You bought this book because you want to lose weight, and you want to do better at ongoing weight control. Now the choice to act is yours.

THREE SIMPLE STEPS

There are three actions that can encourage your progress, guard it, and enhance it. For thousands of my clients, these have proven to be among the most effective weapons available for arming themselves in their battle with weight. They reinforce all of the messages of this book, and I encourage you to do all three of them.

Weigh Yourself on the New Scale for Dieting