Dr. Judith Beck, the daughter off the founder of Cognitive Therapy Aaron Beck, wants to help you take it off and keep it off by creating all new habits with her book The Complete Beck Diet for Life. Dr. 
Beck is a therapist who works with dieters and has gone through the journey herself. She is able to anticipate those thoughts that keep you stuck and help you consider a new way of thinking. This book helps readers to feel less isolated by sharing stories from other dieters to which you can relate and instills hope by showing changes that have occurred in Dr. Beck’s clients.
The Complete Beck Diet for Life is divided into five stages. Prior to Stage one, there are ten preparation tasks to complete. Stage one teaches nine Success Skills; these help you practice changing your behavior prior to taking on the task of changing your habits surrounding food. It is not until Stage two that readers start to alter their actual eating, using the Think Thin Initial Eating Plan. Stage three, The Challenging Situations Plan, provides strategy for addressing weekends, restaurants, social events, family dinners, holidays, traveling, stress, and people pushing food on you.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s… In the last few months of the year the festivities, holidays, and activities steadily build. Many complain about the stress of the holiday season and say they look forward to the calm of January; however, it is common to experience some let down, sadness, and loneliness in the wake of celebrations, family, and friends. Don’t let January steal your joy.
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Schedule time with friends. Now, in the relative calm, is the perfect time to plan one-on-one time with friends and catch up, or perhaps with that someone new you met at a holiday party that you would like to get to know. Restaurants should have more availability and traffic will be refreshingly decreased. Create an excuse to wear those new things Santa left under the tree, and get out of the house.
We all know that New Year’s resolutions have an extremely high rate of failure. Life change is tough work and many people set very ambitious goals. Life will get in the way one way or another. Too often people allow slip ups or breaks to discourage them to the point of giving up, and by March we’re back to life as it was the previous year. How can you successfully take advantage of the new beginning of a new year?
One of my favorite examples is the story of a woman who drank sweetened tea throughout each day, until her doctor diagnosed diabetes and instructed her to drastically limit her intake of sugar. Going from a tablespoon of sugar per glass of tea to unsweetened tea could be a change drastic enough to cause distress, defeat, and hopelessness. One sip and she’s likely to think unhelpful thoughts like “I can’t do this” or “I’ll never get used to this,” and resign herself to drinking her sugary tea. Instead, I would encourage her to swipe just a few granules of sugar off the top of her tablespoon before adding it to her tea.
Have you ever known someone that seems to always need to one up you on their stress? It was too common in graduate school to hear a conversation something like this:
“I have a test tomorrow and a ten page paper due.”
“I have two ten page papers due Friday and two tests this week.”
“Well, I have to work 15 hours, read 100 pages, and write my research proposal this weekend.”
School is an easy example, but people everywhere in all situations do the same thing, trying to one up each other. Are we really competing over I’m more stressed than you are?!? I will let you win because I want to avoid all the negative effects of stress. We seem to want others to validate our stress rather than our health.
Each of us has a specific capacity for managing stress; some people are naturally able to or have learned to handle much more than others. I find it helpful to envision each of us as a cup or beaker of different 
shapes and sizes. Stress is like liquid poured into our beakers. Major events can fill us up very quickly. If we never deal with our stressors then our glasses remain nearly full, decreasing our capacity to deal with more. Traumatic events often leave residue in our cups even when these events have been processed and healed. Even smaller events or situations can fill us to the brim when several are piled on top of each other. When our stress levels overflow, we can suffer the negative effects of stress. The specific symptoms from which you suffer is determined by your individual vulnerability. Some will suffer more from physical complaints, while others suffer more from psychological concerns. Your specific vulnerability is likely determined genetically. This is called the Diathesis Stress Model.
Stress is what gets you out of bed in the morning, reading this blog, and Christmas morning. Stress is an often misunderstood term. Stress is any stimulus or change in your life that creates or requires a change or reaction. According to the classic stress inventory, marriage is more stressful than being fired, the death of a close friend, or foreclosure. Even positive events create Eustress, a feeling of fulfillment, while less desirable events can create Distress.
The stoic philosopher Epictetus reminded us that “what upsets people is not things themselves but their judgments about the things.” Every person has a somewhat different reaction to the same event. Some will find family gatherings to cause distress, while others will find that the effort required to prepare and travel for such events are well worth the renewal received. I have a very dear friend who in one week experienced her husband leaving her, being fired from her job, and being diagnosed with breast cancer; she considered it an opportunity for a new start and to refocus on herself.
“Please secure your own oxygen mask prior to assisting children or others.” Most of us have heard a flight attendant recite these words as part of their safety spiel prior to departure. Before anyone starts to argue that this is just one more thing the airlines have wrong, I am going to tell you why these words are exactly on target, both in the air and in your every day life.
According to the airlines, if the cabin loses pressure, you will have a mere 18 seconds of “useful consciousness”. If one does lose consciousness due to depressurization, they have three to seven minutes in which to be revived before suffering any lasting consequences. So it is safer for the child traveling with you to lose consciousness momentarily while you ensure your own ability to revive and continue caring for the child, than for you to ensure he or she remains conscious at the risk that you lose consciousness, leaving the child unable to revive you.
Another technique used to encourage life change is Environmental Reevaluation, which combines both emotional and cognitive assessments of how a personal habit affects those around you, as well as the understanding that you are a role model for others. We are not always aware of who is watching what we do, but there is always someone whether it is a child (even if not your own), a boss, or a potential client.
For parents it is hugely important to remember that the old saying “do what I say, not what I do” will never work. Children pattern themselves after what is modeled for them. If they see you doing otherwise, they are most likely to learn that those behaviors (whatever they may be) are simply a privilege of being an adult.
Thanksgiving is over and we are now full swing into “the holiday season.” Although many people find this to be a jolly and joyous time of the year in which everyone is a bit friendlier (Black Friday shopping ex
cluded) and filled with thoughtfulness for family and friends, many others find it to be a time of additional stress and look forward to the general quiet of the new year. Stress can increase during the holiday season due to a variety of factors.
There is more to do, shopping lists of purchases to be made, halls to deck and trees to trim, family recipes and holiday treats to bake, and seasonal activities to attend. It seems everyone is doing more, so there are more people on the roads and in the stores, creating traffic, road rage, and sometimes fender benders. The majority of our more-to-do also creates more to spend. As the weather turns colder, you may be spending more to heat your home or even on gas if you choose to drive more than walk. Our calendars and checkbooks are two parts of our lives that cause the most distress.
Dramatic Relief is another technique for lifestyle change that has been adopted by anti-obesity and healthy living campaigns. It has also been used frequently in anti-smoking campaigns. Dramatic Relief can be used no matter your goal, and is designed to help move you from the Contemplation stage to Determination and towards Action. Dramatic Relief works by creating an experience of increased emotion which is followed by a relief from that emotion if a step towards life change is taken. Dramatic experiences can include anything moving such as testimonies, psychodrama, and media campaigns. These type of ad campaigns use uncomfortable emotions, such as fear, disgust, or guilt, so people are motivated to do something not to feel this same way again.
It is the idea used in “reverse thinspiration,” or when someone puts a picture of themselves at their highest weight on the refrigerator. It’s the reason we call loved ones after watching a sappy movie or go clean the kitchen after reading an article about salmonella. It’s hard to imagine driving your kids through a fast food restaurant and not portioning their servings after driving by one of these billboards:
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