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My Chocolate Chip Cookie Diet: or, How to Lose Weight
Without Deprivation
by Monica A. Frank, Ph.D.
The hardest thing about dieting is the
deprivation. It feels like we are being punished. No wonder
so many people are unsuccessful with dieting if it has such a strong
negative reaction. We aren't motivated by negativity except to
move away from it. We are motivation to move towards things that
feel good. Therefore, the secret to losing weight has to be in
making it feel good. "How can I do that?" you ask
because you associate the words "diet" and
"bad."
I don't have any miracle or new strategies to weight loss.
What I am presenting in this article are the old tried and true techniques that
have been shown through behavioral research to be effective. However, the
title is true. You can lose weight without deprivation if you change some
basic ineffective thought processes and behaviors.
First, let me tell you a little of my story. I am a behavioral
therapist and I have lost a hundred pounds using the methods that I will
describe. And I did it while being able to eat my husband's fabulous
chocolate chip cookies (he's the one who labeled this a chocolate chip cookie
diet). The principles that I will be describing I am sure you have heard
before. Also, what I am presenting isn't the only way to lose
weight. In fact, what I am advocating is to take the methods that have
been effective for other people and to adapt them to yourself. The more
you understand your psychological make-up and how your body responds, then you
will be able to be successful in any goals you set for yourself. The
following are some ideas and techniques to consider in your plan.
HAVE A DISCUSSION WITH YOUR PHYSICIAN
If you have a great deal of weight to lose, it is important to have a
discussion with your doctor, and not just for the usual reason of making sure
you are healthy enough to manage exercise and weight loss. Your discussion
with your doctor is also for the reason of determining whether there are any
medical reasons that may have contributed to your weight gain.
For instance, for myself, I already knew that I ate when I was stressed (most
of my weight I gained during graduate school). What I didn't understand
was why exercise, which is a great stress reliever, was so aversive to me.
Then one day, I mentioned to my doctor that I was having breathing
problems. I was afraid to say anything previously because I was sure he would say it
was just because I was out of shape. Instead, he determined that I had
asthma and gave me an inhaler. After my first use of the inhaler, I
realized I had probably had asthma for a long time. In fact, I remember
having chest pains and trouble breathing when I ran as a child; my mother told
me it was growing pains. I now know that I probably had exercise-induced
asthma, and naturally, I didn't like exercise because it was painful. Once
I was treated for the asthma and was able to breath normally, I was able to
start a successful exercise program.
I am not saying that anyone who doesn't like exercise has asthma, but I do
believe that the enjoyment of exercise is natural. In fact, research shows
that when we exercise endorphins are released that are very pleasurable for
us. If you find exercise aversive, it may be a good idea to determine if
there is a reason. Other reasons include any illness that leads to
fatiguing quickly such as anemia or allergies. Also, talk to your doctor
about disorders that may lead to weight gain such as low thyroid disorders.
START SLOWLY
The advice that no one wants is that weight loss is a long-term
project. Everyone wants to lose fifty pounds in the next three months so
they look good for some particular event or just because they don't want to be
on a diet for longer than three months. This attitude is a guarantee to
long-term failure. An individual may lose weight in this manner but is not
likely to keep it off because they have not made an important attitude
change.
That attitude change involves making a commitment to lifestyle changes
instead of making a commitment to weight loss. The more you can learn to
act "as if" you were normal weight and healthy, the more successful
you will be for the long term. This means determining how physically fit
people of normal weight behave and gradually incorporating these behaviors into
your lifestyle. For instance, a person of normal weight may have a cookie
for a treat, but they don't have a half dozen cookies.
Starting slowly doesn't give the immediate gratification that our society
thrives on. With my own situation, it has only been in the last year that
people have really noticed my efforts and are complimenting my progress, but my commitment to lifestyle changes
began ten years ago. At that time, my husband and I made an agreement to
reduce the amount of fat in our meals by not frying foods as frequently.
It was a simple step that wasn't very painful because I could still eat fried
foods but not as often. Then about eight years ago, I started to exercise
regularly. About five years ago, I quit eating fast food (however, I fell
off the wagon for a little while). Two years ago, I decided to increase fiber in
my diet. These are just a few of the changes I made over the years, but
the culmination of these decisions led eventually to my weight loss.
One significant realization for me was that I had gained weight slowly over
the years. When I realized that it amounted to about an extra hundred
calories a day, I thought I could surely halt the weight gain because
eliminating a hundred calories a day couldn't be that difficult. All I had
to do was eliminate a little butter on my morning waffles. Once I had
achieved stopping the weight gain, weight loss wasn't any more difficult because it meant slight
changes in my eating habits. The most difficult change for me was reducing
the amount of milk I drink because I always loved a LARGE cold glass of milk
with my meals or snacks; again, I just gradually reduced the milk rather than
making a radical change that probably would have discouraged me.
CHANGE PERFECTIONISTIC ATTITUDES
The concept of starting slowing is one way of changing perfectionistic
attitudes. These attitudes are typically self-defeating. In our
society, we are bombarded with demands that we have to be perfect in every way:
the perfect career, the perfect parent, the perfect body, etc. However, it
is impossible for us to be perfect and if we try to achieve it, we will be
guaranteed failure. Therefore, one of the first things you want to do is
to identify self-defeating, perfectionist attitudes such as:
"I have to lose 50 pounds in three months."
"I have to exercise an hour a day."
"I can't eat more than my allotted number of calories or fat
grams."
"I should look like a supermodel."
"I should be able to leap over tall buildings and be faster than a
speeding bullet."
The problem with these attitudes is that they are all unrealistic. The
more realistic your goals are, the more likely you are to be successful.
For instance, when I first started exercising I was extremely out of shape; if I
walked up a flight of stairs I would get out of breath so I tended to avoid
stairs if there was an elevator nearby. My first exercise was on a
stationary bike and I started with five minutes a day. I never could stick
with exercise until I got rid of the attitude, "What's the use in doing anything less than an hour a day?" Instead, I told myself that anything
was an improvement and would move me towards my goal of being physically fit.
Speaking of the goal of being physically fit, I found that it was a better attitude
to take than focusing on the need to lose so much weight. Generally, I was
able to measure my increased fitness weekly by my ability to exercise longer and
more intensely. Therefore, I was always achieving small goals.
Making small goals is also an important attitude change. It is harder
for us to say "I can't" when the goal is achievable. For instance,
many of my clients complain that they don't have the time or energy to start
exercising. I ask them, "Do you think you are capable of exercising
for five minutes a day?" Invariably, they say "yes" and I
tell them to make that their goal. By doing so, they can reward themselves
daily for achieving these small goals rather than beating themselves up over
failing to achieve a more difficult goal.
Which brings me to the tendency of people with perfectionistic attitudes to
focus only on outcome and not on process. They usually will look ahead to
how far they have to go rather than back at how far they have come. As a
result, they become discouraged, self-critical, and often quit. The more
you focus on the process and give yourself reinforcement for each small
achievement, the more successful you will be.
EXERCISE, EXERCISE
Many people don't want to hear that they need to exercise. However,
this article is actually more about fitness than weight loss; the weight loss is
just a byproduct of taking care of yourself. If you change just one thing
in your life that can result in tremendous benefits, is literally the difference
between life and death, it is to become more physically active. Exercise
has been shown improve the health of your heart and lungs, it increases memory
functioning, it improves sleep, it improves ability to manage pain, it increases
energy level and reduces fatigue, it has been linked to reducing numerous other
illnesses such as breast cancer, and it reduces depression and anxiety.
I found that it was easier to add something into my life rather than taking
something away such as depriving myself of food that I enjoyed. So I
started with exercise and a commitment to increase my level of fitness. It
has been found that making a commitment to exercise is more important than the
length of exercise. If you commit to exercising daily if only for five
minutes, in the long run you will be successful in making exercise part of your
life. Sometimes I would tell myself I didn't feel like exercising but I
would still exercise for five minutes because I had made that commitment to
myself. Then, on some days I would stop after five minutes and on other
days I found the energy to continue longer.
MONITOR YOURSELF
Behavioral research has consistently shown that monitoring our food intake
has significant impact on how much we eat. However, the main problem with
this approach is that it was so time-consuming. To do it correctly, a
person had to write down every morsel of food, check the calorie charts, plan
menus, and add up the daily calories. Naturally, anything taking so much
effort has a high drop-out rate which certainly decreases its practical
effectiveness.
However, now with the advent of computer programs, there are easier ways of
doing this. I found a program called Life
Form that I used to help me keep track of my food intake and
exercise. Initially, I bought it to help me increase fiber and decrease
fat in my diet. But as I started using it, I found myself making overall
healthier choices and my weight loss began in earnest. What I like about Life
Form, in particular, is that it is easy to use (it takes me about 5 minutes
a day) and it has graphs. I love graphs because they let me see what I
have accomplished. In addition, this program allows you to graph anything
you want and a side benefit I had was finding out that my irritability level
definitely corresponded to my pre-menstrual days (in fact, I could pinpoint it
to a particular day) which allowed my husband and me to take precautions to
reduce arguments.
The most important thing I found to make monitoring a success was to make a
commitment to it. No matter what, I committed to putting my true food
intake and exercise activities into the program. Since I didn't like to
see the graph take sudden upturns, this commitment helped to keep me on track.
WHAT ABOUT THE "WITHOUT DEPRIVATION" PART?
I never felt particularly deprived because I set reasonable behavior
changes. For instance, when I first started reducing calories, I started
with a small reduction of 100-200 a day. This was such a small change that
I barely noticed it, yet I started to see results. Then, as my body
adjusted to the reduction in calories, I reduced may calorie intake another
100-200 calories. I continued to do this until I reached about 1500
calories a day; this occurred over a period of several months.
In addition, I never forced myself to stick exactly to the 1500 calories but
tried to average around the 1500 mark. I also let myself eat what I wanted
on special occasions. Interestingly enough, I would look forward to a
holiday such as Thanksgiving thinking that I would pig out only to find that my
stomach would limit how much I could eat and I was satisfied with much less.
Finally, I always tried to save enough calories for a special treat such as a
chocolate chip cookie. By doing so, I never felt deprived and was able to
stick to this plan for 18 months until I reached my goal.
As I said before, I don't expect that everyone can use this same method
successfully. But I encourage you to experiment and to learn what works
for you.
Copyright ©
2000 by www.excelatlife.com.
Permission to reprint this article is granted if it includes this entire
copyright and link.
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Recommended
Books
The Relaxation & Stress Reduction Workbook
By Martha Davis
When
Anger Hurts Your Relationship: 10 Simple Solutions for Couples Who
Fight
By Kim Paleg
Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques
for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your
Self-Esteem
By Matthew McKay, Patrick Fanning
The
Self-esteem Companion: Simple Exercises to Help You Challenge
Your Inner Critic & Celebrate Your Personal Strengths
By Patrick Fanning, Carole
Honeychurch, Catharine Sutker
"If you truly want a chance for your partner to
change, the best place to start is with yourself. "
"To be betrayed, the person must first experience trust in the
betrayer."
"...the way we make attributions about behavior
affects relationships and self-esteem."
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