Diet tips: How to train your brain to think thin

Characteristic 2
You Have a Low Tolerance for Hunger and Cravings

Most thin people feel hungry and occasionally notice cravings, but they don’t dwell on these feelings. Generally, they don’t think that much about food at all. They figure they’ll always be able to find something when they’re hungry or be able to withstand the hunger if it’s not convenient to eat. Usually, they have no problem holding off until their next snack or meal.

When you’re hungry or have a craving, though, you might dwell on these feelings. You probably worry about when you’re going to have an opportunity to eat again. Maybe you even become preoccupied with thoughts of food. You’re likely to overestimate how strong your hunger and cravings will

get and how long they’ll last. It’s likely you’ll try to get rid of them right away by eating. In fact, some people who struggle to lose weight experience hunger and cravings as emergencies: I must eat now!

The Beck Diet Solution
In this program, you’ll discover for yourself that hunger and cravings are not emergencies, and you’ll learn how to tolerate them. As you’re reading this, perhaps you’re thinking, I know I don’t have to eat when I’m hungry or having a craving ... I want to eat.

You’ve probably read about hunger strikes, so you know people can go for days without eating. If you’ve ever fasted for a religious observance or a medical procedure, you know firsthand that hunger waxes and wanes.

Yet at the moment you feel hungry or experience a craving, you might not be thinking rationally. You might feel that you have to do something about it immediately to satisfy your urge to eat. Perhaps this inaccurate thinking stems, in part, from our hunter-and-gatherer ancestors, who survived only if they developed the ability to focus their attention intently on eating when food was around so that they could gain weight to survive leaner times when food was scarce. Today, food is plentiful all the time, but our modern brains have not yet caught up to this modern reality.

I’m going to teach you how to effectively respond to the voice in your head that tries to convince you, I have to eat right now! You’ll learn many techniques to refocus your attention so that hunger and craving lose their persuasive power. You’ll learn to tell yourself, I’m just feeling hungry, or I’m just having a craving ... I don’t have to pay attention to it ... I can shift my focus to something else ... I don’t have to eat impulsively to get rid of this feeling ... In a few minutes, I’m going to be really glad that I didn’t eat.

Characteristic 3
You Like the Feeling of Being Full

Thin people usually like to eat to the point where they’re reasonably full.

It doesn’t feel right if they’ve eaten so much they feel a little uncomfortable taking a brisk walk after a meal. Even if there is delicious food left, they don’t want to keep eating. They feel no compulsion to empty their plates.

You, however, might feel uncomfortable if you stop eating at that same point. There are three possible reasons you feel this way:

• One, you may be concerned that you’ll get hungry again before the next meal.

• Two, you may feel deprived if you don’t eat as much as you want.

• Three, you may have grown accustomed to eating much greater quantities than is healthy. Indeed, you may label the degree of fullness you feel after an overly largemeal as “normal” when you’ve actually eaten to the point of overfullness.

I noticed this phenomenon recently when I had dinner at the house of a colleague. There were 10 of us in all. Although I’m usually oblivious to what people eat, on this particular night I decided to pay attention. This is what I observed: Two of us (both women) ate sparingly. Three of the men (all of normal weight) ate more than we did, but not a great deal more. The other five (all of whom are overweight) ate much more than the rest of us.

We light eaters skipped the hors d’oeuvres and several of the side dishes altogether and ate some of the entrée, vegetables, and rice. The moderate eaters had some hors d’oeuvres and finished most of what was on their plates. The big eaters ate lots of hors d’oeuvres and side dishes and finished just about everything on their plates. They couldn’t possibly have still been hungry, yet all of them had seconds. They also ate much larger portions of dessert.

Why did they eat well beyond the point of fullness? Probably because they all had such thoughts as:

• This tastes so good. I don’t want to stop.

• It’s a special occasion, so it’s okay to splurge.

• I want to show my hostess that I appreciate her efforts.

• I can’t resist such wonderful food.

They probably also overate because they wanted to feel overly full at the end of the meal.

The Beck Diet Solution

This program teaches you how to change your mindset so that you actually feel good about feeling reasonably full at the end of meals. It takes practice, but you’ll get to the point where instead of feeling deprived when you get up from the table, you’ll automatically say, I’m so glad I didn’t overeat.

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