Book Review: The Ultimate Weight Solution by Phil McGraw

McGraw, Phil. The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Psychologist Phil McGraw, television’s Dr. Phil, began to build his national reputation as a jury consultant for Oprah Winfrey when she was sued for statements she made about beef. It turned out his psychological practice was broader than reading potential jurors, and included weight management. McGraw has laid out his approach to weight management in The Ultimate Weight Solution.

McGraw describes seven “keys” to weight management. They seem to cover every aspect of life that relates to food. They can be loosely divided into two categories.

The first category involves discovering and counteracting mental and emotional issues that drive or support become on staying overweight. There are many subtle ways people may be sabotaging their weight-loss efforts. Some may have psychological issues that may require professional help, but many can use McGraw’s strategies to change their thinking and use new ways of coping with emotions that are more consistent with good health.

The second category focuses on behavioral change. In general, the approach is to institute healthy behaviors that will supplant unhealthy habits. Each key contains specific actions one can take to make practical changes. These strategies touch on habits, environment and relationships.

McGraw devotes more ink to the behavioral part. Ultimately, if one is going to attain and maintain a healthy weight, one must behave in a way will result in it.

The overall philosophy is that people behave the way they do for reasons. They may not be consciously aware of those reasons. Those reasons might not make sense if they were evaluated rationally. Even so, in some way a person finds the advantages of their behavior to be greater than the disadvantages. Change involves reevaluating the payoffs and costs of old behaviors and implementing new behaviors that have more desirable and rational payoffs.

A secondary philosophy that comes through is that one shouldn’t rely exclusively on one strategy, or even just diet and exercise, and especially not willpower. The keys touch on thoughts, emotions, habits, relationships, environments, exercise and diet. The more supports you have, the more likely you are to succeed.

As you might expect from a book on weight management, there is also information on nutrition and exercise. Obviously, how much we eat, what we eat, and our level of physical activity is behaviors that greatly and directly affect our weight.

McGraw provides some brief explanations of the science behind his strategies, including a bibliography of the works to which he refers. The book is not very technical, though. It is a practical guide aimed at people seeking to control their weight, not a clinical manual or textbook.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

This review of The Ultimate Weight Solution by Phil McGraw appears courtesy of Keenan’s Book Reviews, where there are reviews of other books on weight management.

P.S. Several strategies in this book are adaptable to a small steps approach. Start taking action, start taking steps toward your goal, and the results will follow.

Book Review: Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

Amen, Daniel G. Change Your Brain Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted. New York: Harmony Books, 2010.

Psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen explores the brain-body connection in his medical practice and in this book. In particular, Change Your Brain Change Your Body focuses on how taking care of the health of your brain can result in better health for your entire body.

In the early chapters of the book, Amen makes the case for brain health and how it can affect the health of the rest of the body. This is enhances by images from SPECT scans, which Amen uses in his practice to measure activity in different parts of the brain.

The subtitle of the book touts the brain as a means to get “the body you’ve always wanted.” For me, that includes getting my weight under control, and several chapters are devoted to the subject. There is no escaping a good diet and exercise, both of which get a chapter. What Amen adds is that an understanding of how one’s brain works can help on curb cravings and address brain deficiencies that may be roadblocks to sticking to a weight loss program. By addressing problems in the brain, one becomes more able to address problems with weight.

Good health is more than proper weight. It includes the skin, heart and glands. Good health is also a full life, which includes relationships, the ability worthy pursue worthy goals and the capacity to remember and savor our experiences. Each of these issues is addressed.

Amen doesn’t prescribe a single solution for everyone. Depending on your brain issues, the solution may be as simple as diet and exercise, it may include supplementation or even particular medications or therapies. Obviously, medical interventions should only be undertaken with the supervision of a physician and you should supplementation and physical fitness programs with yours.

The book doesn’t stick too close to traditional medicine. Amen thinks nutritional supplements can be useful and can reduce reliance on medications, but supplements can have issues of drug interaction and side effects that should be covered with a physician. He suggests meditation for stress management and has used hypnosis in his practice to address several issues including weight loss. (For those interested in meditation, Amen recommends The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson. Hypnosis is recommended in other weight loss books including I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna, which includes a self-hypnosis CD.)

In some ways, the book could say change your body change your brain. Many of Amen’s recommendations, especially related to diet and exercise are good recommendations for physical health. Throughout the book, he says that what is good for the heart is good for the brain. He even mentions a study that shows that physically active children perform better academically.

Order this book here.

Based on the recommendations in this book, I started taking a fish oil supplement. You can find out about my experience with it here.

If your interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Emotional Energy Factor by Mira Kirshenbaum
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair
The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Book Review: I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

Small Steps Big Changes is all about doing simple things that can have great results in your life. You’d be hard pressed to find a simpler weight-loss system than the one laid out by Paul McKenna. He even trademarked the phrase “The Simplest Weight-Loss System in the World.” Even so, one doesn’t develop new habits overnight, so patience and perseverance can be required even for the simplest changes.

McKenna, Paul. I Can Make You Thin. New York: Sterling, 2009.

This is not a diet. Paul McKenna believes they don’t work, so he won’t be recommending one for you. He won’t even be taking much of your time. He says you can read I Can Make You Thin in two hours, and that’s about right.

McKenna dislikes diets because they tell you what to eat and not eat and are prescriptive in other ways, in addition to them just not working. People have trouble with their weight because they’ve become disconnected from their bodies and their natural senses of hunger and satiety. Diets perpetuate this disconnection, so they don’t have lasting results.

What McKenna offers instead of a diet is four simple rules. In fact, he suggest that you may be able to get by with just one rule, and it has nothing to do with what you eat. In fact, the entire system is more about the way you eat that what you eat.

You don’t even have to memorize the rules. One of the back pages has a punch-out card with the rules on it so you can review them every time you eat or want to eat.

The book isn’t quite as short as just four rules. It includes some information to help you stay on track by dealing with cravings, emotional eating, self image and getting back on the system when you fall off.

Included with the book is a self-hypnosis CD. McKenna recommends using the CD to help change your self image and solidify the new habits you’ll be developing as you follow the four rules.

Order this book here.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair

Progress Report

I’m building my exercise up one little step at a time. Here is my new schedule.

1 minute of knee lifts, touching knees with opposite hands
1 minute of walking in place
1 lower body exercise
1 upper body exercise
1 core exercise
1 stretch/flexibility exercise
Aim for 12 reps
Use a 10 lb when weights are needed
Walk dog 3-4 times a day for a total of 30-45 minutes

Progress Report

I’ve continued with my restarted exercise program. I’ve upgraded to using a 10 lb weight.

Progress Report

I fell off the exercise wagon. I caught something nasty on a flight from Nashville and out of it for a while. Here is my program for getting back on it.

1 minute of walking in place
1 lower body exercise
1 upper body exercise
1 core exercise
1 stretch/flexibility exercise
Aim for 12 reps
Use a 5 lb when weights are needed

If you’ve fallen off the horse, pick yourself up and get back on it. Don’t be discouraged. If you keep going and keep learning, you will improve.

The (Mostly) Walking Diet: A Book Review

Sansone, Leslie. Walk Away the Pounds. New York: Warner, 2005.

Leslie Sansone says people can improve their health and lose weight without changing their eating habits. They have to exercise, but it’s mostly putting one foot in front of the other.

The opening chapters deal with the benefits of exercise. There is a particularly focus on the benefits of walking.

This leads to a description of the exercises that are used in the program that makes up much of the book. It walking and several moves that can be done while walking to mix things up. It also includes resistance exercises that can be done with light dumbbells, weighted balls or bands. There is also a chapter devoted to shoes and other equipment to help you get off on the right foot.

The middle of the book lays out a 6-week program of walking. It starts out with a mile of walking (about 2,000 steps) and builds of up to 4 to 5 miles (8,000 to 10,000 steps). Along the way, it adds periodic resistance exercises. Following the program, you’ll walk 64 miles in the six weeks. The pages make a diary for keeping track of your progress through the program.

From there, walkers can keep going. Sansone devotes a chapter to continuing the program, ramping it up, and overcoming plateaus.

What about eating? Though Sansone says it’s not a necessary part of the program, she suggests that you’ll probably want to improve your eating habits as your health improves and your body demand nutrition to support its new level of activity. She discusses this in a chapter that includes a nutrition primer and several tips on better eating habits.

Sansone also devotes chapters to dealing with stress and having a balanced life. Exercise can alleviate stress and its negative effects, but there are other things busy people can do to reduce stress, make life less hectic, and find more balance.

The book wraps up dealing with motivation. Proper motivation is needed to stick to a healthy lifestyle and Sansone discusses perspective, habits, and environmental changes to help walkers stay on track.

The book is written to a female audience, though program is probably just as suitable to men. Several short success stories appear throughout, briefly discussing the success of women who have tried the program.

A DVD is included with the book. It is a walk-in-place program that leads the viewer through a 1-mile walk in about 18 minutes.

Order this book here.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The 6 Day Body Makeover by Michael Thurmond
8 Minutes in the Morning for Extra-Easy Weight Loss by Jorge Cruise
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey

Book Review: 8 Minutes in the Morning for Extra-Easy Weight Loss by Jorge Cruise

I recently posted this review at Keenan’s Book Reviews. As a small step, you might add just one of the recommendations from this book to your life.

Cruise, Jorge. 8 Minutes in the Morning for Extra-Easy Weight Loss. New York: HarperResource, 2004.

Jorge Cruise lays out an eating and exercise program intended to help people lose about 2 pounds a week. It also includes steps to take to build up the emotional and social support needed to reach and maintain your ideal weight. Some of the major points of the program appear below.

Exercise in the morning

This is where the book gets its title. Cruise asserts that your morning sets your metabolism for the day. If you kick start your metabolism with exercise in the morning, it will stay relatively high during the whole day. This will help you burn fat all day.

Exercise is essential

Exercise builds muscle. Muscles use energy. The more muscle you have, the more energy you use, even when you are not exercising. The more energy you use, the more fat you burn (or do not put on).

The “Cruise Down Plate”

This is a simple way to measure the right amount of food in the right proportions. Divide a 9-inch plate into three sections. One-half of the plate should be vegetables (or fruit is an option for breakfast). One-quarter should be carbohydrates (whole grains are best). The remaining one-quarter is for protein. The meal can include a teaspoon of fat.

Flaxseed oil

Cruise loves flaxseed oil. It has the right kind of fats (omega-3) and it helps you feel full. It is not suitable for cooking, but the preferred oil for any other use.PeopleYou will need social and emotional support to be successful in weight loss. Cruise has several tips you can use to build up a support network for yourself and to become a supporter of someone else.

Order this book here.

Progress Report

I read Dorie McCubbrey’s How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? this month. She suggests that you throw out your scale and measuring tape, so I won’t post any measurements this month.

Book Review: How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey

I posted a review of this book at Keenan’s Book Reviews and thought readers of this blog might find it interesting.

McCubbrey, Dorie. How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? Diet-Free Solutions to Your Food Weight and Body Worries. New York: HarperResource, 2002.

Dr. Dorie McCubbrey calls herself the “Don’t Diet” Doctor. McCubbrey has a real doctorate in bioengineering. She bases her approach to better health and life from not dieting more on her work as a licensed professional counselor.

Success in weight management and overcoming eating disorders is an inside job. Throughout the book, this is contrasted with the external sources of weight problems and attempts to deal with them.

According to McCubbrey, weight problems have their source in trying to fit ourselves to standards that come from the world around us. Even seemingly healthy people can have weight problems and eating disorders that come from this external orientation. To deal with these, people play “games” which are strategies and behaviors for controlling weight that don’t deal with the real problems.

McCubbrey herself suffered these problems and played many of these games. Her struggles with body image and perfection led hear into anorexia, bulimia, excessive exercise and periods of being overweight.

The solution to these issues, and to the broader issue of living well, is intuitive self-care. Practicing intuitive self-care involves getting in touch with one’s inner wisdom about what is good in eating, exercise and living. It is living from the inside out instead of the outside in.

McCubbrey offers strategies for practicing intuitive self-care. She describes them as feeding the soul. This “diet” for the soul involves learning to love, listen to, and express your true self. To help readers practice this soul diet, she offers several recipes, which are exercises to practice. Some of these deal directly with the way people eat and think about eating. Others are directed toward meditation and discovery of one’s true desires.

The book is in many ways more of a self-help book that a diet plan. It doesn’t focus on changing behavior of lifestyles (lifestyle change is one of the games), but on living from the soul.

Order this book here.

Progress Report

It’s nice to see my weight come down after it went up last month. At this rate it will take 50 to 69 months to get back to a healthy weight. Considering that it took years of creeping weight gain to get where I am, that doesn’t seem so bad.

Here is my current daily exercise program. To a more fit person, it may not seem like much. To someone out of shape it may seem like a lot. Don’t be discouraged. At the beginning of the year, I started with just 10 pushups a day. The current program is a result of taking many small steps, increasing in increments that seemed very small and easy to me at the time.

standing spinal twist 1 stretch each side
side bend 1 stretch each side
Squats 25 reps

mad cat arch 1 stretch
hip extensions 15 reps each side
push ups 20 reps
Crunches 20 reps
Squirms 10 reps each side, alternating
lower back isolate (bridging) 10 reps
crossed leg 1 stretch each side
Curls 20 reps each side with 10# barbell

walk dog 30-45 min over 3-4 walks a day

Thanks to those who’ve submitted something to the blog. This blog is a part-time effort, so it may take a while to respond.

Progress report

I was disappointed to see that I put back on some of the weight I lost. I’m gratified that my waist was smaller anyway. I admit that I suck in my gut for all I’m worth when I measure my waist, but I’ve been doing that all year. I still have a positive trend, even if it might take 27 to 72 months to reach my healthy weight. As I keep saying, I’d rather make slow progress that sticks than quick changes that don’t.

I took a small step this month by checking out an exercise book from the library. In addition to the exercises I’ve already committed to doing, I did one exercise from the book each day over the three weeks I had it checked out. For you, just borrowing an exercise or diet book from the library may be the small step to take, even if you don’t do anything more with it.

I’m still working on some changes to my eating habits that seem like small steps. This has been the more difficult thing for me, but I’m confident I can make little changes that will lead to good results.

Progress Report

I don’t have a lot to report this month. I decided to do five more of each of my exercises, now 15 each of pushups, crunches and squats. Its and example of how one small step can lead to another.

I feel I’m having some success increasing my activity level. To really improve my health, I’ll need to address my eating habits, too, more than I already have. So I’m making a small step commitment to come up with an idea for a small step to improve my eating habits. I’d like to have one idea that I feel is small enough for me to do by the end of the month.

Celebrate the Little Things

Most of what I’ve written about on small steps BIG CHANGES have been about making commitments to small changes and the experiences I’ve had following through on mine. I think it’s also important to acknowledge our small successes.

If you’re like me, you probably have a really big goal in the back of your mind, even if you’re focused on doing the little things you feel you can easily do. Your small steps are still steps toward that big goal.

It is easy to think that we haven’t succeeded until we’ve reached that big goal. However, every step we take in the right direction and every positive result we get along the way is a success worth celebrating.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know the small steps I’ve taken on mostly relate to improving my health and losing excess weight. If I wait to celebrate until I reach my ideal weight, I’ll have a long wait.

I’m trying to celebrate, or at least acknowledge in some way, the little improvements I’m noticing. I’m not buying clothes in a smaller size, but the clothes I have are fitting better and I’ve even advance a hole on my belt. I’m feeling a little more energetic, which may be because spring is here, but I’ll take that with pleasure.

I encourage you to take notice of the little changes you’re seeing because of the small steps you’ve taken. It will give you a boost, help you stick to the changes you’ve made and help you commit to new small steps. Someday you may surprise yourself to discover that you’ve achieved those big goals you had in the back of your mind.

Progress Report

I’m glad spring his here. I’m tired of being sick. Since making my first small step commitment, I’ve missed almost three weeks of performing it due to flu, cold and being down in the back for a few days at the start of this month.

Even so, diligently following my first commitment has lead me to take other small steps along the same lines. I’ve lost 9 pounds since the beginning of the year just by making small conscious adjustments in my level of activity and probably many other unconscious adjustments. At that rate, it will take me another 18 months to reach my ideal weight. That is fine with me. small steps BIG CHANGES is all about the slow road to lasting success.

I tend to be very results oriented, which is both helpful and difficult when it comes to making change in small steps. On the positive side, I appreciate a process that works. On the negative side, I can get impatient with incrementalism. I’m convince that, when it comes to my health goals, incremental change is the only thing that is going to work.

By the way, this is a great time to make a small step commitment. At one time, the beginning of the New Year was observed in March rather than January. English-speaking nations were some of the last to make the switch. So make March the start of a new year for yourself, but instead of making a huge resolution, commit to taking one small step toward your goal.

If you have a health goal like me, Spring is a great time to become more active. It’s nice to be outside most days, and even a few minutes of walking can be beneficial. You can start by just walking to the end of the block, or even from your front door to the street.

More Things of Which I Can Do 10

I started this blog by making the small step commitment of doing 10 pushups a day. With the exception of when I had the flu, and more recently a cold, I’ve kept that commitment and seem to be getting some results.

I’ve been thinking about other small steps I can take to improve my health. Since increasing my activity feels manageable to me (as compared to tackling my eating habits), I’ve thought of some other small steps I can take. I can do 10 squats and 10 crunches. I’m adding this to my daily 10 pushups.

This commitment still amounts to less than a minute of exercise a day. The idea is that I am, and you are, more likely to stick to a very small change, and those changes, expanded and added to, consciously and unconsciously, over time, will bring about big results.

Progress Report

At the beginning of the year, I committed to take one small step to improve my health. My small step was to do 10 pushups a day. I’ve done this every day except for a week when I had the flu.

Part of making successful change is not getting too wrapped up in results. That I’ve done what I committed to do and will continue it is a success. The bigger successes are built on these little ones. I already think the practice of the pushups is changing the way I think about exercise and eating.

Since this blog is called small steps BIG CHANGES, I do feel some obligation to address the changes. In January, I lost 4 pounds and 0.25 inch of my waist. At that rate, I’ll need 2 years to reach my ideal weight. Even so, I’d rather make incremental changes that last than quick changes that don’t. I’ve updated the chart from my first post to show my progress.

One Slice of Tomato at a Time

I’m committing to eat the tomato that comes on my sandwich or salad. When I was a kid, I didn’t like tomatoes. I picked them off anything that had them. I kept up the habit long after my palette had matured. Now I’m committing to eat them. I can handle a few extra ounces of vegetable matter.

Ritual

Since committing to do 10 push-ups a day as a small step, it has become something of a ritual. I think it makes me more mindful of fitting in physical activity where I can, like walking the dog a little farther if it’s not too cold. I think it has made me a little more aware of my eating habits, too.

Weight Loss Links

As I previously mentioned, I’d like to lose a little weight and I’ve committed to one small change to move that direct. I try to find ideas and inspiration from many sources, and with that in mind, I’ve put together a list of weight loss related websites.

Amended Jan. 8, 2009

50 Million Pound Challenge
The Biggest Loser (NBC)
Health books
Joy’s Life Diet (Today Show)
Out-Weight-Loss Pablo Challenge (Mornings with Brant)