Day 12 - Beck Diet Solution, Practice Hunger Tolerance

This is the day to stare down hunger and realize it’s not the insurmountable foe we think it is. When it comes to the uncomfortable situations in life, people often find that hunger ranks way behind a multitude of other things.

How does hunger rank for you?

The first part of today’s training is to use the book’s Discomfort Scale chart or your journal to think of times you’ve experienced every level of comfort/discomfort. The left-hand column represents your discomfort level on a scale of 0 – 10, where 0 = no discomfort and 10 = the worst discomfort you’ve ever had. Now in the right-hand column, write down a number of situations which correspond with the discomfort levels. For one client, 0 = relaxing in front of the TV after dinner, 3 = a job interview, 5 = waiting for a medical test, 8 = root canal surgery and 10 = broken leg.

This exercise will help you prepare for and withstand the next exercise, where you deliberately experience hunger. On this day (it could be today or another that works better, like when you’ll be very busy), eat breakfast, then nothing else until 6 p.m. Dr. Beck cautions you not to do this exercise if you have certain medical conditions.

You’ll also use a Hunger Discomfort Chart to monitor your hunger/discomfort levels. Starting at noon, write both your current discomfort level and range of discomfort in the last hour. Repeat this process every hour until 6 p.m.

At the end of the exercise, many people were pleasantly surprised to find that the hunger was not as bad as they thought it would be, that they were able to tolerate it and that hunger ranks far behind plenty of other uncomfortable things in life. Doing this exercise gives you a powerful tool to add to your arsenal in your weight loss quest. The skill you learn here could even be akin to a super-power. The foe of hunger, once so intimidating and insurmountable, is cut down to size and we see it’s not big and bad after all.

Comments

Day 22 - Beck Diet Solution, Say “Oh Well” To Disappointment

Inigo Montoya: Who are you? Man in Black: No one of consequence. Inigo Montoya: I must know... Man in Black: Get used to disappointment. Inigo Montoya: 'kay. The Princess Bride (20th Century Fox 1987) Just as Inigo shrugs off the disappointment of the Man in Black’s declining to reveal his identity and gets right back into the duel, so too must we shrug off those discouragements that go hand-in-hand with losing weight and keep truckin’ down the weight loss trail. It’ll go easier for us if we do. What if we just lay around bellyaching about how horrible it is that we can’t have that donut, can’t eat/drink exactly what everybody else does at parties, can’t just open the fridge and eat whenever we felt like it? How much would we really accomplish that way? Even if we do stick to our plans for a little while under that mindset, we’d be fighting an exhausting battle with ourselves every day and eventually give in. Even the patience an...

Day 18 - Beck Diet Solution, Change Your Definition of Full

Sacha Chua via Flickr Naturally-thin people are usually good at the skill of eating to the point of normal fullness. In general, this means being just as able to take a brisk walk after a meal as before the meal. Eating past fullness doesn’t feel normal to thin people – it feels uncomfortable to them, says BDS. But for people with weight problems, this overfull sensation may actually feel normal for a number of reasons – wanting to prolong the eating experience, taking advantage of food being around, wanting to load up to avoid being hungry between meals, and so on. If you’re worried about getting hungry before your next meal, just remember what we’ve learned about hunger – that it’s never an emergency and that we can withstand the sensations. We have plenty of distractions and anti-craving techniques at our disposal to deal with cravings as well. If you’re triggered to eat more because there’s food sitting around, like at a dinner or party, you c...

The Ogre

By Joseph Jacobs John Dickson Batten [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Shelley and I were friends almost immediately. However her father did not like me. The only reason I can imagine is that my family was too poor for him and that he did not consider me fit to be around his daughter. Despite how her father felt about me, the moments when he was away at work as a lawyer, and when Shelley and I were together were the thrill of my life. We did everything for fun, it seemed like there was nothing we couldn't do, no fun that we couldn't have. Her house was an entire wonderland within itself. An enormous granite-walled mansion, there were four floors of enchanting adventure for us. The first floor held a kitchen where we made all kinds of goodies, an adjacent playroom where we played house, Barbie, watched "It's A Living," "Silver Spoons," "Small Wonder," "Dukes of Hazzard," "Laverne & Shirley," two mag...

Endless Summer Creations

Search This Blog