Book Review: The Complete Beck Diet for Life

A New Year’s Resolution with a Daunting Commitment

Jan 3, 2009 David Berner

The latest diet book on the market from weight-loss expert Judith S. Beck, PhD has plenty of solid information, but what the author demands of you may be too much to ask.

Dr. Beck’s new book comes after the success of The Beck Diet Solution (Oxmoor House, 2007) and The Beck Diet Solution Weight Loss Workout (Oxmoor House, 2007). Both books focus on the idea that Cognitive Therapy could help the reader think himself thin. But the newest book – The Complete Beck Diet for Life: The 5-Stage Program to Permanent Weight Loss (Oxmoor House, 2008) – may call on the reader to think too much, or at least to do too much.

The Demands of a New Year’s Resolution

Dietitians, personal trainers, medical doctors will all tell us that losing weight takes a commitment, but Beck’s new book asks for a commitment most of us are likely to discover we can’t realistically fulfill. Beck asks dieters to gather a lot of materials and do a fair amount of prep work in order to move forward on the plan to lose pounds – a diet notebook, scale, graph paper, index cards, a number of sets of measuring spoons and a food scale, plus what she labels as a “Memory Box” and a “Distractions Box.” Dr. Beck also lists ten chores, or tasks, the dieter is to perform along the weight-loss journey, integrating these chores with the use of the supplies she asks you to gather.

To some readers, the process could appear complex and even daunting, and may be too difficult for many to complete, especially when the dieter has a job, children, a spouse, and other demands on one's life. Beck’s book is about managing your health and diet, but the details one must adhere to could derail the effort simply because the dieter can’t maintain the required obligations.

The Diet Benefits are Real

Clearly, Dr. Beck knows her discipline. She is the daughter of the founder of Cognitive Therapy, Aaron T. Beck, M.D. and she’s a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania where she is also the Director of the Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy. The success of her earlier books has amassed a core of followers with thousands of success stories to tell. Those who are already highly motivated to change their lives may not find the demands asked of them in The Complete Beck Diet for Life to be overwhelming. But if you are just beginning to consider a healthy lifestyle adjustment, just beginning to consider a new regimen for losing weight, what Beck’s new book calls on you to do could be far too intimidating an undertaking.

Beck’s approach is based on getting the dieter to think clearly about changing eating habits before actually embarking on making food adjustments. Her publisher (Oxmoor) claims her approach focuses on “taking the guesswork out of dieting.” Certainly, there is little “guesswork” in the pages of this latest book, but the detailed, even tedious day-to-day documentation Beck asks the dieter to accept might motivate some to seek out a more uncomplicated diet plan for 2009.

The copyright of the article Book Review: The Complete Beck Diet for Life in Weight Loss is owned by David Berner. Permission to republish Book Review: The Complete Beck Diet for Life in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Using the scale is key to Dr. Beck's diet approach