Dr. Phil?s Weight Loss Plan
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With the possible exception of ?Frasier,? he?s the most popular therapist on TV, hosting 60-minute group sessions before some six million viewers every day. Dr. Phil McGraw is known best for fixing relationships, and the one he?s focusing on now is America?s love affair with food ? our struggle to control our weight. What makes him think he has the answer? He explains his plan to NBC?s Katie Couric.
DR. PHIL: ?Now I know what people want to hear is, ?Quick and easy, I?ll fix this today, 30 pounds in 30 days.? Well, you know, you?ve been hearing that for years. Does it work? No.?
Katie Couric: ?Because some people will be thinking, ?Oh, I?m watching this show because I want Dr. Phil to tell me what to eat, what not to eat, how many pounds I?m going to lose in how many weeks.?
Dr. Phil: ?Yeah.?
Couric: ?And boy, this is a big deal. He?s asking me to change my whole lifestyle.?
Dr. Phil: ?Yeah. Yeah. And everybody says, ?I don?t have time to do this,? right. Well, really, it?s only your life. What else you got to do??
Dr. Phil says there are seven keys that ?unlock the doors? to weight control, and you have to unlock them all, in order, if you want to win the battle for good.
KEY ONE: RIGHT THINKING
Couric: ?What do you mean by that??
Dr. Phil: ?If you look at yourself and say, ?I can?t do this,? you?re right.?
Right thinking, he says, is also about who or what you blame for your weight problem other than yourself.
Dr. Phil: ?If you?re assigning it to things you don?t control, then you?re a victim, what can you do? And if you?re programming yourself in that way, you?re destined to fail.?
Couric: ?So turn off that tape recording that says, ?I just can?t do it. It?s too hard. I?m not going to be successful. I?m going to be overweight.??
Dr. Phil: ?Not only turn it off. You have to replace it with what is right.?
In other words, if your parents were overweight and the recording in your head says that?s why you?re heavy, Dr. Phil says, change tapes.
Dr. Phil: ?You replace that with something that is accurate and true. ?I am probably susceptible to obesity because of my heritage. And I just have to make better choices and work harder than my friend who is not predisposed to be obese.??
KEY TWO: HEALING FEELINGS
Couric: ?Well, that?s very touchy feely, isn?t it??
Dr. Phil: ?Yeah.?
Couric: ?Let?s talk about the healing feelings.?
Dr. Phil: ?I thought that?s very cuddly of me, to talk about that. Now, here?s the thing. If you?re overweight, you are using food for other than nutritional purposes.?
You might be eating because you?re sad or eating because you?re lonely. What you?re not doing, most of the time, is eating because you?re hungry.
Dr. Phil: ?If you?re just eating to feed your body, you wouldn?t be overweight. Have you ever seen a fat coyote? You probably never even seen a coyote. But I?ll guarantee you?ve never seen a fat one. Because they eat to live.?
Couric: ?You used to have a funny story. You?d say, ?Coyote doesn?t feel bad about himself, and say, I think I?ll eat two rabbits today instead of one.??
Dr. Phil: ?Exactly.?
KEY THREE: A NO-FAIL ENVIRONMENT
Coyotes don?t have access to the snack aisle at the A&P, either. So key number three is what Dr. Phil calls a no-fail environment. Those chips, cakes and cookies in your house? You?ve got to lose them, to lose it.
Dr. Phil: ?What?s your likelihood of eating those cookies if they just simply aren?t there? What?s the chance that you would go back, get dressed, get in your car, go to the car, buy some cookies, and bring them home and eat them??
And eliminating temptation should make the next key a lot easier.
KEY FOUR: MASTERY OVER FOOD AND IMPULSE EATING
Couric: ?Key number four is mastery over food and impulse eating. This is all about habits.?
Dr. Phil: ?Most of people?s overeating happens in very narrow windows. They?re called ?impulse points.? Maybe it?s late at night, after everybody?s gone to bed, and from 10:00 to 10:30, sometimes people will eat 60-70 percent of their calories for the day. If you can identify those impulse times and do something incompatible with eating for that few minutes, the impulse passes, and you?re back into your day.?
Couric: You say, take a shower instead. Come on.?
Dr. Phil: ?Well, let me tell you. I used to be a grazer. I?d come home from tennis, and I would come in through the kitchen. And I would just? it was like a mower. I would just mow my way through there, and then go take a shower. And then I thought, you know, how dumb are you being here? So I started parking in the front of the house. I come in and go up the stairs and shower. I cool off, I calm down. Then by the time I?m down here, that impulse time has passed. I probably eliminated 4,000 calories a week just by changing the door I came in.?
KEY FIVE: HIGH-RESPONSE COST, HIGH-YIELD NUTRITION
In plain English, that means the longer a food takes to prepare or eat, the better it probably is for your diet.
Dr. Phil: ?Think about raw broccoli. You?ve got to work to eat raw broccoli.?
Couric: ?Yeah, and I?m sorry, that doesn?t sound very appetizing.?
Dr. Phil: ?I know. But that?s not all. Steak. You?ve got to work to eat steak. You can?t just slither steak down. You?ve got to cook it. That?s response cost. Then you?ve got to chew it up. That?s response cost. That slows you down where your brain gets the message, oh, we?re being fed. Start telling her it?s enough. Alright? And a low response cost food, by contrast, is, you know, say you go get a burrito. I call them gulp and gain, things you can just gulp them down and not even? you just eat them like a wood chip, and they?re gone like that. You know that?s bad for you. You don?t even have to chew it. So low response cost foods are hunger drivers.?
Couric: ?Like??
Dr. Phil: ?Like sugar, fat, salt. All the things that are both psychologically and physiologically addictive.?
KEY SIX: INTENTIONAL EXERCISE
Couric: ?Moving on to key number six, intentional exercise.?
Dr. Phil: ?The reason that people fail is they?re trying to do this by will power. Will power is the biggest myth in the world. Everybody on January 1, what are they going to do? I?m going to run. I?m going to jog. I?m going to eat right. I?m going to do all this. About the third week of January, you look out on the porch. Those jogging shoes are out there, but they just won?t jog.?
Couric: ?How about the third day??
Dr. Phil: ?Third day? exactly. But that?s emotion. And emotions are fickle. They change. What you have to do is program yourself for success. You wouldn?t get up and go to work without taking a shower and doing your hair. So don?t go to bed without walking a mile, or doing some intentional exercise.?
He also suggests practicing what he calls ?contingency management.? In other words, create consequences for yourself if you don?t work out.
Dr. Phil: ?Tell yourself, I don?t watch TV until I?ve exercised. I mean just make a rule and enforce the rule.?
KEY SEVEN: YOUR CIRCLE OF SUPPORT
Couric: ?Your final key is something you call your Circle of Support.?
Dr. Phil: ?If you?ve got friends that all they want to do is eat and drink, and you need to get 100 pounds, you need to change friends.?
Couric: ?People in this circle are apparently dispensable.?
Dr. Phil: ?Now you think, Well, now Phil, lighten up, buddy. Isn?t that a little harsh? I can?t be your friend, you like to eat and drink too much? Only if you want to get where you?re going. You need to wall yourself off from those types at least until you get your life momentum going the way that it is, and surround yourself with people that support your goals.?
- NBC NEWS
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