The blurb on the cover of The Four Day Win, by Martha Beck, summarizes the point of her book: “science-based thought and behavior strategies that will enable you to stay on a healthy eating program...forever.” As cheesy and punny as the subtitle, “end your diet war and achieve thinner peace,” may be, this is one of the most helpful diet books I've ever read. What the Drs. Eades did with sound nutritional information and food help, Martha Beck does with mental strategies for permanent thinness.
The title comes from Beck's observation that when she can get people to try anything consistently for four days, an internal barrier seems to fall. The new behavior begins to feel normal. She notices other “rules of four”: the stock market only closes at Thanksgiving for three and a half days, because they don't like to keep the market closed for four days; we have common terms for today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow – a three-day period – but the fourth day is merely “the future”. For dieters, four days is usually the point where you begin to get rewards, seeing the first noticeable changes in your body. Thus, the book is divided into “four day wins” – exercises you do for four days, training the brain into a pattern of action.
I think, all too often, dieters plunge into strict regimes thinking they only need to change behavior, whether they're counting calories, carbs, or fat grams. They see results – for a while. Then, and this has happened to me multiple times, you feel so constrained in food choices that you break out and eat every “illegal” food you can. Some people justify this as a “carb-up” or a high-cal day to keep the metabolism high. Others call it a cheat, and go back to following the rules, until the rules become unbearable again.
Beck breaks down the perpetual dieter into two main personalities: the Dictator and the Wild Child. The Dictator is the one who keeps you on the straight and narrow, prodding you out of bed to get to the gym, denying all those tempting foods and reminding you of that scale verdict the following morning. The Wild Child, just waiting to bust out and EAT, waits until you're tired, or you had a terrible day, or you left it too long between meals and feel starving..and that's when all hell breaks loose.
OK, so when I first started reading this, I found it hokey and silly. It reeked of psychobabble, and I could feel my bullshit detectors pricking up. I decided to stop being so arrogant and give it a chance.
I was pleasantly surprised. Each chapter of The Four Day Win presents a new study, sometimes a case study with one patient's story, others are larger studies on brain chemistry and the links to behavior. Beck then talks about the ways we can use these studies to change our own behavior, specifically, in the realm of dieting.
Many of the first strategies are about getting back in touch with your body. Lots of long-term dieters have learned to ignore their bodies – after all, when your body tells you it's hungry, you can't actually listen, right? Beck teaches you ways to listen again, because, as she rightly points out, you can't ignore your body forever. You might not be physically hungry, but just feel mentally deprived by your limited food choices (I think this may be more accurate for low-carbers, especially those who don't experiment in the kitchen).
The book is all about becoming “authentically thin”. Rather than feeling like you're hanging on with your fingernails, two bites away from falling back into old eating habits or just stuffing your face, you access a place of peace, secure in the knowledge that you can be permanently thin. Beck describes this as being “the Watcher”. You step back, you listen to competing urges and you make the choice.
I like this approach for the kinder, gentler manner in which you approach your body. Many others have said it before me, but weight loss from a place of self-hatred and disgust won't stick. You might get jumpstarted that way – you might even lose a bunch of weight that way, but trust me, you are not going to stay skinny that way. And you definitely won't be happy.
I've been trying the exercises in The Four Day Win this week. I'm still on the ones at the beginning of the book, which are mainly about listening to your body, recognizing hunger levels, differentiating between emotional and physical hunger and identifying physical manifestations of stress. All of these strategies are supposed to help you do the mental work necessary to sustain any dietary changes.
I didn't change my food plan. I blushingly admit to skipping the gym this entire week. I just worked through the suggested “wins”. And I lost three pounds – down to my lowest weight yet on this journey.
I'll keep you posted on my progress through the rest of the exercises, but so far, this one's a winner at making me thinner! (Sorry...couldn't resist!)
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