Diet Rehab: 28 Days to Finally Stop Craving the Foods That Make You Fat (8 page)

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Authors: Mike Dow,Antonia Blyth

BOOK: Diet Rehab: 28 Days to Finally Stop Craving the Foods That Make You Fat
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Diet Rehab: 28 Days of Gradual Detox
 
How does this work in practice? Let’s take a look. Here’s the basic outline of twenty-eight days of Diet Rehab:
 
WEEK 1
•
Don’t cut anything from your normal diet.
We add before we take away.
•
Make sure that at least
one
of your meals or snacks each day is made up of serotonin or dopamine booster foods.
In Part II you’ll determine whether you are serotonin deficient, dopamine deficient, or both. If you need to replenish both types of brain chemical, alternate by adding a serotonin booster meal or snack one day and a dopamine booster meal or snack the next.
•
Add
one
booster activity each day.
Based on your findings in Part II, I’ll give you a list of activities that will replenish the neurochemicals you need most. If you need to replenish both serotonin and dopamine, alternate by adding a serotonin booster one day and a dopamine booster the next.
WEEK 2
•
Don’t cut anything from your normal diet.
•
Make sure that at least
two
of your meals or snacks each day are made up of serotonin or dopamine booster foods.
If you need to replenish both types of brain chemicals, add one serotonin and one dopamine booster meal or snack each day.
•
Add
two
serotonin or dopamine booster activities each day.
As with your food boosters, if you’re both serotonin and dopamine deficient, add one booster activity for each neurochemical every day.
WEEK 3
•
Limit your pitfall foods to no more than
three
servings per day. The rest of all meals and snacks will be made up of booster foods.
Favor boosters tailored to your brain chemistry, but now that your brain chemistry is beginning to be balanced, any booster food will start to be beneficial. A pitfall food serving should be around 300 calories at most, so you’re going for a maximum of about 900 calories from pitfall foods a day.
•
Add
three
serotonin or dopamine booster activities each day.
If you need to replenish both types of brain chemical, alternate between adding two serotonin boosters and one dopamine booster, and adding one serotonin booster and two dopamine boosters.
WEEK 4
•
Limit your pitfall foods to no more than
two
servings per day. Everything else you eat should be boosters.
Favor boosters tailored to your brain chemistry, but now that your brain chemistry is beginning to be balanced, any booster food will start to be beneficial. Remember, one serving of a pitfall is about 300 calories, so you’re looking at a maximum of about 600 calories of pitfalls.
•
Add
four
serotonin or dopamine booster activities each day.
If you need to replenish both types of brain chemical, add two boosters of each type every day.
MAINTENANCE
•
Limit your pitfall foods to no more than
two
servings per day. The rest of all meals and snacks will be made up of boosters.
Favor boosters tailored to your brain chemistry, but now that your brain chemistry is beginning to be balanced, any booster food will start to be beneficial. Remember, one serving of a pitfall is about 300 calories, so you’re looking at a maximum of about 600 calories of pitfalls.
•
Maintain
four
booster activities each day.
Favor booster activities tailored to your brain chemistry (low serotonin or low dopamine), but now that your brain chemistry is beginning to be balanced, any booster activity will start to be beneficial. Low serotonin types may want to add a few dopamine booster activities, especially when they feel like they need an energizing lift. Low dopamine types may want to add a few serotonin booster activities, especially when they need some peace and calm. Dual-deficiency types can continue to add from both dopamine booster and serotonin booster activities lists.
Looking for a Shortcut?
 
I’d like you to read every word of this book because I think the more you understand about food addiction and brain chemistry, the more empowered and proactive you’ll be at implementing Diet Rehab and making it work for you.
But if you’re eager to get started and just want to know exactly what to do, here’s how you can move through this book more quickly:
1. Take the quizzes on pages 73 and 105. They will help you figure out whether you are serotonin deficient, dopamine deficient, or both.
2. Based on what you learn about your body chemistry, go to the lists of booster foods and activities on pages 204 and 219. Choose as many as you can and prepare to add them to your daily diet and lifestyle.
3. Go to the list of pitfall foods on pages 213 and 228. Identify which are part of your current regime.
4. Look at the outline on page 50. Select the correct number of booster foods and activities to add and pitfall foods to subtract over the twenty-eight days.
Those are the basics. Add booster foods and activities, gradually increasing them over the twenty-eight days, and, two weeks into the program, start cutting back on your pitfalls until you’re down to only two or fewer per day (one pitfall serving is about 300 calories, so you’re down to a maximum of 600 calories in pitfalls). If you’d like some additional support in avoiding pitfall types of thinking and adding booster thought patterns, continue reading this chapter.
 
Pitfall Thought Patterns: The 7 P’s to Avoid
 
As a cognitive-behavioral therapist, I specialize in identifying thought patterns. You could boil my whole profession down to one simple sentence: Thinking in certain types of patterns makes us feel better, while thinking in other types of patterns makes us feel worse. As a therapist, I help my patients identify the thought patterns that get them into trouble and encourage them to reframe their thoughts into a more helpful approach.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is actually an integral part of Diet Rehab, because pitfall thoughts hurt your brain chemistry and are also more likely to be a result of low levels of serotonin and dopamine—another example of a downward spiral.
 
How
do pitfall thoughts erode your stores of serotonin and dopamine? By feeding your anxiety, self-doubt, hopelessness, and despair, which lead to behaviors that cause more of these unpleasant feelings. Pitfall thoughts can make you feel helpless, worthless, and unsafe, and they can contribute to feeling stuck, trapped, and bored. As we have seen, these are the feelings that accompany insufficient stores of serotonin and dopamine, which is precisely the brain-chemistry condition that sends you running for cheeseburgers and cheesecake to boost your mood. In fact, even if your diet is filled with terrific booster foods, pitfall thoughts can undo your good habits and push you toward your fat or sugar fix.
Luckily, there is a way to reframe pitfall thoughts, so let me show you how it’s done. Then, in the next section, I’ll help you identify booster attributes that can raise your serotonin and dopamine levels—and fill your life with joy.
 
Pitfall #1: Personalization
Personalization is when you assume that something is happening because of you. Of course, sometimes you
are
responsible for a problem or a situation, and then you should realize that and own it. But the personalization pitfall comes into play when you have no explanation or another explanation—yet you still choose the one that involves blaming yourself.
PITFALL THOUGHTS:
“They didn’t call me for an interview. I’m not smart enough.”
“He didn’t call me because I’m too fat.”
“This diet isn’t working because I have no self-control.”
 
REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
“I really would have liked that job, so I’ll keep looking. Perhaps they had already hired someone else.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t call me—maybe he’s busy, insecure, or interested in someone else he met before me.”
“This diet isn’t working—maybe it’s time I did things differently and looked at what I need to change.”
Here’s how you can tell if you personalize something: Just about every explanation for anything that goes wrong begins and ends with you not being good enough.
This kind of thinking can get you into trouble, because in pretty much any circumstance, you’re usually only
one
part of the equation, and your failures and shortcomings are only
one
part of you. Personalization blocks out all the aspects of life and relationships that are about other people or circumstances in general. Blaming yourself and taking things personally makes you feel hopeless, helpless, and unworthy.
Now, please don’t start blaming yourself for taking things personally! Just try to reframe your thoughts to imagine other explanations. If you really want to avoid this pitfall thought pattern, try one week or even one day when you don’t allow yourself to think of “not being good enough” as the reason for
anything.
You might be surprised at all the alternate explanations you come up with!
 
Pitfall #2: Pervasiveness
Pervasiveness is when any problem in any area of your life invades all the others. If one part of your life goes bad, you shut down in all areas. Of course, this makes
everything
worse because you allowed one weakness to nullify all of your strengths.
PITFALL THOUGHTS:
“I gained some weight this week—I’m calling in sick to work tomorrow.”
“He didn’t call me—I’m not going to make an effort with him—or my friends, either.”
“I’m worried about money—I’m just going to pick up a pint of ice cream.”
 
REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
“I gained some weight this week—but if I go into work tomorrow, I can have lunch with Maria, and she always cheers me up. I also know that once I’m there, I’ll probably end up forgetting about most of my frustration.”
“He didn’t call me—and it’s times like these when my friendships are actually more important. Even though I don’t really feel like it, I’m going to call a few friends and see if I can schedule some get-togethers.”
“I’m worried about money—but the last thing I want to do is be worried about money
and
my health. I’m going to take a ten-minute walk and then focus on what financial changes I can make.”
When something goes wrong in one part of our lives, it’s easy to let that affect
all
of our life. The antidote to pervasiveness is
perspective.
In the grand scheme of things, your sorrow, frustration, or failure, however painful or upsetting, is only one piece of your life. Don’t let it spoil all the rest.
Some people believe that the antidote for pervasiveness is
gratitude.
They go by the maxim, “I was upset that I had no shoes—until I met the man who had no feet.” The point of remembering what you have to be grateful for is
not
to undermine your feelings or to mock you for having a hard time. It’s to help you remember that there is always something more than the present moment, and always something greater than a single setback or even a whole period of setbacks. Reframing your pervasiveness into a larger vision of your life can help you boost your brain chemistry and regain your balance.

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