Weight Loss & Diet Plans

Dr. Phil's Ultimate Weight Solution Diet Book Review

Dr. Phil’s Ultimate Weight Solution: What It Is

Phil McGraw, PhD, the plain-talking, self-improvement guru and psychologist, spent eight years counseling people who were up to 300 pounds overweight. "The approaches I used with them are precisely the very same get-real strategies for weight loss you will learn about and apply here," he writes in his book, The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom.

Dr. Phil outlines seven key points to understanding and facing your "personal truth" - how you view yourself and your weight. Then you must replace these toxic messages with positive thoughts, says Dr. Phil.

"It's about changing yourself from the inside out, so that being fit and healthy for you is as natural and as normal as breathing," he writes. "By changing yourself from the inside out, you will be able to attain and permanently maintain what I call your get-real weight --- the weight that is healthy and realistic for your age and your physical and genetic makeup, a weight at which you are happy and truly at peace with your size, and a weight that is stable because you have taken control of every factor in your life that keeps it there."

You learn how to counter emotional and impulse eating. He writes about substituting a new habit (like taking a shower) for an old, bad habit (eating leftover cheesecake). You remove junk food from your pantry - and begin stocking it foods with high nutritional yield and fewer calories, foods that cannot be eaten quickly (generally because they're high in fiber), so you're less likely to overeat.

Exercise must become a priority: "There is absolutely no way you can control your weight for a lifetime without it," he writes. Forming a support circle is critical. "It is a psychological truth that behavioral change is more successful if it is supported by a caring, loyal, and encouraging network of like-minded people who want you to win people who lift you up, rather than hold you down," he explains.

The book includes lots of case studies, self-tests, and charts to help readers put words into action. He encourages writing in a journal to help you regain emotional control.

Dr. Phil’s Ultimate Weight Solution: What You Can Eat

Dr. Phil outlines what he calls High-Response Cost, High-Yield Foods - those that require a great deal of work and effort to prepare, cannot be eaten quickly, and are not convenience foods. High-yield foods are those that supply a lot of nutrients - in the form of carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, fiber - relative to the calories they contain. They are not processed foods, and are not laced with sugar, fat, or additives.

High-yield foods include colorful fruits and vegetables - red, purple, orange, yellow, green; whole grains; eggs, fish, lean meats, legumes, tofu, non-fat milk products, soy products, water, herbal teas. Soup is another high-yield food, as research shows, because it's filling and takes a long time to eat, he writes.