Book Review

 The Ultimate Weight Solution  By Dr. Phil McGraw

(Click on the underlined title to see Barnes & Noble or Amazon Review/Price)

I’d like to start off by saying I was biased against this guy like many people are.  I mean, solving people’s mental breakdowns between commercial breaks, who’s kidding who?  But, I have to admit, this is really a pretty darn good book about weight loss.

Let’s start with the first two obvious objections about Dr. Phil’s weight loss book.  1) He’s fat (at least chubby).  2) He knows nothing about nutrition.  The rebuttal to these two objections kind of work together.  I’ll address them by quoting from the book.  “There was an eight year period in my career during which my work focused particularly on people who were 100, 200, 300, or more pounds overweight. . .”  So he’s had lot of experience with weight control, but mostly (if not only) with people who were “grossly” overweight.  In his world, when you compare him to someone 100 pounds overweight, he’s thin.  You could say that the book is aimed at people who are extremely overweight rather than the type of client I often see, who is about the size of Dr. Phil and wants to go down from there.

I wouldn’t say that that makes the book unusable for those who want/need to lose 25 pounds or so.  I think the “principals,” the basic ideas of the book, still apply.  Also, it’s interesting to note that, according to the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Survey, about 59 million Americans (31%) are obese, with 64% of Americans (about 120 million) counted as either overweight or obese. (http://www.naaso.org/statistics/)  A hundred million people is no small market. 

Mostly what the book is about is the psychology behind eating.  Most people agree that this is no small thing.  Often people have a good idea about what they should do to be thinner, but actually doing something about it is the hard part.  A lot of  people (including me) put Dr. Phil down because he seems to encourage a quick fix, but that’s clearly not what he’s suggesting in this book.  I think this quote from the chapter “Weight Is Managed, Not Cured,” will make that clear. “You must go through many years of maintaining your weight loss to get over so many years of staying so heavy.  What your weight is five years from now will be a function of how well you actively manage these things from now until then.”

I think synopsizing the “seven keys” will give you a good idea of what this book is about. 

1) Right Thinking.  A lot of really sensible ideas abut self-talk, self esteem, and other internal tricks and attitudes that can help people change their mind about food and exercise. 

2) Healing Feelings.  A lot like right thinking, but more focused on the emotions that surround food, exercise, and body image. 

3) A No-Fail Environment.  I really liked this one.  Clients often tell me they want to stop eating junk food, and then later confess that their house and cupboards are full of the stuff. 

4) Mastery Over Food and Impulse Eating.  This chapter contains a lot of really good, practical concepts teaching people to look at how and when they eat.

5)  High-Response Cost, High-Yield Nutrition.  This chapter is similar to many other diet books, identifying the difference between high caloric, and high nutritive food.  

6)  Intentional Exercise.  This chapter contains some good, common sense reasons to move the body, however not quite enough time or intensity for my taste. 

7) Your Circle of Support.   I thought this was a really good chapter.  This is often overlooked when helping people with weight loss.  The basic idea is that you have to gather people around you who will support you in what you’re trying to do, and sometimes those who don’t will have to go.

So all in all, despite my reservations about Dr. Phil, I’d recommend the book.  I don’t think it should be the only diet/weight loss book someone who is serious about losing weight should buy, but it is certainly a good one to have around.