Four-Day Win: End Your Diet War and Achieve Thinner Peace » (Reprint)

MARTHA BECK, PHD, is a life coach and monthly columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine. She is the author of the bestsellers Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live and the memoir Expecting Adam.

The woman Psychology Today calls "the best-known life coach in America" shatters the myth that willpower is an effective weight-loss tool and introduces a revolutionary approach to lifetime leanness based on a series of "4-day wins" that work with any weight-loss program.

This paperback edition includes a workbook where readers can complete the book's many exercises, making it even easier to follow the program!

Acknowledgments     xi
Why Are You So Damn Fat?     1
4 Days at a Time     9
How to Be Skinnier in 4 Days: Changing Your Body, Now     20
The Transtheoretical Model and the Piggly Wiggly Problem     24
Precontemplation
The Polar Bear Effect: Why Resistance Is Futile     33
This Is Your Brain on Diets: The Fattening Way to Lose Weight     40
The Body Whisperer: Getting Your Subconscious Mind on Your Side     48
The Creature and the Computer     56
Thinking about Thinking about It     65
Contemplation
The Most Important Weight-Loss Skill in the History of the Universe     75
Learn to Return to the Place of Thinner Peace     82
How to Stop Eating When You Can't Stop Eating     90
Make Love, Not War: Living in the Place of Peace     97
How Not to Be a Big Fat Liar     104
Not Always So: From Fathead to Open Mind     112
Beware the Permanently Helpless Dalmatian Reptile     119
Researching Your Life: Your Weight Lifeline     128
Preparation
Fat Rat Park: Identifying Your Natural Environment     145
The Three B's: Building Your Own Rat Park     155
Fat Is a Social Disease: Getting Support for Your New Life     162
Eat Whatever the Hell You Want: Preparing to Eat Less     170
Bury a Bunch of Bones: Developing Abundance Brain     185
Trash the Treasure, Don't Treasure the Trash     193
Flavors for Flouting Famine Brain: Weirdly Compelling New Diet Research     200
What's My Motivation?: Making Moving Easier     207
You're Getting Verrrry Sleeeepyyy...: Avoiding Burnout     216
You Need New Moves: Preparing to Move More     225
Packing Your Parachute: Preparation Checklist     235
Action
Creating Your Daymap: The Second Most Important Weight-Loss Skill in the History of the Universe     243
"Move More" Daymap Adjustment: Edging into Exercise     250
"Eating" Daymap Adjustment: Feeding Your Soul     258
I Will Fight No More (and Eat a Bit Less) Forever: Actually Losing Weight     265
Maintenance
Trim-Tabbing Along the Middle Way: Staying Thin No Matter What     279
Relapse
Getting Back on the Horse: Relapse and Recovery     291
Celebration
Determination Yields De-Termination: Celebrating Freedom     301
The 4-Day Win Jump-Start Weight-Loss Program     309
Index     346