Review: The No Diet Diet

I recently ordered a new book from the UK titled "The No Diet Diet," which I was curious about because it appeared from what I'd read about it to fit a project I've had on the back burner for some time. It seemed to harmonize also with NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming, see relevant books in this site's sidebar) technology that I've found helpful, and with good things I've learned from Bill O'Hanlon and Ericksonian hypnosis (see relevant books in the sidebar) . I was eager to check it out.

The book, which I quickly read, appeared to be just what I hoped it would be: research based, tested, step by step application of the "do something different" approach to change in a field where it is greatly needed, easy, doable, sustainable weight loss.

The "No Diet Diet" is based on changing one's habitual behavior, and not directly related to eating, fat, or food. Using easy, simple assignments, it enables the participant to break up patterned behavior unrelated to food by focusing on habits in general.

Eager to test the methodology myself , because I know enough already about its underlying principles from other study to believe it is likely to work, and thinking it's often more enjoyable and easier to work/play alongside others, the buddy system and all that, I thought I'd share my own testing efforts by inviting others to join me. So, I set up a blog to track the experiment and put out an invite for fellow participants to see if the No Diet Diet program will work for them.

I'm in my second week of the experiment, and finding the side effects of the program fascinating.

The program consists of 28 days of easy to do tasks, one per day plus a couple of extra ones in two of the weeks. The first task is "don't watch TV today, and if you don't watch TV anyway, then don't listen to the radio." I didn't think I watched much TV anyway, but found myself recurrently thinking I'd go turn it on while I took a short break, had a meal, whatever.

And, the next day, and every day since then I've noticed I don't automatically go to the TV at the points I'd have done that before the no TV today task. As simple and easy as it is to "sit somewhere else" today or "watch no TV today" those tasks not only affect the areas they are directly related to, but have an obvious and good ripple effect. Other participants in the experiment are reporting the same results.

I believe this book, and additional titles the authors will undoubtedly produce, will have a profound effect not only in the field of weight reduction, but in a much wider area of behavior change. I'll make a prediction: If this works, it's going to make the weight reduction industry (and it's huge, no pun intended) either oppose it vigorously or incorporate and integrate its methodology into their own
programs.

UPDATE On The Experiment:

Well, it didn't work, or I should say, it didn't work for me. At the end of the experiment I weighed almost exactly the same amount as at the beginning. I may have gained a couple of pounds, can't be sure, my scale is not totally reliable (whose is?). But, I still think there is much in the book that is useful, and I think I'll go back again and work through it, innovating on the book this time, and reporting both my innovations and additons, and the results. But, so far, I'm not ready to do that. When and if I am, I'll announce it here and on the experiment blog linked on the sidebar on this page.

I think one of the reasons it didn't work for me is that it is written for a British audience, and so some of the approach just didn't fit me as someone from a different culture. Another reason is that it did not have relevant to me assignments much of the time. Something was missing, I hope to detect what it was and add it in next time.

I recently ordered a new book from the UK titled "The No Diet Diet," which I was curious about because it appeared from what I'd read about it to fit a project I've had on the back burner for some time. It seemed to harmonize also with NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming, see relevant books in this site's sidebar) technology that I've found helpful, and with good things I've learned from Bill O'Hanlon and Ericksonian hypnosis (see relevant books in the sidebar) . I was eager to check it out.

The book, which I quickly read, appeared to be just what I hoped it would be: research based, tested, step by step application of the "do something different" approach to change in a field where it is greatly needed, easy, doable, sustainable weight loss.

The "No Diet Diet" is based on changing one's habitual behavior, and not directly related to eating, fat, or food. Using easy, simple assignments, it enables the participant to break up patterned behavior unrelated to food by focusing on habits in general.

Eager to test the methodology myself , because I know enough already about its underlying principles from other study to believe it is likely to work, and thinking it's often more enjoyable and easier to work/play alongside others, the buddy system and all that, I thought I'd share my own testing efforts by inviting others to join me. So, I set up a blog to track the experiment and put out an invite for fellow participants to see if the No Diet Diet program will work for them.

I'm in my second week of the experiment, and finding the side effects of the program fascinating.

The program consists of 28 days of easy to do tasks, one per day plus a couple of extra ones in two of the weeks. The first task is "don't watch TV today, and if you don't watch TV anyway, then don't listen to the radio." I didn't think I watched much TV anyway, but found myself recurrently thinking I'd go turn it on while I took a short break, had a meal, whatever.

And, the next day, and every day since then I've noticed I don't automatically go to the TV at the points I'd have done that before the no TV today task. As simple and easy as it is to "sit somewhere else" today or "watch no TV today" those tasks not only affect the areas they are directly related to, but have an obvious and good ripple effect. Other participants in the experiment are reporting the same results.

I believe this book, and additional titles the authors will undoubtedly produce, will have a profound effect not only in the field of weight reduction, but in a much wider area of behavior change. I'll make a prediction: If this works, it's going to make the weight reduction industry (and it's huge, no pun intended) either oppose it vigorously or incorporate and integrate its methodology into their own
programs.

UPDATE On The Experiment:

Well, it didn't work, or I should say, it didn't work for me. At the end of the experiment I weighed almost exactly the same amount as at the beginning. I may have gained a couple of pounds, can't be sure, my scale is not totally reliable (whose is?). But, I still think there is much in the book that is useful, and I think I'll go back again and work through it, innovating on the book this time, and reporting both my innovations and additons, and the results. But, so far, I'm not ready to do that. When and if I am, I'll announce it here and on the experiment blog linked on the sidebar on this page.

I think one of the reasons it didn't work for me is that it is written for a British audience, and so some of the approach just didn't fit me as someone from a different culture. Another reason is that it did not have relevant to me assignments much of the time. Something was missing, I hope to detect what it was and add it in next time.

Comments

[Sue]

This is a very nice post, and I want to see how others react to this.

[turbulence training]

This is an interesting way of losing weight.

[Denver plastic surgery]

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