Ann Bailey - The Weight Escape: How to Stop Dieting and Start Living

ABOUT THE BOOK

Diet fads and fitness trends may offer the prospect of losing weight, but they rarely work out long-term. The Weight Escape offers something life-changingly different.

Using the mindfulness-based method called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dr. Russ Harris, author of the best-selling Happiness Trap; psychological practitioner Ann Bailey; and scientist Joseph Ciarrochi show you how to make the lasting changes you want. Focusing on the mental barriers that can keep us from setting and achieving our goals, they promote a holistic approach to well-being and weight lossone that goes beyond meal plans and calorie counting to apply mindfulness to how you live as well as to what you eat. Through practical exercises and personal stories they show you how to:

• Set goals and give direction to your life
• Overcome destructive habits and exercise self-control
• Deal with cravings and stressful situations
• Develop self-acceptance

This book contains the tools you need not only to get the weight-loss results you want but to maintain a healthy weightand a healthy sense of well-beingfor the rest of your life.

Dr. RUSS HARRIS is a physician, therapist, and speaker specializing in stress management. He travels nationally and internationally to train individuals and health professionals in the techniques of ACT. Born and educated in England, he now lives in Australia. For more information, visit actmindfully.com.au.

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THE WEIGHT ESCAPE

How to Stop Dieting and Start Living

Joseph Ciarrochi, PhD
Ann Bailey, MA
Russ Harris, MBBS

Shambhala

Boston & London

2014

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2014 by Ann Bailey, Joseph Ciarrochi, and Russ Harris

Cover photograph by Blend Images/John Lund

Cover design by Jim Zaccaria

Originally published in Australia by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-61180-227-6

eISBN 978-0-8348-0001-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014951727

For Grace, Vincent, Helen, Grahame, Grant and Jenn
Ann Bailey and Joseph Ciarrochi

For my nephews and nieces: Grant, Laura, Ben, Jordan, Andrew, Lara and Anna
R.H.

CONTENTS

The Weight Escape contains numerous exercises for personal assessment and practice. Many of these exercises involve filling in blanks or writing in charts. To allow for easier use, these exercises have been made available as a downloadable PDF at www.shambhala.com/weightescape.

THIS IS NOT A DIET BOOK

How many more diet books must we buy before we realize they are failing us? How many more years shall we repeat the cycle of dieting hard, losing weight, regaining it all... and then criticizing ourselves for having failed to keep it off? Is this what we want our lives to be about? Will yet another diet book solve our problems?

Diet information is everywhereon the shelves of bookstores, magazine racks, TV advertisements, internet sites, and in the mouths of our family and friends. By now, we know what we should do. We should eat more fruit and vegetables, avoid excessive salt and reduce our consumption of sweetened drinks and high-calorie foods. We know that we should exercise more. Yet what we know and what we do are two different things. Over 60 percent of us are overweight. If it was as simple as knowing that we should eat less and move more, wouldnt we have worked it out by now? There is something standing in between us and our diet and exercise goals. That something is called psychology.

This is not a diet book. This is a book about bridging the psychological gap between what we want to do and what we actually do. The book does focus on health and diet, but it puts health and diet in perspective, as parts of your larger life. Ultimately, the book is designed to help you move toward a life that is meaningful and vital.

Most of us live our lives like they are going to go on forever, waiting for the day when we are good enough or thin enough and can give ourselves permission to start living. What if we dont have to wait till we reach the right weight to start fully living, now, in this moment?

Living in the moment can be one of the hardest things for humans to do. To illustrate abstract ideas like this one, this book includes many brief stories, some based on our own experiences and others on people weve worked with. As you read these stories, consider how they relate to you and your own struggles; the issues might not be identical, but there may be enough similarities to your own life for you to draw useful lessons from them. Heres one now...

Sandras story: going to pieces

When Sandra was three, she had simple needs. She wanted to play and she wanted others to play with her. She wanted to be loved and cared for. She climbed trees and balanced on logs and loved playing soccer with her dad. She loved eating cheesecake, and hated mint ice cream. She didnt much care if she was naked, especially around the house, and she danced and sang a lot. She cried a lot, too. After all, many things didnt go her way. She was three years old, a complete, complex bundle of emotion, energy and movement. She was whole.

Today, at 31, shes still complete and whole, but she doesnt know it. She hates the way her body looks and she avoids the mirror. She feels her thighs rubbing together as she walks. Why did I eat so much at lunch? she asks herself angrily. Her sister tells her she really should look after herself and recommends a new diet book. Then Sandra turns on the TV and watches thin actors fall in love with other thin actors.

Alone, angry, wanting to find love, Sandra opens the diet book. Ill be disciplined. Im going to be thin if it kills me, she tells herself.

Two months later, Sandra is transformed. She has lost 26 pounds. Wow, you look great, her sister says. You know what? I have a friend whod be just perfect for you. Sandra knows she should feel happy, but to her surprise, she feels angry instead. And confused. During the week, other people comment on how good she looks, but none of it makes her happy. Now, instead of being satisfied with her weight, she wonders, What did they think of me before?

Sandra stops losing weight. The excitement is over. The diet says she cant eat her favorite dessert (cheesecake) or other foods she loves (rice, sweet potatoes). The diet makes her hungry and irritable. And heres the hardest part: after losing all that weight, shes still lonely. Indeed, she feels even lonelier than before because now she knows everybody thought she was fat before the diet. The diet has made her life worse. Im tired of being a good girl, she says one night, and eats a piece of cheesecake. Over the next two weeks, she gradually discards the diet. She regains the weight. Then she puts on another 11 pounds.

Sandra sits in her armchair and watches a TV advertisement about exercise equipment that promises to rip fat off your stomach in just 15 minutes a day. Maybe, she thinks, this will be the answer.

ESCAPING THE WEIGHT TRAP