CBT Weight Loss
The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Weight Loss Program is for those who want to control their eating and lose weight. You may have experienced difficulty losing weight or have lost weight in the past only to put it on again. The CBT Weight Loss Program will teach you how to cope with food craving, stress and strong emotions without turning to food for comfort. Most importantly you’ll discover how to change the way you think about food so that you can diet successfully.
How the CBT Weight Loss Program Works
The CBT Weight Loss Program is a psychological program, not a food plan. This program utilized CBT, DBT techniques, Mindfulness, Stress Management, Relaxation and Self Soothing. The CBT Weight Loss Program teaches you how to get yourself to eat the way you are supposed to eat. It shows you how to talk back to the “I don’t want to”,” I don’t have to”, or “I can’t” voice in your head.
The CBT Weight Loss Program is based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the most highly researched form of talk therapy in the world. CBT is based on the concept that they way people think affects how they feel and what they do. CBT helps you to identify your sabotaging thinking and effectively respond to it, so you feel better. The overall goal of Cognitive Therapy is to help clients restructure their thinking. With direction and support, clients can learn to identify and challenge their typical ways of interpreting events and viewing themselves and the world around them. There are three broad phases of Cognitive Therapy. The first is helping clients become aware of exactly what they are thinking when they are in distress. Once thoughts are identified, the second phase is to examine the accuracy of the thoughts and perceptions. Typically, negative thoughts are an exaggeration of the truth. The third phase is to challenge negative thoughts by responding back to them with a more, realistic way of thinking. Clients are taught to utilize this process outside of therapy sessions. The therapy is structured, problem-focused and present-oriented.
CBT teaches people how to solve problems, and dieters can have lots of problems. For example, have you ever strayed from a diet for any of the following reasons:
- You finished all of the food on your plate but didn’t feel satisfied
- You felt upset and thought that eating would make you feel better
- You were too tempted by the sight of food when shopping
- You were too tired to cook, so you opted for fast food instead
- You were too polite to turn down desert that your friend baked
- You were at a party and felt like treating yourself
To successfully lose weight and keep it off, you need to solve these kinds of practical issues. You’ll also need to solve some psychological problems, such as:
- Feeling overwhelmed by the requirements of your diet
- Feeling deprived
- Get more enjoyment from each bite of food
- Indulge in foods that give you JOY
- Avoid extreme hunger
- Move beyond urges to overeat
- Nurture and fuel your body with a variety of delicious foods
- Soothe and comfort yourself without turning to food
- Understand why you’re eating when not hungry (and how to stop doing it!)
- Take care of your body without suffering through exercise you hate
- Stop hating your body and start appreciating it
- Feeling discouraged when you don’t lose weight constantly or lose as much weight as you had hoped
- Feeling stressed by other life problems
CBT helps you to solve both practical and psychological problems and learn new thinking and behavioral skills – skills you’ll be able to use for the rest of your life. You’ll not only overcome your current problems, but also learn how to use your new skills to overcome future problems.
Program Overview
With this comprehensive step by step program you will be able to stay on your diet, lose weight, and maintain your weight loss. The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Weight Loss Program is conducted on a one-to-one basis with an experienced CBT therapist and coach.
- Learn how to use CBT techniques to prepare your mind and environment for dieting
- Identify healthy diet plans
- Learn how to eat mindfully
- Remove personal temptations
- Reduce environmental triggers
- Select an exercise plan
- Set a realistic goal (i.e. weight loss or size)
- Create the time and energy to commit to the diet and exercise program
- Identify common self sabotaging thoughts and learn helpful responses
- Monitor and address hunger, desire and cravings
- Learn how to monitor your eating and exercise
- Control sabotaging thoughts and uncontrolled eating
- Find out how to change your definition of full
- Discover useful questioning techniques to deal with unhelpful thinking
- Recognize and challenge unhelpful thinking patterns
- Discover how to resist urges and stay in control
- Consider your alcohol intake and develop an action plan
- Learn how to prepare for travel and going out
- Overcome feelings of discouragement and deprivation
- Understand how to eliminate emotional eating
- Feel in control in the most challenging situations
- Remain motivated to maintain weight loss for life
- Fine tune your new skills
In-Person Coaching
Weight-loss coaching is easily incorporated as part of more comprehensive in-person psycotherapy involving any other issues, including, but not limited to binge eating, stress eating, depression, anxiety, anger , procrastination, and relationship concerns.
All in-person therapy/weight coaching sessions are eligible for insurance reimbursement, I am an out-of-network provider. My fee is $150 per session ($175 for initial assessment session). As a service to you, I will email you a receipt for submission to your insurance company to help you receive reimbursement as soon as possible.
Phone coaching is an option
Adult weight-loss coaching is also offered over the phone. Phone coaching is perfect for people who live too far from my Manalapan office to see me in person. It also works well for people who want to schedule sessions during the day from their homes or places of work and can’t travel to my office because of time constraints or a need to stay with young children.
- Phone coaching is intended for people who do not require treatment for an eating disorder or other substantial mental health problem. Phone coaching clients do not receive a mental health diagnosis and coaching sessions are not submitted to insurance. Although behavioral health insurance will not cover telephone weight-loss coaching, Flexible Spending Accounts do cover weight loss coaching as long as there is a medical reason to lose weight, such as obesity, diabetes, or other significant health risk.
A typical phone coaching program includes:
- Initial phone session
- Assessment, goal-setting, skill overview
- 60 minutes, $150
5 phone sessions scheduled within a two-month period 45 minutes each, $700 (when purchased in advance)
Includes email and text coaching as needed to accomplish your goals. If purchased one-at-a-time, Individual sessions after assessment are $150 each.
While the initial assessment session is required, the number of additional phone sessions can be adjusted to suit individual needs.
The Research and Evidence Base
A recent study in Sweden demonstrated the effectiveness of Cognitive Therapy for weight loss (Stahre & Hallstrom, 2000). People enrolled in the Cognitive Therapy program lost an average of 18 pounds over 10 weeks of treatment. When the study participants were evaluated a year and a half after treatment, nearly all of them – 92% – had not only maintained their weight loss, but had lost even more weight. This is what sets our Cognitive Therapy apart from other types of therapy and other types of weight loss programs.
EVIDENCE BASED OUTCOMES
Both individual and group CBT were successful in maintaining a low rate of monthly binge eating episodes (Cessa et al, 2013)
Individual CBT appears to be more effective than group CBT in determining a full recovery at the end of treatment but, in the long term, both CBT treatments show similar response (Rica et al, 2010)
The probability of remission was significantly improved in CBT compared to behavioral weight loss programs at the end of the treatment. However, after 6 years this difference was lost (Munsch, Meyer & Biedert, 2012)
Referrals
Our clients come to us via several routes:
- The general public: Individuals can contact me directly to book a place on our Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Weight Loss Program
- Organizations: An organization may contact us to arrange a booking for one or more of their staff.
Other professionals: A professional such as GP, solicitor or social worker may contact us to make a referral for one or more of their clients.