The Diet Trap: Feed Your Psychological Needs and End the Weight Loss Struggle Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Jason Lillis · JoAnne Dahl · Sandra M. Weineland

Feb 2014 · New Harbinger Publications

About this ebook

Have you tried every diet or weight loss plan under the sun, but still can’t manage to lose weight and keep it off? You aren’t alone. Each year, Americans spend billions of dollars on weight-loss products, yet we continue to have the highest obesity rate in the world. After trying and failing countless times, you have to begin to wonder, “What am I doing wrong?”

The problem with most fad diets is that they only attack the symptom of the problem, not the cause. No matter how much you try to deny yourself the food you crave, you always end up reverting back to bad habits. You might even lose weight initially, but more often than not you’ll gain it back—with a couple extra pounds to boot! In order to make real change in your life, you need to change the way you think about food, weight, and what’s most important to you.

The Diet Trap offers proven-effective methods based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you develop mindful eating habits, self-compassion, and a greater understanding of what it means to live a valued life. ACT is a values-based therapy that has been proven effective for the treatment of weight loss. Because ACT encourages you to accept and experience uncomfortable emotions—rather than succumb to emotional eating—it helps you to stay on your path to lose weight, while also helping you develop compassion toward yourself, no matter how much you weigh.

Written by two researchers in the field of ACT, this book offers evidence-based solutions to help you fundamentally change the way you think about food, so that you can successfully lose weight, get healthy, and live a happy, fulfilling life without costly and frustrating fad diets.

Ratings and reviews

Enjoyed reading it. I found the activities interactive and I could relate my situation into something I can now believe I can take control of. Great motivation and reliable information to train my mind into doing what I need for my life.

The book shows us different approach to lose the weight and much more. I am used to buy a lots of books of diet. And sometimes I notice, that they are all the same. When I get this book I thought, that it will be something like cognitive behavior therapy- and it is not. It is much more better. It is the best diet book I ever read ( and I read hundreds of diet's books). I will 100% recommend this book.

About the author

Jason Lillis, PhD, is assistant professor of research at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a clinical psychologist at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, RI. He is coauthor of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and a leading ACT-for-weight-loss research scientist.

JoAnne Dahl, PhD, is professor of psychology at Uppsala University, Sweden. JoAnne is a clinical psychologist specializing in behavior medicine. She is coauthor of The Art and Science of Valuing in Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain, Living Beyond Your Pain, and ACT and RFT in Relationships.

Sandra M. Weineland, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and doctor of psychology at Linköping University, Sweden. She is a specialist in psychotherapy. Her research has been focused on evaluating ACT for people with obesity, with the aim to help participants develop self-compassion and devote energy to living life fully and consciously.