Beck Diet For Life/Solution - June 2026 - Support, Discussion, Buddy/Coach
 

Welcome to the discussion group, support group, Diet Coach group, Diet Buddy group relating to the two books by Dr. Judith S. Beck:

The Complete Beck Diet for Life
and the first book
The Beck DIET solution: train your brain to think like a thin person.

The Beck Diet Solution is a psychological program, not a food plan. It provides a step-by-step program to learn specific techniques to stay on our diet, lose weight, and maintain our weight loss for life. The program is based on Dr. Beck's clinical research in Cognitive Therapy (CT).

The Complete Beck Diet for Life expands the earlier work and includes a food plan with suggested menus. From the cover:
This is a place to discuss the Beck strategies and our daily efforts, to receive and provide support, and, for some of us, is where we serve as on-line diet buddy (coach) to each other.

If you’ve arrived from a search engine, you've landed at the site of 3 Fat Chicks (3FC), a remarkable place for those interested in a healthy life style, including mindful eating, exercise, and weight loss. More about the site, including how to register so that you can post, can be found here.

The books are available on Amazon through the 3FC store by clicking their names above; buying through 3FC helps to cover the costs of running this site.

You can find the list of previous (or more current) monthly Beck threads here on 3 Fat Chicks via:

List of Monthly Beck Threads for Support, Discussion, Buddy/Coach

Monday - Morgan Freeman born 89 years ago (1937, Memphis, TN)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies - Exercise, CREDIT moi, was playing baseball with the (6 yo) DGD using a plastic bat and a blowup beach ball. She's strong; hits the ball far away from where I've pitched it. In all directions, LOL. Control is not one of her gifts as a batter. Loved watching her negotiate like a lawyer when her mom (our DDIL) said, "One more hit and we have to go." "Three," she immediately responded. Compromised to two. Then, "That wasn't a good hit, it doesn't count." She could have drawn us along on technicalities all afternoon if her mom, quite used to this, didn't declare, "That's it." And they happily offed to their next thing.

Excitement came with the dozen members of DW's garden club who dropped by for her 'open house'. They all walked about her 120+ native plants in our tiny yard, discussing each by its Latin name. (A cheat sheet of all the names was sitting on the patio table.) All were appropriately admiring. And all enjoyed each other since they knew each other from the garden club. My contributions had been minor shuffling of chairs. Glorious success.

Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, with an afternoon snack of almond biscotti and blueberries from the open house offerings. Conversation with DS and DDIL was the where-were-you-when-the-sonic-boom-happened? DS had first assumed a giant piece of concrete dumped into an empty metal dumpster. Only one person, to their embarrassment, hadn't heard it at all so had to catch up on why everybody was running about. Dinner was the gift vegetarian lasagna - a chunk that had been frozen that I didn't know still existed. Evening snack included half a mango with my blueberries and cherries. I win the fresh fruit contest for the day.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – It's encouraging to hear that you're supporting the working folks who are getting skewered by the new and constantly changing immigration policies. Kudos for being responsible about eating even while doing this. Yep, the bolide could have been worse. So far, no dinosaurs have been reported killed by this one.

maryann – That is an exhausting list. Sounds like a challenging period to be totally away from your house - like a homeless person. Except that you own three homes but not able to fully live in just one right now.

Readers -

I had a great night away with BFF and collegefriend who get along well together. Collegefriend's parents owned a lovely home right on the water and she's been running it as an air bnb but its getting to be too much work and not worth putting money into the upkeep etc so she and her siblings will have to sell it. It's very emotional as its full of memories for her for her whole life. It's possible we may be able to go again later summer. It was rainy and cold but still beautiful to watch the ocean of course, and we had a lot of fun. I ate too much but am resetting today. BFF reassured me the outdoor pipes don't look that bad, and helped me move some of DD's things around when she dropped me off, so the livingroom is finally looking better again. I feel like i've had a real break from work being off for 4 days in a row with the weekend. Still getting used to this new system-making sure the rooms are coordinating and seeing how long it takes to respond etc.
I can't believe its June!
Maryann- you are quite busy! Great job with the salad instead of frozen yogurt.
Gardenerjoy-that's so wonderful that you are helping your community in that way.
Bill-I didn't hear the boom being down on the south shore. I appreciate all the encouraging words about the mini splits.

Coaches,
Amidst the busy packing day, I was notified of a very sad event. A woman who had been trying to get sober for years committed suicide. Her sponsor was devastated and I went over to spend some time consoling, We were both overcome with the fragility of sobriety and our gratitude for our recovery.

DH was a wonderful packing mate. Usually packing is a lonely business, but he helped me find homes at the Riverhouse for all things Xmas and DS toys that he wanted save for "his little boy or girl."

The focus this morning is securing mom physical therapy services. Then I attack the river house, cleaning rooms so that we can begin even more transfers of stuff.

Curly: Any day at the beach is bonus.

Wave to all.

Yesterday’s event was a huge success from my perspective. I met a young man who is in a hyperlocal group that formed a few months ago to work in my area. I’m now connected to that group and know when and where the next meeting will be.

I found out that my contributions will be helpful. He was thrilled to learn that there are two city council members who will take my phone call and that I have tons of experience and a high comfort level in speaking to people in power both in the school district and the city.

I went to this event on behalf of a group that knows that we are older, whiter, and more female than the demographic in our community. So, we’re thrilled to connect with people under age 40 that includes men. Definitely a win-win.

Today started with a power outage which made my day feel odd from the start. I’m choosing the mindset of “that was an unusual and interesting event.” All my tasks got jumbled up — I walked much earlier than I usually would (both to check out if any of the neighbors had power and because walking doesn’t require a computer). But I’m much later than usual in doing things like posting on 3FC.

Breakfast was decidedly odd because we didn’t have electricity. But the power is back on now, so I will proceed with my normal food plan for the rest of the day.

Exercise: 40, 1860/1800 minutes for May

Tuesday - American Indian Citizenship Day (1924, act of Congress)
 

Diet Coaches/Buddies - A day to catch up on some reading. I'd picked up David McCullough's on a whim. As a new book it only had two weeks and I'd dawdled reading other stuff since I was just curious. Well, it's a gem. Splendid overview of our society. Teaches by letting us discover what he sees. I have to return it today; instead of skimming the rest of the book, I'll pause and maybe take it out again later this summer. Since I'm also a big fan of Heather Cox Richardson, maybe we all need to listen to historians a bit more.

Eating was on plan with no daytime snacks, CREDIT moi. Dinner was a robust beef stew: chunks of beef, potatoes, carrots, green beans - the whole enchilada. A rare treat around here and, oddly enough, my first meat dish in five days. I'd asked if we could have corned beef since we'd missed it on St. Patrick's Day. Two stores had no corned beef; apparently when the mounds of it sold out in March, they ordered no more. Beef stew is a great substitute. Evening snack was my standard cherries and blueberries.


Joy (gardenerjoy) – So encouraging that there are folks working to made things right in addition to those that have gray hair. Yes, I, too, am addicted to electricity.

maryann – What a sad event, indeed. Thanks for the reminder of the fragility of all that's good in our lives. I salute your DH for being a good packing mate. By the by, I've been distracted reading which I'm reading simultaneously with the real Hemingway short stories. Getting myself confused since 'Good' Hemingway can seem to be a parody of himself. Except that 'Good' Hemingway never mentions Harry's Bar.

curlyjax – Terrific that you got to vacation on the ocean - gotta be the best sound there is for falling asleep. Fun to be reclaiming your own living room.

Readers -

I got tired of sitting at work yesterday so decided to putter around a bit and clean my office, which reflects the messiness of my house; so many papers to sort! I realize i've been at my job five years in August, so time for things to accumulate indeed. I was tempted by some potato chips but stayed OP, then zipped off to my workout where I haven't been for two weeks. I told the trainer I had tried the deadlift bar at DS's gym and he encouraged me to use it with weights on, to a total of 105 pounds supposedly. I was quite impressed with myself! I'm still feeling a bit fragile and almost cried at the end of the workout, it was so exhausting, but in a good way. DD wanted pizza for dinner and I limited myself to two pieces, and did not indulge in dessert although I kept thinking about it. I need to cook some protein today, I've been relying on cheese too much for the past few days. I decided to just watch tv for the evening as I was still feeling fragile, and started The House of Eliot; BFF is watching it and I'm enjoying seeing it again-it was so many years ago I don't remember anything.
Maryann-that is very sad indeed. It does remind me there are much worse addictions in life than food. Yay for packing help.
Gardenerjoy-very cool that you can help out this group.
Bill-the stew sounds wonderful. Yay for discovering a new book.

Coaches,
Yesterday I did the last lawn mow for this house. I can tell you, I am pretty sick of yard work. I cannot lie. Today I finish the last clean in this home before photos and realtors start showing it. I put the keys under the mat and walk away. Wow, 26 years.

Yesterday I used a huge shopvac to clean the renovation air vents. I tried out different sizes of rugs for different rooms. Some worked, some didn't. A 9 by 12 was returned with the help of DH.

Food was food but on the larger portions side. I sat and ate three meals. Credit. Today I go to training and dive into a big day.

Wave to all.