Diets Don't Work

Rating:
Summary: WOW! It makes SENSE
Review: Bob's approach is life-altering. The process is intense. He poses questions where thoughtfulness and instrospection evoked are more meaningful (and can be more successful) than any eating or diet program. In understanding and dealing with the perpetual battle with food, this book and the Diets Don't Work philosophy should be on the very forefront of our personal and societal fight with weight and food! Read it again--and again, like I did.

Rating:
Summary: if it could get 0 stars i'd give it that mark
Review: I really had hope in this book, as the pages online seemed great. So i bought it. And how disappointing when i read it : eat slowly and less, full stop. The author only talks about himself and his seminars (but not about weight) and there are heaps of poinless exercices , writing to do .... kinda psychobabble-ish .... anyway...

Rating:
Summary: Free At Last Free At Last, Thank God...
Review: I started my first diet when I was just old enough to say diet. I continued riding the diet roller coaster for the next 25 years of my frustrated life. My frustration and all my life's woes can easily be traced back to my issues with my weight. Everything became about weight, diets and eating. I could tell anyone the calorie content of anything. I thought that was a gift. It really was a curse. I know this now. I saw diets don't work in the book store years ago and thought YES that is SO ... TRUE!!! I believed in the philosophy of the anti diet for a very short time but did not, could not, and would not allow myself to trust myself, so at first it did not work for me. Now, about 4 years later I picked up this book again, and decided to read it over one more time. One thing I knew for certain was that diets had failed me again and again and again making my life totally miserable. I felt if I could just succeed in making myself thin than I could master anything, but I could not lick this problem. It lingered on and on. I also knew that I noticed thin people everywhere eating pizza, ice cream and cookies all around me, whereas my chubby compatriates were suffering silently with their rice cakes. I thought something's rotten in Denmark. How is it possible that thin people seemingly eat whatever they want and don't gain weight? Then it finally clicked once and for all. DIETS DONT WORK!!! Tell your friends. Tell the world. Diets cause overeating, obesity, depression, self hatred, failure, food obsession............This book and others like it that I have read have literally saved me. I have only been following this for 1 week. It's true. It may sound nuts that I am so convinced after a week, but I am sold. In just a few days I have not deprived myself of anything, and remarkably the things I thought I wanted so much like "a whole cake" or an entire pizza were not actually things I wanted. I found myself reaching for a banana! A Banana! Can you believe? I had thought vegetables and fruit were some kind of punishment, but when you're not eating them to diet or lose weight you find yourself actually wanting to have them. It is so unbelievable. One week and I am completely sold. Thank you Bob Schwartz. YOu are a life saver. Now when I hear people talking about atkins, the zone, weight watchers,.....I just laugh. I don't bother telling them what I have learned, because I think it takes a lifetime of dieting before you can possibly give up on diets all together. They'de just never believe me is all. I am so glad to have my life and sanity back.

Rating:
Summary: Find out why you've been dieting all these years
Review: I won't kid you by saying that this book is Pulitzer Prize winning. But I will say that it is simple, easy to follow and full of written exercises to help you discover why you've been dieting all these years and why you shouldn't ever again!

As a woman who has battled with weight ever since my pre-teen years, I finally became fed up with diets and excessive exercise. I swore last year that I would not subject myself to diets that restricted my own choices, cravings and feelings, just to leave me heavier and more depressed than when I started.

It's not easy to commit to never dieting again. You feel like you may stay fat forever. But I've noticed since going through all the written exercises in this book, that I understand why I've done what I've done. Why have I been obsessing over my weight, diets that don't work, etc? In my case it was to cover a huge fear of failure in all the other areas of my life. It's almost comforting to keep using weight as the excuse to why you can't accomplish your goals. Through this, I have been able to eat what I want, when I want and start to slowly lose weight. The freedom of that is immeasurable!

Buy this book. Do the exercises. It's worth every penny.

Rating:
Summary: if it could get 0 stars i'd give it that mark
Review: I would think that a person who overeats would not get much out of this book: because it's just common sense. The other reason being that if someone is overeating they would not be inclined to take the time to read such a book. This author might have saved his readers a lot of time, and himself lost a lot of income, by just telling them to "think," or "use common sense," when it comes to transferring energy from outside the body to inside the body....but that would be too easy, of course. Diximus.

Rating:
Summary: You can live a diet free life!
Review: If you are ready to free yourself from the enslavement of calorie or
fat counting or excessive exercise - this is the book for you!
"Diets Don't Work" explains in simple language why diets
fail to help people achieve their weight loss goals. It includes
written exercises to help you crystalize your desires and reasons you
are overweight. By helping you delve into your inner self and by
teaching you the skills that naturally thin people naturally do, this
book can put you on the road to losing your excess weight and keeping
it off without dieting! The book covers topics such as how naturally
people stay thin, four things overweight people never do when they
eat, the main reason why you eat to much, the diet mentality and more!
This book is in its 14th printing and is the revised updated version
of the original "Diets Don't Work" book. It was printed in
1996. Another book by the author "Diets Still Don't Work"
was published in 1990 after the release of the original "Diets
Don't Work" book. The books cover essentially the same
information with only a few variations, so you really need purchase
only one or the other. I recommend this book if you are tired of the
diet roller coaster and want to live a naturally thin diet free life!


Rating:
Summary: Lost 25 pounds in 15 years
Review: This book changed my life. I dieted (aspiring dancer and all that) from age 12 to age 28, when I stumbled upon this book. From age 12 to 28 I gained 30 pounds (105 to 135). After reading the first few pages of the book I had a revelation. And I stopped dieting. I am 43. I weigh 110. It is hard to learn to accept yourself and refocus your life. You must drop the priority "if only I was thin." It's not that important. When I read the book I could not believe the part about the woman only eating part of a chocolate mousse. Believe me its true. Dieting damages your natural system of satiety. It takes about ten years to heal. When you are healed (and you will be if you stop dieting) you do not know if there is chocolate in the house. You can eat it. Or not. You can even eat a lot of it. I'll eat a big bar when I want. When you are healed and your satiety is fixed there will be times when you just don't want any. I've had chocolate go grey because it was forgotten. You owe it to yourself to heal. Life is much better. The important rule I retained is *only eat delicious food*. Now can't you live with that?
Remember: The 1200 to 1800 calorie diets that women go on correspond to the figures of starvation published by the World Health Association. Symptoms are: inability to concentrate and a general slowing down of the body (to save energy). And we expect starving people in the west to be productive?! Dieting is a barbarous practise similar to bloodletting for fever.

Stop dieting. Join the world. The ten years you need to heal will pass anyway.

Rating:
Summary: exercising the mind not the body
Review: This book shows you why you eat too much. It helps you to see a new way of looking at food and life. It is wonderfull. It does not stress exercising like an earlier reader implied.(The book does say that exercising is good for you, but NOT to do things that make you uncomfortable.) And it does stress being happy, to forget about obssessing about food, and get on with life. He stresses being happy. I think that the reviewer has not even read the book, or he would not have said that.

Very good book, I learned alot, and it feels so good to not think about food so much anymore!!

Rating:
Summary: Face your fears
Review: This book will force you take an honest look at yourself and the real reasons why you eat & stay overweight. The workbook format is a challenge - it really forces you to think & to do an honest assessment of your attitudes toward food & WHY you eat.
I learned a lot about myself & found the interactive format to be helpful & forthright.
It's about time someone addressed the subject of WHY we eat instead of what we shouldn't eat. Usually, diets are limiting & once we're off them, bad habits return. This never gives us the opportunity to nip the problem as its source, whether it be our mental or emotional dependance on food & the rituals we create around it.

Rating:
Summary: Works by treating the *cause* of your weight problem
Review: This is a practical book in the spirit of the writings of Geneen Roth and others who emphasize self-trust in eating. What's great about this book is that it's a workbook format that enables you not just to read about the philosophy, but to put it into practice and discover the ways that it has practical significance in your life.

When I first read this book, I completed the entire thing, writing directly in it (as the author recommends), and I put it into practice in my life as well. After reading it and following the recommendations, I lost 30 pounds that I have not put back in the 5 years since I read the book. After about six months of following his advice, I started to habitually experience cravings for foods traditionally considered healthy---lots of fruits and veggies, salmon, that sort of thing.

In the years following this change, my cholesterol also went from over 250 to well below 200, although I didn't work directly on changing the composition of my diet. I just ate the foods asked for by my body. The composition of my diet did change, but not by force. It was a natural shift, and my diet also continued to include foods Not traditionally considered healthy (such as Orange Chicken from Panda Express---a sugary, deep-fried concoction).

The down side is that I didn't carry the advice through entirely. I would like to lose more weight, but I haven't followed through completely in that I still use food when I am feeling exhausted and for entertainment. To let go of the way I've used food for my entire life has been hard. The changes in my diet (craving healthier foods and so forth) has remained, however, and I've never gained back the weight I lost using this approach.

The up side is that this book gives you the opportunity to choose to live differently. During the time I lost weight with this book, I did so without becoming more obsessed with food and exercise, but less obsessed. Other times I've lost weight, I've done so feeling more and more like who I am is not to be trusted. This offers an approach that has the potential to *solve* your weight problem, rather than only treat its symptoms.