Thin Within :

Rating:
Summary: A Major Disappointment
Review: At 40 years of age, I have been on and off diets all of my life, and I am free from the bondage of "success/failure" from diets, now that I have learned to eat how my body was designed. Thin Within has been an "answered prayer" for me. I do not have to depend on any diet to work...My body works and I can depend on it. Thin Within has taught me how to think, believe and act like a thin person, which is how I was created. I want to say a big "Thank you!!" to Dr. Arthur and Judy Halliday and Heidi Bylsma for writing this book! I am now free!!

Rating:
Summary: Freedom!
Review: At 40 years of age, I have been on and off diets all of my life, and I am free from the bondage of "success/failure" from diets, now that I have learned to eat how my body was designed. Thin Within has been an "answered prayer" for me. I do not have to depend on any diet to work...My body works and I can depend on it. Thin Within has taught me how to think, believe and act like a thin person, which is how I was created. I want to say a big "Thank you!!" to Dr. Arthur and Judy Halliday and Heidi Bylsma for writing this book! I am now free!!

Rating:
Summary: Grace at Last!
Review: At first I had a hard time with this book because it reminded me of my failures about 5 years ago with Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down program. I left the book on my coffee table and picked it up about six weeks later with a more open heart and mind.

Wow, am I glad I did. Now I see that before, the focus was on obedience, but I could never quite make the connection and understand how eating when I wasn't hungry was "disobedient". It seemed to be all or nothing in that program.

This book gives me the freedom to change the way I eat in gradual steps. Right now I am waiting until I am hungry to eat, sitting down and eating in a relaxed way, etc. I have not fully learned to stop when satisfied but I am getting there. I feel great about the progress I have made and know the rest will come as I continue. The best part is that almost immediately, I stopped thinking constantly about food at felt at peace with myself and with God in this area.

Rethinking years of wrong habits and ideas does not come overnight by "being obedient". It comes with understanding of ourselves, how our bodies are made and with the loving, step-by-step, grace filled approach this book offers. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: A Major Disappointment
Review: I hate to write a negative comment about this book because when I read the original version in 1988 I though it was probably the best diet book available. However, while this revised version does still have the same essential content, it also force feeds you with an overwhealming amount of biblical theology. It's not that biblical quotes are bad because a few might help and inspire. The problem with this edition is that the author goes WAY overboard with far too many irrelevant quotes. An overwhealming random assortment of irrelevant biblical quotes make it very difficult to get to the relevant content of the book. What were they thinking?

Rating:
Summary: What happened to the original version of this book?
Review: I read the original version of this book when it was first published in 1987. If you want to avoid the religious rhetoric, check out that version instead. The old version is excellent. I give the new version only two stars because the pervasiveness of born again Christian thinking is a dissapointment and a distraction from the principles that can help anyone (not just Christians) struggling with their weight or body image. I am happy for Judy that she has found her spiritual path, but it is really a shame to alienate people who do not share her beliefs.

That said, the concepts of this non-diet lifestyle are excellent. It teaches you to listen to your body and take value judgements out of evaluating food. No food is forbidden, but you commit to eating only when you are truly hungry. As simple as it sounds, it takes tremendous commitment, time and compassion toward yourself to make this change - but if you do you wont regret it! Good luck.

Rating:
Summary: It Works!
Review: Ten years ago I used an earlier edition of this book to lose a lot of weight with relative ease, it worked great. I'm now updating with this newer edition.

Rating:
Summary: Christianity, the best diet ever.
Review: The original edition of this book was an interesting and inspiring approach to weight management written in a direct and reader-friendly manner. This edition is an uneasy hybrid of religious proselytizing and weight loss advice based on the notion Christianity is the best diet ever. The theory and tips that made Thin Within so useful in its first incarnation are buried under an avalanche of quotes from the Christian Bible, and digging your way through is an exhausting task. The implication that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, Pagans, atheists and everyone other than born-again Christians are excluded from the Hallidays' weight management paradise because they lack the requisite theology is simply offensive.

Rating:
Summary: Thin Within
Review: This is a very helpful book. It changed my life. I read this book more than 15 years ago when I was a teenage complusive eater. Within a few years, as I began to implement the way of eating and relating to food this book presented, I was 30 lbs. lighter (my body's natural weight). I am able to maintain my weight comfortably, and at a size 4. There are references to God in this book, but don't let that scare you away. Whatever your religious persuasion is, the message is that of love and compassion, and treating yourself with kindness. That is the most important thing.

Rating:
Summary: Biased View of this Book! :-)
Review: To the Reader from California who reviewed the book on January 6, 2004, I guess I am equipped to tell you what we were thinking when we put the book together. :-)

Judy discovered that the truth of this approach to eating and your body was devoid of power when the focus was not placed on the One who made the amazing human body! Her testimony is shared in the book very honestly. Apart from God Almighty, who loves us all and cares for us all, we just replace one obsession with another. That isn't productive. It isn't true healing.

What was on the minds of the authors was to share the truth. There is one place to find truth--God's Word! Many authors and diet gurus spout off all sorts of knowledge, but as most of us on the diet treadmill know...give it some time and we have gained the weight back.

There are specific truths ("irrelevant quotes," says the Reader in CA)--bible verses that truly do speak to the issue of how we approach food and how we view our body. To fail to share these, is to fail!

Wishing the Reader in CA and others all the best in their endeavors to release extra weight--in body and spirit.

Sincerely,
Heidi Bylsma