Rating: 
Summary: Just another diet book
Review: Goodman wants her readers to believe she is no longer obsessed with food, but she is. Long term dieting, which is what she recommends, is still a food obsession. She counts calories, figures out how many she can "spend" on a meal, and urges her readers to find diet foods like rice cakes, Atkins bars, and eat a calcium chew for a "dessert". Her attitude towards her readers is condescending, especially when she explains why she didn't title her chapters: "I don't want you skipping to the chapters you want to read." Well, aren't we controlling? And frankly her whining about being 15 pounds over her "ideal" weight got old, as did her ramblings about her therapy and how she just wanted to talk about food. She uses profanity at times, which i find distracting. Goodman deserves kudos for sharing her journey through overcoming her binge eating disorder, but I would not recommend this book for anyone looking for a truly healthy, balanced attitude towards food. She's basically giving you another structured eating plan (i.e. "diet"). She is not a doctor or nutritionist or psychologist. Read it for an interesting personal account, but don't try it for a nutrtional eating guide.
Rating:
Summary: Just another diet book
Review: Goodman wants her readers to believe she is no longer obsessed with food, but she is. Long term dieting, which is what she recommends, is still a food obsession. She counts calories, figures out how many she can "spend" on a meal, and urges her readers to find diet foods like rice cakes, Atkins bars, and eat a calcium chew for a "dessert". Her attitude towards her readers is condescending, especially when she explains why she didn't title her chapters: "I don't want you skipping to the chapters you want to read." Well, aren't we controlling? And frankly her whining about being 15 pounds over her "ideal" weight got old, as did her ramblings about her therapy and how she just wanted to talk about food. She uses profanity at times, which i find distracting. Goodman deserves kudos for sharing her journey through overcoming her binge eating disorder, but I would not recommend this book for anyone looking for a truly healthy, balanced attitude towards food. She's basically giving you another structured eating plan (i.e. "diet"). She is not a doctor or nutritionist or psychologist. Read it for an interesting personal account, but don't try it for a nutrtional eating guide.
Rating: 
Summary: that good looking stranger on the street...
Review: Have you ever wanted to go up to that athletic, good looking woman you just saw on the street (the one who's physique you have spent the last year trying to attain) and ask: "tell me the truth -- what do you do/have you done to look the way you do?" Well this book is the equivalent of that. A "from the trenches" life story of the writer's struggles with food and emotion. She does not wax prosaic, she writes like you're having a heart-to-heart with your best, most honest friend. Read her experiences, know you're not alone, and find motivation in that simple knowledge. A caveat: please don't read her and then judge her writing like she's a Booker Prize literati, take her as she is -- the girl next door with a brain, heart, body and life experiences -- just like you.
Rating:
Summary: Promising start, but ultimately disappointing
Review: Having visited Nancy's website, and read some impressive endorsements, I was very keen to read this book. At the outset I was impressed by her fresh and unique voice. It's clear Nancy is genuinely motivated to reach out and help her audience. Her honesty about her own journey is absolutely amazing. It seems like nothing is held back. As I read the first few chapters, I really believed that I had encountered some one who had really overcome a food obsession and could shine a light and lead a way for me. But as the book progressed, I started to get concerned about some of the mixed messages. For example, whilst this book at first appears to offer a non-diet solution, Nancy talks about calories a lot. And I mean A LOT. It's obvious that she tracks calories during the day, writes everything down and still exerts an awful lot of control and energy over how she eats. It doesn't square with the 'life after food onsession' that I was hoping to discover. . My concern is that the readers who are searching for a 'quick fix' will just take in the chapters on food, try to copy Nancy's approach and end up more concerend about calorie-counting than they had been at the beginning and miss what is a valuable message about uncovering the feelings behind food. It is clear that Nancy has found a way to successfully manage her weight long term. Now 15 lbs lighter that when she embarked on her own quest for a life past bingeing, she has found a way of living at her ideal weight and is clearly a lot happier. However, as far as I can tell there is an awful lot of monitoring and calorie counting going on. From what I can glean Nancy consumes about 1600 calories a day - 400 less than the doctors recommend for adult women. Sounds sort of like a diet to me...? Nancy also mentions that when she first started seeing the counsellor who helped her find this solution she took up running, and now runs 7:20 min miles. Well call me sherlock, but is it surprising that someone who eats 1600 calories a day and runs this fast weighs 15 lbs less than they used to? A mother of three in her thirties or forties she has a body fat of just 17% - sounds almost underweighht to me. Should this woman really be a role model for showing women a life beyond food obsession. In my opinion, she is still obsessed, just has it disguised better. Deep down every body knows that to successfully lose weight and keep it off, we need to eat less and exercise more. It's putting this into action that gets difficult. Nancy is the first to say, 'it's not about the food, but about the feelings' and in this regard her book is worth reading. I don't however believe that Nancy has truly freed herself of food obsession, or can show others how to do this. She describes herself as that rat who escaped the maze. As far as I can tell she is still very much in the maze, but has just found a way of living there more happily. For some readers, learning how to do this may be useful in itself, but for readers who beleived that this book could show them an escape route from food obsession, they, like me, will be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Not without some merit
Review: I bought the book on a whim; when I found out that Nancy's battle was with about 15 pounds I buried it on the bottom of my "to read" pile. I dug the book out later to give it a reasonable chance, and I must say that her candor and warmth won me over on many levels. While I don't believe that food issues are exactly the same for someone who wants to lose 15 pounds vs someone who need to lose 100+ pounds, there are some valid points where the obsessions cross.
The idea of eating when hungry and stopping when satisfied has been explored before (thinking here of Geneen Roth's good work). The idea of finding out what is really going on with emotions has been well done (Laurel Mellin is the QUEEN in this concern; if emotional overeating is a problem for you, please read her book "The Solution.")To be fair, though, Nancy Goodman makes these issues very personal, which makes the book quite readable. It is obvious that she has worked hard and come far in her journey, and I for one commend her for her honesty and genuine heart to help others. I do have some concern that Nancy is still tied very tightly to food; true freedom, it seems to me, lies somewhere beyond the need for things like "structured" binges.
One other concern is some of Nancy's nutritional advice. In addition to the inference she makes linking dairy and cancer, there are many places in which she seems to use her personal food preferences as nutritional gospel. For instance, she fairly dismisses fruit, saying that it is "full of sugar" and doesn't have much in the way of vitamins. Yikes! While it is true that there is a lot of natural sugar in fruit, it is also true that fruit is crammed with vitamins (oranges and strawberries pack vitamin C), minerals (a banana gives you more than your daily requirement of potassium), and phytonutrients we are just beginning to figure out (blueberries contain powerful anti-oxidants.)No, they are not vegetables, but then, neither is oatmeal. Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. She also gives the side of her hand to olive oil, lumping it in with all other fats as "slimy food." In Nancy's world, if you cook with or eat olive oil--which is a terrific mono-unsaturated fat--that's okay, because slimy food is what some people enjoy. I'd urge Nancy to defer to someone like Dr. Andrew Weil for information about the healthy use of fats in a balanced diet. Finally, Nancy tells us that couscous "is an interesting and healthy grain that cooks in just five minutes." People, PLEASE. Repeat after me: COUSCOUS IS NOT A GRAIN. Couscous is a tiny pasta product, typically made out of semolina flour just like your good old spaghetti noodles! It is tasty, and yes it does cook in five minutes, but if you want a grain, eat a GRAIN.
If you want a book that reads like chatty mail from a friend, you'll enjoy "Food vs Me." And you may find some of Nancy's tips useful in your own life. My advice is to read with a caveat that (as she freely admits) Nancy is not a nutritionist. Take her advice with a grain of salt...and maybe a shot of tequila.
Rating: 
Summary: Nancy Goodman's Book is a Winner Too
Review: I found this book to be really powerful. It resonated deeply with me, so much so that I had tears in my eyes simply reading the book jacket. I read it in one night. I think that Nancy Goodman has written the book that could make other "diet" and weight loss books obsolete. This is someone who has lived with the frustration and pain of food obsession; her expertise comes from real life and her voice is authentic. What she weighs now or in the past is irrelevant; food obsession or addiction has little to do with what the scale says. The degree of obsession, the behavior and how it impacts on one's quality of life is what matters. There are so many ways that disordered eating manifests: everything on the arc from anorexia to bulemia to compulsive overeating to morbid obesity. In every case, there is an emotional root and this is what Goodman is addressing. I found the book hopeful and refreshing in her honesty and her humility. She doesn't claim to have cured herself but rather to have found a way to live with her problem and not be controlled by it. I believe that that is as much as any of us can hope for. Obsessions and addictions have to be managed, for a lifetime.
For this reader, the most valuable aspect of this book is that finally someone is offering a practical means of getting to the emotional roots of weight and eating problems. We all know it's not about the food itself but we persist in trying to solve the problems through food - or food deprivation. Hearing Goodman say that deprivation (dieting) leads to weight gain is validating to me and I'm sure to many others. Her premise makes sense and her methods are creative yet practical and realistic. Goodman comes across like a good friend - natural, funny and unpretentious - but there is a lot of wisdom in her words. Her metaphors are marvelous.
My only minor criticism is that there is some repetition but this is far outweighed by all that I found valuable. I have already recommended this book to a number of women and will continue to do so. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: It's Good To The Bone
Review: I have been vascillating for years between diet books that are loaded with structure, and the new "non-diet" approach that encourages you to eat when you are hungry, stop when you're full and no restrictions as far as food content. Not so easy when you have a history of disordered eating. Nancy's book is a welcome place between the two extremes. She encourages some structure but not restriction. There is definitely a difference. I was at the point where I thought I would have to accept myself much heavier than I am comfortable with (nondiet approach), but this book has given me hope that I can be at a more healthy weight and still not live my life around the diet du jour. I love Nancy's honest, down to earth style, and I love her attitude of being thin and having your cake and eating it too!
Rating:
Summary: Street smarts are so much easier to digest
Review: I loved this book and it was her 2nd chapter that hooked me - "I'm not the professional, I'm the rat". When you want to get teens to learn, sticking a policeman in front of the classroom or making them sit through health education is great. But if you really want to get their attention you let a teen in shackles talk about DUI's, or a single 15-year-old mother juggling a crying infant tell what it's like... This is what Nancy's book is all about. Street smarts. Been there, done that, pay attention, it happened to me. I'm fixing it, so can you. It grabbed me all the way through. I felt like I was sitting in her living room chatting one on one. A great motivator and not the least bit drab and technical. Easily adaptable techniques for every lifestyle. Even if you don't latch on to all her techniques, the understanding of what motivates the eating disorders is worth it alone. I highly recommend!!
Rating:
Summary: This Book Changed the Way I Think About Food Forever!
Review: If you are a binge eater, read this book! I don't think that even Nancy Goodman thinks that she is fully "cured" from her obsession with food, but I think that she's managing it successfully. I admire her honesty--she admits that she still occasionally succumbs to a "binge" and tells the reader how she manages it. After reading her inspiring story, I was able to give myself permission to eat junk food in moderation, guilt-free, and that has stopped most of the cravings and daily binging. My diet is much healthier now, and I've lost 30 pounds!
Rating:
Summary: Battle Not Over Yet
Review: Imagine all the time and energy I could find if I wasn?t so busy obsessing about food! That is just what Nancy Goodman asked me to envision as I read her memoir, It Was Food Vs. Me and I Won. She tells the tale as her way back from food obsession and binge eating. Well, almost back. Some of her ?rules? and ?tips? are quite unhealthy. She is a work in progress, but the idea is a good one. It is not about the food. Food is a destination to keep you away from your feelings. Deal with the feelings and you will stop binging.
Basically the same story as Dr. Phil, but easier for me to grasp because she is a woman. Call me sexist. I don?t think men have any idea the horror of tummy flab or bra overhang. Somehow it rings a bit truer from someone who understands flappy arms.
The book has some great ?been there? examples, but left me worried about Nancy. She isn?t done yet. She still binges, she just has more rules for it now. She still exercises and diets exhaustively after a day where she eats too much. She is better, but not completely healed.
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