Rating:  Summary: Do you want to make peace with food? Review: As a Registered Dietitian, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who feels trapped in diet-land, anyone who wants to lose weight, and basically everyone else who eats. If you have ever been on a diet or struggled with weight, you will recognize yourself in some ways in this book; food is meant to be an enjoyable part of life, but the very act of eating has become so overwhelmed with confusion and guilt for many people. "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" abound, and many people are just plain miserable when it comes to their weight and food. It doesn't have to be that way! This book teaches what is called the "non-diet" approach, and I believe it is the answer to life-long weight management.
Rating:  Summary: One of the most important books I've ever read! Review: I didn't buy this book because I wanted to lose weight. I am an athlete who is at an ideal weight, but I was so strict with my eating that I had become obsessed with food. Daily weighing along with counting calories, protien, and carbs consumed a good portion of my days. The need to eat so perfectly inevitably led to uncontrollable binges about once a week. I bought this book because I wanted to lead a more normal life, where food didn't consume my thoughts and define the success or failure of a day. The principles in the book are completely logical and the authors are good to back up their theories with plenty of empirical data. They clearly lay out why it is so crucial to abandon the diet mentality in order to stabilize or lose weight. I now know that no food is off limits anymore and I am becoming more in tune to what my body is telling me it needs. No more binging, weighing or number crunching. Freedom at last!
Rating:  Summary: Finally!! Review: I read this book at a time in my life when I was ready to hear it, and I believe it will only be useful to you if you're ready to listen. I'm not big on self-help books but I've tried about a thousand diets and have never - NEVER - managed to maintain weight loss for any great length of time. For whatever reason, this book spoke to me. It's not a diet, it's not some kind of program. It's a way to look at every aspect of your life in a totally new (and positive) light. With diet after diet for the past 20 something years, all I ever felt was resentful that I couldn't just eat like a "normal" person. Finally, I can. And if you open yourself up to what this book has to say, have FAITH and PATIENCE, it will change your life. I just want to thank the authors for writing it!
Rating:  Summary: Truly revolutionary and life-changing Review: My daughter and I have read this book, and it has changed our lives! I myself have thrown away my scale as well as my life-long diet mentality. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, that weight being guilt and self-criticism. I've also started to look at others differently, realizing that people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Additionally, this book has greatly helped my daughter recover from anorexia, with which she battled for about a year. I recommend this to any woman (or man!) who has ever put a bite of food in her mouth!
Rating:  Summary: The Next Step Review: The ideas in this book are helpful and very liberating. I have not been dieting for years but am full of food hangups. I didn't give Intuitive Eating five stars only because of the style:a bit of nutrition textbook mixed with the standard self-help "Marcia, a well-dressed forty-ish attorney, was distressed about...". For some reason I hate that. But it's a very good book. After I read it, I went back to Marc David's Nourishing Wisdom which is one of my favorites: well written, warm, spiritual and even one step further removed from any "food Hitler" schemes. Out of print, but ... shows it. Try it. I suspect it would be especially good for men.
Rating:  Summary: Great, but a few contradictions Review: This book has a lot of great information and advice to help dieters cross back over the fence to adopt a more healthy attitude to food, eating and weight. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of contradictions which a sensible editor should have sorted out. The book sets out 10 principles of why dieters will forever be losing the weight loss battle and explains how to relearn to listen, feel and feed our body's natural hunger. This aspect of the book is great, and there are lots of scientific references to back them up. However, while on the one hand telling you to trust your body to select the healthy food it needs, the authors spoil it all in the last chapter (principle 10) by then prescribing a healthy low-fat diet plan. This seems totally out of place on a book purporting to teach you to eat intuitively. As some other reviewers have said, dieters don't need another "plan" to follow. Instead they need to learn how to survive without the prop of plans that forever fail them. It seems the authors are themselves stuck in their category of "careful eaters" and can't let go. But this is just criticism of a small part of the book. I would recommend "The Seven Secrets of Slim People" by Vikki Hansen and Shawn Goodman in addition to this book to reinforce the good parts.
Rating:  Summary: Great, but a few contradictions Review: This book has a lot of great information and advice to help dieters cross back over the fence to adopt a more healthy attitude to food, eating and weight. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of contradictions which a sensible editor should have sorted out. The book sets out 10 principles of why dieters will forever be losing the weight loss battle and explains how to relearn to listen, feel and feed our body's natural hunger. This aspect of the book is great, and there are lots of scientific references to back them up. However, while on the one hand telling you to trust your body to select the healthy food it needs, the authors spoil it all in the last chapter (principle 10) by then prescribing a healthy low-fat diet plan. This seems totally out of place on a book purporting to teach you to eat intuitively. As some other reviewers have said, dieters don't need another "plan" to follow. Instead they need to learn how to survive without the prop of plans that forever fail them. It seems the authors are themselves stuck in their category of "careful eaters" and can't let go. But this is just criticism of a small part of the book. I would recommend "The Seven Secrets of Slim People" by Vikki Hansen and Shawn Goodman in addition to this book to reinforce the good parts.
Rating:  Summary: Packed with information. Little for the soul. Review: This is a well-written, well-researched book. It is full of helpful information if you are treading down the rocky path of body acceptance. It seems oriented toward very large women, ( obese, not just overweight) and the jist of it is body acceptance. I had just finished reading, "How Much Does Your Soul Weigh?", by Dorrie McCubbrey and wanted to read more on the subject. This book had much more information, but it was not as helpful. McCubbrey's book spoke to me and offered simple truths that made me feel better instantly. This book had lots of charts and graphs and yes, some diet-style information that was a turn off. As a recovering dieter, the last thing I want to see is more graphs, charts and numbers. I have a lifetime worth of those in my journals. Bottom line? After reading the McCubbrey book, I felt at peace and instantly started eating less. This book cluttered my mind and the scale has been climbing ever since.
Rating:  Summary: The Best Book I've Ever Read!!!!!!!! Review: This is by far the best book out there!!!! It has changed my life and the way that I think about food and eating. I have given up the good food-bad food mentality and learned to accept food for what it should be: nourishing and pleasureable. I will NEVER diet again and I have even lost weight!!!! I feel more at peace with myself and with my relationship with food. You MUST read this book!
Rating:  Summary: Different spin, same song Review: This is the second time I have read this book. What it does is try to change your mindset and shift from calorie-counting to thinking about eating and fullness. It is a behavioral approach, but has the same basic message: you've got to eat less in order to be a healthy weight. The premise is that your body will tell you when you are full if you pay attention, and that it's ok to eat for other reasons some of the time. While I agree with that I did not find their approach helpful at all. You are told to eat what you want when you want however much you want to begin and eventually you will tire of this and automatically eat right at some point in the future. They talk about self-defeating 'diet thoughts' such as "I'll eat for my health" then tell you to eat for your health. This book did not tell me anything I didn't already know and I found it virtually useless. In my view they are trying to tell you to eat less without really saying it.
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