Ms. Roth has written several books in the past about eating. I think that perhaps this latest one may be a sum of all her books...the wisdom is incredible. While reading it, I often had to stop and just contemplate on a sentence.
She writes regularly for Good Housekeeping magazine and I love her column in there. However, when I read the article featuring her and Women Food and God in last month's Oprah magazine, I began to cry. It was eeery. Her words just totally spoke to me and I knew that I had to get the book!
The premise is (at least for me) basically to stop dieting and pay attention to what I am feeling. As I said, a simple concept on the outset, but when you start to try to practice it...not so simple! One of the main things recommended to do is to eat without any distractions and pay attention to what you are eating. I have been amazed at how difficult that is for me. I live for distraction apparently. To just sit at the table with me and my food is torture! But I am slowly starting to be able to do it. And what I am finding when I do it, is that I don't need to eat nearly as much food as I usually eat.
That's enough about me...this is about the book! Just letting yourself sit and identify and feel feelings is not a new idea, but one that needs to be constantly brought to us. Allowing yourself to feel your feelings is freeing in so many ways and the book has lots of examples of this.
My book is underlined and marked up all over the place. An example (from page 32): "Women turn to food when they are not hungry because they are hungry for something they can't name: a connection to what is beyond the concerns of daily life.". And another (page 80): "When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop. When you believe in yourself, more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as it it were your only chance at not falling apart." And these are just the beginning of the wisdom that is in this book!
What I took most from the book is KINDNESS. I need to practice being kind to myself until I become kindness itself.
This is a wonderful book...run to the store!
1 comment:
I just saw this book in the store, and I've read parts of one of her early books. This one looks really good, so I think I might pick it up. As a newly diagnosed diabetic, I am still learning to redo my entire relationship with food, and how much I need to live, and how it really does affect me now. Thanks for the review, Sue!
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