How to Survive Your Diet and Conquer Your Food Issues Forever [Paperback] Review

I waited a little over a year to write my review; I wanted to offer solid evidence in favor of this book and approach to losing my disordered eating (binge eating/compulsive overeating in my case). I read this book about 11 months ago and quit dieting after having gained 20 more pounds on my diet last winter (bingeing my way through it). I have been implementing normal eating ever since to the best of my ability.What changes have taken place in my less than perfect attempts to eat normally?

-- I am losing weight.
-- My blood pressure is perfect when it was high (140/90) a year ago before non-dieting/normal eating.
-- My cholesterol is normal (I suspect it too was high).
-- I am exercising everyday without hating it.
-- I am eating foods I love with no fear of calories, carbs, or fat grams.
-- I am enjoying life again, no longer in a pit of despair asking myself all day long, "what can I do to quit eating and lose weight?"

Linda's book gave me perhaps the most important tool in my life (and in my eating struggles): the ability to think in shades of grey. I have always been a perfectionistic, all or nothing, black and white sort of person. No more-- I am free from dieting prison and all other prisons. Now my eating matches up with my other philosophical and personal leanings toward free thought and focused action. I urge you to read this book, and if you need more support, come on over to dietsurvivors' yahoo group, Linda Moran's group.Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Linda.

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Product Description:
Are you a Diet Survivor? Maybe your whole life seems to revolve around diets and weight focus. Perhaps even attempts at intuitive eating failed. This book will help you find your own inner wisdom, and a path to normal eating.
Binge eating, emotional eating, stress eating, and just plain overeating are often made worse by dieting, not cured by it. External changes just aren't enough. That's why even intuitive eating can backfire.
Unlike willpower, the work lies instead in changing how you think about food, stress, and emotions. And happily, you can stay in the present day. No need to delve into childhood memories or deep emotions.
Using principles of cognitive therapy, you will learn to adjust the self-talk that accompanies dysfunctional eating. Self-talk such as "I must drink this diet soda in order to get thin," "my children must not have junk in the house," "my emotional eating will never end," and "I canÂ't tolerate stress," have little basis in reality and lead to failure.
After some work at replacing your beliefs with facts, you will start to find your own food wisdom again. Maybe you havenÂ't had this wisdom since you were a baby, but itÂ's still inside you. And you will learn to think in shades of gray, instead of the black and white thinking that is typical of folks with dysfunctional eating.
Learn how to know when you are hungry and full, and how to be a picky eater, perhaps for the first time in your life. With practice, you will find that small, perfect, delicious portions do satisfy. Just as importantly, learn how you can cope with stress and emotions without running to the refrigerator. Learn to apply your mind to rational thought.
No longer will you feel that your body has betrayed you. You will once again be able to trust your body and mind to lead you to your ideal weight. You will never again have to bow to a diet as if it were some kind of god. Instead, any diet you choose will be your slave, not your master. In fact, as you finally free yourself from your attachment to food and dieting, your body will seek its ideal weight with no formal diet at all.
Regardless of whether or not you are overweight, if you have any kind of food issues such as emotional eating, stress eating, eating in secret, exercise addiction, using food for control, night eating, diet addiction, scale addiction, or binge eating disorder, this book is for you. Eating issues are more hidden than people realize, and are not always evidenced in oneÂ's appearance. Indeed, eating issues reside in our hearts and minds, not our stomachs.
This book is a fun, easy read that could change your life. Join the growing club of Diet Survivors.

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Lunch Buddies [Paperback] Review

Lunch Buddies

Want to have some fun and get healthier, too?Turn your best friend into your lunch buddy and both of you will benefit from these new styles of lunches.Leave behind the fast food counter with all its fattening foods.You think it's boring to fix a brown bag lunch for yourself every day?Try using this book for ideas so you cook only every other day, with your partner cooking on the alternate days. Othersin the lunch room will watch you two laughing and enjoying your beautifully arranged meal while the enticing aroma fills the room.Soon you will see an improvement not only in your mental attitude butbetter results from your blood tests.

This brilliantly written book is anything but boring. Why? A bit of humor is threaded throughout the book.The authors share some of their personal experiences.Pictures of them in authentic costumes accentuate the various periods of food history.Facts and folklore of many foods from past centuries have been turned into delicious recipes for well balanced lunches.

Information regarding the nutrition has been well organized.The tasteful recipes are easily followed so fixing them is simple. The index makes locating what you're looking for very accessible.

Just one word of warning,if you prepare one of these dishes for your husband, don't expect him to praise you for it.Better have some hamburgershandy- just in case he is reluctant to try new foods.

Buy this book and try these novel recipes and suggestions with your lunch buddy for healthy, nourishing, fun lunches.

Caution:once you start reading this book,you may find it hard to put down.



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Product Description:
Want to cash in on the movement back to the brown bag lunch? Are memories of soggy sandwiches and salty chips holding you back? We will teach you how to turn the old "brown bag" lunch into dining at its finest in the comfort of your office breakroom ... saving you money, time, and calories in the process. Inside the cover of this fascinating book filled with amusing anecdotes and historical tales about the world's healthiest foods, you will find more than 90 delicious recipes which easily can be adapted to the brown bag. This book, as no other does, will teach you how to rely on friendship to achieve a better diet, while lowering your food costs and saving time. For years fitness experts have recommended exercising with a buddy as a way to retain our interest and motivation. If you've ever tried it, you know it works. Now it's time to apply that principle to lunch, and this book is just the tool to help you do it.

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Refuse to Regain!: 12 Tough Rules to Maintain the Body You've Earned! [Hardcover] Review

Smart and sophisticated, Refuse to Regain is a well written and well researched book that is a must read for anyone serious about being healthy. Although the book is geared primarily to people who are struggling to maintain weight loss, it is actually a fascinating read that would be valuable to anyone, as it lays out the basic principles for how to eat healthily and explains why so many Americans are overweight.Dr. Berkeley manages to present state of the art medical research in a way that is easy to grasp and her point of view is very convincing. Unlike other books about diet and lifestyle, this one is actually a good read! And there really are not any other books out there that address the specific question of what to do after you've lost weight to keep off the pounds. Kudos to Dr. Berkeley!
S. Jesmajian MD, Chief of Medicine, Sound Shore Medical Center,New Rochelle, NY

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Product Description:
Diets work, but what good are they if the weight returns? Statistics show that 80 to 90 percent of dieters regain every lost pound. This fact represents the largest and least addressed problem in obesity management. The recidivism of dieters fuels a $30 billion weight-loss industry, an industry that would shrink like Al Roker's waistline if the newly-thin could only make weight loss stick. But here is the problem: The skills needed to maintain a new, smaller body size are not obvious or intuitive; they must be taught. Inexplicably, books that deal successfully with ways to prevent regain have gone unwritten. Refuse to Regain, by longtime weight-management authority Barbara Berkeley, MD, fills this void. Berkeley, former medical director for the Optifast program and founder of Weight Management Partners, is a board-certified internist. She continues to have close ties to Novartis Medical Nutrition (recently acquired by Nestle), producer of the weight-loss supplement Optifast, which has 300 weight-loss centers nationwide.

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Flip the Switch: Proven Strategies to Fuel Your Metabolism and Burn Fat 24 Hours a Day [Bargain Price] [Hardcover] Review

I obsessed for a couple of weeks before buying this book. I already had the "Low Fat Living" volume and had found it okay. It seemed to espouse a lot of the ideas promised in the advertisements for "Flip the Switch," so maybe I could save $35 and still eat better.

However, I did go ahead and try it out, which turned out to be a good decision. "Flip" has new science, starting out with a few lessons on hormones and how they control the body's chemical processes and why. With the recommendations for doing little things to turn on your metabolic thermostat (the Meta-Stat, they call it), you can keep yourself burning calories.

I found that when I understood what was going on with the body chemistry, it was easier to get myself to do the exercises, almost all of which are easy to work into even a busy daily schedule.

Most of the recipes are accessible, too. My favorites include anything to do with pistachios and chicken, as well as something called "peanut butter bursts," a delicious protein-filled, low but complex carb dessert that even my four-year-old loves.

Even the act of making the recipes is a sort of calorie-burner in itself, and it's fun. Most of the meals don't take that much time to make, especially after you get used to the process. It's not as easy as opening a carton, venting a plastic seal, and punching in a series of numbers on a keypad, but neither is it like building a piano.

One thing that did take some time was finding some of the ingredients. I'd never looked in some of the places I had to look now. Things like unsalted butter, toasted sesame oil, garlic and herb flavored goat cheese are not items I was in the habit of dropping into my cart. Besides the search time, I was afraid buying the ingredients would break the food budget, and for a while I did spend about three times as much as I did for salty, chemical-laden microwave meals, but after a couple of weeks, that expense plateaued and now I have most of the items I need for most of the recipes. All I have to do is buy the meat and I'm there.

Take a look at the salt and preservatives on the back of a box of a meal of shrimp. You're likely getting half a day's worth of salt. Then calculate the cost of buying a pound of fresh or frozen shrimp (about $4 in my area) and you'll find yourself singing the praises of this book, just like me.

And when you clean up, the stuff you wipe and throw away will make your garbage can smell like a gourmet meal.

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Honest Nutrition: A Descent Into The Ocean Of Nutritional Prattle, And Coming Up For Air (Paperback) Review

Many who write on the subject of nutrition and health are intelligent, educated and knowledgeable. Honest Nutrition by Ira Edwards is noteworthy because the author writes as a health consumer; he does not have a health product or service to promote. To his credit, Edwards has no bias for or against conventional medicine, alternative medicine or herbal healing. He lays out the benefits, problems and costs of various nutritional, herbal and medical modalities with careful attention to biochemical realities.

Over several decades, Edwards has investigated the authenticity of many scientific studies that are commonly accepted in health and medical practice. His education and professional experience, in biochemistry and in scientific methodology, well qualify him to see through a fraudulent veneer where it exists. Among innumerable subjects, his findings on cholesterol are important to anyone interested in maintaining good health.

Although retired, Edwards has stayed current with scientific discovery. The book is abundantly filled with timely, relevant information. For me, it has been a marvelous resource, dropped into my hands at an appropriate time to help with important (and beneficial) health decisions.

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Product Description:
Honest Nutrition is an attempt to do what textbooks and hundreds of diet books do not. Nutrition textbooks do not tell you that this science is in its infancy, nor how many "scientific" claims are open to question, based on faulty research or simple hunches. If they include some of the biochemical and physiological context of nutrition, they still omit financial, social and political aspects.

After attempting to understand the prejudice against vitamins and supplements among the industrial-medical-political Big Brother (IMP-BB) and the lack of evidence for most alternatives, there is still some useful information.

Opposing philosophies are denoted as SUPR (SUrgery-PRescription orientation) and UTHR (Unconventional Therapies, Herbal Remedies.)

Honest Nutrition uses a large alphabetical section to give easy access to useful information about many diseases and nutritional therapies.

Honest Nutrition includes information about hormone resistance diseases, cryptic infections as a cause of "unknown etiology" diseases, and the effect of nutrition on behavior and criminality.

Some claims:

1. Obesity always involves hormones, sometimes with positive-feedback loops, which is why "Just eat less and exercise" seldom works.2. A major factor in arterial disease is viscous blood, resulting in part from a lack of omega-3 fat. Cholesterol lowering does not help.3. Some heart attacks may be due to hormonal effects, involving the hormone ouabain, and preventable with an extract of the herb strophanthus. 4. Many, or most North Americans suffer serious lack of nutrients: vitamin D, magnesium, and plant nutrients.

The author challenges the medical establishment to examine their doctrines and learn how to help people suffering from nutritional diseases.Many technical terms are included. The non-scientific reader is asked to skip over these, to gain a useful knowledge of nutrition.

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Spark Box Set [Hardcover] Review

I recently signed up (beginning of April/this month) and started logging my nutrition and fitness information on the free web site that accompanies this book and work out DVDs ([...] is the free site... dunno if amazon.com folks will let me post the domain to a free site).Anyway I LOVE that free web site and have already made some very positive and healthy changes that have shown me, albeit small but that is to be expected, results like getting up and down off the floor easier when I play with my kids.

First the pros:
- I am about 1/4 of the way through the book and have really enjoyed it.The CEO of sparkpeople is also the author of the book.He is a real person talking about his real life and inspirations.He relates his inspirations and `sparks' to the reader and tells you how you can incorporate them in to your life.
- At the current price of 23 dolars this is a very good deal.
- The work out DVDs and the book are a nice companion to the free web site.In fact all I had to do was search for "80s Aerobics Workout" in the fitness section of the web site.
- The work out DVDs are geared toward a broad audience, there is something for everyone from beginner (namely ME) to someone in good shape.Coach Nicole is both encouraging and engaging.She pushes you to do your best and keep up but always prefaces not to push too hard and isn't discouraging. Especially on the cardio DVD, she encourages you to keep moving and gives you alternatives that you can do if you can't do what she is doing.
- Coach Nicole counts down the last couple repetitions on the DVDs.I really like this because it means I don't have to stare at the TV constantly to make sure I am moving in time with her.

Now the cons:
- I wish the product descriptions were a little more in depth, meaning there is no information about additional work out equipment you will need.As someone new to working out at home it never occurred to me to buy dumb bells or jump rope.This may be something that most people know but I had no experience with work out DVDs except the Pilates DVD so I already have a floor mat but nothing else.However DO note that, at least for the dumb bells, Coach Nicole does offer suggestions on what to use instead of a dumb bell if you don't have one.
- I wish the 2 DVDs came on one DVD.I don't know if it was a space issue on one DVD but it would more convenient if there was an option to buy both the cardio and the strength DVDs on one DVD.

However all in all my two "cons" are really negligible.This is an excellent product and sparkpeople is an excellent site.I have already encouraged a friend to both sign up on the free web site and to order this box set if she can.In other words I *highly* recommend this product.

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Product Description:

This box set features three extraordinary products that will help you discover a new way to think about your weight, your health, and your life!


THE SPARK – From Chris Downie, commonly known as "SparkGuy," the founder and CEO of SparkPeople.com-recently ranked as the most active diet and fitness Website in the U.S.-comes The Spark, a groundbreaking book that focuses on transforming your life and your idea of what dieting means.


Within these pages, you'll discover: a 28-day program that distills the most effective, medically accepted nutrition and fitness practices from SparkPeople into an innovative 4-stage, 4-week program. Whether you want to fit into your "skinny jeans," improve your mood and self-confidence, or reach other health and life goals, The Spark has something for everyone!


THE SPARK: Fit, Firm & Fired Up DVD – Inspired by the book The Spark, this DVD includes effective yet unintimidating workouts for "everyday" exercisers led by Nicole Nichols ("Coach Nicole"), a certified fitness instructor who helps people of all skill levels integrate simple but powerful fitness techniques into their daily lives. With her encouragement, you'll be inspired to get moving . . . and get results!


This DVD includes: seven targeted 10-minute strength and toning workouts (All About Arms, Lower Body Blast, and more); a bonus 15-minute cardio workout; training tips; and additional workout combinations-all on one DVD!


SPARKPEOPLE Cardio Blast DVD –

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The Butt Book: How to Build a Non-Cellulite and Fat-Free Butt in 9 Weeks [Paperback] Review

This book is good for the most part.I did enjoy it and found it useful for certain populations, although I also have some concerns.The training advice isn't bad, but I have to agree with some of the other reviewers that it seems to be geared toward beginners or women who aren't "hard-core" fitness enthusiasts. I emphasize that the worthwhileness of this book depends on the exerciser's personal fitness goals.If you're looking for general health and fitness with some moderate shaping benefits, then go for it. As an NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, I wouldn't personally use or recommend most of these exercises with my athletes or clients, except for squats, lunges and deadlifts (which can benefit anyone); then again, our goals are entirely different.

My main concern is the diet portion of the book.The advice is sound, but the actual diet that Reno prescribes is atrocious.First the positive stuff: the food choices are good, six meals a day is good (keeps your metabolism revved), and the macronutrient ratio is good.Now for the negative: the calories are WAY too high for each meal and hence for each overall day. Day 2, for example, will provide approximately 2300 or more calories (other days aren't as bad).Unless you're an elite endurance athlete, you'll probably GAIN fat weight on this diet - not the kind of rounded butt most people are looking for. I also wonder where she gets her nutrient info from, because some of the stats given can't be right.Case in point: Oatmeal pancakes on p.97.She writes that it has 600 calories per serving (which is a huge amount for most women to eat for breakfast), but the entire recipe has about 680 calories, and the serving size isn't noted.To make the diet more suitable to most people's needs, I'd recommend cutting in half the portions of meals 2,4 and 6 (which are probably supposed to be snacks).

Don't be fooled for an instant that the butts of the fitness models in the book are at all representative of the kind of butt the average woman will derive from Reno's advice. Remember that these women have exceptional genetics: that is why they are elite fitness and bodybuilding athletes.Plus I wouldn't doubt that some of them are juicers.I'd also bet the farm that none of them used the kind of soft-core program that Reno outlines.At any rate, normal women with normal genetics and a normal lifestyle (ie. diet/exercise habits) is quite unlikely to build a body-builder Bertha butt.

Everyone is different (that's why we're called "individuals!"), so you really just have to find your own path.As I said, it's good if your goals are fairly modest, but watch the diet.

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Product Description:
The derriere is considered the sexiest body part the world over. Don't you want that sexy butt to be yours? With The Butt Diet, it can be! Of course The Butt Diet doesn't give you only a great-looking rear, it makes you look incredible all over. The Butt Diet is easy to follow. You will never go hungry - in fact, you may have a hard time eating all the food you should! There is no calorie or carb counting; no fancy system for figuring out what to eat. You do not avoid any food group. The Butt Diet is simple, and it simply works. Give it six weeks. You'll be sure to hear the brakes screeching behind you.

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Eat Fat, Lose Fat: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Three Delicious, Science-Based Coconut Diets [Bargain Price] (Hardcover) Review

I wish everyone who still fears eating fat because they think it will somehow make them fat, clog their arteries and harm their health in any way would read this classic book by Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon from the Weston A. Price Foundation. It is the definitive book on high-fat eating for health that arms you with the science behind why vegetables oils are killing you and saturated fats like butter and coconut oil are actually extremely healthy.

Eat Fat Lose Fat focuses primarily on coconut fats in combination with other fat sources to provide the maximum health benefits. Tons of research, real-life recipes, and recovery from years of unhealthy high-carb, low-fat eating are the highlight of this definitive book on eating fat for weight loss and better healthy than you ever thought possible.

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Product Description:
The healthy alternative to trans fats, this revolutionary program explains why we must eat healthy, saturated fats-especially coconut-to achieve weight loss and good health.

Since the late 1950s, it's been drilled into Americans that fat makes you fat, saturated fats (such as those found in butter, eggs, and red meat) are unhealthy, and tropical fats and oils (like coconut and palm) are downright deadly. And yet-as we eliminate saturated fats from our diet for fear of high cholesterol levels and hardened arteries-obesity, heart disease, and cancer rates have continued to climb.

Based on more than two decades of research by world-renowned biochemist and fats expert Dr. Mary Enig, Eat Fat, Lose Fat flouts conventional wisdom by asserting that so-called healthy vegetable oils (such as soybean and corn) are in large part responsible for our national obesity and health crises, while the saturated fats traditionally considered "harmful" are, in fact, essential to weight loss and health.

World populations on four continents that subsist on the coconut, with less evidence of heart disease, weight gain, or other chronic illnesses, provide the best proof of this food's safety and efficacy; dozens of studies conducted by prestigious, mainstream universities support the use of coconut and other healthy fats and reveal the faulty reasoning underlying the saturated fat/heart disease hypothesis; and case stories from a wide range of people illustrate how using coconut oil in concert with other healthy fats can spark weight loss and heal serious illnesses, including anxiety, hypothyroidism, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Featuring delicious recipes for each of its three nutritional programs, Eat Fat, Lose Fat is the book to help you build energy, lose weight, fight disease, and boost your immunity.

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