Karen Gatt, was morbidly obese, weighing about 300 pounds when she started her "clothesline diet." She had two toddlers and was barely able to keep up with them let alone walk a block or two to her mother's house. Like many other overweight people (me too) she had tried many of the diets out there from the ones that made sense nutritionally to the fad diets that would hit the airwaves.
I am overweight rather than 'morbidly obese' so perhaps I have not experienced the full range of self-hatred that Karen talks about. She talks about crying constantly over being fat. She feels everyone is looking at her and talking about her weight which depresses her more. Much of the beginning of the book seems focused on her self-hatred, crying nightly or even hourly. It was hard for me at least to relate to such overwhelming despair when it came to her weight. However, that said, I do think this was a very motivational book for anyone trying to lose weight.
Many diet books claim to be written by amateurs. The person writing it then checks with doctors and other health professionals and suddenly the book has become more than a personal journey and more of a formal diet book. Karen, however, just talks for from the heart and she remains herself. She states that "Losing weight was the biggest battle of my life--my whole life." Karen takes you along with her on her epic and hopefully final weight loss journey.
The author talks about the real secret to success which is "taking control of your life" rather than letting life control you. Weight loss is not about a diet, but about your taking your life into your own hands. A lot of her weight losing tenants are simple common sense, but they bear listening to--statements like:
Put a few minutes aside for yourself.
We complain far too easily about lives and yet...how privileged we really are.
Turn negative thoughts into positive ones is the single most essential factor in
changing your life.
It is essential that you put yourself first in life.
Don't give up on your journey.
Create a solid support system for your journey.
Some of the book is a little simplistic. She does address how many of us say something to the effect of "well, I'll start my diet Monday" and then we eat like crazy so we can deprive ourselves on Monday and start losing weight and then usually by the end of the week we have blown another diet. She states she suddenly decided enough was enough and the next day she cleaned out her cupboards and started her weight loss journey with better food and a walk around the clothesline.Something had radically shifted within her and she became passionate and committed to health.
Karen's message of better food for your body and simple exercise is a good one. Her story is engaging and her common sense refreshing. She doesn't sugar coat the weight loss journey nor does she glam it up. One of the most refreshing things for me was that this was written by a person who had been very much overweight and knows what it is like to try and lose weight. So often it seems the diet books out there are written by people who were marginally overweight and have no true feel for the way those of us who don't have a lot of time to prepare food and go to the spa/gym for an hour a day really live. Karen Gatt writes from the heart and writes from experience and it is easy to incorporate her common sense into your own life. She knows what it is like to be overweight and not have time to prepare three complex "diet" meals a day and work out for an extended period of time.
For those insights alone this book is worth the money!
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Product Description:
At twenty-six years old, with two toddlers to care for, Karen Gatt weighed nearly 300 pounds. She'd tried diet after diet, only to find the scale tipping ever higher. Depressed and disgusted with herself, Karen was at the breaking point. It was time to change her life.
Barely able to walk to the mailbox, she forced herself to walk around the clothesline in her backyard every day. She cleaned out her cupboards and designed a healthy, easy-to-follow eating plan. And in just one year she walked off an incredible 150 pounds!
Today Karen is a new woman. She's kept the weight off for eight years and her diet has helped thousands of people all over the world lose weight for good-with no pills, no potions and no gimmicks. In The Clothesline Diet, you'll find all the practical tools you need to get off the diet roller coaster.
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8/10/2010
The Clothesline Diet: The Incredible Story of How One Woman Went from Flab to Fab-and How You Can Too! [Paperback] Review
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