Breaking Out of Food Jail: How to Free Yourself from Diets and Problem Eating, Once and for All [Paperback]

Jean Antonello (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 1996

FINALLY YOU CAN SET YOURSELF FREE

If you've tried every diet out there, if you've counted every gram of fat, every last calorie and every meal exchange, and you're still fighting the food wars, it's time for Breaking Out of Food Jail, a commonsense approach to food, eating, and appetites.

Jean Antonello's practical, step-by-step program pinpoints and eliminates the most common cause of eating problems -- the fear of overeating. That's right -- if you've tried everything and you're still battling your appetite, it's probably because you're not getting enough to eat at the right time. When you deprive your body of food for any reason -- and as you do on most diels -- your body goes into a famine state. Your hunger soars, along with cravings for fatty foods and sugars -- the foods your body can most quickly turn into stored fuel to protect you from starvation. If you're like most dieters, you eventually respond to those signals by bingeing. And then you go back to your restrictive eating and start the cycle all over again. Breaking Out of Food Jail will release you from this trap and show you:

* How not eating enough results in cravings, overeating, disturbed eating behavior, and weight gain

* How the "feast or famine" pattern undermines even the most conscientious eater

* How to have a normal relationship with food -- including learning to eat whenever you're hungry and stopping when you are full

* Why most eating problems are not psychological but physiological

* How to prevent eating problems in children and young adults by teaching kids how to tune into their hunger and eat right

Filled with self-tests, affirmations, simple exercises, and the latest research on dieting, as well as Jean's list of "real foods" that should be in every refrigerator and pantry, Breaking Out of Food Jail will transform your relationship with food and your body and eliminate dieting from your life, once and for all.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Although not written by a celebrity doctor, this is an important food-behavior book. Nutritionist and nurse Antonello has studied eating disorders to determine causes and discover solutions. The American way of losing weight involves famine, which eventually triggers feast, all of it becoming a vicious cycle of undereating and overeating. Throw out the bathroom scale, says Antonello. Eat until you feel satisfied. Those sensible rules, along with eight others, are well illustrated in self-administering questionnaires, very personal tales of diet addictions and food disorders, and emotional arguments and rational facts to prove that listening to your body is the best weight-control program existent. Barbara Jacobs

About the Author

Jean Antonello, R.N., B.S.N., an obesity, eating disorders, and co-dependence specialist, is the director of the Naturally Thin Training Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is the author of How to Become Naturally Thin by Eating More. She lives in St. Paul.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (May 10, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684811936
• ISBN-13: 978-0684811932
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #697,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could put the gurus out of business, March 16, 2001

By 

Felis Concolour "csjane" (Colorado Springs United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking Out of Food Jail: How to Free Yourself from Diets and Problem Eating, Once and for All (Paperback)

If everyone followed the advice in this book, it would put a lot of eating disorders therapists, as well as diet gurus out of business. The author's theory is that eating disorders are biological in origin rather than emotional, and that the artificial food restriction of dieting causes a rebound effect in the body. If you stop the artifical restriction, and eat according to your hunger signals, your normal eating patterns will return and your weight will normalize. Unlike some books that advocate a similar philosophy, the author does not advocate eating poor quality foods. She explicitly states that you should eat high quality real foods whenever you are hungry. Thus, this book DOES NOT ignore good nutrition which some of these books do. She states that if your appetite always satisified, you'll soon lose interest in poor quality foods. I cured my own binge eating problem by following this advice, and don't eat much in the way of junk type foods anymore. I don't understand why more obesity researchers don't advocate this approach, and why Ms. Antonello seems to be a lone voice of sanity crying out in the wilderness.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book but not as good as the original, February 23, 2002

By 

Kyra Sedgwick "gagensydney" (Fort Lauderdale, FL United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Breaking Out of Food Jail: How to Free Yourself from Diets and Problem Eating, Once and for All (Paperback)

This book is a follow-up to Jean Antonello's first book on this subject, "How to Become Naturally Thin by Eating More". Although this book is good, I would definitely recommend that "Naturally Thin" be read first in order to get the most out of "Food Jail". Without the benefit of reading the first book, this volume may seem a bit boring and confusing to readers. It contains great information on how the body responds to the self-starvation that dieters well-meaningly put it thru by simply slowing down and holding on that much more stubbornly to excess fat. It explains how to get off the roller-coaster of yo-yo dieting by eating good, real food whenever you are hungry. But, unlike the original book on this subject, the author gives no personal information about herself or her own struggles and eventual triumph with over-weight. Because of this, "Food Jail" seems disjointed and even a bit repetetive in the presentation of it's information. In my opinion, it is important to read "Food Jail" as a companion to "Naturally Thin" and not on it's own to get the most out of Antonello's theories.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a GREAT book!, February 14, 2001

By 

Amy J - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking Out of Food Jail: How to Free Yourself from Diets and Problem Eating, Once and for All (Paperback)

Anyone who thinks that they have even a slightly unhealthy relationship with food needs to read this book. The author really knows what she's talking about, and she knows how to explain her theories so that anyone can understand them. Essentially, she believes that eating disorders do not have an emotional root, but rather that they are caused by dieting. When you go on a diet, your body knows that calories are severely limited, and goes into "starvation mode" - it slows down your metabolism to preserve calories. Then, when you have lost weight and begin to eat normally again, your metabolism is very slow so you gain the weight back quickly. There is also an explanation for why people who are dieting crave fatty, sugary foods - their bodies are trying to save them from what is seen only as a famine.

There are sections that describe how to rescue yourself from this "food jail" - you must eat often, whenever you are hungry, until you are no longer hungry. You must understand that initially this will probably cause weight gain, and you must trust that eventually your body will adjust and believe that there won't be any more famines, and then you will lose weight naturally, without trying. There is also a great section on feeling better about yourself - it suggests looking at art by artists like Renior, throwing away your scale, ignoring the sizes of your clothing, and appreciating the things that your body can do, regardless of any extra pounds you may be carrying.

The focus is on eating healthy, whole foods when you are hungry, and stopping when you are full. It's so simple, but people with a history of eating disorders need to have it spelled out for them, and this book does that remarkably well. Reading this allowed me to start along the road to recovery from a lifetime of eating disorders, and the weight that I gained allowed me to conceive my son. I recommend this book highly!