Chocolatherapy: Satisfying the Deepest Cravings of Your Inner Chick [Paperback]

Karen Scalf Linamen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

When life makes you crazy, reach for the chocolate: it's cheaper than therapy and you don't need an appointment. Beloved humor author Karen Scalf Linamen is back with her first new women's book in five years, and she's got a stash of sweet treats in her purse to share. Why do women choose comfort food when they are really craving something else? What if they could stop settling for second best and give their souls what they are really seeking? Would they be content? Perhaps they would glean a deeper understanding of their emotions. Most importantly, they might be able to get into their skinny jeans and stay there. With her trademark wit and insight, Karen Linamen helps women everywhere discover what they are really hungering for--and laugh out loud in the process.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

EXCERPT FROM CATALOG Chaos. Change. Crisis. In the grand recipe of life, these are common ingredients. All I know is that I find them in my personal mixing bowl far more than I'd like. They're in my life now. Probably yours too. My initial response is to reach for the chocolate. This might be why my closet contains a variety of clothes from size 12 to 24. Okay, I lied. Sometimes I also reach for chips. Or doughnuts. Or-like last week's binge-Bit-O-Honey. You know what I'm talking about, right? Those chewy bite-sized candies that taste like honey even as they extract all your fillings? Except I couldn't stop with just a bit. What I really ate was more like Bag-O-Honey. My dentist sent me a thank-you card. From the Caribbean. I think this all means something, besides the fact that I should have pursued dentistry as a career. I think that when I'm consuming chocolate, I'm really craving something else. Something healthier. Something deeper. Why I get fixated on comfort foods is anybody's guess. Chocolate, after all, is just a quick fix. A tasty substitute. A delectable melt-in-my-mouth imposter. What if, in those all-too-frequent seasons of chaos, change, or crisis, I could somehow stop settling for second best and give my soul whatever it's really seeking?

From the Back Cover

Hungry for a change? If you have ever done the emotional-eating thing, raise your hand. No, not the one holding the chocolate bar. The other one. When heartache, stress, or chaos send us beelining toward the pantry, are we really hungry for those stolen handfuls of chocolate chips? Or are we longing for something else? In her newest book, Karen Linamen dares to ask, "What could our lives be like if, instead of trying to satiate those deeper longings with food, we stopped settling for quick fixes and tasty substitutes and gave our souls whatever they might really be seeking?" With laugh-out-loud humor, Karen identifies eleven things women really crave and suggests zero-calorie ways to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts. Whether your favorite comfort food happens to be chips or cocoa, you'll relish this smorgasbord of hope and hilarity dished up by the author of Just Hand Over the Chocolate and No One Will Get Hurt. Karen Linamen is a nationally known speaker and the author of several humorous self-help books for women. An equal-opportunity emotional eater, she enjoys her chocolate, Twinkies, pretzels, and ice-cream-straight-from-the-carton in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Revell (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800731891
• ISBN-13: 978-0800731892
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #937,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book for a Book Club or Girl's Get-together, June 10, 2007

By 

Jennifer Donovan "5minutesforbooks" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chocolatherapy: Satisfying the Deepest Cravings of Your Inner Chick (Paperback)

Make some brownies and chocolate pie, and dig in to the food and the discussion questions.

Chocolatherapy is not about emotional binge eating or the excess weight that often comes along with it. The author, Karen Linamen, has battled both of these problems, but early on she reminds the reader that other women's cravings in response to stress include shopping, working out, surfing the net, or cleaning-anything that we do to excess to avoid our real problems.

Throughout the book, Ms. Linamen sprinkles nuggets of truth and encouragement regarding her own experiences with parenting, divorce, friendship, adult ADD, body piercing, and worry. Yes, I said body piercing. This book is written from a Christian perspective, but it is definitely not one of those "perfect-Christian woman" type of books that do not address the reality that many of the women (Christian or not) who read them are facing.

One reviewer thought she was "tricked" into buying it and didn't know it was a Christian book. I am a Christian, and there are some books that I would not recommend to someone who does not have a Christian faith or outlook. This is not one of those. I would recommend this one to anyone, because I don't think that she's preachy. When she mentions her faith, she is simply mentioning it as one of the ways that she found to satisfy that real deep craving.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CRAVING CHOCOLATE ; ), May 28, 2007

By 

AJC - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chocolatherapy: Satisfying the Deepest Cravings of Your Inner Chick (Paperback)

I really enjoyed Chocolatherapy! Linamen makes the book comically-witty and relatable. This is a good book for women who need guidance or self-assurance in their hectic day to day lives. Linamen also tells some easy ways to avoid the chocolate and junkfood and find a deeper meaning in stressful situations. If searching for an answer, this book will surely help you find out what your craving!

5.0 out of 5 stars What do the cravings actually mean?, January 11, 2009

By 

Rebecca Johnson "The Rebecca Review" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Chocolatherapy: Satisfying the Deepest Cravings of Your Inner Chick (Paperback)

Karen Scalf Linamen loves chocolate but she also has issues with binge eating. She also bounces checks, eats entire boxes of Girl Scout cookies and has to deal with ADD and at times clinical depression. Her appeal is that you can relate to her because she is so human. She's been through a painful divorce and is raising teenagers. Her life is filled with struggles and spiritual solutions.

This book is filled with chocolate trivia and quotes. There is also information about how you can gain weight if you don't get enough sleep. There is advice on how to melt chocolate but I'd not recommend a double boiler. That always causes my chocolate to "seize" up. It is much easier to melt chocolate (for when you make your own chocolates) in a crock-pot. I use that method when I make chocolate covered cherries.

While this book does focus a lot on chocolate the real issues seem to be about emotional issues and how we can solve them with God's love. At the end of the book there are letters from women who have real-life struggles with eating too much.

I do think problems with binge eating could be solved if women just didn't buy the sugary fatty foods in the first place! That is what I try to do but I'm human too and sometimes I don't do the right thing.

This book is all about how to do the right thing even when we fail time after time. This book should be encouraging to most women, especially if you love chocolate.

~The Rebecca Review