Customer Reviews

Conquer Your Food Addiction : The Ehrlich 8-Step Program for Permanent Weight Loss

5 star:		(14)
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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
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Ms. Ehrlich (who has no credentials I have been able to discover) begins by promising that her program is not a diet, and that you can still eat anything you want. She goes on to essentially equate bread with dessert, and forbid sandwiches outright, along with anything else eaten with the hands. There does not seem to be any recognition that different people have a problem with different types of food or eating situations. Despite her claim that this is not a diet, much of the book is taken up by her meal plans.

With revolting illustrations and such recommendations as wearing tight clothes and tightening the belt before eating, she takes an aversive approach to food and eating in general. There is also a lot of focus on weight. "If you really want to weigh ___ pounds" is repeated as a mantra. Ehrlich prescribes an obsessive habit of twice-daily weighing, going so far as to insist that if the reader were serious about weight loss, he or she would pack a bathroom scale on trips. A person with a compulsive eating problem probably already has plenty of self-loathing, and it seems like some of these strategies could really backfire.

There IS some good advice in here--like the importance of recognizing small successes rather than focusing on failures--but not nearly enough attention to the behavioral aspects of compulsive eating.

I have been dealing with an eating addiciton for ten years, and this book has finally given me the tools and the know-how to crack the addiction. I have lost twenty pounds and am at a weight I haven't seen since high school. This book is NOT a diet, it's a life-style change. For anyone that has tried every diet in the book, who eats for every reason under the sun except for being hungry, for anyone who feels out of control when it comes to food, BUY THIS BOOK. Follow Caryl's program and you see your body and your mind change in ways that you didn't think possible.

Conquer Your Food Addiction is a one of a kind weight-loss book. Yet it's much more than that! As a behavioral approach to weight loss, it a manual for a new way of thinking, behaving, being and eating.

The author's basic premise is that one need not change the foods one eats, but, instead, one's habits. It sounds so basic, until we try it. As creatures of habit, our diets revolve around deeply-ingrained habits and rituals derived from personal history, a contemporary super-size culture, and daily life-styles. The main idea/goal is that if one is overweight, barring some medical condition, one is eating more than needed out of habit!! Change the habits/rituals and you change your food consumption.

Although this book is written for those who are food addicts, it speaks to all of us who more often than not use food as an emotional filler, and/or who just eat out of habit, social pressure, boredom and so on.

In terms of the actual weight loss, the author turns into a personal weight-loss trainer - in fact, she is one, for those who live in the New York area. Her goal is our goal: to reach our weight loss goal, regardless of how many pounds. Like a coach, she asks again and again, "What do you want to weigh?" This is tremendously helpful in sticking with it! By focussing on the goal, the issue is less about food and more about changing our habits, hence our outlook, about eating to get us to our permanent weight-loss goal.

I find this book one of a kind. In fact, I don't see another out there like it! I highly recommend it for someone who is serious about transforming both mind, behavior and body!

I read this book on a whim...and tried most of her suggestions...mainly, eating slower at mealtime. It really worked. I am on my way to losing those pesky last 10 pounds. I have given up chips and other finger foods, because I tell myself "I know what those taste like..." I am also not telling people I am doing this, as Caryl suggests. This is the first program that addresses the behavioral issues. This a permanent solution. It makes sense... is easy to follow. Buy this book...you will not be sorry. The only thing you will need is a new wardrobe in a much smaller size. Thank you Caryl!

This review is written by a 44 year old woman that has struggled with losing weight for many years. The combination of too much work, and not enough sleep and exercise resulted in "excess storage tissue" as my darling husband likes to call it. If you have ever eaten something, even though you weren't hungry, this is an interesting book.

This book is written for those that consume the standard American diet. As a new vegan I found it a little difficult to modify to fit that lifestyle since the diet advocates eggs and animal protein in the session on meal parameters. However, I have been able to substitute tofu, beans and seitan in a way that seems appropriate to me.

The book is subdivided as follows:

Session 1: The Basics

Session 2: Meal Parameters

Session 3: The Fillers

Session 4: Number of Items

Session 5: Portion Size

Session 6: Quantum Leaps

Session 7: Comprehensive Review

Session 8: Home Base

The book is divided into sessions. The idea is that each chapter covers what the author would cover in a session if the reader were a client coming to her office. The chapters are very easy to read, and yet still make you think. I found myself trying to argue with the book that certain ideas are unnecessary. I must admit that I do not follow all the practices that the author advocates, but have incorporated most of them into my daily life.

The author advocates a few practices that are standard, like recording what you eat. No one likes to do this, but it does seem to work. The author also advocates weighing yourself twice a day, morning and evening. I think this is overkill and refuse to do it. But, weighing myself once a day is fine.

What this book did for me was to bring a general level of awareness to my eating. Having to record everything that you put into your mouth has a tendency to make you much more aware.

The most important thing that I learned from the book was the idea that I should be hungry when it was time for the next meal. What I mean by this is that if lunchtime comes and I am not hungry, then obviously I ate too much for breakfast. This seems like such a simple concept, but somehow it eluded me. With this new information I have been able to reduce my meal sizes dramatically and am still satisfied, but have begun to lose weight.

If you are looking for a push to lose a few pounds, or a lot of pounds, this book provides a very different way of approaching and thinking about food. In my opinion this is a very useful book from the perspective that it altered my thinking about food. I recommend this book to anyone that is struggling with excess weight.

First of all, I didn't read this book in order to lose or maintain weight. I read it because of the title, "Conquer Your Food Addiction," which reflects my attitude toward food consumption and bodyweight, which is: If I'm eating more than I need to eat for proper nutrition AND enjoyment, and I am overweight but with no medical problem causing my excess weight, then I should pay attention to my eating habits and change them. The way I had lost weight and maintained that loss without feeling deprived of enjoyment, turns out to be basically the way the author of this book went about it, and wrote about it.

And, I, like the author, had other serious addictions--my own having been heroin, which I kicked forty years ago, and cigaret smoking, which I kicked eighteen years ago. I figured I didn't need an amount of food that caused me to be overweight any moe than I needed heroin or cigarets.

There is no book that is perfect for every person. Upon reading any book, one should learn from it what one can, and do whatever else is helpful for one as an individual. I find, for myself, that regular exercise three times a week, helps give me a sense of how much I need to eat. I also try to make my calories count. For instance, I have a sweet tooth, but I have found that instead of having a piece of cake with rich topping, I am truly satisfied with, for instance, a whole-grain rice cake or whole wheat matzoh with natural (non-hydrogenized) almond butter, topped with reduced fat sour cream or yogurt.

Wow! I never knew I had a "food addiction" until I read this book, but I finally understand after reading it why diets like
Weight Watchers, Atkins, The Zone, etc., never did work for me. Caryl Ehrlich teaches that IT'S NOT WHAT YOU EAT, BUT HOW YOU EAT. This simple concept, and the incredibly easy instructions in the book have allowed me to lose 8 lbs. so far -- in just two weeks! I have never seen results so quickly. And amazingly, there are no foods restricted on the program -- I can even have dessert. Thank you, Ms. Ehrlich, for giving me a new perspective on eating. Onward and downward!

I borrowed this book from my local library, I jotted down what I found to be helpful, good information and ignored the extreme behaviors such as weighing in 2x a day and vacationing with my scale! Then I brought the book back.
She does make a lot of good points, and a lot of the advice does make sense. But it is the book of an obsessive person and I can't imagine living that way. I won't give up sandwiches, but I do put them down between bites and make a conscious effort to eat slower. I do not eat all my foods independently of each other. Some things were meant to go together.
I don't tell people I am dieting. But I also don't consider black tea or coffee food.
Use the book as a reference, pull out the parts that are helpful to you, and ignore the rest.

I happened to read this book by chance (my wife had left it on the bedside table). It made sense, I followed it - fairly easy to do. In a reasonably short time, I went from 203 1/2 pounds to 191 1/2 pounds, where I've leveled out.

The reason the program was easy to follow was that it made logical sense to me, and it didn't seem constraining. The book also didn't nag, or make false promises.

I had not focused on weight before, but the 12 pounds makes a noticeable difference to me - I am glad I came across the book. Highly recommended -

I read this book, and although it is "helpful" in some ways, I found a lot of the information in there to be a bit obsessive. I mean, building a wall made out of salt and pepper between you and the bread basket? One of the "Quantum Leaps" is "emergin hipbones and cheekbones"? Speaking as someone who has had anorexia for the last 15 years, I'd have to say that this book doesn't so much teach one to conquer their food addiction as it does teach one to become obsessed with avoiding food. I can't believe some of the things it suggests you do... A bit over the top in my opinion.