450 of 465 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful Insight into Real Problems - Not for Everyone, November 15, 2010
This review is from: A Course In Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever (Hardcover)
If you are already a fan of Marianne Williamson, you will probably enjoy this book. If you are not familiar with her, it may help to know her background before considering this book. She has spent many years studying and teaching the concepts of "A Course in Miracles" which is a spiritual book. She noticed that while embracing these concepts, her emotional need to use food to suppress her negative feelings disappeared. The idea of writing this book came from a conversation with Oprah Winfrey, one of the world's best known dieters.
As you might suspect, this book is not about food, it is about spirituality. It is about finding a power greater than you for help. As Marianne told Oprah, "If you could do it by yourself, you would have done it by now". Good point!
Many people will relate to the thoughts in this book. Childhood wounds create addictive behavior to treat the wounds. When you overeat for comfort, you are not doing it to give yourself love - you are doing it because you dislike something about yourself. When you eat one cookie, it is okay. When you eat the whole bag, it is an act of self-hate.
The premise is that the cause of excessive weight is not in your body, it is in your mind. More specifically, it is fear which blocks feelings of love. The purpose of this course is to find the fear and replace it with love.
There are several exercises and assignments to help you put names on the feelings, such as pain, shame, loathing and whatever you are personally feeling. There are prayers and mental exercises, as well as a journaling section. This is not a book to read passively and expect your life to change. If you really do these things to find and change your feelings, it will probably work for you. This is also a book that is meant to be reviewed several times to reinforce your feelings.
If you tend to be more of a passive reader who wants to read a book and go on to the next one, you might want to consider the audio version of this book and listen to it several times. Marianne is an excellent speaker and really connects with the listener. She is very passionate.
If you are turned off by spirituality and references to God, you may be tempted to skip this book. The ideas and principles are really about your subconscious feelings and how they drive your eating. You are feeding your feelings and not your body. They can apply to anyone no matter what your spiritual beliefs are.
This is not a book to be used alone, because it does not address food. Eating is not rocket science. There is not a heavy person in the world that doesn't know that broccoli is good for you and donuts are bad. However, in today's world it is important to understand more about how certain foods affect your body. Dr. Dean Ornish writes the forward to this book and discusses addictive behavior and diet failure. He and others like him are a good source of information on nutrition.
I highly recommend this book to everyone who has struggled with their eating. An obsession with food is like any obsessive relationship. It is about getting and not giving. What is missing from your life? What are you trying to get from food?
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234 of 250 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps, Just Perhaps Marianne Williamson May have Gotten It Right - 5 Stars !!!!, November 13, 2010
This review is from: A Course In Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever (Hardcover)
I found this book inspiring. Every page had something significant to say, and the author came at the topic of weight loss from an entirely different perspective from anything on the market. We all know that thousands of books on weight loss have been published. We also know that none of them really seem to work over time. If any one of them did work, then the scientific community would have no choice but to pursue that particular concept with all out zeal and we would all beat a path to the door of the person who created the system.
Now having said that, it seems to me that Marianne Williamson has latched onto something, and its breathtaking in its scope and the promise it holds for the tens of millions of Americans who are just carrying around too much weight. The Foreword by Dean Ornish is worth its weight in gold. Make sure you read it. Dr. Ornish has been a world renowned heart specialist for more than 20 years and a very prominent author in his own right.
Ornish mentions in this section that for years he could not understand how people could be addicted to overeating, smoking, drinking, substance abuse, and other maladaptive behaviors. One day a patient said to him, why are you saying maladaptive, the behavior is totally adaptive to me, not maladpative to me. These behaviors get me though my day. I have 20 friends in that pack of cigarettes. You know you simply have to look at it from the user's perspective. Another patient told him if he feels lonely, he eats. He coats his nerves with the food he consumes, it numbs his pain.
The Introduction is also a must read. It will set up the rest of the book for you. The third part of the book is "Embarking on the Journey", and in this section Ms. Williamson goes through the thrust of her presentation, and that in the end, it is your belief and faith in God that will help you shed the weight that you have carried for so many years.
I want to give you a flavoring of what she has to say from different sections of the book and you will see for yourself how different this book is from all the rest on weight loss.
* Unless your subconscious mind is enrolled in your weight loss efforts, your soul will find a way to reconstitute the excess weight regardless of what you do.
* Root out your fear, and replace it with inestimable love.
* Addiction is when you can't STOP.
* Freud felt that Intelligence will be used in the service of neurosis (an absolutely extraordianry statement)
* No matter how smart you are, or how much work you have done on yourself, you alone cannot outsmart the psychic force of compulsion and addiction
* God can outwit your insanity.
* The Great Lie is that food that is actually bad for you has the power to Comfort, Nurture, and Sustain you.
* Unhealthy eating is an act of Self-Hate. Overeating is a form of violence. You are taking up the Sword against yourself.
* You don't have the human capacity to fix this problem. If you did, you would have done so already.
How the book is Organized?
After the Preface, Introduction, and Embarking on the Journey, comes 21 different short chapters. It seems that they are to be read one a day, and over and over again, until you internalize them. The author has gone through considerable efforts to name these chapters with highly appropriate powerful phrases. It works.
My personal favorites were:
Chapter 1) Tear Down the Wall
Chapter 2) Thin You, meet Not-Thin you
Chapter 5) Start a Lover Affair with Food
Chapter 7) Love your Body
Chapter 10) Consecrate Your Body
Chapter 17) Forgive Yourself and Others
Chapter 18) Honor the Powers
Chapter 21) The Body Brilliant
Summary:
We all know that to whatever extent we believe, that faith has the ability to move mountains, to effectuate profound change and make it permanent. Everything starts with belief. Nothing is manifested in reality until it is first a belief in the mind. Marianne Williamson has now taken these concepts and applied them to the world of weight loss, insisting that only a belief in a divine power, and then giving yourself over to a divine force is the only way to effectuate a true re-design of your body and your spirit.
Now having read the entire book and having tried to internalize it, I think she may just have something. Everything else has seemed to fail through the years for so many. Why not try a little old fashion faith in the divine power of God to help so many transcend and finally conquer a problem that has caused so much pain and agony. I gladly give this book five stars, and thank you for reading this review.
Richard C. Stoyeck
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302 of 333 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Close, but yet so far, November 19, 2010
This review is from: A Course In Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever (Hardcover)
First let me say I am a huge fan of Marianne Williamson. I own every book and every tape that has been available to purchase. I get her message and genuinely admire her teaching abilities. She has made a huge difference in my life and helped me get through some of my biggest challenges. As a clinician who is passionate about weight, weight related issues and health I wanted to love or at least like this book. It's message while I don't totally disagree with some of the ideas and most of the principles, I can also see as harmful. I found my self wincing at the tone, the judgement and for me the blatant inauthenticity of this book. It seems to have a singular premise that obesity is based in fear predicated on self loathing. This is a wrong assertion, not totally but in part. The book has a judgmental feel and a distinctive labeling that somehow one must be a compulsive eater to have issues with weight loss. The letters and examples feel contrived. None of this seems like the authentic writing of the author and speaker I have come to know love and admire. So I don't like this book for many people especially the hundreds and hundreds of overweight people I have worked with, but I am sure it will help some. The relentless exercise demands relative to developing a spiritual plan would likely overwhelm a spiritual marathoner. It is in my opinion boot camp in a world that just isn't set up to support that. I could go on and on, but it hurts me to even criticize the work of someone I admire so much. But I love my patients more and I would hate for them to get hold of this, get overwhelmed, and give up. I hope many people feel differently and can do it all. I hope MW turns out to to be the right one, starts a revolution and gets the financial rewards that come with success. I just see it differently. All the best and love to anyone struggling.
http://www.amazon.com/Weight-Thats-Not-Issue-ebook/dp/B0047DW6NU/
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