Customer Reviews

Intuitive Eating: A Recovery Book for the Chronic Dieter Rediscover the Pleasures of Eating and Rebuild Your Body Image

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This year I decided to get "healthy". I wanted to implement an exercise program and establish good habits in my early 20s so that they would be with me all my life. I never planned on dieting-it just happened. I didn't even know I was on a diet (or 20!) Dieting is EVERYWHERE. We are a nation obsessed and somewhere along the way we forgot what food is about. I became obsessed with food. I tried Eat Right For Your Type, The Goddess Diet, Slim Fast, Vegetarianism, food combining, I did a juice fast...At first it seemed like a healthy hobby. Then out of no where the binge eating began! And the GUILT. I have never been heavy, but I was utterly brainwashed into having a "fat" mind! This book is completely changing my life. I am no longer concerned about when I will be able to eat next and what I will eat-AS I am eating something else! I no longer binge eat. I actually enjoy being hungry as I know my next meal will taste better-and I allow myself to eat whatever I want (without guilt. And I usually really do Want healthy food, too!). I experience satisfaction with the eating experience. My energy level is MUCH better now that I do not see grains as the enemy. I am not piling protein in my body that I do not need or even want. I eat slowly now, knowing that I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I NO LONGER FEEL THE NEED TO CLEAN MY PLATE! But most importantly, I accept myself and TRUST myself! This paradigmn shift has spilled over in other facets of my life as well. I cannot praise this book enough. It accomplishes all this and has a non diet mentality throughout. I do not feel the need to read or recommend another diet (or anti-diet) book along with this-it was good enough for me and has ended my obsession with food. I am so GRatEFUL this book was written-I would be probably "living" a half life if it wasn't...

This book has a lot of great information and advice to help dieters cross back over the fence to adopt a more healthy attitude to food, eating and weight. Unfortunately, it also has a lot of contradictions which a sensible editor should have sorted out. The book sets out 10 principles of why dieters will forever be losing the weight loss battle and explains how to relearn to listen, feel and feed our body's natural hunger. This aspect of the book is great, and there are lots of scientific references to back them up. However, while on the one hand telling you to trust your body to select the healthy food it needs, the authors spoil it all in the last chapter (principle 10) by then prescribing a healthy low-fat diet plan. This seems totally out of place on a book purporting to teach you to eat intuitively. As some other reviewers have said, dieters don't need another "plan" to follow. Instead they need to learn how to survive without the prop of plans that forever fail them. It seems the authors are themselves stuck in their category of "careful eaters" and can't let go. But this is just criticism of a small part of the book. I would recommend "The Seven Secrets of Slim People" by Vikki Hansen and Shawn Goodman in addition to this book to reinforce the good parts.

I didn't buy this book because I wanted to lose weight. I am an athlete who is at an ideal weight, but I was so strict with my eating that I had become obsessed with food. Daily weighing along with counting calories, protien, and carbs consumed a good portion of my days. The need to eat so perfectly inevitably led to uncontrollable binges about once a week. I bought this book because I wanted to lead a more normal life, where food didn't consume my thoughts and define the success or failure of a day. The principles in the book are completely logical and the authors are good to back up their theories with plenty of empirical data. They clearly lay out why it is so crucial to abandon the diet mentality in order to stabilize or lose weight. I now know that no food is off limits anymore and I am becoming more in tune to what my body is telling me it needs. No more binging, weighing or number crunching. Freedom at last!

As a dietitian with years of weight management experience I am proud to recommend this book to my clients and your readers. The authors are also dietitians and recognised experts in the field of nutrition. They provide realistic and thought provoking information for those struggling with food issues. The diet world is in revolution and the NONDIET philosopy is present as evidenced by this successful book! You can be fit and higher in body fat than those 'self-proclaimed' experts tell you. Say no more diets, read this book and start your life with intuitive eating.

I read this book at a time in my life when I was ready to hear it, and I believe it will only be useful to you if you're ready to listen. I'm not big on self-help books but I've tried about a thousand diets and have never - NEVER - managed to maintain weight loss for any great length of time. For whatever reason, this book spoke to me. It's not a diet, it's not some kind of program. It's a way to look at every aspect of your life in a totally new (and positive) light. With diet after diet for the past 20 something years, all I ever felt was resentful that I couldn't just eat like a "normal" person. Finally, I can. And if you open yourself up to what this book has to say, have FAITH and PATIENCE, it will change your life. I just want to thank the authors for writing it!

What I really appreciate about this book is the honesty of the authors. This book does not tell me, unlike many other diet books, that this is going to be a quick and an easy way to lose weight. Rather, it allows me to become well aware that the battle to "detoxicate" myself from all the diets my body has undergone will be a long one. At the same time, it gives me empowerment to stop being submerged into the 'diet' mentality and move on to eating intuitively. I would recommend this book to all those struggling with useless dieting, and all those who simply want to improve their eating style to a more healthy and a more natural one.

I purchased this book after my doctor recommended it to me. I will try to express how refreshing and yet common sense this book is, and what a pleasure! It explains how all the dieting "rules" and good/bad thinking about food has made us rebellious, frustrated, and confused. How our bodies will tell us what we need if we will just pay attention to them and not yet another diet. As I was reading I gained confidence in what I had believed to be true all along. I cannot praise this book enough - run out and get it!!!

This is by far the best book out there!!!! It has changed my life and the way that I think about food and eating. I have given up the good food-bad food mentality and learned to accept food for what it should be: nourishing and pleasureable.

I will NEVER diet again and I have even lost weight!!!! I feel more at peace with myself and with my relationship with food.

You MUST read this book!

I have made this book required reading for all of my clients with eating problems (I am a nutrition therapist). They consistently come back encouraged, positive, hopeful, and able to make changes that diets had inevitably sabotaged. Then they go home and recommend the book to someone else!

As a Registered Dietitian, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who feels trapped in diet-land, anyone who wants to lose weight, and basically everyone else who eats. If you have ever been on a diet or struggled with weight, you will recognize yourself in some ways in this book; food is meant to be an enjoyable part of life, but the very act of eating has become so overwhelmed with confusion and guilt for many people. "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" abound, and many people are just plain miserable when it comes to their weight and food. It doesn't have to be that way! This book teaches what is called the "non-diet" approach, and I believe it is the answer to life-long weight management.