Customer Reviews

Losing Your Pounds of Pain: Breaking the Link Between Abuse, Stress, and Overeating

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is a great tool not only for women who desire to shed unwanted extra pounds, but for women who have experienced any form of abuse (especially sexual abuse during childhood) as well. So, even if you are not significantly overweight, you may find yourself interested in this book anyway. It provides many case studies outlining how and why women retain extra weight because of emotional issues, and gives many practical and spiritual ways to lose the weight. Simply reading the book can help you lose weight and heal from old abuse issues, whether you consciously remember the abuse or not.

The information in this book will help you to better understand your relationship with food, your body, and yourself, and heal yourself in a practical, easy-does-it approach, with spiritual and metaphysical applications that take you beyond conventional therapy approaches. You may be quite surprised with some of the insights that come to you about yourself and your life as you work with this book. Highly recommended!

I can't even express how much this book helped me. I realize how much my overeating has to do with being neglected as a child and searching for something to fill me up. This book helps you realize why your overeating and helps you heal. This book was life changing for me. I have hope that I can be happy and healthy again.

I cannot thank the author enough. She saved me and gave me hope. I pray that others who are suffering will get this book and apply it in thier lives.

Doreen Virtue writes as though she is your best friend sitting on the couch talking to you. She is warm, non judgmental and understanding. I know, for a fact, that there is a link between child abuse and obesity later in life as Doreen points out but little information is available about this topic. This book will help anyone who is overweight even if they never suffered any abuse. Bravo, Doreen!

This is the BEST "diet" book I have ever read -- it's NOT a diet! Helped me to dig below the surface to discover why I chose to eat myself to obseity and put me on the right road to recovery. A marvelous book for anyone who tries to eat away their pain.

Walling off emotions can lead to headaches, ulcers, substance abuse, sleeping or eating disorders, or a host of body-destroying additions." ~Miriam Neff, Women and Their Emotions

Doreen Virtue has an interesting theory about weight loss. She says you have to lose your emotional pain before the weight will drop off. She could be right because food can be a comfort and if you are really in pain, there is nothing you can eat that will take away emotional distress. Well, maybe a lot of chocolate, which contains chemicals (PEA) to make you feel "in love." Page 191 can be enlightening for anyone who uses chocolate as a love fix.

This book is a result of Doreen's work in an all-female psychiatric hospital. Here, she met women struggling with deep emotional pain, stress, grief, depression, rage and dissatisfaction with their work, marriage and life in general. When she started to specialize in eating disorders, she did not realize the devastating effects of emotional neglect, verbal assaults and other abuses. Frankly, before reading this book, I didn't think about "emotional neglect" as being a cause of eating disorders. Now it makes sense to me.

I'm pretty sure most women could tell you why they are in pain and Doreen says that pain should not be blindly accepted. She says: "it is a signal that something is wrong and needs to be changed or healed." She even goes as far to say that "every extra pound you carry on your body equals a pound of emotional pain you're carrying in your heart."

Doreen also explains how serotonin has to be created every night and explains how this occurs and why melatonin is needed. If your REM sleep is interrupted, there can be groggy consequences. Apparently alcohol can interfere with REM sleep.

This entire book seems to be dealing with the issues of self-esteem and listening to Self-Esteem: Your Fundamental Power by Carolyn Myss and reading Fed Up by Wendy Oliver-Pyatt might also be helpful.

The author discusses dream analysis, exercise, meditation and discusses a variety of abusive situations that may need to be dealt with in order for your body to finally shed the pounds along with the pain.

Personally, I've found that working out on a regular basis has helped my self-esteem and yoga has been especially healing. Yoga seems to encourage you to eat healthy foods and by cutting out soda (replace with a packet of "lite" Emer'gen C, fruit juice concentrate and aloe juice for body healing) and sugary foods (look for chocolate by Hershey's with only 1 gram Carbs)your appetite will not be as aggressive.

By increasing protein and taking supplements your body is craving, you can work your way into a more balanced lifestyle. Give yourself time, this entire area of self-esteem can take years to heal and you might have to make some drastic lifestyle changes in order to see your life turn around. Finding one person who believes in you and supports you in your efforts, even if it is an author, will be immensely helpful. Doreen Virtue makes you aware of the link between abuse, stress and overeating. Then, she shows you how to heal your body and how to reclaim your self-esteem.

~The Rebecca Review

Dr. Virtue relates her own story and those of her patients in a concise, easy-to-read manner, and interweaves therapeutic principles throughout. To paraphrase another reviewer, Dr. Virtue sounds as though she is your best friend giving you a heart-to-heart talk about what she went through and how you can help yourself. I found that just reading the book, before implementing any of the suggested techniques, was very healing for me.

without giving too many details as it would be too personal, I consider this book a "gift from above"... : it helps people understand WHY they eat too much, and how to get your eating pattern back in control to lead a successful weight loss. Doreen gives plenty of tips, such as affirmations.There is no pretention in her book and it helps people who have been struggling with emotional overeating and who have been victims of abuse,whether the "facts" happened during their childhood or later in life. It's a powerful self-therapy book, highly recommended !

I had never made the connection between my emotions and my eating until I started reading this book. After tolerating abuse from my parents and my husband, I had no idea why I seemed so nice and happy on the outside but one little thing could make me lose it and throw a temper tantrum. By doing the exercises in this book, I began to see how I had been keeping my emotions stuffed and as I released them, I also released the weight. Great book. I highly recommend it for emotional eaters.

I really appreciate this book. I loved the caring tone and the way the author seemed to reach out and give the reader a hug! I think that so many of the stories and descriptions spoke to my heart about myself and friends that I found myself calling friends or emailing parts of the books so we could talk ideas! This is a gem! Thank you for writing it, Doreen.

"Losing Your Pounds of Pain Breaking the Link Between Abuse, Stress, and Overeating" isn't the best title for this book. In fact, the description on the back reading, "...wonderful book that will truly help you break the damaging connection between emotional pain and overeating..." isn't really accurate either. The truth is that too much of the content focuses on sexual abuse. There's paragraph after paragraph about various folks being abused. I hadn't interpreted the title in that way and thought that my stress = overeating cycle would be addressed more completely.

There is one page of affirmations and a short section that correlates some common foods to their associated emotional/personality traits, which was helpful. Other than that I was thoroughly disappointed.