Customer Reviews

The Philosopher's Diet: How to Lose Weight & Change the World (Nonpareil Book, 81)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

There is so much to love about this little gem. The author speaks to you like a curmudgeonly uncle who takes you seriously enough not to coddle you or offer you comforting excuses. You want to lose weight? Fine. It's going to be the hardest thing you've ever done, but here's how you go about it. While everyone else is counting calories and grams of this and that, he cuts straight to the point: cut calories (900 may be too few for some people, but he gets your attention with the dramatically low figure) and exercise (again, 4 miles in 30 minutes may be a bit much to ask for some of us penguins, but he doesn't set the bar too low to be a challenge). His voice, while caring, is uncompromising. He is not sympathetic in the cloying manner of many self-help gurus, but in the manner of a teacher who is confident that you can do what you set out to do - as he has - and if you don't succeed, it's because you don't really want to. Some people have medical conditions that may contribute to weight gain, and his simple approach does not address those complexities. I think the author would suggest that you know enough to take care of yourself, which is what this is all about anyway. He removes the weight loss/diet genre from the gnostic realm of medical professionals, and returns it to the accessible realm of common sense, where it belongs. The book is a metaphor for how you can take charge of your own life, give meaning to your own life, without waiting for someone with credentials to tell you you're doing it all wrong if you don't do it his/her way. If you're looking for more complexity, you may be looking for a program that's so difficult to follow that it comes with its own built-in excuses. You won't find excuses here, but encouragement and prodding. Americans are not fat and slovenly because we've failed to eat nothing but protein or failed to find The Zone, but because we eat too much and don't get enough exercise. Do something about that, and then, with the discipline you develop in the process, go change the world, why don'tcha. Lose the weight, and get over it.

Watson presents a simple formula for long term weight loss along with the philosophical argument for why this is a worthy aim. A quite inventive concept that made a real impact on me. I doubt that I read much here that I didn't already know about the fundamentals of exercise/weight loss/nutrition/eating habits. Let's face it, we all know what is and isn't good for us. But this book coupled the simple rules of weight loss to the all important WHY to make the life change needed to allow us to lose excess pounds and keep them off.

Eat less - more healthy food - exercise more - I know all this. yet as I sit here today there is some reason I haven't changed my habits. The Philosopher's Diet did an excellent job of rationalizing why I should act differently.

Bottom line - this book has encouraged me to get and stay in the shape I desire much more than anything else I've run across, probably because it challenges the reader to take the road less traveled, and I like a challenge.

How many diet books have you read which also have sections on Sex and How to Live? Well, this one does and it is written in a no-nonsense fashion but with plenty of humor too. The author pulls no punches as he shares both his secrets for weight control and living well. This may be one of the most eccentric books you'll ever read, full of philosophical musics and random digressions, but it could also be the key to successful and long-term weight loss. Plus there is a killer recipe for bran muffins that not only taste good but provide plenty of fiber (another key to successful weight loss).

This book might make you laugh, may make you angry, will definitely make you think. The author states things boldly but with enough humor to soften the blow. One of the questions he poses: is it immoral to overeat in a world where many people are hungry? (Read the book for the answer) He challenges you to change the way you live your life and look at and respond to the world. If along the way you lose weight it's an added benefit--but the gift he has given with this book is much better than just weight loss.

Richard Watson, a philosophy professor, is opinionated enough for all of us - he will tell us how to lose weight, how to exercise more, and how to be happy and all in a very slim paperback of 109 pages. The writing is very amusing and the author will make you laugh. Basically, however, is does admit that losing weight is very, very hard and this is a refreshing change from all of the diet books that say do this and do that and you will be thin and happy. Professor Watson's diet is to stick to 900 calories a day until the day you've lost all the weight you want to lose - stick to it - whether it takes 10 months or 10 years. After you lose the weight - start running - every day. This book is no different from other books in the message - eat less, exercise more - but the writing is funny, clever and charming and should be read as humor rather than as a basis for life change.

This book contains little new information, but it is presented in an easy-to-read, entertaining, challenging way. It inspired me without being pompous, know-it-all or didactic. The author appears to present himself as one who understands a very difficult human problem, and suggests practical ways of dealing with it. I highly recommend it.

Watson kept me in stitches throughout most of his philosophical musings on why so many of us overeat and don't exercise. I loved his lighthearted approach, which made palatable his deeper message about how to jumpstart your willpower--not just for dieting but for "changing the world."

Don't look here for any secret tips on losing weight--we all know that the only way to do that is eat less and exercise. But if you want to be inspired and motivated to change the way you live, read on. It's an enjoyable, quick read that I've devoured several times and shared with friends.

THis book really makes you think twice. It changed my habits. I'm in the best shape of my life because of this book. i have recommended it to everyone I know

As other reviewers have noticed, there's very little diet direction here. I would add that there's very little philosophy either. Watson tries to innoculate criticisms of this book by putting into under the "inspirational" gendre, which, of course, is highly subjective and, as a philosopher should know, dubiously measured. His tone is smug and there is very little organization or direction in the book.

The diet, as another reviewer noted, can be summed up in one sentence: "Eat 900 calories and run four miles." (He does mention that four large carrots equal 100 calories, as does a banana -- that's it!) His is the runner's arrogance in that he dismisses the stresses and strains put on the body by running. (The consequence of a "jiggered" spine is deemed inconsequential, demonstrating a sense of health that borders on the idiotic).

And the writing is atrocious. (Try this sentence: "The great thing about carrots is that if you do not chew them up carefully, you are likely to geta piece stuck in your windpipe -- an unpleasant, even fatal experience.") His attempts to extrapolate dieting into philosophical or worldly importance is utterly empty. (He likes "revolutions.") At one point, he makes the very interesting and provocative proposition that if the world turned to vegetarianism, global food production could meet global nourishment needs. This book might have been worth it had he explored this idea alone, but he mentions it in passing, without any documentation.

The pages 103-106 on his father's death (and his dad's robust relation to food) are sensitive and uncharacteristically modest.

In short, this book has, in the distinction he likes to make, no substance or form. What kind of editor puts out such a book?

PM

it is not only about diet, although he does give some Good, practical advice about how to lose weight, and KEEP it off... the larger view the author presents is that YOU can change Your life to be more of what You want it to be...

[alright, i will admit that i have a personal bias... the author is a college friend of my dad... i corresponded with him a couple of times... ]

but my love for the book is because of what it has done for me... it has changed my life, it has changed ME... if you let it, it might change you, in the ways you want it to...

i suggest you give it a try...