Customer Reviews

Potatoes Not Prozac: Solutions for Sugar Sensitivity

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When I first found Dr. DesMaisons work I was actually looking for a diet book. I was deep in eating disorders and the last thing I needed was to lose more weight. So when I picked up this book seeing "weight loss" on the cover I had no idea how my life would change. I have discovered that my problems with eating had nothing to do with will power, but with a biochemistry that set me up to have no impulse control, erradict blood sugar levels, low self-esteem, depression, even my eating disorder was strongly tied in (I've vacillated between bulimia and anorexia since I was 14, and I'm 31 now).

This book gives the science and the stories behind those who share this biochemistry. It lays out a food based, that's right a *food based* and natural program to heal your biochemistry. The revision is amazing because it incorporates years of practice with thosands of people all over the world into the steps, making them even better. Not to mention you'll see quotes and stories from those who have experienced recovery all throughout the book. I don't know about you, but I find such power in knowing that others have shared the same path!

It has now been seven years since I first read Dr. DesMaisons work, I have a stable relationship, a fantastic job that I never would've thought I was "worthy" of in the past, a joy for life that I thought was only possible when under the influence--and relief from my eating disorders. It is so ironic that what I thought was the problem (food), is actually the solution. Who knew? Well, obviously, Dr. DesMaisons did, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Many years ago my doctor suggested I read Potatoes No Prozac when I went to see him to ask about yet another prescription for anti-depressants. I bless him to this day for putting me on the path to healing and sanity. This is a great book and will change your life as it has changed so many others. Buy this book. You won't regret it.

Kathleen DesMaisons told me the key to my life-- to my feelings of always being different, my constant hunger for sugar, my overweight, my low self esteem and recurring depression. I enjoyed reading this revised version of PNP. I found the first book just a year or so ago, and this one is chock full of even more information. Take it from a sugar addict: you won't be disappointed in this book or in the Radiant Recovery program. Reading these pages was like coming home for me, and it is this time around, too. Finally, someone understands me and the struggles I've faced.

Diets never worked for me because they didn't help me stop craving binge foods, like sweets and chips. I would just hold out as long as I could but then eventually go back to binge eating. I learned from this book that:
1) it's not my fault that I have food cravings
2) I can actually do something to lose those cravings and
3) then I can heal and move on to living a full, fulfilling life without food at the center of it

I have been binge-free and healthy since reading this book and doing the steps outlined in it.

The original edition of this book literally gave me my life back. I had suffered from depression, crazy thought patterns and addictive behaviors ever since adolescence. Life was incredibly painful and felt like a burden that I wished would end. I also had constant blood sugar crashes and had to eat every couple of hours. Nothing had helped, including other self help books, workshops, therapy and Prozac. When I read about sugar sensitivity in a holistic health newsletter, I thought it might be what was wrong with me. I went to a bookstore, started looking through Potatoes not Prozac, recognized myself in the biochemistry chapter, brought the book home, and started the program.

Soon, my depression was gone, I was happy to be alive, the crazy voice in my head that was always berating me went away, and my addictive behaviors just stopped on their own. And I was able to go 6 hours between meals, something I never would have thought was possible. Nine years later, I'm still going strong. The program has become a way of life for me. I don't miss the foods I gave up at all, and I have healed and grown in ways I never would have thought possible.

Since writing the original book, Dr. DesMaisons has changed the steps a bit and done more research, and this book is full of updated information. I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who is struggling with addiction, eating disorders, depression, mood swings or being overweight. The program outlined by Dr DesMaisons gets to the root of all these problems, biochemistry, and balances biochemistry. It is simple, doable, and will change your life in ways you never thought possible.

Potatoes Not Prozac: Solutions for Sugar Sensitivity
This book is amazing. The additions since the first edition make it well worth purchasing the book, even if you have an earlier version. There is no question that this book will change your life! In addition to the book, Kathleen DesMaisons has created a thriving web community that will support any sugar addict in getting off sugar, healing the addiction and his or her brain, and creating a radiant life beyond what you could ever imagine. I have been doing the Radiant Recovery program for over 2 years and I have succeeded in creating a life without sugar, anxiety, depression, addiction, and chaos. My life today is balanced and joyous. It is all because of Kathleen and her program.

It took me 33 years to discover I was not only a sugar/carb addict, but that the sugar was the main reason I was intermittently insane.
Less than a year ago I saw the pattern in me between having refined sugar, and going into uncontrollable rage and violent depression. Some months after I had begun to use what I had learned. Then this book comes up somewhere and I get it through inter-library loan. I bought this updated edition as soon as the money was there to spend on it.
Potatoes Not Prozac unveiled the mystery I had only recently, and accidentally, seen the edges of. Although I am on a list of brain meds meant to keep me in a livable middle place, none of them had taken away the rages and destructive depressions. Nothing until the sugar was removed and replaced with less destructive sweets.
For me it was a 24 hour delay after the refined sugar was ingested, with the problems triggered by eating any non-refined (or refined) sugar including fruit. However, Kathy nails with precision all the other negative effects that I get from carbs of any kind.
No-one has caught this connection in all the tens of doctors and hundreds of tests I have had performed on me. I thought I was hypoglycemic, like so many do when they finally stumble across the symptom's plastered all over the net and in countless books for years. All the tests I have had for hypoglycemia turned up negative, even those that I had specially requested above and beyond those normally given for such.
I have been trapped in my unpredictable mind and body all this time and now have the keys to be free. I will not stop taking the pills all at once. The antidepressants, the stimulants, the bi-polar meds. However, now I do not have to keep adding meds to chase down my most painful and dangerous states, sacrificing ever more of my 'me'-ness. Now I can slowly and safely determine whether these chemicals even have a place in my life.
Go to her website (Google: radiantrecovery ), click Sugar Sensitivity, ask the questions. This may be the main answer to your most pressing troubles. The plan is not hard, take it a step at a time and at your own pace. There is more than enough latitude within the steps that even I (ADD/ADHD monkey and procrastinator extraordinaire) can make immediate gains and realize consciously the sources and cycles of the symptoms that may be robbing you of a life you know is here to be had.
Best of Luck, but you will not need it.
R

This book changed my life. I spent many lonely hours over my lifetime wondering what was wrong with me. I always felt like an underachiever, no matter what I achieved. I felt isolated, no matter how close I was to my family, or how dearly my friends loved me. I knew how to eat properly, or thought I did, but I alternated between months or years of squeaky-clean dietary perfection and long periods of utter abandon and bingeing on sweets and starches. I felt a deep shame about who and what I was.

Dr. DesMaisons' Potatoes Not Prozac taught me that all these symptoms were the result of a special, inherited biochemistry she calls sugar sensitivity. By following her seven-step program, I gradually changed these beliefs and behaviors. I stopped bingeing on carbohydrates. My deep depression lifted. Gradually, I changed from a fearful, anxious person to a peaceful, joyous, bold adventurer. I have a new life, after many years of living in pain.

Even if you already own the first edition of Potatoes Not Prozac, this second edition is well worth the purchase. It has been extensively rewritten, from the beginning page to the last. Each of the seven steps now has its own chapter. Many new stories and reflections have been added from a few of the thousands of people that have found support and healing on the Radiant Recovery website.

This book is meticulously researched and beautifully written; the caring voice of the author comes through on every page. If you have suffered from an eating disorder, depression, anxiety, ADHD, or chronic low self esteem, or if you have an unreasonable attachment to cookies or bread, Potatoes Not Prozac can change your life. I highly recommend the book to everyone working in mental health, medical, addiction, eating disorder, and weight loss programs.

If you are looking for a book that speaks to you about sugar sensitivity directly, honestly and tenderly, Potatoes not Prozac is for you! This second edition is updated and includes real people's experiences with sugar sensitivity. When I purchased the first edition five years ago, I did not realize how much this book would help me. Now, I am free of sugar and truely enjoying life. It takes work, but Potatoes Not Prozac shows you the way to it. The greatest thing about PNP is that YOU are in control of your life. Dr. DesMaisons teaches you how to live your own life while ridding yourself of sugar and white processed food. The end result - weight loss, better control of emotions, stronger health, a clearer mind - all part of what Dr. DesMaisons calls 'Radiance'. I love this book and know anyone who feels like sugar is a problem will too!

Here at last is a book that not only told me what was wrong with me but then went on to help me fix it. The freedom I experienced from depression, from mood swings, from feeling like it wouldn't matter if I wasn't here anymore, has been life changing. Quite simply, so many issues and problems I thought I could work my way through, turned out to just disappear once I began to eat this way. My husband and my kids are very glad I read this book! No more screaming, no more yelling, no more wondering which Mommy was going to be around today (Nice Mom or Mean Mom...)

It's simple but effective and the support on the website helps you get going and stay with it. There's no charge for that! Talk about commitment to the process, that just blew me away that all this support for what I read in the book, is offered to help us heal. No strings attached.

If you're wondering whether this book will help you, I hope you will take a little leap of faith and try it. Then check out www.radiantrecovery.com and you'll get the support to help it all come together for you. So many books are long on detailing the problems, but short on the answers. This one will change your life.