The Slow Down Diet: Eating for Pleasure, Energy, and Weight Loss (Paperback)

by Marc David (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
“Marc David is the leading voice establishing the intimate connection between stress, digestion, metabolism, weight, and health. He reminds us that our relationship with food is as important as the food itself. In a world of ‘high fad’ diets he stands alone, guiding us toward nourishment, pleasure, and healing.”
(Mark Hyman, M.D., coauthor of Ultraprevention: The 6-Week Plan That Will Make You Healthy for Life )

“The Slow Down Diet provides us with the missing link about metabolism that sets us free to enjoy food more than ever while also losing weight and getting healthy. Thank you, thank you, Marc David.”
(Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Creating a Legacy of Physical and Emotional Health )

“. . . David shows that we are creatures of body, mind and spirit, and that when we attend to these levels simultaneously, we can shed excess pounds, increase energy and enhance digestion to feel rejuvenated and inspired.”
(Aznet News, June-July 2005 )

“The material is sensible, well-organized, and gives you permission to find out what sort of food and eating is best for you and your body rather than counting calories and eating what other people tell you to eat.”
(New Spirit Journal, July 2005 )

“In short, this book presents a holistic view of reconnecting not only with the pleasures of eating, but with the pleasures of learning and loving more about ourselves.”
(Alaska Wellness )

". . . blends nutrition and psychology in a discourse on how to understand our relationship to food and how to eat in a different manner. . . . Some eye-opening facts are revealed."
(The Midwest Book Review )

". . . this engaging and accessible text will have you subtly altering your lifestyle, losing weight and enjoying every minute of it."
(Spirit of Change, Fall 2005 )

"Don't expect The Slow Down Diet to match any other diet plan you've tried. It's in a class by itself . . . . If you seek a fresh approach to weight loss and eating, try the techniques in this book."
(New Times, Oct. 2005 )

"After reading and applying the steps in The Slow Down Diet, I lost fourteen pounds and even more importantly, made mealtimes more relaxed and enjoyable. . . . The Slow-Down Diet is a life-changing program that doesn't deprive you of your favorite foods and in fact, offers you a chance to truly enjoy them!
(Safiya Tremayne, In the Library Reviews, Jan 2006 )

"I consider this book essential reading for women, because of all the baggage that has been heaped upon us by society with regard to eating, weight, self-image, and dieting. This book can help us better and more joyously inhabit our feminine bodies, for it is about eating as one of the higher forms of love--for ourselves and for one another. Indeed, I have put my discovery of sacred eating right up there with my discovery of sacred sex. I also recommend this book to persons of any gender who wish to bring greater balance and harmony into their lives."
(SageWoman, Dec 2005 )

"Losing weight by limiting pleasure is like trying to stop smoking by not breathing. We can never increase the body's metabolic capacity by limiting what is essential to life."
(Utne, Nov-Dec 2005 )

"Thank you, Marc David, for giving me the book I've been waiting my whole adult life to read."
(Janet Brennan )

". . . will transform your relationship with food, which is also your relationship with life."
(Dhara Lemos, Lotus Guide, Feb 2007 )

Product Description
A revolutionary approach to enhancing metabolism that enables lasting weight loss and facilitates spiritual well-being

• Presents an eight-week weight-loss program

• Explains how relaxed eating stimulates metabolic function and how stress hormones encourage weight gain

• Shows how fully enjoying each meal is the optimal way to a healthy body

Our modern culture revolves around fitting as much as possible into the least amount of time. As a result, most people propel themselves through life at a dizzying pace that is contrary to a healthy lifestyle. We eat fast, on the run, and often under stress, not only removing most of the pleasure we might derive from our food and creating digestive upset, but also wreaking havoc on our metabolism. Many of us come to the end of a day feeling undernourished, uninspired, and overweight.

In The Slow Down Diet Marc David presents a new way to understand our relationship to food, focusing on quality and the possibilities of pleasure in eating to transform and improve metabolism. Citing cutting-edge research on body biochemistry as well as success stories from his own nutritional counseling practice, he shows that we are creatures of body, mind, and spirit and that when we attend to these levels simultaneously we can shed excess pounds, increase energy, and enhance digestion to feel rejuvenated and inspired. Marc David presents an eight-week program that allows readers to explore their unique connection to food, assisting them in letting go of their fears, guilt, and old habits so they can learn to treat their bodies in a dignified and caring way. He reveals the shortcomings of all quick-fix digestive aids and fad diets and debunks common nutrition myths, such as "the right way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more." He shows instead how to decrease cortisol and other stress-hormones and boost metabolic power through proper breathing and nutritional strategies that nourish both the body and soul, proving that fully enjoying each meal is the optimal way to a healthy body. Drawing on more than twenty years of experience in nutritional medicine, the psychology of eating, and the science of yoga, Marc David offers readers practical tools that will yield life-transforming, sustainable results.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Healing Arts Press (April 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594770603
• ISBN-13: 978-1594770609
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,602 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finally A Diet Book That Makes Sense!, June 11, 2005

By	Sharon Katz (Brooklyn,, New York USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been dieting all my life and I've noticed that when I diet HARD I lose less. No matter where I looked for an answer to this problem, no diet book seemed to address the phenomenon. But this book does! Finally, The Slow Down Diet combines the body and mind link to guide people into losing weight. Showing scientific experiments and individual profiles, the author Marc David, a nutritionist with a master's degree in the psychology of eating, shows how the more pressure you put on yourself to restrict food or force yourself to cut out one full type of food and the more you push yourself into doing un-enjoyable exercises, the more your body sees it as an attack and responds by readying itself for hardships. It lowers metabolism and you don't lose weight!

When I read how this book says that it's not just what you eat, but how you eat that keeps weight from coming off, it rang a bell to me. Marc David explains that rushing and not thinking about the food you consume impairs digestion so you might be eating a lot of calories but your body isn't getting what it needs for optimal health and you hunger for more. By paying attention to the food you put into your mouth, by slowing down to take the time to actually use all your senses to give respect to the food, it permits the body to achieve it's maximum metabolism to get all the nutrients from your meals. This book explains why, if you slow down and take the time to enjoy the process, then your body can calm down enough to work properly and let the excess weight your body doesn't need come off. It also explains how exercise must not be perceived as a punishment but as a joyful physical experience so as to help the body permit the excess pounds to be burned off. This is the first book that finally explained why dieting hard doesn't work and guides you to a way to slow down in order to permit your body to lose weight! It makes wonderful sense.

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Lose Weight through Increased Awareness , June 1, 2005

By	Cynthia Sue Larson "www.realityshifters.com" (San Francisco bay area, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Nutritionist and weight loss expert Marc David asserts in THE SLOW DOWN DIET that some of our most dearly held beliefs about weight loss and dieting are woefully misguided. According to David, some of the biggest myths about eating are well-intentioned, yet contribute to ever-increasing girth. Starting with one of the most widely believed myths, "the best way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more," David describes how people who attempt to follow that old advice so often end up frustrated. As David points out, "What you eat is only half the equation of good nutrition. How you eat is the other half."

David describes the eight universal metabolizers that have the biggest effect on whether we gain or lose weight: relaxation, quality, awareness, rhythm, pleasure, thought, story, the sacred. We don't overeat because we lack willpower or put our metabolism into starvation mode, but when meals are deficient in one of the eight universal metabolizers. Food eaten in an anxious rush will trigger physiological stress responses that decrease our calorie burning capacity at the same time as we lose the value of the nutrients.

At a time when the benefits of meditation are being formally acknowledged, it's refreshing to see a book that cites scientific sources that describe a metabolic power of relaxation. I love the way Marc David includes scientific research studies alongside case histories and exercises. Did you know that your gut has a brain? The enteric nervous system in your body has more nerve cells than your spinal column, at over one hundred million neurons, and it moves through nightly 90 minute cycles as if it were dreaming. Marc David asserts that the amazing differences between French and American food habits and weights are that while the French eat generally fattier foods, they slow down and savor long lunches as the biggest meals of their days... while Americans eat on the run in a constant state of stress.

THE SLOW DOWN DIET proposes something that seems almost too good to be true... a way to savor meals and consistently lose weight doing so. By simply being "awake at the plate" and not doing something distracting or stressful while eating, but instead enjoying every moment of your meals... David assures us that we can lose weight.

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow Down to Speed Up Weight Loss, August 19, 2005

By	Jennifer Brown - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Listen to talk radio for a few hours and the newest diet claim will become clear: Stress causes fat. The latest buzz in the diet biz is that stress releases certain hormones that cause the body to hang onto fat and store it right in the biggest problem area - the gut. Is there any truth to this claim?


According to Marc David, author of THE SLOW DOWN DIET, there is. David, a Sonoma State University-educated nutritionist with Harvard training under his belt, has spent a lifetime unraveling the mystery behind healthy eating and weight gain/loss. His experience has brought him to the pages of THE SLOW DOWN DIET, where he painstakingly lays out his theories on weight, stress, pleasure, and health.


THE SLOW DOWN DIET is an 8-week diet plan, not so focused on commandment-style lists of diet do's and don't's, but focused more on finding the hidden nutritionist within and, as the title suggests, slowing down and tuning in enough to listen to that hidden food guru.


According to David, we already own the 8 metabolic powers that can help us lose weight, if only we can learn how to access them:


*Relaxation

*Quality

*Awareness

*Rhythm

*Pleasure

*Thought

*Story

*the Sacred


Using copious research (including some very alarming and interesting facts), David backs up his approach to weight loss with science and a few case studies borne of his years of being a nutritionist.


No doubt about it, David's weight loss approach is appealing. Who can find fault with the idea of treating each meal as a celebration, eating delicious healthy food, and dropping the stress for awhile? What's even better, if we do already possess the tools for this system, what excuse could there possibly be to not give it a try? Who would argue with the idea of relaxation as a means for weight loss?


David's weakness, however, lies in his lack of specificity. He recognizes the difficulty for many people to find, afford, prepare, and eat (and/or feed a family) organic, all-natural, fresh foods. While his message of quality = health certainly can't be argued, he offers no real suggestions on how to make this high-quality lifestyle available for a great many people, including people who have no access to health-food stores or who have a limited budget and a large family to feed.


Also, some of David's claims might seem a bit "extreme" to some people, and great care will have to be taken to maintain an open mind while reading passages such as the following:


"If [a tomato] is picked by an underpaid migrant worker who's given no benefits and few worker's rights, then the tomato is hypocritical and lacks integrity. If it is chopped by machine along with thousands of other tomatoes, delivered to a fast-food joint, and slapped together with a bun and meat from a cow who suffered even worse traumas, then our tomato is now suicidal, or even murderous, because it has lost its soul and has no reason to live" (p. 47)


If dieting trends continue in the direction they've been going (attention to quality of food and interest in how the chemical reactions of stress manifest themselves in the body), it is likely that THE SLOW DOWN DIET could become wildly popular. Offering a lifestyle that is welcoming in this age of "overworked and overweight," Marc David will be the diet expert to watch.