Life Is Hard, Food Is Easy: The 5-Step Plan to Overcome Emotional Eating and Lose Weight on Any Diet (Hardcover)

by Linda Spangle (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The traditional emphasis on diet and exercise fails to address the underlying psychological causes of overeating, argues this engaging self-help book. Instead of eating to satisfy physical hunger, we indulge in "emotional eating" to make up for low self-esteem, to distract ourselves from unpleasant moods (anger and frustration make us crave crunchy, chewy foods, while loneliness and depression demand creamy comfort foods) or to act out and defuse suppressed feelings. Spangle, a registered nurse and weight-loss counselor, recommends a number of techniques, including writing projects, hugging exercises and positive-thinking mantras to help overeaters unearth and deal with their food-related emotions, and gives practical advice on sticking to weight-loss regimens. She writes insightfully of the ways people interact emotionally with food, and includes first-person confessionals from her clients; by turns poignant ("eating helps me stop thinking about how much I hate my life" says one lost soul) and lascivious ("I pull out a stack of curved golden morsels" writes a woman on a Pringles binge, who finds the munching sounds "soothing, like water lapping softly on the beach"), these attest to food's psychic power. But her tips are sometimes silly ("Pound on your pillow until your arms are too tired to lift food to your mouth") and her five-step-plan to combat cravings (which, with some practice, you can "flash through" in "less than a minute") can seem inadequate to deal with the emotional traumas she feels are at the root of obesity.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Linda Spangle beautifully and gently illumines the source--not just the symptoms--behind emotional eating. This book is destined to -- Ann Louise Gittleman --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: LifeLine Press (April 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895261456
• ISBN-13: 978-0895261458
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,209 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

295 of 307 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why didn't someone tell me about this book 13 years ago?, October 28, 2003

By	A reader (Denton, TX United States) - See all my reviews

By accident, I happened to find this book as I was using Google to search for information that might help me overcome emotional eating. I have tried many, many diets in the past, but none of them worked, because I would always start bingeing, and then I would gain more weight than I ever had before. Right now, I am about 110 pounds over my ideal weight.

I bought the Dr. Phil book earlier -- hoping that it would help me to figure out why I am so out-of-control on my eating. It was good in terms of presenting general information, but it didn't really give me any concrete and specific tools for helping me break my vicious cycle of emotional eating. I found the Dr. Phil book useless in terms of giving practical steps about how to get out of the very deep, dark hole that I am in right now.

I bought this book about 1 week ago. It is by far, the hardest book that I have ever read, because the exercises (and stories of others who had traveled down the same path) in the book forced me to face loneliness, grief, depression, fear of rejection, hopelessness about my future, past pain from abuse, etc. It was hard to face that which I had run away from -- and consistently avoided facing by stuffing myself with food.

Over this weekend, I put down the chocolate, and I faced the emotions associated with my depression head-on. I felt really, really bad for about two days as I cried about my life, but TODAY, the black cloud that has hung over me for most of my adult life has finally lifted.

The most amazing thing is that my food cravings are gone. I am no longer downing 6 chocolate turtles, one pint of Blue Bell Rocky Road, 1 pound of rice pudding, and 1 Red Baron Cheese pizza in ONE SINGLE MEAL. I was totally shocked to find that I did not have a SINGLE problem with ANY food cravings today, and I haven't felt deprived in any way. The compulsion to self-medicate with food is totally gone.

But best of all, I have been paralyzed by depression during the last 8 years. There are things that have needed to be done, boxes of cluttered files that I have needed to throw out, and changes that I have needed to make in my life -- other than losing weight.

Everything seemed so overwhelming that I never could seem to do these things. It was much easier to hide under the covers and sleep, watch TV, and eat the Blue Bell ice cream, than it was to face these impossible mountains of change. Or to come to terms with profound grief over something that happened 13 years ago.

Well, I am happy to report, that I finally started to tackle one of my biggest mountains this morning. I threw out boxes of files that were no longer needed, but that I couldn't seem to throw out, because they were my only connection to a much happier past. I also began to start thinking that perhaps I could change my life after all. It does not have to be like this; I do have the power to change my thinking -- and my life. I do have the ability to take baby steps to do what God is directing me to do -- in order to become the person that He created me to be -- not the half-dead shell of a person that I was only a few days ago.

In conclusion, this book is well-written, and well-worth the money spent. Besides the practical reflective exercises, Linda Spangle writes about her life, includes personal stories from some of her former clients, and she includes time-tested tools that have been shown to get many people over the emotional blocks that keep them from losing weight. It is written in such a way that the reader feels that Linda Spangle is talking to you over a cup of tea. It is well-worth the money spent, and I only wish that this book had been written 13 years ago!

63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most useful info I've found in 20 years!, August 4, 2005

By	Alison (USA) - See all my reviews

I have gained more insight and USEFUL help from this book than from any other information I've read on emotional eating in 20 years. Spangle does a superb job of presenting the issue in a very cut & dry manner. I found more concise, helpful info in this book than in others (Geneen Roth, Dilia de la Altagracia, Jane Hirschmann, Christopher Fairburn, even Dr. Phil) combined. No frilly "feel-good language" here. The few, simple exercises of journaling have helped me so very much, and the five steps are something I use every time I go wandering into the kitchen pantry, fridge, buffet line at a party, etc. This book has helped me to achieve a weight loss I haven't been able to reach otherwise (30 lbs) in the last 10 years. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in exploring why he/she eats when not hungry, and for anyone interested in losing weight. I think anyone with weight issues has some component of emotional eating, and this book will help you identify what those issues are, quickly, and how to deal with them.

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Tips for Any Dieter's Success, January 9, 2005

By	Bonnie Neely - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Life is Hard, Food is Easy by Linda Spangle, RN,MA, is a new and highly successful approach to dieting..., or rather learning to eat in a new way for optimal health. Linda is the founder and director of the highly successful WINNERS For Life: Wellness and Weight Loss Clinic. She observed how difficult it is for people to keep off the weight they work so hard to lose. She identifies the emotional factors, different from hunger, that make people eat and helps us establish new patterns to monitor our feeding habits. Her five points explained in the book include: What's going on? What do I feel? What do I need? What's in my way? and What will I do? In learning to seek these answers readers will discover a new way to keep weight at the desired level, create new habits, and feel good about their bodies. A very good companion to any diet!