The Food and Feelings Workbook: A Full Course Meal on Emotional Health (Paperback)

by Karen R. Koenig (Author) "In our fast-paced, too-much-to-do, get-it-done-yesterday world, our attention is more focused on our behavior than on what's going on within us..." (more)
Key Phrases: disordered eaters, natural body weight, active projection, Feelings Workbook, Uncle Charlie, Fear of Feelings (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An extraordinary, powerful connection exists between feeling and feeding that, if damaged, may lead to one relying on food for emotional support, rather than seeking authentic happiness. This unique workbook takes on the seven emotions that plague problem eaters — guilt, shame, helplessness, anxiety, disappointment, confusion, and loneliness — and shows readers how to embrace and learn from their feelings. Written with honesty and humor, the book explains how to identify and label a specific emotion, the function of that emotion, and why the emotion drives food and eating problems. Each chapter has two sets of exercises: experiential exercises that relate to emotions and eating, and questionnaires that provoke thinking about and understanding feelings and their purpose. Supplemental pages help readers identify emotions and chart emotional development. The final part of the workbook focuses on strategies for disconnecting feeling from food, discovering emotional triggers, and using one’s feelings to get what one wants out of life.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Gurze Books; 1 edition (January 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0936077204
• ISBN-13: 978-0936077208
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,811 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is worth doing, June 7, 2007

By	Stella Nemeth (Macungie, PA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this book several months ago, and finished it last month. It takes a while to actually do the book, but it is worth the time. I learned a lot. The book works for those who are eating too much and those who are eating too little. We all have similar problems and are trying to get into the middle of the spectrum.

This book is set up as a workbook. I didn't write in it because I had a lot to say, so I answered the questions in my computerized journal. There were questions that didn't pertain to me, and some I just plain did not want to do. When I got to those I put the book aside for a few days and returned to it. If I felt the same way, I just turned the page and continued to go forward. As I result I got to issues and questions that I did need to work on right now.

If you are having trouble normalizing your relationship with food, take a look at the emotions that are coming up when you eat, or when you refuse to eat.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Eye-Opening, Life Changing Book, May 28, 2007

By	A. Kreinbrook (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After reading Karen Koenig's "Normal Eating" book and loving it, I bought this book in the hopes of further exploring her concepts of addressing the emotions behind eating disorders.

This book is challenging: it forces you to face your feelings over and over again, as well as going back to your past to face some of your most uncomfortable emotional moments. But this is the whole point: most people with eating disorders are avoiding or pushing away those uncomfortable memories and the fear of those emotions.

Karen's book teaches you that no emotion is wrong and we can handle any emotion that comes our way. The exercises in the book give you opportunities to face each difficult emotion, break it down and show us they're normal and survivable.

Some of the best things in this book are the relaxation techniques and the examples of rational beliefs when it comes to emotions and food. I have been able to put several of her strategies into practice in my everyday life and it has been helping me immensely to figure out many of my emotional responses to situations, as well as keeping me on track with my quest to become a normal eater.

I recommend this book to anyone who is seriously committed to breaking free of the tyranny of diets or eating disorders and is willing to do some tough emotional work. It has definitely changed my outlook on life.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stop and Feel Your Feelings So You Won't Eat Them Away, April 16, 2007

By	Karma B. Kitaj "Karma Kitaj, Life Spring Coac... (Brookline, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Karen Koenig has done it again. Written a lovely book for people with an uncomfortable relationship to food. The Food and Feelings Workbook assists the reader to separate out eating for nutrition or pleasure from eating to drown feelings. Eating-challenged people (my words), she says, grow up in an atmosphere where feelings are taboo, where they were taught by example that it was not okay to express even the smallest bit of anger, disappointment, or sadness. Instead, they were taught to push it under the rug and in our culture, a great way to do that is with food...too much or too little.
Koenig has organized this convenient workbook into sections that reflect 7 difficult feelings: guilt, shame, helplessness, anxiety, disappointment, confusion, and loneliness. She uses "Stop and Feel" questions throughout the book to help people exercise those seldom-used feeling muscles. She includes "Change Boosters" to practice new behaviors about feelings and eating. So, she gets you practicing this new skill, which you've avoided all your life. And she does it all with her usual wit, personal style, and generous helping spirit.
An example of her writing that I particularly like is from the Introduction: "This workbook...will encourage you not to bury your emotional pain until it turns into a toxic waste dump,but to put on your hip boots and slog through it, detoxifying one emotion at a time no matter how long it takes."
As a life coach and psychotherapist, I've recommended this book to clients who are slogging through it slowly...the way it needs to be used...and starting, little by little, to live with their feelings, rather than continue their obsession with food, weight, and body image.