Emotional Eating "Shrink Yourself Book Review"

For safe eating practices, use condiments. I heard that today from my son's girlfriend, got a chuckle from it and thought I'd share it.

In the last several posts I've been reviewing three different books about solving emotional eating. The most recent book was Shrink Yourself by Roger Gould MD which I reviewed chapter by chapter. Now for the overall review. Doctors are experts at anatomy and he certainly understands the anatomy of obese individuals. But where does he go from there? Not far.

It's basically half of a book. Opps, doesn't look he'll ever endorse my book.

What's missing? There's no utilization of the art of suggestion--not even a list of affirmations. Ok, I use hypnosis which is the power of suggestion. I guess I take it for granted and don't realize its power until I read a book that is void of the art of suggestion. He doesn't discuss "self talk" in terms of the the suggestions you use to get rid of weight.

Since the book is about emotional eating, I would hope that there would be a section on how to embrace emotion--how to feel emotion--what to do with specific emotions like anger, confusion, frustration, happiness... But no, in the section about emotions he gives recycled advice as to how to deal with them like go jogging, mediatate (stress management stuff). Now there's nothing wrong with stress management stuff, but sitting down to mediate (unless you're a sufi) isn't the way to deal with anger.

Basically, the author recognizes that emotinal eating is a response to stress but his advice is limited to the standard everyday stress management techniques which are not going to help a binge. Can you imagine being at the boardwalk and feeling a bit gloomy as you walk by the candy apples or the chocolate store and then thinking to yourself, "Oh I feel a bit gloomy, I think I'll sit down and meditate, or put on my jogging shoes and go for a run rather than eat?" Yes, I think I remember taking a few deep breadths as one of the tips, but what are you going to say to yourself as you take a deep breadth to make a difference? And so if you do eat that candy apple, how do you handle it to make a difference in your life as opposed to loading on the guilts later on?

Overall I find the book a half a book and missing a lot of very important information--worth it's ten bucks on Amazon if you're interested in the anatomy of obesity.

Not sure you're an emotional eater? Click here and take the quiz.

Want to a cure for emotional binge eating and discover how to identify emotions, embrace them and feel them? You can purchase the, The Scale Conspiracy, (in e-book form) emotional eating now for only $14.95. It's a $39.00 value.