A Revolutionary Program that Works
by Evelyn Tribole and Elise Resch
ages: adult
First sentence: “If you could cash in every diet like a frequent flier program, most of us would have earned a trip to the moon and back.”
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My mom sent me this book a month or so ago after I was complaining that I couldn’t stop eating, that whatever I’d been doing to control what I stuck in my mouth (especially when I was sad or stressed) wasn’t working.

The basic premise is really very simple: basically it’s to listen to your body and what your body wants to eat, and how much. I was suspicious at first: no “diet”, no eating plan can really be that simple. Right?

Well, it’s simple because it’s not a diet. It’s a re-thinking of one’s attitude towards food, which is something I sorely needed. I say that because I think I was relying on external factors to control my eating habits, rather than internal ones.

The book helps people like me — though I’m not the chronic dieter that they specifically target as their audience, I do teeter on that precipice — work through the process (and it is a process) of getting in touch with the body’s hunger and fullness, as well as balancing health and pleasure when eating. The authors are quite specific and detailed in the steps of the process, from giving up the diet mentality to addressing exercise and healthy eating near the end. It’s obvious that they expect the reader to participate in the program, and not just read the book — there’s spaces for notes, and I photocopied a couple of the charts and hung them up.

That said, my brother-in-law had complaints about their approach: it seemed too lackadaisical, too unscientific for his tastes. And, yes, it is at first glance a fairly unrigorous approach, mostly because every body is different and every approach to this way of thinking about food will be slightly different. However, my BIL’s objections aside, it seems to be “working” for me: I stress eat much less, the feelings of resentment about food (and my self-imposed restrictions on them) are gone, and I’m tending not to over-eat.

While this book probably isn’t for everyone, it actually helped me quite a bit. Which makes it a good book in my mind.