Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., an expert in the psychology of eating, is a psychotherapist, educator, motivational speaker, and author with nearly 30 years of experience helping chronic dieters and compulsive/emotional/restrictive eaters become “normal” eaters... Read More
The first book to explain the link between overdoing and overeating, psychotherapist Karen R. Koenig gives women detailed advice on how to lose their extra baggage – both emotional and physical – by taking better care of themselves... Read More
Packed with insights and practical tips, this unique book teaches clinicians how to help clients make peace with food and the scale and balance nutrition and exercise inn a healthy lifestyle... Read More
In this dynamic workbook, Koenig interweaves lighthearted discussion with mindful, reflective exercises to show readers how to identify, experience, and learn from these feelings instead burying them in food-related behaviors... Read More
Koenig lays out the four basic rules that "normal" eaters follow instinctively, along with specific skills and techniques that help promote change and point the way toward genuine physical and emotional fulfillment... Read More
In the interest of full disclosure,
MY SECRET AFFAIR WITH CHOCOLATE CAKE—THE EMOTIONAL EATER’S GUIDE TO BREAKING
FREE by Sunita Pattani, is a book for which I wrote the foreword. Pattani
takes you by the hand and walks you through her journey from emotional eating to “normal”
eating and effective emotional management.
Most disregulated eaters are
triggered to abuse food or their bodies during their “down” times, viewing them
scarily and negatively and wishing them away. For this reason, therapist Thomas
Moore’s enlightened book, DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL—A GUIDE TO FINDING YOUR WAY
THROUGH LIFE’S ORDEALS, could not be more relevant. Though I’m a secular person
who doesn’t believe we have souls, there’s little else I disagree with in this
thoughtful, uplifting book and much to recommend. Rather than summarize it, I
offer samples in his own words of Moore’s considerable wisdom about “dark
nights” which you can immediately start to mull over and apply to your life.
If you’re a fan of 12-step programs, STOP EATING YOUR HEART OUT: THE 21-DAY PROGRAM TO FREE YOURSELF FROM EMOTIONAL EATING by Meryl Hershey Beck, MA, MEd, LPCC will be right up your alley. Let me say at the outset that I don’t personally or professionally subscribe to or endorse 12-step or higher power programs for any kind of recovery, and that energy methods lack sufficient scientific evidence beyond the placebo effect for me to believe in their efficacy. That said, many of you who do believe in these approaches might find this book helpful.
SOMEONE TO TALK TO: FINDING PEACE, PURPOSE, AND JOY AFTER TRAGEDY AND LOSS by Samantha M. White, LICSW, is the story about overcoming trauma, loss and psychic pain. Though the book is not about eating, food or weight, if you are a disregulated eater who is trying to fully heal from deep emotional wounds, this memoir gives you a recipe for getting from here to there and will speed you on your journey.
If you were to combine medical knowledge, nutritional advice, a guide to mindful eating, a self-care manual, and fitness suggestions into one book, you’d come up EAT WHAT YOU LOVE, LOVE WHAT YOU EAT WITH DIABETES: A MINDFUL EATING PROGRAM FOR THRIVING WITH PREDIABETES AND DIABETES by Michelle May, MD with Megrette Fletcher, MEd, RD, CDE. For those of you in either category, this is a book you won’t want to miss.
Although I don’t generally set explicit goals for myself yet do okay, that’s not the case for everyone. Disregulated eaters especially often have difficulty setting and achieving goals especially related to food and fitness. If you have difficulty achieving success, here’s a book that is definitely for you—MOVE! HOW WOMEN CAN ACHIEVE ATHLETIC GOALS AT ANY AGE by Catharine Utzschneider, Ed.D. who happens to be a colleague of mine from (when I lived in) Massachusetts.
For those of you who aren’t satisfied with simply working on changing your eating habits, but also want to understand the biology behind some of them, I recommend David J. Linden’s THE COMPASS OF PLEASURE—HOW OUR BRAINS MAKE FATTY FOODS, ORGASM, EXERCISE, MARIJUANA, GENEROSITY, VODKA, LEARNING, AND GAMBLING FEEL SO GOOD. It deals with some difficult concepts, but I found it enlightening and relatively readable if I was willing to read slowly and sometimes go through a passage more than once.
I’m delighted to be blogging about BODY SHOTS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE CULTURE OF EATING DISORDERS, a new book by my colleague Emily Fox-Kales. Among her numerous professional achievements, she is the executive director of Feeding Ourselves (http://www.feedingourselves.com/), a Massachusetts program that teaches troubled eaters to stop obsessing about weight and become “normal” eaters.
As a writer of books on eating and weight, I’m always interested in reading what other therapist authors have to say on the subject. One book I highly recommend is HEALING YOUR HUNGRY HEART: RECOVERY FROM YOUR EATING DISORDER by Joanna Poppink, MFT. Though highly personal, HEALING YOUR HUNGRY HEART is not another memoir, but a smart how-to-recover book from a wise and caring teacher.
For years a client has been telling me about a book that helped with her food problems and anxiety and I finally bought a copy for myself. THE GIFT OF OUR COMPULSIONS: A REVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO SELF-ACCEPTANCE AND HEALING by Mary O’Malley is as helpful as my client says it is and I encourage you all to read it, whatever kind of food or weight compulsion has been plaguing you.
The posts and comments contained in The Gürze Books Eating Disorders Blogs do not necessarily represent the views, beliefs, or opinions of Gürze Books. The information contained here is meant to complement, not substitute for, professional medical and/or psychological services.
All EatingDisordersBlogs.com content copyright 2012 Gürze Books
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