When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair: 50 Ways to Feel Thin, Gorgeous, and Happy (When You Feel Anything But) - Softcover

Geneen Roth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786885084 ISBN 13: 9780786885084

Publisher: Hachette Books, 1999

Synopsis

Geneen Roth's pioneering books were among the first to link overeating and compulsive dieting with deeply personal issues that go far beyond weight and body image. Now, in this fun, practical book, she helps readers radically shift their relationships with food and find more life-affirming ways to care for themselves. With an exhilarating combination of intelligence and wicked good humor, she offers bite-sized pieces of invaluable wisdom.

About this title

Review:

Geneen Roth estimates that she's gained and lost more than 1,000 pounds during her life. That makes her uniquely qualified to write this, her sixth book, which delivers exactly what its subtitle indicates: 50 Ways to Feel Thin, Gorgeous, and Happy (When You Feel Anything But). It's sure to appeal to her considerable cult of readers who've bought her other feel-good, anti-diet books including the bestselling When Food Is Love: Exploring the Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy and Why Weight?: A Guide to Ending Compulsive Eating. It's for the estimated 25 million women in America alone who are on diets; for those who find that they're never happy because they delay gratification ("I'll be happy when I lose 10 pounds"), and those who punish themselves for eating one too many chocolate chip cookies.

Roth's advice is simple, but often beyond the realm of thinking of someone obsessed with calorie counting. She recommends that you eat at least one hot meal every day, as a slice of hot pizza will make you feel more full than a cold and cardboardy one will; that you should do one "exquisitely kind" thing for yourself every day, be it buying new underwear or taking a sledgehammer to your scale; and that you should "separate the desire to be thin from the desire to be cherished." She also gives straight diet advice that can't be found in publications along the lines of Cosmo: "Too much fat makes you fat. But too little makes you fat, too, because you usually make up for eating nonfat foods by eating twice as much. I suggest you allow yourself to eat enough fat to feel full. Part of the reason that many of us feel as if we could start eating at one end of our kitchens and chomp our way clear across the United States is that we never give ourselves permission to feel full without feeling guilty, to eat enough fat when it's not on a binge." Amen. --Erica Jorgensen

From the Author:

Why is feeling fat as common among size four women as among size sixteen's? Why should you carry a chunk of chocolate everywhere? What is the "suffering contest", and why is losing it so important? When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair is bestselling author Geneen Roth's witty tell-all about the secret ways we sabotage ourselves every day, as well as an inspired book on how we can learn to live, love and celebrate life no matter what. Roth, known for her pioneering books on women, food and losing weight without dieting--The New York Times bestseller When Food is Love, as well as Feeding the Hungry Heart, Appetites, Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating and Why Weight?--has been teaching workshops nationwide for twenty years to dispel the myths and undo the damage of diets and deprivation. Her work has been featured on "Oprah," "20/20," "NBC Nightly News," and "Good Morning America." Over the years, her students have asked her to create a book--something small enough to be slipped into a purse or pocket--to help remind them that true nourishment can be found in unexpected--and non-caloric--places. With its creative arsenal of techniques, When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair helps readers successfully find their way to a better understanding of life's bumps and bruises, and teaches them how to bring beauty, power and joy back into their lives without paying for it in unwanted pounds or bills. Roth proposes a radical shift in our thinking about what being "thin" really is and what it allows us to be and feel.

She has seen time and again with her tens of thousands of students that being thin doesn't automatically lead to happiness (shocking as this may be!), and that there are direct, effective and practical ways to feel joy, strength, power and value daily. In this new book, Roth teaches how to find contentment without conditions ("I'll be happy when I lost those ten pounds, find the right job, have the perfect house...."), and how to stop waiting for your life to begin. With advice ranging from the physical to the metaphysical, she teaches how to put insight into action, figure out what you're really up to in your life, as well as providing a simplified approach to eating--guidelines that actually lead to weight loss without dieting.

Among its fifty succinct chapters are:
* Three Ways to Stop a Fat-and-Ugly Attack
* Retail Therapy is as Important as the Other Kind
* Whenever You Feel Fat or Worthless, Ask Yourself Whose Instructions You are Following
* Eat Enough Fat
* Do Not Sneak Food or Feelings
* Be Willing to Lose the Suffering Contest
* When You are Not Hungry, Beauty is Better than Bonbons

By turns practical, whimsical, and spiritual, When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair sends a clear message: Stop waiting for the day when you are finally thin enough, good-looking or buff-enough, smart or smartly-dressed enough, and start living now! Frank and funny, it transforms the way we perceive not only food, but the entire way we live our lives.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0786885084
• ISBN 13: 9780786885084
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 217