We humans are always seeking to improve ourselves. Sometimes that improvement is sorely needed, sometimes not. Sometimes the change is prompted by something deep within us — a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction-- and sometimes the change is prompted by something external to us like a birthday, a crisis in the family, or the coming New Year. Here are three recently published books which may help.
The first of these deals with a subject found on all New Year Resolution lists: losing weight. Never Say Diet and the accompanying The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Trainer workbook, both written by Chantal Hobbs, promise to give the reader the emotional, psychological, and disciplinary tools needed to achieve the goal of a healthy lifestyle.
Never Say Diet proclaims it is not an ordinary diet/fitness book, but of course all these books say that. It’s a lot like the others, though. The same sections devoted to the author’s personal struggle and triumph – losing 200 pounds from a peak (some would say depths) of 350 pounds—to a section on food lists and another section on exercise routines. All very helpful. And like other books where the author proclaims “Never Say Diet” the word diet is pretty much implied even as the author challenges all the strange diets she has tried and failed.
Hobbs is a Christian and she gives credit for her ability to stop her unhealthy lifestyle to the realization that she wanted to live the best life possible — for herself, her family, and for God. Realizing the excess weight was gained because she continually made poor choices over a long period of time, she decided to commit herself to imagining the healthful happy life she would have when she achieved her goals of losing weight. She had to see the healthy Chantal in her mind’s eye and see the worth of that best Chantal instead of always seeing herself as a fat person.
The book is about her journey and the wisdom she learned. As such it has its good and bad points. On the one hand, the writing is heartfelt, hopeful, and humble. On the other hand, there are moments when I found myself disputing the author because of her generous use of generalizations and because she and I both live in different worlds. For instance, she often makes one bold general statement then later says something quite opposite, all the time maintaining and reaffirming the same two opposing generalizations. For instance, she states, “it’s a myth that all fat people eat for emotional reasons. I ate because I liked eating.” But later she also states, “When I felt hopeless, food was the answer I sought.” Back and forth, throughout the book. One moment talking about her self-worth issues and good, the next staunchly saying she never did emotional eating.
Article comments