Written in easy-to-understand, everyday language,
The Rules of “Normal” Eating lays out the four basic rules that "normal" eaters follow instinctively — eating when they're hungry, choosing foods that satisfy them, eating with awareness and enjoyment, and stopping when they're full or satisfied. Along with specific skills and techniques that help promote change, the book presents a proven cognitive-behavioral model of transformation that targets beliefs, feelings, and behaviors about food and eating and points the way toward genuine physical and emotional fulfillment. Readers learn how to reprogram their dysfunctional beliefs, manage uncomfortable feelings without turning to food, and establish new eating habits that tune their bodies into natural sensations of hunger, pleasure, satisfaction, and satiation. Filled with humorous insights, compassion, and practical wisdom, the book outlines balanced attitudes and patterns that benefit all types of eaters.
Customer Reviews:
0 of 0 found this review helpful:
Excellent book, 2008-04-08
I have read quite a few books covering intuitive eating and non-dieting issues but find Karen Koenig's book one of the most helpful books I have read. She is very realistic and never claims that there is a quick fix. Everything is explained very well and makes a lot of sense. I am reading it for the second time now, writing in my journal about it and highlighting parts that really 'speak' to me. I feel understood and it gives me hope that I can become a normal eater.
3 of 3 found this review helpful:
Hope for Those Wanting to be a Normal Eating, 2007-09-03
I found this book to be extremely helpful in the process of overcoming a long term eating disorder. Having been both anorexic and overweight, this book has offered me hope in teaching me to read my bodie's clues and to begin to trust them. I appreciate that while the author is honest in saying that becoming a normal eater requires hard work, she also impart's hope to both those who have totally learned to ignore their body's clues that they are full and those who have have learned to ignore physcial hunger and have lived under the tyranny of food diaries and counting calories and fat grams.
3 of 3 found this review helpful:
Koenig goes beyond the simple rules of intuitive eating into the heart of the issue, 2007-08-23
This book is an excellent read for those dealing with emotional eating. I'm not finished with this book. Yet, every time I read it, I learn something new. Her voice is compassionate and assertive. And, she explores the emotional issues that drive us to eat rather than feel. Plus, Koenig doesn't overwhelm the reader with a lot of psycho-babble. She's firmly rooted in cognitive-behavioral therapy, which empowers emotional eaters to deal with their issues head on.
Koenig also states that, like alcoholism, emotional eaters will never be cured, but will be a work in progress. It taught me to stop, think, and listen to my heart and body. I highly recommend it!
10 of 10 found this review helpful:
Finally, a book that makes sense!, 2007-08-16
I have been an emotional and binge eater with a history of related eating disorders. I have tried most diets out there, own most books on healthy eating that have come out since the 70s, and have exercised both moderately and to excess. I have never been able to find whatever it is to keep me at a healthy weight -- until now.
It has always maddened me that people (such as DH) are able to eat normally and never worry about calories or food groups or weight. This book has helped me understand why they can do it and I can't. It also contains exercises to help me understand the relationship that my beliefs, feelings, and actions have on my life, and exercises to help me replace some of my unhealthy beliefs, feelings, and actions with healthier ones. I highly recommend this book to anyone who had struggled with weight and food issues.
I also recommend her workbook, The Food and Feelings Workbook: A Full Course Meal on Emotional Health which takes the ideas in this book a step further and is filled with information and exercises to help continue the self-work it takes to finally become a more normal eater.
I have been practicing the principles in this book and have begun working in the workbook. A month later (after ditching all diet books and ideas) I have lost a few pounds (normally the absence of a diet would mean an incredible weight gain) and am more relaxed around food. The best things this has given me is the ability to focus on other things in my life and not have every waking thought revolve around what I just ate, what I am eating, and what I am going to eat next and when.
Is this process easy? No, not really. Is it worth it? You bet!!!
8 of 15 found this review helpful:
save your money for a salad, 2007-07-08
i think this book is more for undereaters than emotional eaters. it did not tell me how to do with my feelings at all. this book is for people who dread coming to the dinner table which i dont. i love how at the end of the chapter how they want you to explain to your family and friend that you are trying to eat normally if they like it or not but this book does not help you unless you are anorexic.
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