Let Go of Emotional Overeating and Love Your Food #BookReview

Let Go of Emotional Overeating and Love Your Food

by Arlene B. Englander, LCSW, MBA.

When I was first offered a copy of Let Go of Emotional Overeating and Love Your Food, I hesitated. I honestly didn’t know if I could relate to this book as I never felt as if I had a problem with my food. Once I read the description I was intrigued and thought that quite possibly this book might have something to teach me and I was right!

About Let Go of Emotional Overeating and Love Your Food:

Written by a Columbia University trained psychotherapist and former emotional overeater, the book offers psychologically sound techniques for recognizing the symptoms of emotional overeating and methods for addressing it in ways that are both effective and enjoyable.

Diets don’t work for people who eat through their emotions. Instead, learning to recognize the stressors that lead to emotional eating and to address those tensions through other methods besides eating is the goal. When we handle stress well away from the table, we’re free to relax and really savor our food when we choose to eat.

Proven techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) are presented in an innovative, easy-to-remember way. Englander walks readers through table techniques designed to make mindful eating easier, habitual, and ultimately second-nature.

Allowing for both fun foods and healthy foods, Englander’s approach emphasizes eating healthfully and being aware of best practices and the behavioral objectives of coping with stress, exercising regularly, mindful eating, good nutrition and hydration, and controlling overeating situations. She addresses late-night eating, parties, vacation, and other situations where overindulging may be a risk. She concludes with a prescription that is meant to last so that readers can love their food for a lifetime.

My Thoughts:

I found my self saying, “Yes, yes!” and “Oh, I didn’t think about that!” The plan offered in this book to achieve success with your relationship with food can be applied to so many other areas of your life! This isn’t about being on a “diet” this is a manual to help you identify your joy and make peace with the past. Basically, you can’t know where you are going until you come to terms with where you have been. I love the exercises offered here on reflection. As, I mentioned above I feel as if the book can be used to heal other areas of your life that might not be optimal. When Englander speaks about finding pleasure in your food it reminds me of something that I have pointed out to my husband. When a person eats quickly, or eats to the point that they as too full, they aren’t enjoying their food. That fullness usually ends in regret. When we can savor the taste and let it linger, we can enjoy the meal to the fullest. We will be satisfied without feeling the need to devour the entire plate. We might also begin choosing higher quality meals or ingredients. This is the first book about food that I have read that asks the reader to seek their joy. It doesn’t make you feel about yourself or your choices. It helps you to understand why you do want you do when it comes to food. A must read for serial dieters and for anyone seeking to make healthier choices in their life.

About the author:

Arlene B. Englander

Arlene B. Englander, LCSW, MBA, has been a licensed psychotherapist for over twenty years. She trained at Columbia University and is currently in private practice in North Palm Beach, Florida where she specializes in treating persons coping with eating disorders, relationship issues, depression, anxiety, grief and stress (personal and work-related). Love Your Food® is her non–dieting, psychologically-oriented program for compulsive overeaters in which clients learn to eat whatever they like, but stop just at the point of satisfaction without overeating.

Ms. Englander developed many of her theories about stress management while working at Cancer Care, Inc. where she counseled thousands of patients and families dealing with advanced cancer. She subsequently developed stress management programs for use in hospitals, law firms, and other settings. As Director of Community Education at the Holliswood Hospital, a private psychiatric hospital in New York City, which was renowned for its eating disorders program, her responsibilities included the production of educational seminars, often attended by audiences of as many as 500 professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and guidance counselors.

Aside from her professional training and experience, Ms. Englander is also personally familiar with the issue of eating disorders, as she is a former compulsive overeater.