Focusing on changing thoughts and emotions about themselves and about food, a successful system of recovery from addictions offers dieters the tools to overcome overeating by identifying the compulsion to overeat, feeling worthwhile, valuing themselves, and eating sensibly.
(I've changed my review. The first part is my first review and at the bottom is the newer version) This book cured my binge eating. I found rational recovery and Jack Trimpey after reading Kathryn Hansen's Brain Over Binge. But her book didn't do it for me, when she mentioned in a blog post that Rational Recovery had basically kicked her ass into recovering I knew it was for me.
This book begins by addressing poor body image and dependency and uses the theory of REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy) by Dr. Ellis to stop people from judging themselves and to vigourously question their dependancies and irrational thoughts.
This book says that fatness is a personal philosophy and that binge eating is a symptom of it. You start by simply accepting yourself - this takes by really taking away a lot of the force that goes behind a binge.
The book challenges many 'wrong' viewpoints and forces you to question your binge urges. It took me hours of self questioning and journalling - but those few hours of vigourous effort paid off. I screamed my urges down (in my head) and I am recovered.
I recommend everyone to try this - and to give it a fair chance. ---------------
Additional insight.
I personally found the following thoughts difficult to deal with and these became the reason why I justified binging: 1. My trigger foods are very rare and this justifies my binging 2. The food is ridiculously tasty and I can't help but have to eat it
1. My trigger foods are rare. This thought always justified my decision to binge - when I questioned it I realised that actually several 'rare' food was actually made every week, another 'rare' food was available in probably thousands of shops in my city and is probably available in every street. The food that 'triggered' me were quite abundant and there went my justification to binge.
2. The food is soooo tasty and I can't help it
Well the big lie is that the food is that tasty. How many times have I binged on something and actully found it bland or uninteresting or even bad and unpleasant? Too many times. Hardly ever did the 'amazingly tasty' food ever taste amazing. My mid-brain was a liar and sold me lies. There went my second reason.
From here on it was easy. I eat well and healthily and simply push away my urge to binge seeing it for the liar it is. Hope this helps and you recover too. ----------------------------------------- Updated review: Alas, a few weeks after reading the book and feeling confident I resumed binging again and am at the highest weight I've ever been. The book has helpful content but for people who have deep seated issues and don't have the first clue on how to separate themselves from their voices, this may not help. I'm currently reading 'The little book of big change' which is giving me additional insight that I need.
Meh. The underlying idea of rational recovery is sound and useful, but the rest of this book is marginal. For one, it's obviously dated and could benefit from an update. But overall, it should focus on the ideas of rational recovery and AVRT and not try to give advice about how, where, or when to eat. That just makes it another diet book rather than what it actually is.
This book was very meaningful in its way of approaching food issues. It’s unfortunately a very dated book and some of the stories and attitude would trigger some or create self shaming. So I can’t recommend it to everyone . The self empowerment concept is one I like the idea and practice of. Addictive voice recognition is a valid method to deal with food issues. But it’s still only one piece of what is a multi method change.
wow. feeling cute, might scrub my eyeballs with bleach. the 90s sure were a wild ride, huh? did you know trauma doesn't exist and being raped before you started school leaves no lasting damage? I sure learnt some important lessons today :)