The Solution: For Safe, Healthy, and Permanent Weight Loss

by Laurel Mellin

Offering six cures (two each for the mind, body, and lifestyle), Dr. Mellin helps readers maintain a nutritious, balanced diet and develop an active life. 40 charts & illustrations.

Genres: Nonfiction

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Laurel Mellin is a New York Times Bestselling Author, founder of Emotional Brain Training and Associate Clinical Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. She is a health psychologist and researcher whose work has been featured in top media outlets, Today, Good Morning America, Oprah, and in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, and whose work was named one of the Top 10 Medical Advances of the Year by Health magazine. She lives in Marin County, California.

Reviews

[HKFuie]

Laurel Mellin changed my life. More accurately, she taught me to change my own life. Not in the large scale ways like a better house/more money/even losing weight. By using her method I changed my life in the small ways that affect each moment. I no longer live with anxiety. I now listen to people talk about their fears and I remember how much I was frozen by mine. I was afraid of people, afraid of life. Like so many people, I can tell you the story of my early abandonment and how that froze me in time emotionally. I was a child on the inside. I was so immature. I did not know how to take care of myself. Through using her method I've become the person people look to for advice and leadership. I just had a friend tell me, someone I admire, that when she's unsure of her take on a situation she checks in with me to see if her thinking is straight. That, to me, is a huge compliment. I've tried to tell her the story of how my life has changed, but I don't know if someone who came from a nurturing home can understand what life is like for someone who spent the first 25 years of her life trying desperately to please someone so they would finally make her feel OK. I'm sad I had that experience, but as a different friend recently told me, after I told him the story of how I completely forgave my mom, maybe I learned compassion from that. I do know I gained gifts from my difficult beginning. But I gained them by what I learned using Laurel Mellin's method. I think her technique is the best kept secret around. I'm so grateful because it fast forwarded my personal growth exponentially. Without it, I'm sure I'd still be repeating the same narcissistic patterns I learned early in life.

Wired for Joy is not my favorite of Laurel Mellin's books. I prefer The Solution and The Pathway, but these books aren't the method. They're only introductions to the method. If, like I was, you had a very difficult beginning and want to heal big early hurts her program, Emotional Brain Training, will make all the difference.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laurel Mellin is brilliant about people and about developmental psychology. She’s a R.D. who did her initial research at U.C.S.F.

Here, she describes perfectly and with perspicacity, what happens when people don’t get/learn what they need (nurturing and limits skills) during early childhood, how that can lead to various problem behaviors (from overeating, overspending, overworking, not being able to say no, etc. etc. – just about under- or over- anything), and how adults, through tremendous hard work and practice, can learn & incorporate these skills for themselves.

Very hopeful about how even if we didn't get the parenting we needed when younger, it’s possible to parent ourselves.

Also, extremely helpful for would be parents, giving them information about how they need to behave to raise children who naturally develop nurturing and limits skills.

Despite what this might sound like, this theory and program are not at all “New Age” and, refreshingly, it’s not a 12 step program, but a unique technique.

[Lisa Greer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of mumbo jumbo. I don't even know why I read this years ago. hehehe.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book specifically focuses on weight and the emotional patterns behind overeating. Included is a healthful dietary plan, but the bulk of the book is about changing the drive to overeat to acheive permanent weight loss. Powerful and Impactful; I recommend it to clients often.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book attempts to address the emotional reasons behind overeating - I'm not overweight, but eat all the time when I'm not hungry. That being said, I finished the book and also just finished a bag of coconut m&ms, so I don't think it helped me too much in that regard.

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book and applying its knowledge, wisdom and tools has helped me recognize the story of my own ' causes' and has helped me rewrite my stories with the 6 cures found within and doing the inner and outer work.

[J Crossley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, which I wish was on Kindle, is a mind-body approach to weight loss. It touches on cognitive behavioral therapy and other methods to help your mind assist with your weight loss goals. It takes work to go through the steps, but the steps help to make you stronger.

[surfurbian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This worked pretty good. Helped me loose the weight and manage to keep it off for almost a year. And during a time when my stress levels were quite high. Time to re-read.