Wednesday Review: Books that Could Change Your Life, The Feel Better List
There’s nothing like New Year’s Eve to bring out a bunch of resolutions. Because I’ve been unwell since 2003 (migrianes), my resolutions over the past few years have centered around this idea: “Feel Better.”
Maybe one of these books will help you find a feel better place in 2008. Here’s to the hopeful!
-Rachelle
P.s. Remember, any purchase made by clicking on a title below helps support this blog. Find more great book, music, and misc. reccomendations over at Magpie Reviews. Thank you!
Intuitive Eating
Evelyn Trioble and Elyse Resch
How many diet books have you read in your life time? I think my list starts with my mother’s copy of More of Jesus, Less of Me –which I copped from my Mom when I was in 8th grade — and continues through The WeighDown Workshop, 8 Minutes in the Morning, You, on a Diet, The Maker’s Diet, and The Fat Flush Diet — some of which have only recently left the shelves of my personal library.
Last year after a failed attempt at Weight Watchers, I hit my 38th birthday and decided that I’d spent enough of my life obsessing about my weight/body/what I ate. At the ripe old age of 38, I gave up dieting for good and decided to start loving my body.(I’m a slow learner.) The catalyst? Intuitive Eating.
This is book that must be consumed slowly, so you can unlearn old habits and adopt intutivley helpful ways of thinking about food and nutrition. The assingnments take time, but are well worth the resulting mental and emotional reprogramming. For the first time I am eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’m full, and balancing out at a size my body is comfortable with. Within weeks of begining Intuitive Eating, I stopped feeling guilty about food ,and now I can eat anything guilt free. For the first time this year, I didn’t even THINK of making a resolution that involved losing weight! It’s a small miracle.
P.s. If you are stocking your bookshelves on the topic, Women I Respect have also recommended Eating Mindfully and Slow Food Revolution: A New Culture for Eating and Living. Check ‘em out!
Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Pain
Dr. David Buchholz
When my husband handed me this book in our local shop, I pretty much rolled my eyes and sighed in defeat. After years of tyring everything under the sun to get rid of my migraines, I had pretty much resolved to live with pain for the rest of my life. I thought I knew everything there was to know about migraines and migraine meds — but after just a few pages of Heal Your Headache I’d discovered things none of my dozen-odd medical practioners had ever told me. Intially I was terrified of step one, getting off pain medications and most other meds. But within six weeks I was no longer dependent on pain meds or meds like immitrex, and I had discovered hidden trigger foods that no one had mentioned to me before. My migraines dropped from everyday, to 2-7 per month. After getting them down to this more manageable level, a good atlas chiropractor (we like to call him “Dr. Woo Woo”) got rid of the rest of my headache pain and desensitized me from most of my trigger foods. Now I only have the occasional break through headache — and this after five solid years of headache pain! Believe me, this book is worth taking a chance on!
What books help you Feel Better?
Next Week: books for the Budding Feminist.
4 comments
Gluten Free Girl-by Shauna James Ahern. I was successfully diagnosed with gluten and casein allergies this year (after receiving a diagnosis of living with Asperger’s Syndrome) and I feel a million times better for having removed these foods from my diet. Shuana’s book is for everyone (not just celiac’s or those with autism) that want to say “yes” to food, life, and loving every bit of it.
Woohoo on book #2 – I didn’t know that you’d found some help! That’s fantabulous.
“All in My Head” by Paula Kamen. I appreciated her assertive, never-say-never approach to headache care and treatment. If one approach didn’t work for her, she was willing to try something else. Kamen also has a refreshingly “real” style of writing that made me feel a little less alone in headache hell.
I liked the Bucholz book as well, but I reacted to his suggestion that if you’ve done the three steps and still hurt, you must “need” to have headaches. He seemed to imply that if you follow his plan and still hurt, then you must have some secondary benefit to daily pain. I’d like to shake him and say, “Pal, no one is fluffing my pillows and bringing me tea. I’m still working full time and looking after a household. Show me the secondary benefit.” But that’s just me.
Hey, Rachelle–just got the BlogHer note about becoming a CE! Congratulations :-)
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