Life is Hard, Food is Easy: The 5-Step Plan to Overcome Emotional Eating and Lose Weight on Any Diet - Softcover

Spangle, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0895260573 ISBN 13: 9780895260574

Publisher: Lifeline Press, 2004

Synopsis

"This book will completely change the way people think about food, giving them much-needed tools for successfully losing weight."

-Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series

About this title

From the Inside Flap

· Recognize your craving,
· Identify your emotion,
· And solve the real problem.

We all give in to "emotional eating" sometimes. Food is an easy solution to dealing with—or avoiding—uncomfortable emotions. But when you’re trying to lose or maintain weight, emotional eating can sabotage everything you’ve worked so hard for.

Linda Spangle, founder and director of the highly successful WINNERS for Life wellness and weight-loss clinic, offers hope to those who want to take control over their eating habits and lose weight for good. Life Is Hard, Food Is Easy will completely change the way you think about food, giving you a powerful strategy for conquering your emotional eating habits and achieving lasting weight-loss success. With Spangle’s approach, you can succeed on any diet. Without it, most diets are doomed to fail.

Using specific guidelines, each step in Spangle’s 5-step plan involved answering a question related to the connection between food and emotions.

STEP 1: What’s going on? What’s making you want to eat? Learn the connection between non-hungry eating and specific categories of emotions, which Spangle terms "Heart Hunger" versus "Head Hunger."

STEP 2: What do I feel? What are the emotions behind the situation? There’s more to your emotions than mad, glad, and sad. Break out of an "emotional box" using the unique "I feel...because..." exercise. You’ll learn how to pinpoint your feeling exactly and get to the root of what’s making you eat.

STEP 3: What do I need? What’s missing in your life right now? Trace your favorite foods back to your childhood and connect them to the emotions you felt when you ate these foods. Discover how much these same emotional needs often drive your eating patterns in your adult life, and learn how to address those needs in ways that don’t involve food.

STEP 4: What’s in my way? What barriers might stop you from taking action? Identify issues that keep you from using your weight-management skills. Learn how to spot the "crazymakers" in your life and how to sidestep dieting sabotage from loved ones.

STEP 5: What will I do? What’s your "action plan" that doesn’t involve food? Here are effective, easy guidelines for handling tough situations when eating is expected and encouraged—celebrations, holidays, social get-togethers, even business meals.

This is not a book about compulsive eating or all-night binges. It’s for "normal" people who raid that refrigerator after a tough day and, in ten minutes, undo an entire week’s worth of careful eating. But rather than suggesting you eat low-fat foods on a midnight snack run, Life Is Hard, Food Is Easy helps you figure out why you were standing in front of the refrigerator in the first place.

Drawing on her own personal struggle with emotional eating, Spangle combines thoughtful advice, personal stories, real-life situations, written exercises, and practical tips and tricks you can use every day. By taking car of your needs and coping with your uncomfortable emotions, you can free yourself from the trap of using food as an easy solution.

About the Author

Linda Spangle is the founder and director of WINNERS for Life, a weight-management program in Denver, Colorado. She has counseled more than 1,200 clients and her clinic has served as a referral source for more than 350 Denver-area physicians.

A popular speaker in Denver, Linda has taught classes and seminars on eating disorders; emotional and psychological aspects of weight loss; nutrition and exercise; stress management; and motivation. Her clients include IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, Amoco Oil, and Medifast, Inc. Spangle's articles on nutrition, weight loss, and motivation appear in Denver's major newspapers and she is a frequent guest on local radio talk shows.

Spangle received her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from South Dakota State University, and her Master of Arts degree from the University of Northern Colorado. She lives in Denver with her husband, Mike, and their two dogs.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lifeline Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0895260573
• ISBN 13: 9780895260574
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 294