Do Nice Girls Finish Fat? A book review

Since last spring, I’ve read several diet and health books such as:

• Jillian Michaels' Master Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones for a Hot and Healthy Body!
• Anticancer: A New Way of Life
• The Skinny: On Losing Weight Without Being Hungry-The Ultimate Guide to Weight Loss Success (read my review here)
• The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First
• An Apple A Day: The Myths, Misconceptions, and Truths About the Foods We Eat
• Jane Goodall’s Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating

They all deal with food and what you should or shouldn’t eat. But none of them addressed emotions. And that’s why I liked delving into Nice Girls Finish Fat: Put Yourself First and Change Your Eating Forever by Karen R. Koenig.

Karen is a cognitive-behavioral therapist and author of three books on eating and weight. She feels that women put too much on their plates both figuratively and literally. She also feels that women who have a tough time saying no to food, but importantly to friends, family and coworkers who take advantage of their uber niceness. Then they feel used and eat to excess as a way of taking nurturing themselves – i.e., food as self-care.

Nice Girls Finish Fat is for those who say they’re fine when they’re not. And it’s for those who try to fix everyone else’s problems at the detriment of themselves and their health.

Sound like you? If so, enter my giveaway of four copies of Nice Girls Finish Fat.

Does this sound like you? (an excerpt)

This book is for all you women who know you're too nice, who recognize somewhere deep inside that overdoing for others leaves nothing for you, who don't get why you can't stop eating when you're not hungry, who feel the need to apologize for any particle of your being that isn't wholesome and angelic, who take care of others with love and take care of yourself with food, who work too hard on being perfect, live to please others, think no and say yes, and have to make things right for everyone.

Every chapter in this book speaks to niceness that is unhealthy in its extreme and keeps you joined at the hip with food. Think of these pages as guiding you through an annotated tour of Niceville, including the pitfalls of perfectionism, the hazards of food as self-care, the downside of doing everything yourself, the perils of having your needle permanently stuck in the yes groove, the masochism of trying to be all things to all people all the time, and the dangers of letting yourself get so stressed out that you're killing yourself because you can't stop worshipping at the altar of nice. By the time you're done reading, you'll understand how being too good and giving at your own expense encourages you to camp out in front of your refrigerator and skyrockets your risk of remaining overweight, unhealthy, and under happy.

Maybe you’re not so nice?

Over the years I’ve learned to say no…most of the time. It’s amazing how my being nice is really a self-inflicted guilt trip in the hope that people will like me. Instead, I try to practice not giving a damn unless it’s really important. Plus, after starting a charter school, volunteering hundreds of hours, and getting very little thanks from most people, I am so done being that person.

Still, there are times…so the lessons learned in Nice Girls Finish Fat: Put Yourself First and Change Your Eating Forever are good for anyone who has a tough time saying no, ends up feeling used, and then stuffs her face to make herself feel better.

Enter my giveaway of four copies of Nice Girls Finish Fat.

More information

Nice Girls Finish Fat: Put Yourself First and Change Your Eating Forever author Karen Koenig has a site called Eating Disorders Blog, which you may want to check out. She also runs a food and feelings message board at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings. You can also find Karen at Eating Normal and her website for Nice Girls Finish Fat.

Posted on August 10, 2009 in Books,Contests and Giveaways,Dieting and Weight Loss Tips

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