One of the biggest nonfiction titles last year in terms of buzz and sales was Geneen Roth's Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything.
This was, of course, because it was an Oprah title. And although I am no fan of Oprah or her book choices, I realized in January that I was eating some leftover Christmas cookies not because I was hungry or even peckish, but rather because I was bored and antsy. So I thought, well, maybe this book will have something to say about eating to fill holes other than one's stomach.*
So, because I knew I probably wasn't going to have the interest to read the whole thing, I did that type of nonfiction reading I do when I want to get the basics of a book but don't necessarily want to read every line of it: I kind of skim-read it for a while. But, honestly, I made it to page 62, and I still have no idea what Roth is saying, or what the point of her book is. The book jacket tells me that Roth posits that "the way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive."** Well, okay. But trust me: that doesn't exactly make for compelling storytelling. As far as I can tell, Roth's claim to fame is gaining and losing more than a thousand pounds over her lifetime, and now she teaches seminars basically telling women to lose weight by stopping trying to lose weight. There's a lot of sentences like this:
"When I first meet people who come to my retreat, I see those same beliefs funneled through the relationship with food. As if punishing themselves with dietary rigors will make up for something inherently damaged, fundamentally wrong with their very existence. Being thin becomes The Test. Losing weight becomes their religion." (p. 63.)
Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. I can support a woman who just wants us to have a normal relationship with our food as food. It's just that this book isn't particularly interesting, or personal, or helpful. I've skimmed the whole thing now and about the best line I can find to nutshell it for you is on page 161: "eat what your body wants when you're hungry, stop when you've had enough." The rest of it just seems like a big ad for Geneen Roth Retreats or seminars or whatever.
*I do plenty of eating when I AM hungry and/or peckish, and I am hungry a lot, so I really can't afford to start eating when I'm not hungry if I ever want to fit back into my pre-CRjr fat jeans.***
**I'll buy this. I eat candy, chocolate, and cookies like one of my core beliefs is that someday they won't exist any more. Or, more likely with this economy, I won't be able to afford them any more.
***You read that right. I'm still not even back in my previous FAT jeans. So sad. I don't weigh all that much more, it's just that stuff has...shifted. Sigh.
Recently I went to my doctor, and he noticed I lost a lot of weight (which I needed to do), and he asked me how I did it. I told him through exercise and watching what I ate. I then asked him if I if he thought I could write a book about it. He laughed and said no. Doctors - they don't know anything.
Posted by: Venta | 09 February 2011 at 09:00 AM
Yay, Venta! I don't think you needed to lose any weight but congrats on doing so, if that's what you wanted to do!
Doctors--let's put it this way, they don't know as much as they think they do!
You could totally write a book about this, Venta, except if you'd have to make up an addition 250 pages of crap to surround your "exercise and eat right" theory, you'd have to run some weekend seminars, and of course you'd have to get the Oprah Seal of Approval.
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 09 February 2011 at 09:14 AM
I will skip this book for sure. "Eat what your body wants when you're hungry, stop when you've had enough"? I just ate a half a box of Girl Scout cookies and could easily knock off the rest. My restraint is NOT eating the rest of the box.
Posted by: Ruthiella | 09 February 2011 at 02:39 PM
Ruthiella--
What're you DOING to me? Now I'm hungry for girl scout cookies. Thin mints, mmmmmm....
Hey, good on you for stopping while there were cookies left. I know I wouldn't be able to. So much for "stopping when I've had enough."
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 09 February 2011 at 05:20 PM
I read this book last year and I was also unimpressed with much of it. Roth is well known in the intuitive eating/eating disorder world and I've never been able to understand why. She seems to think that because she had such a traumatic childhood every woman who overeats has some emotional damage, and I don't agree. I recommend reading one of the last pages of the book, where she gives 7 or so guidelines to eating. (Don't eat standing up over the sink. Don't eat while reading or watching TV. Don't eat straight out of the fridge...) Not that I DO any of them consistently. Probably 75% of my food is eaten at my desk at work, while reading, or while watching TV. My defense is to not buy the cookies in the first place.
Posted by: Marmota | 09 February 2011 at 07:47 PM
Don't eat while reading? Well, that is just crazy! That is one of my favorite pastimes.
Ironically, what I cannot do while reading, is the stair master at the gym. I need to be reasonably still to read.
Posted by: Ruthiella | 10 February 2011 at 12:28 PM
Marmota,
Well, I'm glad it wasn't only me. The seven rules you quote were okay, but weren't anything I haven't heard a million times before. I just thought the book was short on anything useful.
Ruthiella,
I agree, I love to eat while reading (although it is a bad habit). I was almost cured of it when I spilled a bowl of cereal over my library copy of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" and had to buy it....but, not quite.
Have you tried books on tape while stairmastering it? Color me impressed that you have the gumption to get on a stair master!
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 10 February 2011 at 01:26 PM
I had this book on hold while at its most popular and then took it off of my list. Somehow the Oprah endorsement made it less enticing. Having struggled through the same kind of yo-yo dieting without much success I do believe the answer is the simple one Venta gave and from your description, CR, this one sound more like selling retreats rather than helping dieters.
My order of Girl Scout cookies comes next week. I'm looking forward to those Thin Mints. Thank goodness I'm not the Cookie Mom any more and don't have to restrain myself from hundreds and hundreds of boxes!
Posted by: Donna | 10 February 2011 at 02:28 PM
I would only admit this in a safe environment such as this blog, but I tried to read Dr. Phil's The Ultimate Weight Solution: The 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom. I bet it was just like this book - trying to find the emotional reasons why we eat blah blah blah. It was awful. I'm better off not reading self help books.
I love reading while on the stationary bicycle at the gym. It's one way I can guarantee getting an hour of reading into each day.
Posted by: Venta | 10 February 2011 at 09:38 PM
Donna,
Yeah, hearing something's an Oprah pick often dulls my appetite for it too (pun intended), although then I still sometimes get the book because I feel like I should know what everyone else is reading.
If everyone doesn't stop talking about girl scout cookies I'm going to have to go out and find a girl scout soon to buy some Thin Mints off of.
Venta,
So glad to be a safe environment! Once I worked with a really sensible and fun guy who loved Dr. Phil, which I never understood. I never found a whole lot of practical use in his books either. Sorry it didn't work for you, but good on you, reading on the stationary bike! Congrats to you just for getting on a stationary bike! My butt hasn't touched a bike, stationary or otherwise, for years, and I can't say I really miss it.
Posted by: Citizen Reader | 11 February 2011 at 10:06 AM