Eating Less: Say Goodbye to Overeating. Gillian Riley

This is a revolutionary Book! I have completely calmed down about eating and feel comfortable with it for the firs time in my 60 years. I have been dieting for 50 years! And read everything and tried every diet there is. This is the best book I have ever read on the subject. Riley changes your mindset about food and I am confortable now. No more anxiety about what I should eat, what I just ate and what I'll eat tomorrow. I now have an healthy perspective. Don't know exactly why this works but...It just works- try it!

This book is changing my life. I have often felt the way I imagine drug addicts feel - out of control and unable to stop my behavior around food. I am so successful in many areas of my life and yet, in this one area, I have felt despair and hopelessness. I've had an almost lifelong (48 of 58 years) history of dieting, losing weight and regaining it, obsessing about food, my body, what I just ate, what I'm going to eat, and on and on. I've also tried various non-dieting approaches but failed at them as well, finding myself overeating much of the time, usually on high fat, high sugar items, and never finding I was satisfied or even full until I was feeling overstuffed and ill. And then a friend recommended Gillian Riley's book. Riley is not well known in the US as far as I can tell, and that's a loss for us, because she has an approach I have not seen before in dealing with addictive overeating. This is not a 12-step program, not based on a disease model. What she does is empower you to realize, in a profound way, that you can choose to eat whatever and whenever you want. The choice is always yours. And you can choose to satisfy your addictive desire to overeat, or you can choose not to satisfy it. You learn to sit with your addictive feelings, to accept them, and you find that they fade. You don't have to figure out, and resolve, every little reason or stressor in your life that fuels your overeating. Her approach focuses on building self-esteem and health. You lose weight when you can make choices that support self-esteem and your health. You will be able to say goodbye to the feelings of lethargy, self-loathing and despair that accompany many of us on a daily basis as we struggle with food and our weight. And you lose weight without feelings of deprivation. The book is well-written and easy to understand and follow. It is not another diet book. Expect profound changes in your relationship to food, and even to your presence in the world, as you do this work.

I read the book and found it refreshingly different, and it rightfully points out that it is no good blaming other people or events in childhood for over-eating, because you can't change that, you can only change yourself NOW, and take responsibility for doing so (easier said that done). Gillian explains how overeating is due to an addictive desire, and describes a technique that enables you to see the reason for the addiction with such clarity, that using her technique you learn that we always have a choice, to be healthy or eat addictively and allow the addictive desire to take away our free will and choice. The right choice will lead to a higher self esteem, and a healthy, energetic addictive free person. Her writing style is perfect, very easy to read and re read. She is without a doubt way ahead of the field. I have been searching for a solution to my addiction to food for 30 years, and this is 'it'. I highly recommend you read this book if you have problems with Eating Disorders or compulsive eating.