Words to Eat By: Using the Power of Self-talk to Transform Your Relationship with Food and Your Body

by Karen Koenig LCSW, M.Ed.

Overview

This book will teach you how to use word power rather than willpower to increase your motivation and overcome your struggles with eating and body care. It explains how self-talk ties thought to action or inaction and how what we say to ourselves is shaped—for better or worse—by our families, culture and personal history. It illustrates how unconscious, unhealthy self-talk leads to poor decision-making around eating, fitness and general self-care and how conscious, healthy self-talk promotes a positive relationship with food, body and mind.

Words to Eat By details key elements of constructive, smart self-talk. You’ll learn how to distinguish trash thoughts from treasure thoughts, why external motivators don’t work long-term, and which internal motivators will fast track you to success. It includes hundreds of examples of exactly what to say and not say to yourself in challenging food situations—eating alone, with family, friends, dates and mates, at parties, restaurants and buffets—and how to get and keep your body moving. Reflective questions help you zero in on which self-talk you want to change, while case studies illustrate how other troubled eaters have transformed their self-talk and their lives.

Written by a national expert, award-winning, international author and seasoned clinician who is also half-a-lifetime recovered from weight-loss dieting and binge-eating, this book introduces you to the nitty gritty of your eating and self-care problems and teaches you how to speak to yourself with the love, compassion, encouragement and hope needed to jump start or sustain your recovery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684425082
Publisher:	Turner
Publication date:	01/26/2021
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	542,859
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., an expert on eating psychology, is a psychotherapist, blogger and an award-winning, international author of eight books on eating, weight and body image. She has 30+ years of experience in the field and practices in Sarasota, Florida.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Chapter 1 The Power of Self-Talk for Better Eating, Health, and Self-Caring (What You Say Is What You Get!) 1

Chapter 2 How Self-Talk Triggers Trouble with Food, Fitness, and Self-Caring (Hey, Quit Talking to Me like That!) 21

Chapter 3 Principles of Smart Self-Talk (They're Right Here on the Tip of My Tongue!) 41

Chapter 4 Smart Self-Talk about When, What, Why, and How to Eat (Sometimes I Want Food So Badly, I Could Eat My Words!) 69

Chapter 5 Smart Self-Talk to Prevent, Manage, and Recover from a Binge (I Get It-Word Power, Not Willpower!) 87

Chapter 6 Smart Self-Talk for Self-Caring (Sweet Words Taste Better than a Hot Fudge Sundae!) 99

Chapter 7 Smart Self-Talk for Social Eating (It's Hard to Hear Myself Think with All That Chewing Going on around Me!) 117

Chapter 8 Think Proud, Talk Proud, Act Proud, Be Proud (Nothing Tastes Better than Pride!) 143

Endnotes 169

Bibliography 171

Index 173

Editorial Reviews

Words to Eat By is transformative! It guides the reader toward conscious and compassionate self-talk, on a journey toward trusting their wise inner voice, rather than the internalized voice of diet culture. The result—a positive and happy relationship with food and body.” –Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S, FAND, Co-author of Intuitive Eating and The Intuitive Eating Workbook, Author of The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens and The Intuitive Eating Journal—Your Guided Journey for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food

"Words to Eat By helps us illuminate all of the ways that we harm ourselves with our thoughts and then gently guides us to transform those thoughts into caring, compassionate words of wisdom and guidance. The ultimate guide to self-talk that creates peace with your food and your body." —Lynn Rossy, Ph.D., Author of The Mindfulness-Based Eating Solution and Savor Every Bite: Mindful Ways to Eat, Love Your Body, and Live with Joy

“Karen Koenig’s Words to Eat By is a compassionate, straight-talking, and quietly inspirational guide to understanding how a person at any age can, via coaching and practice, learn, to eat, move, think, feel, and be in ways that embody mindfulness, self-caring, self-nourishment, and reasonable health. If you are willing to accept even the possibility of an upward spiral of constructive, nourishing, realistic self-talk—followed by self-compassion and pride in one’s progress as eating and self-caring become healthier—followed by energy, hope, and commitment, then Words to Eat By offers the authoritative wisdom and specific guidelines you can immediately put into practice.” —Michael P. Levine, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Kenyon College; Fellow, Academy for Eating Disorders

From the Publisher