Author: Chantel Hobbs
Publisher: Waterbrook Press – 226 pages
Book Review by: Laxmi Chaandi
There are hundreds of books out there on losing weight and keeping it off, but many of them require you to eat foods that you may not like, and completely avoid foods you do like. That makes you feel deprived. And if you eat the foods that you do like but know they will make you gain more weight, you are gripped by a feeling of guilt.
Chantel Hobbs helps you to change your relationship with food by providing you the necessary tools to do so, including anecdotes of people who are slim and fit, eat healthful food, but also eat fattening food. How do they do it? Read this book to find out.
She wants you to eat and love a variety of foods and be healthy as well, just as the examples of people she has met and interviewed. She cites one instance who once asked her: “Chantel, why is it that when someone offers me a candy bar, I look at it as if this is the very last time I will be given the opportunity to eat one?”
She suggests that you change your mindset. She writes: “The only thing this last-chance mindset guarantees is that you’re forfeiting your last chance to maintain a healthy weight. So once I reached my sustainable weight (she was once so overweight and round around her middle that she could not put on her seatbelt) I set out to plan a weight-maintenance program that dispels the lie of scarcity. The theory in a nutshell is this: my favorite foods are not scarce, and there is an appropriate time to celebrate with them.”
Chantel relates to us of a “eureka” moment that makes a very defining point to readers of this book. In a very casual way, she asked one of her slimmest friends a series of questions on her typical day as to what her activities were and what she ate.
Her friend’s responses basically summed up the point that she had a treat every day (chocolate, ice cream and the like) but for the majority of the day, she ate light and healthy.
One of the important messages this book conveys to you is that you can love delicious food and keep loving it, while you lose weight. The book’s back cover mentions of the secrets revealed within, on how to attain your ideal weight, looking and feeling your best.
Using food as your ally rather than your enemy, the author shows you through her book how to make her 80-20 rule work to your benefit; develop a food plan for yourself that is ideal to your lifestyle; do easy-to-learn exercises to shed pounds; pick up tips to “overcome food anxiety” and stay on your weight-loss plan; use recipes for delicious foods that are also healthful to you; and how to dine out and still be in control around your family and friends.
This slim 226-page book lays out in five parts and 16 chapters a practical program to make you slim and stay that way. Most importantly, it helps you change your thinking, which I believe is key to improving one’s situation in life.
Part 1, “Choose a Deal That Really Delivers” shows you how to win your battle over blue jeans; lets you have chocolate when you want it; tells you of the Barbie myth; and provides to you God’s “deal of a lifetime.”
Part 2, “Start Your New Life Today” asks you which deal you will take and to define your expectations.
Part 3, “When It Comes to Food, Here is the What and When” supplies you nutritional information (carbohydrates, fat, fiber, protein, vitamins, etc.) on different types of food, and urges you get into the habit of inquiring and learning basic food content essentials.
Part 4, “Getting Strong Inside and Out” is about exercise and strength. It goads you to get your new life moving; keep exercising, no matter what; how to ‘bring it’ with interval training; and tells you “you were made to move.”
Part 5, “Living Well For the Rest of Your Life” shows you how to have all the good things in life when you are fit and healthy: the brownies and the birthdays and the cruises and the celebrations.
The Epilogue, “Live Well in the Sweet Land of Liberty” is an inspiring call to you to start your adventure in your quest for a healthier and happier you.
This book by Chantel Hobbs, who struggled through her own weight problem, provides a balance dose of inspiration and prescription. To win any battle, I believe one needs both.
She provides many down-to-earth, true-to-life, easy-to-empathize-with encounters with people from who you can learn and do what they did, and change your life.
