Brain-Powered Weight Loss

January 16, 2017
Kingsford, a psychotherapist, shares weight-loss wisdom informed by her expertise. Instead of laying out a diet or exercise regimen, Kingsford tackles the behavior behind weight gain; she asks readers to examine their own behavior and relationship toward food so that they can change poor, ingrained habits and effectively lose weight. Kingsford uses two talk-based therapies, cognitive and dialectical. Each chapter is dedicated to an individual step in her weight-loss plan: first, readers are urged to cultivate a “healthy obsession,” or obsession about health, and to write honestly to and for themselves. Subsequent steps explain the body’s resistant biology and how fat cells and genetics work before asking readers to identify flaws in their food thinking, live in their “wise mind” through mindfulness, and learn and use coping skills. The final chapters contain ways to find motivation to be more active, and strategies for overcoming temptations and overeating habits and adopting “healthy obsession” as a long-term lifestyle. This book is easily recommended to anyone who has ever tried, and failed, to lose weight through methods that emphasized the body at the expense of the mind.