“It’s never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale,” – Geneen Roth

There are few things more prevalent in the media than the portrayal of beautiful women; beauty rankings, the idolization of the perfect body, and aesthetic enhancements are constantly advertised and publicized imposing a lack in self confidence in women.

Geneen Roth author of the new book Women Food and God has created an advocate for confidence and is harmonizing the balance between the media’s portrayal of beauty and the reality of it.

Our mothers, fathers, and friends have always told us that beauty comes from within, and yet our diet and nutrition plans always focus on the exterior of our bodies instead of the strength of our spirits.

Our media: the television, the radio, and the Internet alike bombard women with schemes to lose weight fast, give them reasons take dietary supplements, and have suggested surgeries to obtain the perfect figure. But Roth is taking a bold step in the other direction.

It is time to take back our lives from the media and to stop focusing on diet fads, crash diets, plastic surgeries, and quick fixes. It is time to focus on the real problem and not on a temporary solution.

Forget about how you look on the outside for a moment and take a look inside, your spirituality and compulsive eating have a direct relationship to one another. In your spiritual foundation you will find the strength to build a healthy lifestyle. And until you can understand your spirituality you cannot control your compulsive eating.

The book emphasizes that it is not a diet book, nor is it a spiritual guide. It is an explanation of how one’s spiritual base can help build the fortitude needed to control compulsive eating. Most people really believe these quick fixes of surgery and temporary weight loss will solve the void that they feel in their lives. And it is much bigger than just what you look like on the outside because that is done mostly for other people.

Have you ever wondered how someone that isn’t phsicially pleasing by todays multi-media standards,  yet be so happy, outgoing, enthusiastic about life? Well, the answer is simple. They have found inner peace. Once you are able to close that need to belong, need to fit in, need to be and look like very one that you associate with on TV, then you are free to start exploring all the beauty and greatness that lies within you.

This state of being is only achieved with a healthy spirituality and knowing that their is a God that loves you, created you to be this wonderful person that you are, and has a plan for your life. Once you are able to make this connection, our addition and comfort you find in food with fall to the site. Your relationship with this higher power will guide you away from the short lived relationship you have with food to one of a higher purpose with your God. And with this understanding and connection comes the bliss that life is made of. You will feel better, do better, and live a better more healthy lifestyle than you ever have before.

Women, Food, And God is trying to take back the glitz and glamour of dieting from the media and give it a more real tone.

All you have to do is understand your spirituality and compulsive eating disorders can be overcome.

Find out more about the Women Food and God – Guidelines To Eating Consciously.

Oprah has announced that she’ll never diet again. Why? Because Geneen Roth’s newest book Women, Food and God (see reviews here) has changed her whole outlook on food, weight, and dieting.

Geneen Roth is the author of Breaking Free From Emotional Eating, When Food Is Love: Exploring The Relationship Between Eating and Intimacy, and Why Weight? A Guide To Ending Compulsive Eating. Her new book Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path To Almost Everything continues her exploration between our emotions and what we eat. In her book she claims that everything we do and everything we are is reflected in the food we put into our mouths. The food reflects us, and we reflect the food.

Her solution? Don’t diet, fix yourself. In Women Food and God, Geneen helps readers to heal themselves, spiritually, and emotionally, so that they can heal themselves physically. As you may have guessed based on her former books, her recommendations are based on compulsive and emotional eaters. Over eaters in general, but those who eat normal amounts of the wrong foods can benefit from her advice as well. She advises would-be dieters to instead become conscientious eaters. To slow down and savor your food, stop being afraid of what others think of what you’re eating, and follow your body’s desires (eat when hungry, stop when you’re satisfied). This advice has been around for a long time, but it’s easy to forget in our hectic lives.

Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

Is Women Food and God right for you? Well, it was right for Oprah…

However Women Food and God is no fly by night fad idea for weight loss. Geneen’s book, written from much trial and error, looks into our attitude and relationship towards food and urges us to reassess the reasons we eat, how we eat, when we eat and everything else related to us over consuming food. There are no diet plans or exact step by step plans contained inside yet a horde of adoring fans are equaling the claims made by Oprah. This books seems to have the ability to flip our attitude to food upside down.

An important part of Women Food and God is the seven guidelines shared by Roth that illustrate ways for us to eat more consciously, in this article we are going to discuss these guidelines and give our thoughts on each one.

Available now on Amazon: Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything.

1. Eat when you are hungry.

This is one of those tips that we all know we should be doing but conventional diet plans can often make us very rigid and apt to ignore our hunger pangs… The problem here is that when it becomes too much to bear we break and eat like it’s our last ever meal. Eating when hungry keeps our belly happy and energy levels consistant helping to stave off energy crashes throughout the day.

2. Eat sitting down in a calm environment. This does not include the car.

If you take the time out of your life to concentrate and relax during eating then it can be separated. Downing a large bottle of coke and a bag of M&M’s while you work at your desk may top up your energy and keep hunger at bay for a short while but you won’t have the feeling that you have eaten and stress will not have been alleviated. Eating is a pleasure and taking the correct time out for it is essential.

Eat without distractions. Distractions include radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety-producing conversations or music.

I’m not totally sure I personally agree with everything in this tip. I love eating to music but I am willing to head Genette’s advice. She is creating an atmosphere, a time, a place for your relationship with food to take place. Taking it away and detaching it from the rest of your life will essentially help you to avoid eating at the wrong times and in the wrong way.

Eat what your body wants.

Often you may think your body wants a nice plate of fries and a 3 egg omlette followed by a can of cola and a 3 Musketeers bar but you need to tune in more closely. If you are low on energy then you may need some slow release sugars, proteins and carbs. Your body wants certain nutrients to keep it running smooth, not excess fats, refined sugars and artificial ingredients. You need to learn to listen to your body properly and supply what it needs.

Eat until you are satisfied.

If you are still hungry when you are done eating then you have a problem. This is what leads us to binge later in the day or have a sever energy lapse. Eat well, often and satisfy your hunger to make your eating right.

Eat (with the intention of being) in full view of others.

I guess this means that you should not scoff sweats and candy out of sight just because no one can see you. Visualize what you would think if you saw someone else just about to eat the food you are thinking about. Imagine everyone knows everything about your diet and that your eating habits are 100% transparent… I know I eat a few sneaky things here and there and this tip really could help motivate me to change my attitude towards these little “treats” or midnight splurges!

Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.

Eating is not a curse, eating is something we are blessed with. There is so much fine and purely brilliant food in this world to deprive ourselves in the name of a thin belly. Health comes from balance, routine, fitness and careful consideration in our overall choices. Eating can always be pleasurable and you should be enthusiastic about that.

Just by following these tips alone I believe Women Food and God could start to change your whole attitude and help you become happy with the way you eat and your overall diet. It’s all small steps but the physcology of eating is often overlooked and Genette seems to have done a very well informed study and found some excellent solutions to our eating relationships with food.

You can purchase the book here: Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything.

Since featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Geneen Roth’s profound book, Women Food and God, has sparked a revolutionary new approach for women and weight issues.  The book calls for women to reevaluate their relationship with food, their bodies and their emotional well-being.

In her bestselling book, “Women Food and God,” Geneen offers women the opportunity to reevaluate how they relate to food, and ultimately make the necessary changes to lose weight naturally and stop the ongoing battle.  “Women Food and God” is the result of three decades of researching women and their insights into compulsive eating where Roth determines common causes of compulsive eating, explaining that the relationship with food is parallel with the person’s feelings about love, fear, anger, meaning and transformation. Perhaps even more importantly, this relationship is also directly influenced by spiritual relationship and beliefs.  Having established this concept, Geneen presents valuable questions and exercises that open the door to exploring these relationships within ourselves.

“Women Food and God” is not a diet book, nor a healing manual, but a book about redesigning perspectives through personal examination.  With a particular focus on food compulsions, this book is not a diet book, nor a healing book, but a book about self evaluation where readers question their own relationship with food, change their personal beliefs and resulting in instinctive changes .  With millions of women suffering with their weight, they consequently have poor relationships with food. Unfortunately, the focus tends to be placed on losing the weight through calorie reduction or bouts of periodic exercise rather than dealing with the underlying problems for long term changes. Even women who lose weight through dieting feel guilty for eating too much, not eating enough, or continue to have food constantly on the brain.

“Your relationship with food, no matter how conflicted, is the doorway to freedom,” says Roth. “What you most want to get rid of is itself the doorway to what you want most: the demystification of weight loss and the luminous presence that so many of us call “God.”"
Truly a revolutionary work, “Women Food and God” is a must read. Not only is this THE book for reaching new heights in food relationships and healthy weight, but the approaches presented truly work for all aspects of life