Women, Food, and Desire: Embrace Your Cravings, Make Peace with Food, Reclaim Your Body

Holistic nutrition coach Jamieson (Vegan Cooking for Dummies) shares a healthy and healing approach to eating well and listening to the body and heart’s true desires. For women in particular, this involves replacing feelings of “shame, guilt, and discomfort” surrounding food and learning to “dismantle the [inner] negative monologue” about body image. Refreshingly, Jamieson denounces typical dieting and abnegation, calling them “too restrictive” and “unsustainable,” and going so far as to state that “sometimes it’s OK to just eat the chocolate.” Instead, she advises making eating an intuitive process and using a hunger-monitoring scale to decide when and how much to consume. The feminist perspective and focus on self-care, as well as Jamieson’s honesty about her own struggles, create a compelling authenticity. This is balanced with information on the neuroscience of cravings, how to break eating habits ingrained since childhood, and smart tactics for food shopping. She offers a version of the familiar elimination diet that involves cutting out six “toxic” ingredients, one at a time, to better judge how each may be affecting you. Other topics include cultivating a fulfilling sex life rather than using food to satisfy desires, getting adequate rest, and taking a pleasure-seeking rather than punitive approach to fitness. Far from another faddish diet guru, Jamieson guides readers into revolutionizing their entire relationship with food and their bodies. Agent: Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman and Associates. (Jan.)