I tried checking out the Beck Diet Solution yesterday at the library, but they didn't have it. The one thing I hate about having multiple branches of the parish library is they have a copy of the book...but it's never at the branch I go to!
I also looked for the sequel to Good In Bed, but they didn't have that. It might be too new.
I did pick up Big Boned by Meg Cabot. It looks pretty cute and is also a murder mystery! I'm going to try and get some reading done this afternoon. It's icky outside.
Karla, I'm going to look for the Against the Grain book. I checked it out on Amazon and it looks great. I'll look for it at the library next week Thanks for the list! Good luck with your new dieting. If you're interested in fitness magazines, Self and Shape are also really great for women's health and fitness. You can get all the magazine content online, so I wouldn't worry about paying for a subscription.
Even though I've just started Sarum, I am loooving it. It seems right up my alley. Hope I am still feeling this way once I've gotten farther into it. I haven't found a really good book in a while.
Well, I set a goal for myself of following week 1 of the Firm Jump Start Calendar and am one workout away from meeting that goal. My "reward" is two hours of reading time with NO worries about cleaning, homework, laundry, etc. So, since I know I will make my goal, I'm going to the library at lunch to pick up Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, the second in the Shopaholi series by Sophie Kinsella. I loved the first one and can't wait to get into the second one.
I've also started REALLY reading Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey on my breaks at work and before bed. I really love his information and techniques, so it's actually a fun read for me.
I've been reading The Bible each day. I find the information very timely and important to read. It also relaxes me before I go to sleep. My DH and I read it together. Right now we're in Luke.
This weekend I finished Like Dandelion Dust by Karen Kingsbury. I didn't like it as much as the others I've read by her--maybe because it wasn't romance. Also just a very upsetting topic.
I am trying to read a book for review but it's an ARC and not edited at all. It's driving me insane (I'm an editor...I can't help but want to attack it with a red pen). Also tried to pick up The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold but again, a very disturbing first chapter. Not sure if I want to read the rest or not.
I picked up a couple of fun, easy-reading books Friday at the library. I just started reading Savannah Blues by Mary Kay Andrews, and I'm not sure whether I'll enjoy it or not yet. The other book is one of Debbie Macomber's latest books, 74 Seaside Avenue. I've always liked her, so I hope this book is another good one.
Yikes, I'm THRILLED to see so many posts but I know I can't reply to them all!
Pamatga, that sounds like a hilarious book! I was always bringing plants and stuff from the yard in my bedroom. My mom went nuts with the results--like swarms of flies from rotting fruit, etc. If I ever get kids like me, I'll be doomed!!!
I'm sad that you didn't like Good in Bed as much as I did, Schmoo. It was such a cathartic book for me--I could totally relate to so many of the main character's emotions. I'm pretty "girly" so maybe that's why! I can't wait to read the sequel, though part of me wishes Cannie's future was still shrouded in mystery... BTW, the book In Her Shoes (also a hilarious movie), is about a different set of characters, but features a cameo of the characters from Good in Bed.
Zeffryn, thanks for the great info about Dobson's books. Sounds wonderful! I have the same problem with our library, so I use the online catalog and place holds for the books at other libraries. Through the interlibrary loan system, they send the books to my home library. It usually takes a very short time unless someone else has put in a hold. It's a lot of fun, like internet shopping with someone else's credit card! I'm sure you can do that at your library, though they may make you place requests in person at the library.
I'm excited to try the Beck books. I've been fat all of my life, and didn't think I'd gotten past seeing myself as a fat person, but with my small regain last year, I found myself feeling disoriented. I had started to think of myself as a "normal" person and couldn't fit in my extra weight with that definition. I'm having the hardest time getting my head back into the "normal" stage. However, I've felt pretty much disdain for women who think they are fat when they are a gazillion times skinnier than I am. I know that's not right, but if the book is written from that perspective, it might not do as much for me. I found a ton of books on Amazon that are related to that one, so I put them on my wish list for PaperbackSwap (they weren't at my library). Those are: The Rules of "Normal" Eating: A Commonsense Approach for Dieters, Overeaters, Undereaters, Emotional Eaters, and Everyone in Between! by Karen R. Koenig, Thin for Life : 10 Keys to Success from People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off by Anne M. Fletcher, and If I'm So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight?: Tools to Get it Done by Brooke Castillo. The second one is a review of the Weight Loss Registry members. I was really stunned when I looked up information on it and realised I could join! We have several maintainers who are members...it's an amazing study!
SkinnyDog, I think Geneen Roth's books are a must for anyone who overeats. I've found them helpful even though I diet (she promotes not dieting). One of the funniest and easiest to read is When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair : 50 Ways to Feel Thin, Gorgeous, and Happy (When You Feel Anything But). I also really like When Food is Love. I found a TON of helpful information in Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self by Frances Kuffel. It's phenomenal!
Jessie, how are you feeling? I hear you on the ARC book. I go nuts at all the typos! I picked up a shirt at Old Navy on Saturday and loved it because it was about the area in CA where I grew up. But it had an extra apostrophe where it didn't belong and I just couldn't buy/wear an ungrammatical shirt! Later we saw a sign that said, "Lets ______" with no apostrophe in "Let's!" Guess that's where the shirt got the extra apostrophe? Hope you were able to make it through the book.
Well, whomever wanted me to try the Dean Koontz book (The Good Guy), you were right. *sigh* It was so engaging I had the hardest time putting the darn thing down! It's wasn't anywhere near as violent as I thought it would be, but the "bad guy" was breathtakingly evil, and he frequently described what he wanted to do to people or had done in the past. It was enough to give me bad nightmares, so no more for me, but I really did enjoy the book. Thanks for urging me to give it a try!
Went to the library on Saturday and picked up the Beck Diet Solution and the workbook for it, Is It Me or My Meds? (which was recommended by a friend who's also on anti-depressants), and the second books in the two Brunstetter series I started reading. I got a lot of reading to do! In the meantime, I decided to finish Leslea Newman's Girls Will Be Girls, which has a bunch of short stories and a novella. I was halfway through the novella when I stopped, maybe two years ago! I'm almost done with it. I loved another book by her that was made up of the columns she's written--it was so funny I had the hardest time not laughing out loud and waking my friend's baby when I was reading it in bed during my visit! This one isn't nearly as funny, but there are lots of interesting details.
I am now a bit more than half way through Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata. It is quite an interesting read. I have no idea whether there will be an "answer" towards the end or whether it will just raise more questions on the how's and why's of weight loss/obesity etc. There are so many theories about obesity, overeating & weight loss that are dispelled by the evidence based scientific studies.
Karla
It's frustrating, isn't it, SkinnyDogMom? I was just talking about that with the people in my Mood and Food therapy group yesterday. There are SO many components to weight loss that it's very hard to figure out why something does or does not work sometimes. I'd love to hear what you think when you're done!
Well, I finished listening to Late for the Wedding. It turned out to be much more suspenseful than I expected and I eventually warmed to seeing the familiar characters again. I'm now listening to another Amanda Quick--this time it's The Paid Companion. I love the premise (an Earl hires a paid companion to impersonate his fiancee, then, I assume, falls in love with her), but am not so entranced by the main character. I think the way the reader is voicing him has a lot to do with it. The voice is very annoying and nasally, so it's hard to imagine the guy as a romantic hero.
I really enjoyed the novella in Girls Will Be Girls, but I was a bit frustrated at the end. Instead of being written so that the entire story could wrap up naturally at the end, it was like the author was writing a complete novel but stopped in the middle and slammed on an ending. Not my cup o' tea.
I'm a couple pages from the end of Is It Me or My Meds? but wasn't very impressed. I just haven't had the kind of experiences the people in the book did--my meds have never changed my personality or who I am and I've never really wondered if they were changing my authentic self, other than before I tried them. I think everyone thinks, "what if it changes me into some other person???" but after you take them, you realize that all it does is allow you to be your best self again. It was an interesting read, though it felt too long for the subject. I skipped a chapter here and there.
I've started The Beck Diet Solution and the workbook that goes with it. I'm stopped at day one because I have two tasks to do and haven't gotten to them yet. That's my goal for next week--to at least do one day's work.
I picked up a couple of intriguing books at the library yesterday: a young adult novel called Hello, Groin and a self-help book called This Year I Will... about making resolutions happen. But I also have Eat, Pray, Love that I need to read for my bookclub in a couple weeks. I'd like to read that, but I still have another Wanda Brustetter to read, too, and that sounds more fun at this point...but we'll see. So many books, so little time!
I finished Rethinking Thin. I am planning on reading it again after a couple more "books to read" are off my nightstand.
In a way, many of the results of the research studies are discouraging.
On the other hand, I think it makes some very good points/insights into the reality of obesity and weight loss/diets. One of the most interesting to me is that being overweight/obese should not be a morality issue or a psychological issue. There are proven biological and genetic reasons why we struggle.
I take away from this book the fact that it truly is a struggle and only a few statistically are able to lose weight AND keep it off. This to me reinforces the fact that this is a lifestyle change, I must be diligent in my efforts the rest of my life.
I just started reading The Beck Diet Solution.
I have only read the intro & chapter 1, so no thoughts yet.
Next is Secrets of a Former Fat Girl, I will probably read this simultaneously as I read Beck.
Happy Reading!
Last edited by SkinnyDogMom; 04-24-2008 at 01:01 PM.
My DH has suffered with chronic depression his entire life. He said that a friend who is a psychologist recommended this book Mind over Mood so we read the first chapter last night and did the first work sheet together. As usual, I am under more stress than he is. I think he was startled to realize that. I just wish sometimes he would say to me: Gee, honey, you sure handle a lot and you do so well too. I guess, I will quit feeling like my problems are the only ones in the Universe. LOL. Ya think that is going to happen??
I just think it is like what one of our niece's said to her younger sister (after she had "beat her up") " Y'know, Mary Therese, what you need to be is more resilient" (she was 5 when she said this and to a 3 year old!) "Out of the mouths of babes!" We got a chuckle out of that. Where did she learn such a big word for one thing? Maybe, I am just more resilient than he is???
I think I think healthier thoughts than my DH does. And, that includes about losing weight. I say to heck with what the experts say. How about that? My attitude is if I got myself fat (in debt, etc etc) I can also get myself un-fat, out of debt, etc. etc.
Maybe, you can liken it to walking into a room. Has anyone tried walking backwards out of a room? I mean if we lose something what is the first thing someone says to us. Have you retraced your steps? Right? Well, I figure that if I retrace my steps, I will get un-fat or thin. It makes sense to me.
Right now I am reading I Love Everybody (And Other Atrocious Lies) by Laurie Notaro. She writes humor essays. It is my first book by her and it's entertaining although not as laugh-out-loud funny as I thought it would be. The only essay that had me really laughing was about her playing The Sims 2, and that was because I play that and knew what she was talking about.
I went away this weekend and listened to a whole book on CD: The Men I Didn't Marry by Lyn Schnurnberger and Janice Kaplan. It was fun chicklit about a woman who is newly separated and decides to look up all her old boyfriends. I found the characters pretty realistic and it was cute. I also got The Olive Farm on CD so maybe I will listen to that during my driving shifts to Alabama and back next weekend.
Thankfully, halleljuah, we are going on a cruise in between driving to Alabama and back to Tennessee! I can't wait to plant myself in a deck chair and read to my heart's desire. I was going to see if I could post my To Be Read pile from paperbackswap but it doesn't look like I can. But here are some books I've had around forever. Help me decide which ones to take on the cruise with me!!
Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani Blessings by Anna Quindlen Chocolate Beach by Julie Carobini A Garden in Paris by Stephanie Grace Whitson Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston The Language of Threads by Gail Tsukiyama Mozart's Sister by Nancy Moser The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart A Penny for your Thoughts by Mindy Starns Clark Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman White Chocolate Moments by Lori Wick A Year in the World by Frances Mayes
One of the most interesting to me is that being overweight/obese should not be a morality issue or a psychological issue. There are proven biological and genetic reasons why we struggle.
I take away from this book the fact that it truly is a struggle and only a few statistically are able to lose weight AND keep it off. This to me reinforces the fact that this is a lifestyle change, I must be diligent in my efforts the rest of my life.
I feel the same way, SDM! The maintainers here have taught me that--it's harder for us to keep it off, but that just makes me want to be one of the rare ones that does it! Grrrr! I'm just starting the Beck Diet Solution and the workbook...I really wanted to get started on the first step by now, but no cigar, yet. It looks like a sound program, but I wonder how long it'll take me at this rate?
Pamatga, my first therapist likened it to those "thermometers" you see on signs for charity fundraisers. You know, the ones with the big red line that goes up to the top when they've met their fundraising goal? Anyways, she said that every person has two of these--one for ability to cope with stress and one for the amount of stress. If you have a really high coping thermometer, it's going to take an exceptionally high amount of stress to cause you trouble. On the other hand, if you have a very low amount of coping skills, even a little stress can be a very tough situation. Sometimes you can change the amount of stress you're under. But it's much easier to focus on developing better coping strategies. It sounds like you have better coping strategies than your DH does. Even though you have a large amount of stress, it's still less than your level of ability to cope. Your DH may have more or less stress than you, but he definitely has more stress than his amount of coping skills can handle. Perhaps you can share some of your coping strategies with him? How do you keep calm and relaxed in the face of all the stress you handle?
In terms of depression, sometimes you're too depressed to use the coping skills you have. That's why meds (or something like exercise, supplements, etc.) are so important--they make it possible for you to work on developing more coping skills which help in the long run. If you can't work on them, you just can't get better. Depression is awful--I suffer from it too--and until you experience it, you just don't know how much sufferers want to get better and how hopeless that feels. It's not a case of having to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I've talked to several people who've experienced depression for the first time after years of watching a loved one deal with it. Every one expressed huge surprise at how it felt--none of them really thought it was real or knew the grip it can have on you. Just be gentle with DH and, if you feel that you're pulling more weight than he is, work with him to help you more when he's not as depressed and know that it all comes out fair in the end. I'm sure there have been (or will be) times when he does far more than his share because you can't (illness, etc.). That story about your nieces was hilarious!!! Let me know what you think of the book!
Jessie, that's disappointing about I Love Everybody--the title is really funny! I find David Sedaris to be like that...I don't laugh out loud at his books, but when I hear him read his books aloud, I end up on the floor with tears streaming down my face--he is SO funny! Weird, eh? The Men I Didn't Marry sounds interesting--unique premise. I absolutely loved The Olive Farm. My aunt gave me a copy after we talked books one day. I was just thinking yesterday how much I wished she'd written a third book. Who's the reader, Jessie? Congrats on the cruise! You deserve to be pampered, girl! I'm not familiar with any of the books, but I've always enjoyed Quindlen.
Me:
Finished Is It Me or My Meds? and moved on to Eat, Pray, Love, which I'm loving, of course. She's a fabulous writer and I love her ethics! This one is for book club, so I'm looking forward to talking about it with everyone. I peeped into The Year I Will, which looks good, too.
Over the last couple days I flew through two gift books. One was a birthday gift from my sister--Disapproving Rabbits--and was so funny I nearly fell off my chair! The other is one I've wanted for a very long time--though it didn't come out until recently. I'm a HUGE fan of the Mutts comic strip and especially enjoy the "Shelter Stories" ones that come out each year during "adopt a shelter pet" week each year. They make me cry! Last year, the author, Patrick McDonnell, opened up a contest for people to submit photos and stories about their pets that were adopted through a rescue or shelter. Fans voted for the pics/stories that would be featured in a book, called Shelter Stories: Love. Guaranteed., with all of the "Shelter Stories" strips. My other sister gave me that book for my birthday. It arrived on Thursday and I had finished it by Saturday night. It was SO good!
Thanks for the list! Good luck with your new dieting. If you're interested in fitness magazines, Self and Shape are also really great for women's health and fitness. You can get all the magazine content online, so I wouldn't worry about paying for a subscription. 
If I ever get kids like me, I'll be doomed!!! 
It was such a cathartic book for me--I could totally relate to so many of the main character's emotions. I'm pretty "girly" so maybe that's why! 
I'm sure you can do that at your library, though they may make you place requests in person at the library.
However, I've felt pretty much disdain for women who think they are fat when they are a gazillion times skinnier than I am. 
I found a ton of books on Amazon that are related to that one, so I put them on my wish list for PaperbackSwap (they weren't at my library). Those are: The Rules of "Normal" Eating: A Commonsense Approach for Dieters, Overeaters, Undereaters, Emotional Eaters, and Everyone in Between! by Karen R. Koenig, Thin for Life : 10 Keys to Success from People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off by Anne M. Fletcher, and If I'm So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight?: Tools to Get it Done by Brooke Castillo. The second one is a review of the Weight Loss Registry members. I was really stunned when I looked up information on it and realised I could join! 
We have several maintainers who are members...it's an amazing study!
I hear you on the ARC book. I go nuts at all the typos! I picked up a shirt at Old Navy on Saturday and loved it because it was about the area in CA where I grew up. But it had an extra apostrophe where it didn't belong and I just couldn't buy/wear an ungrammatical shirt! 
Later we saw a sign that said, "Lets ______" with no apostrophe in "Let's!" Guess that's where the shirt got the extra apostrophe? 
Mind over Mood
I'm just starting the Beck Diet Solution and the workbook...I really wanted to get started on the first step by now, but no cigar, yet. 
