Reviewed by: Mind Your Body/The Straits Times Singapore Publication Issue Date: 2 January 2008
If you are, like me, sceptical about fad diet books, then this book is a half-blessing.
The good: It offers you some mind-over-matter techniques on how to eat and live healthier.
Written by a hypnotherapist who creates her own smoking-cessation and weight-loss programmes, The Craving Cure - emphatically subtitles Break The Hold Carbs and Sweets Have On Your Life - advocates thinking carefully about one's relationship with food and how eating "bad" food (sugary and empty-calorie substances) can adversely affect our mood and spirits.
Using exercises like self-affirmation phrases, meditation and deep breathing, Ms Greenberg attempts to get you to reprogramme your inner self to overcome food addiction.
The bad: While the book stresses that being healthy is not about losing weight, but feeling energetic and good about yourself, there is no substantial early chapter that helps you determine if you are addicted to food or just a borderline anorexic. (Two pages with generalisations about feeling guilty after compulsively scarfing Cheetos don't really count).
I found myself wondering: Where does one draw the line between someone who enjoys food a lot albeit sheepishly, and a self-loathing food addict?
That said, if you're really convinced you need help revamping your eating habits, this is a useful - if not spectacularly inspiring - read.
