This book will teach you how to use word power rather than willpower to increase your motivation and overcome your struggles with eating and body care. It explains how self-talk ties thought to action or inaction and how what we say to ourselves is shaped―for better or worse―by our families, culture, and personal history. It illustrates how unconscious, unhealthy self-talk leads to poor decision-making around eating, fitness, and general self-care and how conscious, healthy self-talk promotes a positive relationship with food, body, and mind.

Words to Eat By details key elements of constructive, smart self-talk. You’ll learn how to distinguish trash thoughts from treasure thoughts, why external motivators don’t work long-term, and which internal motivators will fast track you to success. It includes hundreds of examples of exactly what to say and not say to yourself in challenging food situations―eating alone, with family, friends, dates, and mates, at parties, restaurants, and buffets―and how to get and keep your body moving. Reflective questions help you zero in on which self-talk you want to change, while case studies illustrate how other troubled eaters have transformed their self-talk and their lives.

Written by a national expert, award-winning, international author, and seasoned clinician who is also half-a-lifetime recovered from weight-loss dieting and binge-eating, this book introduces you to the nitty gritty of your eating and self-care problems and teaches you how to speak to yourself with the love, compassion, encouragement, and hope needed to jump start or sustain your recovery.