Simon - When food is comfort: nurture yourself mindfully, rewire your brain, and end emotional eating

Praise for When Food Is Comfort

We desperately need solutions for the overeating epidemic that is contributing to the rise in obesity and the consequences that fill my cardiology practice. Julie Simon offers a seven-step mindfulness practice as an answer to emotional eating. I am going to share these steps with my patients immediately. When Food Is Comfort is exactly what we need to heal during these challenging times.

JOEL KAHN, MD, FACC, author of The Plant-Based Solution

If or when emotional eating is a challenge, Julie Simons book When Food Is Comfort will enlighten and empower you with effective methods for healing deep emotional wounds through self-nurturing. With an authentic ring of empathetic authority, Julie Simon provides powerful, practical tools to help us liberate ourselves from the tyranny of our tongues. Indeed, those who control their appetites possess a great power, and When Food Is Comfort can help you and your loved ones attain and maintain this empowerment. Highly recommended!

MICHAEL KLAPER, MD, author of Vegan Nutrition: Pure and Simple

When Food Is Comfort is a fantastic resource with a refreshingly new perspective. Written in a supportive and encouraging voice with moving personal and case stories, this practical, easy-to-follow book offers innovative strategies for anyone seeking freedom from unhealthy eating habits. I highly recommend it!

HYLA CASS, MD, coauthor of 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health

When Food Is Comfort is an excellent guide to gaining self-awareness, understanding, attunement, love, and, ultimately, loving self-control. It is also extraordinarily comprehensive and well written.... If you thoroughly read, incorporate, and follow Julies comprehensive, uplifting, and meticulous guidance, it will benefit you as much as years of therapy....You will change your relationship to food, using it for health and well-being rather than to try to fill unmet emotional needs. And best of all, you will enjoy a healthier, slimmer you.

PRISCILLA SLAGLE, MD, author of The Way Up from Down

How often do you eat when youre not really hungry, eat too much, or choose to eat comfort foods you know arent good for you? If you do these things more than youd like, this book is definitely for you. It will help you recognize the signs of emotional eating so that you can instantly tell the difference between emotional hunger and actual physiological hunger. And it will help you nurture yourself so that every part of you including your body, your emotions, your thoughts, and your relationships is truly and wonderfully well fed.

JOHN ROBBINS,New York Timesbestselling author of Diet for a New America and president of Food Revolution Network

As a wellness activist, Ive observed firsthand how challenging overcoming emotional eating can be. Despite our best intentions, many of us find ourselves regularly snacking mindlessly and overeating at meals. Clearly, emotional eating is a symptom of deeper issues. Well written and comprehensive, When Food Is Comfort helps us understand the role early nurturance plays in both the etiology and the continuation of eating challenges. Julie Simons simple yet powerful plan, developed in her highly successful twelve-week program, gets at the root causes of the problem. She gives readers all the tools they need to address the disconnection fueling their eating. If you or anyone you care about struggles with emotional eating, this book is a must-read.

KATHY FRESTON,New York Timesbestselling author of The Lean

As one whose recovery from binge eating dates back over thirty years, I am reluctant to recommend any work on the subject, as nearly all seem to lack a genuine understanding of the disorder and of the emotional eater as whole human being. When Food Is Comfort is the rare exception. Gently and astutely, Julie Simon guides the reader from confusion and entrapment to clarity and freedom. With solid science and a caring heart, Julie breaks through in this book to a place where few have ventured: a place of healing, restoration, and liberation.

VICTORIA MORAN, author of The Love-Powered Diet

So many people struggle with emotional eating. When Food Is Comfort is a fascinating and eminently practical guide to making sense of what is going on and fixing it at the most fundamental level.

NEAL D. BARNARD, MD, author of Breaking the Food Seduction

Also by Julie M. Simon

The Emotional Eaters Repair Manual:

A Practical Mind-Body-Spirit Guide

for Putting an End to Overeating and Dieting

Copyright 2018 by Julie M. Simon

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given or liability taken.

The sidebars on pages 82, 95, 139, 143, 185, 223, 231, and 239 and the tables on pages 91 and 159 are adapted by the author from her book The Emotional Eaters Repair Manual.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Simon, Julie M., [date] author.

Title: When food is comfort : nurture yourself mindfully, rewire your brain, and end emotional eating / Julie M. Simon.

Description: Novato, California : New World Library, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017055083 (print) | LCCN 2017055751 (ebook) | ISBN 9781608685516 (Ebook) | ISBN 9781608685509 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Compulsive eatingPsychological aspects. | Compulsive eatingAlternative treatment.

Classification: LCC RC552.C65 (ebook) | LCC RC552.C65 S472 2018 (print) | DDC 616.85/26dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055083

First printing, March 2018

ISBN 978-1-60868-550-9

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-551-6

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

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For those who look outside themselves

for comfort and nurturance:

may this book inspire you to heal and discover

that your true source lies within.