Caitlin Boyle - Healthy Tipping Point: A Powerful Program for a Stronger, Happier You

Healthy
Tipping
Point

AVERY

a member of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

New York

Healthy
Tipping
Point

A POWERFUL PROGRAM FOR A
STRONGER, HAPPIER YOU

Caitlin Boyle

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright 2012 by Caitlin Boyle

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boyle, Caitlin.

Healthy tipping point : a powerful program for a stronger, happier you / Caitlin Boyle.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-101-58664-8

1. Self-care, Health. 2. Nutrition. 3. Physical fitness. I. Title.

RA776.95.B69 2012 2011052356

613dc23

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Book design by Meighan Cavanaugh

Neither the publisher nor the author is engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, procedures, and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician. All matters regarding your health require medical supervision. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestion in this book.

The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

To Lauren,
a true friend who encouraged me
to begin this journey

T heres living, and then theres being alive.

Many people spend their whole life merely... existing. Theyre haunted by a dull, sinking feeling that theyre constantly sprinting, running as hard as they can, and yet standing perfectly stillgetting nowhere fast. Perhaps thats why youre reading this book in the first placeyou feel emotionally or physically stuck.

For a long time, I felt stuck, too. More often than not, I felt like I was watching my own life from a distance, entirely disconnected from any larger sense of purpose. I was simply going through the motions of my life, checking off boxes that I wasnt sure I even wanted. I went to work to pay the bills, I hit up happy hour for the same old conversations, I came home and watched reality television until brain rot set in, and then I went to sleep. Wake up, caffeinate, and repeat. That terrible sense of sprinting in place oozed over me like thick, hot mud. In a mess of unhealthy habits and negative coping mechanisms, I lost myself.

Its easy to think that being truly alive is marked by muscles and clear skin, a taut stomach and white teeth, and eight hours of perfectly blissful sleep every night. You knowall the physical hallmarks of health that have been pounded into our brains by diet books and fitness magazines for years and years. When you feel as I didemotionally and physically stuckits natural to think that working on the outside will resolve all the messy emotions on the inside, too. If you could just get the physical side of your life under control, the emotional side will follow suit and for oncefinally!youll feel happy, satisfied, and alive... right?

Most diet books play on our belief that the sole way to a healthy, happy, and balanced life is via a perfect appearance. According to that type of diet book, this requires the right combination of food and exercise gimmicks and, of course, sheer willpower. You dont have to worry about messy emotions at all; its just a matter of calorie counting, not eating after six oclock, eating only green food, not eating white foods, avoiding dairy, inhaling protein, shunning carbohydrates, or simply sticking to the latest and greatest diet fad. Sure, the method sounds a little nuts and a whole lot restrictive. Sure, youd rather die than reveal your tactics to a friend, who will undoubtedly roll her eyes and say, Are you serious? And yes, if pressed, youd admit theres no way youd be able to maintain this diet for six months, let alone a lifetime.

And yet many of us keep buying into this philosophy over and over again, despite the fact that it is filled with half promises and only addresses part of one side of a very complicated equation. We crack open the newest diet book and feel hopeful that this is the way up the mountain. This new plan will finally unstick us; well stop running in place. And then, of course, well be happy. And hot to boot!

Statistically, the vast majority of diets are failures. xThe diet mentality cant compare to a long-term, holistic view of health.

People quickly gain back whatever weight they lost on a diet because they eventually return to their normal style of eating. Diets are simply too restrictive to be followed for the long term. And when we fall off the wagon, we tend to fall hard; in fact, studies show that 3060 percent of dieters regain more weight than they lost on their diets. Everyone ends up feeling like a failure, pushed back into feeling half alive.

Diets also fail because they are incredibly superficial. You cannot diet or crash exercise your way to a healthy, balanced life. If youve tried to find balance in your life before and havent met success, you know the space between unhealthy behaviors and healthy living is a deep river that sometimes runs cold and turbulentits not always easy to get across. Healthy living is truly about the emotional aspect of life as much as the physical side, and any plan that ignores this dimension is destined for failure in the long term.

Fortunately, this isnt that kind of diet book.