Sara Gottfried M.D. - The Hormone Reset Diet: Heal Your Metabolism to Lose Up to 15 Pounds in 21 Days

The book you hold in your hands may be just what we need to end dieting for women. As Ive written in my previous books, its not your fault that youre overweight. The obesity rate has tripled in the past fifty years, and its not because of a lack of willpower. Its because your hormones have been hijacked by Big Foodthe giant food corporations that are similar to Big Tobacco and its efforts to get people addicted to cigarettes. Big Food knows how to manipulate processed food so that its hyperpalatable and ultimately gets and keeps you addicted to these harmful food-like substances. The result is that your hormones then begin to work against you.

Enter Dr. Sara Gottfried. As a board-certified gynecologist, she is uniquely qualified to understand the private suffering that women experience with food addiction and body shame. As a Harvard-educated physician scientist, she knows how to separate good science from bad, and can translate the science into entertaining yet accurate language that everyone can understand. As a woman, she has personally struggled with and healed her own food addiction. That combination is extremely rare in medicinefew doctors are willing to admit publically their own stories of vulnerability and recovery. Not only does Dr. Sara share her stories quite poignantly, she puts them to work to change the conversation were having about food addiction and what has been proven to solve it.

Women have specific needs compared with men and their needs are largely ignored by the $60 billion weight-loss industry that specializes in perpetuating the food lie that in order to lose weight, you must count calories.

You may have noticed that women tend to trail men when it comes to weight lossthey tend to lose weight more slowly. There are a few possible reasons for this, including:

Hormones. Women have less testosterone, which boosts metabolism and keeps you lean. Men are genetically programmed to be larger and have more muscle mass and less fat. As a result, men can get away with eating more food, and when they choose to lose weight, they often get quick results.

Food preference. Generally, men like meat, and women love carbohydratesthough this also may be linked to food addiction.

Stress. Women tend to have more challenges with stress compared with men, according to national surveys. Their stress response system is more sensitive and vulnerable, which may explain why women are more likely to eat under emotional stress.

Cooking. Women are primarily responsible for cooking the family meals. That means more work burden on women to plan menus, grocery shop, and prepare mealsplus additional temptation to taste, nibble, and lick food during cooking.

Dieting. Approximately 80 percent of women are dissatisfied with their body and beat themselves up over a few extra pounds, and most are on a diet. Men are less likely to diet as a hobby. Still, theres a gender difference in expectation: women have more pressure to look like societal norms of the ideal body.

Fortunately, these gender differences can be addressed and, in many cases, turned into an advantage when you seek weight loss. Dr. Sara is here to show you how.

Remember, its not overeating that makes you fat. Its being fat, and the hormonal chaos that led to the fat, that makes you overeat. Forget calorie counting, and begin to focus instead on the quality of your diet. This is important for both men and women, but women suffer more when it comes to food addiction, and women need a specific fix that speaks uniquely to their circumstances.