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Press Pause Before You Eat: Say Good-bye to Mindless Eating and Hello to the Joys of Eating
In a world that acts before it thinks, it’s time to “press pause”...
Press Pause Before You Eat and say goodbye to hurried and mindless eating. This ground-breaking book shines a light on the most overlooked area of our relationship with mindless and unintentional eating. It teaches readers to understand WHY they eat and provides practical, proven strategies to control eating. Diets treat symptoms; Press Pause Before You Eat deals with the root causes of unintentional eating and restores the joys of mindful eating. Busy schedules translate into eating on the run or skipping meals altogether. Life is not only filled with multitasking and hurried moments but on-the-go consumption. Eating becomes a thing to do while doing other things and all too often becomes a source of guilt and distress. The more stressed and busier people feel, the more food becomes a source of gratification, relief and a numbing agent, as well as a welcomed friend. In order to address the current obesity epidemic and struggles people have with their weight, a new approach is needed—one that addresses the emotional, relational, and spiritual side of the individual and his or her relationship to food.
Dr. Linda Mintle, a licensed professional in clinical practice
and a specialist in eating disorders, knows that unless
people are coached to be intentional about their eating, they
will continue to eat mindlessly and be part of the 90-95 percent
of failed dieters. Therefore, Press Pause Before You Eat
is a prescriptive guide for intentionally cultivating a mindful
awareness of eating that attends to the body, soul, and spirit.
Food is not our enemy; it is something to be enjoyed!
Press Pause Before You Eat and say goodbye to hurried and mindless eating. This ground-breaking book shines a light on the most overlooked area of our relationship with mindless and unintentional eating. It teaches readers to understand WHY they eat and provides practical, proven strategies to control eating. Diets treat symptoms; Press Pause Before You Eat deals with the root causes of unintentional eating and restores the joys of mindful eating. Busy schedules translate into eating on the run or skipping meals altogether. Life is not only filled with multitasking and hurried moments but on-the-go consumption. Eating becomes a thing to do while doing other things and all too often becomes a source of guilt and distress. The more stressed and busier people feel, the more food becomes a source of gratification, relief and a numbing agent, as well as a welcomed friend. In order to address the current obesity epidemic and struggles people have with their weight, a new approach is needed—one that addresses the emotional, relational, and spiritual side of the individual and his or her relationship to food.
Dr. Linda Mintle, a licensed professional in clinical practice
and a specialist in eating disorders, knows that unless
people are coached to be intentional about their eating, they
will continue to eat mindlessly and be part of the 90-95 percent
of failed dieters. Therefore, Press Pause Before You Eat
is a prescriptive guide for intentionally cultivating a mindful
awareness of eating that attends to the body, soul, and spirit.
Food is not our enemy; it is something to be enjoyed!
256 pages, Paperback
First published October 28, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 23, 2010
Nothing on the back cover mentions anything about how the author mentions and uses God in this book. Using quotes from the Bible or asking the reader to reflect on their relationship with God and so forth. I didn't finish the book also because some of the advice was not applicable and things I could read in brief articles online about how to not over-eat or mindless eat. I did pick up this book on hold because I tend to emotionally eat when angry or upset or mindlessly snack when doing something else. One piece of advice in the book is "count liquid calories"/"Considering eating your calories rather than drinking them." I don't know how to count calories, but this seemed so stupid to me. Even if the person reading this book isn't anorexic, but a binge eater or an over eater or a mindless eater, I don't think telling them to count calories is a good thing. Especially since the author is an eating disorder specialist. AND she mentions early in the book feelings of self-hatred for eating mindlessly or over eating for the reader. WHAT THE HELL. I know for some people knowing their calorie count help them curb their food intake, but as blanket general advice, I don't think it's great.
She also mentions the Marshmallow Test. I burst out laughing, because this is the evidence she used to show the great things having the trait of delayed gratification can do for you. This was a psychological study conducted by Walter Mischel to study delayed gratification in children and its effect. We talked about this study in my Personality Psychology class (and other papers by Mischel). What happened was that four-year-olds were left in a room alone and told they could ring a bell and immediately eat one marshmallow or wait 10-15 minutes for the researcher to return and eat two marshmallows then. Fourteen years later Mischel followed up on the children and made a lot of correlations about delayed gratification and (desired) academics and personality traits.
What my professor pointed out was that there was debate about whether this test actually measured what it set out to measure. To a lot of people it seemed like the children were displaying delayed gratification. But, my prof pointed out, others thought it could also be interpreted as the children showing an eagerness to please the adult researchers and being obedient. The children could think "Oh, they want me to wait for them, okay." And I think if Mischel thought four-years-old are capable of judging one marshmallow now vs. two marshmallows later (i.e. advantages vs. disadvantages of each situation), the four-years-old are certainly capable of pleasing authority.
I stopped reading this book after chapter 5. Of 15.
Though ironic I started this book the evening my nutritious, healthy food got stolen and I had to resort to the unhealthy bad food.
She also mentions the Marshmallow Test. I burst out laughing, because this is the evidence she used to show the great things having the trait of delayed gratification can do for you. This was a psychological study conducted by Walter Mischel to study delayed gratification in children and its effect. We talked about this study in my Personality Psychology class (and other papers by Mischel). What happened was that four-year-olds were left in a room alone and told they could ring a bell and immediately eat one marshmallow or wait 10-15 minutes for the researcher to return and eat two marshmallows then. Fourteen years later Mischel followed up on the children and made a lot of correlations about delayed gratification and (desired) academics and personality traits.
What my professor pointed out was that there was debate about whether this test actually measured what it set out to measure. To a lot of people it seemed like the children were displaying delayed gratification. But, my prof pointed out, others thought it could also be interpreted as the children showing an eagerness to please the adult researchers and being obedient. The children could think "Oh, they want me to wait for them, okay." And I think if Mischel thought four-years-old are capable of judging one marshmallow now vs. two marshmallows later (i.e. advantages vs. disadvantages of each situation), the four-years-old are certainly capable of pleasing authority.
I stopped reading this book after chapter 5. Of 15.
Though ironic I started this book the evening my nutritious, healthy food got stolen and I had to resort to the unhealthy bad food.
June 17, 2009
Rather than giving heavy hardbound advice about losing weight, Dr. Linda Mintle has lightened up the approach to dieting counsel. By acknowledging that the reader has a brain and has probably already heard most of the latest hype a dozen times, she doesn't elaborate much on all the obvious approaches. At first this leaves the text wanting to be a bit more meaty...pardon the pun. However the consistent use of "press pause..." throughtout gets into your thinking and, i found myself actually doing a lot of that after reading just 1/3 or so of the book. When I was thinking of eating, questions actually came into my mind wondering why I wanted to eat, and for what benefit. Quite an accomplisment and probably moreso than most other writings have offered. I came to appreciate that by being guided through the problems of overeating with helpful suggestions, the reader is, in the finality of it all, given credit for being able to figure the details out for her/himself, What he needs, is spiritual or emotional help to succeed.
It seems a habit is formed as you read that is a kind of side affect, that being that you pause before you chow down and think about why you will be doing that, and consider if there is a
It seems a habit is formed as you read that is a kind of side affect, that being that you pause before you chow down and think about why you will be doing that, and consider if there is a
July 21, 2009
This book is largely fluff. The nuggets of sound advice provided would have worked better in a pamphlet rather than in a 250 page book. The book's description says nothing about its religious overtones, yet its target reader is clearly a devout Christian who isn't bothered by reading pages of (pretty pointless and/or repetitive) vignettes and generalities. This got on my nerves and made me more cynical about the book in general. I would advise skimming this book in small doses rather than sitting down to read it all at once.
That said, I found "How to Combat Stress Eating" on page 93 useful, even if it's not break-through information. For the quickest secular support in learning how to control your eating habits, turn to the last three pages for the 12 practical "study questions" that should help you "press pause before you eat." Well, except numbers 6, 7, 9, and 11, which all focus on your relationship with God and reading passages from the Bible.
(I received a free review copy of this book from LibraryThing.com's Early Reviewer program.)
That said, I found "How to Combat Stress Eating" on page 93 useful, even if it's not break-through information. For the quickest secular support in learning how to control your eating habits, turn to the last three pages for the 12 practical "study questions" that should help you "press pause before you eat." Well, except numbers 6, 7, 9, and 11, which all focus on your relationship with God and reading passages from the Bible.
(I received a free review copy of this book from LibraryThing.com's Early Reviewer program.)
April 2, 2015
This book explores in depth the reasons behind why we overeat; & the main reason we overeat is because we feel compelled to multi-task & can never slow down to enjoy, or even properly taste our meals. On top of that the media is constantly sending us mixed messages by either tempting us to overeat, or persuading us that we need to lose weight. It mentions several times how people tend to eat when they are upset. (That had personally never been a problem with me, I tend to lose my appetite when upset or angry.)
The book also offers exercises/tips on how to overcome overeating. Unfortunately in my case it is not that I do not know the reasons why I overeat [boredom], but that I simply cannot motivate myself to do something else when the urge to binge strikes, as the book suggests. If I do, it usually just postpones the urge rather than overcoming it
The book also offers exercises/tips on how to overcome overeating. Unfortunately in my case it is not that I do not know the reasons why I overeat [boredom], but that I simply cannot motivate myself to do something else when the urge to binge strikes, as the book suggests. If I do, it usually just postpones the urge rather than overcoming it
January 26, 2013
Press Pause Before You Eat by Dr. Linda Mintle is definitely different from my normal fare. I don't tend to read self-help books unless they're of the financial sort so I wasn't entirely comfortable with the tone of the book at first. In the end, it was quite readable and easy to apply to one's life. The book was sort of an interesting mix of ideas. I haven't read any diet books before, but most of them probably don't focus on God as much as this one did. It was insightful, but it ran a little long and did come right up to the brink of being preachy at some points. I'd recommend it to anyone who was looking to reprogram their eating habits and wasn't hostile to religion playing a role in that change.
May 8, 2011
I think I was hoping for more practical advice about really thinking about what you are going to eat before hand. The book is a bit fluffy and little of the advice was new but it was a fast read and I was able to take away some practical tips. The Bible references were a bit surprising but unlike other readers, they didn't put me off. Readers will happier if they don't pay full price for the book.
January 1, 2017
Clinically sound strategies and tactics, but too heavily focused on Christian ideology for use by many therapists or social workers, unless client shares that belief system.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews