Retrain your Brain, Reshape Your Body:
The breakthrough brain-changing weight loss plan
By: Georgia D. Andrianopoulos, PHD
McGrawHill, 2007 $19.95
Andianopoulos, a physiologic psychologist, attempts to address the underlying emotional causes of eating, which can lead to obesity. She contends that certain brain patterns and brain “turbulence” can cause weight gain. Through her program of rebalancing and retraining the brain, food cravings that cause us to overeat can be eliminated.
PROSAn active lifestyle is promoted as part of the program. People are directed toward a mindful awareness and positive approach to losing weight: To quote the author: “To control your eating, you must invest your time & effort to increase the pleasure and satisfaction in your everyday life from non-eating experiences.”
CONS Andriopoulous sure knows her brain physiology, but the complex description of brain structures and processes is unnecessarily lengthy and overly technical for the lay reader (after reading the book, we still cannot pronounce “cingulate gyrus”, much less remember what it does.
The author stretches the truth in describing brain physiology and eating behaviours, such as suggesting that disregulated eating can develop in the womb (as if any of us need more Mother Guilt?!) and the potential to reconfigure one’s DNA through her program. A series of arbitrary step/activities is suggested to: “reframe” and “retrain” the brain, some of which are rather impractical. For example, the author suggests the “brain brake”: cooking meals slowly in an oven vs. a microwave and developing mindfulness by slowing down all your actions. She claims these steps to improve brain function will leave fewer reasons for the brain to trigger overeating?
The book contains a number of inaccuracies such as incorrectly classifying almonds as carbohydrate and an incorrect definition of nutrigenomics.
Bottom Line This book does attempt to look beyond the dieting approach to address obesity but there is no mention of testing or evidence that this program has actually been effective. We doubt that an individual reading this book could implement the complex strategies described to solve their eating problems. |
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