Dr Rick Kausman: If Not Dieting, Then What?

From the back of the book:

So how do you manage your weight? There is a solution and it’s all about attitude. In Not Dieting, Then What? shows you how to look at food in a more positive way and move away from the ‘no pain, no gain ethos’, an well as explaining how to fine-tune fat content without sacrificing food enjoyment.
Dr Rick Kausman is recognised as the Australian pioneer of the non-dieting approach to healthy weight management. In this straightforward, no-nonsense guide to weight management he shares his, and his clients’ experiences with the reader. You can learn how to: enjoy food without feeling guilty, increase your eating awareness, improve how you feel about yourself, fit some sort of activity into your day, and achieve and maintain a healthy, comfortable weight for you, without being deprived of food or quality of life.

Since I’ve decided to finally follow my doctor’s advice and stop dieting I’ve begun researching intuitive eating. The basic principle is simple: eat when you’re hungry, don’t eat when you’re not. But anybody who has ever had a genuine weight problem (and not just carried four or five excess kilos) can tell you that hunger often has very little to do with eating. This author understands that.
The purpose of this book is to give the reader the tools they need to get out of the yo-yo dieting cycle and get back in touch with their body. With chapters that address why diets don’t work, the importance of choosing realistic goals, non-hungry eating, body image and the inevitability of losing focus occasionally, this book covers the most commonly asked questions of this approach to weight management.
Personally I found chapter 3 ‘Non-hungry eating’ and chapter 7 ‘Eating with awareness’ to be of particular interest. I am making an effort to apply the techniques suggested to relearn to recognise my body’s needs with the hope that eventually these will become second nature (or is that a return to ‘first’ nature). At the time of writing this it all still requires considerable conscientiousness on my part and it is much too soon to say if the techniques will, in fact, work for me.
As far as “diet” books go this is one of the most reasonable and sensible ones I’ve ever read. The local references were a novel bonus too.-Lynn