Eating with Fierce Kindness

You Can Change Your Relationship to Food

Eating with Fierce Kindness is not a diet, but a way to revolutionize how you think about yourself and about food. Eating with fierce kindness and compassion toward yourself, instead of shame and self-blame, will empower you to change your relationship to food and see yourself in a whole new light.

This book will guide you toward an understanding of why and how you are eating so you can successfully change your eating patterns. As you learn to reduce the stress and impulsivity that often drives emotional eating, you'll also practice new ways to savor food and finally nourish your body the way it deserves.

Eating with Fierce Kindness is a revolutionary program for those who overeat or want to lose weight. The program is based in compassion and mindfulness techniques. Readers learn to cope with negative body image, become mindful of the thoughts and experiences that relate to food and eating, and approach weight loss from a place of kindness and self-care rather than self-recrimination and guilt.

People who tend to overeat or binge eat—many of whom are yo-yo dieters—fail to meet their weight loss goals in part because of their 'all or nothing' mindset. If they succeed in denying themselves foods they like, they consider themselves to be successful, but if they make a mistake, the self-criticism and guilt they feel can be overwhelming. And these feelings can lead to further overeating.

Eating with Fierce Kindness presents a new approach to weight loss, one that focuses on breaking that destructive cycle with self-compassion. The book helps readers become aware of the present moment so that they can make healthy food choices, but also shows them how to manage the inevitable obstacles to weight loss: disappointment at the rate of weight loss, guilt about 'cheating' on a diet, emotional issues surrounding food, negative body image, and low self-confidence. Readers learn to move beyond pursuing weight loss in order to meet a social standard or because of a bad self-image and instead develop healthier eating habits out of kindness toward themselves and their bodies. The book also offers advice for changing eating patterns, recognizing the signs of hunger and fullness, and navigating food triggers, such as emotional eating, that may be affecting eating patterns. Four meditation practices at the end of the book help readers practice the art of self-compassion and get started seeing their weight loss journey in a brand new way.

Sasha T. Loring, M.Ed., LCSW, leads meditation retreats and workshops around the country. She is a psychotherapist, creator of The Wisdom Path for Changing Your Relationship with Food, and she teaches mindful eating and mindfulness-based stress reduction programs in Durham, North Carolina.