Book Review- Real Moms Love To Eat by: Beth Aldrich

Book: Real Moms Love to Eat by Beth Aldrich

Release: Will be available to the public in early January,2012.

Please visit RealMomsLoveToEat.com to pre-purchase the book for only $10.20, 32% off of the regular price. That's a GREAT price!  Beth is currently running pre-launch book giveaways on the site the 1st and 15th of every month until launch. Be sure to run over and take advantage of this great price and awesome giveaway prizes! I am hoping to win some of the prizes, myself!

MY REVIEW (Warning: It gets REALLY personal):
As you all know, I LOVE to cook. As a matter of fact, cooking is one of my favorite things to do. I tend to make everything from scratch, and I must admit, I do not always make the healthiest dishes. Sometimes I will just be craving certain comfort foods, like homemade Macaroni and Cheese or my sinfully rich Baked Potato Soup (aka heart attack in a bowl). Or maybe my husband wants my Chicken Alfredo. These dishes all taste amazing. But they are so ridiculously bad for you at the same time. These dishes rely heavily on sweet cream butter and whipping cream, along with savory cheeses, bacon,and other things that are not very diet-friendly. So I know first hand how challenging it can be to make food that is comforting and delicious while watching the waistline.

When I was contacted by Beth Aldrich, author of the upcoming book Real Moms Love To Eat about reviewing a preview copy of the book, I have to admit, I was intrigued. Even the title captured my interest. After all, I AM a "Real Mom" and I LOVE to eat! So when my galley copy arrived, I jumped right in. I was immediately drawn into the book because Beth writes this informative yet entertaining book as if she were talking to her best friend.

Real Moms Love to Eat is a must-have book, in my humble opinion. Beth addresses many common food and diet dilemmas that we, as real women and mothers, face on a daily basis. She helps us to dig deeper and discover the underlying reasons WHY we sometimes choose to make poor dieting decisions that only seem to make our weight creep upward. After all, eating is an emotional experience. So many moments in life rely heavily on food...Think about it for a minute. You get married, then you go eat. You have a baby, then you eat all the food that well-wishers bring over so you can recover. You go to a funeral, then you go eat. Even marriage proposals seem to somehow have food tied into them! Birthdays, Holidays, even lunch out with the girls...Everything we do seems to revolve around eating. So from an early age, we're hardwired to equate food with emotions rather than as fuel that keeps our bodies nourished and functioning properly.

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Real Moms Love to Eat addresses the very issue of emotional eating and helps the reader to understand WHY we crave what we do. In my case, I always seem to crave cheeses and carbs. I am not a sweets person. But give me a heaping plate of pasta, some bread and a grilled cheese sandwich, and I am one happy woman! This book encourages the reader to truly feel their emotions, take notes, and work on the many issues on the inside that can sabotage our best dieting efforts. After all, you can't have any real success on a diet if you don't understand the concept of emotional triggers and how to identify them. Without understanding these key factors, no diet is going to work in the long run.

But Real Moms Love to Eat is about SO much more than that. This book is a valuable tool that can teach you how to still enjoy the foods you love, but in a healthier way. Beth encourages making simple recipe make-overs that will still allow you to have all of the foods you are emotionally connected to, but with substantially less fat and calories. It's as easy as swapping those high fat, calorie laden ingredients for healthier ones! Use cooking oil for baking? Try applesauce instead! Or maybe you're a soda addict like I used to be. Have you tried fooling your taste buds with flavored sparkling waters? See? Simple! And you don't have to sacrifice flavor, either!

Beth also gives easy, relatively painless weekly assignments to help get you on your way to lasting lifestyle changes that will ensure you'll be well on your way to being the healthiest YOU possible! These are like baby steps that will help create a lasting change in the way you look at and react to food. When implementing Beth's plan for a healthier lifestyle, you'll become much more conscientious about what you're putting in your body and why, and you'll be given the knowledge to make much better decisions about what you eat.

On a personal note, this book is really helping me. I have a VERY unhealthy relationship with food. I have struggled with my weight since puberty, and after surviving an abusive marriage, I was left with very low self-esteem. (Or should I say non-existent?) I am a very meek and shy person, and I always seem to feel like I am never "good enough." Why do I feel that way? Because that is what I was TOLD for YEARS by a man who only wanted to control me. After years of hearing this, you begin to believe it. Top that with all the societal pressures to be "perfect" that can be found every single day on television, in magazines, and in the movies, and it's hard to be comfortable in my own skin. I do not feel like I am attractive in the slightest. I look in the mirror with disgust, all because I am never thin enough. I am not overweight by any means. I am 5'4" and I weigh a healthy 135lbs. I am a size 8. I have a larger frame, so I know my body will never support a size 0. I look thin at 135lbs. While I know this is perfectly acceptable in my rational mind, I am never quite satisfied with myself.

When all you ever hear is how you're "too fat" or "ugly", it's hard to move past those feelings. Even when you've moved on past the hurtful relationship. I left my abuser years ago, and am now married to a wonderful man who treats me very well. We've had 2 babies of our own, and after having 2 back-to-back pregnancies, I have definitely started being overly critical of myself again. I believe in total honesty here, so I will make a confession: My unhealthy body image and low self-esteem has caused me to do ANYTHING I could in order to lose weight. I am now doing my best to recover from a full-blown eating disorder.

Eating disorders are scary. They consume you. If you've got an eating disorder, it becomes the force that drives every decision you make. I would literally weigh myself dozens of times per day. Even a gain of 1lb would send me into a panic. I would go all day without eating, and then binge at dinner time. Then I would feel guilty, and I would purge. I started hating myself for being weak, and the cycle would continue. I now have to re-train the way I look at food. I have to take control back and reclaim my life. It's HARD. Probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But the book Real Moms Love to Eat is helping me, day by day, recognize where my thinking is flawed and is teaching me how to have a healthier outlook where food is concerned. I actually carry this book around like my own personal Food Bible. It's my lifeline. When I start feeling insecure or feel the urge to engage in self-destructive behavior, I open my copy of Real Moms Love to Eat and it gives me a reality check.

I don't know if Ms. Aldrich knew just how profound an effect her book could have on women like me, who suffer in secrecy and wage a war on food every day. I don't know if she knew that women like me would cling to this book while they relearn how to look at food. But I personally want to thank her for writing this book. Since reading it, I have not binged and purged in several days. I feel better. Sure, I have my moments of weakness where I get emotional and I feel the urges creep back. But rather than continuing a cycle that can KILL me, I sit back, open my copy of Real Moms Love to Eat, and I feel like I am talking to a friend who understands. It seems like Beth is talking directly to ME. This means so much, because most women who suffer from eating disorders do so in absolute silence. We do not talk about our "problem". We hide it at all costs. We sweep it under a bed or hide it in a closet...We do not ask for help, and we live in a state of constant shame. Since this book is written in  a way that is like talking to a close friend, it makes me feel a little less alone.

This book is helping to save my LIFE. It is helping me reclaim it. I am learning how to recognize and eliminate my triggers, and it is teaching me how to have a more common-sense approach to food. Food does NOT have to be something I fear. And using Beth's common sense, easy to follow lifestyle plan, I have hope for the first time in a couple of years that I can actually beat my disorder and emerge a healthier, more confident version of ME. A big THANK YOU to Beth for helping to show me how I can improve my relationship with food and actually learn to be healthy and happy again!

I would definitely recommend Real Moms Love to Eat to any woman out there who would like to lose some extra padding, learn great tips and tricks to reinvent favorite foods while keeping them on the healthy side, or to anyone who needs to re-train the way they look at eating as a whole. This book is amazingly written, full of personal anecdotes from the author, and is easy to understand. It also has some wonderful recipes! I am so glad I have this book. I've read many, many "diet" books, and have been let down by them. Real Moms Love to Eat is different. It's not a "diet book." It's a lifestyle book, written by one mom to another. Check it out! All you have to lose are those extra inches!

HOW TO CONNECT:

You can learn more about Real Moms Love to Eat on their website.

You can also follow them on Facebook and on twitter.

Also, be sure to vote for Real Moms Love to Eat on Parents Magazine's Best Blog Awards! They've been nominated in the Best Food Blog category!

Remember to pre-order your book today for a HUGE savings and the chance to win tons of awesome prizes!