Non-Fiction: Wake Up to Your Weight Loss by Alyson Mead

Though I’m not, at this point in my life, especially interested in dieting, this line on the back of Wake Up to Your Weight Loss: Using the Art of Personal Narrative to Achieve Your Best Body by Alyson Mead caught my eye:

“What if the Buddha dieted?”

How could that not pique someone’s interest? A whiff of blasphemy and a hint of fun leads potential readers to think endless quantities of both might be found between these covers. And the fact is… well…. not so much. At the same time, Wake Up to Your Weight Loss is anything but stodgy. It begs us to find and reinforce the things inside us that are good, while letting go of much that is bad, including extra pounds.

When we want to say that someone or something is serious or dignified, we say it has gravitas, meaning substance …. So when did weight become synonymous with fast, lazy and dissolute?

I suspect that, like all self-help books, how much you manage to pull out of Mead’s latest book will depend entirely on you. However, her message of empowered self-acceptance and self-love that can lead to physical change is a positive one. Change your mind, she seems to say. And, in order to change you body, change your heart.