The Life You Want: Get Motivated, Lose Weight, and Be Happy by Bob Greene

“The Life You Want: Get Motivated, Lose Weight, and Be Happy” is the newest book by fitness author Bob Greene, who also wrote “Make the Connection: Ten Steps to a Better Body and a Better Life,” “Stay Connected : Choices for a better body and a healthier life”, “The best diet to live” and many others. This book, written with psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke and nutritionist Janis Jibrin, focuses on common barriers to weight loss success and provides practical advice on emotional eating and lack of motivation.

After an introduction, where Greene tells a personal story involving his exploration of the emotional and psychological side of weight loss, and what this book can do for the reader, he begins with a chapter on barriers to weight loss success. of weight. Greene addresses eight barriers, and none of them are eating or exercising, but mental or emotional aspects.

In chapter two, Kearney-Cooke addresses overcoming emotional eating. This is a big problem for many, and this chapter reveals some simple ways to find your motivation, overcome barriers, and find eating replacements to deal with emotions. It is a practical chapter with tips on how to achieve your goals in these areas.

The third chapter is by Jibrin, and focuses on rewiring your sugar, fat, and salt-loving brain. There’s some interesting information on why we eat what we eat, eight reasons why we should watch our diet, and his nine-step program for following a nutritious and calorie-adequate diet.

Greene is back with chapter four, where she covers conquering exercise aversion. If he’s having trouble getting up and going, this chapter can help him find some motivation to get moving. He lists thirteen reasons to exercise, and he really only needs to pick one to get motivated to do it. He addresses many common excuses and how to overcome them, as well as different types of exercises that he should include in his workouts.

Chapter five deals with body image transformation, and in it Kearney-Cooke addresses a topic many people need help with, especially the images we are bombarded with on television and in the print media.

Greene is back with chapter six, covering how to maintain your weight loss. He examines what works and what doesn’t, and provides some great tips and advice to make sure that when you lose weight, you don’t gain it back.

Being happy is important, and Kearney-Cooke discusses what it takes to be happy in chapter seven. I liked this chapter and I think many people could benefit from following the simple guidelines laid out on these pages.

After chapter seven, there is Appendix 1 which contains The Lifestyle Log. This is a sample worksheet prompt to record important things about your lifestyle, such as sleep, hunger, food and drink consumption, etc. Appendix 2 covers the Body Mass Index, while Appendix 3 has the Goldberg Depression Scale. Appendix 4 has instructions on sample goal setting worksheets, and Appendix 5 has The Motivational Interview to help you assess yourself. Appendix 6 is Life’s Best Approach to Exercise by Greene. Simple plan with suggested exercises. Brief descriptions of the exercises, but no pictures.

Overall, this is a good book for many people who have difficulty losing weight or keeping it off due to emotional issues or lack of motivation. The authors offer a simple and practical guide to overcome such barriers, get motivated, lose weight and be happy. If you need help in these areas, check out this book, but more importantly, apply what the authors teach.