According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity affects over 33 percent of people -- that's one third of adults. Medical costs associated with obesity are estimated at $147 billion and obese adults are at a higher risk for coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, liver and Gallbladder disease, and respiratory problems.
In FROM BAGELS TO BUDDHA, a successful therapist, renowned for her work with addictive and obese families, uses her own story to illustrate her message that a spiritual life is the key to sustaining weight loss and ending food obsessions.
Dr. Hollis tells us that the path to permanent weight loss has little to do with what you are eating or what's eating you, but rather involves changing how you behave, how you interact with others, how you face your own dark side, and ultimately how you accept life on life's terms. Only then will you start eating to nurture your true inner being and only then will enough ever be enough.
Written in an unexpectedly witty and self-deprecating style, Dr. Hollis recounts some humbling learning experiences, such as her nerve-racking first appearance on Oprah that caused her to vow never to do TV again, and an uncomfortable stay at a Buddhist Monastery, where she had finagled her way into the last week of a three-week meditation workshop. Her story entertains with many more comical moments, even as it tackles a serious, sometimes life-or-death, subject.