Details
The best diet is no diet. (Tentative title)
Synopsis
Through a hunger to be beautiful, at the age of eleven Natsume launches herself into an ever-escalating cycle of fad dieting. She tries everything from the latest American diets to devices purported to melt away unwanted pounds; descending into a downward spiral of diet dependency and eating disorders and undermining her body's natural growth. Twenty years of unremitting struggle end in epiphany when she realizes "I lose weight when I stop dieting!" In overcoming these difficulties she tears down the various facades hiding the truth about diet and health.
Written in chronological order from the author's viewpoint, the book takes the reader on the roller coaster ride of emotions and dilemmas that beset the life of a girl growing up in Japan. From the life or death problems of a junior-high school student looking for her first love to the anxiety of a young mother trying to recapture her pre-pregnancy figure, the reader will feel what Natsume felt as she struggled to come to terms with her body. A poignant, honest, and often humorous journal of one woman's struggle with diet dependency and ultimate recovery, this book offers the key to avoiding these problems and finding one's own perfect form.
| Author | Natsume, Matsuriko |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Kawadeshoboshinsha |
| ISBN | 4309013031 |
Editorial Review
I read this book as part of my research for a website on dieting, and would strongly recommend it to anyone considering starting a diet. Most diet books are full of worthless or inaccurate information, but this book presents the author's actual experiences from her experiments with a wide variety of diets, and helps the reader to understand the truth about dieting. Say good-bye to ineffective, expensive, even dangerous diet plans. This book is not only a record of diet experiences, but also a log of the author's mental growth. I empathized with the author through every stage of her poignantly described tale of the trials and tribulations of a recovered diet addict. (Amazon.co.jp)
Submitted by Tomoko Suzuki
Table of contents
- Preface
- Chapter 1: Young Anorexic
- Chapter 2: Rebound - the destruction of a dream
- Chapter 3: Accidental Success – The best diet is no diet (Part 1)
- Chapter 4: Outbreak of the Diet Boom
- Chapter 5: The Consequences of Appetite Abuse
- Chapter 6: Unexpected Victory – The best diet is no diet (Part 2)
- Chapter 7: Postpartum Epiphany - Diet is a fraud
- Chapter 8: The Truth about Stress and Binge Eating
About the Author
Matsuriko Natsume was born in 1964 and has a son and a daughter. Before becoming a writer, she honed her literary skills as a copywriter and editor. Natsume published Aya, a special magazine of five-line poetry for soothing the troubled mind; and since 2000 has occasionally contributed essays and articles to Opinion magazine. Views from Japan, a newsletter for foreign media, often publishes her work. In recent years she has been an active lecturer.