Lightness of Body and Mind

Book excerpt: Forget every tactic you’ve ever tried to lose weight and feel better. Put down your weapons once and for all, and step out of the field of battle. Despite how it may seem, your brain and body are not unsupportive beasts bent on undermining your fitness goals. They just want some chips and dip, that’s all. They aren’t the problem. The way you’re trying to manipulate them is. In Lightness of Body and Mind: A Radical Approach to Weight and Wellness, personal trainer Sarah Hays Coomer offers a different approach. She proposes that you will never be able to achieve a body you love by doing things that you hate, that deprivation and limitation will never set you free, and that punishing workouts and strict diets are dead end roads. The way to a body that works is by doing more of what you authentically love. Through memoir and intimate client stories, this book encourages you to dance with your demons, to choose and cherish the ones you have no intention of giving up, and to build a solid infrastructure, dedicated to good health, in which wellness and indulgence spring from the same source. You don’t need more control. You just need functional knowledge of how habits are formed; a reverent, dizzy appreciation for falling apart when necessary; and laser focus on what brings you to life.