50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food

By: Susan Albers

Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee

Food has the power to temporarily alleviate stress and sadness, enhance joy, and bring us comfort when we need it most. It's no wonder experts estimate that 75 percent of overeating is triggered by our emotions, not physical hunger. The good news is you can instead soothe yourself through dozens of mindful activities that are healthy for both body and mind.

Susan Albers, author of Eating Mindfully, now offers 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food, a collection of mindfulness skills and practices for relaxing the body in times of stress and ending your dependence on eating as a means of coping with difficult emotions. You'll not only discover easy ways to soothe urges to overeat, you'll also learn how to differentiate emotion-driven hunger from healthy hunger. Reach for this instead of the refrigerator next time you feel the urge to snack - these alternatives are just as satisfying!

©2009 Susan Albers, Psy.D. (P)2014 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A thoughtful volume filled with practical solutions for emotional eaters everywhere." (Madelyn H. Fernstrom, PhD, CNS)

Excellent Execution by Narrator Ann Marie Lee

It took awhile to get through this book but every tip I took note of and have been applying since day one. I am an emotional eater and back in my 20’s and even 30’s I’d just do some exercise and the extra calories never really ended up weighing me down….now in my 40’s I can exercise three hours and the pounds just keep increasing. (This is an exaggeration of course.)
This book gives some great insight and very good tips anyone can start applying (you don’t have to finish the book to start the change in your eating habits.)
Shopping sprees are super fun for me but I’ve had to place myself on a budget. Window shopping is fun as well, but again within a month I pretty much purchase what I’ve seen if the store still has it. I’m trying to say the tips are great and you just have to balance which ones you choose from day to day :) She gives us a lot to choose from and I believe very singly one would help deflect emotional eating.

Thank you so much for this book.

Fantastic Book...I will use helpful suggestions

I really needed to read/listen to this book. I loved it. I will put the suggestions in my daily life.

Not what expected

I had hoped this book would describe 50 tangible ways to soothe anxiety which leads to comfort eating. Instead it is a rather preachy set of premises of psychology.

Excellent. Hit home. Great suggestions!

Loved this book. So many situations hit home for me. Will be trying the suggested alternatives to turning to food for self soothing.

Narration not to my taste

Would you try another book from Susan Albers and/or Ann Marie Lee?

Possibly, I'm generally not a huge fan of self-help books but Albers seems to have a knack for practical writing.

How could the performance have been better?

I am in no way being objective here, but something about the narration bugged me. It sounded a bit like how people talk to children. This was clear from the audio sample, but it really started to grind my gears as I got further into the book.

Any additional comments?

I liked the content of the book a lot. There are a lot of suggestions which I found personally helpful and which I will likely apply to my life - it's just that the narration was not my cup of tea.

Loved this book.still will be relistening!

I loved this audio book. It gives many useable suggestions to get my mind off food.

Amazingly not bad

Lot of reminders on ways to keep eating at bay. The reader’s voice, itself, is quite soothing.