Loss Books

I don't use food to address difficult emotions; rather, I am dependent on nicotine. It was easy to read this book and substitute nicotine for food. I believe this book deals with the cause for emotional eating and probably overuse of any substance. I'm using her approach and withn a short time my nicotine dependence reduced. I am hopeful that I will soon be able to accept my emotions and be emotionally independent.

In reading "The End of Diets", I found it so refreshing that someone had written about eating from a personal voice that really spoke to me. I have read countless books on eating and dieting and they all say the same thing, but this one actually explains WHY we eat and what tools are at our disposal to finally, finally, finally eradicate the behavior for life.

I have read "The End of Diets" several times and each time I get something new from it, it has literally changed my life. Because of its insight I have been doing yoga for over a year now and have not been on a "diet" for the first time since I was 12 years old. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is on that roller coaster of dieting and constantly looking for that book that is going to "be the one" that is going to help them.

I got a lot from de la Altagracia's heartfelt guide to healing emotional eating, both as a professional counselor and on a personal level. It is a shame that this book suffers from a lack of editing with grammatical errors and awkward phrasing throughout.
Some of the author's suggestions are familiar and one could dismiss this book as nothing new, however de la Altagracia brings a deeply felt commitment to her process of healing the pattern of "eating through emotions". She succeeds in engaging the reader on a personal, not just intellectual level.
I appreciate the integration of body-awareness and body work into the book's program. The author's approach synthesizes cognitive, emotional, and body-centered methods into a multi-modal strategy. She also provides a simplified explanation of the myriad of diet options currently vying for attention.
De la Altagracia emphasizes the life-long nature of the healing journey, instilling hope and realism.

when i first started to read this book i felt it was going to be someone's success story and that if you did this and that it would work. luckily i kept going past my judgement and allowed myself to hear my excuses and my fears and my past wanting me to stay fat, that has allowed me to stop dieting and just start being, not doing anything but slowly allowing myself to just sit with myself and learn about myself that i wasn't willing to look at and love before. i don't think i will lose weight quickly, but i think i will finally be able to have a balanced control over food.

This spring I read a number of books on emotional eating and thought this book dealt well with the problem, but less so with solution. Then I found The truth about addiction and recovery, by Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky in my local library and bingo! It helped me both to understand the problem, the triggers and to design solutions. In other words, it enabled me to custom tailor my life in a way of which I can be proud. Most of all, it was illuminating to get away from the "disease" (think Alcoholics Anonymous) model of addiction. A very hopeful book and I recommend it highly.

There is no one better at spoofing the foolishness of how business is done than Scott Adams in his Dilbert strip. All quality spoofs are based on fundamental truths and Dilbert is no exception. That is of course why the Dilbert web site is one of the sites most frequently blocked by business managers.
While the truth often hurts, in the right hands it can be hilarious and Adams' hands are the right ones when it comes to business. Reading this book may not make your job better, but it certainly will make it more tolerable.

For some reason, I didn't find this book quite as funny as some of Adams' later stuff, but it still gave me some good laughs!

The funniest humor always has a root in reality. . . that's why Dilbert is so hilarious! Though sometimes outlandish, I can sometimes see similarities between the Dilbert characters and people I work with!

Scott Adams has talent. That is a fact. His comics, Dilbert, are basically about this engineer who works in a cubicle and has no social life. They're so funny, and have such original characters. Bob the Dinosaur, who basically goes around giving wedgies to people, is probably one of my favourites. I find it very amusing how a lot of characters are animals, like Dogbert, Catbert, Ratbert, etc. It seems so funny, somehow, to incorporate animals into work at an office building.
So, overall, any Dilbert books are incredibly hilarious. Go buy one.

Fugitive From The Cubicle Police is a 224-page collection of Scott Adams' hilarious Dilbert cartoons. Dated from 1993 and 1994, these cartoons are from quite early in the Dilbert story. Most of the normal crew is here: Dilbert, Alice (her hair isn't pyramid-shaped yet), Wally, Dogbert, and so forth, but no Catbert. The cartoons themselves appear as they did in your favorite newspaper, with the big Sunday ones printed in bright color!

This book is great, a must-have addition to the library of any Scott Adams fan. And, the finger-puppets make it that much better. This is perhaps the best Dilbert book of them all - buy it!

Monkey: Evolution favors monkeys. Eventually humans will be kept in cages as pets...
Dilbert: Impossible! We humans will never allow ourselves to be treated like that! Now, get out of my cubicle!

Dilbert, the mainstay of office-life critical witticisms, is the concept of Scott Adams, who quit his job to write the column, using it primarily to exorcise the demons that haunted him (and, indeed, seem to haunt all in small-to-large corporate America) during his tenure as a mid-level office worker.

In his introduction, he says: 'I was doing some thinking today. But I didn't enjoy it very much, so I decided to write this introduction instead....'

Who can argue with this? This, perhaps in a brief statement, summarises much of the underlying philosophy of the corporate culture Adams presents in his Dilbert column. It certainly epitomises the prevailing attitude of the boss and management structure. And of course, being in charge of his own column, Adams has graduated (or, perhaps sunk) to the level of management.

This book consists of a generous sampling of Sunday columns (complete with colour -- OOOH! AAAH!) -- colour of course being a Dilbert-ian device to disguise the lack of information. Yet, the information here is timely and timeless (insofar as anything about corporate culture can be timeless).

Dogbert's entry into and rising through the hierarchy is a good case in point, where LOUD equals results. After securing a corner office with a window by being LOUD, a task force ripe for empire-building within the company, the budgetary control of his boss, he is invited, at the end of his first week on the job, to meet with the president of the company.

President: You've made quite a name for yourself in the week you've worked here.
Dogbert: It was easy to grab power, once I realised that other executives were just imbeciles with good hair.
President: I hope you don't think that of me.
Dogbert: No, that looks like a toupee from here...

Onward and upward...

Finally Dogbert becomes president, exercises stock options after a disastrous but stock-market-friendly series of initiative plans (of course, they only have to be plans for the stock market to react), and retires to devote himself to philanthropy, which is 'mostly about watching people beg, and having buildings named after me.'

We are introduced to Dilbert's co-workers, who are variously competent and stuck in their jobs, rejoicing the occasional tiny victories, or, more frequently, plotting grand schemes to gain the minor advantage (a few more inches of cubicle space, for instance). We are introduced to incompetent co-workers who get promotions and jobs in other firms with real offices and perks. We discover what kinds of women will date (and dump) Dilbert. Of course, that might have become a bit of a different problem had Dilbert's boss not been corrected in time...

Boss: My boss says we need some eunuchs programmers.
Dilbert: I think he means Unix, not eunuchs. And I already know Unix.
Boss: If the company nurse drops by, tell her I said "Never mind."

Dilbert does sometimes win after all.

I purchased this book in the fall of 2004 for someone I loved who lost his dad at age 7. He would NOT read it. However, I bought a 2nd copy, and I read it, and reread it, and found that the book was for ME as well. Our parental losses were our connecting points. He lost his dad through death. I lost my dad through alcoholism. While I struggled with this loss, and its affiliative repercussions in my first marriage and in all of my life, until I surrendered to a lifelong process of healing and interpersonal growth, I had not grown beyond the loss. This book did indeed prepare me for my father's real death 6 months later. It was like a cushion and I knew that I had already lost someone I could not fully regain even though he was alive when I read the book. Fortunately, my work in therapy helped me to love, forgive, appreciate,and to let go while my father was living. Having someone die to you who is living and breathing is also a loss that goes on forever. The book needs to be read in small bites....and sessions, and will definitely help you heal. Whether one can remember or not, not having a parent be fully present either/or/and emotionally OR physically is a huge loss to anyone in life, and particularly before we mature and marry and become parents ourselves. There is a huge hole is in our lives that affects ALL of our relationships and requires gentleness and loving support to heal. This book helped me to understand my friend, and his fears of intimacy and closeness and how differently each person responds to the losses, and what decisions one makes about being close in adult relationships. Maxine Harris has done an excellent job of grasping the extent of this loss and put it into print in words everyone can understand. It is NOT a technical therapy book. The only hard parts are reading, understanding, realizing the loss, and processing through. Good material for use with a therapist or on your own. If you have NOT done a great deal of therapy, you might join a grief support group while reading this book. Many times individuals think that a loss has to be immediate to join. This is NOT so. You will find the support and group dynamics nurturing. This book nurtured me, and I hope it nurtures you. Be gentle with yourself and the book. It took me a couple of weeks to go through it each time. A powerful help book! Judy Laughton Lilley, M.A. Counseling and Professional Psychology

I was one of the people initially interviewed for the book when it was being written. After the book was published I was so deeply affected by the overall effect of all the lives that Ms. Harris had so beautifully interwoven. For the first time in my life I no longer felt so alone having been a child who lost a parent at an early age. I think this is must reading for anyone of any age who has gone through this experience or knows others who have had this experience.

This book is a must read for anyone who has lost a parent in their childhood. I was talking about it today at my book club meeting where four out of seven us lost a parent at a young age. We all agreed with a lot of what was written in this book. Three of us had tears in our eyes as we described our experiences. We all had tears rolling down our cheeks when one of us told about going to elementary school and the other kids could have their mothers be the room mother and how she didn't have a mother to do this. This woman is in her 40s. Realistic look at those of us who were so unforunate to lose a parent and how it defined our lives.

My 45 year old husband died suddenly of a heart attack. He was a very thin, active person who never smoked and had NO family history of heart disease. Besides dealing with my loss I was distraught at this staggering blow to our three children, 18, 15, and 10. This book gave me hope that our children could go on to live whole and happy lives in spite of this loss. Eight years later, our children have, for the most part, thrived. I recommend this to anyone dealing with this tragedy in their lives.

This book was a life-saver for me some 10 years ago when my husband, at age 40, died from cancer. We had two children - ages 5-1/2 and 20 months at the time - and this book helped me empathize with their plight and grief at their daddy's death.
As hard as his death was for me personally, I understood after reading this book that the experience was at the time -- and would be in the future -- far harder for them. It let me shift focus away from myself and to something far more important -- helping guide their little hearts and minds into stable, secure and productive adulthoods.

I began reading this book and realized I wasn't ready for it yet. When I was, I picked it up and lost 30+ pounds. Chantel is right...dieting doesn't work - changing your life does. This book was the inspirtaion that I needed. Thanks!

We've all heard of numerous diets that claim that you can lose weight in a few weeks, but then we realize that we can easily gain the weight back after the diets are done. Keeping the weight off is half the battle of weight loss, and it can be frustrating to regain all the weight. Thankfully, Chantel Hobbs provides a wonderful solution to this problem with her "Never Say Diet" program. The program works efficiently because it does not make ridiculous demands from people and allows gradual, healthy weight loss and because it provides a way for people to keep the weight off.

I myself have experienced this weight loss, as I began to change my lifestyle on March 29. Since then, I have lost a little bit over 20 pounds, and I feel much better and much less tired. Before I started to eat right, I ate two dinners almost daily and probably ate more than 3000 calories daily; I also did not exercise. I had been completely ignorant of how much I was eating a day until Chantel helped me realize and learn how much I should eat after she taught me to restrict my daily caloric intake to 1500 calories a day. Along with exercise, this has helped me greatly lose over 20 pounds and about 3-4% body fat.

Chantel's book will inspire you. If her responses to excuses for not dieting aren't enough, her story and her experiences are sure to move you. They are so poignant that they helped me realize that I was completely capable of losing weight all along. I had always blamed my failures of weight loss on a "bad" metabolism until I lost 20 pounds due to the program. I did have some nadirs in my determination, but Chantel quickly addressed those times by saying that one must remind himself/herself how miserable he/she was when he/she was fat. Chantel constantly stresses that we are not on a diet, as the title explicitly states. She provides the inspiration to help people achieve goals that they probably did not think were possible before, and she helps people on the way to a healthier life.

Chantel Hobbs has accomplished an superb feat - she's reduced her body weight by 200 pounds. That is like TWO of me!!! Her suggestions are healthy, doable and easy to comprehend. I feel a sense of balance in her writing.

She has received criticism for having supplemental cosmetic surgery (breast lift). While my weight loss experience didn't require any additional corrections, I can empathize with anyone who finds they need additional assistance and support (no pun). After releasing 200 pounds, skin sagging alone can require surgery.

I enjoyed reading about her fitness journey. Upon finishing the book, I was left with a feeling of motivation, enthusiasm and gratitude.

I saw Chantel on the Today show and thought she seemed really down to earth. I bought the book from Amazon and literally could not put it down! I laughed and cried as I read through her experiences.....so similar to mine! It was really like she was there cheering me on to do the workouts. I have started the phase one portion and feel absoutely fantastic. I would reccomend this book to anyone wanting inspiration to get started on a health and fitness routine - she doesn't offer any off the wall advice - just practical and doable stuff - you will be so glad you read it!

This was a very good book. Chantel does a great job getting the message across in a very simple yet powerful way. I love the fact that she is not another "guru" out there pretending that if you just had more will power you could lose the weight. She is a real person with very real struggles that all of us can relate to. She really helps you "get it". You can finally make the necessary changes to lose the weight for good. READ THIS BOOK!!!!!! It has made a huge impact in my life and I know it will do the same for you!

This dvd has a handful of moves that are done repetively. It really bored me. I'm used to intermediate workouts from the Firm and Prevention. While its very easy to follow, I think you can easily get bored.

She is awesome! the best thing out there! Tracey is fun, nice, and full of the best energy! She motivates you to become more healthy and fit! I recommend this book and her videos to EVERYONE!!! She is just plain AWESOME!!!!

I followed the Sexy in 6 program after the birth of my second child and saw results. The eat plan is sensible and not too hard to figure out, but my favorite part is the DVD. Along with the book I got the Sexy in 6 blue DVD. That has been great. It is easy to do and Tracey keeps it fun. Before I had kids I was much better at going to the gym, but not it is a lot easier to workout with the DVD at home. I would recommend this book.

it was high voltage and moving.

give it a try.


it was reasonably priced.

motivation enough.

give it a try!!

Sexy in 6: Sculpt Your Body with the 6 Minute Quick-Blast Workout

This book makes it easy for a busy mom to get fit at home, without having to join a gym or buy expensive equipment.

The DVD is fantastic too - what a great idea to include it in a book about exercise. I found the personal stories of other women who were on Tracey's program extremely motivating as well.

In all, this is the best book I've read about women and fitness. It's a simple and easy to follow guide that will give you results quickly. And it can be worked into the busiest mom's schedule!

More of a reference book than anything, this is a must have for fixed wing air crew veterans of the Viet Nam era. The alphabetical listing of personnel involved directs you to the proper date to read about the incident. I found a few of what I know personally to be small errors but this book has made it possible for me to get in touch with guys whom I thought were lost. I also particularly like the breakdown of losses by aircraft model, squadron, aircraft carrier etc.

This is an excellent book. The only ommissions I can see are the losses experienced by the RAVEN FACs in Laos

Excellent source book. I spent hours reading one excerpt after another. Consists of a short excerpt describing in the briefest possible manner each incident. There are longer sections that describe aech aircrafts history in VN. The print is small and my eyes aren't what they use to be but I found the book fasinating. This one is a keeper.

The book provides chronological capsule summaries of aircraft shot down or involved in accidents in SEA. Excellent concise reference source for anyone begining research on the various units involved. Took me awhile but I located the web pages from which the author obtained his information.

As history researcher for both 12th TFW and 35th TFW, the book is a welcome edition to my library of 4,000 books.
Norman Malayney

Growing up as an Air Force brat during The Viet Nam War, I found this to be a very interesting and historical book. I was able to learn what happened to some of my friend's fathers who were shot down, KIA or captured. My dad flew combat and I thank God that he made it home safe!
This was a very emotional book for me. God Bless all of our military men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice to serve our country, both past and present!

Dog lovers will enjoy this book, and will also enjoy "August Magic" and "Heart of the Savannah" by Veronica Anne Starbuck. These two must-reads will be treasured additions to your canine library!

I know Dr. Villalobos from working at the animal clinic in Hermosa Beach, CA, and she does a wonderful job of capturing the bond between pets and their owners in this book. She is such a hardworker and her love for animals is apparent through her work in the oncology field.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has lost a beloved pet, or as a gift to someone who has. If you want to show you care without saying a word, give this book. In the privacy of their grief they will read this book and know that you understand what they are going through. Even more, they will know that many many people have come before us who have gone through the same hell.

i have just bought a second copy to send to a friend who needs to say farewell to her beloved jack russell for awhile. the poems are beautiful...i especially love "the house dog's grave", which just might be my favorite poem of all time.

i use this book frequently to quote passages for friends who have lost their dogs...and i cannot read it without crying. it's very comforting to know that people have felt the same way about their dogs over many years......beautiful, beautiful!

There comes a time in every dog owner's life when you look down at the furball by your feet and come to the realization that this is no longer just your pet; this is your friend. Dogs surpass human beings in just about everything: from sense of smell to hearing, from loyalty to love. A dog's capacity to love is something profound; they want nothing more than to be accepted, to please you and to be loved in return. "Angel Pawprints" showcases some beautiful poems about this love which dogs have for centuries offered and received. Laurel E. Hunt edited some great pieces, including works by such famous poets as Rudyard Kipling and William Wordsworth. (My personal favorite is "So Long, Pal" by Ethel Blumann.)

One does not by any means have to have lost a canine companion to enjoy the works presented in this book. If you have ever loved a dog so selflessly, unconditionally, and faithfully, then all of these pet memorials will speak to you, even if you cannot comprehend the depth of the poets' pain. If you have lost a good friend in the past, this book could possibly be a fine method of therapy to help you feel better about everything. (It helped me when my friend of 12 years died.) "Angel Pawprints: Reflections on Loving and Losing a Canine Companion" is, in a nutshell, just a really great way of honoring your dog's memory and love. It may cause some tears but it'll get you through.

Folks, Dr. Stillman died of heart disease in the 1970s. He's been gone a while. However, this diet is still hands-down the best thing out there to drop the weight. I use Stillman intermittently with a carb-up carb-down approach to match my activity level, and I've been maintaining for 5 years. (In that time, I've run 9 marathons and done 5 triathlons.) My blood work is always excellent, and my doctor always says, "keep up the great work."

I'm currently training for a 50-mile race, so I'm carbier than usual these days, but I see runners all the time who have guts, paunches, and excess body fat. It's inevitable as you get older even if you exercise a lot. I credit the Stillman plan with keeping me lean all these years. I've got nice ab definition and great muscularity.

Couldn't have done it without Stillman as my baseline plan.

Please reprint this wonderful book so that everyone can get a copy. I know that low carbing is "out" these days, but only a month on this program will show such great results in your body and energy level. It's basically a pure protien diet, with little to no fat or carbs, so you can imagine how blah the food choices are (eggs and lean meats). Also, I do think that this should be a short term program, followed no more than one month (all that protien is hard on the kidneys!). I had about 40 pounds to lose and lost 28 in one month. During that month I researched what healthy eating entails so that I could keep losing and not gain anything back. That worked fine for me. Will power is needed, the food choices are silm ang get old quick, but the fast track to health with ease makes it worth it. Please reprint this book so that every dieter can enjoy it!!

This is the most motivating and postive experance I've ever had with a diet. Lost 30 lbs in 8 weeks. In fact evertime you go to a scale, you find you have lost another one or two pounds! I love turkey breast, and cottage cheese, and I could drown in it, and still lose! The water is not so hard to drink. you just keep a water bottle with you, and take sips throughout the day. The only negative I had was my clothes started smothering me, and I had to buy new ones! This is the easiest diet, if you have alot of weight to get off. Anyone can do it!

If you are TRUELY motivated and serious about losing weight,(and quickly to boot!),then this is the diet to do!I lost almost 30 lbs in a month..that's just insane!

The Stillman's diet is very easy to follow...low carbs,low fats like eggs,tuna,chicken,fish,spices,and tons of water!YES,the diet is severe and at first hard to follow..but after a few days,your hunger is gone COMPLETELY and you have to FORCE yourself to eat!

I agree with the other reviewers that there's a reason why people are still doing this diet after all these years...because it's the best and it works!

I started out at about 180 lbs, and I lost about 45 lbs very quickly, in about 4 wks. back in 2003. Not only does this diet help you to loose weight, it literally melts the fat off your body! it's amazing! I actually got the book at my local library so check your local library to see if they might carry it.

This book is about living your best life NOW. It encourages self love, and if you are the type of person that always does nice things for everyone else and not for yourself, this book explains how you can (and should) treat yourself as well as you treat others. If you can send flowers to a friend for her birthday, there is no reason why you can't send yourself flowers as well to celebrate your special day. Stop waiting for that special time to use the good china and use it NOW. Stop waiting until you lose the weight in order to get pampered at the spa---DO IT NOW!!! Live in the NOW, because if you don't, your whole life will have passed you by while you were sitting there waiting for it to start.

I saw Victoria speak at Vegetarian Summerfest 2007. I knew I needed to get one of her books. This was a quick read with tons of useful information. You can tell Victoria has professional and personal experience with being fat, broke and lonely. I recommend this to all my clients.

I originally bought this book for a friend as a joke because she was, as the title describes, fat, broke, and lonely. But since her birthday was 2 weeks away I thought I would "browse" through it. Well, I ended up reading it, and loving it. Then went out and bought myself another one of Victoria's books, Younger By The Day. It is equally inspiring. I highly recommend her work!

Victoria Moran certainly has a way with her writing style, injecting humor and an understanding of her subject matter into the book. However, there wasn't much 'new' information in her book.

I did like how she presented the information in her book so it was a good read, but as far as picking up any new insights, well, there really weren't any.

Get ready to make a positive change in your life when you read this practical book. I was moved by Victoria's witty observations of life and her findings about what makes us fat, broke and lonely. No, it's not the food we eat, although that is important for good health. It's not willpower, although you can use what little you have of that commodity to make small changes each day. It's not having tons of money, although money can be used to appreciate who you are right now. It's the attitude we have about our life and our body that either makes or breaks us. Comparing ourselves to others and trying to measure up usually serves to make us aware that we are inferior or short of our ideal; and that only makes us feel worse.

There is a way to break the cycle with the trio of fat, broke & lonely and embrace a new outlook on life that brings you joy and fulfillment in every area. Moran tells us exactly how to do it and she is the expert. She's been there, done that, and got the tee shirt (or book in this case) to prove it.

This book is not your run-of-the-mill self-help book. This book is your friend helping you discover that YOU are your OWN best friend. This book can make a difference in the way you look and feel about yourself! In it, you will discover why it's important to treat every moment of your life as if it were art. You will also learn how to see the whole canvas.

Hear an interview I conducted with Victoria Moran about this book on Writers in the Sky podcast at [...]

This is a re-order. I've been using this wonderful book as a gift to friends who have lost loved ones for some time and it is always appreciated. I work at Lighthouse Hospice, Inc. and we are currently reviewing The Gift of a Memory to be used as a gift for the families going through the grief process.

This is a great book for those who have lost a loved one. I have given many of these to friends.

This is a beautifully illustrated book with a comforting message. I have given it often when someone has lost a loved one and it is always appreciated. Recommend it highly.

For anyone who has lost a loved one this book will be a lasting treasure to help with the grief. It brings help for the sorrowful heart and reassurance for the tearful soul.

I have given this book to several people, after having received it after my sister passed away. It is so comforting and the pictures are just beautiful. I can't say enough about this book. Everyone I have given it to has truly loved every page.