'Confessions of a Carb Queen' book review - part two

February 18, 10:42 AMNutrition ExaminerCarol Bardelli

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Susan Blech, author of 'Confessions of a Carb Queen'

I’m not going to give you, dear reader, excerpts from this incredible book, 'Confessions of a Carb Queen - The lies we tell others, the lies we tell ourselves' by Susan Blech and Caroline Bock, mostly because I don’t want to ruin the experience for you if you decide to read the book.

At a more than reasonable cost of $10.85 at Amazon, if you’re at all interested in the emotional and psychological reasons why someone can become morbidly obese (468 pounds) while thinking she’s “just a little chubby” this book is a must read. Denial was a large theme throughout this book. If you're looking to lose more than a few pounds perhaps this book will speak to you, and perhaps inspire you to change your diet and lifestyle.

Although a very personal memoir, with a vivid inside view to one woman’s experience, this book will certainly ring true for a majority of people who struggle with obesity, binge eating, and dealing with emotions by burying them with food and denial.

Denial, miscalculated portions and calories, are rampant problems today among dieters and non-dieters alike. Overeating is epidemic. Dietetic studies done with doubly labeled water, which measures exact caloric intake and calorie burn, show nearly all subjects underestimate their caloric intake by as much as 50 percent. (See Leigh Peele's demonstration video on how small miscalculations in portion size can cost you big).

One curious twist to this book is the title itself. Although Ms. Blech gained her weight binging on fast foods laden with carbohydrates, her foods of choice were also rife with fats, sugar (a refined carbohydrate), and just plain high in calories. And how does she lose over 250 pounds? Ironically, she did it by spending 2 ½ years in Durham, NC on the high carbohydrate and very low protein Duke Rice Diet. She maintains her weight with staples like rice, pasta, vegetables, and fruit. So, technically she is still a carb queen, just a much smaller one.

Susan Bleck before.

I know most of many readers are low carbohydrate people. But I’d suggest you keep an open mind when it comes to successful weight loss maintained long term no matter what the program. One message Ms. Blech’s book conveys is the inescapable fact that the roots of over-eating and obesity are emotional. The key to sustained weight loss is less about what diet you use and more about dealing with the underlying causes of why you got fat in the first place.

Early on in this book, you learn of Ms. Blech’s less than perfect childhood (like many of us have experienced). Her mother suffered a stroke in her early forties and has spent the rest of her life in nursing facilities and hospitals. Her father raised four children on his own and Susan felt how thin he was stretched. Living in “the house without a mother” was the defining difficulty that sent Ms. Blech on a lifetime of emotional turmoil, low self esteem, bingeing, and weight gain.

This memoir is so detailed and descriptive that many passages make you cry, laugh, gasp, or go back to reread them. Ms. Blech and her sister / co-author are gifted writers. Ultimately, Ms. Blech gains control of her bingeing and her emotions. She losses an incredible amount of weight and finds her “grown up” self. One defining moment in her struggle comes after 35, while she’s been at Duke a considerable time. When her father visits and fails to say “I’m proud of you” or do or act as she wants, she binges, gains 40 pounds in a week, cries, and eats more. Her doctor’s gentle advice to “be proud of yourself” resonates to her as “Grow Up.”

And she begins to see her childhood in a new perspective. She lets go of the hurt child she was and begins taking care of the adult she is becoming. Susan Blech is a woman of great courage and naked honesty. She should be considered a genuine heroine in the war on obesity. If this book doesn’t surprise, shock, and inspire you, make you laugh and cry, and hold you spellbound, you need to take a cue from the Tin Man.