A Book Review by: Cynthia Myers-Morrison
Look for more blogs and newsletter articles from Cynthia Myers-Morrison to address Food Addiction and food-related issues for families and children.
An instant NY Times bestseller, Enough incorporates Oprah Winfrey’s private and public experience with food issues and Dr. Ania Jastreboff’s extensive background in clinical treatment of obesity. Jastreboff describes how to incorporate GLP1s, GIPs, and other drug combinations with lifestyle changes. She includes food, sleep, stress relief, and movement while deprescribing medications no longer needed. This is a page-turner if one wants to attain freedom from food noise and weighty challenges.
Enough dives deeply into body-fat set points and how to change them. What the authors call the “Enough Point” considers the brain, appetite, energy burning, hormones (GLP1, GIP, leptin, PYY, amylin, and glucagon), and fat mass. Included is an environment that promotes obesity with sleep deficits, time/circadian rhythm imbalances, the “food” and beverage resources, inadequate movement, and screens. Weight changes and being free from food noise give hope when prescribers work closely with their clients to moderate the negatives and emphasize the positives of drug treatment with lifestyle changes.
Client and doctor collaboration with other health professionals and support may be the future of obesity treatment. This book focuses on obesity. It does not specifically address Food Addiction; however, the lifestyle changes incorporated are often used by those who identify as Food Addicts to attain peace and freedom from the noise of cravings.
Set points were frequently discussed decades ago, but are identified here within the context of brain chemistry and research on obesity recidivism. Oprah’s shares touch hearts about her public displays of discarding excess weight (the wagon) and then finding cravings that dragged her back to the same weight or higher.
Chapter topics I loved included:
“Enough Shame and Blame /Obesity Is a Disease, Not a Choice”.
No more shame, self-blame, or accepting others’ judgments.
“Chasing Enough”
My genealogy goes back to people who experienced famines. Epigenetic changes were assets then, but today, holding onto calories to survive no longer serves in this Ultra-Processed Substance marketplace. Jastreboff explained to a client, “Our bodies are doing exactly what they were designed to do. Humans evolved to survive scarcity: bodies built to store energy, brains wired to seek calorie-dense food, muscles designed for constant movement.” That movement piece I need to remember!
“How Your Brain Defends Your Body Fat”
I always intuitively felt this was happening, but now I KNOW, and how.
“Food Noise”
I no longer have it because I eat no grain or sugar, a gift of lifestyle change. For others, the meds and lifestyle changes have done this.
“Rainbow Pills to Gila Monsters”
Rainbow diet pills in the 1960s are part of my lived experience. The Gila Monsters and their role: fascinating!
“No More New Year’s Resolutions /Treating Obesity to Optimize Health”
What a concept! Health is a worthy cause and a big WHY.
“Freedom/‘It’s Just as Easy to Lose Weight as It Ever Was to Gain Weight’”
I only wish my sister, who died of diseases resulting from obesity, could be alive to experience this revolution.
“Let’s Get Real/Side Effects of the Medications” delineates what does not “work” and how to avoid or minimize it with lifestyle changes and close collaboration with a skilled professional.
“You Are Enough/Hope, Health, and the Future of Obesity Treatment”
This is my favorite, as I have taken a decades-long circuitous road to feel closer to Enough. I am hopeful this book and Dr. Georgia Ede’s “Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind” will actually change the world for those experiencing obesity and other food-related disorders.
Lifestyle changes are essential, and some who believe they have eating disorders (ED) and need only psychological changes may benefit from a change in perspective. If underlying Food Addiction is the missing link in treatment for those experiencing ED with treatment-resistant experiences, Oprah Winfrey and Ania M. Jastreboff, M.D., Ph.D. (and Dr. Georgia Ede) may be opening new vistas.
Kudos to Oprah and Dr. Jastreboff for increasing the wealth of information about not only the drugs but how to use them with lifestyle changes that support health in addition to weight loss.