Brain over Binge

It worked for me

Any additional comments?

I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars. It is very detailed, clearly explains every concept, and gives a totally different approach to dealing with bulimia or BED. I also appreciated the author's personal story. There was much that I easily related to.

I was a binge eater for about 40 years. I quit binge eating before I finished the book. My whole attitude toward food has changed. I did not expect that, and I am so grateful to have found this book.

37 of 38 people found this review helpful

If I hadn't listened to this book myself!

if i hadn't listened to this book myself, I wouldn't have believed it! I am a 51 year old male. I've been to over eaters anonymous, been to 3 different nutritionists, a psychologist, a clinical weight loss program, have been a member of several gyms in an effort to lose weight and was even prescribed phentermine at one time. I have been struggling with binge eating and sugar cravings and have damaged my body for years from binging on sugar. I have never been able to control my sugar cravings and have been addicted to sugar since childhood. This book in 3 DAYS !!!!! CHANGED MY LIFE !!!! Like I said. I know it sounds unbelievable . My struggle is over! Besides a little bit of sadness from thinking about how my life could have possibly been so much better had I known this information years ago, I couldn't be happier. Thank You so much Kathryn Hansen. Words cannot express my gratitude. p.s. My better half has also used this information to quit smoking. I urged her to replace "urge to binge" with "urge to smoke". Her first 3 days for were quite difficult but After 22 years as a smoker she is completely Smoke free.

33 of 35 people found this review helpful

Please re-record this book!

I think it's a good book. It's the author's personal account of how she uses Rational Recovery methods to end her bingeing. It's inspired me to find some other books that are helping me a lot. Honestly, though...I couldn't finish listening!! The narrator's sinus issues, her drone-like reading, and the choppy editing are all terrible. The narration doesn't do the content justice. I'll look for a copy at Half-Priced Books and finish what I couldn't stand to listen to any longer. Re-record this book!

41 of 44 people found this review helpful

The most helpful book so far

Any additional comments?

If you want to get to the real process, skip to chapter 10. This is a very helpful book.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Powerful ideas based on personal experience

This book contains story of the author's struggle and recovery followed by the detailed analysis rooted in neuroscience.

Ideas presented in this book are easily generalizable to other eating disorders and bad eating habits. I personally don't have bulimia. What I have is a bad eating habit which I was not able to stop in many years. It does not cause me any emotional suffering, but does cause my weight to hover 25 lbs above of what I believe it should be and what it was before I developed this bad habit.

The core message of this book is that your cravings are not you. Cravings originate in your animal brain and your human brain is capable of simply observing these thoughts without acting on them. Such dissociation makes the cravings to lose their power and over time cures the addiction.

I liked the narration of this book. It turns out that the book was narrated by a person who suffered from bulimia and cured after reading the book.

Overall I enjoyed listening to this book, learned the science behind the food addiction and one powerful technique for stopping it.

26 of 29 people found this review helpful

Great-life changing content - terrible narrator!

This book changed my life and my view of my eating disorder. The content is great but the narrator is awful! It’s almost robotic and hard to listen to, sometimes it nearly puts me to sleep. It’s choppy and doesn’t flow.

10 of 11 people found this review helpful

Please Edit and Re-record!

This subject fascinates me, and the author has some good ideas, but her writing is sub-par and this narration is the worst I have ever heard.

Several times throughout the book, the narration skips. The narrator mispronounces several words, sounds robotic and uninterested. It took me, no kidding, a week to finish the last hour.

If I took a drink each time the author wrote:

-urge to purge
-urge to binge
-however
-therefore, and
-moreover...I'd have been dead by chapter 3.

PLEASE edit, and then edit again.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Life changing

One of the best books I’ve ever read in my entire life. Completely life changing. I’m grateful to the author for being brave & telling her story. She changed my life forever. I 100% recommend this book.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Revolutionary perspective on ED behaviors

Kathryn Hansen has done something that many therapists have failed to acknowledge in my life for years: sometimes it really is about the food. She takes more of a biological approach to understanding the causes of binge/purge behavior and explores some mindfulness-based practices to overcome these patterns. This book is all about reclaiming our own higher brains power to make choices for health instead of getting stuck in the loop of addictive behavior. I found the material presented extremely helpful and inspirational all though certainly not a cure-all. But that is also partly Kathryn's point - you don't have to fix your life in order to stop acting out on ED behaviors. Thank you Kathryn for sharing your journey into and out of your lower brain <3 Note: The audio version has some editing errors and glitches here and there but did not keep me from enjoying the content.

8 of 9 people found this review helpful

Too long, Poor Editing

I like the simple message she was delivering and how it's a different perspective on binge recovery. There is a lot of research out there regarding 'retraining your brain', emphasizing breaking conditioned neural pathways and forming new ones, and knowing that I was able to really connect with her message.

However, this book was TOO long. Her extensive description of her history and specific details of life events could've been shortened exponentially, and many times felt repetitive or unnecessary. There was also poor editing done as I'm pretty sure the phrase "urges to binge" was used at least 1000+ times, qualifying it as a new drinking game as whenever you hear it spoken.

The quality of the audiobook is also subpar. No excitement in the reader, so it sounds like a monotone robot throughout the entire book. Not to mention, starting in Part 2, they didn't take mistakes out so you hear her repeating the beginning of the sentence over and over, plus some static, etc.

Overall, maybe I would recommend if someone was desperate enough or I thought would connect to the long message, but it's an amateur book at best.

11 of 13 people found this review helpful