THE ONE DAY WAY by Chantel Hobbs

"I've tried every diet known to man and nothing works!" "I have a hormone problem." "I don't eat all that much, I don't understand why I'm so fat." "I have no willpower." Any of those excuses sound familiar?

It seems that as the calendar pages turn to January 1st our minds turn to losing weight, exercising more and making changes in our lives. Most of the time, according to Chantel Hobbs, we sabotage ourselves before we ever begin day 1 of a "diet." I don't know about you, but the word diet has such a negative connotation. The word diet alone seems to scream, "you're not going to get to eat anything you love!" As one of my good friends says, "Where's the fun in that?"

I will admit, I am very overweight and my weight directly led to my having cancer last year. When women are overweight after menopause their bodies still produce estrogen. Fat produces estrogen. When you're menopausal there's no progesterone to "oppose" the estrogen and so you have what is termed "unopposed estrogen". Now, in women that can cause three things to happen, uterine cancer (which is what I had), breast cancer, or heart attacks. I'm giving you this little medical lesson because I wish someone had given it to me a few years ago. It would have changed the way I looked at my weight in a big way, because I can tell you from personal experience that cancer is not fun.

When I opened the envelope with THE ONE DAY WAY inside my first reaction was, "oh great, another self-help, pie-in-the-sky diet book." But, I tried to be open-minded and fair as I started reading. Now, I don't know about you, but when I read a book I read ALL of the book. from flyleaf to flyleaf. Including the kudos, forewards, introductions and dedications. Sometimes there is important things in those sections. If I hadn't I would have missed a very important testimonial from Mike Huckabee that changed my attitude on this book immediately.

As I turned the opening pages and began getting into the meat of thebook, the old adage, "how do you eat a bear?" came to mind. The answer is, of course, "one bite at a time." This is Chantal Hobbs' answer to losing weight! It's not the end goal, it's only looking at today. Not next week, not 100 pound weight loss but small victories, small changes. It's the small changes that add up to the end result somewhere, sometime, someplace...none of which are important today. For today it might be passing up that second cookie, or choosing not to eat a bag of chips with that sub sandwich. It might be choosing a piece of fruit instead of an banana split. It might be taking a walk around the block instead of sitting on the couch watching reruns. Small steps add up to large rewards. The author guides the reader into finding alternatives for the stressful lifestyle of dieting and shows you instead how to break your long-term goals into bite-sized pieces.

If you've ever tried a diet and failed I can say this book will be a life-changing revelation. THE ONE DAY WAY is available from Waterbrook Press, a division of Random House publishing and is available at your local bookseller.

BONUS~~ If you've made it this far~~~Waterbrook Press has sent me a 2nd copy to offer to those reading my blog. All you have to do to win is leave a comment and a way to contact you if you don't have a blog. I'll draw for a winner on Friday, January 15th and contact the winner.

This book was furnished for review by Waterbrook Press.