Review Detail

From Bagels to Buddha is an unconventional dieting book, one that helps you discover what’s eating you, rather than what you’re eating. Judi Hollis made repeated attempts to curb her compulsive eating habit by following various diet plans. When she continued to gain the weight back—and then some—she realized that what she hungered to stuff herself with wasn’t food at all, but something of a higher nature. Dr. Hollis, a family therapist who opened the nation’s first eating disorders unit, shares her “personal surrender process” to “en-lighten-ment” which led her from a Buddhist monastery to detox centers to sweat lodges and Peruvian mountaintops. “Obesity is a spiritual crisis,” she writes, and adds that you don’t have to travel to faraway places to experience your own personal journey to a lighter self. To successfully lose her weight, Hollis needed to let go of negative personality traits and become more Buddha-like while learning to lean into the longing for food. Here is a compassionate, humorous, beautifully written account of one woman’s path to permanent weight loss through a spiritual life.