Millions of dollars are spent each year on weight-loss products, mostly the result of futile attempts to correct an underlying and misunderstood problem: food addiction. Since beginning her own recovery from food addiction in 1977, Sheppard has helped thousands of people live healthy lives by following her comprehensive program. The crux the program’s success is the Recovery Food Plan, which effectively eliminates cravings for sugar, carbohydrates, caffeine and personal trigger foods, which not only add unwanted pounds, they literally wreak havoc in the body. Food Addiction: Healing Day by Day appropriately begins on January 1, a time when most people are looking to shed unwanted holiday pounds and begin a healthier lifestyle. Each daily entry includes an affirmation for readers to focus on as well as a point of reflection, and offers an insightful message from Sheppard as someone who’s “been there”, helping them to: Overcome emotional barriers to recovery Avoid people who sabotage recovery efforts Recognize and prevent relapse Stay motivated, especially during challenging times At the end of each week, Sheppard poses thought-provoking questions to ensure that readers stay honest to the plan, keep their emotions in check, and avoid destructive behaviors. Sprinkled throughout are helpful “stress busters” and real-world tips to help readers achieve success.

Renowned therapist, eating disorder specialist and recovering food addict Kay Sheppard helps countless individuals win their battles over food addiction—people for whom diets, pills and purging have become a way of life. In 1993, her groundbreaking book, , explained the illness of food addiction from the physiological origins through recovery. Today, obesity is on the rise. In addition to the 300,000 overweight people in this country, millions more who may not look overweight are unable to control their eating. Sheppard’s follow-up book, From the First Biteoffers the latest medical insights into food addiction coupled with time-tested, practical advice. Unlike other books that are very dry in nature, this book includes compelling personal stories and do’s and don’ts from other recovering and relapsed food addicts, including the author herself, who began her own recovery in 1967. The book explains how to avoid the physiological and situational triggers that lead to relapse; how to confront the emotional issues behind food cravings; how to establish a balanced food plan that eliminates cravings; and how to avoid hidden dangers in cleverly packaged foods. The book also includes a handy Twelve-Step workbook. Just as Sheppard’s first book broke new ground, her latest work offers a critical first step for food addicts on the road to physical, emotional and spiritual recovery.

Are you a food addict? Do you gain more weight than you lose after every diet? Can one cookie destroy all your good intentions? Do you eat when you are disappointed, tense or anxious? Since its publication, Food Addiction has become a primary resource for food addicts and compulsive eaters. Now it is updated and presented in a revised and expanded edition, with a new chapter on relapse. For a food addict, relapse is an ever present danger which begins in the mind before reaching for that cupcake or other trigger food. Here food addiction is defined, trigger foods are identified and consequences of food addiction are revealed. A lifetime eating plan demonstrating how to stick with a healthful food plan for the long term is also provided. "For some people, foods can be as addictive as alcohol," Kay Sheppard explains. "Gummy bears and marshmallow chicks can be vicious killers whose effects can lead to depression, irritability and even suicide. The terrible truth is that for certain individuals, refined carbohydrates can trigger the addictive process. This book is an effort to help you understand and solve the problems of compulsive eating."

Obesity and eating disorders have stubbornly refused to respond to treatment since the 1990’s. This book organizes the evidence for a possible answer, i.e., that the problem could be one of addiction to processed foods. In a Processed Food Addiction (PFA) model, concepts of abstinence, cue-avoidance, acceptance of lapses, and consequences all play a role in long-term recovery. Application of these concepts could provide new tools to health professionals and significantly improve outcomes. This book describes PFA recovery concepts in detail. The material bridges the research into practical steps that health professionals can employ in their practices. It contains an evidence-based chapter on concepts of abstinence from processed foods. It rigorously describes PFA pathology according to the DSM 5 Addiction Diagnostic Criteria. It applies the Addiction Severity Index to PFA so that health practitioners can orient themselves to diagnosing and assessing PFA. It contains ground-breaking insight into how to approach PFA in children. Because the book is evidence-based, practitioners can gain the confidence to put the controversy about food addiction to rest. Practitioners can begin to identify and effectively help their clients who are addicted to processed foods. This is a breakthrough volume in a field that could benefit from new approaches.

Featuring an honest account of the author's own struggles with food, "Anatomy of a Food Addiction" helps readers understand binge eating and plan a recovery through exercises, self-tests, and an examination of family issues. Illustrations.

For nearly fifty years, Sara Somers suffered from untreated food addiction. In this brutally honest and intimate memoir, Somers offers readers an inside view of a food addict’s mind, showcasing her experiences of obsessive cravings, compulsivity, and powerlessness regarding food. Saving Sara chronicles Somers’s addiction from childhood to adulthood, beginning with abnormal eating as a nine-year-old. As her addiction progresses in young adulthood, she becomes isolated, masking her shame and self-hatred with drugs and alcohol. Time and again, she rationalizes why this time will be different, only to have her physical cravings lead to ever-worse binges, to see her promises of doing things differently next time broken, and to experience the amnesia that she—like every addict—experiences when her obsession sets in again. Even after Somers is introduced to the solution that will eventually end up saving her, the strength of her addiction won’t allow her to accept her disease. Twenty-six more years pass until she finally crawls on hands and knees back to that solution, and learns to live life on life’s terms. A raw account of Somers’s decades-long journey, Saving Sara underscores the challenges faced by food addicts of any age—and the hope that exists for them all.

Whether over weight, a normal weight, alarmingly thin, bulimic, or a compulsive exerciser, you have spent most of your life battling your weight, yet you cannot control your eating. Your obsession with food tortures you. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous is for those who wonder if they might be food addicts as well as those who have never thought of addiction in relationship to eating. The book describes the illness of food addiction and highlights the personal stories of 30 FA members and the journey of long-term recovery offered by Food Addicts in Recovery (FA).