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Diary of an Exercise Addict

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Author: Peach Friedman
Publisher: GPP Life
Category: Book

List Price: ~~$21.95~~
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Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.6 x 1

ISBN: 0762748966
Dewey Decimal Number: 921
EAN: 9780762748969
ASIN: 0762748966

Publication Date: November 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Features:

•	ISBN13: 9780762748969
•	Condition: NEW
•	Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description

Friedman suffered from exercise bulimia—a compulsion to purge calories through excessive exercise, and a rapidly growing eating disorder that affects some 400,000 American women.

In Diary of an Exercise Addict Friedman recounts her descent into a life-threatening illness, her remarkable recovery, and the setbacks along the way. With refreshing candor she lays bare her relationships with family, friends, and lovers and the repressed desire that finally surfaced as she found her own way back to health.

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 24

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Save your money and your time February 3, 2010
RJP (Athens, GA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is one of the worst books on exercise bulimia that has ever been published. Part of the problem is that it is not really *about* exercise bulimia at all with no attention to defining the disorder or how the author dealt with it. The author comes across as self-absorbed, selfish in the extreme, and lacking any real insight to the world of eating disorders or exercise bulimia. Save your money and your time and read *anything* else.

2 out of 5 stars

Learned little about the disease, lots about this author's personal neurosis January 30, 2010
P. Lo (San Francisco, CA, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

At the risk of sounding cold, I have to say this author really took an opportunity for indulgently over-sharing her own neurosis without teaching much to the lay-person about the disease of exercise bulimia.

I read it quickly since the writing was smooth and personal enough to keep the page turning. By the end of it, I couldn't help but think...what an amazingly indulgent problem to have. To be financially taken care of and exorcise your personal existential angst in a wholly self-involved way. By the end of the book, she'd hired two dietitians, two therapists, one physician. All of this while walking out on her jobs--just walking out! I mean, who has the resources to do all this? I found the author to pampered, self-consumed and lacking perspective on the range of problems that other people throughout the world live with as their reality. She found a way to profit off her experience, but I don't think she did enough to delve into the depth of what this disease looks like from a macro-level.

I'm afraid this voice and style of writing does more to hurt than it does to help since the health insurance industry already sees eating disorders as purely mental illnesses undeserving of coverage for treatment.

5 out of 5 stars

A REAL and ALL-ENCOMPASSING Account of Eating Disorder Recovery. September 30, 2009
Lily (California)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

"Diary of an Exercise Addict" is a truly amazing book; though the dust jacket may look deceivingly like the writing could be "triggering" for those with an eating disorder (ED), Peach Friedman does an excellent job at giving the "bigger picture" of just how much an ED and/or exercise addiction destroys and encompasses every aspect of an individual's entire life (not just physical health, but relationships, friendships, motivation, potential, etc). I genuinely recommend this book to anyone who might think that they have an unbalanced relationship with their body image, food, exercise; I also think this candidly written memoir is eye-opening to anyone with a fully-diagnosable eating disorder who wants a genuine picture of what "recovery" really looks like and entails. In the epilogue, Friedman speaks more in-depth about how an ED and exercise addiction are manifested in our culture (and gives more "research" and "clinical knowledge," rather than her side of the story or her memories), as well as the rarely-admitted, difficult (yet possible) journey into a strong recovery.

There are many quotable words-of-wisdom throughout her memoir and epilogue, but there are two sections that really stood out to me (both in the section of the epilogue about finding balance in a world that encourages "black or white" thinking). Also, just to preface the following: Peach Friedman is now in strong recovery as a personal trainer to women and men of all walks of life, including patients at the highly-regarded Summit Outreach ED Programme in Sacramento, CA.

The first is:
"It is estimated that only 2% of women worldwide (worldwide!) describe themselves as beautiful. I'm on a mission to move these numbers UP."

Wow, just... wow- how maddening is that ridiculously low percentage? Looks like we all need some self-care, self-satisfaction, and self-love, no? The second section is something that I thought really applied to many women of all ages in our western culture, who have not yet found that "healthy balance" between food/health/exercise/body satisfaction:

"As soon as we track ourselves to fight our bodies, to fight our natural size and shape, like I did, we embark on a battle destined for failure. It is impossible to win when we fight who we are. We only run further from happiness, from health, and from freedom... It's worth mentioning that an exercise addiction does not affect only those who are underweight and spending hours every day in the gym. A person can have an unhealthy, addictive obsession with exercise while still working out in moderate, recommended amounts. Some individuals may maintain a healthy body weight while exhibiting the psychological symptoms of an exercise compulsion, such as feeling the need to exercise on certain days at certain times in certain ways, or, if that routine is not possible, feeling extreme guilt as a result."

So... how many individuals do you know that sound like they might just be a little "disordered" in their thinking/fitness routines/eating habits, eh? It's something to contemplate, and Peach Friedman does an excellent job of bringing it to our attention, with her own truly relatable story and without a sense of "know-it-all personal trainer" condescension.

[...]

4 out of 5 stars

Honest & Open Healing journey August 9, 2009
kathleen Fuller PhD (Stuart, Florida)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

The Diary of an Exercise Addict is candid and gives the reader a glimpse into the consciousness of the daily challenges of an exercise bulimia. Keep reading and you'll discover with Peach the joy of finding recovery. This would be an excellent companion book along with the book Not Your Mother's Diet on [...]

5 out of 5 stars

Courageously raw July 31, 2009
Susan Tate (Seattle, WA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

I began reading Diary of an Exercise Addict at 4 pm the other day and couldn't stop till I finished it later that evening. I am in awe of Friedman's guts, courage, strength, integrity and ability to get to the center of emotions. What an inspiring and amazing gift she has given the world. Her ability to so vividly express the raw feelings of her passage through this addiction will surely be a guide for those who suffer from exercise bulimia.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 24

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