Book Review: Inspire Transformation by Naomi Teeter

Inspire Transformation is a weight loss book. You’re going to be disappointed when you read this book, if you expect to be told exactly what to do.

book cover naomi

Naomi Teeter (of  MindBodyGreen  fame) lost 125 lbs and has kept the weight off for five years. That’s a whole lot of years people.

 

The author, Naomi Teeter. Photo credit: MindBodyGreen website.

The author, Naomi Teeter. Photo credit: MindBodyGreen website.

 

Her weight loss book is going to be a let-down for those of you who have given up on yourself and now you want an “easy out”. If you want to open up a book and see that all you need to do is eat three egg whites a day and run for one hour a week, this is not the book for you. There are no rules, no “do this and avoid this”, no “miracles”. This is a guideline for you and it is served up with surprisingly honest and candid stories about challenges the author, Naomi Teeter, faced and how she conquered them.  Inspire Transformation goes where most weight loss memoirs fear to tread. If you ARE looking for a book that “teaches a man to fish”, as they say, then this IS the book for you.

Naomi Teeter will teach you many ways to “fish”, including what worked for her personally. Since she has kept off over 100+ lbs over the years it is extremely useful and insightful information. Not only that, Naomi lost all of that weight while leading a busy and normal life. She worked, went to school, dealt with toxic situations, all while becoming a healthier and happier person. We are lucky that she chose to pass her wisdom on to us.

The book reads like a conversation with Naomi, swears and all, which makes it a blast to read. Her extremely candid personal stories are relevant to the book and make you realize that anyone can become the person they want to be if Naomi could prevail. In fact, she readily admits on the first page that “weight loss is hard”, and, in the following pages, becomes your personal cheerleader. After the first few pages, the book becomes a journey that encompasses more than the lbs you carry. Many of the weight loss books I have read focus on how much you weigh, what you shouldn’t eat, and are limited to minutes and measurements.

This book goes beyond that scope. Much of the book is focused more on YOU. Yes, YOU. ALL of you. Inspire Transformation deals with your overall….you guessed it!…transformation. It is possible to dedicate yourself for a short time to any diet plan or workout, but to keep the weight off, and to keep it off long term, you have to deal with issues such as; your self-worth, your peer group, your stress level, and your state of mind going in to it. This is not an easy task, which Naomi admits very freely, but she breaks it down so that it seems possible and do-able. Instead of feeling daunted by having to examine all of me, I felt inspired. Excited, even. I was especially buoyed by the fact that Naomi gives a lot of general guidelines on how to achieve what she has, instead of claiming that you should do EXACTLY what she did to get to the same results. This was, as I said, exciting to read.

Inspire Transformation reminds us to stop researching weight loss, stop trying to achieve perfection, and just go for it. In fact, my favourite quote from her book is,

“Art isn’t perfect (neither is my writing), but it improves over time. We all live with imperfections, just like art. That’s what makes it so beautiful!”

At times you will feel wholly frustrated by this book. You will probably think, as I did, “What in the hell does this have to do with weight loss?” You will be, as I was, wrong about assuming she was out to left field. Your mental happiness is directly related to your physical healthfulness. This was a huge “a-ha!” moment for me. In the book you will learn how to grocery shop for healthy choices on a budget, how to choose supportive friends, how to empathize with people who aren’t supportive, how to forgive, how to manage time and why you should learn to cook. Lofty goals, but after reading this book you will be able to start to take it all on, little by little!

I was also, occasionally, intrigued by a thought that seemed to end too soon, and wish she would go further in to it. I wish she had gone further in to her ideas to delegate tasks and to make lists. Lists are a slippery slope for me. I tend to make too many, which takes an hour sometimes in itself, and then get frustrated when I don’t finish these unreasonably long lists. I have learned, over the years, to shorten my lists to three items maximum and keep them realistic. I am pretty sure my two pages of orders to myself was NOT what Naomi had in mind when she gave me “permission” to write out lists and “clear the clutter” in my head. Haha!

There are a lot of quotes in this book and a lot of text in bold. I found this, at times, too distracting. You find yourself skimming some, very important, advice to get to the bold words. Also, some of the bold words ended up being what was important to her, which is a very personal thing, and not to me. I often had to re-read a page to find out what was the stand-out for me, rather than for our author.

Overall, I think this will be a useful resource for me and I found this book both thoroughly enjoyable to read and incredibly insightful. I will definitely be recommending this book all over the place. Watch out strangers on the subway, I’m coming to talk to you. (heehee)

I highlighted the crap out of this thing and will use it as a reference when I am feeling stuck or discouraged from my weight loss journey. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to put down the highlighter and step away from the desk to get my fitness on.

You, however, are just getting started. Visit Naomi Teeter’s free introduction/diet chapter opt-in (https://naomiteeter.leadpages.net/transformative-tactics-intro/) to grab a sneak peek at the book.

And I strongly encourage you to visit her fantastic website for more information:

http://www.theinspiredtransformation.com.

 

*This book was received in exchange for a book review, but all words above are written by myself and contain an honest evaluation of the book’s contents*

 

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