New Spiritual Diets

The Writing Diet, by Julia Cameron

Unleash your creative self.

Julia Cameron, author of The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size (Tarcher/Penguin), has been a creativity coach and artist for more than 30 years. Along the way, she discovered that as people learned to express themselves, their body weight normalized. The first part of "The Writing Diet" lays out sensible tools for right-sizing your body (walking, journaling, not getting too "hungry, angry, lonely, or tired"--HALT, for short). Part two offers a smart, succinct list of weight-loss pitfalls (night eating, food as sedative, genes, trauma) and ways to address each. Grounded in a deep humanist spirituality, informed by the world of 12-step, and filled with real-life anecdotes, Cameron covers personal weight-loss turf from inside (soul work) to outside (body work).

Best-of-book tip: Grab a notebook every morning (no excuses!) and write three pages. "Simply move your hand across the page and write whatever thought comes into your head," says Cameron. Complain, whine, blather on. Don't get arty or even worry about spelling or grammar. These "morning pages" will move you through emotions, prioritize your day, and remind you what you really need.

Gay tries it: I've actually been doing morning pages since I read Cameron's bestseller, The Artist's Way. Especially when I first started giving up the overeating, it was a way to vent emotions I would otherwise have stuffed down with the food. Powerful!