The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron (Review)

Released December 2008 (Tarcher) * 256 pages * ISBN-13: 9781585426980

I don’t usually find diet books of particular interest. After all, there are only so many different ways to say lose weight by burning more calories than you take in. The problem is convincing yourself to eat less and exercise more.

The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size by Julia Cameron is a diet book that approaches emotional eating from the perspective of using writing to uncover subconscious motivations for what we do. If you can separate the ideas from the author’s negative attitude towards food, it may be what you need to get you thinking about weight loss in a different way.

The Writing Diet proposes a program that uses writing to uncover the reasons for overeating and/or underexercising. The book is separated into two parts. The first part proposes seven tools for weight loss, some mediated by writing and some not. The second section looks at various situations/issues that arise when trying to lose weight and addresses them specifically.

The thought of writing can be intimidating for some people. Fortunately, the writing proposed in this book doesn’t require a good command of grammar, spelling, or even proper sentence structure. The proposed writing habits are in the form of journalling and inksheds (a type of stream of consciousness writing). The goal is to use inksheds in the morning and journalling whenever you eat anything to raise your own consciousness about why you are overeating or underexercising. If that sounds like a lot of writing to do, it is; but if you can develop the habit it can lead to insights into your own behaviour.

I’ve done the equivalent of Morning Pages (stream-of-consciousness writing done upon waking) in writing workshops and I agree that they can have tremendous value in unearthing what is lurking in the subsconscious. The idea of writing every time I eat or any time I think of eating as proposed by Cameron is too onerous and time consuming for me to adopt on a regular basis. While some may find it useful, it feels like a time suck to me — the same reason I’ve never managed to keep track of calories for long (to be clear, Cameron doesn’t advocate calorie counting but I find it at the same level of time suck as writing every time I eat).

Cameron has some suggestions for sticking with weight loss that don’t involve writing directly. For example she recommends walking (starting with 5 minutes because who doesn’t have 5 minutes). Cameron also proposes planning a culinary date once a week to explore new cuisine or try a new restaurant. While the culinary date sounds interesting, I found some of her other suggestions less appealing.

Cameron borrows from 12-step programs by introducing the concept of a sponsor (called a Body Buddy) to help you stick to new eating habits (and show your food log to). In keeping with the 12-step ethos, Cameron suggests unhealthy eating is on par with alcoholism which explains why throughout the book unhealthy eating is treated as if it were a disease. It is unfortunate that the book is infused with a negativity towards food because it taints the many useful ideas presented for those struggling to lose weight.

In addition to discussing unhealthy eating as a disease, Cameron also talks about snack attacks, food being an enemy, fighting wars and battles with food, and eating legally. She talks about clean eating, downfalls when you don’t eat clean and other language that makes unhealthy eating sound not only like a disease but a sin. There is talk of spirituality, outside power, and religion at various points in the book as well which seems unnecessary and narrows the audience for the book. Long time readers of the blog will know that I do not like religion in my secular topics unless the book is clearly marked and marketed as such (which this book isn’t, although IF I had been aware of Julia Cameron’s other titles I might have expected the spirituality aspect of the book).

Though I found myself picking and choosing parts of the book to use, it has some interesting ideas in spite of the issues I’ve mentioned. If your view of food already coincides with Cameron’s then the negative language may not bother you. Likewise for the talk of spirituality and religion.

If you eat for emotional reasons and think you can develop a daily journalling habit (among other things), then this book might help you gain traction in developing a healthier lifestyle. For myself, I’ve never managed to keep a journal for longer than a week so I haven’t managed to apply this book for very long yet. If I ever do manage to get anywhere with this book, I’ll discuss it in my Read It, Live It, Blog It Reading Challenge posts.

You can find The Writing Diet and other Julia Cameron books at amazon.com, amazon.ca, and amazon.co.ukas well as other online and bricks and mortar booksellers.

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