enLIGHTened: How I Lost 40 Pounds with a Yoga Mat, Fresh Pineapples, and a Beagle Pointer Book

Offering much advice on how to lose weight, Jessica Berger Gross also spends a lot of time preaching up yoga and vegetarianism. She calls us, as a society, on many of our excuses for not losing weight. I got very hung up on her lack of contact with her family. I found it very difficult to take her advice for a 'healthy' life seriously because she made the decision to stop all contact with her parents. I cannot reconcile this decision with all the teachings from yoga, but especially the "Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked." (p21) Cutting her parents out of her life allows her to avoid the unhappy and the wicked, not cultivate either compassion or indifference. Instead she is avoiding and causing harm to those who raised her. While her life may be easier, I'm sure that theirs is not. I hope that the majority of readers take the advice about healthy portions and exercise but do not follow this misleading example of dropping the people who raised you.