Bake Your Way to Happiness Review and Giveaway

If you liked Julia & Julia – either the book by Julie Powell, or the wonderful movie starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep – you will love this book! In Bake Your Way to Happiness: Recipes and Strategies to Nourish and Heal, you will find fifteen recipes along with fifteen strategies to nourish your body and spirit, and which will help you heal from all kinds of modern-day stresses and ails: sadness, body image issues, low self-worth, negative thinking, fear, insomnia, mood swings, anger, inner child issues, self sabotage, anxiety and more.

How do you bake your way to happiness? The answer is easy. You bake the wonderful recipes that have been tested especially for you by food editor, Gilean Watts, and you follow the creative workbook reconstructions that have been formulated by registered expert therapist, Marilyn Riesz.

Both the recipes and the reconstructions have been proven to work! The recipes come from Gilean’s granny and, during Gilean’s time at university, when she was suffering from a bout of depression, Gilean used these very recipes to overcome depression. And Marilyn’s unique therapy of reconstruction has been called miraculous by her clients, who are amazed by the level of healing that they bring.

A friend of WOW also has a hand in Bake Your Way to Happiness! Lisa de Nikolits, who had several books of hers tour with WOW, traded in her author hat for something different this time. This publication sees her wearing her art director and designer hat, more than that of author. But she hasn't relinquished her writer hat! In fact, Bake Your Way to Happiness was inspired by one of her books – the protagonist in one of her forthcoming novels pens a collection of Bake Your Way therapy cookbooks and de Nikolits realized that her character's cookbooks could be a real thing! So, with the help of the extremely talented Gilean Watts and Marilyn Riesz,  Bake Your Way to Happiness became a reality.

Bake Your Way to Happiness is available as a paperback here.


About the Authors

Marilyn Riesz

Marilyn Riesz, MA, RP is a registered psychotherapist with over 16 years private practice experience treating eating disorders, depression, anxiety, OCD and relationship issues. Marilyn has published numerous academic articles, led workshops, seminars and conferences. In addition to supervising and training graduate psychology students, she has enjoyed making guest television appearances, and presenting inspiring lectures in the mental health community. For more information about Marilyn and her therapeutic techniques, please visit eatingdisorderstherapy.ca

Gilean Watts

Gilean Watts is a recipe developer, food editor and writer with over six years of experience in food media. She is currently a food editor for Canadian Living, and has previously worked for brands such as Clean Eating magazine and Yahoo Canada. Gilean is a graduate of George Brown College’s prestigious Chef School, and the founder of the food blog Stuck in Thyme. For more of her work, visit stuckinthyme.com.

Lisa de Nikolits

Lisa de Nikolits has art directed and worked on international magazine titles including Marie Claire (South Africa), Vogue (Australia), Vogue Living (Australia), Cosmopolitan (Australia), SHE (Australia), Canadian Health & Lifestyle, Cosmetics, and Canadian Living. She is the acclaimed author of five novels: The Hungry Mirror, West of Wawa, A Glittering Chaos, The Witchdoctor’s Bones and Between The Cracks She Fell (all Inanna Publications). Visit Lisa at lisadenikolitsdesign.com and lisadenikolitswriter.com.

*****Book Review of Bake Your Way to Happiness*****

I'm on board for any book that's going to encourage me to bake, but Bake Your Way to Happiness is so much more than that! Each chapter is a mini-self improvement course addressing a different issue: everything from mood swings to negativity to overextending yourself. Things we all deal with everyday but too often ignore because we "don't have time" to think about them or change bad habits.

Each short chapter is laid out the same way: a short writing on the chapter's issue, an activity or writing assignment to get you thinking about the issue in your life,  the recipe, a long term activity to change negative habits, a drawing (they even leave space in the book so no searching for paper needed) and space to write down some conclusions on the issue's affect on your life and the activities you've done while addressing it. The recipes are Watts' grandmother's recipes and are uniquely chosen to "fit" the issue. I love the body issue chapter with orange-cranberry bread where the discussion is about how orange-cranberry bread is wonderful no matter if it's oval or round and how different ingredients are equally important and delicious no matter what their size and shape.

This is a great book where (like a recipe book) you can pick and choose what chapters appeal to you and your needs. There's no wading through endless discussions. Instead they identify a common problem and dive right into what you can do to make simple changes if you have that problem that can add up to big changes in your life. Things like the recipes and the drawings add a light-hearted aspect to the book. Bake your Way to Happiness makes self-improvement fun!

Paperback: 142 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace (May 1, 2016)
ISBN: 1530539862

BOOK GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Enter the Rafflecopter form below for a chance to win your own copy of Bake Your Way to Happiness. This giveaway ends June 1st at 11:59pm. You can also enter a second giveaway until June 15 by visiting Goodreads.