This was definitely a fun, well-researched book. A little repetitive, but with a topic like this you often have to pound ideas into people’s brains. This book could be a little vague and too all encompassing, it could have almost been two separate books with different topics. But I guess, two for the price of one? I liked the myth busting about diet culture and the relation between health and weigh. I also liked that it was not only an anti-diet book, but a life style book. It’s not a novel idea, it’s basically intuitive eating (but claims to not be intuitive eating) regurgitated with far fewer scientifically based facts and a different name. I definitely did not agree with the author's "this works for everyone" approach. What I've learned in my 35 year weight battle is that everybody is different and there is no magic bullet for every person. The author was able to reintroduce sugar and eat it intuitively without binging, cravings, etc. That is not my experience with sugar, even when I ate sugar/carbs whenever I wanted them, I always always always wanted more. If I didn't reach some kind of equilibrium in 6 years, when was it going to happen for me? Says that I shouldn’t workout when I’m tired, because that’ll mess up my metabolism for reasons not stated or cited So, I’m giving this book half a star, because it is a book, that someone took time to write. I’m giving it a second half a star, for the first half of the chapter entitled, “The Mental Part”, for having some decent advice and talk about self love.

My blood pressure would climb to dangerous levels from dill potato chips and BBQ Pringles. I'd get fat from bagels and Nutella and in all likelihood develop type 2 diabetes.Let me start this review by saying that I started my journey of leaving my tumultuous past with diets in December last year when I discovered the book of Intuitive Eating which the author is not particularly fond of to what I could gather from this book haha however let me just tell you if that book changed my life, this one finished giving me the tools I needed. Randomly mentions eating probiotics, fermented food, and adrenal support supplements (what?) on a list of “ways to improve your health with no weight loss or gyms”, without mentioning this anywhere else I got part way through the Physical Part section when I came across a sentence that sent shivers down my spine. The author explains that to help you break the yo-yo dieting and to become a happier, healthier you, you need to eat and this means that you need to resist putting on weight. At this point, I will admit I kind of said ‘hell no’ and closed the book. I can’t afford to put on weight, truly I can’t afford a new wardrobe of clothes.

I’m pretty sure there’s no earthly way anyone would ever lose weight eating this way, so I’m not sure why they even bother calling it a diet. Actually, I’m fairly certain eating this way is a great way to ensure an early grave.From humorist and ex-diet junkie Caroline Dooner, an inspirational guide that will help you stop dieting, reboot your relationship with food, and regain your personal power This book talks about how damaging yo-yo dieting is. It quotes studies that have been done on what not eating properly does to your body and highlights that being overweight does not mean you are not healthy and the same the other way around, there are some people who are slim and look healthy, yet they are not. I did them all. I’m not kidding. Starvation, cabbage soup, Atkins’, South Beach, Weight Watchers x4 (because each time I was sure that this time I’ll be able to keep within my points and not starve and agonize over how I’d eaten all my points and would be having water popsicles for dinner) Nutrisystem x3 (because each time I was sure the food was better), LA Weightloss, 21-Day Fix, several rounds of the hcg diet (the worst thing I ever did to my body but 50 lbs lost in two months was worth it then), Ideal Protein, countless diet pills, and finally, keto. And these are the more mainstream diets. Or, maybe you have had similar expletive sentiments towards diets and food phobias and weight obsession.

I learned a lot of from intuitive eating and from this book and I will make my own rules with the best of both worlds and everything else I can learn about this subject from all the sources provides to me from these books... and that's what you can do too. It seems fairly useless, however, and perhaps outright dangerous, to those of us who have been or are more than 100 pounds overweight. Will this work for me, I doubt it as the damage to my body is done. For over 20 years I’ve eaten so little that I don’t know when I’m hungry. What I have done is to try to eat more. Sounds daft but it is hard work trying to force yourself to eat when you don’t want to but if I am to get my body out of the starvation mode that it has been in for many, many years then this is what I need to do. My dieting has been a placeholder, a distraction, from the things I truly want to do. Oh, you’d like to write a book? Ha! You’ve gotta study up on recipes and go shopping for your meal prep. And then you’ve gotta spend your whole weekend prepping meals that are gonna taste like shit by Tuesday. No wonder I always felt so depressed. I always wondered why I had such dark and dismal feelings simply over food. Probably because my body knew it was about to starve - again - and was gearing up. I was tired of scouring a menu for one thing I could eat. And when I found it, it didn’t even sound food. Why even go out to eat? I can cook myself shitty food. So let me tell you, this book is priceless just read it with an open mind and just take into account that YOU decide in the end what is the best for YOU I don't believe there is a cookie cutter way to fix everyone's problems with food.Another biblical group has more grace but also rules. No more than a fist-sized portion of food as that’s how big your stomach is after all. Great. What happens though when you eat one bite past the portion? Immense guilt. Guilt which leads to bingeing. I’ve had body image issues my whole life for reasons I won’t go into here. But I’m taking control now. I still want to be thin because that’s how I like to see myself, but not because that’s what others want or expect of me. And I’m willing now to trust my body and give it what it wants and let it do its thing. I ride my Peloton bike because I feel stronger each time. Not because I must to lose weight. Add to this two biblical-based weight loss programs, one of which I lost a lot of weight because I was waiting for hunger and eating only until satisfied, and never eating if my stomach didn’t growl. If I ever wanted food outside of physiological hunger, I was to pray to God to fill the void I was looking to food for. It worked for a while until I would want to eat birthday cake at a party but I wasn’t truly hungry. When I didn’t want to be rude, I’d eat it and then feel tremendous guilt and shame. I’d disclose it to people in my group and be further shamed for still living in “my sin.” If I had truly laid my sin down, I wouldn’t have eaten that cake. From comedian and ex-diet junkie Caroline Dooner, an inspirational guide that will help you stop dieting, reboot your relationship with food, and regain your personal power

I did have a bit of a hard time at first opening up to everything this book had to teach me, I've read it once and I'm planning on reading it again and doing all of the exercises since I didn't go as deep on all of them cause I was a bit afraid at first.So far, this seems like an excellent book for people who fit into normal size clothing who torture themselves with diets and other food restrictions. It seems like a great book for people who strive to constantly look like photo shopped magazine models, or buy into the lie that we all need to be a tight size 4 to be happy. I honestly only made it about half way through this book - I RARELY don’t finish a book through once I begin. While I think the overall message of the book is well intentioned and there are some good pieces of information there are definitely parts that I found problematic. Recommends eating 3,200 calories a day, and states that eating 1,600 a day will put yourself in starvation mode, mentioning that the study was done on people who “walk 22 miles a week”, but failing to mention that **they were in work camps**. I definitely agreed with a few things. I feel the human body is still a "caveman" body - doing anything possible to survive possible famine. I believe that if you overly restrict intake, your body will eventually binge, because it thinks it's starving. An ex-yo-yo dieter herself, Dooner knows how terrifying it can be to break free of the vicious cycle, but with her signature sharp humor and compassion, she shows readers that a sustainable, easy relationship with food is possible.