I think the most important step is to learn about the science behind weight and food and health, and basically how we’ve been misled for profit. If you can see how you’ve been continuously told you’re not good enough for profit, that anger and frustration can help motivate you forward. My book goes through the basics, and then for people who want to go even further, the book Body Respect by Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor go extensively into the science. You can also read this online journal. The other important thing to do is to start following more diverse bodies on social media. Studies have shown that only seeing very skinny models and actresses in our media has trained our brains to believe that’s the only beautiful and acceptable kind of body to have, and this can actually cause perpetuate feelings of shame, which affects our relationship with food, too. And so what we have to do now is retrain our brains. 8. Anything else you want people reading this to know? According to Dooner, the secret to finding a diet that works isn’t even about what you’re eating —it’s about entirely changing your mindset on diets in general. Now that I understand a diet isn’t going to make me skinny (and, of course, that “skinny” should never be my goal), I feel more in tune with my body. I’m re-learning how to take hunger cues and listening to cravings (a huge part of the book is why cravings are good and how to actually listen to them) because sometimes my body wants sweets and junk food but many times my body wants broccoli and lean protein and fruit. The whole point of the book is really re-learning all of these things that we forgot how to do once someone called us fat or told us to watch what we ate.

I was going to let myself eat. I was going to let myself gain weight. And I was going to see if it could bring my healing and liberation and a better relationship with food. 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. What makes this course particularly different from just reading the book, is that you will spend extra time and attention every week on your beliefs. Whenwe experience resistance to this process, or feel like we aren't getting anywhere, belief work is almost always the missing piece. Anyone can benefit from learning to eat intuitively. There is mounting evidence that is showing that focusing on weight loss and restriction does harm to our health long term. Instead, if we focused on feeding ourselves, listening to our bodies, getting out of that yo-yo eating cycle, people have health improvements (even when no weight is lost!).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 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? 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.

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Or, maybe you have had similar expletive sentiments towards diets and food phobias and weight obsession. But I was f***ing starving all the time. I cried a lot. I had weird food rituals to try and make sure I didn’t eat “more than my body needed”. I drank a lot of wine and coffee. And still thought about food nonstop. I really hate to give a book one star, but I had to make myself finish this book and absolutely loathed the process. The entire book is one long, incredibly self absorbed, whiny memoir about Dooner's teens and twenties related mostly to how much she hated her appearance. She lived a life of incredible privilege with parents who bankrolled her teenage nose job, acting and singing opportunities, a summer in Europe, a nice NYC apartment, overpriced foods from one extreme diet to the next, and pretty much her entire privileged existence. And during all of those years, she hyper-fixated on her acne and her weight (looking at photos online, Dooner never appeared actually overweight). Again and again and again. How is this supposed to help anybody? 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. But I still didn’t fully understand how deep it all went for me: culturally and metabolically and emotionally and on and on. And I didn’t see how messed up my relationship was with weight, and how that was actually the core of the whole thing.