This book had a lot of practical tips and common sense things to try to adopt a lifestyle of intuitive eating. A recommendation from Instagram, I found it helpful and applicable.

A well written and practical book about how to buck the "diet" craze that makes people miserable and does not result in lasting weight loss. The author brings in scientific evidence and sensible advice for those wishing to try something different.

Every woman needs to read this book! Harrison breaks down the destructive messages of diet culture and uses real science to refute why everything we think we know about dieting is wrong. The messages in this book will resonate with the millions of people have spent so much time and money on trying every diet and failing. There's a reason why dieting doesn't work, and this book is a great explanation why. Read this if you're looking to make peace with your body and food!

I had high hopes when this book was originally announced. It started off great with the history of diet culture and then it completely took me out of the whole concept of the book. It felt very one sided and preachy. It may be for someone but I don’t think I was the author’s targeted audience.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I'm super annoyed by this book though I get the concept. It was a bit too preachy for me more than anything.

I chucked the scale years ago and vowed instead to live in a way that connects body and mind together. Have I lost weight? No, but I am happier and have not waisted (spelling intentional) money. The words in Anti Diet confirm this decision and encourage a healthier approach and mindset. Terrific companion to those who prefer intuitive eating over scripted plans.

This is a book that takes on a huge, divisive concept and approaches it in a comprehensive, compassionate, and self aware mentality. I really appreciated Harrison's dedication to inclusivity.

As someone who has body issues in addition to a negative perception about my weight, who has been on and off diets since my early teens, and as someone who had begun noticing compulsive behavior such as bingeing and calorie counting, I honestly wasn't sure where this book would take me.

I'm still not sure what to think about it on some levels - the idea that what we eat affects our health still seems instinctual, but so does the fact that the idea of judging someone's character because of their weight is as heinous as it is hypocritical.

I can say that no matter who you are or what body you live in, this book will give you a lot to think about and a lot of new tools to reexamine what you think you already know.

This was thorough. The first chapter is QUITE a slog, so if you don't much care about how diet culture got to be diet culture, skip it and go right to chapter two.

None of this was super new to me, though I think this is the first book that really takes on wellness culture that I've read, and it was a freaking huge relief to see diet culture laid out in the current trends of clean eating and food intolerance.

Great for people just dipping their feet in, but also great for people who like a little reminder/tune up around this time of year.

Before even finishing this book, I was so excited to share it with people.

I’ll start by saying that prior to reading, I considered myself someone who had a decent relationship with food and body image. Not great, mind you – like most people, I try to eat well, I berate myself for “indulging,” and if you ask, sure, I’d be happy to lose some weight. Until recently, the point of exercising was really to make sure I didn’t gain any weight. None of those statements would have sounded particularly egregious to me a few months ago, but after finishing Anti-Diet, I am stunned to realize how much diet culture has permeated even my way of thinking.

In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison provides an all-encompassing look into how diet culture (which she nicknames “the Life Thief”) has become ever-present in our society. She presents very clearly how not only are diets ineffective, but they play into a system that is sexist, racist, and classist. Harrison presents her points animatedly – and perhaps occasionally in a manner that feels slightly belabored – but ultimately, she makes her points and they stick.

Harrison achieves a balance of presenting both evidence-based research and profiles of serial dieters to make her case. It is refreshing to have an author who understands what comprises good research, and to me this sets the groundwork for her reasoning. However, bringing in the experiences of real people is what drives the points home. I’d be willing to bet most people reading this will relate to some experience relating to either dieting or self-image. That being said, the book reads at times almost as a social justice manifesto. While I appreciate this type of writing, I can imagine it would not appeal to everyone (a thought that crossed my mind as I considered who I would share this book with once I finished…)

All in all, it is difficult to describe what kind of book this truly is – informative, pleading, guiding while wrapping you up with love and compassion and telling you in no certain terms that there is a better way. Since I finished it, I have realized in how many ways my life and my thinking have been affected by Diet Culture. I am honestly fully convinced and am never going back – I would never consider going on a diet now. Beyond this, I have embraced the idea of intuitive idea and listening to what own body is telling me that it needs. While all the aspects of the book may not be appealing to everyone, I think it contains a message that is so important and for that reason, I would highly recommend it.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book will be useful to some people and to others not just because they might have a better understanding of the subject. For me, it was a little on the bland side because I already understood the basics of how one should not focus so much on "dieting" but rather on a healthy lifestyle and I already understood how fad diets affect a person. For someone who is a chronic dieter or just flat out does not understand eating healthy as a regular part of life, this should be an eye opener. The author does a good job outlining the basics of why various diets or ways of eating backfire and how history has affected how we view ourselves and our way of thinking. Anyone who is at a loss for what they should do to get their eating habits back on track will benefit from this book.

A surprisingly hopeful read. As a professional dietitian, Harrison looks at diet culture with a critical eye and shows how our 20th and 21st century attitudes toward fat and diets are much less helpful and healthy than previously. Very readable and well-researched. A must-read for anyone working in health care, chronic dieters, and more.

Overall a great change of pace to the typical health book. It doesn’t tell you to lose a certain amount of weight or make you feel bad for not changing weight at all. Instead it encourages self love and health.

*i received this ARC for free in exchange for my honest review

I received this book as an ARC in exchange for a review thru NetGalley. Personally, I hated this book. It was overly forceful and repetitive - especially if you've heard Christy Harrison's podcast before. For some, maybe, this book could be useful, but I just found myself rolling my eyes at how forceful the argument seemed to be.

I don't usually review books about health, diet, and fitness. Oh, I've read quite a few in my life. As a matter of fact, what don't I know about diets? Mom put me on my first diet when I was twelve years old! I was at that growth spurt time when kids get chubby and then, seemingly overnight, reach their full height and become teenagers. I recall the diet involved not having fruit, and I loved fruit.

At fourteen I was dieting again. Twiggy was in; curves were out. The charts said I was overweight. A friend gave me an exercise book with calories to count. I lost thirty pounds, gained it back; tried Weight Watchers, lost nothing; gained more weight at college; got married and went on a diet and lost thirty pounds again.

I was twenty-one and eating 1000 calories a day and couldn't lose more weight. The weight charts said I was twenty-five-pound overweight! Looking back, I realize I had an eating problem and I was at a healthy weight.

The rest of my life went like that. Calorie counting. Eat Well, Be Well, The Zone. Vegetarian diets. Liquid supplements. All I accomplished was to get bigger on fewer calories.

A year ago, I committed to losing weight. I had gained 40 pounds in five years. I had my Fitbit and my Lose It app and my scale. I was prepared.

I underwent extensive testing and discovered my heart is great and committed to 30 minutes of cardio a day. A nutritionist told me to cut animal fats, meat, and dairy. We eat red meat at most once or twice a month, but I do I love butter on my toast. Goodbye, butter.

I lost thirty-four pounds and then plateaued even though I was burning more calories a day than I was eating.

I joined Silver and Fit and went to the fitness center to use machines for muscle tone and balance. The counselor said I was starving myself and told me to eat 6 meals a day. And more protein.

I am gaining strength and balance with the fitness plan. My bad knee can take the stairs better than they have in years.

But I had vertigo. The treadmill made me dizzy. I walked down the street like a drunk. So I went to the doctor. She saw me bend to tie my shoe and asked, "Can you DO that? It's not vertigo, it's your blood pressure." So she reduced my blood pressure meds. My BP is still in the good zone.

She is the first doctor to NOT tell me I was risking my life and to "Join a gym," or "Have you considered bariatric surgery?" or even, "I know it's hard to lose weight but keep trying."

Instead, she told me, "I'm not concerned about weight. There are more important things, like the quality of life."

WHAT???? I am 67 years old and a doctor told me what---that endless dieting and exercise is not supposed to be the goal of life?

So I saw this book, Anti-Diet, and thought, I need to know more about this.

Harrison had a food obsession. She was a life-long dieter and a journalist who wrote for Gourmet Magazine. She earned a degree as a nutritionist. Her personal journey led to exactly what millions of us have experienced: Diets. Don't. Work.

Harrison pushes back against the Diet Culture--the paradigm we have been sold that tells us there are good and bad foods, that weight is a moral and life-threatening issue, and if we don't look like some media ideal we are unloveable, ignorant, lazy, and dispensible.

Studies show that diets don't work, people gain the weight back, and in fact, diets seem to cause, not alleviate, health issues.

The bulk of the book traces our food attitudes through history and the rise of the diet culture and its human cost. Although well presented and interesting, I quickly read through this section--I'd come across it all before, in bits and pieces over 60 years. I was eager to get to her alternative.

Setting boundaries "might mean putting a moratorium on diet talk with your mother" set alarms off in my head! In my late 20s, when I had reached what I now know is my ideal weight, my mother fell into her old habit of saying, "you'd be...if only you lost weight." I shot back, "I like myself." "You like yourself fat?" she marveled. "I like who I am regardless of what weight I am." That night, Mom had a self-reckoning. She came to me in tears the next morning, apologetic, realizing she was imitating her own mother's behavior when she was growing up.

I also was glad to read Harrison's support of strength-building for all sizes as an alternative to blaming joint problems on weight alone. I keep up my cardio exercise of walking and am working with a fitness coach to improve muscle tone and balance. Thankfully, the fitness center is filled with older people like me and people of all body sizes. Sure, there are the buff men around and matchstick thin gals, but I don't stand out as much as I feared I would.

When on the Zone Diet we avoided sugar. I know if I don't eat chocolate candy bars I don't crave them all the time. We are told now that its sugar that leads to heart and other health problems. Harrison dismisses the idea of "food addiction" and notes studies that show that "only dieters experience" brain activation to sugar.

The idea of intuitive eating is simple. Listen to your body. My husband grew up with a dad who encouraged over-eating. He never developed a recognition to stop eating when he was full. It's his biggest challenge as an adult because he doesn't recognize 'full'.

She promotes the goal of "Health at Every Size" and liberation from an obsession on body size. Her mantra is "self-care, not self-control." Trying to control our body size is self-defeating, physically and mentally. But, she dismisses my FitBit and Lose-It app and fitness center visits and advises to just move.

Harrison quotes scads of scientific research. Still, I would love to read about specific and detailed case studies of how people like me, whose metabolism has been impacted by weight-loss diets over decades, can use this approach successfully.

I'll see what happens over the next year as I endeavor to not eat more than I burn while eating thoughtfully and working on strength and muscle building.

I made apple pies this week. There are no 'good' or 'bad' foods according to Harrison. But, boy, that pie was GOOD.

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I’ve listened to christy harrison’s Podcast for a while and I was so excited to hear she wrote a book! I think this is a very important book and does such a great job of providing an accessible entry point to non dieting.

Food tastes good. It's fun to eat. Feeling bad about your body sucks. Dieting sucks too. So what's a person to do in a body-image obsessed culture that tells us that thin is in? Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, right?

Anti-Diet is a fascinating look at our culture and how it affects our personal body image. There's so much important information in this book that it should be required reading for everyone, no matter their size or shape.

Not everyone is designed the same and what is healthy for one person, may not be healthy for another. Thank you to Christy Harrison for this important reminder.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

My mind has been completely blown by Anti-Diet. I want to hug Christy Harrison, then go reread this book.
This was my first time reading a book about intuitive eating. I have followed some of the intuitive eating registered dietician (RD) community on instagram and even met with an intuitive eating RD earlier this year, but I still needed a primer like this. Intuitive eating involves letting go of the diet rules that control many of our lives, and learning to listen to your body and your mind to know when and what to eat. As Christy points out, this doesn’t just mean eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full. It also includes eating cake at a birthday party, eating in preparation for a long meeting, etc.

This book is divided into two parts. In Part I: The Life Thief (aka diet culture), Christy reviews how weight has become such a big focus in our society, including the racist and misogynistic roots of the dieting industry, how the diet industry has morphed into the “Wellness Industry,” and how weight stigma and diet cycling have been shown to cause increased health problems (though weight itself has only proven to be correlated, not causative).
In Part II: Life Beyond Diet Culture, Christy discusses the philosophies of Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size, and provides guidance for how you can heal from diet culture and change your habits. I found myself wanting exact rules and guidelines to follow, but I think that’s just because I’m so used to diet rules. I look forward to picking up books recommended at the end of the book to continue to learn more about these concepts.

I have already called multiple family members about this book, and I’m planning to gently put it in their hands as soon as it comes out. I like that Christy cites a lot of research, but still manages to make these concepts very accessible. My only hesitation with passing it on is Ms. Harrison’s colloquial language (using words like “literally” and “sec,” as well as cursing). This is pretty common in the self-help industry these days, but I worry that it may make it a little more challenging to get people entrenched in the diet industry to trust the author and her research.

One side note: I really appreciated that Christy did not use veganism as an example in the book. Many people, myself included, are vegans for environmental and ethical reasons rather than weight-related ones.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we need to burn diet culture to the ground.”
I think this quote sums us what Christy Harrison aims to do throughout this book and in her work in the anti-diet space. Ms. Harrison teaches us so much in this important book that it is difficult to summarize in a review. We learn about the history of diet culture, and how it has gained attention over the decades. We learn about important concepts such as intuitive eating and Health at Every Size. We learn about the importance of community and social justice around body acceptance and liberation. We learn that health is not a moral obligation and that weight is not a determinant of our health outcomes, as many would have us believe. We learn how to support others and ourselves on this journey to freedom from the chains of The Life Thief (aka diet culture).
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever questioned why intentional weight loss rarely works or has been stigmatized for their body size or shape. Honestly, it will open your mind and make you mad all at the same time. But then there is a peace that comes where you feel heard and seen. I loved everything about this book, well except the dig at baths :) i appreciates the footnote but I stand firm on my stance as a bubble bath lover :) .
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this wonderful book.

This book is revolutionary. It’s full of ideas, tips, and great advice on letting go of diet culture. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to say goodbye to diets and eat and live intuitively.

I'm a huge fan of Christy Harrison's work, and her book is no exception. Anti-Diet is a deep dive into the ways that diet culture (eating disorders, marketing, weight stigma, weight-loss programs, clean eating diets) harms us more than it helps us. On the face, it looks like any other diet book, pegged as another Diet That's Not A Diet. But Harrison offers keen wisdom and advice to anyone dealing with disordered eating, obsessive behaviors around food or exercise, and other stress or trauma related to food, body image, movement, and eating behaviors. I recommend her podcast to anyone who will listen, and I will do the same for her new book.