John McPhie, the author of The Slim Habit* likes to find simple solutions to complex problems, using behavioural science. In The Slim Habit he looks at health, particularly the obesity crisis. He suggests the solution to losing weight is by changing long term habits, not through short term diets.

I found the first section about how the body works fascinating. It really made me realise how the food we eat impacts our body. And how when we start interrupting the processes we get into a negative cycle of wanting to consume more food that is not good for us.

However, I was disappointed with the habits section of the book. I know it takes effort and behaviour change to lose weight. But having just read how hard it is to break the negative cycle once you’re in it, I was expecting the book to suggest easier habits than the usual — more sleep, more water, more exercise, less stress and less food.

So if you want to understand more about how your body works in a simple-to-follow way, than yes this book will be a good read. However, if you’re looking for some new ideas to get you out of the cycle then this is unlikely to give you that spark.

The Slim Habit promises to give readers a guide to permanently lose weight. While this was a quick read and I did find some helpful tips included, it feels like a very basic guide. The author also doesn’t appear to have any credentials himself that qualify him to write this guide and doesn’t included references to back up the information he includes.

A basic book for a healthy lifestyle.
There are some good tips though, and it was useful. I have lost 3 stone recently so this has given me some assistance to keep going and keep the weight off.

The Slim Habit will give you help and guidance to finally learn and apply the skills for a lifetime of reaching and sustaining a healthy weight.

Very interesting to read. You can really learn a lot from this book. Lots of great ideas and concepts to give you pause for thought. I’d definitely like to own the book and try following it through. Very handy tips

Quite a good book where eating is concerned (notice the focus isn't on dieting! It's on actual nutrition and how to best sustain the 'machine' that is your body). Does get a bit repetitive at times, but you can see the research and what I liked most was the whole 'I won't BS you' vibe the author gives off throughout. Too many of these diet/eating book authors try to come across as gurus who then push forward to present 'their' products and methods and whatever. This one did not have that, thank goodness

The Slim Habit is a very interesting book. I liked that the author included easy to read scientific information behind losing weight. Usually when I read things like that, it is written in a way that you really do need a science degree to figure out what was even said. The author also included the amounts of sugar, carbs and protein that we should eat. In also recommending intermittent fasting, the author advocated for taking 1-3 days a week of eating a few hundred calories to help reset metabolism. The author also includes exercises. I would be willing to give The Slim Habit a try for 30 days to see if it works. Thank you to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is quite a short read and has some good basic information about the role that things like insulin, sleep and fiber have on your weight. It's written by an author who does not seem to have any medical background and he doesn't really give any intro to explain why you should trust him or any references. That's not to say that much of what he writes isn't backed by a lot of doctors and references, but that would have greatly improved the book.

The book is written in very simple text with lots of repetition and the use of all caps and bold letters. There are some cartoons to illustrate some points. He basically recommends pretty standard advice like to limit saturated fat, avoid drinking your calories, eat lots more fiber, limit salt greatly, get enough sleep, get enough water, etc. The diet plan he recommends is basically to eat within 50% carbs (fiber rich, not fructose and processed junk), 30% unsaturated fats and 20% proteins. At least once a week you limit your calories to get the benefits of fasting without fasting (not sure this gives the same benefits) and you make sure to do three kinds of exercise every week (aerobic like walking, weight lifting, and stretching). He mostly recommends four habits, things like getting enough sleep and giving up snacks.

It's a very quick read and may be helpful to some, especially those who don't know a lot about topics like the role of fiber and insulin on the body. I won't necessarily be adopting most of his recommendations, though I do agree with some. I appreciated the weight lifting exercises in the back, which were accompanied by simple drawings, and his recommendations to do them gently and sensibly.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

I do not believe this is a bad diet book. The first part of the book is full of amazing information on hormones, how the body processes food and all that jazz. I loved it. It is my favourite part because afterwards, the book is going down on the appreciation scale...

Firstly, it is repetitive. Very repetitive. So repetitive that it says one thing in two paragraphs, and then the next chapter summarizes what was said in those two paragraphs. Maybe if it brought that up after a few chapters, it wouldn't feel too soon. But this way, it was way too soon, since we just read that on the other page, you know what I mean?

Doesn't really provide much help with the so-called slim habits. They are the usual eat good, don't eat too much fat/salt/sugar/etc, exercise and get enough sleep. Gee, thanks, I already knew that! Other than the first part that actually help you understand why you need enough sleep (because of some hormones and the imbalances that lack of sleep can cause), there isn't much help in this book.

And then we have the low-cal days. As low as eat only 550 cal in one day - stat with one day/week, then move to three days and if you are hardcore, try every other day, but make sure not to overdo it in the normal day. And this is based solely on the fact that our ancestors (in the cave days) had period of famine, so we should too. No other explanation or science-based evidence.

Overall, if you want to learn more about hormones and how hunger and nutrition works, read the first part of the book. You can totally skip the rest.

Well written, concise book does not bore.
It will surely feed you facts.I think that getting fit is more important than getting thin. Issue properly explained in this book.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars!

As a Type 1 Diabetic for over 30 years, I have been reading about nutrition forever. This is a short, condensed version that I think will help many people. For someone who has studied nutrition, it isn't a lot of new information, but many can benefit from this book. Well written, interesting, and easy to read, with a lot good guidelines. Tips on habits and preparation. A definitive book for health and nutrition.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy of this book in return for an honest review.
I really enjoyed reading this book. It explains your body's biochemistry in layman's terms and it calls out the duplicitous food industry for what it is.
I found myself making notes and I now think about how my energy supervisor is coping when I consider eating aded sugar.
I'm m only 5 weeks in following the Habit and I am 16lbs down. Thank you John McPhie.

What I loved about this book is that it's a really easy and readable book. It's not heavy or condescending. I found myself agreeing with much of this book and had a few light bulb moment where things just made sense! It's given me a good starting ground on my weight loss journey and I look forward to hopefully seeing the results!

A really interesting book on diet/eating. Still a little complicated, but hey, if it were easy none of us would have weight issues!
Easy to grasp principles, that I will be taking forwards - no easy magic formula, and a few recipes or meal ideas would have been helpful, but definitely a thought provoking book, that will hopefully set me on a good course for sensible weight loss.

This book is well written and provides excellent explanations of how your body processes food and the differences between the processing of protein, carbohyrates, fats and alcohol,

He goes on to tell us why certain items (e.g no-calorie sugar substitutes) are bad for our health, but unfortunately doesn't provide any evidence, so there are a couple of things in the book that I would like to see backed up by science.

He then discusses mindset and exercise, and introduces a form of intermittent fasting - eating 550 calories one/two or three days a week. Once the weight is lost, he suggests a good way to maintain would be a fasting day every week. There is plenty of evidence why fasting is good for the body (unfortunately he doesn't provide it, but you can research it on the internet.)

This seems quite a sensible, simple, and relatively easy method of weight loss. If you've struggled to lose weight before, this book might give you the information and impetus that you need.

I love that The Slim Habit was written in a very conversational and easy tone. It makes it easier to understand all of the information presented. I thought the author did a great job informing the reader about why people gain weight and why fad diets don't work. I felt a little bit of concern for the low calories days which are essentially starvation days and could be a thin line to tread for people that may have a tendency towards eating disorders. I also wish there were some recipes included instead of just lists of appropriate foods. I liked that the book also included a section on exercise with several exercises highlighted.

A great booķ for re-thinking your eating habits.
This book explains in scientific detail how our bodies respond to our 21st century diet and lifestyles as compared to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. I felt that the explanations were more helpful than in some diet books and the principles of changing habits seem far more sound than the weight yoyo-ing that tends to come with diets. It is based on targeting internationally recognised maximums of fats, carbs etc rather than calories or 'low-fat' foods.
There was too much repetition to my mind, but this may be a factor in this proof version and edited in the final version.

I have been trying to get myself healthy, and there is just so much information out there. I enjoyed that this book was explaining the difference in achieving weight loss as a lifestyle instead of fad diets and I totally agree with that. You may not agree with everything in the book, but you will learn a lot.

The Slim Habit by John McPhie is enlightening about the issue of weight and food choices. One of the main reasons I like this book is the explanations for how our body functions to metabolize the types of foods we eat. The science of calories versus calories, good and bad fat, and the difference in carbohydrates was good information. Facts about how sugar and salt are used excessively in processed foods help the reader to be aware as they make meal choices. "It's all about balance" is so important and this book offers information about how to balance proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and other areas of maintaining good healthy food choices.
I think the theory of our evolutionary need for the amount of food and calorie intake due to the 'hunter-gatherer' concept was a bit overdone. Overall, the information in The Slim Habit is interesting, informative, and is very helpful!
Publication Date: December 29, 2020
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

A good basic book that is an easy to read guide to a healthy lifestyle.
A lot of the information was what we should know about, but don't take any notice of, I liked the simple way it explained things. It's certainly not a diet book, but a change of life book, that gives you the basics of living a healthier lifestyle, and one that I will be taking notice of this time!
Thank you netgalley