Anyone who struggles with dieting or body image should consider reading this book. As it confirms many of my previous opinions about dieting, I really liked it. At times there's more information about her research than I'd like, but maybe it's necessary to refute some firmly held prejudices. I wish there were more in the living at the low end of your weight range section. I think what's there is good advice. Now to follow it.
I really loved this quote from the book: "Your body is not your masterpiece - your life is."

Heck yeah. I can really get behind this woman's message. She is a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota and she and her students run all sorts of experiments on eating, secretly, of course - because if people know that their eating habits are being observed then they behave differently.

Anyway, she uses the results of her own research plus tons of other diet and health studies to boost her arguments, mainly that diets don't work (largely because we're genetically programmed to stay within a certain weight range.) Not only do they not work long-term for most people, they cause stress, which also leads to weight gain in and of itself.

The last half of the book contains strategies for achieving and maintaining what she calls your leanest livable weight, which is the lower end of your genetic weight range. One that stood out the most for me was "Be Alone With a Vegetable," which means eat a vegetable (or salad) first, at every meal, sometimes even before you prepare the rest of the meal. That way you are eating something nutritious before you're presented with other things that might not be as healthy.

She also maintains that exercise is something that we all should be doing more of, not for weight loss, but for health and mental health benefits. The evidence is clear about the health benefits of physical activity, yet few of us take the time to do it regularly. She presents strategies for getting more exercise too.

She wants us to break our unhealthy obsession with weight loss because she says that being overweight is not the death sentence that the media presents it to be. (Turns out there is science proving this.) She argues that we would be happier and perhaps healthier if we weren't so obsessed with achieving an unobtainable, unrealistic ideal. And she quotes Momastery's Glennon Doyle Melton - a hero of mine - who said, "Your body is not your masterpiece - your life is."

Anyone who is struggling with weight issues, food issues, and/or body image needs to read this book.

I like research-based books, and this one has footnotes for miles. It references many weight-loss studies, plus they conducted some interesting studies of their own. The book questions some common assumptions and comes away with practical tips for living healthily. Spoiler alert: this book won't give you the secrets to drastic weight loss. But you may find other, more useful suggestions. Recommend.

More like 3.5 stars. This book is marketed a bit like it holds answers to the ever-captivating question of how to be thin, but it is not about that at all. Mann, a psychologist who studies eating and self-control, spends the first part of the book discussing the research on diets and weight loss and how unsuccessful they are by most people's standards. I've been learning a lot lately about research methods and statistics for social science and this was all pretty intriguing. Later, she goes on to talk about workable strategies to happily live at the low end of one's "set weight" and about healthy thinking when it comes to food and weight. Some recent experiments have brought the entire subfield of ego depletion and self control under question, and I'm not sure how much that effects Mann's work or conclusions here, but I liked a lot of this book and her ideas.

I am not completely convinced by all of the author's points.

A few glaring mistakes (calling a cytokine a cell instead of a secreted protein, for example), made me wonder about the other research that I don't know.

I read a lot of books of this type — not diet self-help books, but sciency books about diet and dieting — the facts, the myths, eating psychology, nutrition, health, and general cultural craziness about weight, body shape, and body image.

This is among the best and it’s also highly entertaining. Traci Mann is a health psychologist and runs an eating lab at the University of Minnesota. She’s been doing research — sneaky studies — on dieting and dieters, eating habits, etc., in her lab and out in the world (that other eating lab of life). You may be surprised to find that dieting promotes weight gain. Or that your genes account for 70 percent of what you weigh (they account for 80 percent of the variation in height). Or that self-control has little or nothing to do with whether and what and how much you eat. Or that being overweight is not a health risk (until you get rather huge).

In general, the book and the author’s positions are well supported by research and (with one or two exceptions, imho) Mann is cautious about overstating evidence or attributing causality to correlational data. The extensive notes and references offer many other enticing directions for further reading. (And I am so happy that the Kindle edition of the book included them all. That hasn’t always been my experience.)

If you have ever felt sad, frustrated, guilty, or discouraged about your weight or failed diet attempts, read this book NOW. You’ll never feel quite the same about your body or dieting again. This isn’t a cheesy self-help book — but I concluded that we could all be a lot happier and healthier by implementing a few simple (really!) strategies.

This book was kind of bland to read.. I liked having all the info backed up by science, but the actual reading of the science is what was bland. I found myself skimming through a lot of the science stuff to get to the actual tips and such. Aside from all of that, I think reading this book was very beneficial. It states a lot of diet type things that I do or that my friends do. It has made me realize why this never ending cycle of trying new things and losing and gaining the same weight is not a life that I want to live. I have a lot of tips and tricks highlighted and will be actively trying to follow more of the tips in my everyday life. If I experience any health changes before the end of the month, I'll update my review! All in all, it was an informative read. It has opened my eyes up to many things, even if some of those things were rather obvious. I'm excited to see how or if my life changes going forward with this mindset rather than a temporary, diet-like mindset.

Fasinating book about our food behaviors. I often read about our physiological reactions to foods, but this book gave me valuable insight into our psychological reactions. The more knowledge we have, the more likely we can establish and maintain a healthy weight, which is different for all of us.

I loved the way the author presented the information, making scientific studies concise and easy to understand. Most of this book boils down to good science and common sense, but I enjoyed every bit of it.