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.