What do you think?
Rate this book
Full: The Emptiness of Overeating: A Kinder, Calmer Path to Weight Loss
“Full is a wonderful, inspiring journey that goes deep to the source. A kinder path to replacing restriction, anxiety, and punishment with respect, curiosity, and compassion.” — Derek Sivers
If you’re exhausted from dieting, overeating, and blaming yourself, this book will feel like relief. This is your kinder, wiser way to finally break the binge–restrict cycle.
Eating isn’t about willpower.
It’s about how you think and feel, and that’s the part diets miss.
Food and weight loss are usually taught as numbers (calories and formulas) and not enough as psychology (beliefs, emotions, and self-image).
The problem isn’t what you’re eating. It’s what’s eating you.
In FULL, Paul Dermody blends modern psychology with 10 years of coaching to reveal the deeper forces driving the binge–restrict cycle, and how to finally break it without guilt, anxiety, or punishing rules.
✔ Why you overeat whenever you try to lose weight
✔ Why restriction fuels the very cravings you’re trying to escape
✔ Why shame keeps you repeating what you’re ashamed of
✔ Why you can know what to do, and still feel like you can't do it
✔ How to build trust, calmness, and self-respect around food
Through 21 short, powerful stories, Dermody shows why overeating is rarely about hunger. It’s about emotions, coping, and unmet needs.
This book teaches awareness, compassion, and flexibility - the real foundations of lasting behaviour change.
Whether your goal is weight loss or healing your relationship with food, FULL will guide you toward a life that feels calm, intentional, and nourishing in every sense of the word.
This book makes weight loss easier, food freedom possible, and it's where peace begins.
If you’re exhausted from dieting, overeating, and blaming yourself, this book will feel like relief. This is your kinder, wiser way to finally break the binge–restrict cycle.
Eating isn’t about willpower.
It’s about how you think and feel, and that’s the part diets miss.
Food and weight loss are usually taught as numbers (calories and formulas) and not enough as psychology (beliefs, emotions, and self-image).
The problem isn’t what you’re eating. It’s what’s eating you.
In FULL, Paul Dermody blends modern psychology with 10 years of coaching to reveal the deeper forces driving the binge–restrict cycle, and how to finally break it without guilt, anxiety, or punishing rules.
✔ Why you overeat whenever you try to lose weight
✔ Why restriction fuels the very cravings you’re trying to escape
✔ Why shame keeps you repeating what you’re ashamed of
✔ Why you can know what to do, and still feel like you can't do it
✔ How to build trust, calmness, and self-respect around food
Through 21 short, powerful stories, Dermody shows why overeating is rarely about hunger. It’s about emotions, coping, and unmet needs.
This book teaches awareness, compassion, and flexibility - the real foundations of lasting behaviour change.
Whether your goal is weight loss or healing your relationship with food, FULL will guide you toward a life that feels calm, intentional, and nourishing in every sense of the word.
This book makes weight loss easier, food freedom possible, and it's where peace begins.
154 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 17, 2025
23 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 19, 2025
A book that has been lacking from the Health & Fitness space.
Paul’s approach is vastly different to the run of the mill health, fitness and mindset approach. There’s no “you’re lazy get up and go to the gym” “eat your chicken and broccoli” “work yourself into a depression to get that first million” “here’s a discount code for all my affiliate products”
It’s none of that, it’s an approach I never knew existed and it’s challenged my thinking and helped me grow as a person.
I’ve worked with Paul personally, and he has instilled core beliefs and changed my approach to everything I thought I knew about the health space.
Who knew being empathetic towards yourself actually contributes to treating yourself better rather than punishing yourself.
I already know this is a book I’ll pick up as when I need it when I have a wobble, so thank you Paul!
Paul’s approach is vastly different to the run of the mill health, fitness and mindset approach. There’s no “you’re lazy get up and go to the gym” “eat your chicken and broccoli” “work yourself into a depression to get that first million” “here’s a discount code for all my affiliate products”
It’s none of that, it’s an approach I never knew existed and it’s challenged my thinking and helped me grow as a person.
I’ve worked with Paul personally, and he has instilled core beliefs and changed my approach to everything I thought I knew about the health space.
Who knew being empathetic towards yourself actually contributes to treating yourself better rather than punishing yourself.
I already know this is a book I’ll pick up as when I need it when I have a wobble, so thank you Paul!
February 20, 2026
Full is one of those rare books that doesn’t just talk about weight loss — it talks about you. Paul Dermody steps away from the usual “eat less, move more” rhetoric and instead dives straight into the emotional, messy, deeply human side of overeating. And he does it with compassion, humour, and an honesty that feels like a breath of fresh air in a world full of noise.
What makes this book stand out is how seen it makes you feel. Dermody doesn’t shame, preach, or overwhelm. Instead, he explores the patterns that keep people stuck in overeating and dieting cycles: the stress, the loneliness, the expectations, the self-judgment, the “I blew it, so what’s the point?” moments. He shines a light on how chasing emptiness with food never truly fills it — and how to build a calmer relationship with eating that doesn’t rely on willpower or punishment.
The strength of the book is its kindness. It validates the reality of emotional eating while gently guiding you toward better choices. The insights are practical but never prescriptive, offering a path that feels doable, human, and sustainable. Dermody’s coaching background comes through clearly, especially in the way he challenges unhelpful beliefs without ever making the reader feel broken.
If you’re tired of diet books that lecture you, if you’ve ever felt out of control around food, or if you want a softer, more compassionate approach to fat loss, Full is a powerful, comforting, and perspective-shifting read. It feels less like a diet book and more like a companion for anyone trying to understand why they eat the way they do — and how to finally change it.
Highly recommended for yo-yo dieters, emotional eaters, and anyone looking for a kinder, calmer path forward.
What makes this book stand out is how seen it makes you feel. Dermody doesn’t shame, preach, or overwhelm. Instead, he explores the patterns that keep people stuck in overeating and dieting cycles: the stress, the loneliness, the expectations, the self-judgment, the “I blew it, so what’s the point?” moments. He shines a light on how chasing emptiness with food never truly fills it — and how to build a calmer relationship with eating that doesn’t rely on willpower or punishment.
The strength of the book is its kindness. It validates the reality of emotional eating while gently guiding you toward better choices. The insights are practical but never prescriptive, offering a path that feels doable, human, and sustainable. Dermody’s coaching background comes through clearly, especially in the way he challenges unhelpful beliefs without ever making the reader feel broken.
If you’re tired of diet books that lecture you, if you’ve ever felt out of control around food, or if you want a softer, more compassionate approach to fat loss, Full is a powerful, comforting, and perspective-shifting read. It feels less like a diet book and more like a companion for anyone trying to understand why they eat the way they do — and how to finally change it.
Highly recommended for yo-yo dieters, emotional eaters, and anyone looking for a kinder, calmer path forward.
February 16, 2026
I did not come to this book as a detached reader. I came as someone who has struggled with the very patterns it describes for a lifetime.
Paul does not shame. He does not scold. He simply tells the truth gently, clearly, and without theatrics.
What makes this book meaningful is not that it tells you to eat less. It invites you to ask why you reach for more than you need, not only food, but distraction, reassurance, and comfort.
It suggests that while the world will tempt and the body will crave, we still have a say in our next choice. That realization is both confronting and freeing.
This book did not just help me lose weight, but the man behind the words did. These principles and exceptional guidance got me to a place I’d never imagined myself to be. Paul helped me look at myself more honestly.
Two hundred pounds ago, I wasn’t only hungry for food. I was hungry for steadiness, for responsibility, for a sense of self-respect I had slowly eroded. Overeating had become a way to avoid harder questions.
Paul helped me see that excess is often an attempt to quiet something internal something that can’t actually be satisfied by what’s on a plate. He encouraged a shift from impulse to intention, from self-criticism to accountability. Not perfectly, and not overnight, but patiently.
One of the most important lessons he taught me is that suffering is often intensified by the stories we tell ourselves. I had convinced myself that I needed more in order to feel like enough. His principles helped me challenge that belief.
What I appreciate most about Paul is not the physical transformation that followed though I’m grateful for it. It’s that he consistently pointed me back to my own responsibility. He expected effort without harshness. He offered belief without flattery. He reminded me that strength is built quietly, in ordinary decisions repeated over time.
This not a diet book. It is a reflection on emptiness, on the ways we try to escape it. It suggests that self-respect cannot be consumed, only practiced. That discipline is not self-punishment, but a form of care expressed through action.
In a culture that often celebrates excess and misunderstands restraint, this book offers something steadier and more grounded.
My health has been shaped by many small, imperfect decisions. This book didn’t make them for me, but its principles, teachings and then author simply helped me find the courage to start making them myself.
Paul does not shame. He does not scold. He simply tells the truth gently, clearly, and without theatrics.
What makes this book meaningful is not that it tells you to eat less. It invites you to ask why you reach for more than you need, not only food, but distraction, reassurance, and comfort.
It suggests that while the world will tempt and the body will crave, we still have a say in our next choice. That realization is both confronting and freeing.
This book did not just help me lose weight, but the man behind the words did. These principles and exceptional guidance got me to a place I’d never imagined myself to be. Paul helped me look at myself more honestly.
Two hundred pounds ago, I wasn’t only hungry for food. I was hungry for steadiness, for responsibility, for a sense of self-respect I had slowly eroded. Overeating had become a way to avoid harder questions.
Paul helped me see that excess is often an attempt to quiet something internal something that can’t actually be satisfied by what’s on a plate. He encouraged a shift from impulse to intention, from self-criticism to accountability. Not perfectly, and not overnight, but patiently.
One of the most important lessons he taught me is that suffering is often intensified by the stories we tell ourselves. I had convinced myself that I needed more in order to feel like enough. His principles helped me challenge that belief.
What I appreciate most about Paul is not the physical transformation that followed though I’m grateful for it. It’s that he consistently pointed me back to my own responsibility. He expected effort without harshness. He offered belief without flattery. He reminded me that strength is built quietly, in ordinary decisions repeated over time.
This not a diet book. It is a reflection on emptiness, on the ways we try to escape it. It suggests that self-respect cannot be consumed, only practiced. That discipline is not self-punishment, but a form of care expressed through action.
In a culture that often celebrates excess and misunderstands restraint, this book offers something steadier and more grounded.
My health has been shaped by many small, imperfect decisions. This book didn’t make them for me, but its principles, teachings and then author simply helped me find the courage to start making them myself.
February 16, 2026
This maybe the first non-fiction book to make me weep. It is radically different from any of the other self-help diet books out there. It is not about diet. It addresses the cause, not the symptom. And does so with so much warmth and compassion that you can't help but think, how come that this person, who is a stranger to you understands and accepts you more than you do yourself? Some of the stories through which he is delivering the "lessons" so to speak could have been written by me. I did NOT expect to find my Holy Grail as a Kindle Unlimited recommendation. In fact I love it so much I bought the physical version. This book is for everyone who struggle with emotional eating, who, despite knowing their calories and nutrition and all about the mechanics of fatloss and biology and all that still can't seem to lose the not-useful fat and weight. Because ultimately it's all in our heads. And that's a good thing. It means we have the power to change it. Not by "discipline" and restrictions and rules, but by disentangling the emotions and habits around the way we eat and see food and approaching it from a more mindful, genuinely compassionate angle. For the first time since I can remember I can remain calm around certain foods that used to "trigger" me to eat as much as possible in one sitting. I can wait to eat them without my mind constantly revolving around them. I still am at the beginning of this mindset change and still end up eating more than I'd like, but making small but for me significant progress. Because sometimes, I do end up eating just right. I do leave dessert that I would've eaten before out of some weird compulsion thinking "I want it...but not now". This is unheard of for me. Small steps.
I am incredibly grateful for this book.
I am incredibly grateful for this book.
February 10, 2026
Second time reading this amazing book -
Highly recommend for anyone who has been on and off diet culture for literally years!
I have begun to unpick ingrained habits and beliefs and am gradually replacing with a more kinder way, questioning and exploring.
Paul has a wonderful, funny and thought provoking way about him !
Please read this book if you are feeling like you yo-yo, feel an overload of advice, have lost yourself along the way with all the food chatter, lack self confidence and need to start valuing yourself!
Thank you Paul - I am still a work in progress but getting there 😊
Highly recommend for anyone who has been on and off diet culture for literally years!
I have begun to unpick ingrained habits and beliefs and am gradually replacing with a more kinder way, questioning and exploring.
Paul has a wonderful, funny and thought provoking way about him !
Please read this book if you are feeling like you yo-yo, feel an overload of advice, have lost yourself along the way with all the food chatter, lack self confidence and need to start valuing yourself!
Thank you Paul - I am still a work in progress but getting there 😊
February 10, 2026
Full is a compassionate guide to improving and developing a more sustainable, realistic and calm relationship with food. It is like having an open and honest conversation about the daily reality of food struggles and working to make values based changes on how you relate to food in life. This book is for making effective long term compassionate change with food and will positively impact all areas of your life and outlook.
I highly recommend this book for excellent life change.
I highly recommend this book for excellent life change.
February 12, 2026
A book oozing with empathy and wisdom, coupled with moments of real honesty that make you pause and reflect on not only your relationship with food but also with yourself.
Paul’s humour, warmth, and coaching expertise shines through, particularly in the anecdotes woven throughout. These personal and client stories make this book not only deeply relatable but genuinely practical. The book the diet industry has needed for a long long time. Highly recommend!
Paul’s humour, warmth, and coaching expertise shines through, particularly in the anecdotes woven throughout. These personal and client stories make this book not only deeply relatable but genuinely practical. The book the diet industry has needed for a long long time. Highly recommend!
February 19, 2026
I've followed Paul on Instagram for a while now and really resonate with his calm, compassionate way of breaking down the struggle so many of us have with trying to diet our way into self-acceptance.
His book is written in short, easy to manage chapters and is full of Paul's advice and common sense. I've been highlighting in my kindle as I've been reading and most of the book has now been highlighted!
I've already recommended this to friends, it's definitely worth reading.
His book is written in short, easy to manage chapters and is full of Paul's advice and common sense. I've been highlighting in my kindle as I've been reading and most of the book has now been highlighted!
I've already recommended this to friends, it's definitely worth reading.
February 1, 2026
Beautiful book. I've never related to a book so much in my life. It's a book of calm, compassionate clarity that makes you feel seen, not judged. I've read so many books that claim not to be diet books and then spit the same generic advice at you, but this one really hits different. Highly recommended.
February 11, 2026
Paul’s ability to relate personal experience to teachings around the psychology are unmatched. A fantastic storyteller, whose knowledge and compassion shines through. I can’t recommend this book enough!
January 8, 2026
Such a brilliant, kind and compassionate book. For those who are ready for change and to connect with themselves and move past rules. A must read!
January 13, 2026
A great read
Concise, straight to the point. I like Paul's way of thinking. I didn't have weight issues but I was curious about his approach to things. Would recommend.
Concise, straight to the point. I like Paul's way of thinking. I didn't have weight issues but I was curious about his approach to things. Would recommend.
January 30, 2026
This is an excellent book, easy to understand and to follow and makes so much sense. A must read for anyone wanting to understand the psychology of overeating and how to manage it,
February 9, 2026
Excellent book found it very helpful very straight forward and hope for more like this in the future
February 10, 2026
This book will change the way you approach diet
Lifestyle and weight loss, a calm kind approach which prompts you to question and challenge thoughts and behaviours - an absolutely must read !
Lifestyle and weight loss, a calm kind approach which prompts you to question and challenge thoughts and behaviours - an absolutely must read !
February 11, 2026
10/10
Paul is so much more than a coach,He is a friend a mentor and above all one of the most compassionate and caring people I've ever met.
This book is Paul in your pocket.
A most read
Paul is so much more than a coach,He is a friend a mentor and above all one of the most compassionate and caring people I've ever met.
This book is Paul in your pocket.
A most read
February 11, 2026
What an amazing book when thinking about weight loss. Paul's nonjudgmental, hand-on-your-shoulder approach is such a breath of fresh air. Highly recommend!
February 11, 2026
Amazing book. Would definitely recommend this book to everybody, whatever stage they are at in their fitness/life journey.
February 13, 2026
A fresh approach to well being! Loved how the author shares knowledge by sharing real stories. Made me question many beliefs I had that were impacting negatively in my life. Totally recommend ❤️
February 14, 2026
This book is amazing, well done Paul!
February 4, 2026
I loved this book so much!! Beautifully written, it is a balm for the soul.
February 1, 2026
Beautiful book. I've never related to a book so much in my life. It's a book of calm, compassionate clarity that makes you feel seen, not judged. I've read so many books that claim not to be diet books and then spit the same generic advice at you, but this one really hits different. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews