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Just Eat It isn't just a book. It's part of a movement to give women power and control over our bodies. To free us from restrictive dieting, disordered eating and punishing exercise. To reject the guilt and anxiety associated with eating and, ultimately, to help us feel good about ourselves.
"Truly life-changing" Dolly Alderton, bestselling author of Everything I Know About Love
This anti-diet guide from registered nutritionist Laura Thomas PhD can help you sort out your attitude to food and ditch punishing exercise routines. As a qualified practitioner of Intuitive Eating - a method that helps followers tune in to innate hunger and fullness cues - Thomas gives you the freedom to enjoy food on your own terms.
There are no rules: only simple, practical tools and exercises including mindfulness techniques to help you recognise physiological and emotional hunger, sample conversations with friends and colleagues, and magazine and blog critiques that call out diet culture.
So, have you ever been on a diet? Spent time worrying that you looked fat when you could have been doing something useful? Compared the size of your waistline to someone else's? Felt guilt, actual guilt, about the serious crime of . . . eating a doughnut? You're not alone. Just Eat It gives you everything you need to develop a more trusting, healthy relationship with food and your body.
"Truly life-changing" Dolly Alderton, bestselling author of Everything I Know About Love
This anti-diet guide from registered nutritionist Laura Thomas PhD can help you sort out your attitude to food and ditch punishing exercise routines. As a qualified practitioner of Intuitive Eating - a method that helps followers tune in to innate hunger and fullness cues - Thomas gives you the freedom to enjoy food on your own terms.
There are no rules: only simple, practical tools and exercises including mindfulness techniques to help you recognise physiological and emotional hunger, sample conversations with friends and colleagues, and magazine and blog critiques that call out diet culture.
So, have you ever been on a diet? Spent time worrying that you looked fat when you could have been doing something useful? Compared the size of your waistline to someone else's? Felt guilt, actual guilt, about the serious crime of . . . eating a doughnut? You're not alone. Just Eat It gives you everything you need to develop a more trusting, healthy relationship with food and your body.
470 pages, Hardcover
First published January 10, 2019
504 people are currently reading
7148 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 247 reviews
August 4, 2019
I spotted this book in the library and decided to read it mainly as a challenge for myself. My relationship with food is not great, to put it mildly, but lately I’ve been working to improve it. I skimmed the first few pages and thought it seemed sensible, so borrowed it. ‘Just Eat It’ is definitely not a diet book and, in fact, makes every effort to counter diet culture. The essential idea is to relearn how to eat whatever you want whenever you’re hungry, without imposing rules or guilt on yourself about it. The chapters take you through a step-by-step process for this, with the idea being to work through them over time. Some elements overlap with cognitive behavioural therapy, notably mindfulness and self-compassion. Others are food-specific, such as rating your hunger out of ten and giving yourself unconditional permission to eat. Everything is explained clearly.
I powered through the whole book in an evening however, I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy. If you have a difficult relationship with food, reading it will upset you. I was getting along fine until suddenly, a hundred pages in, I burst out crying. No particular sentence or paragraph brought this on, it was just an accumulation of thoughts. If this happens to you, I recommend writing out the thoughts and having some mint tea (perhaps the ultimate calming beverage). I kept reading, though, because Thomas makes some very important points and suggests some potentially useful techniques. Refreshingly, she emphasises the need for body neutrality, rather than positivity. One suggestion I found powerful is to try thanking your body, rather than reflexively criticising it. Her whole approach to food is radical in a world that obsessively stigmatises it. We all need food to live, yet it is so fraught with confusion, judgement, and a great deal of guilt. The only other book I’ve come across that managed to decouple food from guilt is Ruby Tandoh’s Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want.
Predictably, I really liked the fact that ‘Just Eat It’ blames capitalism and patriarchy for making people, especially women, insecure about their appearance and afraid of food for the purposes of profit. The book is not trying to sell you anything or dictate the pace and exact sequence of what you should do to eat more intuitively. This is especially good as I’m not exactly the target audience and certain parts don’t apply to me. I’ve never been on a diet or actually tried to lose weight, but have always been anxious and weird about food to a greater or lesser extent. I don’t like eating, so elements of the intuitive eating approach may not be entirely suitable. If I gave myself unconditional permission to eat what I wanted, what worries me is that I’d eat less rather than more. The underlying problem is the same, though: fear of food. Thus there are a number of suggestions that I’ll take note of. Apart from the food stuff, the chapters on exercise and body image are also really good. Despite the sadness it brought up, I ultimately found the book calming. It takes a systematic, evidence-based approach to reassuring you that food needn’t be feared and that your body is OK.
As it’s pretty clear scaring people doesn’t help them feel better or make positive life changes, such a constructive approach should be more widespread. For example, I absolutely hate those bus stop posters that just say ‘OBESITY CAUSES CANCER’. I can’t imagine how awful it must feel to have that shoved in your face if your BMI labels you obese. That has never been the case for me, yet those posters still make me worry that I have that invisible fat around my organs which I read an article about and can kill you, etc, etc. Do the ads make me feel more anxious? Absolutely. Do they encourage me to eat more vegetables? No. Whatever their aim was, I doubt it is being achieved. The sole complaint I have about ‘Just Eat It’ is how pink the cover is. But I have a pretty low tolerance for pink so am just being petty. It’s a good book and has given me some helpful ideas that, frankly, I wish I’d come across 16 or more years ago.
I powered through the whole book in an evening however, I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy. If you have a difficult relationship with food, reading it will upset you. I was getting along fine until suddenly, a hundred pages in, I burst out crying. No particular sentence or paragraph brought this on, it was just an accumulation of thoughts. If this happens to you, I recommend writing out the thoughts and having some mint tea (perhaps the ultimate calming beverage). I kept reading, though, because Thomas makes some very important points and suggests some potentially useful techniques. Refreshingly, she emphasises the need for body neutrality, rather than positivity. One suggestion I found powerful is to try thanking your body, rather than reflexively criticising it. Her whole approach to food is radical in a world that obsessively stigmatises it. We all need food to live, yet it is so fraught with confusion, judgement, and a great deal of guilt. The only other book I’ve come across that managed to decouple food from guilt is Ruby Tandoh’s Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want.
Predictably, I really liked the fact that ‘Just Eat It’ blames capitalism and patriarchy for making people, especially women, insecure about their appearance and afraid of food for the purposes of profit. The book is not trying to sell you anything or dictate the pace and exact sequence of what you should do to eat more intuitively. This is especially good as I’m not exactly the target audience and certain parts don’t apply to me. I’ve never been on a diet or actually tried to lose weight, but have always been anxious and weird about food to a greater or lesser extent. I don’t like eating, so elements of the intuitive eating approach may not be entirely suitable. If I gave myself unconditional permission to eat what I wanted, what worries me is that I’d eat less rather than more. The underlying problem is the same, though: fear of food. Thus there are a number of suggestions that I’ll take note of. Apart from the food stuff, the chapters on exercise and body image are also really good. Despite the sadness it brought up, I ultimately found the book calming. It takes a systematic, evidence-based approach to reassuring you that food needn’t be feared and that your body is OK.
As it’s pretty clear scaring people doesn’t help them feel better or make positive life changes, such a constructive approach should be more widespread. For example, I absolutely hate those bus stop posters that just say ‘OBESITY CAUSES CANCER’. I can’t imagine how awful it must feel to have that shoved in your face if your BMI labels you obese. That has never been the case for me, yet those posters still make me worry that I have that invisible fat around my organs which I read an article about and can kill you, etc, etc. Do the ads make me feel more anxious? Absolutely. Do they encourage me to eat more vegetables? No. Whatever their aim was, I doubt it is being achieved. The sole complaint I have about ‘Just Eat It’ is how pink the cover is. But I have a pretty low tolerance for pink so am just being petty. It’s a good book and has given me some helpful ideas that, frankly, I wish I’d come across 16 or more years ago.
August 10, 2020
I had mixed feelings about this book. The premise is sound. A qualified nutritionist is advising to escape 'diet mentality' and stop obsessing about food. Great! But there's rather a lot of swearing which makes it sound unprofessional and hinders the 'authority' of the author's voice, despite the PhD after her name.
She makes a lot of good points about the detrimental obsession over weight and food, but at times she seems to be saying that people who are overweight should just accept it as normal and make no effort to lose health-destroying obesity. I can see her advice being wonderful for those who obsess over 10-20 lbs of natural weight gain and for rejecting the rail-thin ideal of popular magazines, but someone who is 100-200 lbs overweight can't rely on 'intuitive eating' to lose enough to be a healthy weight! Diabetes and heart disease from excessive weight are a real thing!
Not to mention increased mobility and energy if someone does it a healthy way rather than through fad diets (don't even mention Keto to me! I equate it with Scientology.)
There is a chapter on 'gentle nutrition' and some extensive nutrition information near the end, but the author seems to assume that anyone who stops obsessing over food will naturally gravitate towards healthy eating. I don't believe that. I know people who would happily live on pizza and tacos forever and never touch another vegetable if they weren't paying attention to nutrition and quite honestly, I'm one of them. I spent my late teenage and early 20s years eating whatever I liked and the fruit/vegetable category didn't feature! The occasional banana maybe. And assuming I would EVER put vegetables on a pizza is just fantasy. I'm a meat feast girl and don't want my flavors diluted with nasty vegetables!
There are several mentions of Instagram and a specific hashtag that give me the impression that the author is assuming everybody has the same attitudes and assumptions about food and dieting as a particular group on that network. I'm not on instagram and don't know anyone among my real life family/friends/acquaintances/work colleagues who is, or who has the exact mindset as the author is working from.
I know a lot of people who consider themselves to be overweight to one degree or another and a few who have successfully lost weight through healthy diet programs. One thing we have in common is that given free reign to eat anything we want as the author suggests, certain Easter sweets in the stores right now would push those vegetables off our plates as far as our budgets could take it!
There are a lot of good nuggets of information in this book but I don't feel I can recommend it to anyone except those who keep obsessing over 10-20 lbs over the BMI charts. True those are outdated and imperfect, but someone seriously obese could easily see this as giving them permission to ignore the very real health dangers and put it down to stressing over food, as the author theorizes. Accepting your body shape isn't going to get you to fit into seats on planes or at entertainment venues and as much as I might agree that fat shaming and discrimination is wrong, it still happens.
I don't swallow that nature makes some people naturally fat in the extreme. Processed foods and high sugar content might have made it the new normal, but eating a nutritious diet will find the biological norm.
I've never one starred a book on Netgalley before but I think apart from the unprofessional delivery, the advice in this book is actually dangerous to people at risk of diabetes and heart disease through excessive weight.
She makes a lot of good points about the detrimental obsession over weight and food, but at times she seems to be saying that people who are overweight should just accept it as normal and make no effort to lose health-destroying obesity. I can see her advice being wonderful for those who obsess over 10-20 lbs of natural weight gain and for rejecting the rail-thin ideal of popular magazines, but someone who is 100-200 lbs overweight can't rely on 'intuitive eating' to lose enough to be a healthy weight! Diabetes and heart disease from excessive weight are a real thing!
Not to mention increased mobility and energy if someone does it a healthy way rather than through fad diets (don't even mention Keto to me! I equate it with Scientology.)
There is a chapter on 'gentle nutrition' and some extensive nutrition information near the end, but the author seems to assume that anyone who stops obsessing over food will naturally gravitate towards healthy eating. I don't believe that. I know people who would happily live on pizza and tacos forever and never touch another vegetable if they weren't paying attention to nutrition and quite honestly, I'm one of them. I spent my late teenage and early 20s years eating whatever I liked and the fruit/vegetable category didn't feature! The occasional banana maybe. And assuming I would EVER put vegetables on a pizza is just fantasy. I'm a meat feast girl and don't want my flavors diluted with nasty vegetables!
There are several mentions of Instagram and a specific hashtag that give me the impression that the author is assuming everybody has the same attitudes and assumptions about food and dieting as a particular group on that network. I'm not on instagram and don't know anyone among my real life family/friends/acquaintances/work colleagues who is, or who has the exact mindset as the author is working from.
I know a lot of people who consider themselves to be overweight to one degree or another and a few who have successfully lost weight through healthy diet programs. One thing we have in common is that given free reign to eat anything we want as the author suggests, certain Easter sweets in the stores right now would push those vegetables off our plates as far as our budgets could take it!
There are a lot of good nuggets of information in this book but I don't feel I can recommend it to anyone except those who keep obsessing over 10-20 lbs over the BMI charts. True those are outdated and imperfect, but someone seriously obese could easily see this as giving them permission to ignore the very real health dangers and put it down to stressing over food, as the author theorizes. Accepting your body shape isn't going to get you to fit into seats on planes or at entertainment venues and as much as I might agree that fat shaming and discrimination is wrong, it still happens.
I don't swallow that nature makes some people naturally fat in the extreme. Processed foods and high sugar content might have made it the new normal, but eating a nutritious diet will find the biological norm.
I've never one starred a book on Netgalley before but I think apart from the unprofessional delivery, the advice in this book is actually dangerous to people at risk of diabetes and heart disease through excessive weight.
March 1, 2019
This book has some good insight into eating more mindfully, not following diets or diet influencers and generally eating healthier and listening to your body and it's needs.
I did enjoy the fact that the author shares her diet stories and found it interesting that even dietitians can form eating disorders. It made the book feel much more honest.
I felt it was a little too long but otherwise a great starter for learning to love yourself more rather than listen to what our phones and social media tell us. A very much needed read
I did enjoy the fact that the author shares her diet stories and found it interesting that even dietitians can form eating disorders. It made the book feel much more honest.
I felt it was a little too long but otherwise a great starter for learning to love yourself more rather than listen to what our phones and social media tell us. A very much needed read
February 9, 2021
After reading "Intuitive Eating" by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch and seeing an Instagram post with this book, I knew I had to get my hands on it. Laura Thomas fully unpacks the principles of intuitive eating with her expertise and breadth of knowledge. I feel an even firmer grasp on all the aspects that constitute the practice of eating intuitively, including gentle movement, gentle nutrition, body image, and so on. I admire how unapologetically honest Laura is in her book and how she is able to tear down the walls of diet culture mentality and help readers find freedom in how we deal with food. No matter who you are, I recommend reading this (or doing your own research on IE) since so many struggle daily with their relationship with food, their body, etc.
October 28, 2020
one of the most important books i've read this year.
i personally have struggled a lot with disordered eating for a large portion of my life, and i didn't realise how much of some of my current behaviours - which i perceive as recovered or intuitive - still contains the stains of years of diet mentality. the activities/journal reflections that dr. thomas suggested were also especially helpful, and i think they established a clear base as to where i am now on my move towards recovery and being more gentle with my body; so i highly recommend doing those as well!
just a warning though, because i've seen people not be very fond of her language: she does tend to swear and use some level of informal language. i personally had no issue with it because i think it was relevant and necessary, especially with how much diet culture is (insidiously) transmitted online through the familiar informal language of instagram and the like. however i know this isn't what everyone likes in a nonfiction book, so i figured i'd mention it just in case.
overall, i think if you've ever been on a diet or struggled with disordered eating, this book is incredibly important and might be able to get you to reflect on that behaviour + map a way out of this cyclical mindset.
i personally have struggled a lot with disordered eating for a large portion of my life, and i didn't realise how much of some of my current behaviours - which i perceive as recovered or intuitive - still contains the stains of years of diet mentality. the activities/journal reflections that dr. thomas suggested were also especially helpful, and i think they established a clear base as to where i am now on my move towards recovery and being more gentle with my body; so i highly recommend doing those as well!
just a warning though, because i've seen people not be very fond of her language: she does tend to swear and use some level of informal language. i personally had no issue with it because i think it was relevant and necessary, especially with how much diet culture is (insidiously) transmitted online through the familiar informal language of instagram and the like. however i know this isn't what everyone likes in a nonfiction book, so i figured i'd mention it just in case.
overall, i think if you've ever been on a diet or struggled with disordered eating, this book is incredibly important and might be able to get you to reflect on that behaviour + map a way out of this cyclical mindset.
February 2, 2019
I've been on many diets since I've been a child... Yes, since I've been a child, this sounds so horrible to me right now, that as a child I was encouraged to diet, to lose weight, to restrict my food, because my body was bigger than what my parents were willing to accept. Later on in my life, I was trying diets on my own, following plans found in glossy, 'health' magazines. I attended two different weight loss programs, and it all didn't end up well for me. I gradually developed an eating disorder, that was getting worse, and worse. I still battling it to this day and now I'm ready to start doing something about my eating, more than just not thinking about it, and not caring for what I'm eating, not because I was eating intuitively but because I was rebelling against my own body and expectations that are put on it.
The very personal note above is to present how important this book is for me, and for many people who have similar experiences. I read Fat Is a Feminist Issue that touches on the same topics and talks about intuitive eating, but Just Eat It is written in so much more friendly tone, it's easy to follow and entertaining, but at the same time delivering very powerful message - fuck the diet culture, stop spending all your energy on dieting. The delivery of the message is perfect for our times and culture, it is not a medical text saying how fatphobia and weight stigma impact our health, it delivers those messages in insta-friendly quotes, references modern pop-culture and feels like it was written by your friend. The thing I didn't like though is that after some time the book felt a bit too repetitive, some topics could be combined or shortened.
Just Eat It is the anti-diet book of our times ladies, and I encourage you all to read it!
The very personal note above is to present how important this book is for me, and for many people who have similar experiences. I read Fat Is a Feminist Issue that touches on the same topics and talks about intuitive eating, but Just Eat It is written in so much more friendly tone, it's easy to follow and entertaining, but at the same time delivering very powerful message - fuck the diet culture, stop spending all your energy on dieting. The delivery of the message is perfect for our times and culture, it is not a medical text saying how fatphobia and weight stigma impact our health, it delivers those messages in insta-friendly quotes, references modern pop-culture and feels like it was written by your friend. The thing I didn't like though is that after some time the book felt a bit too repetitive, some topics could be combined or shortened.
Just Eat It is the anti-diet book of our times ladies, and I encourage you all to read it!
May 2, 2021
Like she says at the beginning of the book some will work for you and some won’t. Some takeaways from the book:
Reintroduce joyful sustainable movement into my life. it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It’s not linear. For me right now it’s walking.
Listen to my body for hunger and fullness cues. Still working on the fullness cues part. I’m going to try the mid meal check in. Ultimately going to give myself unconditional permission to eat.
Balance and variety in food. Quit counting. Quit eliminating food groups No more calling food good/bad, healthy/unhealthy.
Lose the guilt and fuck weight loss. Health and extended lifespan are about nutrition and movement, not weight loss. You don’t have to earn food. Everyone deserves to eat. accept body and respect body. weight fluctuates.
according to cdc 75% of health is determined by socioeconomics. 25% is genetics, smoking, alcohol, drugs, medicine, movement, sleep, stress, nutrition
I will reference this book in the future and recommend it to friends.
Reintroduce joyful sustainable movement into my life. it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It’s not linear. For me right now it’s walking.
Listen to my body for hunger and fullness cues. Still working on the fullness cues part. I’m going to try the mid meal check in. Ultimately going to give myself unconditional permission to eat.
Balance and variety in food. Quit counting. Quit eliminating food groups No more calling food good/bad, healthy/unhealthy.
Lose the guilt and fuck weight loss. Health and extended lifespan are about nutrition and movement, not weight loss. You don’t have to earn food. Everyone deserves to eat. accept body and respect body. weight fluctuates.
according to cdc 75% of health is determined by socioeconomics. 25% is genetics, smoking, alcohol, drugs, medicine, movement, sleep, stress, nutrition
I will reference this book in the future and recommend it to friends.
February 6, 2019
Nothing much is happening here. Author speaks about hunger and that you shouldn't sit on diets but eat when you're hungry. Not really the into I was hoping to get out of book written by PhD ... And yeah, lots of swearing.
Better read "Big fat surprise ", it's far more interesting and life changing. At least for me.
Better read "Big fat surprise ", it's far more interesting and life changing. At least for me.
April 11, 2021
Everyone needs to read this, from wherever they are at in life and wherever they have been, there is something in it for everyone. Genuinely mind changing to read.
August 18, 2021
Before this book, I didn't know what intuitive eating was.
It is not only super interesting and a healthier way to look at food, but the author also dives deep into diet culture.
I learned so much! The book is very informative and easy to read.
It is not only super interesting and a healthier way to look at food, but the author also dives deep into diet culture.
I learned so much! The book is very informative and easy to read.
April 3, 2019
This book has many great qualities. It’s knowledgeable, carefree and comforting. Laura knows her shit! Almost...a little too much? I think this book would have been so much better suited as a glossy, OTT magazine-esque book with loads of pictures. There’s so much useful information in here that I think could have been better served as a more casual book. While I loved the mental challenge this book gave me, I read books of this style to get from beginning to end, not sit down and journal/not read for a while to see how I’m adapting. But, the words are great! Love the words.
February 20, 2019
Not keen on the writing style (lots of swearing!) and found it slightly repetitive.
It is, however, an informative book and I imagine useful if you have ever faced problems with diets/weight. I liked the resources section with extra reading and body positivity Instagram accounts.
It is, however, an informative book and I imagine useful if you have ever faced problems with diets/weight. I liked the resources section with extra reading and body positivity Instagram accounts.
March 2, 2019
This isn't the first food or eating self help books that I have read. The difference with 'Just Eat It' is that instead of approaching things from a slightly happy clappy motivational speaker perspective, Laura Thomas writes in an academic style using robust research sources and biological and psychological science to empower women (and I guess all people) to accept their bodies for how they currently are and to feel normal around all food.
I felt the book was insightful and inspirational. It has a focus on working through your own relationship with food and your body and I creating a non judgemental and kind attitude to yourself and all those around you.
5 stars.
I felt the book was insightful and inspirational. It has a focus on working through your own relationship with food and your body and I creating a non judgemental and kind attitude to yourself and all those around you.
5 stars.
June 30, 2020
Overall I really loved it but there were definitely a few things I didn’t agree with. However It did change my view on disordered eating a lot. And I learned a lot from it.
January 26, 2025
Ik ben dit boek beginnen lezen in de hoop mijn fucked up relatie met eten, diëten en mijn lichaam te ontwrichten en ik denk wel dat dit boek daarin geslaagd is. Ook al is dat een proces natuurlijk en verloopt zo iets stap per stap. Maar ik wil en ga never nooit nimeer op dieet gaan dus dat is al een mooie verandering qua mindset zou ik zeggen.
De schrijfstijl is humoristisch maar soms echt wel cringe af. Vandaar geen 5 sterren. Ook niet alle hoofdstukken waren voor mij relevant maar dus wel geschreven voor een breed publiek.
Ohja en echt wel pluspunten voor de schrijfster haar visie op de link tussen dieetcultuur en het patriarchaat!! Kortdoordenbocht: als ge heel de tijd aan eten en mager zijn denkt kunt ge u ni focussen op alles dat er rond u gebeurt zoals systematische onderdrukking enzo. Period!
Joeee ik ga nu koekjes eten (mopje dat is dus niet wat intuïtief eten is maar als je meer wil weten moet je het boek lezen daaag)
De schrijfstijl is humoristisch maar soms echt wel cringe af. Vandaar geen 5 sterren. Ook niet alle hoofdstukken waren voor mij relevant maar dus wel geschreven voor een breed publiek.
Ohja en echt wel pluspunten voor de schrijfster haar visie op de link tussen dieetcultuur en het patriarchaat!! Kortdoordenbocht: als ge heel de tijd aan eten en mager zijn denkt kunt ge u ni focussen op alles dat er rond u gebeurt zoals systematische onderdrukking enzo. Period!
Joeee ik ga nu koekjes eten (mopje dat is dus niet wat intuïtief eten is maar als je meer wil weten moet je het boek lezen daaag)
February 21, 2021
Reflections and lessons learned:
A strong 4.5 rating for this educational feeling overview of so many physical and psychological elements of eating, consuming and subsiding. I’ve always been fairly standard with my weight but aware of struggles and battles for others around me (eating disorders within the family, extreme dieting and exercise, ignorance of weight gain). Now, as a parent, I worry for the weight of my children trying to work out the best balance between satiated but not overfed, and the wording and terminology that we use around food - enjoyment and key but not everything.
This book covers more than just eating (the notion of emotional hunger and feeding the soul). Shocking statistics and some eye opening insights from the health based research around weight - I hadn’t thought about the use of fit bits/app concerns over listening to your body and following instinct which should always rank higher. Highlights the most important need for a compassionate self response in life, and as ever, a good diet with balance and variety.
“Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional”
A strong 4.5 rating for this educational feeling overview of so many physical and psychological elements of eating, consuming and subsiding. I’ve always been fairly standard with my weight but aware of struggles and battles for others around me (eating disorders within the family, extreme dieting and exercise, ignorance of weight gain). Now, as a parent, I worry for the weight of my children trying to work out the best balance between satiated but not overfed, and the wording and terminology that we use around food - enjoyment and key but not everything.
This book covers more than just eating (the notion of emotional hunger and feeding the soul). Shocking statistics and some eye opening insights from the health based research around weight - I hadn’t thought about the use of fit bits/app concerns over listening to your body and following instinct which should always rank higher. Highlights the most important need for a compassionate self response in life, and as ever, a good diet with balance and variety.
“Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional”
August 13, 2025
Loistava kirja intuitiivisesta syömisestä! Pidin todella paljon siitä, kuinka rennolla (mutta silti asiantuntevalla) otteella kirja on kirjoitettu – se oli täynnä sekä viisautta että myös lempeyttä kepeyttä ja huumoria unohtamatta. Kirja käsitteli intuitiivista syömistä ja kehosuhdetta todella kattavasti ja on mielestäni Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach -kirjan (Evelyn Tribole ja Elyse Resch) ohella paras aiheesta kirjoitettu kirja (Christy Harrisonin Anti-Diet tulee hyvin kintereillä, mutta oli vähän enemmän keskittynyt dieettikulttuurin historiaan yms.).
Tämä on ehdottomasti sellainen kirja, jonka lukeminen tekisi hyvää kaikille nykyisessä dieettikulttuurin ilmapiirissä.
Tämä on ehdottomasti sellainen kirja, jonka lukeminen tekisi hyvää kaikille nykyisessä dieettikulttuurin ilmapiirissä.
May 11, 2020
I can’t thank the author enough for educating me on what a sickening and awful domain diet culture has become in our society. It is truly insightful and well worth the long read. The exercises are work but are effective in helping undo all the shit that most of us have let ourselves believe and get sucked into. This book has changed my perspective on body image and my relationship with food for the better (even if it’s a life long battle).
May 10, 2020
Really great book about diet culture and relationships with food. As someone who has struggled with disordered eating for a long time, this book was genuinely the first healthy bit of "nutrition" advice I've ever gotten that isn't either presenting an overly 'health' focused approach or just plain fatphobic. Would recommend to anyone who has emotional / control issues that manifest in their eating!
April 6, 2021
Jammer dat dit boek zo aggressief naar vrouwen roept met de roze glitterdonut. Vrouwenlichamen worden inderdaad geboetseerd door de maatschappij alsof ze niet meer van ons zijn, maar deze informatie (met concrete opdrachten) is nuttig voor iedereen die intuïtiever wil eten en minder hersenenergie wil spenderen aan vermageren, des te meer aan de wereld redden.
April 7, 2024
My whole life I’ve been a size 14-16…. This has just dawned on me.
Inspite of regular dieting I always end up size 14-16 a year later. What a waste of time!! I’m obviously supposed to be, for me, a size 14-16!
This book has helped me accept that ☺️
Inspite of regular dieting I always end up size 14-16 a year later. What a waste of time!! I’m obviously supposed to be, for me, a size 14-16!
This book has helped me accept that ☺️
February 16, 2020
"Imagine if two-thirds of people on diets in the UK channelled all the energy, strength, grit and determination usually reserved for dieting and used it as a force for social change."
I got this book after Body Positive Power by Meghan Jayne Crabbe lit an anti-diet fire under my butt. At first I found myself comparing this book to the former, and I thought it didn't measure up. But as I delved deeper into this fantastic book's pages I realised it was unfair to compare the two.
Crabbe's book is all about body positivity, and only a fraction of it talks about intuitive eating. This book, Just Eat It, is entirely about intuitive eating and how to ditch diet mentality. BPP is an anger-invoking tool for self love and an introduction to boycotting the bullshit that is diet culture. JEI is a how-to guide on listening to your body and what it wants as opposed to letting diet culture dictate what you eat.
Laura Thomas's unapologetic honesty in this book really struck a chord with me, and her advice has really stuck with me. As someone recovering from a VERY messed up relationship with food, I can't say I'm a fully-fledged intuitive eater as of yet but I put this book's advice into practice every single day: from mindful eating to the hunger scale.
If you've had an eating disorder, if you've been on a diet, if you're sick of hating yourself BECAUSE SHIT IN THE MEDIA TELLS YOU TO, PLEASE read this book. It blew my mind. It'll tell you things that seem so simple, but you overlooked them because you want to look like Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman.
This book is the perfect tool for learning to enjoy food as it should be enjoyed, and hopefully will inspire readers as it inspired me to read further on the topic and ditch body punishment once and for all.
I got this book after Body Positive Power by Meghan Jayne Crabbe lit an anti-diet fire under my butt. At first I found myself comparing this book to the former, and I thought it didn't measure up. But as I delved deeper into this fantastic book's pages I realised it was unfair to compare the two.
Crabbe's book is all about body positivity, and only a fraction of it talks about intuitive eating. This book, Just Eat It, is entirely about intuitive eating and how to ditch diet mentality. BPP is an anger-invoking tool for self love and an introduction to boycotting the bullshit that is diet culture. JEI is a how-to guide on listening to your body and what it wants as opposed to letting diet culture dictate what you eat.
Laura Thomas's unapologetic honesty in this book really struck a chord with me, and her advice has really stuck with me. As someone recovering from a VERY messed up relationship with food, I can't say I'm a fully-fledged intuitive eater as of yet but I put this book's advice into practice every single day: from mindful eating to the hunger scale.
If you've had an eating disorder, if you've been on a diet, if you're sick of hating yourself BECAUSE SHIT IN THE MEDIA TELLS YOU TO, PLEASE read this book. It blew my mind. It'll tell you things that seem so simple, but you overlooked them because you want to look like Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman.
This book is the perfect tool for learning to enjoy food as it should be enjoyed, and hopefully will inspire readers as it inspired me to read further on the topic and ditch body punishment once and for all.
January 28, 2020
I enjoyed this reading about intuitive eating and I look forward to further implementing it into my life. Unfortunately I have a lot going on mentally so its actually been nice to think about changing my eating habits to a more healthy and long term approach.
This is the first non-fiction book I have EVER read (for my own pleasure), so as expected it took me a short while to get through it as I was missing the intrigue of a fictional story with plot twist etc. The book was also more than its actual self as you were taking it into your own way of living and attempting to adapt your mindset whilst also keeping a journal to complete activities and keep a food log.
I read a review or two that said this book was unprofessional in the use of the occasional swear words. I understand this point of view but I disagree. The book even has the word sh*t on the front cover! What were you expecting? It also didn't, for me, feel like it took away from the professionalism - there wasn't an excessive amount and it was honestly just used on a relatable level.
I don't think I can give this 5 stars, at least not yet anyway. As Thomas says, intuitive eating is a long journey and I may find myself taking a while to get there. Who knows, maybe the book didn't really help me much? Will I be changed in my eating ways? I can definitely see myself jumping back to chapters in the coming months as reminders to stay away from diet culture.
This is the first non-fiction book I have EVER read (for my own pleasure), so as expected it took me a short while to get through it as I was missing the intrigue of a fictional story with plot twist etc. The book was also more than its actual self as you were taking it into your own way of living and attempting to adapt your mindset whilst also keeping a journal to complete activities and keep a food log.
I read a review or two that said this book was unprofessional in the use of the occasional swear words. I understand this point of view but I disagree. The book even has the word sh*t on the front cover! What were you expecting? It also didn't, for me, feel like it took away from the professionalism - there wasn't an excessive amount and it was honestly just used on a relatable level.
I don't think I can give this 5 stars, at least not yet anyway. As Thomas says, intuitive eating is a long journey and I may find myself taking a while to get there. Who knows, maybe the book didn't really help me much? Will I be changed in my eating ways? I can definitely see myself jumping back to chapters in the coming months as reminders to stay away from diet culture.
May 20, 2019
I read this because it was on the list for a book club but struggled mightily with it. I agree with the fundamental point about the toxicity of diet culture, and I think that there is a lot to the idea of intuitive eating, but the book would have been more useful had it been more streamlined - I think it could have been a third to a half of the size - and had it taken more consideration of context. (Someone asked the author, who was present at the book club meeting, how well this book would apply, for example, to a person of low socio-economic status in the United States, where the affordable and accessible food is often unhealthy junk food - she responded, interestingly, that this is a book for the 'worried well'.) I also had an issue with style/tone; while I don't mind an informal, conversational style in general, and while I swear comfortably in face-to-face settings where it's acceptable/appropriate to present company, I do take issue with the way profanity is frequently used in this book. It feels gratuitous and a bit faddish (e.g., The Life-Changing Art of Not Giving a Fuck and seemingly countless others), and as a professional psychologist I'd feel uncomfortable with recommending it freely to clients even if I were entirely on board with the book as a whole.
August 29, 2019
I came across another nutritionist’s Instagram page about intuitive eating and became very interested in the IE movement as a result. I got this book out from the library so I sadly won’t have it to refer to later but I’m going to do my best to implement her methods in my own eating habits. I’m lucky to have never been much of a dieter, but I found all of the evidence she shared to be incredibly compelling and I could stand to eat more intuitively and practice better overall self-care.
I’m now obsessed with weight stigma and fat phobia and I notice it absolutely everywhere. It makes me sick to know the harm that’s been done to people’s health and wellbeing due to diet culture BS. I’ve deleted all the #fitspo from my Instagram feed and started following BoPo accounts and IE nutritionists instead. Diets don’t work and I want to follow people who embrace health at every size. We only have this one body in life and we need to accept that we can’t change it and society needs to start respecting it.
If you’ve ever been on a diet you need to read this book and listen to Laura Thomas’s podcast Don’t Salt My Game. This is an excellent book and a great intro to the anti-diet and IE movements.
I’m now obsessed with weight stigma and fat phobia and I notice it absolutely everywhere. It makes me sick to know the harm that’s been done to people’s health and wellbeing due to diet culture BS. I’ve deleted all the #fitspo from my Instagram feed and started following BoPo accounts and IE nutritionists instead. Diets don’t work and I want to follow people who embrace health at every size. We only have this one body in life and we need to accept that we can’t change it and society needs to start respecting it.
If you’ve ever been on a diet you need to read this book and listen to Laura Thomas’s podcast Don’t Salt My Game. This is an excellent book and a great intro to the anti-diet and IE movements.
September 3, 2019
Este livro está cheio de informação interessante e pertinente sobre o tema da alimentação intuitiva de modo a dizer um adeus definitivo às dietas.
Acompanha o processo todo, com muitos exercícios de reflexão e auto avaliação (gosto muito no foco no journaling), é um manual essencial para quem quer entrar no tema e aprofundar o seu conhecimento sobre si próprio e aprender a seguir o que o corpo pede. Só tem um problema, é demasiado longo. A autora perde-se em muitos detalhes, em explicações mais elaboradas e apesar da informação ser interessante e a escrita clara e descomplicada torna-se aborrecido. Acompanhou-me durante meses porque dificilmente é um page turner. Estou curiosa para ler mais livros dentro desta temática e perceber se os diferentes autores terão outra abordagem mais leve e menos exaustiva que a da Laura Thomas. Ainda assim, sinto que aprendi muitíssimo com o livro e agrada-me ter imensas páginas marcadas e a hipótese de rever informação quando sentir necessidade.
Acompanha o processo todo, com muitos exercícios de reflexão e auto avaliação (gosto muito no foco no journaling), é um manual essencial para quem quer entrar no tema e aprofundar o seu conhecimento sobre si próprio e aprender a seguir o que o corpo pede. Só tem um problema, é demasiado longo. A autora perde-se em muitos detalhes, em explicações mais elaboradas e apesar da informação ser interessante e a escrita clara e descomplicada torna-se aborrecido. Acompanhou-me durante meses porque dificilmente é um page turner. Estou curiosa para ler mais livros dentro desta temática e perceber se os diferentes autores terão outra abordagem mais leve e menos exaustiva que a da Laura Thomas. Ainda assim, sinto que aprendi muitíssimo com o livro e agrada-me ter imensas páginas marcadas e a hipótese de rever informação quando sentir necessidade.
April 29, 2019
This is such a refreshing book! Thomas encourages people not only to ditch diet culture but to be angry with the time and energy we waste trying to conform to artificial beauty standards. Admittedly, I read the book more for information than to sit down and actually do the journalling and activities she recommends (I think they'd be very valuable, though), but this is definitely a book you can go back and dip into. I also really enjoyed the conversational, irreverent tone. It is long, and I think more could have been done to acknowledge, and provide strategies for, those with disabilities or whose income makes eating intuitively exponentially more difficult.
Yeah, a LOT of new ideas to mull over, but I did ditch my fitness tracker and already feel much better about life. ;-)
Yeah, a LOT of new ideas to mull over, but I did ditch my fitness tracker and already feel much better about life. ;-)
January 1, 2020
I stuck with it because of strong recommendations from friends. Good for people with self-esteem issues and endless comparing on social media. I love healthy food but many people don't, and it assumes that we will all gravitate to a balanced diet which I don't think is the case for many. The main message was the importance of accepting ourselves which is great. But it also says to just learn to be happy with being overweight. People are overweight for many reasons, and poverty, social issues, education, life experience, family background, genetics etc all play their parts.
October 17, 2021
This book was quite a revelation for me. Suggested by my colleagues and at a time when I was about to work at weight management services, this book properly conflicted my professional opinion.
It is written in a very understandable and nonsense free vocabulary, whilst including a fair bit of swearing. I do have my qualms with that as it seemed to maybe try a bit too much to convey the scientifically based evidence in a conversational style. Not so keen on the constant swearing.
However, it is a wonderful starting point to a happier and healthier life. I never thought I had proper issues with food but the exercises there made me think and reflect and I did realise how I put some foods on a pedastal, meaning cravings and feeling guilty. I've also been time restricted eating and mostly for the purpose of weight management myself, and since reading this book I am more attuned to my body's hunger signals, allowing myself to eat when I want.
I have also used parts of it in my work with clients, because everyone deserves to eat and if foods all have neutral value in our minds, it would help make the choices the body tells us to eat, often leading to appropriate nutrition and amounts.
I definitely enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone having tried or wanting to try a new diet. Also to anyone just wanting to tune in to their bodies more and learn to eat what and when the body wants.
But be warned of the occasional street language.
It is written in a very understandable and nonsense free vocabulary, whilst including a fair bit of swearing. I do have my qualms with that as it seemed to maybe try a bit too much to convey the scientifically based evidence in a conversational style. Not so keen on the constant swearing.
However, it is a wonderful starting point to a happier and healthier life. I never thought I had proper issues with food but the exercises there made me think and reflect and I did realise how I put some foods on a pedastal, meaning cravings and feeling guilty. I've also been time restricted eating and mostly for the purpose of weight management myself, and since reading this book I am more attuned to my body's hunger signals, allowing myself to eat when I want.
I have also used parts of it in my work with clients, because everyone deserves to eat and if foods all have neutral value in our minds, it would help make the choices the body tells us to eat, often leading to appropriate nutrition and amounts.
I definitely enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone having tried or wanting to try a new diet. Also to anyone just wanting to tune in to their bodies more and learn to eat what and when the body wants.
But be warned of the occasional street language.
July 12, 2019
Interesting book swimming against the diet/body shaming/extreme workout tide. A lot of the book is dedicated to various dysfunctional relationships we may have around food and eating. She does not mention any specific foods for the first 2/3rds of the book. Overall, this is an interesting read, but I was frustrated by the emotional eating section (something I struggle with) that basically said it is perfectly fine to eat for comfort, with little solid advice on how to get a handle on it. Personally, I find that message unhelpful - if you are not eating because you are hungry, then you are imbibing food that’s your body doesn’t really need to sustain itself. She also spent quite a lot of the book proving how diets don’t work and how carbs are essential for your body to function properly. I can’t imagine life with out toast, pasta or potatoes, so I am with her on that one!
One thing to note is that the author is based in the UK, still shielded by the EU’s precautionary approach to food additives. Very different from N America where anything goes. This means that formulations for products in Europe are much cleaner, and you can relax on being a label hawk in order to avoid certain chemicals that react badly in your body (like mine).
I didn’t do any of the homework or tasks, but found the intuitive eating message refreshing and her style likeable and current.
One thing to note is that the author is based in the UK, still shielded by the EU’s precautionary approach to food additives. Very different from N America where anything goes. This means that formulations for products in Europe are much cleaner, and you can relax on being a label hawk in order to avoid certain chemicals that react badly in your body (like mine).
I didn’t do any of the homework or tasks, but found the intuitive eating message refreshing and her style likeable and current.
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