A food psychologist identifies hidden factors, motivations, and cues that cause overeating and offers practical solutions to help avoid these hidden traps and enjoy food without putting on excess pounds.

Being on a diet is a miserable experience for most people, and it rarely leads to the desired goal of shedding fat. In fact, studies show that dieters often gain weight rather than lose it, because the intensity, restrictions, and short duration of most diets means they are ill - equipped to produce long - term effects. In Smart People Don't Diet, Dr Charlotte N. Markey presents a refreshingly different perspective, addressing the underlying causes of weight gain and offering proven strategies for lasting weight management. This book will show you how to eat well, lose weight, and keep it off - without dieting. The gimmicks don't work, but Dr Markey's reasonable, accessible advice will help you get - and stay - healthy.

A provocative expose of the dieting industry from one of the nation’s leading researchers in self-control and the psychology of weight loss that offers proven strategies for sustainable weight loss. From her office in the University of Minnesota’s Health and Eating Lab, professor Traci Mann researches self-control and dieting. And what she has discovered is groundbreaking. Not only do diets not work; they often result in weight gain. Americans are losing the battle of the bulge because our bodies and brains are not hardwired to resist food—the very idea of it works against our biological imperative to survive. In Secrets From the Eating Lab, Mann challenges assumptions—including those that make up the very foundation of the weight loss industry—about how diets work and why they fail. The result of more than two decades of research, it offers cutting-edge science and exciting new insights into the American obesity epidemic and our relationship with eating and food. Secrets From the Eating Lab also gives readers the practical tools they need to actually lose weight and get healthy. Mann argues that the idea of willpower is a myth—we shouldn’t waste time and money trying to combat our natural tendencies. Instead, she offers 12 simple, effective strategies that take advantage of human nature instead of fighting it—from changing the size of your plates to socializing with people with healthy habits, removing “healthy” labels that send negative messages to redefining comfort food.

We've all been there-angry with ourselves for overeating, for our lack of willpower, for failing at yet another diet that was supposed to be the last one. But the problem is not you, it's that dieting, with its emphasis on rules and regulations, has stopped you from listening to your body. Written by two prominent nutritionists, Intuitive Eating focuses on nurturing your body rather than starving it, encourages natural weight loss, and helps you find the weight you were meant to be. Learn: *How to reject diet mentality forever *How our three Eating Personalities define our eating difficulties *How to feel your feelings without using food *How to honor hunger and feel fullness *How to follow the ten principles of Intuitive Eating, step-by-step *How to achieve a new and safe relationship with food and, ultimately, your body With much more compassionate, thoughtful advice on satisfying, healthy living, this newly revised edition also includes a chapter on how the Intuitive Eating philosophy can be a safe and effective model on the path to recovery from an eating disorder.

QUIT SUGAR LIKE ADDICTS QUIT DRUGS Get off sugar the way psychologists get people off drugs. This book will teach you how to free yourself from unhealthy foods with the pain-free principles of medically supervised drug withdrawals. FREE YOURSELF FROM FRIES AND CHIPS, TOO. Got a potato chip problem? An unhealthy relationship with french fries? The psychological strategies in this book, developed by treatment centers to reduce drug cravings, will eliminate or seriously reduce your need for fat bombs like fries. Painlessly. Without suffering. RELEASE YOURSELF FROM COFFEE AND ENERGY DRINKS Drinking three pots of coffee? Downing energy drinks at an alarming rate? These tactics work on any problem food or liquid. LEARN THE KEYS TO SELF-CONTROL. You are not going to get a list of foods to eat or avoid. Or recipes or meal suggestions. You’re not going to count calories, fat, carbs or sugar. You’re not going to hear some wild new theory about weight loss. You are going to release yourself from unhealthy cravings for sugar, salt and fat with strategies identified by researchers and psychologists as the keys to self-control. The result? Permanent weight loss without going on a diet. PUT YOUR EATING HABITS IN REHAB What problem food or drink would you like to give up? “A WELLNESS STRATEGY THAT CHANGES THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT FOOD. Alvear’s writing style and the structure of his book make for an easy read and, more importantly, easy use in daily life.” -- A Kirkus Reviews “RECOMMENDED” Book

Drawing on empirical research, clinical case material and vivid examples from modern culture, The Psychology of Overeating demonstrates that overeating must be understood as part of the wider cultural problem of consumption and materialism. Highlighting modern society's pathological need to consume, Kima Cargill explores how our limitless consumer culture offers an endless array of delicious food as well as easy money whilst obscuring the long-term effects of overconsumption. The book investigates how developments in food science, branding and marketing have transformed Western diets and how the food industry employs psychology to trick us into eating more and more – and why we let them. Drawing striking parallels between 'Big Food' and 'Big Pharma', Cargill shows how both industries use similar tactics to manufacture desire, resist regulation and convince us that the solution to overconsumption is further consumption. Real-life examples illustrate how loneliness, depression and lack of purpose help to drive consumption, and how this is attributed to individual failure rather than wider culture. The first book to introduce a clinical and existential psychology perspective into the field of food studies, Cargill's interdisciplinary approach bridges the gulf between theory and practice. Key reading for students and researchers in food studies, psychology, health and nutrition and anyone wishing to learn more about the relationship between food and consumption.

Beyond a Shadow of a Diet is the most comprehensive book available for professionals working with clients who struggle with Binge Eating Disorder, Compulsive Eating or Emotional Overeating. The authors present research revealing that food restrictions in the pursuit of weight loss actually trigger and sustain overeating. Next, they offer step-by-step guidelines to help clients end the diet mentality and learn an internally-based approach known as attuned eating. Divided into three sections–The Problem, The Treatment and The Solution–this engaging book contains chapters filled with compelling case examples, visualizations and other exercises so that therapists can deepen their knowledge and skills as they help clients gain freedom from preoccupation with food and weight. In addition to addressing the symptoms, dynamics and treatment of eating problems, Beyond a Shadow of a Diet presents a holistic framework that goes well beyond the clinical setting. This invaluable resource includes topics such as the clinician’s own attitudes toward dieting and weight; cultural, ethical and social justice issues; the neuroscience of mindfulness; weight stigma; and promoting wellness for children of all sizes. Drawing from the Health At Every Size paradigm–and the wealth of research examining the relationship between dieting, weight and health–Beyond a Shadow of a Diet offers both therapists and their clients a positive, evidence-based model to making peace with food, their bodies and themselves.

We are not born knowing what to eat; as omnivores it is something we each have to figure out for ourselves. From childhood onward, we learn how big a "portion" is and how sweet is too sweet. We learn to enjoy green vegetables -- or not. But how does this education happen? What are the origins of taste? In First Bite, award-winning food writer Bee Wilson draws on the latest research from food psychologists, neuroscientists, and nutritionists to reveal that our food habits are shaped by a whole host of factors: family and culture, memory and gender, hunger and love. Taking the reader on a journey across the globe, Wilson introduces us to people who can only eat foods of a certain color; prisoners of war whose deepest yearning is for Mom's apple pie; a nine year old anosmia sufferer who has no memory of the flavor of her mother's cooking; toddlers who will eat nothing but hotdogs and grilled cheese sandwiches; and researchers and doctors who have pioneered new and effective ways to persuade children to try new vegetables. Wilson examines why the Japanese eat so healthily, whereas the vast majority of teenage boys in Kuwait have a weight problem -- and what these facts can tell Americans about how to eat better. The way we learn to eat holds the key to why food has gone so disastrously wrong for so many people. But Wilson also shows that both adults and children have immense potential for learning new, healthy eating habits. An exploration of the extraordinary and surprising origins of our tastes and eating habits, First Bite also shows us how we can change our palates to lead healthier, happier lives.

The science behind a good meal: all the sounds, sights, and tastes that make us like what we're eating—and want to eat more. Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work? The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence. Now he's stepping out of his lab to lift the lid on the entire eating experience—how the taste, the aroma, and our overall enjoyment of food are influenced by all of our senses, as well as by our mood and expectations. The pleasures of food lie mostly in the mind, not in the mouth. Get that straight and you can start to understand what really makes food enjoyable, stimulating, and, most important, memorable. Spence reveals in amusing detail the importance of all the “off the plate” elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the color of the plate, the background music, and much more. Whether we’re dining alone or at a dinner party, on a plane or in front of the TV, he reveals how to understand what we’re tasting and influence what others experience. This is accessible science at its best, fascinating to anyone in possession of an appetite. Crammed with discoveries about our everyday sensory lives, Gastrophysics is a book guaranteed to make you look at your plate in a whole new way.