What is the best "diet" book you have read?
 

That really resonated with you? Really made sense to you? Really made you wake up and smell the coffee (per say)? I have heard that The End to Overeating is one of those books. Is it? Any others?

Mindless Eating helped me get started on watching portion sizes before I even formally started trying to lose weight.

The Beck Diet Solution helped with ways to be more conscious of keeping why you want to lose weight front and center in my mind. Of course, I say that but haven't COMMITTED to getting the job done, yet! But it's to go with any healthy eating/weight loss plan, so I liked that it wasn't hawking a product...

I'm another one who found The Beck Diet Solution to be super helpful in staying on my eating plan and exercise plan.

A little known book called The thin commandments REALLY helped me, and you can read it and apply it to any "plan". It is not so much an eating plan as a set of strategies and to help you look at weight loss differently. i take it out & read it every so ofen.

skinny ***** is really the one that has changed my life, it made a lot of sense to me, was enjoyable and i loved it and applied it to my life, but i know it rubs alot of people the wrong way. Funny enough, it is the complete opposite of the first book i mention on writing style.

The first one can be bought on "audible" which is a type of mp3 file for books and put onto an MP3 player. i can't recommend it enough.

-fm

I have End of Overeating and Mindless Eating. Both good but not life changing to me.

Skinny Bit** was just annoying. IMO ;)

You On A Diet is very good with several useful information. My favorite.

The Overfed Head by Rob Stevens.

You On A Diet, for me too.

The End of Overeating, David Kessler
Refuse to Regain, Barbara Berkeley
The Low-Carb Bible, Elizabeth Ward
Primal Blueprint, Mark Sisson
Rethinking Thin, Gina Kolata

I hesitated to include the last one, because I know some people found Rethinking Thin disheartening or felt it defended obesity - but to me it was inspiring. For me, seeing all of the ways and reasons weight loss is difficult didn't depress me, it confirmed my suspicions (Weight loss IS difficult, and you don't have to be lazy, crazy, or stupid to find it difficult). For most of my life, I've had people tell me how "easy" weight loss is (mostly from people who never had a weight problem themselves), and you start to feel like an incredible loser when you can't master something so "easy."

The book helped me see that all of my previous weight loss "failures" were actually amazing successes (or were up until the point I decided to give up
because I felt that I was failing).

So many of us have been taught to interpret amazing successes as failures, because it's what we see other people doing. Anything less than a two pound loss is so often seen as so inadequate it becomes grounds for quitting (I'll never get this weight off at this pace, there's no point, what's the use...).

For me, Rethinking Thin reminded me that weight loss is difficult, because it's swimming upstream of millions of years of evolution. Metabolic efficiency and strong hunger drives are what keep beings alive in the natural environment. We have such an unnatural food environment, that we have to use every higher brain function to outsmart our instincts. The primitive areas of the brain are very difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to outsmart. I think understanding the difficulty actually makes the fight more winable (because you come to the process better prepared for battle).

Food wise i like all of the atkins books...emotional I like The old Dr.Phil book but I cant recall the title-it taught me my Number one thing for dropping the pounds..."you cant eat whats not there" I keep that thought in my head and keep my house free of the junk..when we want junk we buy it and eat it where we are...not allowed in the house anymore.He also talks about how you have to replace one behavior with another-the behavior wont just go away.

Skinny Chicks Don't Eat Salads. I LOVED it. It was an easy read and really explains why most diets fail. It has recipes for things but the main message is that for long term weightloss eat every 4 hrs and make sure every time you eat to include both a protein and carbs. The author is a nutritionist (I'm focused on losing weight by being healthier). I've stuck with this eating guideline the past year, haven't regained anything, and even for 6months that I had a boyfriend (prime weight gain time for me usually) I still lost 5lbs.

I'm actually surprised I haven't seen more about the book on this site. I feel like it made weightloss sooooo much easier for me.

South Beach Diet was the first book I read about low GI/GL and it really made an impact on me.
Eating Less by Gillian Riley really helps me to deal with my food addiction. I'm a binge eater so I dont just need a diet plan, I need help to deal with the addiction too. If you just need to lose weight and don't really have issues around food, this book isn't going to help you. Anyone who does have issues with food it may be very helpful.
Beck Diet Solution
Still not where I want to be but the combo of these is very helpful indeed.

I'm another person who found the principles in the Beck Complete Diet Solution very helpful. Specifically, I found the exercises Dr. Beck has you go through (based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) extremely helpful in helping me identify poor food behaviors and then changing them. I really recommend it.

I have a few I like:

Thin For Life (this came out in the 90's). I'm sorry I didn't take its advice then.

Eucalorics (I love this book). It's about eating your maintenance calories NOW, while you're losing weight. That's what I'm doing. I'm eating calories based on my goal weight.

The Mayo Clinic Diet - (Great book). This came out before WW started introducing its free fruits and vegetables. Mayo Clinic has been saying for years that folks on diets should not limit their fruits and vegetables.

Calorie Points for Weight Control. This little booklet shows you how to count calorie points instead of calories. It's just an easier way of counting calories. Easier than WW points and this came out first many years ago. It never became as popular as WW points, because there's nothing to patent and corporations can't make money off it! It's just an easy conversion of calories into points.

I have a few more, but these are my very favorites. Oh, and of course Calorie King calorie counter. The most awesome calorie counter I've ever come across.