The Diet Trap

The Diet Trap (2014) by Jason Lillis, Joanne Dahl and Sandra M. Weineland – New Harbinger Publications

Diet books have traditionally made a very attractive promise.

Follow these rules.

Avoid these foods.

Buy this kitchen appliance.

Become a completely different person by Thursday.

The Diet Trap, by Jason Lillis, Joanne Dahl and Sandra M. Weineland, takes a rather different approach.

Instead of assuming that the problem is simply a shortage of meal plans, calorie charts or stern advice involving celery, the authors look at the psychological side of dieting: the habits, emotions, self-criticism and all-or-nothing thinking that can turn eating into a permanent negotiation with yourself.

Which is awkward, because you are extremely difficult to avoid.

Drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, the book encourages readers to examine what is really driving their relationship with food, weight and body image rather than endlessly beginning another programme that promises everything will be sorted once you have removed carbohydrates from the building.

The central idea is refreshingly inconvenient.

Perhaps the problem is not that you have failed to find the correct diet.

Perhaps constantly fighting yourself is part of the trap.

That means fewer dramatic declarations about never eating cake again and rather more attention to thoughts, emotions, habits and the values that actually matter in everyday life.

This is not a book obsessed with achieving perfect dietary obedience.

It is more interested in helping readers step away from cycles of restriction, guilt, frustration and renewed determination — the familiar process in which Monday morning begins with absolute commitment and Wednesday afternoon involves staring accusingly at a biscuit.

The authors explore the mental rules people create around food and weight.

“I’ve ruined the day.”

“I shouldn’t have eaten that.”

“I’ll start properly tomorrow.”

“I was good all week.”

Food, apparently, has somehow acquired a moral classification system normally reserved for major philosophical questions.

The Diet Trap asks the reader to notice those patterns rather than simply replacing them with a fresh collection of rules.

Acceptance, in this context, does not mean giving up.

It means learning to tolerate uncomfortable thoughts and feelings without automatically allowing them to dictate behaviour.

Which sounds straightforward until somebody places warm bread nearby.

The book also places emphasis on values and long-term choices.

What sort of life do you actually want?

What matters beyond a number on the scales?

How much time and mental energy is being consumed by dieting, worrying, judging and planning the next attempt to become a more acceptable version of yourself?

These are rather larger questions than whether lunch should contain 37 or 42 grams of something.

Published by New Harbinger in 2014, the book sits somewhere between psychology, self-help and practical behavioural change, making it particularly interesting for readers who have become suspicious of the traditional diet-book cycle.

It is not promising a magical metabolism.

It does not claim that one unusual fruit discovered in a remote valley will solve everything.

And there is, disappointingly, no secret ingredient.

Instead, the emphasis is on developing a healthier and more flexible relationship with food, body image and the thoughts that tend to accompany them.

That makes it a useful read for anyone interested in ACT, behavioural psychology, eating habits or the peculiar ability of human beings to turn a perfectly ordinary meal into a full internal tribunal.

This copy is in Good condition, making it a solid reading copy for anyone who wants a diet-related book that spends rather less time shouting instructions from the kitchen scales.

Ideal for readers of psychology and self-help, people curious about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or anyone exhausted by books that begin by instructing them to throw away everything currently in the cupboard.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where all foods remain morally neutral and the only thing routinely weighed is the parcel before postage.

ISBN: 9781608827091
Condition: Good

Keep browsing: See more Self-Help books Other books by Jason Lillis Joanne Dahl and Sandra M Weineland