You Are Not a Before Picture: 2022’s bestselling inspirational new guide to help you tackle diet culture, finding self acceptance, and making peace with your body

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This book gives an outlook on what diet culture is, where it originated from and the real harm it causes. From a very young age, we are all conditioned by the diet culture message which is exaggerated through the use of social media. Alex Light makes aware the pervasiveness of diet culture and that people’s bodies are not the problem. However, just knowing this isn’t enough. Light continues in the second half of the book explaining how to improve our negative perceptions of ourselves, steps to take away from dieting and towards intuitive eating and how to find joy in exercise. Your guide to staying entertained, from live shows and outdoor fun to the newest in museums, movies, TV, books, dining, and more.

Your worth will never be found on a scale or on a size stitched into your clothing. Your worth will never be found in the mirror. You are already enough, at this size, at this weight. Alex works to remind us of this, that we’re enough now, we don’t need to change, we don’t need to chase anything. 9. “Happiness, I’ve come to believe, is not something that we can suddenly discover, but rather something to be uncovered within ourselves.” (pg. 150) Discover what helped Alex learn to love herself and no longer give a damn about what anyone says about her body. Alex vulnerably shares her journey of learning that her body is ok, right now…it isn’t all about inspirational quotes or running away from triggers. When I think about losing weight or getting toned, it comes with the inherent belief that people will like me more then. Not just potential partners, but my friends and family. It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud, but a part of me truly thinks that my loved ones will regard me higher if I had a smaller waist, toned legs or abs.

None of these things will make you happy, at least not for long. Because as Alex says, happiness isn’t something we can discover, it’s something already within ourselves. Your situation does not determine your happiness, you do. On some level, happiness is a choice. And it can be made far more difficult by mental health struggles or toxic influences, but we will never find it outside of ourselves. Here’s the sneaky thing about dieting and the human experience of having a body — we want to believe there is a way to fix how our bodies look and feel. We tell ourselves if we find the right diet, the right gym, the right clothing, there will be a day when we look in the mirror and think “Perfect. Flawless. No notes.” You deserve to feel good in your body, so start taking the steps to get there. It’s a hard journey, one I’m on right next to you, but it’s so worth it. Discover the first step in learning to value your body. I am a woman in her 50s, a woman who has spent all her life on one diet or other…this is the book I have been waiting to read.

I loved everything about this book. I was particularly interested in the discussion of the relation between health and weight, exercise and weight. The exploration of BMI, its origins, and embedding in current health practise and narratives was enlightening and worrying. Alex’s messaging around consent to being weighed was for me very powerful. With the same principle as date protection the question should be - what is this information needed for. The author explores how exercise has become purposed in relation to weight loss, submerging messages about the value of exercise for mental health, strength, enjoyment. She encourages us to love our bodies for what they can do rather than their aesthetics.But it's not our fault that we see our bodies as projects in need of constant work: this is just one of the beliefs that has been ingrained in us by diet culture. This is an excellent book, not only for self-help but also educational in informing how diet culture was founded and has involved over the years

As women, we’re always made to take up less space. Be thinner, be quieter, be more agreeable. At its core, diet culture is about making women smaller and meeker in the world. We deserve as much space as any man. We deserve to be accepted with loud voices and big bodies. I have felt ashamed of the space I take up in a seat, a bed, a room. I have made myself smaller for too long. I don’t need to be the smallest version of myself to be accepted, because the people that want that version aren’t those I accept in my life. 12. ”What people think of you is none of your business.” (pg.261) Thank you to NetGalley, Alex Light, and HarperCollins 360/HQ for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

This book is certainly not that - it’s full of highlighters from me and I will revisit it time and again Found this very interesting. If you’ve ever wondered why don’t women have more influence in the world, how about the idea that patriarchy manipulates fashion to keep women down? This seemed too far fetched but once I started looking and listening I found that there are examples all around.

We are living, breathing, multi-faceted, talented human beings whose true beauty cannot be captured in a picture.” True control is being able to enjoy food and exercise without linking it to your body image. True control is enjoying life and not living to make yourself smaller. 11. “And remember this: taking up space is allowed. You do not need to be the smallest version of yourself to be accepted.” (pg.223) An urgent, enlightening and empowering guide to disavowing diet culture and learning to make peace with our bodies, from body confidence and anti-diet advocate Alex Light. An urgent, enlightening and empowering guide to disavowing diet culture and learning to make peace with our bodies, from body confidence and anti-diet advocate, Alex Light.When we look in the mirror, so many of us see a 'before' picture: the miserable person in the side-by-side shot waiting for the 'glow-up' (read: weight loss) that will bring true happiness. Nothing felt better than losing weight, and yet I was constantly miserable. Because I was permanently exhausted and could barely think straight. I don’t have many memories of that time, maybe just because I didn’t have the energy to even form them.In the past I have had a love/hate relationship with self-help books and have sometimes(wrongly) dismissed most of them as “woo woo”