It’s well-known that crash-dieting doesn’t work. Restrictive diets will achieve short-term weight loss, but it’ll come back later. In the long term, weight creeps slowly upwards. Why?

Dr. Sandra Aamodt explores the science and sociology behind this phenomenon, and offers an evidence-based alternative.

A lot of the book is given over to explanations of what is typically going wrong—that is the title of the book, after all. From metabolic starvation responses to genetics to the negative feedback loop of poor body image, there’s a lot to address.

However, what alternative does she propose?

The book takes us on a shift away from focusing on the numbers on the scale, and more on building consistent healthy habits. It might not feel like it if you desperately want to lose weight, but it’s better to have healthy habits at any weight, than to have a wreck of physical and mental health for the sake of a lower body mass.

Dr. Aamodt lays out a plan for shifting perspectives, building health, and letting weight loss come by itself—as a side effect, not a goal.

In fact, as she argues (in agreement with the best current science, science that we’ve covered before at 10almonds, for that matter), that over a certain age, people in the “overweight” category of BMI have a reduced mortality risk compared to those in the “healthy weight” category. It really underlines how there’s no point in making oneself miserably unhealthy with the end goal of having a lighter coffin—and getting it sooner.

Bottom line: will this book make you hit those glossy-magazine weight goals by your next vacation? Quite possibly not, but it will set you up for actually healthier living, for life, at any weight.

Click here to check out Why Diets Make Us Fat, and live healthier and better!

The author, a holistic psychiatrist (notably, she is a psychiatrist and also a yoga teacher, which does factor in), takes a functional approach to mental health, and seeks to treat the cause where possible, rather than merely the symptom. That might not sound groundbreaking, but honestly, the vast majority of psychiatrists in particular do take a “here’s a prescription for Diralisin, and let’s schedule an appointment for two months from now to see how it’s going” approach, so this is refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing? That she acknowledges the difference between “true” and “false” anxiety, that is to say: actually there are many legitimate reasons to be anxious, and those can’t be CBT’d away with a flowchart that asks you to challenge your automatic thoughts, because what if you examine the threat and conclude from the evidence that “no, this one’s a real threat; things genuinely are bad”?

However, that doesn’t mean to say that nothing can be done for our mental health in those regards; indeed, there’s plenty to be done, both in terms of cognitive restructuring (including, but not limited to, radical acceptance and reframing) and in terms of things that are more of the variety: “this is not related to that at all, but it’ll make you feel better, so hey, use what works”.

That’s where a lot of her holistic approach comes in. Having a shower or going for a nature walk or eating some fruit will probably not eliminate an existential threat, but the existential threat is easier to face when refreshed and nourished, for example.

She also talks about what things to hold onto and what to let go (and how to decide the difference for yourself), how to make your social connections anxiolytic instead of anxiogenic (i.e., they ease your anxiety rather than increase it), and how to stay informed in a world on fire without burning out about it.

The style is high-end pop-science with a lot of references, and its information-density does not stop it from also being very readable.

Bottom line: if you suffer from anxiety and would like to not do so, this book is a treasure-trove of evidence-based ways to address that and feel better, healthily, while still acknowledging reality as it is rather than as you’d prefer it to be.

Click here to check out The Anatomy Of Anxiety, and ease yours with a sound, scientific approach!

First, what this is not: hundreds of pages to say “eat less processed food”. That is, of course, also advisable (and indeed, is advised in the book too), but there’s a lot more going on here too.

Though not a doctor, the author is a psychologist who brings a lot of data to the table, especially when it comes to the neurophysiology at hand, what forgotten micronutrients many people are lacking, and what trends in society worsen these deficiencies in the population at large.

If you only care about the broadest of take-away advice, it is: eat a diet that’s mostly minimally processed plants and some oily fish, watch out for certain deficiencies in particular, and increase dietary intake of them where necessary (with taking supplements as a respectable next-best remedy).

On which note, a point of criticism is that there’s some incorrect information about veganism and brain health; she mentions that DHA is only found in fish (in fact, fish get it from algae, which has it, and is the basis of many vegan omega-3 supplements), and the B12 is found only in animals (also found in yeast, which is not an animal, as well as various bacteria in soil, and farm animals get their B12 from supplements these days anyway, so it is arguable that we could keep things simpler by just cutting out the middlecow).

However, the strength of this book really is in the delivery of understanding about why certain things matter. If you’re told “such-and-such is good for the brain”, you’ll up your intake for 1–60 days, depending on whether you bought a supermarket item or ordered a batch of supplements. And then you’ll forget, until 6–12 months later, and you’ll do it again. On the other hand, if you understand how something is good or bad for the brain, what it does (for good or ill) on a cellular level, the chemistry and neurophysiology at hand, you’ll make new habits for life.

The style is middle-range pop-science; by this we mean there are tables of data and some long words that are difficult to pronounce, but also it’s not just hard science throughout—there’s (as one might expect from an author who is a psychologist) a lot about the psychology and sociology of why many people make poor dietary decisions, and the things governments often do (or omit doing) that affect this adversely—and how we can avoid those traps as individuals (unless we be incarcerated or such).

As an aside, the author is British, so governmental examples are mostly UK-based, but it doesn’t take a lot to mentally measure that against what the governments of, for example, the US or Canada do the same or differently.

Bottom line: there’s a lot of great information about brain health here; the strongest parts are whether the author stays within her field (psychology encompasses such diverse topics as neurophysiology and aspects of sociology, but not microbiology, for example). If you want to learn about the physiology of brain health and enjoy quite a sociopolitical ride along the way, this one’s a good one for that.

Click here to check out Unprocessed, and make the best choices for you!