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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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. We are living, breathing, multi-faceted, talented human beings whose true beauty cannot be captured in a picture.” As a society, we have such a screwed-up relationship with food. It’s truly devastating when you think about it. We’ve applied morals to nutrition, and the worst part is that it’s constantly changing. Carbs were the biggest evil, and then it was suddenly fats. Food hasn’t changed, we have. Additionally, I like how she has also done a bit of a history of diet culture and other elements like fat phobia etc. she has really made a great effort to break down the core of diet culture and how it permeates through all levels of society, and the overall message of how we can break free from it.

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. Personally, I’ve never had any issues with food however I really resonated when it came to the chapter about weight gain. Society views thinness as the goal to get to, when in fact there’s nothing wrong with gaining weight. 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. The dominance of diet and exercise programmes and the detrimental effect they have, the powerful algorithms employed by social media and advertising, demonising foods and eating, our perceptions of what healthy looks like are all examined in detail in this book.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. Our misery is creating a huge payout for an already-rich industry. We’re not benefitting from this, we’re the ones suffering. I no longer want to be part of their cash cow, and that motivates me even more to break the diet culture cycle for myself. 8. “Once again, you’re enough as you are, exactly as you are.” (pg. 143)

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”I want to be happy. I don’t want to wait for a weight or size. 10. “I had let myself go and let myself live, and it was the most powerful thing I have ever done for myself.” (pg. 211) It’s easy to feel like we’re the only ones struggling with our weight. It’s even easier to feel like we’re the problem, not the media, not society. But if only 5% of people have this ideal body type, then why are we at fault? It’s clearly not an average body, so why are we killing ourselves to get it? 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.

We have been taught to view ourselves as a collection of 'problem' areas for which the billion-dollar diet industry holds the solutions.Step-by-step, You Are Not A Before Picture provides a framework for changing the way we view ourselves and the world around us. This is a wonderful, well written book that has so much amazing information in it. It points out simple points and explains the manipulative psychology used in the weight loss/beauty industry, but Alex doesn't stop there. She gives a path to follow and thoughts to consider to improve your mental health and break out of the trap.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. In the final chapter, Light says, “[Life’s] too short to live as a ‘before’ picture. You are not a ‘before’ picture…We are living, breathing, multi-faceted, talented human beings whose true beauty cannot be captured in a picture…Our bodies are merely the vessels that hold all the good stuff.” 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. Welcome to Symptoms of Living! A place where I like to relieve myself of the barrage of thoughts and ideas filling my mind. Here I'll take a look at various topics, from books to BPD, series to self-harm, there's nothing that we can't, and shouldn't, talk about. None of us fit this ideal body because we’re not designed to. This quote is the perfect reminder that we’re not the issue, and we’re not alone in this. 5. ”Being stigmatised for your weight can be a bigger risk to your health than what you eat or what you weigh” (pg.98)