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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I have a lot of thin friends, and I’ve always felt so frustrated by it. I couldn’t help but notice how they’ll eat less nutritious foods and workout less often than me, and yet I’m in the bigger body, I’m the one that will be labelled negatively. It used to drive me mad, until I realised that I was the one fixating on the fact, no one else. The issue isn’t your body, it’s your mind. We can be happy at this size, we don’t have to lose weight, but we need to change our thinking. This book helped me to start doing exactly that. 14. “You’re less alone than you may imagine.” (pg. 278) This book covers a huge amount of ground! It explores the world of dieting - where it started and why. It explores the relationship between health and weight, weight and exercise, social media and body image, body positivity. It explores the power of messaging and the results of societal conditioning. The author charts her own journey with weight gain and loss, offering personal insights and anecdotes. She writes candidly and with great honesty.

I’ve always felt like I was chasing happiness. I was always trying to find the thing that would make me finally feel happy. When someone loved me, then I’d be happy. When I reached a certain size, then I’d be happy. When I could wear shorts and like my legs, then I’d be happy. 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.

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)

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. 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. 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. We have been taught to view ourselves as a collection of ‘problem’ areas for which the billion-dollar diet industry holds the solutions. 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. Will this book change me? I hope so, but in truth I have been brainwashed for over 50 years and it will take me so long to shake off the messaging, I have been fat shamed, I have judged happiness by my size. The author is candid about her own journey and where she finds things particularly difficult and I know that change will be difficult for me. If anything can help me this book can. Having listened on audiobook I have now bought a copy of the book and I will be reading it again and again. I will be gifting copies of this book.The section of ‘You Are Not A Before Picture’ devoted to weight versus health was fascinating. I had no idea how incorrect BMIs and other weight-based measurements of health actually were. There’s also input by Dr Wolrich, advising you on how to handle doctors that focus solely on your weight or ask to weigh you. 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) 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)

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. Let’s also consider some evidence of a more anecdotal nature: if diets worked, every person would only need to do one in their lifetime. It would be a success and they wouldn’t need to diet again, right?” 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) Here are my 14 favourite quotes from ‘You Are Not a Before Picture’ by Alex Light. It was difficult to choose, and I found myself wanting to make this a list of 20, 30, or even 40 quotes, but I tried to be strict with myself. These Alex Light quotes perfectly sum up every aspect of this book. 1. “Dieting became my personality, my entire sense of self, and my life revolved around it. I was a true chronic dieter, riding the fleeting highs and persistent lows and living off the hope I felt buoyed by when I discovered a new diet.” (pg.7) 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. Your guide to staying entertained, from live shows and outdoor fun to the newest in museums, movies, TV, books, dining, and more. I also listened to the audiobook of this book and it is read by Alex - and is done phenomenally. If you can't read books, try listening to it. This book really helps with breaking down diet culture, why the "body positivity" movement isn't necessarily great, but finding food freedom is.