I've got the latest diet book on hold at the library, The Diet Fix by Yoni Freedhoff. In the meantime, he's been posting snippets daily. I can already tell that this will be a more common-sense, balanced take on "dieting" than most books on the market. I also follow his blog, and really respect his views. The Diet Fix is getting great reviews, most likely because it's not so much a "how to" diet book, and more of a "how NOT to." In other words, he busts a lot of diet myths. A voice of reason in a sea of loudmouths.

Myths of Modern Day Dieting

1. It's all about willpower.
The first myth of modern day dieting is that willpower is required. Yet people often spend more willpower on weight management than any other area of their lives. In this day and age, and in this toxic food environment, weight struggles aren't a willpower issue, they're as Yale's Dr. David Katz would put it, a skillpower issue.

2. Scales measure health.
Scales don't measure the presence or absence of health. Nor do they measure happiness, self-worth, or success. Scales measure one thing, and one thing only. Scales measure weight.

3. Dieting must be difficult.
Simply put, weight lost through suffering comes back. While there's no doubt that weight management and healthful living require effort, if the efforts required include regularly facing off with hunger, blindly denying yourself foods you enjoy, or following a dietary regime that doesn't fit your tastes, they're not going to last.

4. You shouldn't eat unless you're hungry.
For those who struggle with dietary control I can't imagine a more dangerous piece of advice than, "you should wait until you're hungry to eat". Hunger influences choice. On the other hand, organize your eating so that you're not hungry, and then you've got a shot, as "willpower", when it comes to dietary choice, is often simply the absence of hunger.

5. You can outrun your fork.
While exercise has truly fantastic health benefits and markedly mitigates the risks of weight, you're far more likely to lose weight in your kitchen than you are in your gym, and if you're exercising solely for the purpose of weight management, you run the risk of quitting perhaps the single healthiest behaviour you could adopt if and when the scales don't fly down.

6. Cheat days are wise.
There's no need to cheat if you're happy with the life you're living. While I'm all for thoughtful indulgences, in our current non-intuitive, hyper-calorific food environment, cheat days, even cheat meals, can easily sink your weight management efforts.

7. Some foods must be forbidden.
While of course there's no all-you-can eat chocolate weight loss program, there's also little doubt that if chocolate is one of the loves of your life, the likelihood of you living forever-more without it is slim to none. It's about the smallest amount of chocolate you need to like your life, and for most chocolate lovers, zero isn't a sustainable amount.

8. There's one best diet.
Different strokes for different folks is definitely true diet wise, and it's dead simple to know if you're on the best diet for you. Just ask yourself the question, "Could I happily live like this forever?", and if the answer's "no", you're on the wrong diet. The corollary's true too - if the answer's "yes", and if you're happy with your health, don't let any diet guru or zealot try to tell you different.

9. Muscle gains outweigh fat losses
Have you ever told yourself that the reason you're not losing weight is because you're gaining muscle? Oh how I wish muscle were that easy to gain! Muscle does take up less space than fat (it's denser), but it really only starts to impact scale weight when you're at a super low body fat percentage. Don't be lulled into complacency or be fooled by this easy-to-believe myth.

10. You should save your calories for dinner
If you know you've got a big dinner planned, while it might intuitively make sense to try to skimp on your daytime eating, if you show up to your indulgent meal hungry, you're likely to eat back your savings and then some. Bottom line for most meals out - if you save your calories for dinner, your overall daily total may well wind up higher than if you don't.

11. There are bottles full of weight loss
There are no shortage of products promising remarkable weight loss benefits. Yet the only thing remarkable about those bottles is that they're legally allowed to be sold. If there were such a thing as bottles full of weight loss, the world would be very slim indeed.

12. The last ten pounds are the hardest
If you want those last 10lbs to stay off, well then they'd better not be any "harder" to lose. "Harder" usually implies extremes of effort - lots of white-knuckles to pass by the yummy stuff, more gym sweat than is enjoyable, or incredibly monotonous eating and denying yourself the ability to enjoy food for comfort or celebration. Well guess what? You're not likely to live with those extremes for good and as a result (and you know this is true) it's not a matter of if, but rather of when those last 10lbs are going to return. Your real last 10lbs, while I don't know which 10lbs they're going to be, and while they will certainly be the slowest 10lbs, shouldn't be any "harder" than your first 10, and if they are, you're doing something wrong.

13. The most dangerous myth of modern-day dieting: Weights should be "ideal"
If I had to pick the single most toxic, backward, and yet desperately believed societal myth about weight there's no doubt it would be this 13th myth of modern day dieting - that weights should be "ideal", that people of similar heights are supposed to weigh similar amounts, and that numbers make useful goals. They don't. But if you believe that they do, well that's likely to lead you to all sorts of stupid when it comes to trying to lose as it's a belief that has fuelled the past 60 or 70 years of traumatic and extreme diets.

Like every other area of your life, your goal with weight management or healthy living is to do your best, and whatever weight you reach living the healthiest life you honestly and actually enjoy - well that's your "best weight". And Yoni Freedhoff is here to tell you, whatever that weight is, it's frickin' great.

I think about body image a lot. Let's face it, the topic has pretty much defined my life and taken up more headspace than any other issue. Sometimes, it makes me crabby.

So, when a children's book comes along which so simply and succinctly illustrates how ridiculous it is to wish for a different body, I fall in love just a little bit.

Chris Raschka's Thingy Things series was re-issued this spring, reviving old friends and introducing the world to some new ones. Enter Crabby Crab. The story speaks for itself: 

Our moods and emotions affect how we see ourselves. It's far too common to loathe at least one part of our physical body, if not the whole thing. One would hope that every person reading this has someone who does, truly, love them the way they are. Even when they're crabby.

This series of books is meant for toddlers, the 2-4 year old age bracket. Written in the language of a pre-Kindergartener, and in the way they see the world, it still has an impact on adults who sometimes need to hear that simple message.

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea (2013)

Shea is back with his unique sense of humour and illustrations. Everybody knows that unicorns are magical creatures who poop rainbows and glitter. And goats? Don't. So when Unicorn comes to town, Goat is decidedly put out by all the ways that he feels Unicorn one-ups him. All he sees is how much better Unicorn is than HIM, meaning everyone else will like him better as well.  

Until, that is, Unicorn starts to notice that Goats have some pretty cool features. The ability to make goat-cheese? Yes, please! Cloven hooves? Check out those bad boys! Soon, Goat is feeling pretty proud of himself, and Unicorn is the one who's down.

You see where this is going?

It's not a book about body image, per se. It's just a great story for kids - and fun adults! - about learning to accept all the parts of yourself and to see how great they are. Whether anyone else has them, or not. Or, perhaps, BECAUSE they are unique features. Everybody has their strong points, and if it's something you can't change, like cloven hooves or a pointy horn, then you might as well make the most of it. Celebrating differences instead of comparing and competing is the essence of a positive body outlook.

With whimsical and colourful illustrations, and a text that just begs to be read out loud with vigor, this is not only a story about self-acceptance, it's about accepting others as well. Goat and Unicorn discover that they are stronger working together than when competing against each other. "With your magic and my awesome-ness, we'd make an unstoppable team!"

You know, we can't all be unicorns.
Which is a good thing, because even as a kid, I was always partial to goats.

Every now and then, I'll include a book review because, um, did I mention I'm a librarian? I read. I mostly read children's and teen books, and sometimes I read non-fiction (about, you guessed it, health and fitness and bodies).

The best day is when the new books come in. God Got a Dog is a book of poems by Cynthia Rylant. Poems from God's perspective, alternating between being a man and being a woman, about the kind of small daily things we often take for granted. Like eating spaghetti. It's an updated, illustrated version of God Went to Beauty School, originally published in 2003. Rylant's poems humanize God, and by doing so bring humour, wit, and insight to common human experiences, like loneliness, eating, and body image.

The one that stands out, that makes me think both "Hey, I AM GOD!" and "Gee, if God is insecure about her body, then what do I have to worry about?", is called God Took a Bath.