Thoughts on "The F*uck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy" by Caroline Dooner

     I'm so excited to share my review of our very first book club book for the Pure Romance by Deedre VIP Community. If you're a woman age 18 or over and you haven't joined our community yet, you can click here to sign up for my emails and get exclusive access. We'll be starting the discussion over this book in January, so dive into this review, then join the community for a free PDF reading guide and bookmark.
     So, I think the best place to start is how I found this book in the first place. One night, after falling down an Instagram rabbit hole, I stumbled upon Caroline Dooner's page - @thefuckitdiet. A friend of mine and I had been bouncing between diets with minimal success and the title gave me pause and a chuckle. And I really, really liked so many of the positive messages in her feed. Naturally, I followed the link to her book, and then landed on Amazon and read through the reviews. Let me tell you - it's a mixed bag.
    There are tons of glowing comments, and then there are the negatives. People up in arms calling her everything from irresponsible to outright dangerous and scandalous. I immediately downloaded a preview on my Amazon Kindle app and I was hooked.
    My first thought was "where has this book been all my life?!" But as I started to share with others, I was met with a lot of skepticism and more than a few eye rolls. The thing is, this isn't a diet book. It's not another weight lost plan wrapped up in a clever and witty title. It's not even about loosing weight. So what on earth is it then?
     As one of my therapist friends said, it's really cognitive behavioral therapy. Caroline Dooner is asking us to forget absolutely everything we have ever been taught about weight and diet and the culture surrounding it. She's leading the reader on the long and sometimes painful journey of healing their relationship with their body, with food, and with hunger.
    There are two parts to the book, and part one is entirely dedicated to breaking down the myths surrounding diet culture and the science behind her claims. This section is extremely radical and for many, very hard, if not impossible to accept. Whether you find yourself a fan or not, this section is absolutely worth the read for chapters like "The Minnesota Starvation Experiment" and "Your Diet Might Be a Cult". Rather than giving diet advice plus meal and exercise plans, Dooner encourages people to eat what they want, rest when they need to, and be kind to themselves in the process. Maybe it's possible that loosing weight isn't the Valhalla we've chalked it up to be.
     Part two of the book is aptly titled "How the Hell Do I Actually Do This". It's broken into four parts: The Physical Part, The Emotional Part, The Mental Part, and The Thriving Part.  If you truly embrace her method, it requires a lot of introspection. Dooner provides a multitude of writing prompts and a supplemental PDF guide is available through her website when you sign up for her email list. She calls on readers to evaluate their relationship with food, with their body, and even with exercise. There's a whole section dedicated to "feeling your feelings" and Dooner says that this may require professional therapy.
     All in all, "The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy" is an incredibly worthwhile read. Whatever your end feelings about Dooner's ideology, this is sure to provoke some insightful and important discussions about how we view our bodies and our relationship with food.
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