Buying a weight loss book can be a great start to get a handle on your weight loss journey. There’s a plethora of dieting, weight loss and cookbooks on the market that it can be difficult to cut through the noise and choose a book that’s safe and effective.

Knowing which cookbook or weight loss book can be challenging and whilst they all promise results, from losing weight to health-specific diet books, fast weight loss by severe calorie restriction or by eliminating entire food groups. The problem we face is understanding what books are better choices overall.

Some diet books can “foster negative relationships with food and your body”, according to Ellen Landes, MS, RDN, CPT, in the article shared on Healthline, 11 best books were shared and we decided to review four of these titles and throw another one into the mix as well. You can see the full list on the Healthline article. The articles we picked out are as follows:

• Embrace You by Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie, MD
• Skinnytaste Meal Prep by Gina Homolka and Heather K. Jones, R.D.
• The Mindful Eating Workbook by Vincci Tsui
• Fit Gurl: The Total-Body Turnaround Program by Melissa Alcantara
• The LEAF Method by Andrew Hill, MSc

These titles were selected because we’ve read them and some of them are surprising choices on a “Top 11” list by Healthline. Reading reviews for some of the titles not included in this list, some suggested books appeared childish and poorly written without any scientific foundation however fair reasoning for their selection was provided and no claim was made towards these books in that regard.

Embrace You: Your Guide to Transforming Weight Loss Misconceptions into Lifelong Wellness

Embrace You follow Gonsahn-Bollke as she shares her own experience of emotional eating which is a relatable read for a lot of us.

Everybody is unique and has their own challenges, within themselves as well as their nutrition habits and this is why weight loss has to be customised to the individual, much like how we implement our coaching and meal replacement system; it’s unique to you with free nutrition coaching with every order from qualified personal trainers and nutrition experts.

By loving ourselves and finding comfort with who we are, through acceptance, self-care and compassion, we can let go of the pressure to lose weight because of any reason, and achieve sustainable weight loss in a more normalised, personal way and by doing so, by educating ourselves about nutrition and learning how to lose weight sustainably, and by implementing many pragmatic tips shared in the books, a healthy weight is achievable and sustainable.

Embrace You draws parallels to The LEAF Method which takes a holistic approach to weight management and very much acts as a step by step manual for weight management.

The author focuses on mindset and releasing of negative habits and the embrace of healthier, more positive behaviours.

Skinnytaste Meal Prep

James Beard Award finalist and International Association of Culinary Professionals award finalist, Gina Homolka, is known for her healthy takes on classic recipes and it’s highlighted well in this book which encourages cooking meals in ahead of time in a really time convenient way.

Meal prep and batch cooking is hailed as one of the easiest ways for busy professionals to fit a wholefood diet around their 21st Century busy lifestyle. Andrew Hill, personal trainer, stands firmly behind meal prep and explains “it’s one of the fastest ways to consume a wholefood diet”, and because of this he places it above the effectiveness of a meal replacement system that he says can be “instrumental” in aiding weight loss. Andrew Hill stands behind Herbalife Formula 1 Healthy Meal shake as the best meal replacement option on the market.

Heather K. Jones, registered dietician, contributes insightful nutritional information and for those looking for healthier snacks and meals, this could be a really good option.

Besides meal prep, recipes include breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks as well! All of the meal-prep recipes are designed so that they can be stored in the freezer and it offer pragmatic advice on how to manage your meal prep schedule.

The Mindful Eating Workbook

Contained in the Mindful Eating Workbook by Vincci Tsui, a registered dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, “The Mindful Eating Workbook” is full of pragmatic mindful eating tips which, when implemented repeatedly and deliberately over a period of time will form positive eating habits.

We really like the premise of this book because it resonates with The LEAF Method which involves forming healthier eating habits that can be sustained long term.

It’s for people who learn best by taking practical, actionable steps. Thr book teaches you to eat mindfully and provides lots of examples where you can practice and record your experiences of mindful eating.

Fit Gurl: The Total-Body Turnaround Program

Written by personal trainer and athlete, Melissa Alcantara, who is known for training celebrities including Kim Kardashian, approaches weight loss with realistic and simple strategies stemming from her own personal experience. Her book was read by Andrew Hill, a fellow personal trainer specialising in weight loss, and he agrees with her ideas entirely having used many of them whilst working with hundreds of his own clients.

The focus on the book is how to lose weight and keep it off, it’s a detailed, descriptive fitness plan including lots of exercises but it also includes lots of recipes too, as well as the authors own motivational story of how she reached her weight loss goals.

The only thing that let’s this book down is that it focuses more on exercise and fitness, rather than nutrition. But it’s still a sound choice if you have access to exercise equipment!

The LEAF Method

Over the past decade, exclusive personal trainer, Andrew Hill, has helped thousands of people to lose weight and sustain a healthy lifestyle. Condensing his experience into a pragmatic workbook style book with photocopy friendly pages to track exercise workouts, this book focuses more on nutrition because it is clear that how we eat, and what we eat is what caused the problem with our weight in the first place. Fixing this is key.

The 12 week program is designed from the ground up to enable you to transform your body and improve your strength to achieve the weight loss and fat loss goals you’ve desperately been trying to achieve for years!

The LEAF Method focuses on optimising your lifestyle, diet and fitness activity, introducing a combination of strength training and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and with optional expert, ongoing nutrition guidance, this program is going to challenge your beliefs and make it easy for you to lose weight and burn body fat without cutting out the foods you love.

The LEAF Method teaches readers the habits necessary to sustain their results long-term. The book focuses on the idea that it is our current habits that make us fat, so first we need to change these so that when our calorie restricted diet ends, and we return to “eating normally”, our “eating normally” isn’t going to simply make us regain the weight.

Andrew Hill, MSc and personal trainer accredited by the National Association of Sports Medicine discusses the need for a wholefood diet and considers alternatives, including effective, healthy meal replacement systems his clients have used to manage their weight long-term where a wholefood diet isn’t conveniently available in their busy lifestyle.

Conclusion

These books serve as a fat loss arsenal and reading them carefully and trying some of the tips offered, adopting those you enjoy and that feel realistic for you, you’re weight loss journey will be a resounding, lifelong success! All of the books on this list consider relapses and obstacles in our weight loss journey and offers ways to overcome them relatively easily or at least house to move on and bounce back quickly.