I purchased this because I have used and enjoyed the Headspace App for several years. I found the book underwhelming. Like all diet books, it tends to go into the research behind all the how it works areas but without citing the actual studies. I love the Headspace App and use it daily, but found the nonstop hard sell of directing readers to the website and app a bit much. The actual advice on how to go through the exercises were informative but pretty basis regarding nutrition. I think i might have gotten more out of the exercises if I had listened to this as an audible book. There is a lot of introspection going on in how we perceive and react toward food, but no real way given on how to manage the emotional baggage that comes out of this insight. ( )

Remarkably lacking in substance, though not a completely unrewarding read. The book largely consists of about 130 pages of build-up on the theories about why people don't lose weight, why people give up on diets, why people eat differently, etc. It reinforces, time and again, the idea of mindfulness and the support offered if you visit the website associated with the book. Time and time again.

In the end, you reach the chapter about the actual technique only to find a ten bullet point process of mild meditation. Sit for ten minutes, breathe deeply, be aware of all the bits of yourself, concentrate on the breathing - and then repeat daily. Effectively mindfulness seems to mean concentrate on something and take your time over it.

Mindful shopping, concentreate on your footsteps or your breathing and when you feel the urge to splurge, refocus on your footsteps, breathing, the trolley... whatever you chose to anchor you. Mindful food preparation means taking your time, breathing in the smoke, manhandling the vegetables and generally getting to know your meal on a very personal basis.

Somewhere along the journey, the author lost the point. Or lost me. Or both. All the build-up to the take10 technique and I find a somewhat sterile explanation of a bland meditation technique. I did read the rest of the book, but I felt let down. The shallow delivery of the process of mindfulness left me wondering just who might benefit from this book and take the concept on with any prospect of benefit. How could you walk away from this book with anything more than a sense that you hadn't learnt anything at all - other than a more mindful approach to choosing your reading material in future! ( )