The book in overview v hands. I summarize this neglected field of eye-opening research in Chapter 3. It explains why it is normal to crash a diet and abnormal to be able to stick to one long-term. If around 40 % of the population drink coffee, we then consider drinking coffee‘ normal’. When 80 % of the population are unable to stick to a diet, I think we can comfortably say that this is‘ perfectly normal’. It is perfectly normal to be unable to stick to a traditional weight-loss plan. From the outset, traditional weight-loss programs are doomed as they simply ask too much of normal people. This is why I argue that rather than people failing diets, diets fail people. Worse than this, as people try to lose weight and fail, perfectly normally, they often feel like perfect failures – maybe this has happened to you? Even more concerningly, many of the people who see me have failed many times( psychiatrists never being the first port of call for the overweight!). They don’ t just see themselves as failures at weight loss – they come to see themselves as failures as people. This is tragic when what has happened is perfectly normal! The respected Australian nutrition expert, Rosemary Stanton, recently pointed out that‘ The real problem is that few people follow the guidelines.’ 2 She goes on to quote a long-term study of over 10,000 women where they found that only a third complied with more than half of the eating guidelines and only two women met all the guidelines! Research like this got me thinking that we need a big rethink about what we ask of people. This book is an attempt to do the big rethink. Also overlooked in designing weight-loss programs, are the teachings of psychotherapy – this is the end of medicine and psychiatry focused on helping people to change, permanently. In Chapters 4 and 5, I look at how these understandings apply to our everyday eating behavior and the 2 Medical Journal of Australia, 2006; 184( 2): 76-79.