My Fat Head: The Psychology of Weight Loss: Unlocking the Secrets to Your Relationship with Food (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781049232089)

My Fat Head: The Psychology of Weight Loss is a great deal more than just a book about obesity and weight loss, while paradoxically being simply and effectively just that. This extremely insightful and long-overdue dialogue between the body and the mind unmasks the thoughts, hidden memories, and emotions that have silently shaped and bound our complex relationship with food.

Profoundly human and deeply hopeful, this is not a manual of diets or deprivation. It is a map back to yourself. It reminds you that your psychology need not only be your greatest source of pain but can also be the key to lasting transformation.

Drawing on years of psychological practice and lived experience, this book explores obesity not as a failure of discipline, but as a story written into the body - a chronic condition of both flesh and feeling. Through a compassionate process of reflection, renewal and recalibrating, it shows how healing begins not with restriction, but with understanding.

What makes this book different?
Books on weight loss typically focus on changing the food you eat and your lifestyle behaviour and, by and large, are ineffective. This is due to the fact that we first need to delve deeper into understanding why food has such an emotional quality to it and why it operates at a level that is out of our awareness. Only then can we successfully change our relationship to food and the way we eat, and finally transform ourselves and ultimately, our bodies.

Who is this book for?
Anyone who is:

• Struggling with their relationship with food.
• Contemplating bariatric/metabolic surgery or has undergone the surgical process.
• Experiencing a poor relationship with your body.
• Dealing with some form of emotional eating.
• Caught in a cycle of repeated diets, constantly striving to get it right, yet unsure of what to do next, sensing that something deeper is at play after trying many different approaches.
• Suffering from chronic obesity
• Ready to make a change and embark on a weight loss journey.
• Preparing and planning for a lifestyle change.

This Book Will:

• Help you develop a healthier relationship with food.
• Foster a more conscious, aware relationship with your body
• Create a different attitude towards weight loss and a healthy lifestyle.
• Provide insight into underlying thought patterns, behaviours, and emotional dynamics that establish, maintain, and perpetuate a negative relationship with your body, food, and weight loss.
• Develop a way of living that extends beyond weight management into all areas of your life.
• Support you in making bariatric surgery work for you and maintaining your post-surgery gains and lifestyle.

Konrad van Staden is a Jungian Analyst and Clinical Psychologist in private practise in South Africa. He has over 20 years' experience as a psychotherapist working with obesity, binge-eating, and the deep psychological change required for healing. Konrad has been involved in the assessment and treatment of bariatric surgery patients, both pre- and post-surgery. He works with surgical teams and physicians to establish the psychological support and transformation process in each patient's weight loss journey.

Warning: This book may cause irreversible self-acceptance.

Author: Konrad Van Staden
ISBN-10: 1049232089
ISBN-13: 9781049232089
Publisher: Baobab Process
Language: English
Published: 12/07/2025
Pages: 418
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.23lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.85d