I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond.

Some people who have been working out regularly for months or even years are still out of shape because the number of cheat days they have in a week exceeds six.

Spokespeople sell women the Iron Maiden and name her "Health": if public discourse were really concerned with women's health, it would turn angrily upon this aspect of the beauty myth.

Healthy emotions come in all sizes. Healthy minds come in all sizes. And healthy bodies come in all sizes.

Even the models we see in magazines wish they could look like their own images.

Think about your own life. Are there foods or drinks that “call your name” in your weakest moments—like maybe at night in front of the TV? Are there certain “treats” you can hardly resist when they’re in your presence? Are there “goodies” that you continue to eat even after you’re full?

The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.

It's all very Italian (and decidedly un-American): to insist that doing the right thing is the most pleasurable thing, and that the act of consumption might be an act of addition rather than subtraction.

Diets don't really work & can be destructive, but if you get healthy overall (mind, body, spirit) then your weight balances naturally.

I'd like to lose enough weight so that my bones creaked louder than the floor

Weight and body oppression is oppressive to everyone. When you live in a society that says that one kind of body is bad and and other is good, those with “good” bodies constantly fear that their bodies will go “bad”, and those with “bad” bodies are expected feel shame and do everything they can to have “good” bodies. In the process, we torture our bodies, and do everything from engage in disordered eating to invasive surgery to make ourselves okay. Nobody wins in this kind of struggle.

Dieting was cruel; it was an abuse of human rights. Yes, that's what it was, and she should not allow herself to be manipulated in this way. She stopped herself. Thinking like that was nothing more than coming up with excuses for breaking the diet. Mma Ramotswe was made of sterner stuff than that, and so she persisted.