The Book That Started It All...

Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir by Jennette Fulda

If you've been reading this blog from the start or went back and read all the entries, you know that I started this blog in April of 2011.  By Winter of 2011, I was done.  I had a lot of issues going on last year that depressed me.  Keeping up with a new diet and exercise plan wasn't something I thought I could spend time on.  Which was stupid, because in the end I just ate and ate and ate to cover my feelings but all I ended up doing was gaining more weight and getting more depressed.  So stupid.


In May of this year, I posted my first entry of starting to live a healthier lifestyle again.  I never said it at the time, but one of the biggest motivators for this was reading the book pictured above.  Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir is an autobiography that covers the journey of the author, Jennette Fulda as she goes from weighing 372 pounds to being within 15 pounds of her goal weight (160 lbs). 

But this is not your typical weight-loss book.  What really amazed me as I read was that while this book was about losing weight, very little of it was focused specifically on food.  She never mentions what specific diet she is following.  She rarely mentions meals she prepared.  There's a good bit about figuring out what's good and what's not-so-good and how to navigate the supermarket, but even then I wouldn't say it's the majority of the book.  Instead, she focuses a lot on her physical activity and her mental health.  This was not a manual for how to lose weight, but a true autobiography about the strength and will-power it takes to accomplish a mighty goal.  And what really got me was how much I related to the things she wrote about.  Literally, there were moments where I wondered if the author somehow knew me.  She talks about playing the "Am I Fatter Than Her?" Game, which I play way too much.  Or how she pretended to forget her swimsuit at a party, which I've done more than once.

And she was forceful in her beliefs, which can be rare in overweight women who are often plagued by low self-esteem.

For example, "And even if I had been the laziest, weakest-willed person on the planet, being fat did not make me a bad person. Fat wasn't good or bad. It wasn't a scarlet F of shame written on my elbow. It was just fat. I deserved as much respect as any thin person and I shouldn't have to live under a cloud of shame." (pg. 48).

Exactly!!  I am fat, yes, but that does not and should not define me.  I am more than the fat on my body, it just happens to be that that's what you see first.  But if you take the time, you might find that I am so much more.

The author writes in such a way that I delighted in her triumphs and was saddened by her lows.  Her book truly touched me with it's wit and blunt honesty.  Before I even finished the book, I was inspired to start exercising and eating better myself.  This blog and the successes it has chronicled is directly a result of reading that book.  I'll think, "Man, I really want to just sit on the couch and watch TV," or, "I can have that doughnut covered in chocolate and sprinkles, right?"  But then I remember the blog and how much I really don't want to have to report weight-gain.  It keeps me on track.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that this is a good book!  A really good book!  And I definitely recommend you purchase a copy if you're looking for a new read.

**I would like to note that I was in no way asked or paid to say these things.  I have never met or spoken to the author.  I gave this review of my own free-will and received nothing for it.**