by Kate Rockland
Published Jan. 17, 2012
St. Martin's Press
320 pages
ISBN: 978-0-31257601-1
"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."
I counter that little quip by Kate Moss.
Because, really, it depends on what you're hungry for.
To say my family is familiar with yo yo dieting is like saying there's water in the sea.
Ya think?
As a 6th grader, I'd watch what I ate religiously, for say, two weeks, and then go on a binge for about a month. I was all elbows and knees at the time, and at 5'3 couldn't have weighed more than 90 pounds soaking wet.. But I perpetuated what I saw, which was namely, my mother eating peaches and cottage cheese for dinner and working out to Denise Austen, even though she was a perfectly petite woman, albeit pear-shaped. Maybe because I screwed up my metabolism, probably because I ate about 5000 calories a day, by the time I was in 8th grade, I was at 130 pounds. Still within my weight range, but comparing myself to my size 0 friends wasn't doing me any good and the constant self-recrimination was wearing me down.
By the time I was in high school, the cycles were in place. I was either eating with abandon, or staying within a 900 calorie limit, working out 3 hours a day, and sucking on a jolly rancher when my intestines were bellowing in protest.
As an adult, it got even worse. I'd spent 172 of 520 weeks of the first decade of marriage, pregnant (there's a miscarriage factored in there). Indulging in whatever chocolate covered sweet struck my fancy was fine when I was with child. It wasn't so fine when I was 30 or 40 pounds overweight.
We get to a place where we try to instill in our daughters that we are more than what we weigh. We are more than what we look like. We are more than what we do or don't eat. But what comes out of our mouths and what we actually practice are usually worlds apart. I can tell my girls that they shouldn't worry about watching what they eat, but what are they privately thinking of me when they see me shun white food like a psychopath for 3 months and then on the fourth, practically bathe myself in mashed potatoes and gravy?
It ain't pretty, and it ain't east walking the path you draw.
It's still relatively the beginning of the year. You'll find a lot of people who make it their priority to lose weight. To get healthy. But the fact is, the majority of Americans are obese.
And it's not for lack of trying. Jenny Craig boasts millions of members and has 700 weight management facilities scattered around the country. They have celebrity spokespeople who endorse their products. But even with the millions of dollars they get paid, they can't always pull it off for the long haul (Kirstie Alley comes to mind).
What does this have to do with 150 pounds?
Everything.
We are a nation of people who want all or nothing. We careen from indulgence to prohibition in no time. And we wonder why it's not sustainable, why we're overweight, and why the endless repetition of these two opposites leaves us wary of both.
Enter Alexis Bright, blog owner of Skinny Chick, and Shoshana Weiner, blog owner of Fat and Fabulous. After building up a base of several million readers, both of them are invited to discuss the weight issue on Oprah. Yes, it's an unlikely premise, but it does serve the purpose of the story. The exchange is heated, there are some below the belt comments exchanged, and neither woman comes out of the conversation without questioning their motivations and their beliefs.
Weiner preaches self-acceptance at any weight. But when Bright shouts out alarming health statistics linked to obesity and then reminds Weiner that her own father died of a heart attack that could arguably been prevented had he been a little healthier, Weiner has to contend that Bright has a point.
It's a fascinating ongoing conversation we're having about weight, about health, about loving yourself no matter what. I don't want to detract from the book by giving too much of it away....
I will say the writing was fair, but the issues it raises are the real reason for picking up this title.
What I love most about this book? That at the end, both women weight 150 pounds. And of course, the inner transformations that contribute to this result.
So, if you have image issues, if you've ever dreaded stepping on a scale, if you count your calories religiously, if you've ever preferred death over donning a swimsuit, read this.
