4 Weight Loss Memoirs

Over the past several days, I have read 4 weight loss memoirs, and I think I'm ready to read something different now.  I tend to go through nonfiction like that and devour several books on one topic that I'm really interested in.  I decided to review them here.  All of the books made me feel like a weight loss amateur, being only 50 ponuds overweight at my biggest. 

The first one I read was Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir by Jeanette Fulda.  She lost half her weight in a fairly short amount of time, and she writes about the changes she made to her life, how her life changed, and how it didn't change.  Of all the memoirs reviewed here, hers is the funniest and most irreverent.  As she loses  weight, her self-consciousness fades.  She attributes it to the weight loss, and perhaps it wouldn't have happened without the weight loss, but I think a lot of her story is something that many people in their twenties can relate to as they grow up, gain some perspective, and grow more comfortable with themselves. 

As soon as I finished the book, I went online to google Jeanette to see how she is doing today.  She has a blog.  I learned that she has gained some of her weight back due to depression and chronic pain resulting from a headache that won't go away.  She has written a book about that as well.  My hope for her is that her pain goes away one day.  Half-Assed is funny and inspiring. 

I then read Battle Scars: My Journey from Obesity to Health and Happiness, Fifteen Years and Counting! by Stephen Cremen.  I found this one to be particularly compelling because Stephen has kept most of his weight off for such a long period of time.  Of the four I read, Stephen writes the most about emotional issues relating to his weight, and I think that his introspection is probably one the major keys to his success.  His coming out as a gay man and how keeping that part of himself secret contributed to his eating issues is an interesting part of his story as well.  It was a very enjoyable read and possibly the most inspirational of the four I read, simply because he's managed to be successful for so long.  At the time I bought the book, it was only $1.99 on Kindle--a great bargain! 

After that, I read 703: How I Lost More than a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life by Nancy Makin.  This was the strangest of all four memiors.  Nancy had a childhood that was complicated by a stay in a horriffic Canadian cult.  She became pregnant as a teenager, married the young man, and had a baby at the young age of 16.  Her relationship with her controlling mother was troubled.  She reached the massive weight of 703 pounds (at least) and was completely homebound, waiting to die.  She is vague on exactly how she managed to become that large.  Her method of weight loss was equally vague.  From what I could figure out, she had been eating enormous amounts of calories constantly, and after getting a computer with Internet, she forgot to eat as much.  Her book was the most painful to read--the other books I read were about young people with much more ordinary lives.  After googling her, I found pictures of a strikingly pretty woman, but I could find nothing recent.  I hope that she continues to lead a healthy lifestyle. 

This evening, I finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl by Shauna Reid.  Of all the books, I enjoyed this one the most, and I could relate to Shauna the most.  She lost half of her body weight as a young woman, like Jeanette Fulda.  She took six years to do so and made peace with her weight about 10 pounds above her original goal.  Also like Jeanette, Shauna's book grew out of her blog.  The book spans about six years of weight loss, begins in Australia, ends in Scotland, and includes a romance.  Shauna grows up a lot as the book progresses.  To me, this one was the most novel-like of all of the memoirs.  I highly recommend it.  Shauna has struggled with a bout of depression and weight gain, and I wish her the best as she takes control of her life again and works on becoming more athletic and eating in a healthy way. 

I think all of these books are worth reading if you're looking for weight loss inspiration, but Battle Scars and The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl are the most worth reading, in my opinion.