Perusing the books on the staff favorites shelf at my local library, this book title grabbed my eye: Thin is the New Happy, by Valerie Frankel (2008, St. Martins Press). With no time to read the back cover, I just checked it out and brought it home. Not sure what I was hoping to find (the title alone is intriguing), you can imagine my surprise when I started reading it. The prolific author--25 fiction and nonfiction books--and editor for Mademoiselle magazine has written a memoir, her first, about her battle with the bulge, an honest and very revealing struggle that will make you laugh, cry and, in the end, think.
While she talks about the many aspects of being overweight covered in hundreds of other books, it is her approach to the subject that makes for both an entertaining and enlightening read. Getting into the book was somewhat disjointedshe takes the reader on a criss-cross ride, going back and forth between the various stages and people in her life, as she tells of her struggles with fat. The transitions left me confused at timesas in, hey, how did we get to this point?--but you learn why she had to return to another person or time in her life to tell her story, because her weight issues were part of her relationships with others, too. Her very conversational writing style, at times, seemed to be too humorous for what were, in this writer's opinion, very serious subjects. In her journey to come to grips with her own body image, she learns that the answer lies in coming to terms with the games you play with yourself in your mind and those demons that keep shouting at you about your weight. You travel with her through happy and sad times, meeting her husbands, and through her first husband's death. The journey is difficult, but what she has to say will resonate with anyone who has ever struggled over the why-me syndrome of being fat.
Her insights are often hilarious, and certainly descriptive. For example, she likens dieting to a sex addiction. To quote her: One diet wasnt enough to satisfy me. I needed to try another, and another, and none of them kept me satisfied for long. The harder I tried to deny my lusts, the more inflamed they came, until giving in to desire was all I thought about. My insatiable appetite compelled me to cheat, and cheat again. And that is how her story begins, as she compares dieting to other addictions (drugs, gambling) and the stages of grief. It is that opening that kept me turning pages until I finished reading the book.
My favorite chapter was 12, OUR WARDROBES, OURSELVES. If you need inspiration for cleaning out your closet, and insight as to why you have clothes you never wear and you just keep on keeping them, then you can find it in this chapter. Her story about shopping with her daughters is funny. But her session with Stacy London (the fashion makeover maven often seen on the morning TV shows) was quite enlightening. Stacy was like a psychiatrist, only paying a house call. We pay good money to talk to people about our problems, and Stacy made sure that Val got the whole enchilada, with value added, too. Reading the chapter was uplifting, and kept me laughing the entire time. A fat reducing review can help you produce a clear outline of what you require to focus on to achieve your fat reducing goal if you're a starter; or serve as a reminder for the ones who are at an intermediate or more advance phase of their weight-loss strategy. Applying are seven steps that can serve as guidelines for your personal weight loss program. The first thing that one must understand is that losing weight and losing fat is not the same thing. Many weight loss courses have misled people into thinking that it is the same, but most diets and weight loss applications only work by leading to a person's body to eliminate more muscle cells and water than actual body fat, more help please visit The Fat Loss Factor. (Not sure whyeverything Stacy told her applied to me, too! I should have been crying.)
The book ends with Frankels two new tenets in life, and her wake-up call or, as she calls it, her grow-up call. The 243-page book is a fast read, and you will come out the wiser for having read it, too.
In Albuquerque, you can get this book (and others by Frankel) at the Page One Bookstore (Montgomery & Juan Tabo NE).
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