Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir
"In this touching, funny, and sincere story, Jennette Fulda, who was once 372 pounds, recounts her lifelong struggle with her weight- first accepting it, then losing half of it." --Shape Magazine, August 2008Blogger Fulda explains how she lost 186 pounds. In January 2005, she weighed twice that. A year earlier, after having her gallbladder removed at the age of 23, she'd realized her weight was threatening her life and vowed to get into shape. "Only I didn't," she writes. "I stayed fat for at least another year. Wake up call received. Snooze button pushed." Fulda did eventually take control, changing her eating habits and taking up exercise: first walking, then jogging, then a combination of jogging, pilates and weight training. She started a blog, "Half of Me," to chronicle her progress. As of February 2007, she had lost half her body weight; in the final chapter, she writes that she's within 15 pounds of her goal weight (160 pounds) but warns, "I may have lost the weight, but it could still find me again." Fulda provides a fair amount of weight-loss information only the diet-and-fitness-obsessed could really love, but the book is redeemed by the engaging account of her personal history interwoven throughout. In a conversational and honest voice, she describes tackling the age-old paradox of trying to accept herself while also trying to change. This dialectical process caused her to run afoul of online "fat acceptance" communities, which work to decrease the marginalization of the overweight and the obese. "If I really accepted myself as I was, it meant I'd recognized who I was to the best of my ability, flaws and all," writes Fulda. "It didn't mean I was necessarily satisfied with all the materials that made the house of me." A winsome, charming memoir of personal discovery. --Kirkus Reviews, Feb. 15, 2008Following Indianapolis-based blogger Jennette Fulda's journey to lose almost two-thirds of herself is so inspiring you'll fill your cart with nothing but turkey cutlets and cruciferous vegetables for weeks. At age 24, she weighed 372 pounds. "The truth is," she writes, "I was a big, fat cliche." Despite some emotionally heavy moments, Fulda's biting humor and no-holds-barred honestly keep you turning the pages. --Women's Health, July 2008