Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book to review.

Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life is a Buddhist guide to healthy living and weight loss co-authored by Thich Nhat Hanh and Dr. Lilian Cheung. The former is a Zen master whose name looks like a word scramble of the phrase “Ninth hatch, hah!” Odd name aside, it must be pretty bad-ass to put the words “Zen Master” on your business cards, assuming Zen masters have business cards. Dr. Cheung is a lecturer and director of health promotion at the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Nutrition. It must be pretty bad-ass to put the word “Harvard” on your business card too. Dr. Cheung is also a student of Hanh, who is a well-respected Buddhist monk.

I’m always slightly hesitant to read diet books because many of them retread the same ground. If you’re going to write a diet book, you’d better have something new to say or say it in a new way. Savor certainly meets those standards, presenting a plan for healthy living using [...]

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So, last week I split my pants.

Thankfully I was at home, and the only person who saw a flash of my clean white undies was my roommate (and possibly the two cats). Regardless of what we ultimately blame for this incident, be it the textile industry or the size of my ass, one cannot ignore that this is a stereotypically fat-person thing to do. I may as well have sat on a chair which collapsed beneath me. As I mentioned on Wednesday, I clearly need help.

If my life were an episode of that old VH1 series, “Behind the Music,” this moment in my life would be the time when I hit rock bottom after spiraling downward in a heroin and cocaine fueled whirlwind, only I used ice cream and chocolate instead. For those of you just entering the story, I developed a chronic headache two years ago that really f*$%ed me up. It changed the way I thought about food, making me see it more as a coping mechanism than I ever had before.

While [...]

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They say addiction starts with a broken promise. You promise not to have a third drink and then you wake up the next morning with no memory of falling asleep in your own barf. You promise not to have a cigarette and then you’re bumming just one more from a friend. You promise not to overeat on Thanksgiving and then you go back for four pieces of cake and a piece of pie.

The fact that you have to make the promise shows that you have a problem. I’ve never had to promise not to take another drink because I don’t care much for alcohol. It makes my headache worse and I’ve never thought the buzz was worth all the calories. There’s a bottle of vodka that has been in my freezer since July and it will probably still be there next year. That’s how I know I’m not an alcoholic. However, I have often promised myself that I will only eat half the meal at a restaurant and then eaten the whole plate. I’ve promised [...]

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The worst thing about weight loss is that I created a more perfect version of myself. When I reached my lowest weight of 170 pounds and looked in the mirror, my reflection spun herself off into her own world of possibilities where she still exists today. No matter how much I weigh for the rest of my life, I will always know that on one day in November of 2007 I was that thin.

I was never a skinny child. I never had a thin version of me to compare myself too. I only had the morbidly obese Jennette who spun herself into her own world of possibilities, one that exists in a parallel dimension from the skinny version. When I was losing weight, I would compare my current body to the fatter version of me. I could hang out with this fatter friend of mine in my mind where she made me feel skinny in her shadow. Even at 230 pounds I was 140 pounds lighter than the fattest me.

This year I’ve been dealing with [...]

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I don’t have cable, but if I did I would be watching “Ruby” on the Style Network. “Ruby” is a new documentary-style reality show that follows the charming and delightful southern belle Ruby Gettinger as she seeks to lose over 300 pounds. “Ruby” isn’t a game show like “The Biggest Loser.” She’s not competing against anyone, though she does have professional help from an obesity expert, a trainer, and a therapist. Ruby has to live in the real world and doesn’t get to move to a ranch where she exercises six hours a day. Instead she lives at home on disability with her nephew’s assistance. Ruby is an average Georgian girl with one serious problem she’s decided she must overcome or die trying.

I may not have cable, but I did receive a screener of the second episode and was able to watch the complete first episode on the show’s web site here in the “Videos” section. (ETA: Looks like they have taken the episode down now. Sorry!) As I watched the show, I found myself [...]

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