FAT GIRL WALKING: Sex, Food, Love and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It
by Brittany Gibbons
(May 19, 2015;
Hardcover; $24.99; ISBN: 9780062343031;
E-Book ISBN: 9780062343055).
Format/Source: Hardcover, Publisher
Format/Source: Hardcover, Publisher
In FAT GIRL WALKING, Brittany—acclaimed blogger and
body image advocate—shares the often funny and often painful true stories of
her life as an overweight girl growing up in the Midwest. From coping with
mental illness and obesity in her family, to her struggles with dating (it’s
hard—no matter your size!), dealing with anxiety issues that forced her to drop
out of college, falling in love, getting married, having three children,
battling with bulimia, launching a successful writing career, and to finally
getting the confidence to say goodbye to diets and body hating for good, Brittany’s
new memoir is a soul-baring account of her quest to learn to love her shape.
Brittany admits
that for all of the hobbies she has picked up and put down over the years, body
hating has been her most dedicated and consistent. But when her young daughter
started holding her stomach in the mirror and imitating her mom, she realized
something needed to change. Brittany had no idea what to do first, only that
she knew she had been ignoring all of the amazing things she had achieved in
her life despite her size.
She began to
change her perspective by making a pledge to tell herself three things she liked
about her body every day, no matter how awkward it seemed. She bought clothes
to actually fit her body shape—not the size on the label—and actively stopped
glorifying women (in her head and in her writing) as “beautiful” only if they
were also thin. That adjective became the last thing Brittany decided she would
say to her daughter after brilliant, hilarious, curious, creative, and daring.
Brittany also started to recognize that her “flabby
parts aren’t problem areas; they’re parts of a scrapbook” a scrapbook that
contains memories of places she’s been, meals she enjoyed with loved ones, and the
amazing children she has had.
Soon, she took
her new powerful outlook to Times Square and stripped down to her bathing suit
for a national women’s body image campaign and then did it again during a TEDx Talk in 2011 on a journey to start changing
the societal conversation about body image. “I
saw this as a chance to become a point of reference and authority for plus-size
women online…Plus-size people were often portrayed in society as villains. We
affected your health-care costs with our diabetes and our heart attacks. We all
wanted gastric bypass and lap-band surgery as an easy way out. We were eating
all the fast food from the dollar menu. We were lazy, lacked self-control, and
were unpleasant to look at. We were an epidemic.”
Today on her
successful blog, www.brittanyherself.com,
fat shaming is all too real amongst the anonymity of the internet. Instead of being
beaten down by it, she’s come to realize that people are allowed to say
whatever they want about her weight but it’s entirely up to her how much power
she lets those words have. In FAT GIRL
WALKING, Brittany wants readers to learn that despite our
background, upbringing and thoughts we have about ourselves, we are ultimately
in charge of providing the narrative for how other people perceive us. “People treat me like a sexy and
confident woman because I act like a sexy and confident woman; my behavior
doesn’t give them any other options.”
FAT GIRL WALKING is not a diet
book. It’s not one of those memoirs about how someone battled, and won, the fight
against fat. Instead, it is a book that reminds us all that being chubby
doesn’t mean you’ll end up alone, unhappy, or the subject of a cable medical
show. Learning to love your shape is the
important step of learning to live a life of the same joy, heartbreak, oddity,
awkwardness and wonder as anyone else’s. Just with better snacks.
Excerpt
NOW WHAT?
My
fitness and body aspirations at thirty are different from my aspirations at
twenty. At twenty, I just assumed I’d work out until I was so tiny, people
became concerned for my health and I’d roll my eyes at them from my Victoria’s
Secret bras and Abercrombie jeans. Now I just want to maintain my current
weight so I don’t need to buy new clothes. When you look at weight loss, it’s
often clothing driven. Weddings, vacations, and high school reunions, all
things you are supposed to be thin for. But what if you have a gorgeous wedding
dress in your current size, loads of flattering bathing suits, and a killer
pair of jeans? Starving myself has suddenly become a moot point. I have
options; I’m no longer a fashion pariah. So where does that leave my weight?
Well, unless I’m sitting atop you, what I weigh is really none of your
business.
I
like to put good food in my mouth, and while I am aware of the calories I
ingest, instead of cutting them I make them count. I have a full-on love affair
with food, appreciating the different cultures and processes within it. In
fact, I take entire vacations around eating. It’s how I remember where I’ve
been; I’ve either eaten, thrown up, or started my period without the proper
supplies there.
Beignets
with my best friend in New Orleans. Too much rum on the beaches of Playa del
Carmen on our second honeymoon. Orlando, Florida, the city of emergency men’s
tube sock maxi-pads.
You see, these flabby parts aren’t
problem areas; they’re parts of a scrapbook.
Review
We’ve all read or heard those stories of people who use
extreme measures to attain their ideal body weight. Well Fat Girl Walking
provides a different take on dealing with being above the ideal BMI. Fat Girl
Walking is Brittany Gibbons’ (AKA Brittany Herself) personal and absolutely raw account of her
experiences with sex, love, and life as an overweight woman and her journey to
self-acceptance. She details her bouts
with anxiety and agoraphobia and the turning point in her life at which point
she realized that there was life after failure.
It was nice to read a book in which the author shed light on fat shaming and the role that the media plays. Although it’s important
to live a healthy lifestyle, I was impressed that Gibbons stressed that one can
learn to be happy where they’re at. Her story just proves that one size does
not fit all—not every overweight person has low self-esteem and vice versa. It’s
just a matter of whether a person has learned to deal with inner conflicts and love oneself despite what
society has to say about them. Overall, Aka Brittany Herself has presented an
inspiring and heartfelt story on love and acceptance.
Rating 4/5
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
BRITTANY
GIBBONS is a
humorist, internet personality, model and nationally recognized positive body
image advocate. She began her blog www.BrittanyHerself.com in 2007, and later founded the
magazine, CurvyGirlGuide.com, and she hosts “Last Call Brittany,” a weekly
Google talk show. She lives in Toledo, Ohio with her husband and three small
children.
Giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Blog Tour Schedule
Blog Tour Schedule
The Mod Podge Bookshelf
|
5/10/2015
|
|
Bibliodaze
|
5/13/2015
|
|
My Summer Girl Books
|
5/15/2015
|
|
Reading on the Rocks
|
5/15/2015
|
|
BeautyLifeGeek
|
5/15/2015
|
|
Word Spelunking
|
5/18/2015
|
|
Once Upon a Twilight
|
5/18/2015
|
|
Life, Army Wife Style
|
5/19/2015
|
|
gidgets bookshelf
|
5/19/2015
|
|
Let Me Be Fictional
|
5/19/2015
|
|
Cozy Little House
|
5/20/2015
|
|
In Between The Pages
|
5/21/2015
|
|
The College Life Stylist
|
5/22/2015
|
|
Love. Life. Read.
|
5/22/2015
|
|
Please Another Book
|
5/23/2015
|
|
Crib Notes
|
5/26/2015
|
|
Rusticating in the Tropics
|
5/27/2015
|
|
Laughing Lindsay
|
5/28/2015
|
|
Live To Read ~Krystal
|
5/28/2015
|
|
Cara's Book Boudoir
|
5/29/2015
|
|
Fiona's Book Reviews
|
5/30/2015
|
|
Lacey's Love Of Literature
|
5/30/2015
|
|
Love Romance Books
|
5/30/2015
|
|
Curling Up With A Good Book
|
5/31/2015
|
|
Karen On
|
6/1/2015
|
|
Adventures in Aubreyland
|
6/1/2015
|
|
Literary, etc
|
6/1/2015
|
|
Endless Bliss
|
6/1/2015
|
|
Cris Conquers
|
6/3/2015
|
|
SOS Aloha
|
6/3/2015
|
|
Prosecco in the Park
|
6/4/2015
|
|
iFandomsCollide
|
6/4/2015
|
|
#NerdProblems
|
6/5/2015
|
|
What Red Read
|
6/8/2015
|
|
Nut Free Nerd
|
6/8/2015
|
|
Pretty Girls Read Books
|
6/8/2015
|
|
Books Unbound
|
6/9/2015
|
|
The Lovely Books
|
6/9/2015
|
|
Literate Housewife
|
6/9/2015
|
|
All Romance Reviews
|
6/10/2015
|
|
Owl Always Be Reading
|
6/10/2015
|
|
Drunk On Pop
|
6/12/2015
|
|
starting fresh
|
6/12/2015
|
|
The Phantom Paragrapher
|
6/12/2015
|
|
Brooke Blogs
|
6/12/2015
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are always welcome. Just remember to Keep it Respectful, Simple, and Clean (KIRSC it! :D)