Eating Ice Cream with My Dog: A True Story of Food, Friendship, and Losing Weight...Again

by Frances Kuffel

Book Overview

"A skilled blend of insight...and emotion" (Publishers Weekly), a memoir for every woman who has ever tried to lose weight.

Frances Kuffel transformed her life by losing 188 pounds. Unfortunately, she gained over half those pounds back. But she also gained four new friends during this period, whom she met online. Frances, Lindsay, Katie, Mimi, and Wendy bonded quickly, dubbing themselves the Angry Fat Girlz. In Eating Ice...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425238571
• ISBN13: 9780425238578
• Release Date: May 2011
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

ANGRY FAT GIRLS

WHAT AN AMAZING BOOK. A MUST FOR ANYONE STRUGGLING WITH WEIGHT ISSUES. HER FRANK HONEST ACCOUNT OF LIFE ON THE OBESE SIDE SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR ALL WEIGHT LOSS GROUPS. THE AUTHORESS INVOKES SUCH EMPATHY FROM HER AUDIENCE,HER STORY WILL STAY WITH ME FOREVER, WELL AND TRULY BURNT UPON MY SOUL. I THINK IT TOOK ME ALL OF 3 DAYS TO READ IT, LITERALLY COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.

Highly recommended for any general lending library

ANGRY FAT GIRLS: A PERSONAL JOURNEY continues a story begun in PASSING FOR THIN, telling of how the writer, who changed her life by losing 188 pounds, gained half of these back. She formed new friendships through the Internet with four women in similar situations, and ANGRY FAT GIRLS is her memoir of their struggle with diets, weight loss and gain, and search for individual freedom. Highly recommended for any general lending library.

Hope For Us All

Like Kuffel's first book, Passing for Thin, this is a bracingly honest, whip smart, funny, heartbreaking look at the battles all humans face within the mind/spirit/body conundrum. Who of us doesn't bemoan our weaknesses, addictions, black periods, when inside there's a mind and spirit that wants to achieve more. What Kuffel does in this book is not solely about our struggles with weight and food. It's about about the relationship between the physical and the mental and the spiritual, and it's very, very moving and inspiring. In a smart blend of personal story and cultural and scientific overview, Kuffel finds a way to situate her issues and then show a way of working through them. And she's funny. We could all be better, and this book helps explore how.

Mirroring

I want to do this book justice. In _Passing for Thin_ Frances Kuffel wrote about what it is like to lose a tremendous amount of weight after being obese. She wrote about not knowing who she was or how to be in her "normal" sized body. At the time I read her book I was experiencing the same thing. Everyone told me I should just be happy and enjoy the experience but the truth is our identities are tied up in our bodies. _Passing for Thin_ helped me to understand that there is more to losing weight than simply reaching a goal. In _Angry Fat Girlz_, Ms. Kuffel takes it a step further. She writes about what it's like to be fat... to have lost the weight and found it again... and she writes about the experience in a clever, funny, and honest way. I laughed, I cried, I ate ice cream. I also had some "Ah ha" moments. There was the moment when I read about the way one of the women used to always ask her boss for time off from work instead of telling her boss that she would be gone. I was that person. The next day I went to work and told my boss when I would be on vacation. What a freeing experience. The other thing Frances talks about is the facts. She brings in scientific research that sheds light on the way our bodies work. What's so great about _Angry Fat Girlz_ is the recognition that while being fat may be a common experience it's also a personal experience. There's also the recognition that while we inhabit our bodies, our bodies are not all we are. We are amazing, loving, strong, intelligent, successful women in spite of or perhaps because of our bodies. More than anything Frances helped me to hold a mirror up to myself and look at what is going on my life and also look at how I am relating to other people. It's a great book. If you want to know that you're not alone or you want to understand more about more than 50% of the American population check out this book. And of course if you want a funny smart memoir, _Angry Fat Girlz_ is great for that too.