The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller

The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America

ONE OF NPRâ€™S BEST BOOKS OF 2019

â€œInspirationalâ€¦I loved this book. I found myself sneak-reading it from the moment it came in the door. As with a sack of White Castle burgers, I hated to reach the endâ€¦.[Tomlinson] writes exceedingly well.â€ â€”Dwight Garner, The New York Times

The government definition of obesity is a body mass index of 30 or more. My BMI is 60.7. My shirts are size XXXXXXL, which the big-and-tall stores shorten to 6X. Iâ€™m 6-foot-1, or 73 inches tall. My waist is 60 inches around. Iâ€™m nearly a sphere.

Those are the numbers. This is how it feelsâ€¦

So begins The Elephant in the Room, Tommy Tomlinsonâ€™s remarkably intimate and insightful memoir of his life as a fat man. When he was almost fifty years old, Tomlinson weighed an astonishingâ€”and dangerousâ€”460 pounds, at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, unable to climb a flight of stairs without having to catch his breath, or travel on an airplane without buying two seats. Raised in a family that loved food, he had been aware of the problem for years, seeing doctors and trying diets from the time he was a preteen. But nothing worked, and every time he tried to make a change, it didnâ€™t go the way he plannedâ€”in fact, he wasnâ€™t sure that he really wanted to change.

In The Elephant in the Room, Tomlinson chronicles his lifelong battle with weight in a voice that combines the urgency of Roxane Gayâ€™s Hunger with the intimacy of Rick Braggâ€™s All Over but the Shoutinâ€™. He also hits the road to meet other members of the plus-sized tribe in an attempt to understand how, as a nation, we got to this point. From buying a FitBit and setting exercise goals to contemplating the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, Americaâ€™s â€œcapital of food porn,â€ and modifying his own diet, Tomlinson brings us along on a candid and sometimes brutal look at the everyday experience of being constantly aware of your size. Over the course of the book, he confronts these issues head-on and chronicles the practical steps he has to takeâ€”big and smallâ€”to lose weight by the end.

Affecting and searingly honest, The Elephant in the Room is a powerful memoir that will resonate with anyone who has grappled with addiction, shame, or self-consciousness. It is also a literary triumph that will stay with readers long after the last page.
Country USA
Brand Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer Simon & Schuster
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 1-c endpapers; 1 b&w image thru-out;
ReleaseDate 2019-01-15
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781501111617

Country	USA
Brand	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	1-c endpapers; 1 b&w image thru-out;
ReleaseDate	2019-01-15
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781501111617

The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man's Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America

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