I’ve been forced to look at my guiltiest secrets. And what could be easier to write about than the body I have lived in for more than forty years? But I soon realized I was not only writing a memoir of my body I was forcing myself to look at what my body has endured, the weight I gained, and how hard it has been to both live with and lose that weight. When I set out to write Hunger, I was certain the words would come easily, the way they usually do.
Instead, I have written this book, which has been the most difficult writing experience of my life, one far more challenging than I could have ever imagined.
I wish I could write a book about being at peace and loving myself wholly, at any size. I wish, so very much, that I could write a book about triumphant weight loss and how I learned how to live more effectively with my demons. I don’t have any powerful insight into what it takes to overcome an unruly body and unruly appetites. This is not a book that will offer motivation. There will be no picture of a thin version of me, my slender body emblazoned across this book’s cover, with me standing in one leg of my former, fatter self’s jeans. The story of my body is not a story of triumph. Here I offer mine with a memoir of my body and my hunger. For you, my sunshine, showing me what I no longer need and finding the way to my warmĮvery body has a story and a history.
