Review: The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

When a package from Fishpond arrived at my office earlier in the week, I let out the biggest squeal ever. I didn't even realise that I could squeal that loudly. It was so loud, that some of my work colleagues who were in an audioconference were left to explain to potential customers in Australia the apparent sound of a pig being slaughtered outside the meeting room.

Though I don't want to do Shauna any favours with this review. Because I love her blog, there's no reason why I should automatically assume that her book is going to be fabulous by default. This review is going to be a true reflection of the book.

In a woeful attempt to create structure around my review, I'm dividing it up into two sections.
The Good, and The Bad, each with their own subsections.

Big hint. One section is significantly longer than the other.

The Good The Point of Difference The Theory of Relativity Write Me Off More To Life The Best Bits

The Bad You Mean that's It?

THE GOOD

---

The Point Of Difference
I've read several other 'diet' or 'weight loss' books, and they do tend to have a common theme to them. They tell you what to do. They boss you about. Eat this. Don't eat that. Exercise. Don't exercise. Rub your stomach anti-clockwise at 4pm and the food will pass through you faster.

The weight loss industry has completely saturated the bookshelves, magazine racks, and TV channels with material focused on putting less food in your gob and moving more. The Biggest Loser has recently taken criticism with the participants coming clean on how they used to starve themselves before weigh in, and then back in the real world, feeling completely perplexed on how to keep the weight off.

Shauna's story is different. It takes her right back to the source of her body 'woes' (I couldn't think of a better word, I sat here for 10 minutes just typing, deleting and re-typing 'woes'), which were not of the 'too many calories in, not enough calories out' ilk. They were emotional, and mental issues. When you deal with extreme weight problems, quite often the cause is emotional and mental, but because the symptoms are physical, we only focus on them. It's like those ads for zits where they say "treat the cause, not the symptoms." (by the way, if anyone knows a zit cream that actually DOES this, email me, okay?)

The Theory of Relativity
As I was reading this book, I spluttered so many times when there was sentence after sentence after sentence of material that I could relate to. Where I could go "What the... that happened to ME too!!!" At no point do you feel like you're being 'Sat down' and given the x and the y to achieve z. Shauna makes lofty promises to herself, feels great one day, eats apple crumble the next, runs a 5k one day, feels big and frumpy shortly after. HOW many times have each of us done that?

Weight loss books often paint the subject as the perfect example - diligently eating this and that, showing no discontent with any of the changes. This story is much closer to reality. The frankness with the hating of Sureslim. The guilt over being heralded a Weight Watchers success story when really she just wanted to rush off to Body Pump. It was like someone had converted my own brain into text and dumped it on a page.

Write Me Off
Unlike this review which is all over the place, Shauna's book is written very well, by someone who has clear talent as a writer. What I especially liked were the breaks in narrative - switching from first person to a journalistic, news article style of writing; making use of that journalism degree, I gather! The writing is full of wit, humour and emotion. It's frank, and conversational, without being "and then I and then I and then I and then I". While mainly in chronological sequence, when faced with a certain scenario or event, relevant memories are integrated nicely without the reader losing the flow of which year they're in.

More to Life
I liked that this book wasn't just about weight loss. It was about work, friends, family, stapler removers, weddings and funerals. And you can see how as the book progresses, Shauna's outlook changes, while not losing sight of who she is throughout. To clarify, what I mean by this is not having a big personality. transplant. During the book, there's trips to France, Iceland, Red Square (though I feel slightly cheated that there is an absence of the Another Fucking Church event), dissatisfaction with her job, anxiety over her studies, anxiety over her potential Yer Gonnae Be Kicked Ooot Of Scootland doom - there's more to the life than pounds and pounds, and subsequently, there's more to this book than as said above.

The Best Bits
There were some bits that stunned me stupid. Any of you who have been reading this blog for a while will 'get' the light bulb moment in this paragraph.

I've discovered the joys of Microsoft Excel. My brand spanking new weight loss spreadsheet has a dazzling array of columns streaking across the screen. ... I just plug in my weight each week and it spits out all the data! Not only in stones but pounds and kilograms too! ... These statistics give me cheap thrills I used to get from a jumbo bag of marshmallows!

I *could* be offended at that marshmallow statement ( :-P ), but I think the fellow likeage of spreadsheet-data-spit-outtage evens that out.

To me, the most memorable moment in the book is this paragraph here.

I now realise what I desperately want out of this lard busting caper, more than a size 14 dress or a number on the scale. I'm aching to be comfortable in my own skin, with all its quirks and flaws, just like the ones at the gym seem so comfortable in theirs. I want to be happy being me.

But I'm not quite sure how you're meant to get there.

And while the book starts off as a Lets Get To X-Kg, it guides you through Shauna's journey to feeling good in her own skin. I know that my weight loss started off as weight loss, and if it weren't for that start, then I wouldn't have been able to shift the focus to self acceptance.

THE BAD

---

You Mean that's It?
The one criticism that I have of the book is that it ends far too soon. You reach the end, thinking, "What the... that can't be it? It can't be over already?" And go flicking back through the book to make sure that you didn't miss a thousand pages. I wish that there was more about when Shauna was determined as being clinically depressed - written about briefly in the Background introduction chapter in the book, but that's probably because I was clinically depressed when I was a kid and wanted to read each and every dark moment and recognise that someone out there knew exactly what I felt. I do believe that for the majority of people who have weight related health issues, mental health plays a major part and is often ignored - as I stated in the 'Point of Difference' section. The depression probably related more to Shauna's troubled childhood and less to the weight itself, but I maintain, I would've liked the Background section to have been longer.

That being said, any book that leaves you going "I want more! Gimme more! Gimme gimme gimme gimme *bangs fists on table*" has got to be a damn good book.

Though I think what I'm about to write below is the real testament of how I feel about this book.

After reading it, I hopped onto Fishpond again and ordered three more copies to give to three important people in my life. The expense of the book is pittance compared to the need to get Shauna's story to as many people as possible.

The Gist: Buy the bloody thing.