“Born Round”

The other day at the library, I spotted Born Round, The Secret History of a Full-time Eater by Frank Bruni in the recently published section.  I remembered reading a great review of the book so I decided to give it a read.  I certainly was not disappointed.  This memoir honestly and humorously unveiled a man’s lifelong battle with food and weigh management.  Brilliantly written, I believe most readers will likely resonate with his struggles of disordered eating.

He begins his story by calling himself a “baby bulimic”.  As a toddler, he would literally vomit if his mother denied him a third or fourth serving of food.  His strong appetite and love of food continued throughout his life. 

“My life-defining relationship, after all, wasn’t with a parent, a sibling, a teacher, a mate. It was with my stomach.  And among all the doubts, insecurities and second-guessing that had so often shadowed me, there was one certainty, one constant, I could eat.”

Family dynamics, of course, have an effect on all of us.  His family dynamics were no exception.  As he described his mother’s fad diet phase, I truly laughed out loud…

“She did some diet that required the consumption of a half grapefruit at a half dozen intervals during the day- it didn’t work, as I recall, but it certainly kept her safe from scurvy.”

Aside from his mother’s occasional fad diet, she took extreme pride in cooking for and feeding others…

“… mom treated our holiday visits as Make-A-Wish Foundation moments, only all the wishes involved eating.”

Frank eventually conquered bulimia (as a college student), a Mexican speed phase, abuse of laxatives, and sleep eating/middle of the night binges.  He revealed details of how his work, friends, and romantic relationships always were closely tied to and sometimes suffered due to his relationship with food and weight.  He went through phases of self denial, justifications, and rationalizations like many people do…

“Something strange happens when you keep gaining weight that you don’t want to be gaining and keep breaking your resolutions to lose it: a part of your brain- the part that keeps your disappointment in yourself at a manageable level, trading real self-disgust from more routine self-flagellation- shades the truth a little, and then a little more, and then a lot.”

“I suppose there are people who can pass up free guacamole, but they’re either allergic or too joyless to live.”

“And so, yet again, I faltered, beginning a diet and exercise program on Monday only to stop it on a Wednesday, because I’d slip up and decide that I should wait until the following Monday and the blank slate of a new week to begin.  Then I’d treat Thursday through Sunday as a free pass, a last-hurrah opportunity to get all my cravings out of my system.”

The ironic part of his story is that he achieved a healthy balance between food and his weight once he became a professional eater- a New York City food critic.  Of course, his humor remained as he described the exercise regimens he maintained to stay at a healthy balance of energy intake versus energy expenditure…

“He made me pretend I was a frog, crouched but not too crouched, leaping in a forward direction for the length of two rooms.  This supposedly worked wonders on the “glutes.”  I wasn’t entirely sure what or where “glutes” were, but I trusted that mine could use significant improvement.”

Many of Frank’s lessons learned are things I often discuss with patients that are trying to lose weight…

“I listened to hunger and responded to it, because I knew from the past what could happen if I let myself get too famished or feel too deprived.”

“I was celebrating instead of abusing food.  In so many previous chapters of my life I’d seen food as the enemy; now it was more a friend.”

“I had to admit that the success or failure of every diet I’d ever attempted boiled down to the most basic equation of all: how much energy I expended versus how much fuel I took in.  And no matter what I’d once tried to tell myself, I always knew, in the course of a given day, whether this equation was out of whack.”

“Losing weight- or not gaining it- boiled down to putting back the second dinner roll I’d just reached for, running or walking the extra mile, getting off the uptown Number 1 train when it pulled into the Sixty-sixth Street stop, near my gym, rather than staying on until Seventy-second Street, going home and unwinding until dinner.”

Overall, this book was charming, witty, and a pleasure to read with a great “take home” message on balancing indulgence with restraint.  I know this post is a bit quote heavy but I had a hard time narrowing the quotes down because they were all so good!

Have you read any inspiring books lately?

Kasey