All Anne H Putnam ever wanted was to be "normal". In this painfully honest memoir she chronicles her 10-year struggle to control – and come to terms with – her weight. When she was a child her large appetite and sweet tooth turned her into the "elephant in the living room", and by 17 she had become one of the youngest people in the US to have gastric-bypass surgery. Successful though it was, she admits it "didn't come close to vanquishing the bitch in my head", and it would take years and further surgery before Putnam could acknowledge the need to change her mindset, not her dress size. Funny and intimate, her account omits nothing from the embarrassment of school swimming lessons and having a shop assistant cut her out of a dress, to the joy of finally fitting into a pair of size-14 trousers. This is a book that will strike a chord with every woman who has ever dieted or doubted herself.
