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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

703: How I Lost More Than a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life - Nancy Makin



Title: 703: How I Lost More Than a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life

Author: Nancy Makin

Publisher: April 15th 2010 by Dutton Adult

ISBN: 0525951377 (ISBN13: 9780525951377)

Copyright: 2010

Pages: 240

Quick Review: 3 stars (out of 5)

Why I Read It: David brought this home from the library.

Where I Obtained the Book: It was in a pile of book and it looked interesting.

Synopsis: A moving, funny, tongue-in-cheek, and deadly serious story about how one woman lost and found herself by going online.

Nancy Makin weighed an astounding 703 pounds in May 2000. She was forty-five years old and suffered from diabetes and other obesity-related maladies. Thanks in equal parts to shame and logistics, she'd been homebound for a dozen years.

But all that changed after a gift from her sister: a computer. A technophobe, Nancy ignored it for months, until finally boredom and curiosity pushed her into cyberspace. And there, in a political chat room, she found the friendliness, the connection, the acceptance she'd been missing for so long. Nobody flinched when Nancy spoke up; people treated her with the same respect accorded to anybody else. Thanks in great part to these new emotional connections, Nancy's life was transformed.

She followed no particular diet plan; no pills, potions or ab-crunching exercises played a part. There was no silver bullet, no magical, elusive ingredient-and yet today Nancy has lost more than 530 pounds. Nancy's tale is one of redemption, a story of reevaluating her worth and insisting she had value simply because she was human. It will show a growing America that there is hope, there's always hope... if you believe!

Review: ** spoiler alert ** I cannot imagine having a life like this author, her parents were a bit different. Especially her mother. They took the whole family to a convent type establishment in Canada and the children were seperated from the parents. Nancy, the author, adored her father and being seperated from him was extremely difficult for her. Food was scarce and many times rotten. She learned to hord when she could and to over eat when the food was good. After the convent she moved around and then ended back up there only to finally refuse to return. Pregnant at 15 and married that same year, brought more changes and more weight. Her life seemed like one diet after another and yet when she was in the hospital the tests told another story.

Nancy was over 703 pounds and yet malnurioused. Her body was obese, but her system was starving for nutrients. I think that is the way it is in America. We have some many options for food and yet many of us chose the nutrient free/high calorie alternative. Do you reach for an apple, or a brownie?

Nancy lost the weight and she did it without surgery or other aids. She learned to eat healthy and to eat normally. Eat when your hungry, eat nutrient rich foods and treat yourself every once in awhile.

She now is a public speaker and helps others do what she did. Her life was one bad thing after another, until she took over. Changing her life allowed her to find it.

This is an inspiring book, a bit long in places, but interesting all the same.


Author Biography: Nancy Makin’s life began as a lot of people’s do; in living a rather normal, middle-class life amongst a large, all-girl family in Seattle, Washington. She loved to insert a nickel and peer through the telescope stationed atop Kerry Park, out onto the waters of Puget Sound and its heavy boat traffic, or go fishing with her father and grandfather on Neah Bay. She was a carefree, curious and happy child, happiest of all when playing outside shoeless, searching for slugs under rocks or for the bumblebees that congregated on her mom’s lilac bushes in their large yard on Queen Anne Hill. She’d capture these insects in old baby food jars, releasing them after careful examination. Each day brought a new adventure… all was a playground for her.

But at the age of nine, all childhood play was put away when the decision was made to uproot Nancy and the rest of her family to move into the stifling fold of a religious cult in far-off Quebec. None of their lives would ever be the same.

From Nancy’s early marriage at age 15, to motherhood soon thereafter as a sixteen year old, and with her increasing dependency and misuse of food, her weight gain was at first only an uncomfortable, frustrating issue. But over many, many years of “stuffing” her feelings with food, those poor choices led her into a life of near-total isolation and a very grave, debilitating physical condition. She didn’t have hope for her future, better or otherwise. She had resigned herself to a life shortened by her choices, her inability to control her destructive behavior… or so she thought.

Nancy has told her unlikely story of rebirth, of recapturing her long forgotten self-worth and that discovery’s resultant 530 pound weight loss with joy, humor and with the rare perspective that can only come from one who’s lived it. Her book’s title is: 703: How I Lost Over a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life. It is available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Borders Books and through many independent book sellers.

Nancy has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, GMTV (London) and the Joy Behar Show, amongst others.

She has also appeared as a guest on XM Sirius radio (Doctor Radio) with Dr. Ira Breite on the NYU campus, and was interviewed regarding her memoir “703″ for 2010 The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Makin is a writer and lecturer: Come rediscover the value within!

She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan

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