Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
An inspiring account of one woman’s mission to lose six dress sizes and change her life for good

For Lisa Delaney, being a “fat girl” wasn’t just a matter of weight, it was a state of mind. At one hundred eighty-five pounds, she was despondent over diets that never worked and disappointed by her dull job and lack of a love life—until a late-night epiphany involving a half-gallon of ice cream convinced her that becoming a former fat girl, in body and spirit, was the key to creating a life she truly loved.

Today, seventy pounds lighter, Lisa is a successful writer at a national magazine. She is married to a man she loves. And she wears a size two.

Eye-opening, accessible, and filled with practical advice, this book reveals the seven secrets of Delaney’s success, and explores how shifting from “wannabe Former Fat Girl” to actual Former Fat Girl is as much about seeing yourself as a confident, desirable woman as it is about achieving an ideal weight.

Rating : - A bit of a generic diet book
After reading so many wonderful reviews for this book, I got my hands on a copy. The material is pretty basic - if you've ever read another behavioral sort of diet book before, you'll know what's coming. I also couldn't get into the writer's style of writing. Much of the book details her own personal stories from over the year - how her family would push food on her, her awkward struggles in dating, learning she had the strength to exercise. I just couldn't get into her personality and didn't feel a real connection with her experiences.

All in all, it was nothing new for me and I found myself skimming for the more interesting parts after a while. A while ago, I read The Skinny: How to Fit into Your Little Black Dress Forever, which I found very helpful. In fact, after reading it and The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person, I lost about 15 lbs and I was looking for a book to read as a refresher over the holiday season. But I would recommend those two over this one - The Beck Diet Solution goes into more detail than this book about how to develop "thin people" behaviors and thoughts, and The Skinny gives useful little strategies for navigating mealtimes (one of the authors is a full-time food critic who eats out constantly and maintains her weight).

That's my biggest complaint with Secrets of a Former Fat Girl that The Skinny addresses: What if you don't want to spend your life eating rabbit food and saying no to social functions? What if you don't want to be a size 2, but a size 6 or 8 who enjoys cooking and eating fancy foods? These are questions that The Skinny: How to Fit into Your Little Black Dress Forever addresses quite well.