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How I Lost More Than a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life
by Nancy Makin
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 had diabetes and heart disease. 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 chat room, she found the friendliness, the support, and even the love she'd been missing for so long. Nobody flinched when Nancy spoke up; people treated her with the same respect accorded to everybody else. Thanks to these emotional connections, Nancy's life was transformed.
She followed no 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 life is sweet and always worth living.
"To say that this title is uplifting would be an understatement. Makin offers no plan or formula, just an irresistible story of great personal achievement." - Booklist
This information about 703 was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Nancy Makin went from being on disability and homebound in subsidized housing to becoming a motivational speaker. She has appeared on Oprah and Good Morning America. Makin lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. ABC News feature via YouTube
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