the book...
Nov. 30th, 2003 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swingchickieso... let's talk about the book i did over a year ago.
a couple of years ago, i was the heaviest i'd ever been (the same weight i am now), and i was really down about it. i'd seen a picture of me in a crowd of swing dancers at a dance weekend i'd helped to run... and in a crowd of 400 people, you couldn't miss me. i'd thought i was so cute in this new outfit i'd bought... but in reality, i was this completely out-of-proportion mess. lol i saw myself next to some of these dancers... people who i'd seen and thought, "yeah, my body is like theirs"... and realized how wrong i was. i was twice their size! so it was a big smack in the face for me.
so a few months later, when i saw in a beauty magazine that there was an exercise guru/author looking for subjects for his new book, i figured what the hell. i wrote a long letter about how my weight had gone up over the years, and enclosed a copy of that depressing group picture. after a couple of phone conversations with him, i was told that i'd been picked out of hundreds of applicants to be one of the 8 subjects in the book. i was over the moon! according to my conversations with him, as well as descriptions on his website and the magazine article i'd first seen, i was going to get a whole host of help -- nutritional counseling, weight training, medical help from a wholistic doctor, life counseling from a best-selling self-help author, plus a makeover and new wardrobe. he even told me that if i did well i might be on oprah, since the self-help author on the team was well-known on her show and she might want to do a show on this. so this was my ideal situation -- losing weight and getting healthier, plus maybe having my 15 minutes of fame to show how well i'd done!
it didn't turn out quite that way. all of this had a catch -- i had to pay for most of it myself! if i had been told this from the very beginning, i would have thought twice about applying... i was deeply in debt (it's one of the things i needed help on from him), and there was no way i could afford what he was asking of me! it started out small... he wanted me to go to a particullar doctor for all of these odd tests and such, but i'd have to pay out of pocket because he wasn't my regular doctor... so that would cost about $500 minimum... then i had to find a gym to work out at... and even though there was a fitness center right in my apartment complex that was free (and convenient!), he wanted me to join a full-service gym for the weight machines (my fitness center had two soloflex-type machines). i tried to reason with him about my finances, and said that not everyone who reads his book will have access to/funds for a full gym... maybe there's a housewife in Nowhere, Nebraska who has to work out at home, and my chapter could show how effective that could be... but he said no, i had to join a gym. at this point, i was so torn... i couldn't afford it, but i wanted so badly for this to happen... it's like the carrot was being dangled, and i'd come so far... so after a lot of tears, i signed up for the gym membership for one year. that was another $1000 out of my pocket, for his book.
by this point, there had been quite a bit of trust lost between us. this author was supposed to be a certified family therapist... part of the focus of the book was on working out your emotional issues that have caused your weight and life problems... so WHY then, with that in mind, would someone set his subjects up for disappointment? (to this day, i don't know what the other folks in the book thought of all this, especially since some of them had to pay for their own plane tickets and lodging to have consults with him... i could at least drive!) let's see what else i had to pay for... every week, we had to call in to a 2-hour teleconference to talk about our progress and other things, and the teleconferencing number was all the way across the country... so that was 2 hours a week of HUGE long-distance calling. then, when the book was almost done, we were supposed to have our new wardrobe and all, picked out with a fashion consultant... and on my phone call with her, she asked me, "so what's your budget?" i was like, "for what?"... turns out, the author, when he had promised us each a new wardrobe, had done so in the hopes that a major department store would be willing to donate a bunch of clothes to each of us. when that fell through, he never told any of us... and instead of buying us each a few outfits (which would have been the professional thing to do, since it was promised to us), he put the cost on us to absorb. i had a fit. the consultant found a store that would be willing to lend us clothes for the "After" photo shoot and return them... but i still had to buy a $140 pair of jeans because they had to be taken up (which is okay... i was mad, but i still wear them all the time).
when all was said and done, i spent about $2000 of my own money for this person's book. by the time we were finished, i just wanted to do the final photo shoot and get the hell out of there. i was so disappointed in how things had been handled... being a corporate chick myself, i have always held the belief that you should under-promise and over-deliver... not over-promise and then ask your subjects to cover your ass. the one saving grace (or maybe disappointment, depending on how you look at it) is that the book itself was awful. it was very dry, and my chapter was in no way a reflection of what my experience had been. 120 pages of journal entries, hours at the computer e-mailing him my deepest worries and all, had been boiled down to a few sentences about what i'd eaten for dinner on a few nights. needless to say, the book didn't do that well from what i gathered. hopefully it was a lesson learned on his part, and he does his next book differently.
so, what were my lessons learned? after all that bitching, believe it or not, there were some positives that came out of it. first, i lost 15 pounds and 2 dress sizes. i've gained it back, but it's shown me that i can do it when i work at it. (i probably would have lost more, but i was so pissed off at the author i stopped trying hard.) second, i was given a weight-training regimen that was really good... i've held on to it and incorporated it into my workouts, and i feel like i can kick ass every time i'm done. third, he helped me to discover some food allergies i had, that were getting in the way of my digesting things properly (and if you don't digest properly, you don't get all the nutrients... then your body thinks it's starving... so you crave more food, and end up eating more than you need to). and last, and most important, i learned a lot about myself, based on my reactions to the crap that was thrown at me. i should not have placed so much stake in HIM for this process, i should have placed it in MYSELF... sabotaging the program out of anger at him only hurt me, in the sense that i didn't lose as much weight as i could have... plus i gained it all back. when i do this again, i need to do it for ME, and not let other people get in my way.
so there it is. wow, it feels good to write that all down... it's been weighing on my mind for almost 2 years now. now the key is to move past it, and do better on my own than for that book! :D
a couple of years ago, i was the heaviest i'd ever been (the same weight i am now), and i was really down about it. i'd seen a picture of me in a crowd of swing dancers at a dance weekend i'd helped to run... and in a crowd of 400 people, you couldn't miss me. i'd thought i was so cute in this new outfit i'd bought... but in reality, i was this completely out-of-proportion mess. lol i saw myself next to some of these dancers... people who i'd seen and thought, "yeah, my body is like theirs"... and realized how wrong i was. i was twice their size! so it was a big smack in the face for me.
so a few months later, when i saw in a beauty magazine that there was an exercise guru/author looking for subjects for his new book, i figured what the hell. i wrote a long letter about how my weight had gone up over the years, and enclosed a copy of that depressing group picture. after a couple of phone conversations with him, i was told that i'd been picked out of hundreds of applicants to be one of the 8 subjects in the book. i was over the moon! according to my conversations with him, as well as descriptions on his website and the magazine article i'd first seen, i was going to get a whole host of help -- nutritional counseling, weight training, medical help from a wholistic doctor, life counseling from a best-selling self-help author, plus a makeover and new wardrobe. he even told me that if i did well i might be on oprah, since the self-help author on the team was well-known on her show and she might want to do a show on this. so this was my ideal situation -- losing weight and getting healthier, plus maybe having my 15 minutes of fame to show how well i'd done!
it didn't turn out quite that way. all of this had a catch -- i had to pay for most of it myself! if i had been told this from the very beginning, i would have thought twice about applying... i was deeply in debt (it's one of the things i needed help on from him), and there was no way i could afford what he was asking of me! it started out small... he wanted me to go to a particullar doctor for all of these odd tests and such, but i'd have to pay out of pocket because he wasn't my regular doctor... so that would cost about $500 minimum... then i had to find a gym to work out at... and even though there was a fitness center right in my apartment complex that was free (and convenient!), he wanted me to join a full-service gym for the weight machines (my fitness center had two soloflex-type machines). i tried to reason with him about my finances, and said that not everyone who reads his book will have access to/funds for a full gym... maybe there's a housewife in Nowhere, Nebraska who has to work out at home, and my chapter could show how effective that could be... but he said no, i had to join a gym. at this point, i was so torn... i couldn't afford it, but i wanted so badly for this to happen... it's like the carrot was being dangled, and i'd come so far... so after a lot of tears, i signed up for the gym membership for one year. that was another $1000 out of my pocket, for his book.
by this point, there had been quite a bit of trust lost between us. this author was supposed to be a certified family therapist... part of the focus of the book was on working out your emotional issues that have caused your weight and life problems... so WHY then, with that in mind, would someone set his subjects up for disappointment? (to this day, i don't know what the other folks in the book thought of all this, especially since some of them had to pay for their own plane tickets and lodging to have consults with him... i could at least drive!) let's see what else i had to pay for... every week, we had to call in to a 2-hour teleconference to talk about our progress and other things, and the teleconferencing number was all the way across the country... so that was 2 hours a week of HUGE long-distance calling. then, when the book was almost done, we were supposed to have our new wardrobe and all, picked out with a fashion consultant... and on my phone call with her, she asked me, "so what's your budget?" i was like, "for what?"... turns out, the author, when he had promised us each a new wardrobe, had done so in the hopes that a major department store would be willing to donate a bunch of clothes to each of us. when that fell through, he never told any of us... and instead of buying us each a few outfits (which would have been the professional thing to do, since it was promised to us), he put the cost on us to absorb. i had a fit. the consultant found a store that would be willing to lend us clothes for the "After" photo shoot and return them... but i still had to buy a $140 pair of jeans because they had to be taken up (which is okay... i was mad, but i still wear them all the time).
when all was said and done, i spent about $2000 of my own money for this person's book. by the time we were finished, i just wanted to do the final photo shoot and get the hell out of there. i was so disappointed in how things had been handled... being a corporate chick myself, i have always held the belief that you should under-promise and over-deliver... not over-promise and then ask your subjects to cover your ass. the one saving grace (or maybe disappointment, depending on how you look at it) is that the book itself was awful. it was very dry, and my chapter was in no way a reflection of what my experience had been. 120 pages of journal entries, hours at the computer e-mailing him my deepest worries and all, had been boiled down to a few sentences about what i'd eaten for dinner on a few nights. needless to say, the book didn't do that well from what i gathered. hopefully it was a lesson learned on his part, and he does his next book differently.
so, what were my lessons learned? after all that bitching, believe it or not, there were some positives that came out of it. first, i lost 15 pounds and 2 dress sizes. i've gained it back, but it's shown me that i can do it when i work at it. (i probably would have lost more, but i was so pissed off at the author i stopped trying hard.) second, i was given a weight-training regimen that was really good... i've held on to it and incorporated it into my workouts, and i feel like i can kick ass every time i'm done. third, he helped me to discover some food allergies i had, that were getting in the way of my digesting things properly (and if you don't digest properly, you don't get all the nutrients... then your body thinks it's starving... so you crave more food, and end up eating more than you need to). and last, and most important, i learned a lot about myself, based on my reactions to the crap that was thrown at me. i should not have placed so much stake in HIM for this process, i should have placed it in MYSELF... sabotaging the program out of anger at him only hurt me, in the sense that i didn't lose as much weight as i could have... plus i gained it all back. when i do this again, i need to do it for ME, and not let other people get in my way.
so there it is. wow, it feels good to write that all down... it's been weighing on my mind for almost 2 years now. now the key is to move past it, and do better on my own than for that book! :D
