The Me I Knew I Could Be: 1 Woman's Journey from 292 Pounds to Peace, Happiness, and Healthy Living - Hardcover

Philips, Crystal

9780312252267: The Me I Knew I Could Be: 1 Woman's Journey from 292 Pounds to Peace, Happiness, and Healthy Living

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312252269 ISBN 13: 9780312252267

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2001

The author, a fitness instructor and weight-loss counselor, recalls her extraordinary journey from an unhappy, overweight woman to a thinner, happier person and outlines her plan for helping readers achieve the same goals. 50,000 first printing.

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Review:

Six years before writing this book, Crystal Phillips weighed almost 300 pounds. "My legs were so fat that my inner thighs were raw and bleeding by the end of the day," writes a now trim Phillips. "I spent money on food like an alcoholic does on liquor or a drug addict on a fix." Phillips saw herself as "a fat, hulking body pretending to be a person with hopes and dreams and of a tomorrow." She wanted to end her life.

Since then, Phillips has lost "157 pounds, nine dress sizes, two shoe sizes, three bra sizes." More important, she regained control over her life, her sense of worth, and her spirit.

The Me I Knew I Could Be is more than one African American woman's story of weight loss. We read vivid stories of Phillips's early life. As a child, she was sent to stay with a grandfather who spied on her in the bath, and her fear led her into compulsive eating. She matured early, and by age 12, was purposely eating to get fat to protect herself from leering men and the ostracism of her classmates. She married a man who was an emotional mess and ran around on her (who even accompanied a girlfriend to abort his child the day after marrying Crystal)--but he accepted her at 200-plus pounds and rising.

As her marriage went from awful to worse and her adored brother became sick with AIDS, she turned to her lover: food. A shopping expedition for a satisfying nightly binge might include "four porterhouse steaks, a large bag of potato chips, four pints of H�agen-Dazs ice cream, and the makings for a peach cobbler."

Much of the book is an anecdotal record of how Phillips took charge of her emotional life and lost weight, with excerpts from her journal. She leads weight-loss workshops now, and the book gives sensible advice for dropping pounds, from one sister to another, including not dieting (making conscious, healthful, reasonable choices instead), keeping a journal, exercising, and controlling binges. She includes a few recipes, including the intriguingly titled Sistah Woman's Naked Stir-Fried Greens (collards and kale without fatback or ham hocks). This is an inspiring book written by a courageous woman. --Joan Price

About the Author:

Crystal Phillips, a pharmaceutical representative, weight loss counselor, and certified personal trainer, lives in Maryland. She has been on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and her story has been featured in Essence, Ebony, Fitness, and Living Fit magazines. THE ME I KNEW I COULD BE is her first book.

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