Tried to get into this book but it just wasn’t for me unfortunately. Maybe it will be someone else type of book.

I've struggled with body image and eating issues for a large portion of my life, but I've never been considered hugely overweight or obese. It was incredibly eye-opening to read Tomlinson's account of being an obese man (who wears a 6X in clothes) in America. I don't ever have to think about some of the indignities he has to endure (asking for a seatbelt extender on airplanes, worrying a chair will break underneath him, etc.). There is so much fat phobia in our culture, and Tomlinson is able to highlight this in a really insightful way.

I liked the structure of the memoir: each chapter is an account of a different time in Tomlinson's life, followed by a monthly log of how his weight-loss journey is going in the present. It was easy to follow along and track his progress. I would have liked a little more of an in-depth look at where Tomlinson thinks his eating habits came from (the emotional side of his struggle). There was some of this, but I thought it would have been more helpful to get a clearer picture of what actually allowed him to end up making huge changes in his life.

This book (along with something like "Shrill" by Lindy West) can do a lot to shed light on how we view overweight people, food, and eating in general.

Disclaimer: As a person who can lose a few pounds, I found this book inspiring. We may all approach the subject of weight loss differently, but I must say, it appears the author documented his struggle with honesty. I found myself laughing out loud and feeling sad during reading this book. Highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

This memoir by Tommy Tomlinson tells about the life of a fat man. Tommy, a successful journalist, has been fat his entire life. He was fairly active as a child and had friends, but his addiction to food has always come first. During the year of writing this book, he tried a healthier diet and lifestyle, and he succeeded in losing 74 pounds, ending at 376, with nearly a 50 pound loss in the last month.. He has a loving “normal sized” wife. As a young man he had a cancerous growth which required removing part of his trachea, so his voice sounds unusual and he said that helped him to talk less and listen more. It was interesting to read how a person can get and maintain a morbidly obese body - it’s really about constantly eating fattening food. His struggles with lying (always about food) and always being on the lookout for “safe” places to park his body showed how difficult life can be for the obese.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this reader's copy. In exchange, I am providing an honest review.

During the month of October my co-workers and I are doing a (virtual) walk-a-thon to raise money for the American Diabetes Association (you thought I was going to say breast cancer didn't you? *wink*). Out of all the people in my life, including me, I am the most aware of how much I need to get my body moving in some way. I am, most likely, morbidly obese and I am definitely sedentary. I know this about myself in case you didn't think I was aware. Anyway, I'm close to digressing. For this walk-a-thon I decided to log my miles by walking on the treadmill. It's my preferred method of movement. I'm not a fan of being in the outdoors so I like the treadmill. While I'm on the treadmill I like to watch, read, or listen to something to keep my mind distracted from the sweating, the shortness of breath, and the overall discomfort. To kick off the month I picked up this memoir by Tomlinson, figuring it was appropriate for what I was doing while reading.

Tommy Tomlinson has been described as husky the whole of his life, meaning he can't remember when he wasn't described that way. And that label has affixed itself to his identity and that's how he lives, husky. Except by the time he hit college his husky days were in the rearview mirror and he was approaching post-husky, whatever that is. By the time he graduated from college, he was squarely in the fat camp. He was writing for a living and scraping by. In time, and through what he considers miracles, he found a woman who loved him, ALL of him. Miracles.

On Christmas Eve 2014 Tommy received a call. His older sister, Brenda, had unexpectedly passed away and it was weight-related. She had too much weight and the infection that was growing couldn't be stopped because of it. It made Tomlinson stop...and think...and look...and decide to try again to lose weight. But he knew if he went gangbusters it would backfire on him, it always had before and he has seen it backfire on everyone else. So he decided to take small, measured, thoughtful steps that covered him in a lot of grace. His first step? Acknowledging how much he actually weighed. The local YMCA in town had the only scale he knew of that would weigh him accurately so he went to the Y and stepped on the scale.

This memoir follows Tomlinson's year following his sister's death of trying to peel off the label husky turned to fat that he's been wearing his whole life. It accounts for the victories, the mistakes, and the in-betweens. He goes back in time to understand how he got to this present day weight and combines it with present-day attempts to change. He's brutally honest about what he eats, how much he eats, and eventually why he eats. He discusses fads and trends of weight loss and why they backfire for the majority of people. He interviews a former contestant from The Biggest Loser who has gained all his weight back and then some and reveals some interesting insights from that discussion. He provides some trivia about the medical costs of obesity, the medical concerns of obesity, and the fast-food industry.

He is unflinchingly honest and transparent about his journey and I appreciated it so much. Listen, fat people know. WE KNOW. You don't have to tell us. Shaming or guilting us doesn't work either - we are already swimming in guilt and shame, choking it down covered in gravy or chocolate. No amount of guilt, shame, or disgust from others or even ourselves is going to get us to do the work. To do the work we will have to be motivated by something stronger and more appealing that guilt, shame, or disgust. For Tomlinson it was the loss of his sister, it will be something different for each person. What his memoir does is go deep under the surface and discover the person hiding.

The honesty in this book is amazing. I thought this book was raw and I highly recommend it. I admire the author for sharing his trials and tribulations with us.

Have you ever wondered how overweight people feel, both physically and mentally? Do they struggle with their weight, or do they just not care? How do they get from normal-sized babies to adults who weigh over 300 pounds? You will find the answers to these and many more questions in Tommy Tomlinson’s memoir, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.

Tomlinson is a freelance journalist from Charlotte, NC. In December 2015, he was nearing his 50th birthday and weighed 460 pounds. That same month, his sister died due to complications caused by her weight. This heartbreaking loss was a wakeup call for Tomlinson. Although he did not have diabetes or any other weight-related disease, he knew he had to lose weight or he might die in his 50s. So that’s exactly what he did, and he decided to write a book about his journey. However, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM is not merely a diary recounting Tomlinson’s quest to get smaller in a year; he also explains how he managed to put on all that weight in the first place.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, each with two parts. In the first part, Tomlinson reveals a piece of his life, along with his thoughts and observations. He begins with his early childhood, and then delves into his high school and college years, followed by his career, marriage, etc. But this is not a linear account of his life, as he also offers his perspective on the TV show “The Biggest Loser,” talks about Oprah’s weight fluctuation and explains why diets don’t work. In addition, he reveals the secret formula for weight loss: Just eat less and healthier; burn more calories than you consume, and you will start losing weight. Exercise is a crucial component, but ultimately it’s a long and painstaking process.
Full review available at: <a href="https://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/the-elephant-in-the-room-one-fat-mans-quest-to-get-smaller-in-a-growing-america">Bookreporter</a>

I cried. Multiple times. No matter whether you are slim or morbidly obese this book will reach out and take hold of you. My life story follows Tommy's closely. Or at least all of the situations he presents and some that are my own personal hell. The seatbelts, the chairs with arms, the elevators. What gave me encouragement was that where I turn and run after the horrible incident occurs, Tommy forges through them to the other side. He still goes out with friends. He still found a wonderful, healthy life mate. I still cower in my bedroom. I only go out at night to run errands. He has made me feel as if maybe when I dip a toe outside during the day it will be just the beginning.

It took me six months to get around to reading this memoir of one man’s struggles with his weight —about 450 pounds of it — mainly because I knew it would strike home with me, and I wasn’t in a place for the striking, or perhaps I wasn’t ready for the kind of striking it would provide. But when I read it, I was ready, and it was just right.

Tommy Tomlinson is an accomplished and insightful writer, having worked at the Charlotte Observer for two decades and more recently as a freelancer, covering various topics and writing for well-known outlets such as ESPN. At 50, he faced the death of his older sister, who was also overweight and was taken by MRSA. After an lifetime of being fat, whether it was obese or morbidly obese, events including that loss brought him to not just think about his weight, as he had every single day ever since he could remember, but to consider what changes he actually could make that he might be able to sustain to be healthier and less at risk of serious problems.

Like many others who are obese, Tomlinson had tried plenty of diets. And he’d read plenty about diets and their results, mainly that very few people sustain weight loss. So he decided to simply follow three steps: “1. Find a way to measure the calories you eat and drink. 2. Find a way to measure the calories you burn. 3. Make sure that every day, number one is smaller than number two.”

So, as he relates at the beginning of the book, he buys a FitBit and vows to cut 1,000 calories a day from the number that his body likely needs to survive and maintain its weight. And he will go slowly.

Tomlinson writes month to month about this year of experience (which was 2015). He reflects on his childhood, his teens, his college years and beyond, on his habits, on his feelings, on the fat-shaming he faced and the things he told himself. Rather than phrasing his inner thoughts as “self-talk,” he writes how he uses the name of “USUCK-FM,” which he says was coined by a writing teacher named Chip Scanlan. It’s the voice that says you’re not good enough, that you’re a failure, and so on. He says, “The voice is low and relentless. There are no ads on USUCK-FM and no music. There are only public service announcements. There’s no point. You’ll never make it. Don’t even try.”

And that’s familiar to pretty much anyone. To those of us who are heavy, whether 50 or 250 pounds overweight, shame comes from the inside. And it’s relentless. But late in the book, Tomlinson reveals that he’s found hope, even from that FM signal inside: “One night after another eating binge I lay in bed sleepless… A new voice came into my head. It sounded like me, too. But it wasn’t USUCK-FM. It was trying to help. Why do you do this to yourself? It said. I don’t know, I said. Maybe I want to die. You know that’s not true. Go deeper.” And it went on, a conversation that led him to consider some causes for his self-sabotage, and in turn some ways he could work on fighting that sabotage.

The year that Tomlinson documents is one full of challenges and stresses, things that could easily have knocked him completely off his goal, but he perseveres. He by no means sticks to a completely healthy regimen or exercises a great deal. He still eats sweets and fast food and has times of gorging. But he sees slow progress and signs that he is improving.

I found this book to be absolutely real, Tomlinson’s voice candid and forthright about his weaknesses and battles but also revealing as he does make slow progress, both in his thinking and in his health. He does what he sets out to do: he loses weight, very slowly but steadily, and he changes his thoughts and thus his behavior. It’s inspirational but not in a typical diet-story way. There are no magic fixes; there is no “big reveal” of a huge weight loss. Not even after two years. It’s slow and steady, and the best way to lose weight and keep it off in the long term. But that makes it all the more readable and relatable —and helpful for others who feel inclined to follow in some way in his footsteps. A fine book and one I’ll want to return to.

Did not finish this book. Could not relate to the author and his weight issue because he does very little to resolve it. Mostly focuses on why/how he is overweight and not a way to change himself.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an impartial review. I was interested in this memoir after reading a really gorgeous excerpt published in the Atlantic a while back. At first, as I read, I thought maybe Mr. Tomlinson didn't have a new take on the life of a fat person in America, particular after the groundbreaking writing we've seen from Lindy West or Roxane Gay, for example. And maybe that's true. But, as a long time reporter and columnist, his writing style is eminently readable and I found myself really settling in and enjoying his perspective and his specificity. While I would argue that this is nothing tremendously new, he is a good story teller and makes the reader feel compassion toward him and others struggling with their bodies and weight. It's a quick read that was worth my time.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2678355184?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

The Elephant in the Room is a powerful look at what it is like to be a severely overweight man in a society that is obsessed with physical appearance. Tomlinson writes openly and honestly as he struggles with changing his life in an effort to lose a large amount of weight.

This book is not a "how to" and is written as more of a memoir. Tomlinson is self-aware and reflects on the choices and situations that helped get him into this situation, how the world around him reacted to him, and what he had to do to make big changes in his own life. This was a deeply personal story and I found it very approachable and relatable. Tomlinson has a great outlook on life that very much came across in his writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I'm not giving stars because that would be rude. (Update, I must star rate it) I did not end up reading this book, because it was actually the wrong book. I mistook it for another book. Sorry.

For a fifty-year old man weighing 460 pounds, I don't know how Mr. Tomlinson is still alive, and he wonders the same thing. The book details his struggle / effort to lose weight effectively and permanently - he manages 25 pounds (which is a lot considering he probably never ate well or exercised) and all the health risks (pressure on heart due to sudden food changes) that can crumble any well-intentioned goal.

All the best to the author. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

A very candid, very real portrayal of what it is like to suffer with weight problems stemming from childhood on.
I love how honest and true Tommy Tomlinson has written this book.
I cheered him on and looked forward to each chapter! He was both funny and enlightening. As someone who has struggled with weight I completely understood where he was coming from. I appreciated his candor, his point of view, his real honesty. The book spoke to my heart and I know it will yours too. You don't have to have a weight problem to enjoy this well written memoir.
All opinions are my own.
Thank you NetGalley, Tommy Tomlinson, Simon & Schuster for the wonderful privilege of this ARC.

Very much enjoyed this book and reading about Tommy Tomlinson's efforts to lose weight as well as his courage in sharing some painful, intimate details of his weight-loss journey. I don't follow sports at all, but this book even made me want to go look up his sports pieces just to read more of his writing. This book wasn't what I was expecting in that I had assumed he would have arrived at his goal weight by the end of the book, and that wasn't the case, which was interesting. I definitely hope and pray he continues on with the process and even surpasses his goal. If that happens, I would be eager to read book two of his journey.

I loved this book. I am fat. So I can relate to this book. This book is giving me the incentive I need to change how I feel. This book is well writtten. I love his sense of humor. I highly recommend this book.+

What is life like for an overweight person? I wish I didn't know first-hand, but I do. So doesn't Tommy Tomlinson. He writes about his struggles with putting on weight and trying to take it off on a month to month basis. You'll read personal successes as well as some not so successful days. He shares personal experiences about how his weight has affected him, his friends and his wife. This was a good read. I think I was hoping for a magic weight loss trick, but it was a good reminder that losing weight is hard and sometimes the only option is to put the work in.

What an incredible honest and genuine memoir about Tommy's life struggles with weight. He isn't afraid to put his journey out there to share with the world. We read about the health challenges that come with obesity, the struggles with trying to change an ingrained mindset and difficulty being ready to change. This book is very relatable as many people struggle with similar issues and want a healthier life and aren't sure where to start. What an inspiring story!

Thanks for the ARC copy!

At 6'1", Tommy Tomlinson weighed 460lbs. That's 73" tall, and 60" round, calling himself "basically a sphere." In The Elephant in the Room, Tomlinson writes with raw vulnerability about his journey from an extremely fat man on the verge of all kinds of life-threatening diseases, to someone who doesn't run out of breath walking up a flight of stairs. 

This book will strike a chord with anyone who has struggled not only with their weight, but also with shame and self-consciousness. It's a great read, and super interesting just about the obesity epidemic our culture is struggling with.