I'm happy to announce that Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir is now being distributed in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand via Palgrave/Macmillan. If you live in any of these countries, you can go to your local bookstore and request that they order a copy for you. If you're lucky, they might already have one in stock. Karen already wrote in to report a sighting at the Borders in Auckland. It doesn't matter what store you go to because my distributor accepts orders from big chains and independent retailers. And yes, Britons, please request "Half-Assed" not "Half-Arsed." I want to apologize that I did not have this information for you guys sooner. If I'd known the book would be available internationally, I would have told my foreign readers to wait to buy it locally instead of paying to have it shipped overseas. You could have saved money on shipping and...continue

Those are my feet, as funky as ever. Those are my toes, still gnarly from the half-marathon two months ago. And there is the issue of Women's Health my book was reviewed in this month, proving the photo is recent. It's July 2, 2008 and I weigh 179 pounds. That's exactly what I weighed on July 2, 2007. And that's good enough for me! When I started this journey back in...the stone ages? The bronze age? Okay, maybe it was just 2005. I set 160 as my goal weight because I wanted a number to aim for, 160 fell in the "normal" BMI range and it ended in a 0. Since June of 2007, I've been hovering below or above 180. Sometimes I've been really psyched to get to 160, charting out how many months it will take if I lose a pound every week. Sometimes I've looked at...continue

When I reached my goal weight, I had planned on giving an acceptance speech thanking every person and product that had helped me get to 160 pounds. I imagined it like the Oscars, me stumbling up to the stage stunned and stunning in a size 10 dress, taking the podium and saying, "Thank you, thank you, I wasn't expecting this at all," as I whipped out two pages of perfectly typed notes. Then the orchestra leader would set his baton down while the bassoon player went out for a smoke. I'm not sure if I can squeeze into a size 10 dress (possibly, depending on the manufacturer) and I don't weigh 160 pounds. But since I've decided I'm happy with the weight I'm at, this will be an entirely different type of "acceptance" speech and I'm giving it anyway. Thank you to my mother (and my father) for never fucking...continue

Congratulations to Kelly, who has already been contacted and confirmed her acceptance of her prize as winner of the viral video contest prize package. She was lucky number 63 of 83 entries. Thank you to everyone who posted my video on their web sites. I almost feel dizzy from all that spinning. ETA: Kelly now has a blog at Losing it! Check it out....continue

I got nine bug bites while reading Stephanie Klein's book Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp, so I felt fully immersed in her camping experience even though I never attended a fat camp myself. I suppose that's what I get for reading on a wet bench in the park after a rain storm. But reading outside was the only way I could stop myself from eating after reading the vibrant descriptions of food in some of the earlier chapters. She has a way a with words. In fact, I stole picked up the phrase "happy weight" from this book which I used in an entry last week. I was particularly happy to get a copy of Stephanie's book because she is a blogger, writing regularly at Greek Tragedy. She'll also be one of the keynote speakers at the BlogHer conference in two weeks, which I'm also speaking at, so...continue

I recently found out that I'm going to be in New York on Thursday, July 31st to appear on CBS's The Early Show and I'd like to plan an event on Wednesday evening, July 30th, for my New York readers. Anybody got any ideas? Book signings are usually planned two months ahead of time, so it's too late for my publicist to schedule anything on her end. The Early Show tapes at Trump International Plaza at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue (next to the glass Apple Store), so a location near there would be good - either a bookstore, coffee house, or some other locale that would be okay with people gathering and watching a woman read aloud and wave a large pair of pants in the air. An independent bookseller would be lovely because they could handle book orders. If not, I still have a handful of books in...continue

When Carla told me she wasn't going to apply to the geek summer camp I'd attended the summer before senior year because she'd heard it was a drugged-out sex orgy, I was befuddled. The only sex I remembered was between the squirrels. "Where did you hear this?" I asked her. "From George Johnson." And that explained it. George Johnson appeared to live in our universe, but actually existed in a parallel dimension where cars were Shinier! and girls were Prettier! than they appeared to those of us in this world. George Johnson never let reality get in the way of a good story, or he might have just seen reality bigger and brighter than the rest of us. (Or there might have actually been secret sex parties going on in the bushes that I was not invited to.) However, George Johnson seemed to be pretty damn happy in his shinier,...continue

I'm glad my headache doctor opens at seven o'clock in the morning, because no one is awake to see me entering his office. I'm not ashamed to be seeing a neurologist, however he works in a large medical complex occupied mainly by another unrelated practice. That is the reason, and I swear the ONLY reason, I was entering a building Wednesday morning labeled, "St. Censored-For-My-Privacy's Bariatric Weight Loss Center." I feel paranoid visiting that complex, because I know if someone were to snap a photo of me entering the front door for the interwebs, I would be accused of being a big (skinny) fraud. I only have the most recent issue of Neurology Now with Morgan Fairchild on the cover that I stole from his office to prove where I really was. I was at the doctor because all the IV treatments and medications we've tried lately haven't done anything...continue

"I need some caffeine," my brother yawned as he climbed off the freshly purchased air mattress on my apartment floor. He opened my fridge door. He closed my fridge door. He stared at me in horror. "You don't have sodas?" "Um, no. Welcome to the crazy house," I replied. This was coming from the woman who drank five canned diet sodas a day back in February and loved the sweet, fizzy poison. "I don't think I have any caffeine in the house, except for some old tea bags. Technically the decaffeinated coffee has some caffeine, but you'll have to drink a lot of it to get a buzz." "I can't believe this," he said. My poor brother had spent the previous day moving and needed the insane jolt of consciousness to the brain provided by caffeine if he was going to pack up the rest of his kitchen and closets...continue

"Hey, beautiful!" I heard a man yell. I kept walking towards downtown. "What's going on?" I slowed down and looked towards the voice yelling these words and saw a 20-something, man dressed in street clothes crossing the street, arms open, looking at me. It then occurred to me that, oh my, he was talking to me. This left me greatly confused. I gave the man a befuddled look, as though he'd just asked me where the library was in Portuguese. I kept waiting for him to follow up with, "Can you spare some change?" but he didn't, so I kept walking in the other direction. As I continued down the sidewalk, I came upon another man who looked at me and said, "Hey, how you doing today?" Dear Lord, why were people being so friendly on the street? What was this, the deep south? Here in the Midwestern states we...continue

Today I'm speaking on the Blog to Book panel at the 2008 BlogHer conference, though hopefully none of you are reading this while I'm speaking on the panel because that's kind of rude. Eyes to the front please. Oh my God, everyone's staring at me! Look away, look away! If you're stopping by for the first time, hopefully my blog will make you laugh your ass off. It did that to me. I lost 190-something pounds over two years (via diet and exercise) and blogged about it along the way because typing burns calories. These days I blog about my life through the filter of health, fitness and weight maintenance. Some of my favorite posts include: Definitely not the tea room My first half-marathon: What, no bagels? I support your right to look good Feeling strangely fine ...more greatest hits My book Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir was published by Seal...continue

It's odd that the one thing that stops me from blogging for almost a week is a blogging conference. The busier my life gets, the less time I have to write about it. Let's just stick to bullet points so I can take another nap while my body tries to figure out what time zone I am in. In San Francisco they paint their houses pink, purple, orange, blue and all sorts of beautiful colors. If I see a purple house in Indiana I automatically wonder, "Was purple paint on sale that week?" I could not get over how many hills there are in San Francisco. The world has a third dimension, did you know that? Every time I'd drive up a street I'd say, "Wow, look at that hill!" Indiana is so flat that it was shocking to be able to see buildings rising up above and below me...continue

I don't remember the exact words I used to introduce myself at my BlogHer panel last weekend, but I do remember how everyone reacted. I said something like, "Hi, I'm Jennette Fulda. I blog at pastaqueen.com. Three and a half years ago I weighed almost 400 pounds." That's when everyone gasped so hard I was nearly sucked off the stage. I just flicked my eyes back and forth, furrowed my brow and thought, "What? Didn't you read my bio?" I don't know why I spent so much time deliberating over what to say in that silly little paragraph about myself if no one was going to read it. Now I wish I'd claimed to be the last Amazon warrior from Themyscira or that I'd been raised by alien goat people instead of whatever I ended up writing. I've told my story so many times now that I don't think it's...continue

I dispatched a scout (aka my Aunt Lori) to case the New York neighborhood I'll be staying in next week. After much deliberation (aka a 9-minute phone call), we've decided to host a meet up at Swizz, a wine and fondue bar at 310 West 53rd St. between 8th and 9th Avenues. We'll be hanging around, dipping bread in cheese or chocolate, on Wednesday, July 30th from 7:30pm EST to probably 8:30 or 9:00ish. If you are around, feel free to drop in, say hi, have a drink, or snack on some cheese. This is a "bring your own book" signing, meaning that if you want a copy of Half-Assed signed to you, you should buy a book at your retailer of choice and bring it yourself. I'll have a couple of copies available on hand to sell for $15.95, but I can't guarantee they'll last. If you want to...continue

Last Thursday I forgot I'd lost 200 pounds. More accurately, I ran into someone from college and I forgot that the last time he saw me I weighed twice as much as he does. I was at the local biergarten for an annual alumni association mixer, catching up with my old friend and I totally forgot I looked like a different person than I did four years ago. It was probably shocking for him to see my much skinnier self traipsing amongst the picnic tables, even though he's read my blog and knew I'd lost weight. I don't know if I would have said something about it if I had remembered, but it's weird that the thought didn't even cross my mind. I used to wish I would run into old friends, teachers, or mailmen so I could show off my weight loss to them. I fantasized about shocking people...continue

After I learned to drive, I once volunteered to fetch tomato paste from the grocery store for my mom just so I could get more time behind the wheel. Driving was fun and new and exciting. Then I had to start driving three hours between home and college, or I had to drive thirty minutes to work every day and driving suddenly wasn't fun. The first time I flew in a plane, I went to Disney World and I probably wasn't tall enough to ride all the rides. It was also so long ago that they let people meet you at the gate. I flew a couple times after that as an adult, to New York and Boston, but it was still a rare thing - a scary, rare thing. I would listen with rapt attention to the flight attendants. Where were the emergency exits? You say the closest one...continue

Hopefully my appearance on The Early Show went super duper fantastic and you are checking out my web page because you were interested in my book and not because I fell off the stool or spilled coffee on the host. Feel free to discuss the show in the comments. If you missed the show, I don't know if/when video of it will be available online, but I'll let you know when it is. If you are new, check out my best entries and take a look at my book, Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir. I really hope they let me say the title on TV this time. ETA: Here's the video....continue