You Are What You Eat (You Are What You Eat: Michelle's Diary - Michelle McManus)

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Product:	You Are What You Eat: Michelle's Diary - Michelle McManus
Date:	21.03.07 (198 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some interesting health tips

Disadvantages: It only really skims the surface

By now most of us will know who Gillian McKeith is. Her TV show You Are What You Eat showed her retraining seemingly hopelessly obese and unhealthy people to enjoy her diet of raw vegetables, quinoa and seeds. In fact, diet is the wrong word in this case as Gillian would point out, her plan is more a complete change of lifestyle rather than a crash diet.


In spite of her no longer being allowed to use her Doctor title as she is, in fact, not a doctor but a holistic nutritionist, I still find much of her advice very useful for a healthy lifestyle. Yes, she is a bit too strict at times but in general her suggestions are common sense to a great deal. It seems obvious that the human body will work better on food packed with energy rather than a processed ready meal full of e-numbers, fat and sugar. Personally I absolutely love Gillian although partly I think this is because I have some sort of fascination with really strict, scary small women - I adore Judge Judy too.


Anyway, after having watched her programmes since they started, and also bought the You Are What You Eat books I was quickly running out of Gillian inspired material and there were no new shows on the horizon. After having trawled through Amazon in desperation I found a book called You Are What You Eat - Michelle's Diary. As I hadn't seen this before I was intrigued and had a quick read through the blurb. It turned out this was the diary of Michelle McManus who, if anyone can remember, won Pop Idol in 2003 only to quickly disappear into obscurity. In spite of always saying how completely happy and confident she was in herself in spite of her obesity she had decided to team up with Gillian in order to lose weight and become healthier. I remember seeing pictures in Heat of her after she had lost an amazing 8 stone and it turns out it was all down to good old-fashioned willpower and - of course - Gillian!


So, how could I resist, of course I ordered the book there and then.


The books first chapter tells the story of how Michelle won Pop Idol, her feelings about it and also her life after it. She also reemphasises how she was really, truly happy in her own skin. In fact, she goes as far as saying that she has at times thought that she may suffer from a sort of reverse anorexia, where she just didn't see quite how big she was but always thought she looked just beautiful and happily continued stuffing her face. I think any girl would struggle to look in the mirror and think she looked just gorgeous every time so in a way it seems sad that in spite of this she felt a need to change herself.


In the end it was not the many horrible comments she suffered at the hands of the press and others but a realisation that she, at the age of 24, weighed 22 stone and that this clearly was not healthy for anybody, let alone a 5 foot 2 girl. The book then turns into a diary. At first we follow her own attempts of dieting, including quorn sausage sandwiches, low-fat ready meals and what seems to be her downfall most times - gallons of white wine! At the end of 2004 she teams up with Gillian for a TV show of You What You Eat. Their relationship seems to be of the stormier kind as Gillian does not accept disobedience or excuses but Michelle is not the type of person to take personal comments/attacks lightly.


Throughout the diary Michelle is eager to reinforce that she's doing this for herself, not for her record company or the papers or anybody else. At times she does seem less confident than the image she normally portrays, worrying about how her weight loss will be received when it is revealed in the first of two You Are What You Eat programmes. Will she, who has always insisted that the combination of big, happy and beautiful is not at all impossible, be condemned for her attempts to now lose this weight? Will people think that she does it for publicity or because she has more or less been forced into it? These are some of the questions that she considers during the first months before her first big reveal on national television.


The book contains some recipes but mainly we follow Michelle's life. Will she be able to stay off her beloved booze and how will her weight loss be received by her fans (yes, there are still some of them) and the public in general? Will she be able to resist tying Gillian up and putting her in a dark closet? During the period there are a couple of fairly dramatic upheavals in Michelle's life which form parts of the book, but the main part is to do with how she changes her life through her new eating and drinking habits.


In all I found this book pretty interesting. I cannot claim to be a great fan of Michelle McManus myself but she does seem to be a very honest and fun girl. It is interesting to see how somebody with such incredibly bad eating habits tries to turn it all around completely. She doesn't hold back at all when it comes to her thoughts about her new life and I definitely admire her for the work that she puts in and the total commitment she shows - at least to start off with!


At times I found that she tried to explain the change from her being big and happy to her trying to lose weight too much. It's as if she's still trying to convince herself that she really didn't mind being fat. Maybe it is in fact true but this was a part that didn't really ring true to me somehow. In all I found her to be very honest about her feelings and this is partly why I enjoyed the book.


If there are any fellow Gillian McKeith fans out there, I'd thoroughly recommend this book as it gives an insight into the day to day retraining it requires. If you are looking for a diet book, however, this isn't it at all as it is much too vague.


The book is published by Michael O'Mara Books (9 Dec 2005) and you can find the paper back version on Amazon new and used starting from 50p - a very reasonable price indeed!

Summary: A good read for anybody interested in heatlhy eating