I am the first person picked to review My brothers book “Why Your Last Diet Failed You….And How This Book Won’t Help You on Your Next One. Over the next two weeks, other bloggers will be doing the same!

First of all, my brother is really funny. He has one of the best sense of humors I have ever known! One thing I realized after reading this book, is there was a lot I didn’t know about his dieting escapades. Growing up, my siblings and I were skinny. We ate whatever we wanted, never had to worry about our weight or anything. (Maybe it was playing outside for hours everyday!?) But once we hit our early 20’s, something kind of shifted with me and my brother and sister. Not as active as we used to be growing up, the weight started creeping up. We’ve all had our successes in losing weight. I lost 60 pounds in 1999/2000 but gained it all back when I had my daughter. My sister has lost 60 pounds, only to gain some back after becoming diabetic. Whatever the reason, we all have struggled with our weight into adulthood. But, I guess the best thing you can say is we always get back in the game. I lost some weight last year, my sister is back on and doing awesome and my brother has lost 25 pounds this last year to get to his infamous stage of Onederland (where your weight starts with a 1!)

My brother and I have not lived in the same town since he left for college. He lived in DesMoines, Iowa for a long time and then moved to Austin, Texas. So even though we may only see each other once a year in person, we communicate mostly through e-mail on a daily basis. That’s why when reading his book, there were some things I never knew about him such as:

He weighs himself every day and has done so for the last 20 years!

He would regularly gain a big amount of weight from Thanksgiving to New Years

He gets mad when women say “Men can lose sleep in their weight, it’s no fair!” (meaning somehow because you are male, if you decide to lose weight, its so easy!)

This excerpt from the book talks about after losing weight doing Atkins, and going on his honeymoon, only to come back faced with Thanksgiving again

A couple of weeks after we returned from the honeymoon, it was (unfortunately) Thanksgiving again. Wonderful. The holiday began, the expected forty-day feed fest ensude and when I woke up from this year’s coma on January 1, 1992, I found I had climbed all the way back up to 189 (from 168) Sigh. At first, I fought to to keep the damage under 190.

Fast forward to the next year….

During this year’s gauntlet, I continued to weight myself almost daily, but threw out any pretense of dieting. After all, the holidays only come once a year: what else could I do? Nothing. So I ate and ate and ate. I simultaneously enjoyed and cursed every sugar plum and candy cane that passed by my lips. Therefore, it was with little surprise but no little shock that in mid-December the once unthinkable happened. I had crossed the border and left Onederland behind.

Charlie also discusses popular diet plans like Atkins, Weight Watchers, Body for Life, etc… This is what he writes about Oprah’s Bob Greene’s Best Life Diet:

1. Plop down on your living room couch.
2. Watch a Bob episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show
3. Nod in agreement on his sound nutritional wisdom.
4. Laugh when Oprah makes a joke about weight or food.
5. Remain inspired fro up to an hour after the show.

After the inspiration wears off, head to the kitchen, whip up some Hamburger Helper for dinner and resume your not-so-best-life.

Throughout the book there are so many funny stories I laughed outloud when reading the book. Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight will relate to this book. Buy for yourself, give it to your boss as a gift, your neighbor, There is a give-a-way involved from my brother. Whoever leaves a comment is eligible to win!!

Tomorrow the tour goes the The Peanut Butter Boy! Check out his blog tomorrow for his take on Charlie’s book!

ALSO: The winner of my give-away from my one year anniversary is: Sophia from Burp and Slurp!! She wins a bag of Quinoa flour!!

And for daily doses of laughter, vist my brother’s blog at Back to the Fridge