When you hear the term “mid-life crisis” your mind probably flashes to sports cars and extra-marital affairs. But when you are pushing 50 and closing in on 500 pounds, experience a death in the family, and have to worry about the tensile strength of every chair you sit on, perhaps it is not surprising that weight loss might be a more logical direction to turn. And so, Tommy Tomlinson’s engaging little book, Elephant in the Room traces his attempt to make life changes (that actually work).
What might be dismissed as a gimmicky New-Year’s-Resolution-weight-loss story is a much darker and introspective book that belies its modest length. Tomlinson begins by tracing his upbringing in rural Georgia where the menu was invariably deep-fried-something, to his knockabout years in college and meteoric rise to newspaper columnist in his early 30s. Along the way, he meets the woman who would become his wife and for whom he has nothing but great things to say and builds a life and career that is fulfilling while struggling with a waist line that ultimately expands to sixty inches in circumference and a number on the scale that reads “460.”
We pick up the story in 2014, as Tomlinson embarks on his latest attempt at weight loss and lifestyle change. After trying every quack diet under the sun, this time, he tells us, he is keeping it simple - a basic tracking of calories consumed and calories burned, efforting to make sure the latter is greater than the former each day while also strapping a Fit Bit to his wrist to track his movement. As the months roll on, Tomlinson weaves in stories from his own life and travels. He is a winning storyteller with a folksy Southern charm that makes the reader understand why he had a column in the Charlotte Observer for more than twenty years.
We also meet a few villains along the way - the weight loss industrial complex, the fad diets, fast food restaurants, and reality shows like The Biggest Loser - a multi-billion dollar hustle designed for failure, only to promise better results when the next “it” diet becomes popular. There is also enough research and medical discussion to check the high level boxes - be it about metabolic rate or the merits of exercise, the risk factors for heart attacks or strokes, but at bottom, Tomlinson discovers something he could have learned by reading my 2011 blog post on this topic - that the key to success has less to do with focusing on a number on the scale and more about adopting smart habits that become your day-to-day routine.
About halfway through, I wondered where all this was going. At the end of April 2014, this 460 pound man had lost a grand sum total of just six pounds. Six. It is at this point that the book takes a darker turn. It is possible this modest result affected Tomlinson’s writing, because the book starts to take on the tone of a farewell letter written by a man worried about an early demise. Chapter after chapter marinates in a stew of shame, regret, and self-flagellation.
Laced into these chapters is crushing guilt at good fortune squandered, that Tomlinson’s gluttony affected his friends, his family, and his wife. It is difficult reading, and Tomlinson is unsparing in his own self-critique. The shame of having the drive-thru attendant at Wendy’s know his “usual” order. The morning-after guilt from plundering a sleeve of cookies or a pint of ice cream. The regret of places unvisited, experiences he missed, even the children he never had, simply because he is fat. In this way, Elephant is as much a memoir of addiction, of humiliation, and self-loathing as a weight-loss journey.
And while Tomlinson is hard on himself, there is an underlying tone of self-pity that was my one quibble with this otherwise strong effort. It is fine to acknowledge you have essentially suffered from indefinite arrested development, but it was not the best look to concede that you frittered away decades of adulthood in a suspended form of adolescence in a job that did not require you to punch a clock when so many people who struggle with their weight do not have that same luxury. While it is laudable to admit you have spent decades fucking off, that a health crisis required you to exert a bit of self-control and discipline over your life had the mild aroma of white male privilege that some might find off-putting.
Ultimately, there is less a happy ending than a better path. While the number on the scale (eventually) goes down significantly, it is the lifestyle changes Tomlinson achieves that are the more important take away. His story is well-told, a cautionary tale for those at risk of health problems due to their weight while providing inspiration for those looking to make positive changes in their lives.
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