Julie Hadden, one of the most successful and memorable contestants ever on NBC’s The Biggest Loser, struggled with her self-worth and her size for years. At age thirty-four she found herself at a crossroads: would she settle for staying ‘big’ the rest of her life, or would she insist on making big changes instead? Reality-TV fans know which path Julie chose that day. When she stepped on the scale at the show’s season-four finale, revealing she had lost an astounding 45 percent of her body weight, she simultaneously stepped into the world’s collective heart. Julie’s experience on The Biggest Loser helped birth her new physique, but the transformation went far deeper than that. From displeasure to contentment, from indulge…
Buy Fat Chance: Losing the Weight, Gaining My Worth at Amazon
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on Chance
- Greyson Chance is Coming! Everyone Hide! | Hecklerspray
2 replies on “Fat Chance: Losing the Weight, Gaining My Worth”
I loved this book! Fat Chance is so inspiring that it made even me forego eating that piece of chocolate cake and opt instead for lacing up my sneaks to go for a walk.
Julie Hadden, a cast member on Season 4 of The Biggest Loser television show, has written a memoir that transcends the all too usual “I had an exciting experience” memoir. Through the use of humor and a writer’s voice that just wants to invite you over for a cup of coffee, Hadden manages to tell her fat to thin story while at the same time impressing on us the important lessons she learned along the way.
Included in this well told story are humorous incidents, poignant realizations, and true insight into why she was so overweight to begin with. As an example one of her discussions is about how she has learned to pause before eating something she knows she shouldn’t and ask herself “what is it that you are really hungry for?” She realizes now that as a child, she was using food to fill the need of approval and acceptance.
You don’t have to be a Biggest Loser fan to enjoy this book because even those who know nothing of the show will still benefit from its inspiring and straight forward message. But if you are a fan, you’ll love the little bits of inside information she includes as asides in each chapter. For example, the large scale used at the weigh-ins is fake (gasp) and the contestants are weighed at a Dr.’s office earlier in the day. If it’s any consolation, they don’t know what their actual weights are until the taping segment at the scale.
Written in short, digestible chunks (pun intended) Fat Chance is a quickly paced read that will keep you turning the pages, not because you are wondering if she got thin (the answer is on the cover of the book, yes she did) but instead it keeps you wondering how is she going to cope and continue living a thin life where a fat woman once lived. The question “What is it that needs to change?” will keep you up reading this book late at night.
Without being heavy handed, Hadden gives her faith due credit for her surviving the show and for her continuing on, even in the face of birthday cake and tea parties. Her honest relationship with God comes across as sincere and not in the least bit preachy.
As an added bonus to this book, the appendixes include workout routines, glossary of terms, recipes of favorite foods, and a section on frequently asked questions.
Hadden claims that her single most important lesson she learned from being on the Biggest Loser is that she is worthy of living the life she was created for. Her enthusiasm and inspiring words leave you cheering her success while at the same time asking yourself if you are also living up to your own full potential as well.
Julie Hadden is a thirty-seven-year-old stay-at-home mom. She and her husband Mike, live in Jacksonville, Florida with their two sons.
Julie Hadden thought her chances of appearing as a contestant on “The Biggest Loser” were pretty slim, but not only did she make the cut for Season 4, she ended up being slim herself and keeping the weight off long after the show was over. But even after she made the initial selection and appeared on the first show, she wasn’t picked for either the Red or Blue team and thought that all the questionnaires, interviews, and appearances before judges was going to be for nothing. Then after an hour of waiting for the bus to take her and the rest of the “losers” out of the desert where they had finished the first race, who should come screaming out of the dust on her motorcycle but Jillian Michaels herself, ready to form the first “Black Team”. They were going to be on the show after all!
If you’ve ever wondered how the contestants lose so much weight each week on the show, Julie tells of the grueling exercise routines they endure on a daily basis. It’s not just the “Last Chance Workout” before weigh-ins where they go all out to burn calories and build new muscle, but 6 long hours of that same excruciating workout everyday. She refers to Jillian’s workouts as “beatings.” Jillian’s motto, “Don’t quit unless you faint, puke or die!” takes on an all too real meaning for the contestants in the following weeks. They all found out that they were capable of far more than the ever realized, but the process wasn’t much fun at the time. Julie tells about what it took for her to keep going and not give up, even when she was only losing a couple pounds per week. In the end she was to lose almost half of her original body weight! I found it amazing that after all the “beatings” and seemingly impossible workouts, that Jillian Michaels was her hero.
This book is very interesting for it’s inside look at “The Biggest Loser” but it’s much more than that. It tells about Julie’s background and her internal struggle with herself to keep on going and to not give up on becoming the person that she deserved to be. The book was mainly about her faith in God and how that helped her to get through the show and the weight loss process and to keep the weight off afterwards. If you find talk about other people’s religious beliefs not to your liking you may find this book a little over the top. But if you want to realize what it took for one woman to conquer her problem with weight and ending up with her life changed because of the huge burden of all those extra pounds, this book is for you.