F*ck Your Diet: And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me

by Chloé Hilliard

Overview

*A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist
*Named Best Comedy Book by the African American Literary Awards Show

Fans of Issa Rae and Phoebe Robinson will love this collection of laugh-out-loud funny and insightful essays that explore race, feminism, pop culture, and how society reinforces the message that we are nothing without the perfect body.

By the time Chloé Hilliard was 12, she wore a size 12—both shoe and dress—and stood over six feet tall. Fitting in was never an option. That didn’t stop her from trying. Cursed with a “slow metabolism,” “baby weight,” and “big bones,”—the fat trilogy—Chloe turned to fad diets, starvation, pills, and workouts, all of which failed.

Realizing that everything—from government policies to corporate capitalism—directly impacts our relationship with food and our waistlines, Chloé changed her outlook on herself and hopes others will do the same for themselves.

The perfect mix of cultural commentary, conspiracies, and confessions, F*ck Your Diet pokes fun at the all too familiar, misguided quest for better health, permanent weight loss, and a sense of self-worth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982108618
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	310,300
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Chloé Hilliard is a writer and comedian who first appeared as a semi-finalist on NBC’s Last Comic Standing and went on to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, and more. Prior to her comedy career, she was a culture and entertainment journalist whose work has been featured in The Village Voice, Essence, Vibe, and The Source. Find out more at ChloeHilliard.com.

Editorial Reviews

10/14/2019

Journalist–turned–stand-up comic Hilliard delivers a heartfelt, amusing essay collection about her struggles with her weight in an image-conscious culture. Hilliard, who fluctuated “between fat and thick from the age of twelve,” grew up with the nickname “big.” In “Starving Kids in Africa,” she writes about getting overfed by her food-loving grandmother, and, in “Let Them Eat Ketchup,” about later being sent to school by her mother with SlimFast for lunch. Throughout, she analyzes the impact that government policies have had on her “waistline, self-esteem, and body image,” and repeatedly calls out former president Ronald Reagan, who, when she was a kid in 1981, slashed budgets for public school lunches, which she says increased unhealthy food offerings and contributed to childhood obesity. She shares a funny story about buying a treadmill that put her in debt (“The $1500 Mistake”) and gleefully recalls her decision to leave journalism and pursue stand-up (“I’m a Comedian”). Hilliard’s battles with food may not be over, but age has given her perspective: “I’m smart, but I’ll never really grasp the concept of calories.” The author’s self-love message will resonate with readers who appreciate narratives of personal and professional fulfillment. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Goodreads Choice Award Finalist | Named Best Comedy Book by the African American Literary Awards Show | One of Book Riot's "8 New Books You Won’t Be Able to Put Down” | One of Essence's “24 Books Written By Black Authors That We Can't Wait To Read This Winter” | Featured in Kirkus’s "The 8 Most Buzzed About Books Right Now" | Glamour's "Best Books of 2020 (So Far)" | Bustle's "Best Books of 2020"

"An essay collection focused on media representations of the body, Chloé Hilliard's F*ck Your Diet is an irreverent must-read. Examining the quest for the so-called perfect body — a quest used to fuel Western consumerism — comedian Hilliard writes of her once-fraught relationship with her body, in the hope that others can find their way out of the yo-yo dieting cycle." —Bustle

"Chloé is the hilarious voice of reason we all need right now. I’m very grateful for this book." —Amy Schumer

"F*ck Your Diet isn’t merely a hilarious memoir of Hilliard’s own personal journey with health and wellness—it’s a well-researched study on diet culture, public policies that helped shape many health crises, and the history of Eurocentric standards of beauty. Her struggles with diet and body image are universally relatable and laugh-out-loud funny (she is a comedian, after all), but she pulls no punches in her research on how public policy and the media often set marginalized people up for failure (she’s also a journalist, after all)." —Book Riot

"Smart, inspiring and hilarious. Chloé lets it all hang out. We should too.” —Wanda Sykes

“F*ck Your Diet has received stellar reviews from everyone from Marc Lamont Hill to MTV Decoded’s Franchesca Ramsey, who called it ‘a witty whip-smart exploration of the ways society has screwed up the way we see our bodies.’ Let Ramsey tell it, your younger, less secure self needed this.” —Refinery29

“Informative, inspiring, and often hilarious. Fresh, whip-smart wisdom that will appeal most to women battling weight and self-esteem issues.” —Kirkus

“A heartfelt, amusing essay collection...The author’s self-love message will resonate with readers who appreciate narratives of personal and professional fulfillment.”—Publishers Weekly

“A witty, whip-smart exploration of the ways society has screwed up the way we see our bodies. Chloé blends together comedy and journalism in exciting and entertaining fashion. If only I could go back and time and give this book to my younger, less secure self.” —Franchesca Ramsey, host of MTV’s Decoded & author of Well, That Escalated Quickly

"Hysterical and honest, Chloé Hilliard holds nothing back in this f*cking JOY of a read!" —Jes Baker, author and creator of the Militant Baker

"F*ck Your Diet is the perfect recipe of raw humor, fresh insight, and sharp honesty. This book will disrupt your thinking on food, identity, and society. More important, it will inspire you to reimagine yourself and the world on more loving and humane terms. This offering marks Chloé Hilliard's emergence as one of the most important and original voices of her generation." —Marc Lamont Hill, Professor of Media Studies, Temple University and Host of BET News

"More than just memoir. This is a personal story that illustrates how the most intimate aspects of existence—the way our bodies look, the way we feel about and feed them, the quality of our lives—are shaped by history and public policy, by capitalism and by the environments we live in . . . But don’t worry. This book is still funny. In fact, it’s frequently hysterical." —BookPage

“F*ck Your Diet is essential reading for anyone who knows—or needs to learn—that there's more to life than losing weight.” —Bustle

"Let [Hillard's] book, which has been hyped by Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes, f*ck your diet." —Glamour

“T his is the perfect combo of memoir, humor, and hard-hitting social commentary to keep you engaged from beginning to end, and it will absolutely help you kickstart your 2020 reading.” —Book Riot

"Chloé Hilliard will have you laughing, crying, and rooting for her the whole way...It's candid, raw, and has everything you need to get to know the star on a whole new level." —PopSugar

"In this gut-busting anti-diet book, the journalist-turned-standup comedian posits that the same society that shames us for being fat is also responsible for the socioeconomic issues, stress and chemicals in food that cause us to be fat in the first place." —PureWow

From the Publisher

2019-10-23
Comedian and former journalist Hilliard shares embarrassing and empowering moments throughout a life obsessed with body image and food.

In her first book, the author delivers a highly personal assessment with self-deprecating humor and frank honesty. As a "chunky" only child raised in Brooklyn, Hilliard was relentlessly bullied in school due to her statuesque size (6 feet, 1 inch) and higher-than-average weight. Early depression and self-loathing habits soon followed. The author shifts partial blame for her negative relationship with her body and food to biological growth spurts and an upbringing in which her working-class parents succumbed to the easy conveniences of processed fast food, an eat-everything-you-are-served mentality, and ignorance about exercise and balanced nutrition. This uncomfortable reality solidified itself into Hilliard's psyche as an adult, when she continued wrestling with the scale and her self-image as a black woman. Her book addresses "nearly forty years of failures" and episodes of yo-yo dieting and struggling to thoroughly love herself. She chronicles her first encounters with love, her brief idea of pursuing a basketball career, a brush with a near-fatal infection, and her liberating defiance in the face of societal standards of beauty and body size. "White women get to be plain-Janes," writes the author. "Women of color have to be exotic in order to be celebrated." Though the author engages in plenty of chatty digressions—she takes due time to contribute spirited commentary on "Black Girl Magic," fad diets, and the complexities of singledom and masturbation ("for far too long, women have downplayed their sexual satisfaction in order to boost their partner's ego")—these expository detours don't detract from her core message of unconditional self-acceptance at any age in a woman's life. Hilliard's narrative, though occasionally scattershot, is informative, inspiring, and often hilarious.

Fresh, whip-smart wisdom that will appeal most to women battling weight and self-esteem issues.

Kirkus Reviews

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