My great big giant secret

I have a confession to make.  Over the past few months, I have to admit that my blogging has become a little sporadic, and I feel a little guilty about that.  As luck would have it, I do have an excuse.  It’s not that I haven’t been writing, it’s just that I have been writing in a different venue.  In fact, I just finished writing a book.

There you have it.  I buried the lead.

My very first ever, giant leap into the world of book publishing is about to come to life.  In fact, it’s at the printer as we speak, getting ready to be bound into real-life hard back books that will be found in real-life bookstores (electronic and otherwise).

And the title is?  Don’t laugh.

My face looks like I ate a bad piece of fish...

Weight Loss Boss:  How to Finally Win at Losing--and Take Charge in an Out-of-Control Food World

So what is this book?  Why write it?  More importantly, why read it?  Who’s it even for?

Allow me to answer in several blog posts leading up to (drumroll please) the book launch date on May 8.  Each post will make a case for why I wrote it and why one might be inclined to read it.  So here it goes, reason #1…

Reason #1:  To put my life on sordid display so that others may succeed

So who is the book is for?

I wrote it for anyone who is struggling or has struggled with weight – that’s most of us.  I wrote it with Weight Watchers peeps in mind, but I also wrote it for people who have never or even may never darken the doors of Weight Watchers.  Without pandering too much, I wrote the book for everyone that reads or has read this blog, and I definitely wrote for everyone who has ever posted comments on the blog (even the harsh ones!).  In fact, it was the people (you) who frequent my little blog that motivated me to write the book.

My motivation to write it came down to my recognition of a very simple truth:  none of us is alone in either our struggles or our victories.

I originally started writing the blog as a bit of an experiment.  I wanted to start writing about weight because I felt that too many guys avoided talking about the subject.  I felt that there needed to be more male voices talking about the challenges of living the healthier path, but most of us dudes were a little too sheepish to do so.  I made the decision to start opening up about my own challenges with weight, and I made the conscious decision not to write as the CEO of a big company.

What transpired over the next three years was both fascinating and ultimately critical in shaping how I would ultimately think about the struggle with weight and the obesity epidemic.  As I would start to share my demons in my blog posts, others would jump in and talk about how they experienced similar challenges.  People seemed surprised that the CEO of a big weight loss company would have so many of the same weaknesses and issues.  They also found it encouraging (or they simply liked watching me bare my soul), so I was egged on.  The deeper I got into my own self-examination, the more others responded in kind.

I originally thought that my blog would primarily appeal to male readers, but it quickly became apparent that I was off the mark.  I had many more women commenting and sharing their own experiences.   It seemed that the challenges that we face, man or woman, are much more alike than they are dissimilar.

All of this brings me back to that very simple truth.  For myself, when I’m having a bad day/week/month with eating, I tend to hold myself in bitter contempt.  I cannot help but beat myself up for all of my crummy habits that seem so hard to break.  I get stressed that this process of dealing with food seems never ending.  It’s easy to feel pretty alone, as if everyone else in the world has all of the answers and the discipline while I have none.  Yet what I have learned is exactly the opposite:  we all struggle with the same challenges.  When we share them out loud, we not only help ourselves, we help everyone in earshot.  Through this realization, we can learn to lean on each other and become stronger in the process.   None of us is alone.

So this brings me to the first reason I wrote the book.  If the CEO of a giant weight loss company struggles with all of the same issues and is willing to blurt them out loud, maybe others will be inspired to do the same.  So in the book, I bare my soul, my crummy habits, my peccadillos, and other bits of data that never needed to see the light of day.  I did it for myself, and I did it for anyone willing to toil through the book.

Next week.  Reason #2:  I’m pretty sick of hearing about will power

Important announcement

In making a decision to spend your hard earned money to listen to me blather, there is one important fact that you can take comfort in.  I made the decision to give ALL of the author (that’s me!) advance and royalties of the book to Share Our Strength (www.strength.org) to benefit their No Kid Hungry campaign.  You heard it right.  Neither I or Weight Watchers will make one red cent on this book.  Share Our Strength will spend the money much more wisely that I could ever hope to.

And yes, Amazon and Barnes & Noble have links active for pre-order.

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Weight-Loss-Boss-Losing----Control/dp/1609619013/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332511698&sr=1-1

Barnes & Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/weight-loss-boss-david-kirchhoff/1108642892?ean=9781609619015&itm=1&usri=weight+loss+boss

Books a Million:  http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Weight-Loss-Boss/David-Kirchhoff/9781609619015?id=5325115807116

IndieBound:  IndieBound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781609619015

Cheers!!!!!

David