703

How I Lost More Than a Quarter Ton and Gained a Life

By: Nancy Makin

Narrated by: Coleen Marlo

Nancy Makin weighed an astounding 703 pounds in May 2000. She was 45 years old and had diabetes and heart disease. Thanks in equal parts to shame and logistics, she'd been homebound for a dozen years. But all that changed after a gift from her sister: a computer. A technophobe, Nancy ignored it for months, until finally boredom and curiosity pushed her into cyberspace. And there, in a chat room, she found the friendliness, the support, and even the love she'd been missing for so long. Nobody flinched when Nancy spoke up; people treated her with the same respect accorded to everybody else.

Thanks to these emotional connections, Nancy's life was transformed. She followed no diet plan; no pills, potions, or ab-crunching exercises played a part. There was no silver bullet, no magical, elusive ingredient - yet Nancy has lost more than 530 pounds.

Nancy's tale is one of redemption, a story of reevaluating her worth and insisting she had value simply because she was human. It will show a growing America that life is sweet and always worth living.

©2010 Nancy Makin (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

"To say that this title is uplifting would be an understatement. Makin offers no plan or formula, just an irresistible story of great personal achievement." ( Booklist)

Well writen and inspirational

Makin does an excellent job of portraying her struggle with extreme obesity with honesty and humor. It is a heartbreaking story with a happy ending, and who can resist that? Makin does not gloss over her mistakes and poor decisions, nor does she take on the role of victim. The latter is probably why she has managed to survive and triumph. Very well done, and worth listening to.

Loved this book!

Bought this book at a Kmart discount aisle. Read it twice. Offered it in Audible. Listened over & over. Love it. Inspiring.

Overall nice

I've been into memoirs about the obese lately and this book was pretty nice.

The opening was a bit long in waiting to get to her adult life but hey I learned a lot!

I really love how the writer actually lost her weight merely from being in a better mental place that allowed her to take her focus off food and put it on actually living! This was different from others I've read that worked out a lot or went to healthy eating clinics.

Inspirational.

Not As Advertised

Would you try another book from Nancy Makin and/or Coleen Marlo?

Maybe.

What could Nancy Makin have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Change the description/summary to accurately describe the contents.

Which character – as performed by Coleen Marlo – was your favorite?

The lead character.

Was 703 worth the listening time?

Here's the issue I had it with 703: it leads you to believe this is a book about a woman who loses an immense amount of weight and then goes on to live the kind of life that she was never able to achieve before.And yet, weight, either the losing or gaining of, is virtually never mentioned. It an incidental element to the story, at best, where it should have been front and center, if not a character itself. I found the story of her rather extraordinary childhood very interesting, as well as her onset into womanhood and motherhood, the trials and tribulations, etc. and had it been summarized as such, I wouldn't have been as disappointed. But what I was looking for and promised in the summary, was a story about a woman overcoming obesity. How she did it, what problems she encountered along the way, and how she finally achieved her goal. I'm still clueless in that regard.This is one of the very few books where I want my money back. Not because it wasn't a decent read, but because it wasn't the read I was promised.