The Jean Nidetch... My take on it

I've been reading again! In the last 2 weeks I have finished two books, and I am ready to share my thoughts with you! Up first, my thoughts on "The Jean Nidetch Story". Jean Nidetch was the founder of Weight Watchers, and up until my friend gave me the book I had no idea who she was! 

Things I Liked About The Book: 

• She is very real about who she is and who she isn't. She shares her weaknesses and her strengths. She is unwilling to apologize for who she is and she knows what she wants in life. I found this fascinating. 
• It was so neat to see how WW started. Jean basically took the diet from an obesity clinic in NYC and invited some friends to do it too and come over and talk about it. From that came what is known as Weight Watchers today. Crazy. 
• She constantly talks about herself as a "fat person". She references the saying that inside of all of us is a skinny person trying to get out... she says instead that no matter how thin she becomes, there will always be a fat person inside her begging her to be fat. I think this is more true of me at least. 
• It was motivating. I have been doing WW again for about 6 1/2 months, and making this a "lifestyle change" instead of just a diet is difficult. I have lost quite a bit of weight for my small frame and there are days where I want to fool myself into thinking "ok now you are small again, you cant eat whatever you want whenever you want". But the truth is I cant. Jean lost like 70 something lbs by 1962 and never gained it back. Why? Because she continued to fight the battle, make good choices, and live the reality that she couldnt just eat whatever the heck she wanted. The simplicity of her understanding that concept and living it out was motivating. 
• It made me thankful for what WW is today! When it began there were no "points" and there was a very strict diet. You had to eat certain things and that was that. And there was a long list of "illegal" foods... Thank you for flex points!! Today on WW you can eat anything you want- as long as you "plan" for it. 
• She just felt like a grandma telling you scattered stories of her life. I loved that. 

Things That Annoyed Me About the Book: 

• The scatteredness. Like I said above, it sounds like your grandma sat you on the porch and just started randomly telling you about her life. Things werent always in the best order and I am such a Type A person that it was hard to follow. 
• She comes across as pretty arrogant in the beginning of the book. She really isnt, and latter on you realize she is just trying to lay it all out there- the good bad and ugly. But still, I didnt think I was going to like her till about a third of the way through. 
• I wish it had gone more in detail about how the actual business expanded. She did talk about it some, and I guess its a book about her and not WW specifically, but thats what I was most interested in. 
• Towards the end there are some sad things shared about her life. These didnt annoy me, but they were sad!

So I highly recommend the book. I mean basically its the life story of a girl who had always been fat, became a housewife who secretly ate cookies in her bathroom at night, and then evolved into the founder of a strong and thriving international weight loss business. I just wonder if she sits in her apartment at her little retirement village and just thinks, "really??? i did this??!!" 

Had any of you ever heard of her before?? Do you agree with her "fat person inside of me" saying? What's the hardest part of maintaining a healthy weight and body for you?? Dish it peps!