Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time

by Valerie Bertinelli

Overview

The New York Times #1 bestseller (3 weeks running) is now available in paperback. Losing It is popular actress, Jenny Craig spokeswoman, and America’s sweetheart Valerie Bertinelli's headline-making account of her complicated past and how she took control of her own life to gain self-esteem and happiness.

Valerie Bertinelli, then: bubbly sitcom star and America's Sweetheart turned tabloid headline and rock star wife. Now: actress, single working mother of teenage rock star, and weight-loss inspiration to millions.

We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli years ago when she was girl-next-door cutie Barbara Cooper in the hit TV show One Day at a Time, and more recently when she starred in numerous TV movies and co-starred in Touched by an Angel. From wholesome prime time in America's living rooms, Valerie moved to late nights with the hardest-partying band of the decadent eighties when she became, at twenty, wife to rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Losing It is Valerie's frank account of her life backstage and in the spotlight: the ups and downs of teen stardom, her complicated marriage to a brilliant, tormented musical genius, the joys of motherhood, and her very public struggle with her weight.

Surprising, uplifting, and empowering, Losing It chronicles Valerie's journey as she finds new love, raises a terrific kid, and motivates other women to take back their lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416569688
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	11/18/2008
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	320,430
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Valerie Bertinelli has been acting since the age of twelve, appearing in more than two dozen made-for-TVmovies. Most recognizably, she appeared on the long-running sitcom One Day at a Time and, more recently, on Touched by an Angel. Now a spokesperson for Jenny Craig, Bertinelli was raised in Claymont, Delaware, and in the San Fernando Valley, California, and was married for twenty years to Eddie Van Halen (they split up in 2001). Currently, she lives with her son, Wolfgang, in Los Angeles.

Read an Excerpt

Prologue

Bring Home the Fun

Some people measure depression by the medication they take or the number of times per week they see a therapist. For me, it was different. I measured my depression with baked jalapeño-and-cheddar-cheese poppers, the brand that advertises itself with the slogan "Bring home the fun."

I'd love to meet the person who came up with that line and ask him a question. Is it really fun to see yourself blow up three dress sizes?

I suppose they wouldn't sell as many if their slogan was "Pack on the pounds." On the other hand, they may do OK with a promotion that said "Forget your ex-husband" or "Eat these instead of having sex — since nobody wants to see your fat bare ass."

During the cold winter months of 2002-03, when I was making Touched by an Angel in Utah, those jalapeño-and-cheese poppers were my Prozac. I was on a significant dosage: at least nine a night and sometimes more. At the grocery store, I saw other women looking at me when I loaded the boxes into my cart from the frozen food case. I could almost hear them thinking Oh my gosh, that's Valerie Bertinelli. And look: she's on those jalapeño poppers.

It was true. There were nights when I OD'd on those poppers. My mouth burned because I couldn't wait for them to cool down after taking them out of the oven. Other times I savored the taste with tiny, almost sensual bites, drawing out the feeling of comfort and escape I got from eating. The bright smile that served me well for so many years went into storage. So did my size 8 jeans. And my 10s. And my 12s. And my — well, my weight soared past 170 pounds, the highest it had ever been outside of my pregnancy.

Those were some of the darkest days of my life, and I was eating my way through them. By 2001 my marriage to Eddie Van Halen was over after more than twenty years of competing with his rock-and-roll lifestyle for attention. Our fights about his drinking had taken a toll. Discussing and solving our problems used to bring us closer, but now it wore us out. Ultimately, when he failed to help himself by giving up cigarettes after mouth cancer had threatened his life, I knew, sadly, that one way or another I was going to end up on my own.

By then I was working and living in Utah eight months of the year. Full of anger and frustration, I spent at least three nights a week on a plane so I could see our ten-year-old son, Wolfie, who stayed home in Los Angeles to be in school with his friends. That wasn't the way I wanted to live or the type of person I wanted to be. But instead of helping myself, I did the opposite. I ate my misery and turned my misery into a reason for eating.

Overweight, alone, and horribly depressed, I kept eating poppers and everything else in my path. After Touched went off the air, I returned home and became a hermit. I hid from the world, hoping no one would see that I'd gotten fat. In reality, I was hiding from the one person who could help solve my problems: me.

That was hard to believe. Over the years, I'd tried every diet on the bookshelves — from the grapefruit diet, to Weight Watchers, to the lemon juice and cayenne pepper fast — and all of them had worked as long as I stayed on them. But once I stopped, the weight came right back, and, unfortunately with a little extra. While I hate to admit it, I was on the verge of giving up and accepting that I was never going to look the way I wanted to — or feel the way I wanted to either.

I used to say half-jokingly that I was going to give up, move to the mountains, and be the quirky old fat lady down the street with forty-some-odd cats.

I'm glad I didn't. Instead I ended up outing myself on the cover of the April 4, 2007, issue of People magazine by declaring, "I know what you're thinking — I'm fat." Publicly, it was the start of a diet where the stakes were total humiliation and embarrassment if I failed to reach my goal. Privately, it was, as my fellow Jenny Craiger Kirstie Alley promised, not just a diet but really the start of a journey. She was right.

By any standard, I've enjoyed a charmed life. Even though I gained notoriety by working on TV, I shunned the spotlight in favor of a normal life, driving carpools, volunteering in my son's classroom, making dinner, and trying never to miss my monthly book club get-togethers. Of all the roles I've undertaken, none has been more satisfying than motherhood. I'm as much of a regular gal as people seem to expect — and I like it that way.

If you walked into my house right now, you'd find my cat Dexter lounging on the sunny floor in the kitchen, a large bowl of fruit on the counter, delicious-smelling vegetable soup simmering in a tall pot on the stove, the recycling trash can ready to be emptied, and paperwork and schoolbooks spread across the dining room table. You'd also see my boyfriend Tom on the phone in the backroom, and me working the crossword puzzle, as is my daily routine.

Creating this happy picture was a puzzle that took my entire adult life till now to solve. By the time I went public as a size 14, I'd already done the hard work: confronting the fears, insecurities, disappointments, and frustrations that accounted for the three different sizes of dresses and pants I needed in my closet for my constantly changing weight. After that, it was just a matter of portion control, exercise, and self-discipline.

Since going on Jenny Craig in March 2007, I've surpassed my original goal of 30 pounds and set new targets for myself. But the weight I've lost doesn't compare to what I've gained — or regained — in my life. The weight loss and renewed zest for life go hand in hand. Kirstie had promised as much when she said, "Valerie, it's not about the weight. -What's going to happen is -you're going to quit hiding and discover the real you."

She was right. My relationships have never been healthier, including the one I have with myself, and I've finally found a joy that seemed beyond my grasp when I was reaching for those jalapeño-and-cheese poppers. Physically and emotionally, I'm a different person. It's like I'm hitting my stride. These days I really do bring home the fun.

In this book, you won't find me professing to have all the answers to life's problems. Hey, I'm still trying to figure out most of those. Instead this story is about the choices I've made, good and bad, and how I've grown and learned from them. There are also exciting times, emotional moments, and life as it happened. Through it all, you'll get me uncensored and unfiltered — the good, bad, stupid, stubborn, size 14 and size 4. It's nothing more complicated, though as you'll see, it was complicated enough for me. Isn't it always that way?

If you're starving right now because -you're on a diet, ask yourself if your hunger has anything to do with food. I know the answer to that question. Look, we're all human. We go through the same things. If -you're in a dark place over some problem in your life, I hope that reading my story will help you feel less alone when you see that someone else has made the same mistakes and gotten through them. I hope -you'll relate to my story, learn from it, and, as I finally did, find the courage to change, shed any unwanted pounds, and gain all the good things you thought impossible.

Now where did I put that bag of chips?

Just kidding.

Valerie Bertinelli November 2007
132 pounds
From Losing It by Valerie Bertinelli. Copyright © 2008 by Valerie Bertinelli. Reprinted by permission of Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Table of Contents

Me: The Quickie Version     9
Prologue: Bring Home the Fun     11
The Vision     19
Tiny Dancer     29
Daydream Believer     38
You've Got the Part     51
Tumbleweed Connections     63
Blue-jean Baby     72
Love Walks In     88
Love Lies Bleeding     100
Doin' Time     114
Feels So Good     125
Runnin' with the Devil     140
Fair Warning     152
Aftershock     164
Sunday Afternoon in the Park     179
Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love     195
Best of Both Worlds     213
And the Cradle Will Rock     226
Hear About It Later     239
You Still Need Work     257
Finish What Ya Started     271
House of Pain     284
Where Have All the Good Times Gone!     296
Black and Blue     308
Going Solo     323
It's about Time     337
Feel Your Way Tonight     349
I'm Fat     365
Losing It     379
Regaining My Life     395
Acknowledgments     411

Interviews

What's your favorite book and why do you love it?
That's an impossible question to answer. There are so many books, where do I start? To refresh my memory, I looked on the shelves in my library and several favorites jumped out at me, including Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, Richard Russo's Empire Falls and The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, who if she isn't my favorite living author is damn close. I've been reading a lot of memoirs lately. I went through A.M. Homes' The Mistresses Daughter (love her!), fabulous writer. I absolutely loved Jeannette Wall's The Glass Castle. Dave Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was a remarkable book. I love his sense of humor. Oh and Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. The title alone told you it was special, and it was. And I think the best of all was Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (my group's first read ten years ago!) I could go on. Oh my God, Seabiscuit. I loved that book. I have two copies of Atonement. How did that happen? I loved Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True. Funny enough, when I think of books that have left a lasting impression, I have to say A Civil Action and, boy, when I got through with it, after enjoying this lawyer's hunt, I was so infuriated by the conclusion that I threw it against the wall, and what was worse is that it was true. The Kite Runner has also stuck with me because of the horror. John Krakauer's three books, Into the Wild, Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven are phenomenal. Obviously I am having trouble picking one book. But if someone put a gun to my head and made me pick one book, at this moment in time I'd say it's Charles Dickens' A Taleof Two Cities. The opening is beautiful and poetic, and the end breaks your heart.

What was your favorite book as a child, and why? And do you still have a copy of it?
It was Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham and Yertle the Turtle and Horton Hears a Who. Unfortunately, I don't think my copies survived all the moving I've done through the years, but, oh, the wonderful memories the good Dr. brings to mind!

Did you read to your son when he was little? Did he have favorite books that had also been your favorites as a child?
Yes, I read to Wolfie when he was little, (Dr. Suess, of course!) but later in high school he read Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, which I had never read. So I read it, too. And both of us ended up with a new favorite. He also liked The Giving Tree and Love You Forever, which I used to sing to him.

Has any book changed your life?
They all have in their own way.

Who is your favorite author?
There are too many. I can pretty much know Margaret Atwood will give you a good read.

Editorial Reviews

Valerie Bertinelli has gained and regained shape before our eyes. On One Day at a Time, we watched her, as "Barbara Jean Cooper," develop from an awkward 15-year-old girl into a sexy young woman. More recently, we have shared her triumphs as she dropped pound after pound as the new Jennie Craig spokesperson. In Losing It, this popular veteran of numerous TV films entertainingly recaps her continuing fight against flab by placing it in the context of her often-troubled personal life, including the end of her 20-year marriage to rock star Eddie Van Halen. This memoir speaks candidly about the joy of motherhood and what it was like to be the wife of a music legend.

Bertinelli offers a peek behind the sunny facade the popular TV star has long projected about her life and a showbiz career that began at age 14. She narrates her personal memoir with an honest, straightforward and simple reading that matches her writing style. Her story is at times shocking, emotional and uplifting as she opens up about her weight struggle, drug use and marriage to rocker Eddie Van Halen. Bertinelli tells her life story with such enthusiasm and earnestness that it comes off as less of a reading and more of an intimate conversation. The only downside is that she tends to race through much of the story, sometimes making it hard for listeners to keep up. Bertinelli's story is appealing across gender lines, a powerful account about a surprisingly tumultuous life in the spotlight. Simultaneous release with the Free Press hardcover. (Mar.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

TV star Valerie Bertinelli became a Jenny Craig spokeswoman after she ballooned to 172 pounds and failed at various diets. This is her account of that journey, and the other challenges she's tackled as an actress, wife of rock star/addict Eddie Van Halen, mother, and maturing woman. Now 49, she shares the perspective she's gained with humor and pathos that is tastefully constrained for a Hollywood actress. Many women will appreciate her insights on self-worth and weight control. Narrator Cassandra Campbell owns this life story so completely that listeners will swear it's Bertinelli speaking—directly from the heart to listeners everywhere who have similar life challenges. Campbell’s appealing performance makes this a satisfying audio memoir. T.W. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2009 - AudioFile