Journey to the "planet of thin"

The author of "Passing for Thin: How I Lost Half My Weight and Found Myself" talks about a lifetime of physical and psychic pain brought on by her weight, and even after losing 188 pounds, how far she still has to go.

By Kera Bolonik

Mar 17, 2004 | From the earliest years of her Montana childhood until she was a 42-year-old New York literary agent, Frances Kuffel ate with a vengeance. Her 338-pound body made her the subject of ridicule and forced her to suffer excruciating physical pain. Kuffel was 44 before she ever got a pedicure, or wore a tailored suit, a cashmere sweater, or even a pair of lined pants. Running was out of the question, because most days, walking was too much for her to bear. She'd had sex before, but she'd never gone out on a date, or even been told she was pretty. The world was something she observed from a distance.

But in March of 1998, Kuffel decided to make a radical change after recognizing the parallels between her eating habits and her best friend's alcoholism. She braved her first Overeaters Anonymous meeting at a Brooklyn Heights, N.Y., church basement that day, wearing elastic-waisted pants ("Lane Bryant's largest size"), a black T-shirt ("permanently stiff with perspiration under the arms"), Keds without socks, and an unlined raincoat. There she encountered a room filled with women of all shapes and sizes: "These women got it, had done it all," she writes. "Eaten, been fat, lost their lives, come into a church basement and admitted the problem." Kuffel cried through those first few meetings before her 18-month journey to the "Planet of Thin" took off. And though she was quick to lose the weight -- 188 pounds in all -- through a carefully regimented diet and, eventually, an exercise program, she was slow to realize that life was to be experienced, and that she could become an active participant in it.

A year after completing her diet, Kuffel started writing about her metamorphic weight loss. "Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self" is the wrenching, often sardonically funny memoir that sets out to evoke the experience of living in a new body after 40 years of being confined by her obesity. As a person who had always consumed "so much so steadily that it would be hard to isolate the peaks," Kuffel not only had to recast the role of eating in her life -- paring her food down to three carefully weighed and measured meals a day -- she had to figure out how to buy clothes that flattered her new curvy, distinctly feminine figure, learn how to take a compliment, wrap her mind around the fact that people found her pretty, funny and smart. And, once she began to date for the first time, she had to navigate the murky waters of love and heartache. Perhaps the most difficult step: Kuffel had to purge the nasty bosses and abusive friends who undermined her confidence and believe herself worthy of respect from everyone, especially herself.

I met with Kuffel, now 47, at a Brooklyn Heights Starbucks. Not long into our conversation, she confessed to suffering a relapse over the summer -- her second (she mentions one in the memoir), in which she gained about 50 pounds -- and that she'd gone back on her "abstinent" diet, cutting out all flour and sugar so that she could once again fit into a Size 8. Kuffel did appear slightly different than her author photograph -- gone were the contact lenses and black leather jacket, to be replaced by thick, ironic horn-rimmed glasses and a cozy cardigan and T-shirt. But she is striking even in her schlep gear, and I couldn't imagine how she could have carried the burden of so much weight.

Her acid wit, however, speaks volumes about her decades of psychic pain. In both her memoir and in our interview, Kuffel uses this humor to circumvent uncomfortable issues, offering vague -- if occasionally droll -- retorts to questions she is either too polite to refuse or to which she may not yet have the answers. The memoir's subtitle is rather misleading: Kuffel retreats when asked about the bullying older brother, Dick, who terrorized her and her brother Jim; reminisces about romantic longing and two recently failed relationships when our discussion turns to sex; and stresses that her lifelong eating disorder has less to do with emotional issues and is a matter of biology. She seems to be in the thick of her self-discovery pursuit -- conflicted between wanting to be a public subject in her role as a memoirist while eager to preserve her privacy. In a sense, this makes her book all the more poignant: Even at her most reticent, Kuffel reveals the profound impact this transformation has had on her body and her soul, as she is forced to contend with all that she has steeled herself against for so many years.

Why did you write "Passing for Thin" now?

I was fascinated with what was happening to me as I was losing weight. Nobody has really spoken of the aftermath of weight loss. Living in that new body and not getting to hide behind excuses is incredibly hard.

You never knew your body without the excess weight, until you were in your 40s. Does it feel like you've been reborn?

Oh, yeah. Feeling myself moving and walking down the street, and feeling the lining of wool pants against my legs. I've never had pants that had silk or nylon lining. It's icy cold, but so sensuous. I can feel the seams and the waistbands and it's very erotic. I love seeing my feet at the end of my jeans.

Before you lost all that weight, you never seriously considered your clothes before. Suddenly you were forced to reckon with this aspect of femininity for the first time in your life.

I was 44 when I finished losing weight and started to really have to dress myself. I have four wardrobes: a Ralph Lauren wardrobe, which is tailored, traditional and beautiful; a middle-aged post-hippie girl thing; a SoHo designer wardrobe that conveys an "eat shit and die" message to the world, short black skirts, black tights and leather; and then I have my slob clothes. Those clothes give me personality when I don't know what to be. It's a dialogue I have, like putting on armor or a costume. Those are pretty much the core parts of me.

When I was heavy, I had a dialogue with clothes, too, but I didn't have the choices or the definitions. They don't often make fat clothes in fabrics that are as delicious as thin clothes. I had a few favorite things, but [my clothes] were shapeless.

Next Page: "I could've been as happy as George W. Bush, and I'd still be eating. I'm a compulsive overeater"

• View blog reactions