Summary

Life is short -- too short to spend most of it worrying about what you look like from behind. That fact hasn't stopped women everywhere from obsessing over their weight -- specifically, that portion of it resting on their asses. In this gleefully frank new book, Janette Barber and Laura Banks lampoon society's obsession with the gluteus maximus while offering solidarity, support, and inspiring advice to fellow B-FABs (Big Fat Ass Babes).Embracing Your Big Fat Assencourages readers to accept and love every inch of themselves -- including the lumpier parts.

Author Biography

Laura Banks is an an actress and the bestselling author of Embracing Your Big Fat Ass, an Owner's Manual. Laura got her first big break in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. She has also starred in Wheels of Fire, Demon of Paradise, and Retreads. She also wrote, starred in, and served as executive producer for the 2002 documentary The Manhattan Dating Project. After, she appeared on talk shows and news programs including Gooday LA, Gooday NY, and ABC World News, and released her novels Love Online and Breaking the Rules.

Rosie O'Donnell is the founder of Rosie's For All Kids Foundation, which supports early childhood care and education programs, as well as Rosie's Broadway Kids, a program that brings musical theater to New York City public school children. An Emmy Award–winner, she is also a New York Times bestselling author and mother of four.

Foreword
The Birth of the B-FABs (Big Fat Ass Babes)
What's in a Word?
Embracing Your Big Fat Ass Born to Be a B-FAB Self-Image
A Snapshot from Behind It's All My Mother's Fault Big Beautiful Fat Ass Babe Society
Life as a Basket Case Your Family, a Heavy Matter
The Annoying Little Voice Inside Your Head
The Local Fix Addictions and Compulsions of a B-FLAB (Big Flabby Ass Babe) Checking Out
and Your Big Fat Ass Romantic Moods and Moves
That Asshole Todd Your Backside in the Bedroom
The D-List Boyfriend
, Friendship, Shopping, and Other Distractions Fashion
Not Just for Skinny Babes Counter Intelligence Bonding with Your Fellow B-FABs
The Secrets of a Fat Ass Date
Working Woman with a Waddle Your Job with a Bouncing BFA
How My Big Fat Ass Paid the Bills Working for Food
Health and Weight Loss Projects
Dieting Sucks Because Baby's Got Back My Life in Diets
Exercising Your Big Fat Ass
It All Behind
Managing Fat Ass Sprawl on Trips of Any Kind Getting Frisked at the Airport Pooling Around at the Holiday Inn Happy Holidass Christmas Eve Chronicle In Conclusion
The Art of Masstery
The Asstrological Reader
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

What's in a Word?

LB: Co-Founding Member Confessional

If the name of this book offends you in any way, Janette and I are not sorry. We are writing this book to make friends, to meet many of you, and have some great tailgate parties on the road, but there is simply no other title that would work for this book. "Embracing Your Big Fat Behind?" "Embracing Your Big Fat Bottom?" Maybe in reviews of this book in magazines and on TV our title will look like this:Embracing Your Big Fat A**.Maybe they'll try to bleep us when we use the word on the local news in Tallahassee. Janette loves the word ass, among other more descriptive terms. By using a profanity -- granted, on the lower end of the profanity spectrum, in our opinion -- we give the book the "bite" it needs. That's why the word works. It has a bit of snarl to it.

There was an actual event that led to this title. It came about in the summer of 2002. A friend of mine, Carol, came storming into my apartment, slammed my front door, and walked into my kitchen. Carol is a beautiful woman, very turned out with gorgeous designer clothes, a luxury sports car, and a fancy Fifth Avenue job in New York City as an executive secretary. She even has a secretary. She's a secretary with a secretary. Anyway, Carol goes to the gym at least five days per week and has a great body to show for it. Her apartment overlooks the Hudson River with mirrors on the entire wall in the living room reflecting magnificent water views. It's breathtakingly gorgeous. Bottom line: she's a perfectionist in many areas of her life so it couldn't have been easy for her when she finally broke down, looked me square in the eyes, and after a brilliantly crafted pause said, "I give up. I just have to accept the fact that I have a fat ass." I laughed so hard I thought I would pass out. I felt like I had been hit in the ass by a bolt of lightning.

Another factor in the equation was that when Carol zapped me with this declaration of resignation and acceptance of her ass, I was reading the bookEmbraced by the Light,by Betty Eadie. The book is about Betty almost dying and what she experienced while moving toward "the light," being lifted above mortal concerns into a safe place of peace, understanding, and acceptance. That's when I got it; having a fat ass is like having a near-death experience. You just have to keep breathing and move toward the light, only in this case it's the light coming from the refrigerator.

Fast-forward to 2006 and I still hadn't done anything with this title. I finally worked up the courage to call Janette, fearful that she would think I was crazy to want to write an entire book about my rear end. But she was perfect for the project because she's a hysterically funny writer, and I also knew she had wrestled with her ass in the past. No one would be more capable than Janette to wax poetic on this very weighty subject. When I called her on the phone and told her the title, I had never heard her laugh so hard in my life. I thought that was a good sign.

We're attacking one of life's biggest jokes, one of its deepest injustices -- that constant pain in our hearts about not being pretty enough on the outside to find love for ourselves on the inside. Janette and I are not anthropologists. We hold no degrees in science or nutrition. We hold our own self-proclaimed Doctorate in Self-Loathing with a Minor in Using Food for Emotional Control. We've graduated. This is our thesis. It's more than jokes. This is the story of our asses. We've included our real-life confessionals so that you can see how we became who we are.

It's our mission to spread the word: Love your asses. Love yourself. There is no reason to be unhappy anymore. Life should be lived as if it were a near-death experience every day, 'cause if it were, would you really be that concerned about your ass?

Excerpted from Embracing Your Big Fat Ass: An Owner's Manual by Laura Banks, Janette Barber
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.