Product Description

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 played girl-next-door cutie Barbara Cooper in the hit TV show One Day at a Time, and then starred in numerous TV movies. From wholesome primetime 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. Here are the ups and downs of teen stardom, of her complicated marriage to a brilliant, tormented musical genius, and of her very public struggle with her weight.

Surprising, uplifting, and empowering, Losing It takes you behind the scenes of Valerie's acting career and marriage, recalling the comforts, friendships, and problems of her television family, her close relationships with her parents and brothers, the stress and worries of being the wife of a rock star, and the joys of motherhood. Like many women, Valerie often remembers the state of her life by the food she ate and the numbers on her scale. So despite her celebrity, Valerie's voice is so down-to-earth, honest, and appealing that you'll feel as if you're talking with a girlfriend over coffee. Funny and candid, Valerie recounts her attempts to maintain a healthy self-image while dealing with social pressures to look and act a certain way, and to overcome career insecurities and relationship problems, all of which will be familiar to the hundreds of thousands of women who struggle every day with these same issues.

From marital turmoil to the joys of a new career, from being named among Penthouse's ten sexiest women in the world to overhearing whispers about her weight gain in the grocery store, this is Valerie's inspiring journey as she finds new love, raises a terrific kid, and motivates other women as a spokesperson for Jenny Craig.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42811 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review
A Note to Amazon Readers (and a Q&A) from Valerie Bertinelli

Dear Amazon Customer,

Glad to see you here and hopefully purchasing my book. I've heard if you buy multiple copies it's a better experience--a better one for me! But seriously, I'm usually on Amazon, too. I've been buying books through the site for ten years. I enjoy reading the reviews. I get a good sense of the book, and I like to hear what other people have to say. Like in a traditional bookstore, I can look at the cover, peek inside the book, and check out the bestseller lists.

Valerie

1. Do you have a favorite character from a book? I love Scout and Atticus from To Kill A Mockingbird.
2. If you can be any character from a book, who would you like to be? I would like to be Scarlett and I would let Rhett know how much I love him.
3. How do you decide what next book you want to read? If it’s for my book group, whoever hosts the next gathering picks the book, so it’s picked for me seven out of eight times. But on my own, I read reviews and ask people whose taste I like what they’re reading.
4. Where’s your favorite place to read? Either lying in bed or on the sofa next to the fireplace.
5. What is your favorite genre? I don’t really have one.

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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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.

Customer Reviews

Still needs some work
I personally (for the most part) enjoyed reading this memoir. While I, too, was expecting more than what it had to offer (some more personal insights rather than marketing Jenny Craig would have been nice), I found it hard to put down and felt as though I know who she is (to some degree).
I did take some issue with the fact that she still has some emotional growing to do (but then again, don't we all?). There was one part, in particular, that botherd me about her. It was when Wolfie was younger (I think maybe about 8 or so) and he started rebelling against her and saying mean things to her. Valerie attributed it solely (or at least in writing) to Eddie's drug and alcohol abuse and their constant fighting. She needed to look a little further than that! The sentences before that statement, she admitted to basically smothering the kid and putting ALL of her efforts into being a mother. Any kid who feels smothered by a parent will rebel in an effort to create their OWN identity, which may or may not have had so much to do with Eddie's drug use as it had to do with Valerie's clinginess to being a mother. Valerie seems to take little responsibility for her part in these things. But, she does seem to be a work-in-progress, so at least that is a good thing.
Otherwise, it was a pretty good book. Would I recommend it? Sure! Especially to women who have issues with their weight (and I know A LOT of them--myself included!)
I also need to add that the editing was terrible. I found several words misspelled and while it's not the end of the world, it's a little annoying while reading it. What do they pay editors for, anyway?

A woman who has made mistakes, but isn't afraid to own up to them
Although I grew up in the late 80s/90s, I enjoyed "One Day At A Time" reruns and caught Valarie Bertinelli's movies of the week. but I didn't know much about her life. Her childhood was nothing out of the ordinary, but she shot into super stardom as the youngest daughter on her hit 70s sitcom. Although she talks openly about her co-star Mackenzie Phillip's struggle with drugs, there isn't a whole lot of dirt behind the scenes. She writes about her in a sympathetic, sisterly way. Val also reveals her later drug addictions that began even before her marriage to Van Halen member, Eddie Van Halen. She also talks about motherhood and conquering her weight issues, even an attempted encounter with another woman. The best thing about the book is Val's telling of her story. She's completely down to earth and her tone is conversational, like being an old friend sitting in her living room. She doesn't try to pretty up her faults and mistakes or excuse them. She's honest and reveals herself as any other human being. She's refreshing and just fun. You can pick it up at your local library, but this one is worth the cash, I say.

Valerie - poor me, whiny baby
I am in the process of throwing this book in the garbage - the only reason I read it to the end was to see if there would be anything worth reading. The book didn't keep my attention with it's short, choppy and repeating sentences. It really irks me that she mentioned, about 500 million times, Eddie Van Halen's drug and alcohol problem, which seems to have caused partial blame for her numerous weight gains and added to her insecurities. I didn't buy her "confession" about doing drugs and sleeping with this and that person - those parts of the book were just too vague. In my opinion, she put those pieces in her book to make her look like the "bad" girl she isn't. Her book is premature - she's obviously still insecure - as she can't seem to be happy with the weight loss she has achieved, and she hasn't been with Jenny Craig long enough to prove herself. AND, Jenny Craig CALLED HER and PAID HER a lucrative sum to be their spokesperson - she was not the one who approached them for a weight loss solution. Yes, she lost the weight she said she would, but she hasn't had a long enough maintenance record to prove to me that she can keep it off, which is another reason her book is premature. I liked Valerie, until I read her book and realized that she's nothing but a whiny, poor me person. Suck it up woman. If you really want to gain the respect of your readers, don't talk negatively about your former husband's problems, stop blaming everyone and everything for your weight problems, and prove to us, and Jenny Craig, that you really have gained a new insight and purpose in life by keeping the weight off and keeping the healthy attitude you claim to have for the rest of your life.