Learning Curves: Living Your Life in Full and with Style [Hardcover]

Michele J. Weston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2000

Learning Curves is part of a new revolution taking place in this country, a revolution that's finally giving full-figured women a face and a voice. Author Michele Weston is the fashion and style director of Mode, the innovative fashion magazine targeted at the 62 percent of American women who wear a size 12 and above. Mode hit the newsstands in 1997 and quickly found an adoring readership for plus-size women craving fashion and beauty advice. Now, in Learning Curves, Weston presents a comprehensive practical and spiritual program that guides women to explore their inner beauty and outer style and covers all the bases, from dressing and dating to food and fitness. Weaving stories of successful full-figured women, including actor-writers Delta Burke and Camryn Manheim, with her own startling insights, Weston dispels age-old myths, exhorts women to throw off the shrouds of negative thinking, and gives them the confidence to be the sexy, strong, and proud role models they know they can be.

The program is based on Weston's life experience -- fifteen years of being on a continuous learning curve -- during which she discovered her inner beauty, learned to feel comfortable with her body, and embraced success by rising to the top in the field of fashion, where being full-figured has always been considered a liability. Her advice is supplemented by the honest and compelling stories of real women who have taken that journey as well, and with step-by-step programs designed by Michele and experts in the fields of body image, health, and wellness. These are the women who have guided Michele on her journey to a truly fulfilling life. By sharing their victories, their moments of despair, and the lessons they've learned, Learning Curves inspires women of all sizes to start on the road toward living their lives in full and with style.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Standing up to the morass of diet books and fashion magazines that suggest that thin is beautiful, Weston proclaims that learning to accept her body is a woman's "one-way ticket to freedom," and outlines a series of exercises that aim to inspire women to see their own beauty and acknowledge their unique worth. The fashion and style director of MODE (a magazine for plus-sized women), Weston also shares her own story of coming to terms with a body that's bigger than size 12, along with the recollections of eight other womenAincluding model Kate Dillon and actresses Kim Coles and Camryn ManheimAin a series of vignettes. Many of the women recount memories of starving themselves to fit the popular image of slender beauty and of being labeled "the fat one" by classmates, and tell how they overcame their feelings of inadequacy. Weston encourages women to deal with painful memories regarding their body image, to learn to make the best of negative situations, to keep a journal and to treat their bodies in a respectful, loving way. Calling on her years of experience working in the fashion industry, Weston teaches readers how to create a signature style of dress that will reveal their personality, and to build a wardrobe that reflects that style. While the message Weston delivers is both positive and practical, her material is largely a rehash of ideas presented in more depth in other recent size-acceptance books, like Delta Style by Delta Burke and Alexis Lipsitz or Cherie K. Erdman's Live Large! Eight photographs and 9 line drawings. 14-city author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Camryn Manheim of ABC-TV's The Practice started the trend. Now, in Weston and Sheldon's good and gracious hands, the move to integrate plus-size women into mainstream America continues. Actually, Weston, fashion director for Mode magazine, with her cowriter, focuses on the individual and how she can reclaim her life from past experiences and negative mindsets. It is part psychology and part workshop, developed in an eight-step process to ensure that the plus sizes--65 million American women wearing a size 12 or larger--not only accept themselves but also learn to live out loud to make a difference. Advice such as "exercise makes you fit, not thin" and "awareness is the key to understanding your relationship with food" is balanced by the personal testimonies of 20 women, some celebrities, many not. Physical and mental exercises worth adapting. Barbara Jacobs

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (April 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609605801
• ISBN-13: 978-0609605806
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,445,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning Curves; Living Your Life in Full and with Style, April 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Learning Curves: Living Your Life in Full and with Style (Hardcover)

This book touched me deeply. As someone who has struggled with the issue of my weight my whole life, I can see that there is another choice. One of freedom, self love, and self acceptance. Michele Weston's words of advice and the inspiring stories of the women in the book have given me not only hope but also a practical guide to make positive changes in my life. I may never be "thin and gorgeous" but I can be me and gorgeous. This book is for everyone who wants to feel, look and be their best!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book's title lives up to its promise, August 20, 2003

By 

DNP "waterlily525" (Framingham, MA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Learning Curves: Living Your Life in Full and with Style (Hardcover)

This book was written with a plus-sized audience in mind. Nevertheless, I honestly feel that the information contained within will help slightly overweight (or even normal-weight) women just as much as plus-sized ones; either way, in today's society, the reality or the specter of "excess" weight causes us emotional pain.

Since having two children, I've struggled with a weight gain of 25 pounds. Medically, at a size 12, I'm considered "overfat," between normal and obese. I've been beating myself up over my weight for a long time. I've been on many diets (never any extreme ones) and I'd have some success until I got frustrated with the "slow" results and then would find old habits, along with the weight, creeping back. In all honesty, ultimately I would still like to lose a bit of weight.

But here's the interesting thing, at least for me. In doing the exercises in the book, I slowly began to convince myself emotionally that my personal value was a thing quite apart from my weight, something I always knew intellectually, but still didn't completely believe in some corner of my mind. And a growing appreciation for the unique person that I am got me doing things like searching out high-end consignment shops to find beautiful, well-made and flattering clothes, exercising...not with the goal of losing weight, but as a way of taking care of myself..., and eating moderately, but for pleasure (only delicious food need apply for consumption). I had the self-respect to reject any possible diet/activity changes unless I could answer "yes" to the question "Am I willing to do this for the rest of my life if I never lose a pound?"

And without ever feeling like I've been "trying" to lose weight, I found my clothes getting a bit looser, got curious and discovered I've lost seven pounds, over a period of about two months. The wonderful thing is that because I've simply been focusing on taking care of myself, on a number of different levels, the result of weight loss isn't really the point. It's just a nice little bonus.

The other book I've read during this time to help me understand where the creed of thinness came from in the first place was Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with their Bodies by Roberta Pollack Seid, Ph.D. There were so many passages in that book that resonated with me, particularly in the chapters that dealt with the decades of my lifespan. It helped me to put the issue of weight into a more constructive perspective.

I particularly appreciated Learning Curves for encouraging women to get to know themselves, to treasure themselves and finally to take what they've applied and live, whether through quiet example or through active outreaching, as a role model for other women and young girls who haven't yet made or are just beginning their journey.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good idea, well executed - shame about the illustrations, October 23, 2000

By 

a_roxburgh (Victoria, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Learning Curves: Living Your Life in Full and with Style (Hardcover)

As you can see by my rating, I liked this inspirational book about self-acceptance. It focuses on plus-sized women, but most of the advice could be utilised by people who could benefit from improved self-esteem in other areas. The authors have included self-esteem-building exercises, which complement the message of the text. I particularly liked the stories from successful, well-adjusted women who wrote about their own struggles with acceptance of themselves, and by their families and the wider community - strong, uncompromising, successful women. I was disappointed, then, to find that the illustrations (photographs and drawings), almost without exception portrayed women who are average-sized or smaller. I found this particulalry inappropriate in the section of dressing to reflect your style and best features - the women drawn would have looked attractive in sackcloth! Other than this quiblle, I found this book interesting and worthwhile.