Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life »

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.

Welcome back to chez Bertinelli, where life is as crazy and comical as ever. In revealing talks with her longtime boyfriend, Tom, Valerie gets even more personal about her inner worries: her maternal anxieties about her son, Wolfie (he’s fallen in love and, as she writes, "getting your sex talk from Eddie Van Halen wasn’t recommended in any of the parenting books I read"); the challenges of dealing with a blended family; her mother’s own new diet adventure; and a craving for a deeper relationship with a Higher Power ("I have experienced days of inner peace and connectedness with a larger spirit—twice," she writes. "Why not more often?"). And as if these everyday challenges weren’t enough, Valerie is working to maintain her own very public weight loss and approaching her fiftieth birthday. This is the story of what happens after you change your life. And it’s not all peaches and cream, or even low-fat yogurt.

This inspiring memoir, from the beloved actress and author of the bestseller Losing It, is an optimistic story for trying times. Warm and friendly, honest and self-aware—with the same winning wit and candor that touched a generation of fans in Losing It—Finding It is about working on all the reasons we gain weight in the first place so that it doesn’t happen again. It’s about becoming better, not just thinner. And it’s about believing in love and happiness, having faith that both are possible, and finding out that God does want you to enjoy life’s desserts—even when you’re on a diet.