I'm With Fatty: Losing Fifty Pounds in Fifty Miserable Weeks »

Sales and marketing expert Edward Ugel spent his late twenties and early thirties working among the nation's most infamous lottery winners and gamblers in the high-stakes lump sum industry. He writes for the Huffington Post and has also written for the New York Times and contributed to PRI's This American Life.

One man’s humorous and heartfelt journey through his year-long attempt to regain his health and change his life.

Where does one draw the line between being a lifelong foodie and a food addict? Edward Ugel is 36 years old and weighs 263 pounds, or as he likes to think about it: 119 kilograms. I'm with Fatty chronicles Ugel’s attempt to follow doctor’s orders and lose fifty pounds or risk dropping dead while standing in line at Popeyes. It details the complex love triangle between himself, his wife, and all the crispy, braised, barbecued, and sautéed goodies that he’s been feeding himself ever since he could say the words “to go.”

Ugel sets off on his yearlong journey to figure out how to live in a world without dim sum, smoked Italian meats, and the pleasure of cooking whatever and however he wants. He spends his days torn between two worlds: nutritionists and personal trainers versus pancetta and Häagen-Dazs. It’s a war of attrition—each side has its share of victories and utter failures.

Lovers of narrative nonfiction will relish this contagiously readable book that looks back at Ugel’s complicated history with food, obesity, and the ruinous effects this lifelong relationship has had on him. Filled with humor, ultimately this is a book about the private hell of being fat in America and about the fragile male psyche and the seldom-discussed issue of male body image.

I’m with Fatty is a funny, candid, raw, and personal story of weight loss from the male perspective. It is a narcissistic battle of wills between the author who loves food more than oxygen and the man who knows that his very life depends on the success of his “Fatty Project.”

I’m with Fatty takes the reader along on a difficult, frustrating, embarrassing, and inspiring journey, one that is the last great hope of a man desperate to save his own life—or at least own a pair of pants that fits.