BIG PROBLEMS

This is a smart, funny dive into the weight-loss industry, from a journalist on a quest to master healthy living.

Like many of us, Andy Boyle struggled with his weight all his life. But it wasn't until one fateful pants-splitting incident that he realized he really ought to do something about it. Since then he has lost the weight. And put it back on. And lost it again. As he fumbled through his weight-loss journey, Boyle learned the hard way that there's a difference between real, effective methods and the crap that big businesses are trying to sell you.

In BIG PROBLEMS, Boyle explores the reasons why we've gotten fat in the first place as well as real ways to lose those extra pounds. Through interviews with health experts, doctors, runners, bodybuilders and more, he unpacks the truths hidden beneath the hype, including:
- Are superfoods really all that super?
- Why the heck are you so hungry all the time?
- Is it better to go for a run or lift weights?
- Does dieting work? (Spoiler alert: No)

Readers of weight-loss memoirs and guides such as Half-Assed by Jennette Fulda, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl by Shauna Reid, and The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss will love this honest, yet humorous look at the weight-loss industry.

Andy Boyle is the author of Adulthood for Beginners and is an award-winning journalist, writer and technologist. A regular keynote speaker at workshops and conferences, his work has been on NBC News and in Esquire, the Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The St. Petersburg Times, and The New York Times Regional Media Group, where a project of his was cited in the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. A former adjunct instructor of Columbia College Chicago, Boyle is currently building and guiding major technology decisions at Axios, a digital media startup. He lives in Chicago.