#GIVEAWAY Showcase - Review Tales of a Bulimic Babe by Iris Ruth Pastor

Tales of a Bulimic Babe is an honest memoir about Iris Ruth Pastor's 46 year battle with Bulimia and some of the statistics she reveals is jaw dropping. Hopefully this post will convince someone to seek help or someone who knows someone who suffers with bulimia to take that first step to healing.
Iris's publicist Author/Guide is sponsoring a giveaway of this memoir, details below.

ISBN-13: 9780965283212
Publisher: Ladies Ink
Release Date: 10-03-2017
Length: 242pp
Buy It: Amazon/B&N

ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:

Tales of a Bulimic Babe: Simple wisdom to live the life you crave by Iris Ruth Pastor

"Tales of a Bulimic Babe" is about a woman who apparently 'has it all'—a happy marriage, five well-adjusted sons, a stimulating career, lots of friends and extended family. But what Iris Ruth Pastor keeps hidden from them all was her addiction to a lover she called ED—her eating disorder. This is the story of her shedding that secret, facing and owning her addiction, and taking courageous steps to break free of the disorder that ruled her entire life.

How did she tame the triggers that led to bingeing and purging? Deal with the ravenous monster within? And navigate the road back to a healthier, happier, and more fully engaged life? If you've ever grappled with something that prevents you from operating at full throttle, Iris's brutally honest yet witty and inspirational story answers the tough questions, while reminding us that the possibility of recovery is within our reach.

The Giveaway is for one print copy of
Tales of a Bulimic Babe US ONLY
Please use the Rafflecopter form below to enter
Good Luck!

excerpt courtesy of Author/Guide––

Introduction

I almost died in 2012. By my own hand. Well, actually by my middle three fingers of my right hand. These were the fingers I routinely stuck down my throat to tickle my uvula (more commonly known as “the little thing that hangs in the back of your throat”). I didn’t do it for laughs. I tickled it to induce vomiting, in order to rid myself of the mounds of ice cream and other carb-laden goodies I had shoveled in just minutes before.

Today in the United States—the land of plenty—millions of peo- ple go to bed each night hungry due to poverty. They simply cannot afford much of the food on supermarket shelves. I am not one of them.

In addition, millions are literally starving themselves to death, victims of a condition known as anorexia nervosa. I am not one of them either.

I have the other eating disorder—bulimia—characterized by re- peated cycles of bingeing and purging. Research shows that ED (eat- ing disorder) causes all sorts of threatening conditions. To name just a few: stroke, electrolyte imbalance, rotted teeth, ravaged knuckles, and esophageal cancer.

Celebrities routinely die from ED. Non-celebs, too.

None of these facts about eating disorders was of particular inter- est to me in 1966, when ED first came courting me. I was a sopho- more, out-of-state transfer student attending the University of Florida in Gainesville, unsure of a major field of study. I was 1,000 miles away from my mom and dad for the very first time. My high school boy- friend had just broken up with me.

Along with all the changes I was experiencing at that point in my life, my grounding thought was to stay thin. If I was thin, I could cope. And when I found a way to remain thin and eat all the forbidden stuff I secretly craved—well, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Little

did I know that path could very likely lead me to heaven long before I was due to ascend. Little did I know that my brand of heaven would shortly turn into a hell of my own making.

But that was in the iconoclastic 1960s, way before eating disorders even had a name. Way before campus counseling centers offered treat- ment. Way before sorority houses would need their plumbing pipes replaced on a regular basis. (Why? Because so many sorority girls were throwing up after binges that their stomach acid was corroding the pipes’ interiors.)

ED had found a home and he would reside with me for many years—the one constant in a life of flux. He was a satisfied tenant. I was a very accommodating landlord.

Statistics are not easily forthcoming on the number of baby boom- ers eating large quantities of food and forcing themselves to throw up after consumption. Jessica Setnick, MS, RD, CEDRD, published an article “Eating Disorders: An Ageless Affliction” on December 28, 2013. She cited the results of studies that “shatter the belief that eating disorders only afflict the young and reveal that boomers have eating disorders at the same rate as teenagers—nearly four percent. And an ad- ditional thirteen percent of boomers partake in at least one core eating disorder behavior such as binge eating, self-induced vomiting, excessive exercise or laxative abuse.”

At this juncture, there are 76.4 million baby boomers in the United States, according to an April 2014 U.S. Census Bureau report. I know I’ve got a lot of company—at least 3 million of us.

Leaving a Legacy

I am a voracious reader and have been compulsively buying books— mainly hardbacks—since the age of nineteen. At present I have ap- proximately 2,600 books in my home, proudly and grandly displayed in floor-to-ceiling custom made bookshelves in my living room, family room, loft and guest room. In addition, baskets brimming with even more books grace nearly every nook, cranny and corner of my home. Fiction. Nonfiction. Memoir. Self-help. Biographies. Poetry.

Four out of the 2,600 books I own deal with eating disorders and every single one of them is stashed under my side of the king-size bed I share with my husband. The books’ spines are intact. The book covers unopened. The pages unread.

Do you think I am in denial?

In addition, I am also a slice-of-life columnist. I have been writing my “Incidentally, Iris” column since 1989.

I have written about many aspects of my life and my experiences over the years, but the one story I never told—the one topic I never explored nor even obliquely alluded to—was the story of my bulimia: its inception, its persistence, its tenacious grip.

Now is the time. Why?

There are five good reasons: my five grandchildren. And one on the way.

The legacy I want to leave my beloved six is not of their Nana hunched over a toilet, vomiting her guts out. Or worse, their Nana found dead in some random ladies’ room, drowned in a pool of her own vomit.

No.

The legacy I want to leave is of a woman with a demon who had the courage to stare that demon down, to do what it took to slay the dragon and to emerge to tell her tale.

I fervently hope my coming forth will inspire, motivate and help others who face the same (or different demons) to move toward health, resolution, balance and restoration.

This is My Story

My name is Iris Ruth Pastor and I was bulimic for forty-six years.

I grew up in a Midwestern city in Ohio, the oldest child of three, in an intact family. Welcomed with joy to a World War II veteran and his young bride in 1947, I was loved, doted on, and adored by grandpar- ents, parents and a coterie of cousins and relatives who thought I was just the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I thrived.

I was not sexually abused, beaten, abandoned, betrayed or in any way mistreated. My mom packed my lunches every school day morning and greeted me at the door with a smile when the yellow bus dropped me off at three every afternoon. My dad cemented my swing set into the ground so I could swing as high as I wanted without fear of my entire swing set going airborne. My mom and grandmother packed my closet with the latest schoolgirl fashions—at that time wide, knee- length skirts decorated with felt poodles, propped up with horsehair crinolines. I joined a Brownie group, played after-school kickball with the neighborhood kids and won ribbons in every track meet I entered. My beloved maternal grandmother died suddenly of pancreatic cancer when I was seven—that may have been when the first crack in my armor appeared. She no longer was there to sew my doll clothes, cut my bangs and feed me mountains of pancakes out on her porch—the

porch with the massive striped awning.

My mother soldiered on after the loss, as did I. A new baby came. A new house was purchased. Elementary school ended and seventh grade began, in a brand new, imposing building on a busy corner. Braces were clamped on my teeth and boobs appeared on my chest. Mascara and eyeliner replaced my kickball and Keds. Suddenly I was getting a lot more attention for the way my body looked in a sweater than how it performed at a track meet.

Some young women would unconsciously begin to put on weight to cope with their burgeoning curves and some would diet incessant- ly to maintain an hourglass structure. Others would starve themselves mercilessly to maintain a waif-like, childlike frame. Me? I began to real- ize the power my womanly body wielded. And I liked it. And I wanted to find a way to keep it at peak performance. To keep the weight south of 110 pounds. To keep the curves luscious and the cheekbones chis- eled. Yet to continue to indulge in those comforting stacks of pancakes. When was the first time I purged? The first time I went into the bathroom, shut the door, leaned over the commode, stuck my fingers

down my throat and threw up everything I had just eaten?

I don’t remember.

And where did I even get the idea to purge? I don’t quite remember that either. Certainly, in those years—the mid-1960s—the terms buli- mia and eating disorder were not household words. Even though diet- ing was becoming ubiquitous among many females of all ages, many of my peers were also burning their bras, joining hippie communes and turning their back on fashion dictates. I wasn’t one of them. I pored over every issue of Seventeen magazine and secretly dreamed of being a perky, saucy airline stewardess.

My high school years were spent in trying to control my appetite and food became a source of angst not comfort. Food no longer fueled my body, enabling it to run like the wind and kick the ball as hard as I could. Food became something to ration, to avoid, to fear. Food led to weight gain. Weight gain led to fat. Fat led to looking ordinary, unremarkable, nondescript. Fatties weren’t stewardesses, homecoming queens, cheerleaders or majorettes.

I try to re-create the memory of the first time I threw up what I had eaten and realized I could use that as a means of weight control—that I could eat all my favorite forbidden foods and still maintain a body that served as a male magnet. I’m unable to pin down the exact date. I only know that by the time I had lost my virginity, scored high enough on my SATs to get into an out-of-state university as a transfer student, and

was initiated into a sorority, my eating habits were no longer cradled in a cocoon of normalcy. I was bingeing and purging regularly.

This is my story.

Praise––

“In this honest, insightful, and inspiring book, Iris Ruth Pastor shares her story of recovery from a decades-long battle with bulimia. She brings a poignant and relatable honesty to the memoir using both wisdom and humor to bring the reader on the journey from despair to healing. This is a must-read for anyone who struggles with an eating disorder, or knows someone who does; by sharing her experience, Iris offers insight, understanding and hope.”

—Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin, PsyD

---

Oh, Iris, what a gift I received yesterday when your book arrived in the mail! I didn’t get a chance to look at it until I was in bed last night, and I was so thrilled to begin to read your story and to see what an impact Intuitive Eating has had on your healing process…you’re a marvelous writer—so articulate and wise. I not only appreciate what you’re saying, but also how you’re saying it…I’m dropping the other five books I’m reading, so I can read yours first…I’m excited to do that.

Elyse Resch   Co-Author of Intuitive Eating – A Revolutionary Program That Works

---

Congratulations on your outstanding book. I have encouraged all my patients to buy it… You are amazing. Great writer speaker and role model for midlife woman struggling with eating disorders.

Dr. Ann Kearney Cook

The Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute

My Review

Tales of a Bulimic Babe
Iris Ruth Pastor

Author, speaker, columnist, Iris Ruth Pastor’s memoir of her forty-six year battle with bulimia is eye-opening, honest, funny, shocking, sobering and very personal, she even gives her eating disorder a name, Ed. It’s a “tell all” book about how it started, how food became her enemy, how it impacted her life during and after she stopped “binging and purging”, and finally the reasons she finally sought help to end it. But what amazed me the most was how an eating disorder I always associated with the YA crowd is to this day impacting so many “baby boomers”, in fact a study she quotes shows that baby boomers are in fact afflicted at the same rate as the rest of the age groups and that in a study involving 1900 50 and older women 13% have an eating disorder, 8% purge and 62% say that weight has a negative impact on their life.
If you suffer from this affliction or know someone who does this has to be in your must read pile.

Connect with Iris - Website - Facebook - Twitter

Meet Iris:
Iris Ruth Pastor is 5’2”—the truth. She weights 115 lbs.—a lie. She’s a baby boomer, author, speaker and story teller. For the past twenty-eight years, she’s written a slice-of-life column entitled “Incidentally, Iris.” In between the unremitting rigors of raising five sons, she hosted a radio program, co-wrote a book with her mother—Slices, Bites and Other Facts of Life—and became the editor of the American Israelite.
Iris entered the social media age kicking and bitching and screaming in order to foster connection and offer tidbits of authenticity to uplift and inspire herself as well as others. She did this as a Huffington Post “Must-Read Blogger of 2015.” 

a Rafflecopter giveaway