The T-Shirt Swim Club

T-Shirt Swim Club

by Ian Karmel, Alisa Karmel
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts, Psychology / Mental Health, Self-Help / Eating Disorders & Body Image
Length: 8:44
Narrator: Ian Karmel, Alisa Karmel
Published on June 11, 2024
Pages: 304
Format: Audiobook Source: Library
Amazon

Comedian Ian Karmel, with help from his sister, Dr. Alisa Karmel, opens up about the daily humiliations of being fat and why it’s so hard to talk about something so visible.

Ian Karmel has weighed eight pounds and he has weighed 420 pounds and right now he’s almost exactly in between the two, but this book is not a weight-loss book. It’s about being a fat person in a skinny world. It’s about gym class and football practice, about chicken wings and juice cleanses, about airplane seats and roller coasters, about fat jokes and Jabba the Hutt, about crying in the Big and Tall section and the joys of being a sneakerhead, about prediabetes and gout, and about realizing that you actually don’t want to eat yourself to death and hoping it’s not too late.

This book also includes a “What Now?” section from Ian’s sister, Alisa, who herself cycled through so many fad diets that she eventually pursued a master’s in nutrition and a doctorate in psychology with the goal of changing the contemporary narrative around fatness.

Ian and Alisa Karmel grew up fat. As kids, they never talked about it. They were too busy fighting over the last SnackWell’s Devil’s Food cookie. Now, decades later, having both turned into fat adults who eventually figured out how to get their health under control, they are finally ready to unpack the impact that their weight has had on them.

For them, the T-Shirt Swim Club is meant to be a place of support for anyone who struggles with weight issues. A place of care and candor, free of shame. A place to not deny or avoid the emotions you feel, the experiences you go through, the embarrassment, the anger, the resentment. T-Shirt Swim Club is about being a fat person and how the world treats fat people—but also an acknowledgment that maybe it doesn’t always have to feel quite so lonely.

This was an interesting time for me to listen to this book. I was in the middle of my first round of Body Slims, a weight loss program. It is actually going very well for me. Part of the program is a daily 1 hour walk. I was listening to this during those walks.

I had no idea who Ian Karmel was.  He was a writer for some late night comedy shows.  He starts the book with his stories of growing up fat. This got a little old for me. I’m not a huge fan of listening to people talk about their childhoods. I just don’t find it interesting unless you are doing something amazing. He wasn’t.

I did find it more interesting when he started talking about what he learned during and after his weight loss.  In this section he starts handing out some tough love to his fellow fat people.  I thought that this part was really good. He talks about not going to a doctor for major medical issues because he didn’t want the doctor to tell him he was fat. But he admits that that was stupid because he was only hurting himself. Sure, doctors may be biased and tactless but being fat isn’t helping your health even if you don’t want to hear about it. (I admit I never look at the post-visit summaries my doctor’s office gives because it has my BMI and notes on how obese I am on the front of page one in a special box every time.) He also talks a lot about how your mindset needs to change if you aren’t a fat person any more.

What I really didn’t like was his sister’s section.  She has the second half of the book and seems to undercut everything he wrote.  Honestly, if I had read this book a few months earlier when I was really struggling with my weight, this would have crushed me. She was pretty hopeless. I felt like her overall message was that no one is ever going to lose weight and keep it off so adjust your expectations. Her advice contained things like not letting your doctor weigh you because they don’t need to know. (That shook me. Unexplained weight changes are one of the major signs of illness in my world. Is that not a thing in humans?)

He wonders why people who cared about him never tried to stop him from eating so much.  After all, if he was a drug addict they wouldn’t have brought him drugs but they brought him pizza.  She says no one should ever mention weight to family members no matter how dire the situation.  Just make healthy food for the family.  They absolutely do not agree on much. 

Maybe I wouldn’t have been so overwhelmed by her doom and gloom if the book had alternated between a chapter of his and chapter of hers instead of doing it half and half.  Instead it was like you got to the halfway point on a high of “You can do this! You can get healthy!” and then the whole second half was, “Yeah, absolutely not.”