BOOKS BY THE FORMER GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS:
Character Makes a DifferenceAbsent his 120-lb. weight loss and the book he wrote about it, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee might never have become Candidate Huckabee — one of more than a half-dozen Republicans seeking his party's nomination for president. Huckabee's 2005 self-help memoir earned him a healthy helping of media attention and raised his national profile more than any of his actions as a respected two-term governor. While Stop Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork is, on the surface, about weight loss, it is in equal part Huckabee's recipe for proving his fitness (both physical and spiritual) for leading the country. —P.G. Sittenfeld
Stop Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork
by Mike Huckabee
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| Childhood | Huckabee introduces his story as one of ascent from modest means: "I grew up just a few pocketfuls of change above the poverty level." (p. 6) He reminds readers of these humble roots throughout the book: "My dad was a fireman in Hope, Arkansas, and we lived in a small rented house just two blocks from the fire station." (p. 105) But while conveying clear pride in his Southern upbringing, he also pinpoints it as a source of his longtime weight struggle: "Like most kids growing up in the South, I was raised to believe that the preferred way of cooking anything is to first batter it in cornmeal or flour and then fry the ever-loving nutrition out of it in a pan of gurgling hot grease." (p. 5) |
| Religion | Geography, as Huckabee writes, was only one factor adding to his expanding waistline; his religion also contributed to his girth: "In addition to being Southern, I'm also a Baptist, which means that while we 'officially' do not drink alcohol or use tobacco, we are free to eat every kind of food imaginable as long as we fry it and consume it in large portions." (p. 5) If being Baptist helped Huckabee put on pounds, it was his faith, he writes, that ultimately allowed him to reclaim his health: "Before I could make any permanent changes in my own lifestyle, I had to accept the fact that I was not being a good steward...of the body God had given me." (p. 139) |
| Adult Weight Struggles | As recently as four years ago, Huckabee weighed close to 300 lbs. In 2002, his doctor diagnosed him with type II diabetes. "I wasn't surprised," Huckabee writes. "I had two parents and two grandparents who were type II diabetics. But I was very angry at myself because deep down inside I knew this could have been prevented." (p. 8) |
| The Mental Toll of Obesity | Stop Digging is at its best when Huckabee doesn't sound like a politician and addresses the emotional realities of obesity. "If you're overweight, no one has to tap you on the shoulder and let you in on the secret," Huckabee writes. "You know it every time you have to devise a strategy just to tie your shoes...You know it when you get into the car and have to stretch the seat belt to its full extension just to get it around you and you pray that it will actually buckle. You know it from that swish sound of your legs rubbing together at the thighs when you walk." (p. 69) |
| Weight Loss Advice | Huckabee offers "12 STOPS" — such as "STOP Sitting on the Couch" and "STOP Expecting Immediate Success" — as steps toward healthier living. The key to his success, he writes, was "to develop a more comprehensive approach to health, as opposed to simply trying to get rid of some excess pounds within a specific time frame and for a specific purpose" (p. 50). Too often, however, Huckabee's counsel feels like a menu of repetitive platitudes. Are "Stop Procrastinating," (Chp. 1) "Stop Making Excuses," (Chp. 2) and "Stop Whining" (Chp. 7) sufficiently different recommendations that each warrants a separate chapter? After cutting the fat from Huckabee's folksy prose, readers arrive at a valuable but all-too-familiar formula for a trimmer figure: eater better, eat less, exercise more. |
| Military Service | Huckabee's only mention of military service is a brief explanation of why a stint in the army is missing from his resumé: his flat feet. "These flat feet have bothered me all my life. As a freshman in college, I enrolled in Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), but when the ROTC director (an army colonel) saw my feet, he told me there was no point in my continuing because the army wouldn't have me anyway. My flat feet ended what I'm sure would have been a heralded military career in the post-Vietnam 1970s." (p. 54) |
| Government's Role in Promoting Good Health | Encouraged by his own success story, in 2004 Huckabee introduced the Healthy Arkansas Initiative, offering tax incentives to motivate better health among the state's citizens. Yet he writes, "As much as I'm trying to watch my eating habits and adjust them to healthy choices, I do not believe that it's government's role to tell me what I can or cannot eat." (p. 120) Huckabee believes firmly in developing greater preventative health care: "Most insurance plans will cover hundreds of thousands of dollars for open-heart surgery or for the costly treatment of and rehabilitation from a stroke, but will not contribute one dime for weight loss programs or fitness regimens that might have prevented the heart attack or stroke in the first place." (p. 154) |
| Conclusion | Huckabee concludes by reemphasizing the importance not of eating well and exercising regularly but of having a strong spiritual life. "My faith gave me the basis for insisting that accountability be a part of my lifestyle plan," he writes. "This accountability is not only to other human beings such as my doctor, my nutritionist, and family, but also to the God whom I believe is with me without fail at all times." (p. 162) |
