Large-Scale Victory

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ther it's South Beach or Atkins, Americans are obsessed with the latest diet. But for Frances Kuffel, a literary agent in New York City who tipped the scales at 320 lbs., losing weight was no passing fad. It was an act of personal salvation — and discovery. In Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight and Finding My Self (Broadway), Kuffel, 47, describes her escape from the "Planet of Fat," a world in which seat belts are too short, shoes are too tight, and furniture is too flimsy to be trusted. On a 28°F day in March 1998, she showed up at a 12-step program for eating disorders wearing "elastic-waisted pants in Lane Bryant's largest size, a black T shirt permanently stiff with perspiration under the arms, crummy Keds, no socks, an unlined raincoat." It was an inauspicious start for a remarkable journey. TIME talked with Kuffel:

It has been four years since you lost 170 lbs. What has it been like?

Everything is different. Every time I cross my legs, I'm amazed still. When I get into bed at night, I don't have to be careful that I'm going to break the bed. When I was obese, there was an enormous amount of physical intimacy I couldn't have. Someone's arms couldn't reach around my back, and I was so scared of being touched that I was one of the least huggy people around. I was so drugged with food and exhausted from carrying that enormous weight around that in my best version of reality I wanted 14 hours of sleep a night. Now I get between five and seven hours of sleep.

Were you very heavy when you were young?

I was overweight as a child. I gave up before the battle even began. If you said, "What or who are you?" at the age of 6, the first thing I would have said was "fat."

You had dieted and failed before. What made the difference?

It was a divine epiphany. I have a very fraught relationship with God. I believe in God, but I don't very often think that God believes in me. I think at that moment, it just coalesced. I was at a bottom. I didn't like my friends, and my friends didn't like me. We were stuck with each other. That was my whole life: I was stuck.

The book gives little space to the actual diet. Was that intentional?

Any of the diets out there are just fine. I couldn't care less about them. I was given a food plan by my first sponsor [at the 12-step program], and I still stick to it. I have one carbohydrate a day, in the morning. It's rice or oatmeal — a whole starch. I don't eat flour. I don't eat sugar. I don't eat between meals. When I'm home, I weigh and measure my food. If I were eating at home today, I would have 16 oz. of salad and a tablespoon of dressing or oil, and 4 oz. of protein.

Isn't that an overly rigid way of eating?

My first and great writing teacher, Richard Hugo, used to talk about writing poetry in formal verse. He used to say that sometimes you have to put yourself in jail to be free. I'm broken. I don't know whether it's something I was born with or I broke it myself. I don't really understand the difference between full and stuffed to the gills.

When did you first think of writing a book?

I had wanted three things my whole life: to be thin, to publish a book with my name on it and to fall in love with a man who loved me back. So when I began to lose weight, it occurred to me that oh, s___, now I'm going to have to do those other two things. And the next one was writing. I was not ready to do men for a long time. That took a lot of confidence. In fact, the book was a great spur to do it, because I had sort of committed myself to dating for the sake of the book.

What was the most surprising thing about getting thin?

Getting thin mandated that I take risks. I wanted to write more than anything, and my desire to write brought me to a point at which I had to leave two jobs, and I took the risk. It meant having to take the risk of asking for help all over the place. Bravery has nothing to do with not being scared; it has to do with being scared and just constantly putting yourself on the line anyway.

Why do you think you got that heavy in the first place?

Part of it, I'm sure, is biological. If you and I were living in the age of the mammoths and faced a cold winter like this one, I'd win. I am a remarkably effective piece of evolution. And I was a very, very sad child who needed comfort and found it in food. A 4-year-old can't go out and get a bottle of bourbon.

How have the people in your life responded to your weight loss?

My family has responded to it beautifully. I let a lot of old friends go, because I was very busy losing the weight and figuring out my life. I think a lot of friends look at me and think, She's no fun anymore. I wasn't getting drunk with them, and I wasn't being as permissive as I used to be about things.

What's your reaction to gastric-bypass surgery?

Maybe I could do something [like that] to limit my food and lose weight. But it wouldn't change my romance with food and my desire to eat. It would do nothing about the insanity I have around food. In the 12-step program, the people are there for me 24/7, as I am for them.