The Urban Hermit A Memoir Author:Sam MacDonald His diet plan wouldn't make it on Oprah, his lifestyle change wouldn’t be touted by Dr. Phil, and Alan Greenspan wouldn’t touch his financial solvency plan with a 10-foot pole. But for MacDonald, the need to retire a mountain of debt and lose a massive amount of weight were essentially one and the same problem. Reasoning that by ... more »solving one, he could fix the other, MacDonald decided to eat less and, more importantly, drink less, taking the money he saved on food and alcohol to pay off his creditors. He traded in his shots and beers for boiled lentils and canned tuna. Instead of partying with his college buddies, he paid more attention to his journalism career, traveling around the world and across the country in pursuit of plum, often quirky, assignments. One hundred sixty pounds later, MacDonald found he suddenly had grown up once he stopped going, and growing, out. Outrageous, offbeat, with an infectious can-do optimism, MacDonald offers a dedicated, if slightly demented, approach to self-improvement.« less