A Better Me

This is Gary Barlow as honest, heartfelt and more open than ever before

Gary Barlow

• Publisher: Blink Publishing
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN:
  9781911600992
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller

Gary Barlow is one of the most successful British musicians and songwriters of all time, but fifteen years ago, as he himself admits, he hit rock bottom - he was out of shape, out of work and depressed.

Faced with an underperforming solo career, tireless media taunts and the other cruel twists of fate, Gary turned to food. For nine years, he struggled with his weight and went on every diet imaginable before eventually asking a doctor what the 'cure' for obesity was. That was when he realised that he would have to change his life dramatically.

So how did he go from an obese, out-of-work pop star to becoming a hugely successful superstar of music and TV, as well an accomplished musical songwriter and producer who is full of vitality, fitter, happier and more successful than ever before?

In this extraordinarily honest memoir, Gary tells of his journey back to professional success, as well as mental and physical health. A Better Me is a remarkably frank account of Gary's life as he battled with his demons, endured personal tragedy, and staged one of the most thrilling professional comebacks in decades. In his warm, witty and authentic voice, Gary recounts his story with compelling insight, captivating sincerity and a human side that people rarely see.

From returning with a critically and commercially successful Take That and reigniting his own legendary songwriting career, going beyond recorded music to forge success on TV with The X Factor and Let It Shine, to overcoming his weight problems and crippling obsession with food, this is the story of how Gary found balance in both his personal and professional life.

Here is one of the UK's most beloved pop stars, more open, honest and raw than ever before.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• HalfTitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Prologue
• 1 A Boy on A Mission
• 2 Diets are Shit …
• 3 … But Exercise is Not
• 4 Four Sparkly Shirts
• 5 Just One More
• 6 Blood, Sweat and Patience
• 7 Four Go Mad at Sarm
• 8 Three Gorgeous Kids, Two Mad Diets
• 9 Two Elephants
• 10 Dad
• 11 Progress and Progress
• 12 On the Box and At the Palace
• 13 Cold Turkey and A Dinner Party
• 14 Five Men, One Giant, Half an Apple
• 15 One Pig and Fifty Crocodiles
• 16 Poppy and The Light
• 17 We Build a Wall
• 18 Solo, Second Time
• 19 The Enemy is Sugar
• 20 America Now and Then
• 21 From Four to Three
• 22 Drinking Slop
• 23 Chill The F*** Out
• 24 A New Reality
• Epilogue
• Extra Chapter An Alien, Ten Screamers and A Bit of Peace
• Pictures
• Acknowledgments