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French Women Don't Get Fat
Stylish, convincing, wise, funny–and just in time: the ultimate non-diet book, which could radically change the way you think and live.
French women don’t get fat, but they do eat bread and pastry, drink wine, and regularly enjoy three-course meals. In her delightful tale, Mireille Guiliano unlocks the simple secrets of this “French paradox”–how to enjoy food and stay slim and healthy. Hers is a charming, sensible, and powerfully life-affirming view of health and eating for our times.
As a typically slender French girl, Mireille (Meer-ray) went to America as an exchange student and came back fat. That shock sent her into an adolescent tailspin, until her kindly family physician, “Dr. Miracle,” came to the rescue. Reintroducing her to classic principles of French gastronomy plus time-honored secrets of the local women, he helped her restore her shape and gave her a whole new understanding of food, drink, and life. The key? Not guilt or deprivation but learning to get the most from the things you most enjoy. Following her own version of this traditional wisdom, she has ever since relished a life of indulgence without bulge, satisfying yen without yo-yo on three meals a day.
Now in simple but potent strategies and dozens of recipes you’d swear were fattening, Mireille reveals the ingredients for a lifetime of weight control–from the emergency weekend remedy of Magical Leek Soup to everyday tricks like fooling yourself into contentment and painless new physical exertions to save you from the StairMaster. Emphasizing the virtues of freshness, variety, balance, and always pleasure, Mireille shows how virtually anyone can learn to eat, drink, and move like a French woman.
A natural raconteur, Mireille illustrates her philosophy through the experiences that have shaped her life–a six-year-old’s first taste of Champagne, treks in search of tiny blueberries (called myrtilles) in the woods near her grandmother’s house, a near-spiritual rendezvous with oysters at a seaside restaurant in Brittany, to name but a few. She also shows us other women discovering the wonders of “French in action,” drawing examples from dozens of friends and associates she has advised over the years to eat and drink smarter and more joyfully.
Here are a culture’s most cherished and time-honored secrets recast for the twenty-first century. For anyone who has slipped out of her zone, missed the flight to South Beach, or accidentally let a carb pass her lips, here is a buoyant, positive way to stay trim. A life of wine, bread–even chocolate–without girth or guilt? Pourquoi pas?
From the Hardcover edition.
Manufacturer: Random House Audio
Price: $6.99
 French Women Don't Get Fat
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| User Reviews |  | French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating For Pleasure
rating: 4
This book is fun and engaging. The author has a unique way of reeling you into her world of daily living. The book is realistic in dealing with the few extra pounds that women seem to struggle with. She explains, in her charming way, the pattern of thinking that is necessary in adopting new and healthy habits for dieting. The funny thing is, you don't even realize you're dieting. "It's all in the mind."
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"Living like a French woman" impractical for most Yanks.
rating: 3
The book has some great recipes in it. But the woman is completely blind to her own pampered, entitled life and how very much she is the product of it.
I'm sure it would be easier for Americans to look like French women -- if they, too, were allowed to go home at lunchtime and spend 2 hours preparing and slowly eating lunch before taking a nap and going back to work, walk to work, buy fresh bread and expensive organic veggies near home, spend weeks on vacation relaxing, AND have a career that consisted of getting well-paid to eat the best food and drink the best wine all over the world.
I'd love to give her a freakin' MONTH of a typical American work-load, a typical salary and a typical grocery budget. I won't even saddle her with kids -- just a month of an American job, with an American commute, American lunch-time ("You were 2 minutes late getting back from your 30-minute break"), American work-hours, American vacation time, and the realization that, no, she really really CAN'T have Veuve Cliquot at lunchtime without getting fired from most American workplaces (assuming she makes enough to afford Veuve Cliquot).
She'd probably puff up like a beach-ball in 3 months.
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Easier than you think
rating: 5
My mother recommended this book to me. I'm an extremely busy law student who had zero time to cooking or eat healthy. The first month of law school I gained ten pounds and panicked. I ordered this book online, read it in a weekend, and was thrilled. I've lost the weight I gained moving here, plus a few more pounds. Yes, the weight loss is slow, but it's not deprivation at all! It doesn't take much time to plan meals anymore, and it only takes me 30 seconds in the morning to grab whatever I'm having for dinner out of the freezer. (I buy fresh meat and fish on weekends and freeze it.)
Yes, it's all absurdly simple, it's all common sense, but it's nice to be reminded how easy it can be to eat well. It's not expensive to eat well either. I'm on a limited budget - I can only spend $30/week on groceries so it does take some thought when you go shopping but with a little planning it's well worth it.
This book is not for anyone who wants a quick fix but if you want to learn how to eat whatever you want without getting fat, I recommend this book. It's amazing how little food will leave you satisfied, as opposed to how much you need to feel "full".
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Bit of a dry read
rating: 2
Nice sized book but difficult to get into as the author uses a lot of European terms and slang that Americans don't know or use and it's difficult and dry reading. She does offer some interesting recipes but I'd never do a leek soup regime for a week or even a few days to kick-start my weight loss. I regret buying it.
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Obvious
rating: 1
Um, isn't it obvious, they all smoke like chimneys! In all honesty, I lived with a French woman and I'll tell you how she stayed thin, 1 hour a day at the gym and she considered a "meal" one laughing cow cheese slice.
Not rocket science, they just don't eat much at all!
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French Women Don't Get Fat
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