[.ca] French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for ... (ISBN 0307387992)

Enjoy your food:
It turns out that you CAN lose weight while still loving food, as long as you remember the following commandments: 1. Don't avoid food, love it, you need it to simply stay alive. But if you love it, then savor every bite of it. 2. Eat slowly, chew it well, prolong the time of pleasure. Just by doing that you will eat less. 3. Always use fresh ingredients, don't warm up yesterday's leftovers. 4. Don't give up on fats, or carbs - you need them all. Just use them moderately. 5. Eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Drink a lot of water. 6. Stay away from processed foods; focus on quality, unprocessed, fresh ingredients. 7. Lead an active lifestyle; use your muscles in your everyday life: take the stairs, walk to your grocery shop, or to your barber, etc... 8. Breathe fresh air. 9. Balance your lifestyle, focus on pleasure. 10. Use common sense to stay healthy! All the above, plus some other valuable advice can also be found in the book "Can We Live 150 Year". The author, M. Tombak, is another European that does not subscribe to the idea of food being our curse. He also gives more insight into the notion of Internal Hygiene. Generally, another good, commonsense approach to health, wellbeing and longevity. Extensive exerpts of his book, plus some free ebooks, can be found at the author's website - StartHealthyLife.

A Charming Memoir about Eating, Drinking and Living Well:
Whenever I have traveled to France, I have found myself marveling at two things: 1. I usually lose weight even though I eat great meals and drink more wine than at home; 2. I see a smaller percentage of obese people (especially women) than in any other developed country I visit. After much observation and discussion, I've concluded in the past that the French provide smaller portions of everything, don't go in for "all you can eat" buffets, eat less processed food, make things delicious so that they are more satisfying in smaller quantities, and walk a great deal compared to Americans. More recently, I've noticed that most of the food is nouvelle so there isn't much fat, sugar or starch in it. Voila! That's exactly the conclusion that Ms. Guiliano makes as well as she recounts her journey from becoming a fat teenager as an exchange student binging on brownies in my current hometown of Weston, Massachusetts to prospering as a slim French woman married to an American in the United States. In addition, she is CEO of Clicquot, Inc. which means that she regularly indulges in Champagne rather than the red wine that so many believe helps keep the French slimmer. As I read the book, I realized that Ms. Guiliano captured most of the best lessons of the South Beach Diet which I used successfully last year. The main difference between the recommended eating plans is that Ms. Guiliano has you start by creating an eating diary. With this diary, you figure out where you have bad eating habits. Then you begin to gradually reduce those eating habits in ways that leave you feeling comfortable and happy. The South Beach Diet briefly slashes (for two weeks) your intake of fats and carbs so that any insulin problems you have developed can be overcome. If you wanted to use Ms. Guiliano's advice and the South Beach diet, you could combine them by doing the eating diary, then doing stage one on South Beach and then combining both sources for recipes and eating advice as you continue to lose and then maintain your weight. I thought that Ms. Guiliano had the better advice on maintenance. I've also watched my wife eat a broad variety of foods frequently and in small quantities, walk a lot and easily keep her weight under control. Her experience also validated Ms. Guiliano's observations for me. But for me, the best part of this book is partaking of Ms. Guiliano's many expressions of joie de vivre relating to food. I've come to appreciate my forays into buying fresh fruit and vegetables and preparing them in new ways. She explains the many joys of that pastime very well. Her recipes are simple to make and seem intriguing. I intend to try many of them. Her writing is a delight, dropping in lots of little French phrases to give the book a particular charm. N'est-ce pas? The books I enjoy the most are the ones that introduce me to someone I would like to have as a friend. Ms. Guiliano ranks above almost all writers in this regard, especially among the normally oh-so-serious nonfiction authors who preach to us rather than love us as we are. Ms. Guiliano clearly loves the slim person hiding within us, along with our passions for certain foods and eating events. Whether you are looking to lose weight or not, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to enjoy life more. Pourquoi pas?

Very healthy:
Very healthy May 23, 2005 French Women Don't Get Fat is a revealing book about the French food culture. Like Simply Delicious, Tasty and Exotic Foods, The usurper and Others, The fat Fallacy, one gets to know of the variety of healthy diets around.

Not entirely doable outside France but good lifetime advice.:
Personal touch always works! Well structured and conveyed as a story, it is a pleasant read (long section on food preparation/acquisition gets slow). A reviewer subtracted credibility for lack of 'science'. To the contrary facts on water loss, ect were researched... But the best teacher is LIFE. An 'expert' is not solely someone with a degree on the wall, with their adventures published! Mireille discovered steps that work and shares them. 'America' means USA but I feel Mireille includes Canada (Europeans forget to say 'North America'). I don't find North America criticized but too much focus is on the glorious availability of fresh food in France. We're buried in snow 6 months but our grocery fruit tastes fine - is what we're used to. The importance is we eat the best of what's accessible. Could use more examples tailored to us rather than bemoaning the ideal. Unless trying to recast the metabolism, I frown on calling juice, dairy, ect 'offenders'. One could argue everything has fat. More critical to ingest enough nutrients than to be skinny. I concur with a balance between "French Women Don't Get Fat" and "You, The Owner's Manual" by Dr. Mehmet Oz. Simple sum of Mireille's excellent lessons? Stop those socially-acceptable digs calling food a sin. Too many undesirable efforts do FAIL (I think she's right about diets & gyms; Dr. Oz concurs). Ask not how we can save steps but create more of them ~ definitely not limited to France! And there really must be an art to savouring every aspect of food. I bet I do wolf down and multitask. Let's all see for ourselves.

I really enjoy this book... Its just delicious:
This book shows a nice lifestyle, no punishment at all. I enjoy all her stories... She helps me to become a yogurt maker expert... Many easy recipes yet elegants... Id like to read some more stuff from Mireille...