Skinny Bitch & French Women don’t get fat
These blog posts got lost in the growing posts on this site! Lily1 posted (January 13, 2010 at 11:06 pm)
Hi Zoe
I am generally interested in nutrition and there were two books I have seen before that I wondered if you had ever come across and if so what your view was:
1. Skinny bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
2. French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano
Thanx
I replied:
Hi Lily – I’ve not read either but I’ve got a copy of Skinny Bastards (the male version of the Skinny Bitch book) and I put it down immediately when I first got it. I just hated the language – there was swearing (F words etc) and insulting and I just found it aggressive and offensive and not how I like to take in information. I persisted a little to try to get the principles and, from admittedly a quick look, it seemed like the typical eat less/do more diet that won’t work. They call low carb diets “ridiculous“. They say that carbs are vital for providing energy (their emphasis). They are not – there are cultures today and have been many historically that have lived on meat alone for years. (The only debate is around Vit C and that’s a blog in itself one day!) RF & KB order people to stay off sugar (that’s fine with me) but then they don’t approve of milk or meat (which I don’t agree with). They want you eating carbs, basically – fruit, veg, pulses, beans, breads, pasta, potatoes etc. The American Dietary Association should love them! They don’t address for one minute the fact that the body cannot store fat without insulin and only carbs cause insulin to be released and therefore they think turning the body into a fat storing environment will create weight loss. Not a diet I would support or I book I would give reading time to.
The French women one – I got quite excited about when I first heard the title and I thought “Great – someone is doing a book on the French diet and how it is high real in food (fat) and low in processed food and this would make for a good story.” However (and I haven’t got a copy) I understand that it is more about the lifestyle of French women – eat anything, but eat slowly being an example bit of advice. I saw a great review on line that said “Her book is about lifestyle. Forget low-carbs. Ignore high-protein. Too reckless. Too du jour. As she likes to put it: ‘French women think about good things to eat; American women typically worry about bad things to eat.’ ” I like that last phrase – that makes a lot of sense. I don’t know if it advocates an eating plan or a lifestyle approach – if you read it please add a comment and let us know!
Very best wishes – Zoe
10 Responses to “Skinny Bitch & French Women don’t get fat”
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Hi there, I’ve read the French Women Don’t Get Fat book (along with many, many other diet and nutrition books in my eternal quest for optimum health and figure!) and I couldn’t follow it as essentially, she recommends going fairly low fat. She is not very specific about quantities, but says we should eat more fruit and veg and less fat. Although she does advocate having a tiny amount of butter on your bread, for example, the amounts of fat in her menus would not be enough to keep me full. I find I really need to stick to the fat meals in your book, Zoe, to feel satisfied. Otherwise, I am just thinking about food all the time. My favourite book on nutrition is The Metabolic Typing Diet by William Wolcott. It classifies all of us as either protein or carb type or somewhere in between and explains why some people do fine eating lots of carbohydrates and others need a very high fat, high protein diet to function at their best. I definitely fall into the latter category. I would be really interested in your views about that book, if you have read it. Sian Watkinson
Hi Sian – many thanks with your help on the French book. I’ve sadly not heard of or read the Wolcott one, but it does sound interesting. My reading pile is about to topple over at the moment so I’d better not order it just yet! I’ll blog if I do, but I’m just about to get back into writing the next book, so I’m likely to go into a black hole for a while!
Very best wishes – Zoe
Thanks for responding Zoe. I quite understand that your reading pile is vast. I am very impressed that you responded so quickly to me and wish you all the best with your new book. Sian
Hello – I’ve only very recently discovered your books/website. For a few years I’ve been a fan of the Michel Montignac method and used it to lose weight successfully and enjoy food! As its emphasis is on the pancreas/insulin and separating carbs and fat I presume you’ve come across it? Being married to a Frenchman I can say that that type of eating (and the type of eating you advocate) are just naturally very ‘French’. I’m just pleased now to have found another food/health writer who believes in the same system and challenging other ideas that just don’t seem to work! So thank you!
Hi Elisabeth – many thanks for your comment. I know Montignac well and am a huge fan! The Harcombe Diet came about trying to create the perfect diet to overcome the 3 conditions that cause food cravings, Montignac’s main interest was in carbs and insulin (the French led the way in insulin/Diabetes research in the 1800′s), Atkins followed Banting (who followed the French in the 1800′s!) Barry Groves and Gary Taubes have made brilliant connections between food and many things medical and diet related – and also majored on the issue with carbs. The interesting thing is that all good diets end up concluding that you’ve got to eat real food! Nature wants to keep us alive, food manufacturers want to make money – who should we trust?!
Montignac will get people a long way there – if food intolerance (wheat especially) were covered, it could get people even further. The trouble is wheat has a lower glycaemic index than rice, so Montignac steers people more to wheat than rice – he even says have wholemeal toast for breakfast. The dark chocolate, red wine, avoid carbs generally, embrace meat/fish/dairy – is all top advice and the French traditional diet (not the infiltrations of mcDonalds and sandwich chains) is the reason people who eat it are slim!
Keep reading and picking out the sound advice anywhere!
Very best wishes – Zoe
I have read all of the French Ladies book, the first is by far the best. She advocates eating anything, in moderation. She uses the ‘rule of halves’: reduce what you are eating by half ensuring you feel satisfied with your new amount. If you want more to feel satisfied, you have more. Its about finding the right balance for you. She never suggests you follow her meal plans to the letter, in fact she points out that she is a small person and most people need more to eat than what is outlined in the book. The fat issue you’ve raised is covered in the book. You can eat good cheese, chocolate, butter, whatever you like, but in order to attain balance, you cook other foods with little or no fat. Her champagne chicken recipe is fabulous, and not an ounce of fat!
Hi Bronwyn – thanks so much for reviewing this for us! I like the fat recommendations – very healthy, sensible and French! Recipes sound great too!
Not so keen on the ‘eat less’. The following is the blog I most refer to on this site, but for good reason: The Minnesota ‘Starvation’ Experiment Whenever I hear the words “eat less” (let alone “do more”), I want to ask the source: which part of the Minnesota experiment did you not understand?!
We know what happens if we try to eat less. We have known at least since 1945 – arguably since 1917 when Benedict did a similar experiment. Why do we think it is suddenly going to start working when it never has?!
Eat better – ditch all the empty calories, don’t halve them – it’s the only way!
Thanks again – Zoe x
”They say that carbs are vital for providing energy (their emphasis). They are not”
No but they’re the most easy to use for energy.
”only carbs cause insulin to be released”
That’s not true, most people think this is but it’s not the truth is meat and dairy do the same thing, for the same weight red meat cause the same release of insulin as white sugar. Eggs also cause a insulin response. Higher insulin without carbs is worse than hihger insulin with carbs (which is the proper way our body should respond). In the long run it may cause you to become insulin resistant, which in turn cause you to produce MORE insulin. Type-2 diabetics produce MORE insulin than average people. They’re just resistant to it, that’s the problem (and too much sugar).
I agree with Seb. No matter the type of nutrient (protein, carbs, or fat) if they are used for energy then insulin will be released because this is what transports the ‘fuel’ across the body. And of course the excess will be stored as fat. The difference however between carbs (from whole grains, vegetables, and beans) is that the latter are also packed with fiber and other important phytonutrients which are lacking in animal meat, dairy, and the fat that come with these. Low carbs diets and those who try to sell them gives us only half truths and never the whole picture.
@Catherine:
From all I have read (and I read extensively on nutrition) fat does not cause an insulin response in and of itself. Yes, there is an insulin response to putting anything into your stomach and even to the taste of appetizing food, but other than that, there is no insulin SPIKE, we should say, to fat. Protein in excess can be converted to glucose in the body and thus cause an insulin spike, but it is to the glucose, not to the protein (other than in the aforementioned normal response to any food’s presence in the stomach). It is the spikes that concern us. Glucose is the major cause of insulin spikes. I am afraid that it is not so much the “Low carb diets and those that sell them” that “gives us only half truths and never the whole picture.” What Big Ag/Food industry sponsored propaganda have you been reading? Nature wants us to live and procreate. Big Ag/Food industry execs just want to make a profit. Who do you want to trust? (paraphrased from Zoe).