Skinny Bitch & French Women don’t get fat

Written by Zoë on January 18, 2010 - 5 Comments
Categories: Other Diets

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

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5 Responses to “Skinny Bitch & French Women don’t get fat”

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  1. Sian Watkinson Sian Watkinson says:
    January 19, 2010 at 11:44 am

    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

  2. Zoë Zoë says:
    January 19, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    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

  3. Sian Watkinson Sian Watkinson says:
    January 20, 2010 at 3:40 pm

    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

  4. Elisabeth Elisabeth says:
    January 28, 2010 at 5:44 am

    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!

  5. Zoë Zoë says:
    January 28, 2010 at 10:05 am

    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

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