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French Women Don't Get Fat

The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
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?
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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Though it's easy to approach this book with a grudge (aren't the French superior enough already?), Guiliano is quite disarming--she seems to want to help suffering American women stop torturing themselves and start enjoying a healthy relationship with food. Narrator Kathe Mazur is American, but her delivery of this book seems just right, and when she breaks into the French phrases sprinkled so liberally throughout, she sounds quite authentique. Mazur's pace is delightfully unhurried as she walks us through this simple guide to healthy living, which includes such directives as savor--don't gobble--your food. This book will surprise, delight, and benefit many listeners. J.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      Oo la la! What a delectable feast. As its subtitle promises, Guiliano's book offers to teach you how to eat anything you like, drink wine, do a very simple exercise, and still achieve the body beautiful. The big secret to French women's svelte figures lies in portions: small, small, small. This is not just a diet book, but also a sensible lifestyle pattern. And Mireille Guiliano's down-to-earth, sexy French-accented voice is an inspiration to all listeners. Includes recipes (best: miracle leek soup) and a candid author interview. M.T.B. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 22, 2004
      Guiliano's approach to healthy living is hardly revolutionary: just last month, the New York Times Magazine
      ran a story on the well-known "French paradox," which finds French people, those wine- guzzling, Brie-noshing, carb-loving folk, to be much thinner and healthier than diet-obsessed Americans. Guiliano, however, isn't so interested in the sociocultural aspects of this oddity. Rather, befitting her status as CEO of Clicquot (as in Veuve Clicquot, the French Champagne house), she cares more about showing how judicious consumption of good food (and good Champagne) can result in a trim figure and a happy life. It's a welcome reprieve from the scores of diet books out there; there's nary a mention of calories, anaerobic energy, glycemic index or any of the other hallmarks of the genre. Instead, Guiliano shares anecdotes about how, as a teen, she returned to her native France from a year studying in Massachusetts looking "like a sack of potatoes," and slimmed down. She did this, of course, by adapting the tenets of French eating: eating three substantial meals a day, consuming smaller portions and lots of fruits and vegetables, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, drinking plenty of water and not depriving herself of treats every once in a while. In other words, Guiliano listened to common sense. Her book, with its amusing asides about her life and work, occasional lapses into French and inspiring recipes (Zucchini Flower Omelet; Salad of Duck à l'Orange) is a stirring reminder of the importance of joie de vivre. (Jan.)

      Forecast:
      Guiliano, a champion of women in business who has been profiled in numerous magazines, will promote the book—with a 100,000-copy first printing—on an 11-city author tour, which should result in plump sales.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 7, 2005
      Is it possible to fill up on chocolate croissants, butter and cheese and remain thin? According to Guiliano, who battled with her own weight after consuming such treats, it isn't, and anyone hoping to hear otherwise will be disappointed, but not surprised, by her commonsense prescription: be active (i.e., take the stairs instead of the elevator), eat three squares a day (always at the table, not on the go), carry a healthy snack for cravings, and take pleasure in the occasional indulgence. With her sophisticated French accent and enticing manner of describing even the healthiest of foods (like unsweetened yogurt, soy nuts and hazelnuts), Guiliano is certainly adept at making her weight-loss philosophy sound good. But in practice, some listeners may have trouble warming up to the wholesome foods that tease her palette. Someone who normally snacks on potato chips might be loathe to switch to soy nuts, and it's easier said than done to eat two bites of a brownie, savor the pleasure of those bites (as Guiliano says a French woman would) and then put the rest of it down. Though Guiliano's asides about her own life are entertaining and the recipe cards included with this audio contain such tempting and healthful treats as Mousse au Chocolat and Pumpkin Pie with Hazelnuts, many listeners may find themselves thinking "been there, tried that" by the end of this audio program. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Forecasts, Nov. 22, 2004).

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