French Women Don't Get Fat

The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

By: Mireille Guiliano

Narrated by: Kathe Mazur

Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

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 6-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 21st 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?

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2004 Mireille Guiliano (P)2005 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"It's hard not to be enlivened by a [weight-control] book that celebrates both chocolate and bread, and espouses such wisdom as 'Life without pasta? Perish the thought'. (The Washington Post Book World)

“The perfect book for the more literate dieter...A blueprint for building a healthy attitude toward food and exercise...Full of down-to earth advice...We’d all be thinner (and happier) if we followed it.” (Miriam Wolf, San Francisco Chronicle)

"A common sense diet based on both restraint and simple exercise, Guiliano's diet stresses that food consumption ought to be deliberate and pleasurable and done always sitting at table with appropriate napery." (Booklist)

Great book!

I very much enjoyed this just as a book and easy listening. I enjoyed he author, the stories and the orator.
Will be listening again

Nice point of view

Liked book. It has lots of recommendations. Nice point of view.
Gives tips how to enjoy life healthy.

I would recommend it to women. Excellent book :)

Absolutely Wonderful Read

The book was very well read. The advise was so good! I would say it is life changing if you aren’t lazy and actually take the advise given . I can already see the weight loss beginning.

Fantastic!

My daughter quit dieting after she read this book, and lost 20 pounds in about 3 months. She's still losing weight (after 3 kids, this is no mean feat). But she never misses a meal and eats great food, all without dieting. This is not a diet book. This is not a book all about recipes (even though it does include a few). This a beautifully wrtten (and beautifully read) guide on re-thinking your whole relationship with food, how to find your "equilibrium." It has changed her life, and it is changing mine now (and I'm 68!).

Excellent lifestyle how-to

I loved this book! I am a big fan of French culture, and I think their way of life is something that everyone should incorporate into their own. I completely agree with her approach to lifestyle versus diet and enjoying pleasures in life, but balancing moderation, and focusing on quality. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is frustrated with dieting, so they can see how a lifestyle can be created instead of just following something very restrictive which most diets are. I found myself in agreement with all of her concepts, and learned lots of great tips and tricks to incorporate into my own life and to share with others. I’m looking forward to reading her other books.

One of my favorite books

There is so much good information. I even bought the book. I absolutely love it.

Enjoyable

I enjoyed some things and others I felt could have been left out, but for the most part the book was enjoyable. It was also somewhat informative.

Much Better in Paperback Format

I read this book when it first came out and wanted a reread, but I prefer audio books to paperback. I really enjoyed the parts that read like a book, but listening to someone read recipe after recipe was very boring. The PDF included is lacking many of the recipes that were in the middle of the book. The advice and story telling is great, but get this in paperback if you can.

Enhance your appreciation of food

This is a wonderful book. Although the title sounds like it's about weight issues, it touches on something much more delightful! It describes food in a way that gives you a new appreciation for it, and helps you to see food through French eyes. Who would have thought that selecting fruit specifically for the day that you want to eat it can make a difference in flavor? Or that fish is a seasonal food? Listen in to explore a new world of sublime tastes!

Enjoyed

My older sister did a book report on French Women Don’t Get Fat in high school and I became curious after seeing her teacher’s (off again on again keto type dieter) furrowed expression. I enjoyed the book. It was a quick listen and a lot of the strategies the author made are ones I’ve applied to my own eating habits to help me manage my weight. I don’t think the author comes off as being condescending, she is very proud of her heritage and excited to share the cultural take on food the French has to offer.