French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

Pregnancy weight gain is hard to bounce back from. At least, that is my experience, and I've heard it's other people's experience as well (the women in my community don't seem to have a problem with it. Maybe there should be a sequel to this book called Women in LA Don't Get Fat, Either). 10 months and a 9.5 lb delivery later, I'm still looking for answers, and French Women Don't Get Fat appealed to me on three levels: 1) Weight loss. 2) France 3) Supposedly you still get to eat things other than low carb wraps, vegetable juices, and celery. Could it be true?! Well, ask me in six months, I guess. While I haven't been at it long enough to know whether Guiliano's philosophies are effective, I do think her ideas are sound and well worth a try.

After all, she did start her analyses on why French women seem to stay thin so much better than American women after a study abroad left her 30 pounds heavier and looking like "a sack of potatoes," as her father charmingly stated it when picking her up from the airport. Her pastry devouring while at the Sorbonne didn't help matters until her mother discreetly set up an appointment with a "Dr. Miracle" who prescribed a weight loss program that worked, and that Guiliano shares in her book.

The basic form is that you take inventory by writing everything down and noting patterns of when and what you overeat; have a "Magical Leek Weekend" where all you eat is leek soup, and then spend three months "recasting" -- being stricter than you ordinarily would but knowing that at the end of it you can slowly add in the things you love -- in small doses -- and keep losing your weight. She also stresses the importance of variety -- eating a little bit of a lot of things -- and not restricting yourself overmuch.

I agreed with most of Guiliano's philosophies. Her descriptions of how French food and ingredients are better in every way might have annoyed me, except for the fact that I've experienced it firsthand and it's true. Also, the two months I spent in Paris were spent eating the richest, sugariest, fattiest food imaginable and I lost weight. She includes recipes as well. I did find myself skimming much of this portion of the book but it would be nice to have for reference in the future.

She doesn't have any research other than her own anecdotal experience and that of a few other women, and she can be pretty blunt, but I still thought French Women Don't Get Fat had a lot of good ideas, the crowning one being that food is good and you should feel good about eating it -- and you can, as long as you learn how to use restraint. Check back with me in six months and ask me if it worked.

4 stars

Warnings: None