Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting

I felt very conflicted by this book. A lot of the advice was the sound advice that you've already read in all those women's magazine and seen on TV. You know, things like "calories in need to equal calories out", and try to eat a balanced diet, etc. Then the rest of the book teaches you neurotic, eating disordered behaviors.

Bethenny talks about how you shouldn't have to settle for a filling, healthy meal, when what you really want is a steak. Go ahead and order the steak, BUT you can only have 3 bites. Yep, 3 bites, she repeats that over and over again through the book. I don't know how you're supposed to live off of 3 bites. I can just imagine how concerned my friends and family would be if they saw me ordering food and then only have 3 bites. So what do you do with the rest of your food? You either A) throw it away B) pawn it off on your dinner companions or C) take it home and make your kids eat it. Frankly, I know a woman like this and I dread being around her whenever food is involved. She's constantly trying to pass off her food on everyone, including drinks (which Bethenny recommends). It's one thing if I'm like, "wow, that looks good", but I've never shown any interest in her meal. If I wanted to eat it, I would have ordered it! Then, if she does try to get some bland healthy meal, she stares at what I ordered, and begs for some. It's rude, annoying, and I hate going out to eat with her.

Next, Bethenny talks alot how when you're on a "diet" you act neurotic about food and obsess. Then she gives tips like, never eat a whole bagel, take half a bagel and then pull the bread out of it and eat only the crust. Same goes for english muffins. It also annoys me that she says repeatedly that she learned these eating habits from living in Italy. I'm a thin Italian woman and I EAT food.

Well, I guess if you ever wondered how these celebrities stay so thin, this book is the harsh reality. She gives a list of what she ate for 3 weeks as an example of how she lives. Here's one of the days: breakfast was 1/2 cup of coffee (couldn't possibly drink a whole cup!) and half of a egg white veggie omelet. Lunch was miso soup, glass of chardonnay, 2 prawns, and arugula salad with mushrooms. Dinner was a medium greek salad, a "skinnygirl" margarita, a couple chips with a small scoop of guacamole and roasted vegetables. Snack was a small handful of blueberry granola and almonds. I added that up to about 778 calories, and it's probably less than that since she never actually finishes food. Keep in mind she also exercises quite a bit.

While some of the advice in this book is solid, like "sit down to eat, eat slowly", the rest is actually quite unhealthy and eating disordered. Maybe Bethenny is confusing "naturally thin girls" with anorexics.

The End of Overeating

Many of us have difficulty controlling our weight. Usually we have assumed that it was due either to something we couldn't control, such as our metabolism, or a total lack of self-control. This book shows how it is really a middle-ground between the two extremes.

First, the author effectively dismisses the myth of the "metabolism" or "big boned" excuses that many of us use to excuse our over-eating. He shows that it is really a matter of calorie intake that is the root of our weight problems.

Second, he shows how the food industry has engineered food that is overloaded with excessive calories and is designed to promote overeating in their insatiable drive for excessive profits. Through the use of multiple layers of salt, fat and sugar, they create foods designed to trigger the pleasure centers of our brains, releasing opioids that cause us to lose control and overeat.

Finally, he shows how we can harness control over our eating by avoiding certain foods and by devising a planned response to food advertising and the presence of enticing foods, similar to the methodology employed by alcoholics to control their drinking. While we are not to blame for our susceptibility to the stimulus of enticing food and food advertising, we do have a choice as to how to react to the stimulus.

This book has helped me gain some control over my eating habits and has caused me to view television advertisements for restaurants and foods in a new light. Even the ads for Nutrisystem are designed to stimulate overeating! Unlike alcohol and other drugs, we need food to survive, so we have to learn how to deal with these issues and consume the right foods in moderation, avoiding both the wrong foods and overeating. This book is a great help in that quest. Knowing WHY we do something is half the battle and helps us control our reactions to the stimuli.

Ironically, this book made me think twice about my personal opposition to our nation's drug laws, both for legal (alcohol and tobacco) and illegal (marijuana, etc.) drugs. Seeing what a health problem has been created in this country by corporations engineering foods for maximum profits, I can only imagine the problems they would create if allowed to manufacture and sell drugs without any controls.

Winning by Losing: Drop the Weight, Change Your Life

I have to admit--I've watched both seasons of The Biggest Loser and Bob has always been my favorite of the two trainers. So, when I saw Jillian's book, I was hesitant at first about whether I wanted to buy it. However, I just finished reading it today and I have to say that I am impressed. She provides a lot of helpful information both on the eating side and on the exercise side. She has tests or formulas to help you--such as the test that tells you whether you are a slow, fast or balanced oxidizer...she explains how to determine your maximum heart rate so you can work out at the correct intensity, etc. I must say I was quite surprised to see that there is only an hour of cardio (really only 50 minutes once you factor in warm up and cool down) a week in her plan. This surprised me because, watching the show for two seasons, you always see the contestants struggling and sweating on the bike, elliptical or treadmill doing cardio. Granted, Jillian's way of doing weight/resistance training will get you sweating as well! I thought the book was strong and impressive overall. My only disappointment was in the first third or so of the book. I thought that some subjects such as emotional eating were ridiculously over-simplified and given short shrift. The message I took away from some of these chapters was "OKay, now I've explained in a page and a half why you shouldn't do that, so just get over it now, mmmkay?" I understand that no book is going to be able to cure emotional eating in a chapter, but I would have rather she admitted that she didn't have time or experience to cover it fully and perhaps suggest some additional reading rather than go with the "POOF! You're cured!" approach. One of her real strengths is to be able to explain some rather complicated concepts about how the body metabolizes food or how the muscles work and make it readily understandable. Her book could have easily veered into the too-scientific, but it didn't. It was like sitting and having someone give you the heart-to-heart talk you know you need but have been scared to hear. Yea, she's tough, but she obviously cares as well.

Master Your Metabolism: The 3 Diet Secrets to Naturally Balancing Your Hormones for a Hot and Healthy Body

Let me begin by saying I'm a big Jillian fan. I listen to her weekly radio show and watch her faithfully on TBL. That being said, I'm not "gullible" enough to believe 100% of what anyone says without checking it out first. What's good about MYM is Jillian's frank discussion about the hormone disruptors we have injected into our daily lives. Kind of a scary wake up call. She ought to be commended for her attempt to take a rather scientifically complicated topic and trying to present it in a readable manner. This is NOT easy to do, and she does a pretty good job of it. People who complain about the book being "dry" because of the science aren't appreciating the efforts Jillian has taken to give her book credibility. Instead of making a bunch of wild generalizations, she is attempting to present the information in a responsible way. I would have like to have seen, however, more specific citations of the scientific studies she used to support her arguments. As it stands, there are too many vague references along the lines of, "One European study a few years ago suggested..." Such generalities don't allow for verification, to see if Jillian used the research properly and in its original context. I know that not everyone would be interested in this, but listing specific studies could help to establish the book's credibility in a more forceful manner. The citations could have unobtrusively been included as endnotes in the back. Personally, I don't know enough about the science and politics behind organic farming to know whether it's truly safer than conventional farming. On the surface, that claim sounds true, but I simply don't know enough to know whether or not it actually IS true. So it's an issue that I need to look into further. In spite of these slight criticisms, I definitely recommend Jillian's book. If all you get out of it is to cut out products that contain high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils (and don't be fooled by those labels that say "0 Trans Fats); read the ingredients!), enriched flour, and artificial sweeteners, then you'll be WAY ahead of the curve.

Eat This Not That Supermarket Survival Guide

If you enjoyed the last Eat This, Not That then wait till you get your hands on this one. The last guide was great, but when you don't eat out often there are only so many times you can use it. Everyone goes to the grocery store so the information in this guide is indispensable. It's amazing the items you will find on the Not That side. Many of which, seem like they would be the healthy choice. Not so! The Barilla Plus pasta I was so thrilled to have switched to? On the Not That side. You'll also find many wheat breads, "healthy" cereals, granola bars, etc... It would be hard for me to say enough great things about this book. My girlfriend and I LOVE it and we will never again go shopping without it. It plainly helps you see what you should be getting and all the things that need to be avoided. This is a guide real people can use. We all like to indulge and have our treats, but do we have to waste 400 calories on mint chocolate chip when there is another non diet brand for 150? It just makes sense. My favorite features include: The salad bar decoder, The fruit/veggie guide and the sandwich maker. Somehow they make mayo sound like a disgusting addition to a great hoagie when before it was what I always used. My only complaint is the meat decoder matrix thing. I can't quite understand what those ratings mean. (If you know please feel free to leave a comment. I would much appreciate it.) Also I was a little sad seeing the rabbit listed as a great protein when I have two live rabbits hoping around me. Then, that is just personal opinion and people have the right to eat what they want. Neither of those things effect the 5 star rating for me though. This book is endlessly fascinating. I keep picking it up and exclaiming things to my other half and she does the same whenever she picks it up. This guide is going to have a very positive effect on what we eat and how we shop.
Examples of this part of the book. For instance, pages 176-177 feature corn chips. The conclusion, if one chooses to get some corn chips, is to purchase and eat products like Snyder's of Hanover Multigrain (130 calories, 5 grams of fat [0 grams of saturated fat], 110 milligrams of sodium) and not those like Frito's Original Corn Chips (160 calories, 10 grams of fat [1.5 grams of saturated fat], and 160 mg of sodium). Or take frozen pizzas, if you must. Think in terms of buying Palermo's Primo Thin Margherita (260 calories, 12 grams of fat [5 grams of which is saturated], and 520 mg of sodium)--not DiGiorno's Traditional Crust Pepperoni (770 calories, 35 grams of fat [14 grams saturated], and 1430 mg of sodium). Some of the comparisons as those above are quite stunning, and suggest that doing some decision-making at the store can have nutritional consequences. Some interesting features--Survival guide for supermarket tips (pages 2-9), including a depressing check of stated calories per serving on the package and what the book says are the real calories per serving. the 20 worst packaged foods for a person in the country (e.g., Haagen-Dazs chocolate peanut butter ice cream; the book suggests purchasing Edy's slow churned peanut butter cup ice cream instead), tips on which produce to purchase for nutritional kick, "making sense of meat," tips on snacking, and so on. But, in the final analysis, it is the tips on which are the best and which the worst, in terms of nutrition, products in a variety of food categories. This book provides a nice service along those lines. I had thought that this would not be particularly useful when I ordered it (one look at the wild and wacky cover illustrates one reason for my pessimism), but I am happy to say that my doubts were not realized.