Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting -Review
Naturally Thin is authored by Bethenny Frankel, one of Bravo television's "Real Housewives of New York", and she is, of course, a skinny girl. She's also a professional natural foods chef, and she's capitalized on her RHNY fame to launch this book. Unsurprisingly, she advocates a primarily vegetarian diet of raw foods, local organic produce and "foods you can pronounce". If you've watched the show you may find her (and the other Housewives)....rather, difficult to relate to...but Bethenny's diet and nutrition advice does hold some universal truths and universal appeal. A sample:
The 10 golden rules for being naturally thin:
- Your diet is a bank account - balance your daily calories like you balance your checkbook. [Ed. note: This is great advice.]
- You can have it all - just not all at once.
- Taste everything, eat nothing - meaning share food, eat small bites.
- Pay attention - say no to mindless eating.
- Downsize your portions.
- Cancel your membership in the Clean Plate Club.
- Check yourself before you wreck yourself - stop emotional and binge eating.
- Know thyself - know your trigger foods.
- Get real - eat more whole foods, fewer processed ones.
- Food is not the enemy - make peace with food.
Bethenny states that this is not a "diet" book per se, but more a management guide. Her philosophy is freedom from obsessing and deprivation when it comes to food - and affirmation that you can enjoy food and drink while still keeping your weight down.
In the book you'll find guidance on recognizing real hunger (as opposed to boredom hunger, stress hunger, etc.), on recognizing when you should indulge your cravings, and the importance of never finishing everything on your plate. She also grants the permission slip to break the rules every once in a while - so long as you get right back on the bus the next day. Bethenny uses her professional platform to instruct on choosing high fiber (filling) foods, on the importance of low calorie veggies as the key component of your diet, along with smaller amounts of fruits, whole grains, meats, and proteins. No foods are off limits - alcohol and candy bars are even permitted - so long as they are reasonable choices (no pina colada's, for example) and consumed in moderation. She uses the "differential" concept of food choices – balancing indulgences with calorie cutting. "Differential" choices would be swapping yogurt butter for real butter, turkey sausage for hot dogs, turkey bacon for real bacon, etc. And if you absolutely have to have the real thing: Cut back your portion. Bethenny's trick for having it all is tapas-style small plates, tastes and bites, as opposed to full-on meals.
Her tone is "girlfriend-style", and she details a week's worth of her typical diet and an explanation of her choices. Her "Bethenny Bytes" are tips and tricks for meals at home, dining out, snacking and managing cravings. She provides recipes (including her Skinny Margarita, featured on RHNY), and examples of how to go about incorporating her 10 rules into your daily life. As to exercise - while Bethenny herself looks like a zealous gym devotee, in her book she recommends merely being active on a regular basis, and trying to find something you enjoy - walking, yoga, whatever.
From a diet and nutrition point of view, there is nothing really new here. A primarily vegetarian, whole foods diet with strict portion control is standard information. Will you lose weight following this plan? Probably. Will you be able to adhere to this plan for the long term? That's a more difficult question. Bethenny is single with no kids - managing a tapas-style tastes and bites eating regimen is significantly easier when you're only responsible for feeding yourself. Still, we like Bethenny's philosophy of enjoying food and drink healthily and sensibly - demonizing and banning foods is a sure-fire path to falling off of the wagon. It's all about checks and balances - which is why we like her "diet as a bank account" analogy so much. There are some very useful tips and some good recipes here, along with a good amount of common sense.