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French Women Don't Get Fat

By: Mireille Guiliano
Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
Categories: Health & Personal Development, Health & Fitness
4.5 out of 5 stars (26 ratings)

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Publisher's Summary

The book we've all (certainly every woman between 25 and 75) been waiting for. Classy, chic, convincing, funny, wise, well-written and very timely. It's the ultimate non-diet book, which nonetheless shows us how to eat with balance, control and above all pleasure.

Chuck out all the radical diet books, think about what you eat and why, and then enjoy eating the right things (and some of the wrong ones) intelligently, and in smaller portions. Eat, like a French woman, with your head not your stomach.

Guiliano, French-born and bred, gets the tone absolutely right. She succeeds in that rare high-wire act of being really serious about her subject but without taking herself too seriously; manages to encourage and inspire and amuse, without being bossy or earnest. This is a book that will make you laugh out loud and yet have you following several of her practical precepts within days - everyone who reads it becomes evangelical (French women don't go to the gym, they climb the stairs-). It combines just the right balance of memoir, wisdom, wit, delicious recipes, and French common sense.

Guiliano emphasizes the virtues of freshness, variety, personal taste, enjoyment and, above all, portion control (research shows that dishes served in US restaurants are 25% larger than those served in restaurants in France!).
©2005 Mireille Guiliano (P)2014 Random House Audiobooks
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Profile Image for ANGELA J PORRITT

Very interesting & inspiring but...

I found this book to be very interesting & inspiring with lots of stories & anecdotes to keep me listening. Listening to the recipes read out loud got a bit dry but mainly because all the measurements were given in pounds which had me constantly trying to convert 1 pound to 453.6, say 454 grams and then to kilograms for the even bigger numbers. At times I'd use 500 grams to simplify the maths but then be wondering by how much I'd overestimated, then realise I'd missed the next couple of sentences and ingredients. In the end I ignored the measurements but I think this took away the impact of some of the stories. At the very least, given the metric system has been the international standard since about 1957 and the US standard since 1997, both imperial & metric values should've been stated. Otherwise good to listen to and I will listen again, though ready to pause with pen & paper in hand.

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Profile Image for Katie

Excellence Philosophy For Living a Beautiful Life

Beautifully read, and refreshingly wonderful to have a woman reader, both the words, philosophy and the voice are music to the ears for every woman. Thoroughly enjoyed reading and listening to this book.

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  • Sometimes I Read
  • 21-04-2014

Disappointing

Any additional comments?

While I didn't really expect any new information, I thought it would be at least interesting or motivating but it was neither. It was also frustrating to listen to the narrator recite phrases in French before or after she said it in English (we get it, you can speak French!). And I lost count if the amount of times the author plugged wine or champagne made by the company she works for. It just sounded like a hard sell. There were also a fair few recipes which doesn't work as an audio book. Disappointing.

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  • lupin666
  • 09-07-2016

Addictive

I lost 6lbs just listening to this book. It's fantastic and the recipes are good also.

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  • pm
  • 17-01-2018

Common sense advice

A lot of helpful common sense advice. There are a number of recipes that can also be found on the author’s website.

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  • Veronica2020
  • 02-11-2019

Back to basics

After reading countess books on nutrition and research and so on I discovered the lovely Mireille who taught me something that I already knew but forgotten, at least the most of it. When I knew close to nothing about nutrition I was so much slimmer and my weight was controlled by small adjustments and intuition. My mum always taught me to eat small but good quality, her motto was” little but good”( she does not held a nutrition degree :)). Mireille reminded me how I should love food again, by miracle I already lost some weight by reintroducing pleasure in my life, yes that’s right. I pulled out my silk gown , had an excellent glass of good quality wine with blue cheese and grapes for pleasure( very important, eat for pleasure) :) as I was cooking the duck breast then finished with high quality chocolate truffles and more wine. Funny , when you eat rich ,high cocoa chocolate you can’t have too much ,Mireille was right.
It’s a must read , not research based more like a “ this is how we French do it”. Thank you Mireille, today I’m making the leek soup to jump start my weight loss.
PS: no longer have to give up sweets , alcohol and carbs . Translation : eat good quality high cocoa chocolate/ champagne , good wine and good quality fresh baked bread...for pleasure ..et voila ❤️❤️

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  • Louise
  • 06-09-2019

Dreadful

I thought this book was utter drivel. Annoyed that I wasted my money on it.

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  • Amanda
  • 09-04-2017

Good advice and good narrator

The advice in the book made me stop and think. She gives tips and ideas which are very easy to put into practice, and there are enough personal anecdotes to make it a pleasant listen.

My only critiques are that the many lovely recipes in the book are tiresome to hear in audiobook format "step two - add salt and mix well...", and unless you are visually impaired this book might be better to read as a paper or digital book. Second, the narrator frequently uses French phrases that she does not translate. Some are commonplace or are cognates and easy to discern for us non French speakers, but I feel I missed some content because of this.