Product Description

She stole the show in the runaway hit The Real Housewives of New York City, but Bethenny Frankel's passion has always been enjoying healthful, natural foods and sharing that love: whether she was cooking for Hollywood A-listers, launching her successful company BethennyBakes, providing delicious recipes to Health, or working with leading lifestyle and food companies.

Naturally Thin shows how anyone can banish their Heavy Habits, embrace Thin Thoughts, and enjoy satisfying meals, snacks, and drinks without the guilt. Armed with Bethenny's rules, readers will say:

• I know when I am really hungry

• When I'm really hungry, I look for high-volume, fiber-rich foods

• I can have any food I want

• I love the taste of real food

With more than thirty simple, delicious recipes (including her famous SkinnyGirl Margarita), a one-week program to jump-start readers on the Naturally Thin lifestyle, and warm, witty encouragement on every page, Frankel serves up a book for a healthier and thinner life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4364 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416597988
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
REVIEW:Best known from reality TV (The Real Housewives of New York City), "natural foods chef" and entrepreneur Frankel wants unhappy dieters to know that everyone is "naturally thin," they've simply got to change some habits and learn "to think like a naturally thin person." The bulk of this self-help is devoted to ten rules, each outlined in a friendly but no-nonsense chapter. Rooted in Frankel's own struggles ("twenty years suffering through diet hell"), her rules include some familiar ideas smartly recast ("Your diet is a bank account" is a personal-finance gloss on "you are what you eat") and each has a couple recipes attached (Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms). Much of her advice, however, boils down to eating less: other chapters look at moderation, mindful eating and portion size, with some helpful guides to measuring and eyeballing (though it's hard to see why "Downsize Now!" and "Cancel Your Membership in the Clean Plate Club" require separate chapters). A detailed 7-day starter plan fills out the volume. Fans of Frankel's televised adventures will likely be charmed by her strong, direct voice, and her brassy self-regard is nicely tempered by a we're-in-this-together camaraderie.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Bethenny Frankel's new book promises -- and delivers -- the ultimate dream of every overweight American: that you can be 'naturally thin' without starvation dieting, exercising like a maniac, taking drugs, or feeling hungry all the time."-- Ellen Kunes, Editor-in-Chief, Health magazine

Review
"Bethenny Frankel's new book promises -- and delivers -- the ultimate dream of every overweight American: that you can be 'naturally thin' without starvation dieting, exercising like a maniac, taking drugs, or feeling hungry all the time."-- Ellen Kunes, Editor-in-Chief, Health magazine

Customer Reviews

Very surprised by all the good reviews
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.

Lots of good tips.
I'm a big Real Housewives fan and I bought this book because of that. I'm glad I did. A lot of it really makes sense too. I know that many people don't agree with a lot of the advice that Bethenny Frankel has to offer, but if it works for her then it'll work for others too. The recipes are also really good. Another great book that I read that has some really good weight loss and maintenance tips in it is Goodbye, Fatty! Hello, Skinny! How I Lost Weight And Still Ate The Foods I Loved-Without Dieting. Like this book, it not only has some really good information, but it's also an entertaining read.

Excellent, Intelligent, FUN!
Ok, so I know Frankel metions in this book that you won't neccessarily lose weight super fast with her program....but I must share that I've been reading it for two days and I'm only on chapter 5 but I've already lost three pounds. This has been a factor that has made me realize what a pig I have been! I have often thought to myself it's a wonder I don't weigh more because of the way I eat! Umm HELLO what a stupid thought. The 10 pounds a year I was gaining should have been a wake up call....but no. I was the girl who was always done eating first, shoveling into my mouth without thinking. My plate would be empty and I didn't even remember eating, so I'd just reach for more. If I was bored, happy, sad, tired, out with friends, lounging, going working, whatever I was doing I was eating. If I let myself get hungry I would really over do it. I was out eating my husband.

But now I'm changing. Yes, this book is commons sense, but Frankel puts it all in order to make it easy for you to make better use of your own common sense. Her annalogies and cleaver "rules" make it so much easier to "Check yourself before you wreck yourself" as she says. Here's an example of how my eating has changed.

I work late on Friday nights closing down the gym I work at (yes I am the chubby girl who works in a gym which is embarrasing itself). I close the place late Friday night and have to open it back up early Saturday morning. I never give myself time to make breakfast in the morning, so it's my routine to drive through Tim Hortins and order their biggest sugar filled cappucino and bagel with cream cheese. I would usually down it all about 5 minutes, feel miserably full for 2 hours, then the hunger would come back. This week, I bought my usuall breakfast (except the smallest cap. this time), but I sat down to concentrate on my eating and use Frankel's methods. As a result I ate about 25% of what I usually would, eating only a quarter of the bagel and drinking a few sips of the cappucino. I felt satisfied and I knew that if the hunger came back I could have a few more bites of my breakfast, I wrapped it all back up and ended up giving it to a co-worker because the hunger did not come back!

I feel great. Before, I would leave the table three times a day feeling bloated and tierd for hours, untill the next meal came so that I could do it all again. Now I feel light and full of energy....I really feel like I'm thinking like a Naturally Thin person and I fully intend on sending Frankel a thank you letter for finally telling me that it's ok that I'm a pig on the outide because my inner skinny girl was just waiting for someone to help her unleash!!