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| |  | Spa Products | Home » » Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting | | | | | | | 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: | | | Author:
| Bethenny Frankel | | Paperback:
| 304 pages | | Publisher:
| Touchstone | | Publication Date:
| March 10, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1416597980 | | Product Length:
| 9.21 inches | | Product Width:
| 6.07 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.84 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.73 pounds | | Package Length:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.1 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.1 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.75 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 327 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 327 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1107 of 1371 found the following review helpful:
 Very surprised by all the good reviewsApr 04, 2009
By Laura I
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.
46 of 54 found the following review helpful:
 Save your ten bucksApr 26, 2011
By Florida Fridge
Save your ten dollars. Here is the book in a nutshell. Eat whatever you want as long as you don't go over 800 calories a day...drink water...exercise as much as you can...DO NOT call it dieting. There you go...you are free!!! After all it is only food.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Good advice, but do as she says, not as she doesOct 04, 2011
By Deanna in Cali
"DJ"
There are a lot of negative reviews about this book, throwing out the A Word [anorexia], and full of people making a big stink about how Bethanny advises people take just a few bites of food. But here's the thing: if you want to lose weight, you basically have to decide what you want to sacrifice - quality or quantity.
By that I mean you can either choose to eat lots/large quantities of food, but it has to be low-cal healthy stuff [veggies, air-popped popcorn, fat free dairy, lean protein, nothing fried/sweetened/fatty, etc.]. In this case, you're sacrificing quality - meaning you're limiting (or eliminating) richer, tastier foods in favor of getting to eat more. This plan is great for those who like to consume in bulk.
The other option is to sacrifice quantity [this is the route Bethanny seems to advocate], meaning you can eat whatever you want, but must stick to small portions. I've observed that this is actually how most of my thin friends eat/drink. I used be jealous because they appeared to be able to eat whatever they want (and they do), but the difference is they stop when they're full (what a CRAZY concept, right?) and they're never the ones to have that second piece of pizza/cake/fried chicken.
All that to say, you can moan and complain all you want about Bethanny's portion-minded way of indulging but I guarantee that you will never find a weight loss book that's going to tell you that you can eat whatever you want, as much as you want because it simply can't be done.
Getting back to the book itself . . .
Pros:
-Encourages you to indulge in the foods you want (in moderation). This is key. Deprevation almost ALWAYS backfires when it comes to weight loss/dieting. As I always say "Woman shall not live on rice cakes alone".
- Requires you to eat mindfully. Years of dieting can cause people to forget how to listen to their bodies. Getting re-familiar with hunger and fullness is important and can help you eat the proper amount of calories for YOUR body, as opposed to how much your friends/husband/kid/neighbor eats.
- Bethanny shows you a sample of what she eats in a given week/weeks. It's a good example of a balance of healthy foods and less healthy ones.
- There is freedom is not being on a "diet" and not having to cut out any food altogether.
Cons:
- For those of us who have struggled with our weight for years, and especially people like me who battle binge eating, the concept of having say, 3 bites of a brownie is almost laughable. After all, if we had the restraint and discipline to stop at a half a bagel, we probably woulnd't be heavy to begin with. I imagine leaving some (or most!) of your food on the plate is something that would require LOTS of practice.
- She oversimplfies the impact of emotional eating and throws out only one brief sentence about getting professional help if you binge eat. This is CRUCIAL because if you are not in a sound place emotionally and psychologcially, all the other advice in the book becomes a moot point. It's almost impossible to take a balanced approach to eating if you're a wreck on the inside.
- This was the biggie for me, and the main reason [I think] why people cry anorexia over this book: Bethanny's food journal. While it's a good mix of healthier foods and treat foods, she doesn't eat anywhere CLOSE to a healthy amount of calories for a grown woman. My three year old neice quite likely consumes more calories than Bethanny does. Now I'm sure being in the public eye means that Bethanny is under pressure to be a few sizes smaller than the average [healthy] woman because well, thin is in, and the camera adds ten pounds. But the average woman reading this book is likely not an aspiring reality star, model or actress and doesn't need to subsist on merely the amount of food that falls off the table at a small dinner party.
My advice/verdict/summary? Fill up on healthy food, top it off with a few bites of the more indulgent stuff, be active as much as your schedule allows, and seek help if your emotions are getting in the way of making better choices for your body.
26 of 31 found the following review helpful:
 Fabulous!May 07, 2009
By Alex Reads
"Alex"
Loving this book! Previous reviewers have said the book is about anorexia...not sure where anyone got this, obviously they did not read the whole chapter, let alone the book. This book is all about, "have your cake and eat it too"! I think some reviews have misrepresented the book in the anorexic accusation, where Bethany writes to not deny yourself of anything, but just have one or two bites. She isn't suggesting this for all foods, just the more decadent and fatty foods. Go ahead have a whole chicken breast, but instead of the whole cheesecake, have only a few bites until you satisfy the craving. This book is not about deprivation, it is about moderation, and what a refreshing book it is! Great common sense concepts, who knew being "naturally thin" could be so simple? We all tend to complicate things, this book gives you the tools to turn your life around. I am already down 4 lbs, and very optimistic that the tools I have learned from this book will be life altering! No more Dieting!
37 of 47 found the following review helpful:
Good advice, if not precise enough for weight lossJan 08, 2010
By Tigger
"kkegley"
Since losing my own weight I rarely look at diet books anymore, so I'm not sure what drew me to this one, although it might have been the title. I've never thought of myself as "naturally" thin, so I think I was intrigued by the idea that there might be effective strategies I could add to my arsenal of healthy weight maintenance tools. I was right, and there was so much more. This book has been an inspiration and a revelation for me. Everyone assumes that because I'm thin now I must not have any food issues, but that's not true. I wouldn't have been overweight to begin with if I didn't have issues, and while my journey of losing weight went a long way towards resolving some of those, there were some ways in which I traded one unhealthy compulsion with another. I grew to fear certain foods - anything I viewed as "bad" - and was developing an unhealthy way of seeing food as an enemy, whereas in the past, I went to the other extreme and viewed it as a friend - eating for solace, etc. Both views are wrong, of course. Food is not your enemy OR your friend; it's just food. Sounds like a no-brainer, but it's amazing how much psychology plays a role in how and what we eat, and we're not even conscious of its influence most of the time. I was making myself unhappy with my food anxieties, under-eating, over-exercising and obsessing, and it was time to reassess what was going on in my head.
I should mention that this is a review of both the book, Naturally Thin, and the companion audiobook, Skinny Girl Rules. I spotted the book in the bookstore, paged through it, and ended up speed-reading almost the entire thing right there in the store (I'm sure the author and the store would have preferred I buy it!) I did buy the audiobook, though, and downloaded it to the iPod. I've listened to it about 4 times already. It's precisely the same as the book, word for word, just without the sample menu plans and recipes that comprise a third of the written version.
One thing Frankel stresses is that we're all naturally thin, because natural thinness - i.e., healthiness (the word "thin" has some negative associations, I think, so I prefer `healthy', `slim' or `slender') - is not so much genetic as it is a frame of mind, and a way of living your life. "I don't care what your mother, sister or grandmother looks like," she says . "It doesn't matter." I wouldn't have agreed with that before losing weight myself, but I do now, for the most part. Genetics do play some part in our height, body type and frame, but it plays a much lesser role than we think when it comes to fat and pounds, and there's no excuse for blaming your weight on bad genes (as I used to). She outlines 10 basic "rules" such as "your diet is a bank account", "you can have it all, just not all at once" and others that sound shamefully basic and unimpressive at first blush, but really flesh out and become epiphanies when she drills it down and you start to re-program your own mind. That's exactly what she says she did, and what she wants other women to do - re-program themselves into the "naturally thin" women we incorrectly think only certain people are blessed enough to be.
There are a few points I disagree with, primarily the issue of calorie-counting, which she advises against. I am whole-heartedly supportive of calorie counting when you're trying to lose weight. You don't have to, but it's important to at least understand that it will always come down to calories, whether you count them or not, and if you want to make absolutely sure you're eating the right amount, calorie counting - at least for a while until you get a feel for what different foods `cost' - is essential for knowing you're getting it right.
Overall, however, I think this is one of the best `diet' books I've ever read, and I put quotes around the word because it's all about not dieting, or at least not viewing it that way - as some sort of restrictive, punitive lifestyle. I have no weight to lose anymore and have kept my weight off for several years now, yet this book showed me that I had more to learn about myself, our culture, and food. Frankel's fresh, innovative viewpoint has been immensely helpful for me, so I can just imagine what it will do for anyone who does want to lose weight. Definitely recommended.
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