The Fat Fallacy : Applying the French Diet to the American Lifestyle [Hardcover]

Will Clower (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2001

The Fat Fallacy shows us not only why the Mediterranean diet makes them thinner and healthier than us, it also tells us how to make that successful and sumptuous diet work in our hurried and harried American lives.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

After living in beautiful France for almost two years, everyone in my family (except the cats) lost weight. Then I came home to see, as if for the first time, all the bizarre food products and chemicals people consume to handle their weight and health. But an entire culture of people, 60 million of them, are not dieting, are not over weight, and eat the most delicious food in the world.

My point if view is very straightforward. If we do what they do, we'll get their results. I wrote The Fat Fallacy to tell the scientific why and wherefore of the French diet, but also to let us use their diet at a model so we can get their successful, sumptuous results.

The rapid popularity of this work, I think, reflects the refreshing simplicity that French people apply naturally to their lives. Americans are so weary of the draconian dietary measures and complicated calculations we've become used to. The solution is to take a step back, find a culture whose habits of healthy eating PRODUCE low weight, healthy hearts, and longer lives -- then just do that!

Thanks for trying The Fat Fallacy, and please let me know how you like it at [e-mail]!

From the Inside Flap

We know the French are thin. We know they eat exquisite foods, live longer than us, and yet don’t have our desperate troubles with weight and heart disease. The Fat Fallacy makes a very basic point: the same diet that keeps them thin can work for us just as well.

At the heart of this delightful, entertaining narrative is a core observation – fat free diets have failed us. Americans have dutifully followed this dietary dogma, only to see the obesity epidemic explode before our eyes.

In The Fat Fallacy, Dr. Clower explains why we need not be locked into the failing strategies of the fat free theories. He serves up a long overdue treat of common sense that reintroduces enjoyment and satisfaction as the very goal of eating. More importantly, he provides easy to follow, practical guidelines to apply the French diet in our hurried and harried American life.

· In clear, everyday language, he explains the swamp of nutritionist controversies, and the science behind the success of the sumptuous French diet.

· He equips us to apply the French diet to lose weight, reduce our risk of heart disease and, in the process, develop a better relationship with our food.

· The Fat Fallacy educates us on the importance of eating real foods, not Faux-Foods, and how to tell the difference.

· Dr. Clower offers delicious recipes tailored to the busy family. These include both elegant, easy-to-prepare weeknight meals as well as weekend cooking sprees that take a bit more time – but are well worth the wait.

· He encourages us to give the family meal the importance it deserves, and abandon the distractions that trivialize our food and lead to overeating.

This refreshing book makes the French diet accessible to everyone – no more counting calories, measuring portions, or popping magical diet pills. More to the heart of the matter, The Fat Fallacy diet is a joy to start and easy to maintain. The result is a healthier, thinner and more satisfying life for ourselves and our children. It is the last diet you’ll ever need.

Bon Appetit!!

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Perusal Press; First edition. edition (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 097091380X
• ISBN-13: 978-0970913807
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #916,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

138 of 143 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worked for me!, January 2, 2005

By 

Online Shopaholic (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fat Fallacy: The French Diet Secrets to Permanent Weight Loss (Paperback)

I first spotted The Fat Fallacy in a bookstore at a time when I was feeling frustrated at not being able to shed those last 10 pounds after months of exercising more regularly than I ever had before and trying to eat low-fat. I was intrigued by the idea that I could eat foods I love - cheese, full-fat premium ice cream, and chocolate - all while losing weight.

It sounded almost too good to be true, but I'd seen firsthand from a trip to Paris that the French ate very differently from us yet stayed thin. Also, many of Will Clower's comments made a lot of sense intuitively. I decided to give it a try, hoping for the best, but promising to stop if it caused me to gain weight instead.

I tossed out the skim milk, "low-fat" cheese, and processed foods containing high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and other artificial ingredients (you'd be amazed how many things include them!). To refill my pantry and refrigerator, I bought cream-top yogurt, whole milk, cheese, freshly baked french bread, good olive oil, high-quality dark chocolate, fresh vegetables, etc. I loved eating the new foods, found I didn't need to eat as much as before to feel satisfied, and was amazed at how quickly I saw the pounds start coming off.

Within just over a month of making the changes, I had lost the 10 pounds I'd been struggling with. Another 5 pounds that I wasn't even trying to lose came off in the following month, leaving me happily surprised to have dropped 3 clothing sizes. Wow! It's so wonderful to be able to enjoy food without guilt, and to be happy with my body at the same time!

I've since bought several copies of The Fat Fallacy to share with friends and family who've expressed interest. I'm always happy to be able to tell people about this book, as it encourages a healthy lifestyle rather than a "diet". It's definitely worth reading, and the recommendations seem so much healthier than some of today's trendier diets. Hope you'll read it and get as much out of it as I did!

146 of 157 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could This Be America's Weight-Loss Solution?, March 26, 2004

By 

Chris Frost (Ingalls, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fat Fallacy : Applying the French Diet to the American Lifestyle (Hardcover)

The Fat Fallacy is a refreshing new way (or rather old way) of looking at food. In our search for the quick-fix weight-loss solution, we have basically abandoned food and learned to embrace a diet of generally non-edible chemicals that have been dressed to resemble food. This becomes apparent at the end of every chapter, where there is a "faux-foods" quiz, which lists the ingredients of a common food substance and dares you to identify it. I only got one right, and wondered why I've been eating all this stuff. His advice is grounded in common sense - "if it ain't food, don't eat it" - and is actually quite easy to follow. How much time do Americans spend obsessing about how many carbs or sugars or fat grams are in their "food"? And when was the last time an American actually ENJOYED one of these low-fat, low-carb, low-sugar, low-taste, low-nutrition meals? The basic idea behind this "diet" is that Americans are fat because they eat too much. We keep getting fatter in spite of all the diet "foods" we eat. The human body doesn't get the nutrition it needs from this chemical soup, so it remains hungry until it gets some kind of real food. This is the typical binge. It's really quiet disgusting if you think about how much we eat. But in The Fat Fallacy, we are shown how to choose real food and enjoy it, all the while losing weight. How? When your body actually gets the nutrients it needs, it stops telling you that it's hungry, and that's when you stop eating. Pretty simple stuff. No agonizing over what frozen-food item has less fat or less carbs, no more choking down those tasteless food-sticks, no more disgusting eating habits. Our bodies need food. Be nice to your body and give it some.

343 of 378 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Reader, March 4, 2005

By 

CLL (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fat Fallacy: The French Diet Secrets to Permanent Weight Loss (Paperback)

You sort of get the feeling that he's bottling tap water and trying to make millions off of it. I'm sure he's a very nice person, but there is nothing that qualifies him to write a diet book regarding the French lifestyle, save his two years in France. Basically, if you Google "french diet" or "French paradox," the various articles and such, including ones mentioning W.Clowers, will tell you what you need to know about the French Paradox. Also, read all the reviews on this site, you'll learn everything you need to know about the book without buying it. Though this book is almost 300 pages in length, you could capture the formula he sets forth in a one-paged pamphlet. There are 2 things to keep in mind: (1) the way you eat; and (2) what you eat. (1) Way: Basically, three square meals of real, unprocessed food and no snacks. (NOTHING processed, not even light butter or aspartame or corn syrup, etc.) Eating slowly is most important, small bites of delicious foods, chew slowly, put fork down between bites. Sips of water and red wine between bites. Enjoy and try to eat in several courses. (2) What: Fruits, veggies, whole grains of course. But most importantly, the French believe that dairy (whole milks, whole cheese, whole yogurt, real butter) and dairy fat, vegetable fat (olive oil), and fat from ducks and geese are healthy; not healthy are fats from animal tissue, i.e., beef fat and pork. Lots of red wine, coffee, and small amounts of dark chocolate. Have red wine w/ your meal, and a small strong coffee and chocolate after Lunch and Dinner. Also, walk everywhere, make exercise an organic part of your life. I got all this off of Google searches and so his book wasn't any more informative. Pretty basic and it works b/c, miraculously, all that dairy fat deliciously and effectively kills your appetite and you're (I'm) not thinking about food constantly. Basically, print out this review, and apply those steps with a better guide book, such as French Women Don't Get Fat or Joie de Vivre (written by a French restrauteur living in America), which explains especially well the French way of eating. W.Clowers seems like a really nice person, but his writing is boring and sort of meanders all over the place. (He's a scientist, not a writer.) And one can't escape the feeling that he's really trying to make millions, especially in light of his website and future book projects and ridiculous chocolate eating courses, by bottling tap water! I think it's pretty dishonest to charge a bunch of hardworking Americans a seminar fee to "teach" them how to slowly melt a piece of chocolate on their tongue. Did that 1/2 ounce piece of chocolate cost $100? I'm tired of diet "guru" after "guru" trying to make it rich quick off the American people. He's yet another who's quickly put up a website to charge membership fees with "advisors" with questionable qualifications. 80 million French are doing it without him, and so can you!