Customer Reviews

Slim Forever - The French Way

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's not a diet, it's just a way of eating healthy. I've been following Montignac principles for almost a year and I feel very good and I'm also happy about my weight. I totally recommand this to everybody.

I've gotten other Montignac books, like The French Diet, and it's really nice to get some more recipes in this newest book. He seems to alter his presentation of the diet with each new book. Now the phases of the diet have different names. But the actual plan seems to be the same, so anyone that has picked up the The French Diet will be familiar with what's in here.

Mostly I got this book for the recipes to use with Somersizing. I think most of the ones in here will be Level 2 for Somersizers, but they are pretty tasty looking! I can't wait until I get to make use of them!

The only thing that would be better would be if Montignac would collect all of his recipes from all of his books and put out just a cookbook.

I read this in one evening and put my whole family on it the next day. The Montignac cookbook was a must, giving a good variety of menus and ideas of what works. Too bad its hard to find but worth the effort. My whole family are loosers! After 7 weeks we collectively have lost almost 75 pounds and counting. Not only are the recipes good but something you can live with forever. A real lifestyle change, especially for diabetics (two of us are diabetic, the others trying to avoid it).

I used an earlier Montignac book, Dine out and Lose Weight, and had really impressive results. The book had gone missing when, about 9 years later, I figured it was time to revisit it. With the help of the original book, which essentially follows a low-glycemic index dietary plan, I had no problem losing about 30 pounds in just 2 months and I did not feel deprived. My craving for pastries, ice-cream and sugar abated, and the weight just melted away.
Montignac begins with a premise. The American Diet is so filled with hidden additives that are either sugar or it's equivalent: the starch found in most refined products (flour, rice, etc), potatoes and corn, that our pancreas is pushed to a dangerously overstimulated state that drives weight gain in most of us. Our food industry salts everything with sweeteners because it makes the food taste sweet and is basically addictive.
All of these products stimulate the pancreas to secrete insulin, which in turn causes the body to store the sugar as fat instead of burning it as glucose. This made profound sense to me, so I started with the program to allow the pancreas to recover from it's hyper-activate state.
Montignac has a few other unusual protocols, including eating most fruit (some berries are exceptions)at least 20-30 minutes before other foods., because, he states, they will move out the stomach quickly if eaten that way, but will begin to ferment if other foods are added before the fruit has left the stomach. As odd as this may sound, it works for me.
I lost 30 lbs the first time around and was already fit, just not slim. It took me about two months, and I kept the weight off by following the basics of his style of eating for at least three years.
Now, eight years later, most of that weight has slowly returned, because I went back to hi-glycemic comfort food choices. It just slowly, but surely crept back.
I committed myself to starting on his plan again, using his Slim Forever - The French Way, and have lost 4 1/2 lbs since Monday (it's Wednesday). I think that's unusual and is probably because of something I may have eaten that caused me to hold water, but even with out that, I've lost 2 1/2 lbs in those same two days.
The new book has a greatly improved format and some excellent recipes. It's like going from an old, character-based computer to a user-friendly Windows or Mac user-interface. The information is much the same, but Montignac's rantings about American's and their diets in the earlier book are missing. Instead, there are some clear, clean, wonderful groupings of information in ways I found far easier to follow and refer back to.
I suppose we are all living different lives and our metabolisms very, but I also believe that most of us have no idea how much sugar we are ingesting, or what effect that has on our long-term health, and in particular to our weight and our cardiovascular system.
Bravo Monsieur Montignac. I hope many more people discover this book and have the curiosity to follow it and stick with it. If it doesn't work for you, write your own review.

I like the layout of the book. It tells you step by step how to follow the French way of eating. Though I am disappointed that the list of glycemic foods was so small. I had to refer back to Sugar-Busters to get some of the common foods that we eat here in America. But overall good advice to follow!

The book is a basic representation of what's considered healthy dieting these days. I think the Abs Diet book is a bit better put together, though I think the recipes in Slim Forever are tastier.

I wonder if Montignac has taken out all the anti-American criticisms that were present in the French edition of his books... Pretty hypocritical to be so condescendant and then try to sell his books on the American market.

His ideas are pretty good but nothing new. It is based on GI management. Kind of like the zone repackaged. Montignac also refuses to talk about nutrition for athletes which he says is too complicated. Funny coming from a so-called expert. I am pretty active so that was a big negative for me.