Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting by Bethenny Frankel, Eve Adamson

From Barnes & Noble

Bethenny Frankel is more than a pretty face and a trim body. This outspoken star of Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York City is a graduate of the National Gourmet Cooking Institute, the owner of the custom-meal delivery service Bethenny Bakes, and a popular natural foods columnist for Health Magazine. In Naturally Thin, this well-known celebrity chef explains how identifying your food personality can help put you on the road to a natural slimming that doesn't rely on starvation diets, fads, drugs, or exercising like an Olympic champion.

From the Publisher

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.

Publishers Weekly

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.

Susan B. Hagloch - Library Journal

Frankel, best known as a star of Bravo's Real Housewives of New York City, is also the founder of the natural foods company BethennyBakes and a columnist for Health magazine. Here, she explores the mind-set of "naturally thin" people and extrapolates principles that anyone can use to get off the dieting roller coaster. Naturally thin people eat whatever they want but in small portions and don't obsess over food. They don't eat anything artificially sweetened, and they eat food that they have prepared themselves, not fast food that's junked up with extra salt, fat, and sugar. Her principles are all scientifically proven, and she presents them well, interspersed with little pearls of wisdom for the casual browser, "Natually Thin Thoughts" and "Bethenny Bytes." She also includes diet plans to get you started on the road to thinking thin. A thoughtful alternative to the gimmicky diets that never work; recommended.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

WHO I AM AND WHAT THIS BOOK IS ALL ABOUT

"I look fat. I hate my body." "My thighs are huge." "Why did I just eat that? I can't believe I just ate that." "I can't lose weight. I have a slow metabolism." "I can't eat that. I really want to eat that, but I shouldn't." "I hate myself." "I pigged out." "I'm definitely going on a diet tomorrow." "I can't stay on a diet. I'm hopeless." "I have no willpower. I'm pathetic." "What is wrong with me?" "She can eat anything she wants. I hate her." "I was so good today. I skipped dinner. I can't wait to weigh myself tomorrow and see how much weight I lost." "Tomorrow I'm not eating anything." "I'm never eating again." "I'm not going to that party. I'll just eat too much." "Why did I eat so much? I want a doâ??over. I feel so guilty." "I can just feel myself getting fatter right now. I'm disgusting." "I would be happy if I could just get skinny."

Sound familiar?

These are not the words or thoughts of a naturally thin person, but they might be the words or thoughts you say to yourself. I used to talk to myself like this, but I don't do it anymore. Do you wish you could stop, too?

You can stop. You can stop it all: the negative talk, the hatred of yourself and your body, the fear of food, the obsession with food, and, most important, the dieting. Best of all, when you stop doing all these things to yourself, you will become naturally thin.

If you are so used to thinking about yourself and about food in this negative way, if you feel shackled to diets and you think that this will never change, take heart. Life doesn't have to be this way. You are about to break the vicious circle andescape from a lifetime of self-destructive dieting. You can break free from the oppression of food obsession. And you can become naturally thin, without ever dieting again. I did it, and you can do it, too.

You Are Naturally Thin

Here's the simple truth: millions of Americans have become enslaved by dieting. We torture ourselves constantly, just because we ate a cookie (or five cookies), or didn't go to the gym, or ordered french fries, or had a second helping, or ate carbs or sugar or meat, or can't fit into our skinny jeans, or aren't as skinny as the next person. We insult ourselves and hate ourselves because we don't look the way we think we are supposed to look. We don't feel good or happy or satisfied with our lives, and we blame it all on a number on the scale. We spend thousands of dollars on diet programs, food delivery services, diet Web sites, diet magazines, and diet books. And yet we keep getting fatter. We despair, we wonder what is wrong with us, but we keep on dieting, we keep on trying, and we keep on failing.

If you wish desperately that you were one of those naturally thin people, but you don't really believe, deep down, that you are, guess what.

It's all a misconception. Being naturally thin isn't some state of being beyond your grasp. You are naturally thin. You just have to make a few simple changes to let your natural thinness emerge. You will be one of those people you wished you could be in high school. You will be one of those people that others look at and wonder, "How does she stay so thin?" This book will grant you access to that world because deep down, I know that's who you are. I found the secrets, I got naturally thin for life, and I want to share those secrets with you.

Who am I? Why am I writing this book? And, perhaps most important, why should you listen to anything I have to say about what you should eat?

My name is Bethenny Frankel. By trade, I'm a natural foods chef. You might know me from my role on Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York City, or from my appearance as a contestant on Martha Stewart: Apprentice. You might have read one of my health blogs, seen one of my YouTube videos about healthy cooking, or read my column in Health magazine. Maybe you've even tasted some of my healthy treats in my line of baked goods, BethennyBakes™. But what you don't know about me is what I want to share with you: why I'm naturally thin, and why so many of the celebrity clients I cook for are naturally thin, too.

It's no state secret, but somehow, the key to being naturally thin has eluded many American women. I want to change all that. Everybody should be able to know and practice what I and so many celebrities know and practice. My goal is to democratize health: to make health accessible to everyone, no matter who. Whether you live in New York, Nebraska, or Nevada; no matter how much money you make; no matter what your natural build is or your genetic predispositions are; no matter what your social status, job, race, nationality, or sexual preference may be; no matter what foods you love or hate; no matter how much you like or don't like to exercise; no matter whether your appearance is important for your career or not; no matter how you feel today when you look in the mirror — if you are sick of obsessing and beating yourself up about food and weight, this book is for you.

I am a "health foodie" because I love good, high-quality, natural foods that makes me feel better, stronger, and more energized. However, when I cook, taste is just as important to me as nutritional content. Regardless of how healthful a food is, nobody will want to eat it if it doesn't taste good, and I believe food is meant to be enjoyed, not just tolerated. For me, "good enough" is never good enough when it comes to food (or anything, for that matter!). If you don't enjoy food, why bother? I don't believe in eating mediocre food just because it will supposedly make you thinner. It won't. We should all know that by now.

To me, food that doesn't taste delicious is worthless. On the other hand, I'm not interested in eating high-fat, high-sugar foods with no fiber, vitamins, or minerals. Sometimes I do eat processed food, but this is more the exception than the rule. I'm not interested in highly processed food or food that might taste good for a minute but doesn't do anything for my health. It's a balance. I consider my daily diet my bank account, with calories I have to manage — and I'll tell you more about that in Chapter 1.

Before we get to the ten rules I've created for becoming naturally thin, you might want to know something about me. A lot of what I know about food comes from a natural passion for both food and health. I grew up eating every meal in a restaurant, and my proclivity toward healthy living has grown out of an unstable upbringing that inspired me to take control of my own life and make something good out of it. This has been a long progression for me: to rise up out of a difficult childhood that set me up for a lot of unhealthy attitudes about food; to embrace a more real, natural, balanced way of cooking, eating, and looking at the world. Today, I eat and live as a naturally thin person, but it has been a journey.

That journey, fueled by my passion for food and health, led me to the National Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in 2000. I spent a year at this school, and although I originally went there for fun, I was soon hooked on the chef's life and on new ideas for making the most out of good food. But what I did with my education is a little different from what most of my classmates did. I didn't go on to work in a restaurant. I wanted to do something bigger, something that would reach more people.

One thing I did was to start my own line of low-fat, low-calorie, dairy-free, wheat-free, egg-free baked goods, called BethennyBakes™, in 2001. I was a contestant on Martha Stewart: Apprentice and people referred to me as the breakout star on that show. (I'll tell you more about that experience later.) I have cooked for celebrities such as Alicia Silverstone, Denis Leary, and Mariska Hargitay. I've been featured on morning shows, including the Today show, CBS's The Early Show, and Good Day New York, talking about healthy cooking and eating; and I've appeared on other shows, too, such as Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, and Extra. I write a regular column for Health magazine, and I've written for or been written about in the New York Times, People, InStyle, Family Circle, Hamptons, OK! magazine, Ladies Home Journal, USA Today, US Weekly, TV Guide, and the Wall Street Journal, among many others. My cooking videos get thousands of hits on YouTube.com, and I have been a spokesperson for brands including Pepperidge Farms Baked Naturals Snacks, Cascade, and Tupperware. I recently finished filming the second season of The Real Housewives of New York City. And now, I've written this book.

What I know, and what I've learned over the course of my life, about getting and staying thin isn't just a matter of healthful, delicious food (although that is a big part of the picture). I've also learned a lot about how to think about food, how to balance diet with the rest of life, and how to stop torturing myself about every mouthful. When you live in New York City, it's difficult not to be obsessed with appearance, food, and dieting. But I realize it's difficult not to be obsessed with appearances, food, and dieting no matter where you live. If you share this struggle, then we have something very important in common, and I want to help you win.I'm naturally thin, but I didn't come preprogrammed that way. I arrived there by changing my habits and learning how to think like a naturally thin person. The result: I became a naturally thin person, one of those people you looked at in high school and wondered how they did it. Amazingly enough, it was easy — a lot easier than my diet-obsessed self would have ever dreamed. Back when I was burdened, overwhelmed, and ingrained with the diet mentality, I neverreally thought I could escape. But I did.

I can't believe how much of my life I've wasted feeling anxious, depressed, antisocial, and — after binging on something — full of selfloathing because my jeans were too tight. I can't believe how much of my life I wasted feeling fat, obsessing about what to order on a date or how to get out of an invitation to a restaurant I perceived as serving fattening food. Does that sound familiar? Do you feel full of regret every time you eat something that doesn't fit your perception of diet food? Have food, fat, carbs, and dieting created such a level of anxiety and preoccupation in your life that you think about them all day long? Been there, done that — but I'm not there and I don't ever do that anymore. Why not join me in this new state of mind?

Guess what happened when I escaped from this kind of thinking. I got thin, for life. I can't even imagine going back to my old ways of thinking, eating, and behaving — my heavy habits, those habits that perpetuated my self-destructive thinking and eating. (I'll talk more about heavy habits later in this book.) I broke free, and now I have thin thoughts. And you can, too, no matter who you are.

The greatest gift I can give you, and the greatest gift you can give yourself, is Naturally Thin. I've condensed everything I've learned about eating and cooking into ten simple rules you can use to change your own heavy habits, your own thinking, your body, your energy level, your health, your whole life. Think you've heard these tips before? Think again — this book doesn't tell you what to eat. Instead, I show you how to change your life without changing who you are, what you like, or how you live. I show you how to change your habits and the way you think about food, no matter what you like to eat or how you like to live, because that's where your body starts — in your head.

Diets Don't Work

You might have heard this before, and dismissed it as a line. But it's not a line. It's true. Some people define insanity as repeating the same behavior and expecting different results every time. Are we all crazy? How many diets have you started? How much money have you spent feeding the diet industry? Have you lost weight, strayed from the diet, and gained back all the weight (and more)? Of course you have. We all have. And yet, we keep going on to the next "new" diet, the one that promises to finally fix our weight problems. It never does. What's wrong with us?

Life is too short to waste obsessing over fat grams or carb grams or never, ever exceeding 1,200 calories a day. How many ounces of that cereal should you eat? Is your steak bigger than a deck of cards? Is your serving of rice larger than your fist? Is that two ounces of pasta on your plate, or are you "binging" on three ounces? Come on. It's ridiculous and obsessive.

It's amazing how many highly intelligent people can be so uninformed when dealing with food, and so stuck in harmful ruts they don't even realize they are in. How many times have your conversations at a dinner or a cocktail party revolved around somebody's saying, "Oh, you should only eat steak; it's a miracle diet" or "You have to try the cabbage soup diet; it's amazing"? Diet talk is common at social events, and people talk as if they were authorities on whatever their latest plan is — but at the next party, you find out that they are off the wagon or are pushing something else. How many times have people told you they are "starting a new diet tomorrow"? Or maybe you are the one who has been saying this to other people.

How many of those people have lost a lot of weight and kept it off for good?

The simple fact is that you don't function normally if you constantly have to measure, count, restrict, and obsess over food. You feel punished, deprived, even angry. I know I did. Eventually, life intervenes, and you no longer have time or patience for all that nonsense. Then you give up and tell yourself, "Well, I might as well just eat the whole double cheese pizza because dieting is just too hard."

Of course it's hard. It's not natural to eat like that, and it's not healthy, either — not physically, not mentally. If you have to rely on a regimen, a menu, strict rules, or even a book to tell you what to do and what to eat, you aren't going to stick with it. You don't need something to control your life. You just need some tools that will help you regain control. After all, it's your body. You can change it if you want to change it.

Notice that I don't say you are going to need willpower. I say control because that's exactly what I mean. You are your own person. You are in control of what you do. You have the power. It's your body, your life, your mind, your food. You have control over what you choose to do and how you choose to act. The problem with diets is that they give you the idea that someone else is controlling you: a famous guy tells a famous girl what to eat; or a diet plan somebody wrote for you tells you how many cups of this and how many tablespoons of that you can eat.

Frankly, this lets you off the hook. If you are on a diet, the diet controls you, so when things go wrong, you can blame the diet. If you are on a diet, you don't have to take responsibility for your own life. The diet tells you what to do, and if it doesn't work, you hate the diet; the diet failed; you are the victim. Even as you feel guilty and blame yourself for your inner weakness, deep down, you don't feel that you've ever been the one at the steering wheel. The diet has been driving. You're just along for the ride. And that's no way to live your life.

Take back the wheel and start driving yourself through life again. Sure, taking back your life can be a challenge, but getting naturally thin is easier than you think. This book is about you and the ways you can learn to deal, face-to-face, with food again, rather than letting food deal with you.

More about Me

I wouldn't describe my childhood as typical, but I would describe it as challenging. I grew up moving from place to place. I was a bicoastal child, going back and forth from New York to Los Angeles until the age of six, then living all over the place. In New York, we lived in Manhattan, Forest Hills, Rockville Centre, Old Westbury, and Locust Valley. We also lived in Boston, Florida, and Los Angeles. I went to thirteen different schools. I had no stability whatsoever, no structure, no regular meals, and nothing to instill a healthy attitude about food. I ate almost all my meals in restaurants.

My mother loved and hated food at the same time. At least, that's how it seemed to me, and I think her bad habits inspired me to develop a healthier lifestyle, so I could be different than she was. But her food obsessions also stuck to me. I admit I am a type A person who tends to get a bit obsessive about things, and I've spent plenty of years of my life obsessing about food and working hard to be thin. In fact, I've been watching my weight since grade school. My mother's father instilled in her that fat wasn't an option, so my mother was just passing along a family tradition when she instilled these food attitudes in me.

As for my father, he was never really around. He was a horse trainer, as was my stepfather, so I spent a lot of time at the track as a kid. That wasn't such a great example. I started visiting the betting window at age six. In many ways, I had to raise myself. That made developing a healthy ego pretty tough.

Like a lot of kids, I had a chubby adolescent phase, but unlike a lot of mothers, my mother took me to an obesity clinic when I was nine. It was immediately clear to me that gaining weight was not acceptable. For years afterward, my weight fluctuated, but dieting was always in the forefront of my mind, from an early age. I remember my mother seeing an overweight girl and commenting that if this were her child, she would lock the girl in a closet and send in water on a tray. That made an impression on me, even though I knew she was joking (sort of). Being fat wasn't an option.

At the same time, we were always eating in restaurants or getting takeout Chinese food or pizza. In other words, my mother rarely cooked. The only meals I remember that seemed home-prepared were the bagels we ate every Sunday morning. I was eating escargots by the age of four. Kids' menu? I never knew such a thing existed.

I loved food. And yet, I also feared it. By the age of ten, I already knew all about the Beverly Hills Diet. I obsessed about food, and pushed it away, too. I remember ripping out the diet pages in magazines from a very young age; and over the years, I've tried all the diets. The Beverly Hills Diet, the Eat Your Weight in Fruit Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, Weight-Watchers, Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, the Flight Attendant's Diet (at the time, it was called the Stewardess Diet), the Grapefruit Diet, Slim-Fast, the Zone, Diet Center, Diet Designs, the Raw Food Diet, and every other diet I happened to run across in a magazine.

I like to think of myself as an intelligent person, and yet I kept on dieting. It was a way of life, one that I inherited from my mother, and one that she inherited from her father, who also made sure she understood that being fat was not an option.

I don't blame my mother, my grandfather, or even my father, for my attitudes toward and my struggles with dieting, body image, and food. I don't even blame the magazines, books, and movies that conveyed impossible images of beauty and the supposed necessity of constant dieting. We are all smart enough to know it's not necessarily realistic to weigh 105 pounds. Yes, we are all, to some extent, products of our parents' unresolved issues, but I truly believe most people do the best they can. We are all fighting against our own issues, and food and diet were my issues. I'm guessing that if you are reading this book, they are your issues, too.

When I became an adult, my love of fine food led me to cooking school, but my attitudes toward food really started to change on one of my trips to Italy. As a chef, I vowed not to miss any food experiences in the country with the most amazing food in the world. I vowed not to obsess about every calorie and not to miss out on cappuccino, pasta, great wine, and wonderful desserts. But in Italy, I discovered something much more important than good food. I discovered a new attitude.

In general, Europeans view food and eating differently than Americans. They value food more than Americans do, but obsess about it less. That was a revelation to me, especially when I saw beautiful, naturally thin Italians eating anything they wanted. I began to shift my perspective. I began to understand how to enjoy food — any food — and still be naturally thin.

When I came back from Italy, changed but without having gained an ounce, I began to refine and crystallize the lessons I had absorbed. The result is this book. The lessons I've learned over the years have served me well because my life is extremely fast-paced and stressful. It would be easy for me to continue my unhealthy habits, from starving myself to binge eating. But I don't.

When I filmed Martha Stewart: Apprentice, I had just gotten over pneumonia. Being on a competition reality show is brutal, unbelievably stressful, and exhausting, and what was everybody else living on? Energy drinks and meal replacement bars. But not me. During the entire filming of that show, I took the time to make myself three meals a day, no matter what else was going on. I ate healthful food nobody else was eating — because I know that it takes only five minutes to make, for example, a veggie sandwich or turkey on wholegrain bread.

Everybody has five minutes. That's the only reason I got through the experience with my health and sanity intact — and I'm not kidding. I was healthy going into the experience because of my new way of life, and that by itself was significant in getting me through. I knew if I was eating processed food — or, worse, eating food from the street vendors — I wouldn't make it. When you are on a reality show, you want comfort food, but energy drinks and hot dogs aren't going to provide real comfort. You get very little sleep, or you don't sleep at all. You have cravings because you are under stress, and when you aren't sleeping, you are running around like a maniac. Eating well was an important investment for me during that time — and is still important, every day of my life.

Filming The Real Housewives of New York City has been incredibly grueling, too. My entire life is right there, on camera, for everyone to see. As we filmed our second season, I found myself with very little time to spare, let alone time to eat well. But this is my life and I accept and welcome all my challenges. My positive mentality has affected everyone around me. The other housewives are losing weight, and all my friends have lost weight. Being naturally thin has radiated out to everyone I know. It's amazing.

Your life is probably a little or a lot different from mine, but you probably also have stress, a grueling schedule, and very little time to eat well. I understand. But know that you can still be naturally thin, without dieting, no matter what your life is like. Today, I'm a thirtysomething woman living in New York City, and I no longer diet. I eat pretty much whatever I want to eat. And for the first time in my life, my weight is completely and surprisingly consistent. I look and feel better than I ever did before. I'm in charge. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nutritionist, and I'm not a fitness expert. And, most important, I am not in charge of you. But I am a natural foods chef, a dedicated lover of delicious food, and a healthy, thin person. I'm also a person who wants to tell you how I broke the code, broke through the chains of dieting, and learned how to incorporate the ten simple rules into my own life.

I admit that I have an advantage, living in New York, where I can experience an impressive culinary variety. But this can also be a disadvantage. I could easily spend my days eating honey-roasted nuts, hot pretzels, and hot dogs. Every deli on the street has ice cream, pizza, burgers, and salad bars. In the City that Never Sleeps, it's easy to eat too much at any hour of the day or night. It's a world of variety, and also a world of temptation.

Even if you don't live in a big city, you have similar challenges. In New York, we have to go to six different markets to get the things we need to cook a meal. You might have access to a mega-mart with everything you need — and plenty of tempting things you don't need. The New York Greenmarkets are fantastic, but you probably have farmers' markets and produce stands near you. Maybe you think you can't afford to eat well and fast food is your only option, but that's not true, either. This book will show you lots of great ways to eat well economically. Maybe you are a soccer mom continually tempted by the ice cream truck, your kids' leftovers, and pizza deliveries, but what about the girl in the city who lives right above the all-night pizza place? You have challenges. We all do. We are all different. But we can all be naturally thin.

No matter where you live, you can find and prepare good food. You don't have to settle for processed, packaged food that doesn't thrill or even satisfy you. You don't have to live on drive-through food or convenience food. You can eat just as well as I eat, and just as well as celebrities eat.

This is exactly what I want to do for you. I want to counsel and guide you, the same way I guide my friends and the celebrities who ask me for advice. Why should celebrities be the only ones to benefit from the secrets I've learned? You're busy, just as they are. You want to look fantastic, just as they do. You might not be on a set, filming a new blockbuster movie, but that doesn't mean you don't need energy and healthful meals that fit into your packed schedule. You might not be wearing vintage Chanel to the Academy Awards ceremony, but that doesn't mean you don't want to look drop-dead gorgeous in your new dress. The paparazzi may not be stalking you to see what you eat, but your friends notice. Your kids notice, too. What kind of example are you setting?

As you can probably tell, I've replaced my dieting obsession with an obsession for cooking and eating the very best food, and sharing it with everyone. I've already shared these secrets with my friends, and they have all benefited. Now it's your turn. It's my obsession to help everyone who wants to be naturally thin achieve what I have achieved. That's just the way I am. I have to obsess about something. The point is that this obsession is all about feeling and looking great — for me, for the rich and famous, and for you.

It's also about finally getting rid of all the extra weight you've been carrying around — the weight you don't need. That weight is holding you back from being your true self, and the only way to find your true self is to embrace healthful eating as a way of life. You can't do it by suffering, deprivation, or pain. You can't do it by starving or binging and purging. And you don't have to do any of that anymore.

Healthful eating is something worth getting excited about. All you have to do is work through the ten rules. Read them; practice the tips for incorporating them into your life; and slowly but surely, you'll see your life, your attitude, and your body changing, right before your eyes. Start practicing now, and in just days you'll feel more like yourself again. I'm ready to help you transform your entire relationship to food, exactly the way I help my clients change theirs. Are you ready?

What to Expect inside This Book

This book will teach you a new language and a new mind set. I've divided this book into two parts. In Part One, I talk about the ten rules I've learned for getting and staying naturally thin. I devote one chapter to each rule, explaining it in depth so that you will understand what I mean and how to incorporate the rule into your life. I'll talk about how each rule works for me, and how it can work for you. Memorize these rules and live them, and you'll start to see exactly how easy it is to be naturally thin.

I suggest you take your time with Part One. Let it sink in. Think about it, read it, and read it again. Go back over the sections that speak to you, and I'll be with you the whole way, sharing my own struggles and helping you manage yours. The more you think about and practice the ten rules, the more they will become integrated into your consciousness. Before you know it, you'll be practicing them without even thinking. They will become part of who you are and how you think about food. And starting with the very first chapter, you'll be able to stop dieting, stop obsessing about food, and stop wrecking your own happiness and health. You'll be free — and you'll start getting thinner.

Part Two of this book is for people who want more structure. Make no mistake: this is not a diet. But it does offer some solid guidelines for how to implement the rules in your life. In Chapter 11, I set up some principles for you to practice and I also review the ten rules. I talk about some important concepts and remind you of others from Part One. Then I take your hand and lead you through a week of eating.

During the chapters on the week of eating, I talk about a lot of things, from what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to handling special occasions, travel, and cooking at home. What do you do when faced with a gigantic muffin at Starbucks? What do you do when you have to find a meal at a convenience store? How do you handle a breakfast buffet without panicking or gaining ten pounds in one sitting? What do you do about happy hour? It's all covered here.

I also tell you, throughout Part Two, exactly what I am eating for each meal on each day of the week. This information will be in boxes called "Bethenny Bytes," because they are bytes of information about my personal food choices. But these boxes are not meant to tell you what to eat. In fact, sometimes I set a really bad example! The point is to show you that naturally thin people live normal lives and face normal challenges, and knowing how to face them — including how to feel when you make bad choices or eat too much — is the heart of the matter.

Throughout the entire book, you'll notice a couple of features. Some boxes highlight "Naturally Thin Thoughts," which are tips to help you correct your thinking. Other boxes highlight "Heavy Habits," the bad habits you have and the destructive things you might be thinking, and what you can do about them. Finally, I'll occasionally include "Celebrity Secrets" boxes, with stories about celebrities. Some of these celebrities have been my clients; others I've just met. How they eat can be helpful to you, both as good examples and as not-so-great examples. Some celebrities have great habits. Others are still saddled with dieting. Many of them are a lotlike you.

Most of the chapters in this book also include recipes at the end. I need to make a point here about the recipes. I'm not a measurer. This drove my teachers in cooking school crazy because they wanted to know exactly how much of this or that I put into something I made. But even if I could not tell them this, I could always make the recipe again. Although I have some measurements in my recipes, they are really not very precise. My style of writing recipes is fairly casual, too. So I'd like you to view the recipes in this book as guidelines. Feel free to be creative and stray from them, or replace some ingredients with others that you like better. I'm all about experimenting and exploring the world of taste and flavor, so I encourage you to enter your own kitchen with that same adventurous spirit. For more recipes, be sure to look for my Naturally Thin cookbook, due out next year.

Come with me through this book. I've got so much to tell you, and I'm so excited to help you find the peace, the truth, and the freedom I've found. I promise you, it's not going to be unpleasant. It's going to be fun, enlightening, even delicious. You're going to learn how to enjoy your food again, guilt-free. You're going to drop the extra weight you've been carrying around. Best of all, you're going to feel better than you've ever felt in your life. You're going to be naturally thin.

Copyright © 2009 by BB Endeavors LLC