Book Review: Women's Health Perfect Body Diet

In my quest to master the world of fitness and health, I picked up Women's Health Perfect Body Diet: The Ultimate Weight Loss and Workout Plan to Drop Stubborn Pounds and Get Fit for Life from my local library. I must say that I was completely surprised about the way the book was composed and illustrated.

The book is broken down into 3 distinct areas: Perfect Planning, Perfect Eating and Perfect Movements. Each area explains not only what you need to do in order to obtain the perfect body, but it goes through the actual science behind it in Lehman's terms. This is probably the best party of the work because they back up every detail of the book by the science explaining that this is how your body works. Obviously, there is probably a reverse study that disproves the very study they mentioned BUT that is the world we are living in right now. The way they explained in detail how the body works and what needs to be done is so easy to comprehend that you will sit and wonder why you didn't know these facts yourself.

Another major benefit of this book is that they conduct a test to determine which of the two nutrition plans the reader should follow in order to maximize their results. Most fitness books have a one-size-fits-all plan that is only differentiated by the amount of calories males and females should be consuming. I won't give away the details (as usual) but the test determines how your body processes different types of food in order to provide you with a nutrition plan that will maximize your overall weight loss. I am still at a loss as to why I haven't read this in any other book yet!

While I did not go through and commit to completing the perfect body diet, I felt that this would be an asset to anyone who is just starting out on their weight loss journey OR is looking to find out a proper nutrition plan to maximize their weight loss efforts. This plan includes very few foreign ingredients and supplements and the recipes are super easy to follow! Both major plus' when trying to follow a diet from a book.

Have you read this book before? Or are you a Women's Health Magazine fan like me?

This post contains affiliate links.

French Women Don't Get Fat: Leek Soup Recipe

After writing the book review for French Women Don't Get Fat and speaking with one of my favorite bloggers, Chelle from Everyday Polish, we decided to give the leek soup a try. If you didn't get a chance to read the book as yet, the leek soup is supposed to be drank for 2 full days to help release water weight. I promise you, this recipe will be the easiest recipe that you have ever attempted in your kitchen.

Ingredients:
2lbs of Leeks
Enough water to cover the leeks in the pot

Directions:
Bring leeks and water to a boil and lower to a simmer for 20 - 30 minutes.

Cool enough to drink or cool to room temperature and store.

And if you don't want all of the boiled leeks to waste, you can eat them drizzled with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Book Review: French Women Don't Get Fat

In my quest to find out what works best for my body, I decided that I needed to embrace the "knowledge is power" philosophy and start reading some books on different weight loss strategies. First up, French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano.

                                                                Source: search.barnesandnoble.com via KandidlyKim on Pinterest

This book details the experience that Mireille Guiliano, a French woman, had as an exchange student in the United States that inevitably led to her gaining weight for the first time in her life. Upon returning to France, with the help of the families' doctor, she got back in touch with the "French way" of eating in order to lose weight. The concept that this book wants to drive home is moderation. Everything can be done with moderation...and of course the class and poise of a French woman.
What surprised me was that the book did not really cover anything about exercise because apparently French women don't like to sweat it out in the gym. Looking back on my 10 day trip to France in high school, we walked....everywhere. And so did all of the natives. Although I was enjoying baguettes, nutella filled crepes, and croissants daily, I did not gain an ounce while I was away. The author spoke about little tips and tricks like taking the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator when you are going up less than 3 flights of stairs. She relived her experiences in apartments while going to school about how she was able to coast up and down endless flights of stairs while others remained huffing and puffing after 1 measly flight. However, her coasting led to her coasting her behind to the store to get jeans in a smaller size, so it is hard to complain.

The majority of this book focuses on how to eat like a French woman. Like most diets, the author suggests a detox with a special leek soup that helps your body get rid of water weight. I was happy to hear that the food portion was not only realistic, but it was easy to follow. Most diets need you to go out into the forest and find some native root to grind up and mix into your food, but this book really only used ingredients that most people should be able to find in their local grocery store. However, I will say that this book is not a get-skinny-quick book by any means. The method used is much more the slow and steady weight loss approach.  As with any diet, if you are very overweight, you will lose more in the beginning from making simple changes to your lifestyle, but then again, you have more pounds to lose in general then.

The only major drawback in the book is the author's style of writing. Not only does she use French words in nearly every paragraph of the book without translations, but as a reader, I felt a bit like she was preaching that French women are amazing and us Americans are just fast food loving, unhealthy, non stair taking buffoons. I kept thinking that this trend would go away after the first few chapters, but it did not. And my four years of high school French did not help me get through the French verbiage any faster either.

All in all, I thought it was a decent read for anyone who is just beginning their weight loss journey and needs a quick and easy read to get them started. It isn't an overly difficult book to get immersed in, and you can just skip over the French words and you will be a-okay. You may also want to read it if you are just looking to read about simple ways to incorporate your goals of being healthy into your life (that's me!)

If you are looking for the kindle edition of French Women Don't Get Fat, follow the previous link.

The links in this post are affiliate links.