I actually really like Bethenny Frankel, a chef who earned an impressive finish on TV’s The Apprentice: Martha Stewart and now appears on Bravo’s hit show the Real Housewives of New York. Since her size zero figure has been noted on the television program and is admired by her fans, it is not surprising she used her notoriety to pen a book about how she achieved and maintained those results. It is unfortunate that, although Bethenny makes a few good points in Naturally Thin, all have been spoken about, written about, and talked about before.
Since Bethenny is often photographed and filmed eating hearty portions of healthy foods, I was eager to pick up some pointers from an expert. What I learned from the book is that she is just as consumed with food and food choices as the rest of us and adds little to the discussion. For example, she explains that daily food choices should be viewed as a bank account, so losing weight requires the balancing of deposits and withdrawals (a.k.a. calories in, calories out). Bethenny also encourages readers to appreciate food and flavors, explaining you can eat whatever you want—in moderation. It is worth noting she also takes advantages of a number of opportunities to remind readers of the availability of BethennyBakes cookies, muffins, or cupcakes which she conveniently sells from the website of the same name.
Naturally Thin is marketed as a guide to eliminating dieting and an obsession with food, though as I read the book I could not help but wonder whether Bethenny wrote the book to convince herself her eating habits were the norm. If anything, the book made me more obsessed about food, linking my failure to lose weight to my inability to share Bethenny’s skill in satisfying a craving with a bite of string cheese, a forkful of lasagna, or the filling from a chicken taco.
Perhaps the point of Naturally Thin is that it is natural for people to eat small portions of decadent foods rather than the large portions to which we have been accustomed. If this is correct, however, my problem is that I did not derive much pleasure from reading a book that basically alerted me to just how unnatural my eating habits are.