Unleash Your Skinnygirl

Naturally Thin: Unleash Your Skinnygirl and Free Yourself From a Lifetime of Dieting personifies me. It is straightforward, a bit cheeky and not obsessive (well at least not about dieting).

Growing up in an extremely dysfunctional and toxic series of households bred me for an obsession with food and diet and weight. I was in an obesity clinic in third grade because I was slightly chubby. I was on every single diet known to man from that age until about 33 years of age. I would live on grapefruits or low carbs or no carbs or do the flight attendants' (then politically incorrectly called stewardess' diet), the cabbage soup diet and the list goes on and on.

I was never morbidly obese because I would diet like a psychopath, break a diet, binge then vow to not eat and "be good" for ever. Dates, holidays and vacations were terrifying ideas because I really didn't know how to manage or if I would be able to maintain my rigid ideal of consuming few calories, little to no fats and for no one to realize what I was doing.

Most times, I was "good" but then hell would break loose and I would lose control. Exercise was equally as obsessive. Spinning, stepping, rollerblading the globe, speed-walking, hiking. None of this was pleasurable then.It was for the goal: lose weight. be thin. Weigh less.

If you ever saw the movie Network, there is a scene where the main character hits the wall going 90, and screams from the rooftops "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore." Well, that was what unintentionally happened to me.

I was going to Italy, I had been given many restaurant recommendations. Past trips had consisted of eating the vegetable antipasto, not drinking and eating salads. Then the last day, I would stuff my face with gelato or paella or whatever because I knew I would be "good" once I got home. I would torture Europeans for whole grain bread, low fat milk, artificial sweetener. The idea of cream made me panic. Regular sugar? Sacre bleu!

Well this trip was going to be different. I am a chef. I want to live. I want to eat. How can pasta be the devil? And there began all the principals of Naturally Thin. Your diet is a bank account was born. I would eat all that Italy had to offer, but when I indulged, then I would balance with something healthy.

I would downsize portions by indeed having a small full fat cappuccino and a croissant unlike the massive lattes and giant fat free muffins we Americans find normal.

I would eat real sugar and let the poor Italian server live another day without obsessing over Equal.I mean how idiotic is it to binge on pieces of cake and worry about 16 calories of sugar? It makes no sense.

The rule get real was born because we Americans are completely absurd. We eat foods with ingredients we can't pronounce. How stupid have we become to think that watermelon is bad and a low carb manufactured protein bar is good?

Taste everything. Eat nothing was born because we should be able to eat the foods we love in small quantities and participate. We should go on dates and be free and fun and flirty and have a cocktail.

We should have a "food voice" rather than this obsessive "food noise" that is constantly chattering. We need to eat for our lives, our ethnic backgrounds, our financial means, our marriages, our proclivity to sweets versus salty or the opposite.

YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL. YOU JUST CAN'T HAVE IT AT ONCE.

At a party, if I see a good looking man, I don't walk up and propose. I make a plan. Well, the same goes for our eating.

There is so much more to come. Buy the book. It is so stupid it is smart. It will change your life. Unleash your skinnygirl! You deserve it.

Check out the excerpt here, and then buy the book at the Bravo Shop!