Bethenny Frankel built her food and beverage line and all her branding around being thin. She has a few books with tips and recipes about it, and she loves talking about it too. It’s not easy to stay thin in your late 40s, if that’s something you’re striving for, as the pounds creep on over the years and small amounts can add up. I get it and I work on that too, I just find it superficial as hell. (I mean I know I’m that way, it’s just not my main focus in life.) US Magazine asked Bethenny at an event for holiday diet tips. She started off well and said that you shouldn’t be on a strict diet and should indulge reasonably. Some of her other advice was decent too, but of course she said disparaging things about eating and gaining weight because that’s how she is.
“I’m a fan of indulging,” [Bethenny Frankel] told Us… “I think people are always told how to restrict and my feeling is you have to teach people how to indulge. It’s OK to have some cake, it’s OK to have some cookies. If you’re getting buckets of popcorn and brownies, choose how you’re going to invest — the way you invest in shopping, the way you invest in money. You don’t go and just buy everything, you just pick your spots. So, that’s how people should handle the holidays.”
For Frankel, it’s more harmful to have a strict diet during the holiday season because it can lead to unhealthy binging. “You say you’re going to be drinking green juice and eating steamed vegetables for the holiday season, you’re going to eat five times the amount and blow up like a tick,” she told Us.
She advised people to eat before attending holiday parties “otherwise you’ll be grabbing every hors d’oeuvre.” When it comes to sipping festive cocktails, Frankel urged partygoers to drink water in between drinks to avoid overeating while buzzed. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint, the holiday season. Can’t call in full the next day,” Frankel said.
The Skinnydipping author added that cheat meals aren’t in her vocabulary because she doesn’t “think it’s cheating.” Instead, she believes the word can cause people to not achieve their diet goals.
“I eat everything,” Frankel said. “If you think it’s called cheating, then you beat yourself up for it, then you rebel, then it’s a vicious cycle. My book, Naturally Thin, is all about ‘treat your diet like a bank account.’”
I tend to eat a lot at parties because the food is great and I don’t drink anymore so I may as well eat. I can’t get on board with this pre-eating thing, that’s assuming the food I have at home is better than typical party food and it never is! It sounds like Bethenny doesn’t care about that at all. However I do treat my diet like a bank account and eat less the rest of the day because I know I’m going to have a lot at one event. I also agree with her that you shouldn’t have “cheat foods” or “forbidden foods.” As I often mention, I count calories and it’s easier to keep a balance when you know how much you’re eating and what you have left. Plus then you don’t have to give up entire categories of foods. That seems like misery to me. That’s Bethenny’s default setting though so it probably doesn’t matter what she eats.
Photos credit: WENN, Backgrid and Getty
I can assure you, she is NOT “a big fan of indulging.”
The advice isn’t the worst in the world – she is after all advocating not starving yourself, which is a plus – but hard to execute in practice.
I usually eat a cup of yogurt before going to a party. It’s filling, but not so much so I don’t want to try *any* of the tasty treats at the party.
The term “naturally thin” always cracks me up when attached to dieting culture. If you have to go out of your way to exercise heavily/eat very strict diets to be model thin, that’s not natural. It’s cultivated. Which is fine, but let’s not pretend otherwise. A lot of us eating normally with regular exercise would fall somewhere in the middle with a bit of excess fat on us, which is…actually what nature intended, particularly for women. We’re built for survival not aesthetics. I have to work out 2-3 hours a day to be a size 6-8. Some of us get lucky genetically, but others are just not built small.
If your watching your weight, then yes, you shouldn’t go to parties or grocery stores hungry. But in a balanced diet you’re never actually “starving” feeling because you’re eating slow burn foods and snacking a little.
She could think of her fillers/Botox as a bank account too…
Isn’t that the whole point of a party? Overindulging?
Considering Christmas is now a ‘season’ instead of just a single day, you are probably a lot of events, personal and work related. I can see the logic.
It depends of the party. If I’m going to a party with people I don’t know or I know are bad cookers I always eat at home. Then at the party just pick a little plate of something. But if it’s a party with great food like my grandmas, I’m eating a lot because the food is great.
I’m partying for a reason, friend. I’ve got enough food intolerances that I think I’m fairly safe having to skip out on the dairy, gluten, fried food, and heavy alcohol lol.
Yeah, I don’t take diet advice from someone whose whole brand is “I’m skinny”.
Right? Skinny doesn’t automatically equal physically or mentally healthy. Isn’t she also the one that put on her little kid’s clothes to show how skinny she is? It’s messed up.
All i know of her products was all the cocktail mix things were full of artificial sweeteners, which are NOT good for you.
Food is not the enemy.
My take on all of this is that no one got fat from overindulging at a party.
Her face is that photo…I just don’t get these women that starve themselves and then pay thousands for facial fillers. A few pieces of bread would do it for free and look more natural.
She says the right things here, but I can’t imagine she eats as much as she claims.
Eating beforehand so you don’t eat at the party is silly (unless you know the host is a terrible cook/has awful taste in caterers). Eating beforehand so that you don’t show up hungry at a party where there will be lots of yummy, go-down-easy, calorie-dense but no nutrition foods is sensible. Somebody upstairs mentioned yogurt, which is just right. At my old job, I had to manage lots of events and my boss and I always tried to have lots of tasty stuff, but also food for somebody who was hungry and wanted something healthy to eat. Bacon wrapped scallops AND vegetables with yogurt and hummus dip.
Revolutionary advice! I never would’ve come up with this idea on my own! Geez.
LOL, you’re right. My mother gave me this advice 30 years ago. So old school.
So true. Every single women’s magazine touts this advice before the holidays.
Says the woman whose bones stick out
That little silver handbag–so expensive and SO ugly. The worst thing about it is that the user has to make an ugly claw-hand in order to hold it.
Somehow that seems perfect for Bethenny.
I agree with her idea of food as an investment. I try to eat very little sugar in my day to day. I will invest and eat good quality desserts, like at a holiday party, vs going to Dunkin Donuts To get some processed sugar junk. I save up to indulge in good quality dessert and treats once or twice a month. I also eat high fat, high carb diet, include a lot of veggies and fruits. Though I should add that my home meals do not involve conventional carbs because my husband has celiac.
Just f-cking eat, people! Stop overthinking it and eat when you’re hungry. Even if you’re going to a party later. Even if you had a brownie at your last meal. It’s ok to not snack at a party if you had a normal dinner beforehand and it’s ok to eat a dinner of passed hors d’oeuvres if you didn’t have a chance to eat before. You’ll balance out later naturally as your body tells you it’s had enough rich foods so please give me some oatmeal for breakfast instead of an egg sandwich, or whatever. I just can’t with “dieting” advice. (coming from a former dieter who had to go to years of therapy to re-learn how to eat intuitively)
But common sense and real science don’t sell!
Thank you Kate!! So agree with you.
Intuitive eating does require people to be emotionally available for themselves though, and knowing from experience: You have to learn to sit with uncomfortable feelings first.
The more you learn how to actually feel, the more successful you can be at intuitive eating.
My body always wants to pack on a bit for the winter. And when spring comes it goes into another type of “cycle” and the weight comes of naturally.
Took me 33 years to understand that.
And for the insecure women in the back: Weight issues are never really about the weight, it’s about your confidence and feeling of self worth. Being thin, counting calories, exercising to be physically pleasing enough for society to accept you is BULLSH*T so fuck*ing eat and live your life. No matter what the diet, fashion and beauty industry try to tell you, you are enough.
A good way to find out if you’re obsessing about your weight is to notice how many weight related thoughts you have during a week. Now translate all those thoughts into energy and see how much energy you’re “giving away power to”.
What if you replaced all those thoughts and all that energy into accomplishing, learning and experiencing other things.
Do you see how women are controlled to be more powerless by having to spend so much TIME and ENERGY on their weight and the space they take up in the world physically?!
Come on, empower yourself and empower other women by not commenting on their weight! It doesn’t fuck*ing matter!!
My impression from watching Bethany on RHONY is that she runs around all day (working, socializing) and doesn’t have much time to eat, and when she does, she grazes. It would shock me if she consumes more than 1200 calories a day.
hahahaha… as if I stop eating at a party because I’m not hungry anymore. If there is a buffet I’ll eat.
I try to be responsible in my day-to-day life as far as the calories that I consume, so when I am attending a party/event, I look forward to indulging.