MICHEL MONTIGNAC
with a preface by Dr. Philippe ROUGER
EAT YOURSELF
SLIM
OR
THE SECRETS
OF NUTRITION
5th edition entirely revised
and updated with the collaboration
of Doctor Herve ROBERT, nutritionist
Translated from the original
French version Je mange
done je maigris! by Daphn6 Jones
MONTIGNAC PUBLISHING UK

INTRODUCTION
Over the last few years people have often asked me how I managed to lose weight and how I now manage
to stay slim. My answer - that it is all done by eating in restaurants, on a diet of business meals - has tended
to raise a smile rather than convince anyone.
You too probably find it an improbable explanation, especially if you blame your own spare tyre on the fact
that your social, family or professional life involves you in a little too much good eating. At least, that is
your excuse.
No doubt you have already tried out some of the innumerable dietary theories in circulation, which have
long since become part of received wisdom on the subject. But you will also have noticed that the theories
often contradict each other, and that they tend to produce results only fleetingly, if at all. In addition, they
are mostly near impossible to fit into a normal lifestyle. Even if you are eating at home, the rules are so
restrictive that it does not take you long to grow discouraged.
So here you are, no better off than you were several years ago when it comes to tackling what we will
delicately refer to as your"unwanted pounds". In the early 80s, when I was in my late thirties, my scales
read 12st 12lb - almost a stone more than my ideal weight.
But then again, all things considered, that did not seem too bad for a man over six feet tall and approaching
forty.
Up to then I had led a fairly conventional social and professional lifestyle and my tendency to put on
weight had seemed to level off. My"overeating", if indeed I overate at all, was only very occasional and
tended to occur in a family context. When you come, as I do, from South West France, you have been
brought up to value gastronomic cuisine as part of your cultural heritage. I had long since given up sugar,
or at least, sugar in coffee. I never ate potatoes, claiming to be allergic to them, and, apart from wine, very
rarely touched alcohol.
My excess stone had been acquired over a period of ten years, quite gradually. When I looked around me I
felt no more overweight than the average; in fact, it seemed to me I compared quite well with other people.
Then, overnight, my professional circumstances changed. I was appointed to a new post with an
international dimension at the European headquarters of the American multinational company I worked for.
From then on, much of my time was spent travelling, and the visits to the company's subsidiaries that my
responsibilities entailed making were inevitably punctuated with lavish meals.
Back in Paris, my responsibility for public relations involved me in taking mostly foreign visitors to the
best French restaurants in the capital. It was simply a part of my job but, I have to admit, not exactly the
part I dreaded most.
But three months after taking up my new post I had put on no less than a further stone. It has to be said that
the three-week training course I had completed in England had done nothing to help matters either. At any
rate, alarm bells were ringing, and urgent action was called for.
Like everyone else, I started off by trying to apply the usual weight-loss rules and, like everyone else, I
became thoroughly disillusioned with the lack of positive results.
But soon afterwards, as luck would have it, I came across a general practitioner with a keen interest in
nutritional problems. He gave me some advice, and the guidelines he suggested to me seemed to call into
question the fundamental basis of traditional dietetics.
It was not long before I was achieving very promising results. So I then decided to delve further into the
theory. This I was quite well placed to do, as I worked for a pharmaceutical company and found it

relatively easy to come by the scientific information I needed.
Within a few weeks I had gathered together most of the French and American papers which existed on the
subject. I already knew that certain rules brought results, but I wanted to get to the root of the scientific
explanations, to know how and in what circumstances the rules would work and what limits there might be
to their effectiveness.
From the start I had refused to eliminate anything much from my diet, with the exception of the sugar,