Review: 'Fat to Skinny Fast and Easy!' by Doug Varrieur

September 23, 5:38 PMLow-Carb Lifestyle ExaminerJimmy Moore

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Fat to Skinny Fast and Easy! by Doug Varrieur

How can you NOT love an outstanding weight loss success story like Doug Varrieur? As a former 260-pounder who was tired of living his life as a fat guy, he took action to change his life forever and shed an incredible 100 pounds off of his body by implementing some key strategies into his routine. And for those of us who are livin’ la vida low-carb and lovin’ it, this story will bring a great big smile to your face.

Half-autobiographical/half-children’s book-style, Varrieur definitely wanted to capture your attention while hopefully imparting to you everything he has learned about weight control and health over the past few years with the book. It’s quite entertaining with all the cute illustrations that hammer home the various points and the strategic use of an all-caps “FAT” anytime that word is used in the book. You can tell Varrieur has quite a creative mind for communicating his message and he does so very well throughout.

Varrieur says foods like corn, sugar, vegetables, grains, and other carbohydrate-filled foods are doing nothing more than than leading to stored body FAT. Again, he uses all-caps when sharing about SUGAR because he wants people to realize eating foods that contain it or turn to it in the body will make them FAT. On page 22 alone he capitalizes SUGAR sixteen times. I guess you could say he believes it’s a point worth repeating (and I tee-totally agree with him!).

The concept of measuring food in terms of “teaspoons of sugar” is not a new one, but it is not talked about nearly enough. Varrieur does so brilliantly yet again by looking at the SUGAR contained in French fries, soda, the bun, and a pie from a fast food restaurant. The way the numbers add up so quickly are shocking…and it’s a message people need to hear loud and clear. Obviously, if people can cut down on these “teaspoons of sugar” in their diet, then they’ll be a lot better off in their efforts to losing weight “fast and easy.”

Half of Fat to Skinny Fast and Easy! is filled with recipes that Varrieur himself uses on his low-carb plan as well as some key low-carb foods and substitutions in his diet that have helped him keep his “skinny” body. Eating low-carb has obviously worked for him not just for weight loss but radically improved health markers too. His triglycerides plummeted from 400 down to 70, but I was somewhat concerned to see Varrieur concerned about his cholesterol levels so much that he feels the need to take a statin drug like Lipitor to lower them.

A high-fat, low-carb nutritional approach has been shown to lower triglyceride levels well below 100, raise HDL “good” cholesterol above 50, and make your LDL cholesterol the large, fluffy, and protective kind that you don’t need to be concerned with. Sadly, Varrieur has bought into the notion shared to him by his doctor that he needs to take these risky prescription drugs with his low-carb diet to make his heart arteries “healthy.” Additionally, he cuts down on healthy saturated fats, meat and egg consumption, and opts for low-fat cheeses, fish and soy for protein instead.

It is such a shame that Doug Varrieur and so many others like him have it right about the carbohydrates being at the root cause of obesity and health that far too many people are dealing with these days, but then are still caught up in conventional wisdom regarding the unproven and disastrous cholesterol-heart hypothesis that Ancel Keys unleashed on America so many decades ago. While I’m happy for his 100-pound weight loss success, I hope Varrieur will continue to do his own personal research on what will keep his heart and health strong for many years to come.