annebarone.com
French Chic & Slim
Nouvelles
News and Opinion from Anne Barone to Keep You Chic & Slim — INDEX to Previous Nouvelles
image: view of Paris
|| 25 May 2025
Paris Update: Fashion and Food
It is always good to have an update on Paris. Recently Carol in Maryland returned from a visit. She sent us a report — and included kind words for my new book The Barone System. Carol wrote:
Hello Anne, I enjoyed your latest book and continue to admire your grace and vigor as you embrace your daily life and work. And to write a book at 80 years old! I love that and have admired your persistence amid setbacks as you worked to accomplish that goal. At 65 years I too am embracing aging with such examples in mind. Thank you!
We just got back from Paris and enjoyed it thoroughly. As you noted, trainers/sneakers are everywhere on the streets, even with lovely, chic dresses or work slacks. If it saves one woman foot issues as she ages that is a good thing. Mine took a beating through my years of corporate dressing and so I was glad to be in good company!
I was amazed and delighted by proper portion sizes everywhere we went. I weighed exactly the same when I returned as I had when I left, even though I ate deserts, bread, cheese and wine. Extensive walking and proper portion sizes covered a multitude of sins, Non?!
Merci to Carol for assuring us we can still eat all that French food and still stay slim.
be chic, stay slim, live well — Anne Barone
Anne Barone's new book available in paperback and Kindle ebook.
The Barone System in paperback—and Kindle
The Barone System is available at the links below.
|| 13 May 2025
Good Words For Anne’s Books And A Sunscreen Reminder
Recently an email from Synthia had good words for my books and also reminded me to preach my annual sermon on sun protection for the face.
Synthia wrote:
Just purchased your new book and I'm so excited to read.
Like many others have explained to you, your books have changed my life. I was able to travel much in the last 20 years, and for the most part, keep my wardrobe and weight in check and just live a very European inspired lifestyle.
I am so grateful for you and the lessons you have taught me which I now teach the new generation; my children who are now adults. I am proud of their interest in travel, reading, food, cooking, etc...They are rarely on social media and focus on developing their minds and living a full life.
My husband and I are planning a trip to Scotland this July. I don't know what to expect but I will let you know!
Merci to Synthia for her comments on my books. Perhaps after her trip to Scotland she will report her take on Scottish chic and slim.
You may remember that about a year ago, I shared with you Synthia’s experience with a Merkel Cell Carcinoma that had developed in the area just below her eye and required rebuilding her lower eyelid after the carcinoma was removed.
A Reminder:The area just beneath the eye is particularly sensitive to sun’s harmful rays, So a good sunscreen (without any carcinogenic ingredients) and sunglasses with UVA and UVB filtering are helpful in protecting you from things that might develop there.
be chic, stay slim, live well — Anne Barone
|| 10 April 2025
Choices
It’s spring here at Provence-sur-la-Prairie. The hailstorm over the weekend took its toll on the budding iris and roses — and a lot of the new leaves on the trees and shrubs. But despite the near-freeze early Sunday morning, the warmer days this week are encouraging the survivors.
One of my joys of spring is asparagus. My brother arrived this morning delivering two big bunches freshly cut from the field of a farm just outside the town where he lives. Bringing also just-laid eggs from the same farm. So omelette with asparagus is on the menu.
Recently two comments on my new book concerned choices. Nicolle in New Zealand wrote:
Congratulations on your new publication, I purchased from Kindle instantly. It was a very enjoyable read and compliments your other titles. Also I revisit your advice regularly and always read your website Nouvelle updates.
As I approach 50, the importance of exercise is made so clear, and your routine of Pilates and stretching is a good reminder for me to maintain my Tracy Anderson Method subscription as I age. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s harder not doing it. And in the end, we choose our version of hard, don’t we?
Warm regards, Nicolle
Vicki in Friday Harbor also wrote on the topic of choices. In her lengthy and interesting comments on The Barone System, she wrote:
One of the quotes I pay attention to daily is: What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change. This one from Madeleine Albright. I firmly believe that our daily choices are just that: choices.
About six months ago my favorite neighbors decided that it would be better for their children to grow up in Europe and made the choice to relocate. Their sea freight is on the ship. They depart in a few days.
One of the questions I was asked often in the early days of this website was why I did not remain in France instead of returning to the USA. The answer was family reasons. But in hindsight it appears I might have made a better choice. Oh dear!
be chic, stay slim, live well — Anne Barone
Anne Barone's new book available in paperback and Kindle ebook.
The Barone System in paperback—and Kindle
The Barone System is available at the links below.
|| 31 March 2025
Reader Comments on The Barone System
Such a reward for me when a reader tells me my information has been useful. Recently I was especially rewarded by comments from Donna who has been reading my books and articles for more than 20 years. Donna wrote:
Hi Anne,
I have been reading your books and blog for over twenty years. The books changed my life by introducing me to a new way of living (the French way) which led to a better figure, better wardrobe, better work relationships (using the mystique technique) and more walking. It would take a book of my own to explain how your writings changed me fully.
I read your new book last night and was shocked by all the health information you now possess. I can tell that you have thought about and studied these issues for many years. I was very impressed and you have motivated me yet again, to become even more conscious of good eating and maintaining my health as I approach age 70.
When I look back on my weight journey over the years, I am always impressed that the factor that changed me the most was the Chic and Slim books, especially the first three. Your writings worked their magic on me as I believe your new book now has.
The other day I had a doctor's appointment. There was a 3rd year medical student with my doctor and as I was answering her intake questions, my doctor reviewed my weight graph with her. She asked me what the single most-important factor was in my weight loss journey which was slow and steady over several years. I told her it was the philosophy of Anne Barone's Chic and Slim books and found myself explaining the French Chic way of life that started it all.
Anne, I am so grateful you wrote those books. And I am so grateful to be able to start implementing the teachings of your latest one.
Thank you so much,
Donna
And, thank you, Donna for your lovely email.
Some techniques are useful for staying slim whatever your age. But each advancing stage of our lives brings new challenges to staying slim — and healthy. My aim in writing The Barone System was to give you both the techniques that helped me lose weight and stay slim 55 years, as well as those that I am finding helpful coping with the special difficulties in staying slim and healthy now that I am 80.
be chic, stay slim, live well — Anne Barone
|| 13 March 2025
Italian Casual Chic
Our Chic & Slim Special Correspondent Kat has sent more comments and photos from Rome. In the previous Nouvelles I reported her comment: “The locals are almost as slim as the Parisians, and just as stylish, albeit in a different way. Nobody does casual chic as well as the Italians.”
More recently Kat has sent photos of the casual chic she has been seeing in Rome with the following comments. Kat wrote:
I couldn’t resist sending you a photo of Moschino’s window. So witty!
Directly across the street is an outlet shop, where one can buy chic clothes at a fraction of the price. I like it that the cheaper shops aren’t all bundled together in a specific part of town, and vice versa. I did briefly visit Rome’s big department store (like the French, Italians aren’t keen on department stores, preferring small boutiques) only to walk straight out again. I might just as well have been in Printemps, Galleries Lafayette or Selfridges. The brands on offer are identical.
Don’t you love the two jewellery displays? I no longer wear costume jewellery, nowadays I stick to the real stuff, and, needless to say, I don’t have much of it, but I thought those were so attractive.
Merci to Kat for the comments and great photos of Italian casual chic.
|| 6 March 2025
Italians Eating Well & Staying Slim
Our Chic & Slim Special Correspondent Kat is in Rome. She sent comments and a photo on her observations. Kat wrote:
The first thing I saw leaving our hotel was this deli. And every trattoria and bar is packed solid with locals as well as tourists. Food and drink is everywhere. Pizza is on sale on every street corner, and is being consumed in great quantity.
And yet, the only fat people I’ve seen in my first two days here were U.K. and US tourists. The locals are almost as slim as the Parisians, and just as stylish, albeit in a different way. Nobody does casual chic as well as the Italians.
I am never tempted by the clothes on sale in France, but I could spend a fortune here!
Another thing which always strikes me when I visit the continent is how lean the police are, compared to the chubby British bobbies. Lean and mean seems to be ubiquitous, once you cross the channel, and there are LOTS more of them. Which is just fine by me.
I was not surprised by Kat’s observations about the slim Italians despite their consumption of Italian food and wine. The clue to how Italians eat all that pizza and Prosciutto di Parma and Fettuccine Alfredo and still stay slim is in the photo Kat sent of the interior of the little deli. What the shop offers for sale is REAL food.
In my new book, The Barone System, I write about the findings of Italian-born gerontologist Dr. Valter Longo and recommend his book The Longevity Diet. Not surprising that the Italian diet pays off in long healthy lives. In fact in European life expectancy, Italy comes in second at 83.72 years behind Switzerland at 83.95. A couple of months difference.
In the US where ultra-processed foods make up a high percentage of the average American diet, life expectancy at latest figures is 77.43 years. What we eat can make a difference in how long we live and our quality of life in those latter years.
be chic, stay slim, live well — Anne Barone
Anne Barone's new book is here! Available in paperback and Kindle ebook.
The Barone System in paperback—and Kindle
The Barone System is available at the links below.
|| 26 February 2025
Comment On A Comment
Last week Provence-sur-la-Prairie was enduring a Mini Texas Freeze. This week we are enjoying lovely spring. Nice compensation.
Lots of interesting comments on the new book coming in. Karen in Rosemount commented that she did not remember me writing on the website about suffering the pelvic prolapse that I discuss in the book. That was because I did not write about it there. Nor did I write on the website about my severe digestive problems, my problems with low protein, the West Nile Virus episode, why I did not gain weight during the Covid pandemic as many did, and several other matters covered in the book. This was purposeful.
First of all, I particularly dislike buying a book by a writer whose articles I have been enjoying and finding that the book is just a rehashing of the articles with little or no new material.
Just as I have always tried not to repeat in a subsequent book remedies and techniques I wrote about in a previous book, in The Barone System on staying slim and healthy despite coping with the problems of ageing I wanted to offer material that I had not written about on the website.
Secondly, in the new book, I wanted to be able to not only discuss a problem, but to explain the solution that I found for that problem. In the case of my severe digestive problems, finding a workable remedy required years of research as well as many trials of various solutions — the majority of which, I am sorry to say, did not give the results I had hoped for. But just as in my mid-20s I eventually found a solution for getting rid of my excess weight, I am happy to say that I did eventually find a solution for those severe digestive problems and for other problems plaguing me the past six years. In the new book I was able to discuss solutions for those problems too.
More comments on the comments on the new book in coming Nouvelles.
be chic, stay slim, live well — Anne Barone
|| 10 February 2025
The Barone System in paperback—and Kindle
For those of you who prefer print over ebook you can find The Barone System at the links below.
|| 5 February 2025
The Barone System: 55 Years Slim and Living Well
Fifty-five years ago I lost 55 pounds. Now, here I am at 80 and, unlike many who successfully lose weight, I have kept the pounds from returning.
Previously my focus was on how chic French women stay slim. This new book is about how I do it. Not only how I stay slim, but healthy too — despite all the challenges of natural ageing.
The Kindle version of the new book is available on Amazon. You can read a sample there.
Kindle version of The Barone System on Amazon
The Barone System is also available in paperback.
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The Barone System Print version ISBN 978-1-937066-26-0 is distributed by Ingram. With the print versions of my previous books, Ingram fed the books into the system and they appeared on the sites of various booksellers. I assume this will happen again. As soon as listings appear, I will give you the info about them on this site.
I may also do an EPUB version of The Barone System if I find there is a demand for it.
New Contact Email
During the time I was working on the new book I acquired a new email service. The old att.net contact address became inoperable. I did not post a new address because I did not have time to respond. For the moment the new contact address is baroneslim (the at symbol) pm.me
If I recieve too much spam and phishing email at the address, ProtonMail makes it easy to cancel the email address and replace it if blocking does not solve the problem.
be chic, stay slim, live well — Anne Barone