Suzanne Somers Get Skinny On Fabulous Food

What This Book Actually Is

Suzanne Somers Get Skinny On Fabulous Food is a weight-loss program that came out in 2008. The core idea is that you don't need to eat sad diet food to lose weight. Instead, you eat real food — good food, even — but you follow specific rules about how you combine different food groups. The main mechanism is food combining, which comes from naturopathic traditions and was popularized by people like Shelton and later the Master Cleanse crowd. Somers adapted it into something more approachable for a mainstream audience. Here's the basic structure without the marketing spin. You separate your food into categories: proteins, starches, non-starchy vegetables, and fruits. The rule is that you don't mix certain categories on the same plate at the same meal. Proteins and starches generally shouldn't be eaten together. Fruits should mostly stand alone or go with non-starchy vegetables. You eat more non-starchy vegetables throughout the day. You cut out processed foods, refined sugars, and most dairy. Alcohol is limited. The reasoning Somers gives is that food combining improves digestion, which supposedly improves metabolism and reduces fat storage. The scientific basis for that claim is... thin. But people do lose weight on it, and that's the important part. I followed this pretty closely for about six weeks back in 2011. Lost about twelve pounds. Not because food combining magically changes your biology, but because the rules naturally eliminate a huge chunk of the standard American diet. You can't have a cheeseburger with fries. You can't have pasta with meat sauce in the same meal. You can't snack on candy or drink soda. That alone creates a caloric deficit for most people without any calorie counting.

The Rules I Actually Used

The book lays out several specific guidelines. Here's what mattered most in practice: Eat proteins with non-starchy vegetables only. Chicken with broccoli. Fish with asparagus. Not chicken with rice. Not steak with potatoes. This is the hardest rule to follow if you're used to the standard American plate setup, but it's also the one that drives most of the weight loss simply because it removes so many common meals from the table. Starches alone or with vegetables. Rice by itself. Potatoes by themselves. You can mix starches with non-starchy vegetables, but the book tends to discourage large starch portions during the active weight-loss phase. I found that cutting starches down to one meal per day — usually dinner, and usually just a small portion — was the sweet spot for me.

Fruit as a standalone food or with vegetables. This one surprised me. The book says fruit should not be eaten with proteins or starches. An apple by itself is fine. Berries with some spinach is fine. Apple with peanut butter is not. The reasoning is that fruit digests quickly and combining it with slower-digesting foods causes fermentation and bloating. Whether that's physiologically accurate or not, I did notice less bloating when I stopped mixing fruit with other food groups. Avoid combining multiple protein sources at once. Don't eat fish and chicken in the same meal. Don't add cheese to your steak. One protein per meal. This is easier than it sounds once you stop thinking about buffet-style eating. Raw vegetables are encouraged. Salads, vegetable sticks, things like that. The book emphasizes raw because cooking breaks down nutrients and raw food supposedly requires more digestive energy. Whether that "more digestive energy" actually translates to meaningful calorie burn is questionable, but eating more raw vegetables does fill you up with fewer calories, which is the real benefit here.

Cut out processed food entirely. This is the easiest and most impactful rule. No packaged snacks. No microwave dinners. No bread from a plastic bag. You cook real food from scratch or you eat what comes in its original form. This single rule probably accounts for more of the weight loss than any of the combining rules.

What No One Tells You About This Program

Food combining diets like this have a reputation for being complicated, and they are, at least at first. The first two weeks I spent more time thinking about what I could eat than actually eating. I'd be at a restaurant and mentally reconstruct the entire menu to find something that fit the rules. A grilled chicken breast is fine. Add mashed potatoes and it's suddenly off the table. A side salad is fine. Add croutons and it's a problem. It gets exhausting. There's also the issue of social situations. I went to a wedding where the main course was beef with a wine reduction and roasted root vegetables. I could eat the beef if I left the vegetables on my plate, or I could eat the vegetables and leave the beef. Neither option felt great. Most people in this situation just eat nothing and go home hungry. I learned to call ahead and ask what they were serving, then plan accordingly. It's not glamorous but it works. The biggest practical problem I ran into was protein sources. When you can't combine protein with starch, your options at restaurants shrink dramatically. Most American restaurants default to protein-plus-starch plates. You end up eating a lot of plain grilled chicken or fish with a side of steamed vegetables. It gets old fast. I solved this by keeping a list of restaurants in my area that offered customizable plates — places where you could order a protein and a vegetable separately without the starch being the default. Salad bars with a grill station were also useful, though you had to be careful about cross-contamination from tongs and shared surfaces.

What Actually Happens When You Follow It

The first thing you'll notice is that you're hungry more often. The program doesn't restrict calories explicitly, but the food combining rules tend to reduce overall food volume because you're eating fewer calorie-dense combinations. You'll eat more frequently — the book suggests five small meals a day — but each meal is smaller than what most people are used to. If you're used to eating three large meals, this adjustment takes a few days. You'll also lose weight faster than you might expect, at least in the first couple of weeks. A lot of that is water weight. Cutting out processed food and reducing starch intake causes your body to shed glycogen and the water bound to it. I lost about four pounds in the first week, most of it water. After that, the rate slowed to about one to two pounds per week, which is sustainable and healthy. The book also emphasizes chewing your food thoroughly. I don't think this is unique to Somers' program — it's a common recommendation across many dietary approaches — but it does help. Eating slowly and chewing well gives your brain time to register fullness, which prevents overeating. It's a simple trick that most people skip but makes a real difference.

Where This Approach Falls Apart

Let me be straightforward about the limitations. This is not a scientifically rigorous program. The food combining theory — that eating proteins and starches together causes digestive problems that lead to weight gain — is not well-supported by modern nutrition science. Digestion is more complex than the food combining model suggests, and there's no strong evidence that separating food groups improves metabolism in the way the program claims. That doesn't mean it doesn't work. It works because it eliminates processed food, reduces portion sizes, and creates a caloric deficit. The food combining rules are a framework for achieving those outcomes, not the actual mechanism of weight loss. If you replace the combining rules with a simple "eat whole foods, don't overeat" approach, you'd likely get the same results. But the combining rules give people a structure to follow, and structure is what most people need. The program also doesn't address individual differences well. Some people do fine on higher-carb diets. Some people need more protein. The book offers a one-size-fits-all approach, which means it's not optimal for everyone. If you have insulin resistance or metabolic issues, you might benefit more from a lower-carb approach than this program provides. If you're an endurance athlete, the protein and calorie restrictions could be problematic.

Another issue is long-term adherence. I found that after about six weeks, the rules started to feel restrictive. I was traveling for work and couldn't control my food environment as easily. I also got bored with the limited variety. The program does include a maintenance phase, but it's not particularly detailed about how to handle real-world situations like dining out, social events, or travel. You're basically on your own after the initial weight-loss period.

How to Actually Get the Book

The book Get Skinny On Fabulous Food by Suzanne Somers is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most major book retailers. It's also available as an audiobook if you prefer that format. You can find it used for significantly less than the retail price if you don't mind older copies. The program also had an associated website and supplement line, but those are largely defunct now. The book itself is the primary resource. There's no official free download of the full book — that would be copyright infringement. Any site offering a free PDF is either pirated material or a skimpy excerpt designed to sell you something else. I'd recommend just buying the book or borrowing it from a library. It's a thin volume, about 200 pages, and the content is straightforward enough that you won't feel ripped off if you read it through in a few sittings.

A Few Practical Tips From Someone Who Actually Did This

Meal prep is essential. If you're going to follow this program, you need to prepare your food in advance. Restaurant options are too limited for most people to rely on. I spent Sunday afternoons grilling chicken breasts, roasting vegetables, and hard-boiling eggs. During the week, assembly took about five minutes per meal. Without meal prep, I would have given up within a week. Keep a list of approved snacks. The book mentions snacks like raw vegetables, nuts (in moderation), and fruit, but the specifics matter. A bag of chips is out. An apple is in. Having a pre-approved list of snacks prevented me from second-guessing every decision. I wrote mine on a note card and kept it on the refrigerator. Don't stress about perfection. I went off-track maybe once a week, usually at a social event. That wasn't catastrophic. The program isn't about being perfect — it's about creating a pattern that leads to a caloric deficit. One meal outside the rules won't undo anything. Constant deviation will, but that's true of any program.

If you're serious about this, buy a good food scale. The book doesn't emphasize portion sizes heavily, but without some measurement, it's easy to underestimate how much you're eating, especially with nuts and dried fruit, which are calorie-dense even when they're "allowed." A food scale takes the guesswork out and keeps your portions honest. Supplements aren't required but the book does mention them. I skipped the supplements and just focused on the food rules. They're an upsell, not a necessity. Your money is better spent on quality food than on pills.

The Bottom Line

Suzanne Somers Get Skinny On Fabulous Food is not a breakthrough in nutrition science. The food combining theory behind it is outdated and not strongly supported by evidence. But the program works for weight loss because it forces you to eat whole foods, avoid processed items, and create a caloric deficit without explicit calorie counting. That's the real mechanism, not magic digestion physics. If you're someone who needs structure and clear rules to follow, this program can work well for you. If you're someone who prefers flexibility and intuitiveness, you might find the rules frustrating and would be better served by a different approach. There's no shame in either preference. I've tried dozens of diets over the years. This one was above average in terms of results and sustainability, but it wasn't the best I've experienced. The ones that worked better for me were simpler — just fewer carbs and more protein, no combining rules necessary. But simplicity isn't right for everyone. Some people need the rules. This program provides them in a package that's accessible and not overly restrictive. That's its main value.