French Women Don't Get Fat:

The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

Review

 

French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure was authored by Frenchwoman Mireille Guiliano. She is a former spokesperson for Champagne Veuve Clicquot and exec at luxury goods mega-company Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey - so the woman knows from pleasures. She's also a slim woman who doesn't diet, per se - but enjoys the culinary delights of her native France - cheese, butter, bread, wine - and stays slim. How does she do it?

By way of introduction, Guiliano tells us that when she was a young woman she did a study-abroad program in the U.S. - and she went home to France 20 pounds heavier. In hindsight, she sees that the culprit in her weight gain was too-big portions and too many sweets. And that restoring her slimness once she returned to France was the result of slipping back into the lifestyle and typical eating habits of French women, which are: walking everywhere (physical activity all day, every day) and eating only good foods of very high quality, eating in small portions, and savoring, really appreciating every bite of food you take.

The evils contributing to rising obesity rates in the U.S. and elsewhere: the rampant availability of processed, packaged junk food, supersized portions, all-you-can-eat buffets, and eating on the run, in the car or mindlessly in front of the television. Guiliano believes that unlike the French, (Americans in particular) don't take pleasure in the dining experience. We're just grabbing whatever, eating just to eat. Traditional French culture, on the other hand, dictates that you take food and eating seriously. You buy only fresh, high-quality fish and meats, and fresh produce and bread - buying only what you need for the next day or two. You take care when preparing food, even a simple meal, and you sit down and eat leisurely, small bites - slowly - over wine and conversation. And you never, ever eat processed food.

Can you make the strategies of French Women Don't Get Fat work for you? Well Guiliano has a plan, which she says should take about three months to become a way of life. First, she wants you to start keeping a very detailed food diary - for three weeks. She wants you to document why you think you've gained weight and why you want to lose weight - and keep a food inventory so you can determine where excess (and unnecessary) calories are coming from, and decide what you can and can't eliminate from your diet.

Now, the first two days of her plan require a fast - you're to live on little more than leek soup. This is supposed to detox and prep you for what Guiliano says is not a "diet", but a recalibrating of the body which will result in gradual, healthy weight loss without suffering. Once off the leek soup, she wants you to make an effort to make dining a pleasurable experience (read: no eating in the car) and pay attention to what you're eating. She wants you to craft a diet of primarily fish, vegetables, yogurt and fish. And best of all, "you can still have your favorite foods" Guiliano says, just not as often and not as much of them. In other words, no foods are off limits, only big portions are. And that's the foundation of French Women: Portion Control. If you can control the volume of your food intake, there's no need to skip meals, or count calories, carbs or fats. Guiliano wants you to enjoy wine, chocolate, bread - and fresh, whole foods flavored with herbs and spices which look, smell and taste delicious - and you can do this, she says, by becoming a food snob. If you're going to eat, make it count - be absolutely sure the food is fresh and yummy and worth it. And then, don't eat the whole thing. And if you think about it - whether you're eating a banana or a burger from Chili's, the first few bites of anything you eat are always the tastiest. The longer you consume anything the more immune you become to the taste - so put down the burger, or the cookie, and save the rest for later.

Guiliano stresses that physical activity is a key component of French life. Traditionally, French women walk everywhere. No gyms or yoga classes or the like - just a very ambulatory lifestyle. Obviously, this might not translate to the typical American suburban scenario - but the point is that the daily physical activity is a critical element to keeping the pounds off. So whatever you have to do to fit some exercise into your day - do it.
Will you lose weight on French Women Don't Get Fat? If you embrace the daily physical activity and generally healthy diet Guiliano recommends, and master the ability to keep the portions in check: yes. And the beauty of it is, these practices sustain weight loss and weight maintenance for the long term. Diets don't work because we're always giving things up - depriving and depressing ourselves until we quit and go back to what we enjoy, which inevitably leads to the pounds coming back. What Guiliano is talking about here is splitting the difference - sensible, realistic eating that's still enjoyable and takes the word "diet" right out of our vocabularies.