Showing posts with label Frenchiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frenchiness. Show all posts

Thursday, September 2, 2010

French Women Don't Get Fat: French Woman's Manifesto

Continuing with the French Paradox, Mireille Guiliano, the author of French Women Don't Get Fat (2004), details the little ways that the French maintain their lifestyle.  Parenthetically, I do not think that the lifestyle of true leisure and intuitive health are particularly French as I observed roughly the same to varying degrees in Italy, Austria, Scotland, Slovakia, and Ireland (not so much in Berlin - no idea what the rest of Germany is like).  It just seems like the French have consciously made it part of their cultural identity.  That being said, my knowledge of French culture is almost entirely secondary since I did not visit outside the Paris airport which is dreadful and lost all my checked baggage so more informed and less prejudiced people are welcome to weigh in.  Guiliano's website Frenchwomendontgetfat.com, includes a manifesto of particulars, which I appreciate since my un-subtlety prefers black and white directives since I currently have no idea how to relax and be leisurely.   

French Woman's Manifesto
French women eat three meals a day.

French women adore fashion.

French women are stubborn individuals and don't follow mass movements.

French women avoid anything that demands too much effort for too little pleasure.

French women balance their food, drink, and movement on a week-by-week basis.

French women care enormously about the presentation of food. It matters to them how you look at it.

French women choose their own indulgences and compensations. They understand that little things count, both additions and subtractions, and that as an adult everyone is the keeper of her own equilibrium.

French women do stray, but they always come back, believing there are only detours and no dead ends.

French women don't care for hard liquor.

French women don't diet.

French women don't eat "fat-free," "sugar-free," or anything artificially stripped of natural flavor. They go for the real thing in moderation.

French women don't get fat.

French women don't often weigh themselves, preferring to keep track with their hands, eyes, and clothes: "zipper syndrome."

French women don't snack all the time.

French women don’t watch much TV.

French women will dress to take out the garbage (you never know….)

French women drink water all day long.

French women eat and serve what's in season, for maximum flavor and value, and know availability does not equal quality.

French women eat for pleasure.
Amelie (2001)
French women eat with all five senses, allowing less to seem like more.

French women enjoy going to market.

French women do enjoy wine regularly, but with meals and only a glass (or maybe two).

French women eschew extreme temperatures in what they consume, and enjoy fruits and vegetables bursting with flavor at room temperature, at which they prefer their water, too.

French women get a kick from Champagne, as an aperitif or with food, and don't need a special occasion to open a bottle.

French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat.

French women know one can go far with a great haircut, a bottle of Champagne and a divine perfume.

French women honor mealtime rituals and never eat standing up or on the run. Or in front of the TV.

French women love to sit at a café and do nothing but enjoy the moment.

French women love bread and would never consider a life without carbs.

French women love chocolate, especially the dark, slightly bitter, silky stuff with its nutty aroma.

French women know l'amour fait maigrir (love is slimming).

French women love to discover new flavors and are always experimenting with herbs, spices, and citrus juices to make a familiar dish seem new.

French women love to entertain at home.

French women love to laugh.

French women never let themselves be hungry.

French women never let themselves feel stuffed.

French women plan meals in advance and think in terms of menus (a list of little dishes) even at home.

French women eat smaller portions of more things. American women eat larger portions of fewer things.

French women take the stairs whenever possible.

French women think dining in is as sexy as dining out.

French women train their taste buds, and those of their young, from an early age.

French women eat more vegetables.

French women walk everywhere they can.

Monday, August 30, 2010

The French Paradox

Obesity Rates Around the World
#1: The United States at 30.6%,
#2: Mexico, our neighbor to the South at #2: 24.2%,
#3: The United Kingdom, the loins from which our American culture sprang, at 23%. 
#23: France at 9.4%, trailing behind in one battle they can be proud to lose.  Heh, heh...OK, sorry, that was my one obnoxious comment about France for this post.  The point is, the French are significantly less obese, and considerably healthier.  
Funny Face
If you have never heard of the French Paradox, you ought to look it up here.  The French Paradox means that in spite of smoking more, drinking more (wine, anyway), and consuming four times as much butter and lots more saturated fats in general, the French have less coronary heart diesese and frankly enjoy their own daily lives much more than Americans.  This makes that 70 year old Tweedy man sucking on an unfiltered cigarette, swilling scotch while cutting into a rare steak saying, "I say, if this is going to kill me, let it kill me, but I am going to enjoy it while I am alive" seem much less cantakerous and more like the wiseman on the mount, does it not?  There is much to be said for the intuitive health found in doing what you enjoy.     

Sometimes I really wonder what the hell Americans are doing to themselves.  Americans have the most insane habit of forcing themselves to do things they do not enjoy because someone told them it was the most efficient/healthiest/most enlightened.  Please explain to me why anyone would force themselves to aquire a taste for diet drinks, or give up butter for magarine, or start eating tofu, or spend two hours staring at the wall of a gym on a treadmill rather than walking outside, or eat any food that has "fat free" on the label?  Americans turn everything, even things that are meant to be leisure, into work.  It is awful.  We work during vacations, we stuff down food while multi-tasking (responding to emails, reading, watching a show, standing, etc.), and view food more as fuel to continue working.  We are obsessed with gyms, dieting and working out, but we do not even enjoy the means to get there.  All work and no play means a lot of unfulfilled and bored people.  Or Jack Nicholson manically chopping through a door.

The French Paradox involves a mentality of leisure and moderation.  Americans have a bad habit of believing leisure means lazy.  The reality is that often the very things that naturally bring you joy and relaxation are the things that also keep you healthy and happy.  The French culture is about a genuine enjoyment of life.  Taste your food when you eat.  People are far less likely to overeat if they eat slowly, eat a variety of delicous food, and actually take the time to taste it.  Walk because you want to enjoy the activity and scenery, not because you are enviously envisioning Jennifer Aniston legs.  The French smoke because they enjoy the excuse for leisure and conversation it provides.  They drink wine with every meal, taking pride in learning what wine to pair with what entree.  This list just savors of moments of real pleasure in daily routine.  What are you paying attention to?  What is your focus every day?  If it is just to get through the day so you can sleep and start all over again, you might want to reassess lifestyle.  The French lifestyle facilitates what I think is the most valuable part of daily routine, and that is the ability to spend time of genuine enjoyment with people I love.