Journal #1: French Women Don't Get Fat

Although the book, French Women Don’t Get Fat, is classified as a diet book, it is far from it. It doesn’t follow the stereotypical formula of:

1. Are you really fat?

2. Here’s the completely limiting diet (that we don’t tell you but you will fall off of after 2 weeks)

3. Exercise this much and the pounds will melt off.

4. YAY! Now you’re skinny.

French Women Don’t Get Fat is realistic. It doesn’t actually discuss a specific diet. Instead, it explains an eating lifestyle, one for you to stick with your entire life in order to maintain satiety and satisfaction from food AND maintain a healthy weight.

The French author writes of having gone on an extended trip to America where she gains (a lot of) weight. She writes, “The American way of eating got to my head and opened me up to the dangers of this delicious Parisian minefield” (22). In America, she developed unhealthy habits of eating too much and becoming addicted to sugar. (Which I learned from all my other sources is not uncommon—sugar is an addictive substance). Thus, when she returned to France, she couldn’t control herself from eating French delicacies that she had been able to control herself from eating before she went to America. With the help of “Dr. Miracle” she got back on track and rediscovered the “French way to eat,” and ever since has stayed slim, while not limiting herself from any single food.

Her secret? Variety and portion control. By enjoying all types of foods, she never gets sick of a single one, thus never getting to the point where she binges on an “untouchable” food (the reason most Americans are overweight).

Her main trick, however, is portion control. The first few bites of food taste the best. So, the French eat these first few bites, savor them, and move on, never leaving the table feeling stuffed. In addition, each meal is made up of multiple courses, which further encourages only eating a few bites so as to also enjoy the other courses. Finally, the French stagger their meals; a common American thing to do is to fast all through the morning and afternoon, then chow down at night. This is an unhealthy way of eating because it makes the body’s metabolism slow down, then not be able to compensate for the large load of food later eaten.

If Americans could conquer these issues of self-control, the obesity epidemic would disappear... we could all be healthy AND happy with our diets, just like the French.