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Most diet books are based on radical programs. Apart from a brief Jacobin interlude in the eighteenth century, extremism has never been the French way. America, however, gravitates toward different philosophies, quick fixes, and extreme measures. In diet as in other matters, these work for a time, but they're no way to live. You're bound to slip out of your Zone, fall off your Pyramid, lose count of your calories. And why not? "C'est normal!" It doesn't help matters that one extreme prescription is often contradicted by the very next one to gain traction. Who doesn't remember the high-carb days? Or the grapefruit days? Now everything's fat and protein, and carbs are the devil; first dairy products are your worst enemy, then they are the only thing you can eat. Ditto wine, bran, red meat. The unstated principle seems to be, if you bore yourself to death with one kind of food group, eventually you'll lose interest in eating altogether and the pounds will come off. In some cases, they do. But what happens after you stop the radical program? You know what happens. For this reason, "attention!" Banish the diet book! You don't need an ideology or a technology, you need what French women have: a balanced and time-tested relation to food and life. Finally, the coup de grace against these extreme programs is their general lack of attention to the individuality of our metabolisms. Written mostly by men, they rarely acknowledge that the physiology of women is profoundly different. And a woman's metabolism changes over time: a woman of twenty-five with some weight to lose faces a different challenge from that of a fifty-year-old.
While my stories and lessons can be of benefit to anyone, this book is intended primarily for women, being based solely on my experience as a woman. It's not only for Americans, but for women throughout the developed world, who face career pressures, personal stress, globalization, and all the traps of twenty-first-century society. And it is not for those whose weight is an immediate health risk, or who require a medically prescribed diet. I speak specifically to women who need to lose up to thirty pounds, which is a great proportion of the population. Nevertheless, like the "Tintin" cartoons, the story is for all ages, seven to seventy-seven, and I offer advice for tailoring it to the various periods of our lives. Since French women do not live by bread alone, much less high protein, I present a comprehensive approach to living, strategies and philosophy you can make your own, including menus and quick recipes anyone can follow and, "bien sur," a guide to how we move. Oh, and I like to think that men of all nations could benefit from learning a thing or two about the other gender.
Okay, so what are the secrets of French women? How do we account for all those middle-aged women with the figures of twenty-five-year-olds strolling the boulevards of Paris? The following chapters draw on observations from my time in Paris (about twelve weeks a year) compared with my weeks in New York City and around the United States and the world. I invite the reader to reflect on the differences and modify her approach to healthy living accordingly.
At the outset, let's state that French women simply do not suffer the terror of kilos that afflicts so many of their American sisters.
All the chatter about diets I hear at cocktail parties in America would make any French woman cringe. In France, we don't talk about "diets," certainly not with strangers. We may eventually share a trick or two we've learned with a very close friend—some cunning refinement of an old French principle. But mainly we spend our social time talking about what we enjoy: feelings, family, hobbies, philosophy, politics, culture, and, yes, food, especially food (but never diets).
French women take pleasure in staying thin by eating well, while Americans typically see it as a conflict and obsess over it. French women don't skip meals or substitute slimming shakes for them. They have two or three courses at lunch and then another three (sometimes four) at dinner. And with wine, "bien sur." How do they do it? Well, that's a story. That's the story. One hint: They eat with their heads, and they do not leave the table feeling stuffed or guilty.
Learning that less "can" be more and discovering "how" one can eat everything in moderation are keys. So are exertion in proportion to calories consumed and a much more plentiful intake of water. We no longer work eighteen hours a day in a mine or on a farm, and our Paleolithic hunter-gatherer days are long past. Nevertheless, most Americans eat at least 10 to 30 percent more than needed, not to survive but to satisfy psychological hunger. The trick is to manage and gratify your appetites, while determining how, when, and what to reduce. The wonderful feelings of satisfaction you'll notice when a new menu is introduced—a heightened enjoyment even as overall intake is decreased—will then inspire you to continue along the wellness road. It's all a matter of learning the most basic of French rules: Fool yourself.
Many nutritionists (valuable educators) promote a commonsense approach but charge a fortune to tell you how to implement it. The money spent on attempting to lose weight is out of all proportion with outcomes. Most women simply can't afford to see a doctor or nutritionist, join a health club, go to a spa, or have meals delivered. What will it cost you to practice the secrets of French women? Well, above the cost of this book, very little. My do-it- yourself approach is within virtually every woman's means. The only equipment is a small scale to weigh some of your foods during the critically important first three months. You might also want to buy a yogurt machine if you want to eat "le vrai yaourt," a key element in my lifestyle program; and if you are past age forty, you should acquire some dumbbells for strength building. "C'est tout."
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