Why French Women Don't Get Fat

Who would have predicted the success of this book? It has just flown off the shelves as it catapulted itself to best selling status. What is it that captivates so many?

To find out, I recently listened to the audio version of this book and have concluded that I like it. Mireille Guiliano has shocked the diet industry by offering a program distinctly lacking a scientific foundation. Instead, she shares with us her common sense approach to staying slim, even while eating in fabulous restaurants and drinking champagne on a regular basis.

Of course, it helps that Guiliano is so darn cosmopolitan and glamourous, leading her transcontinental life, CEOing Clicquot Industries (as in Veuve Clicquot), and speaking with her absurdly thick French accent (she’s been speaking English since she was a young teen for goodness sake. You’d think the accent would have softened just a tad by now.)

Nevertheless, common sense is something that has sadly been left behind in so much of the diet industry. Everyone looks for the quick fix, the miracle cure and almost inevitably ends up with absurdly specific food recommendations and formulas (never eat a carb with out a protein, don’t eat past 7:00 pm). They lose weight initially while they are following the rules, and inevitably gain it back when they just can’t maintain the required level of discipline any more.

In contrast, Guiliano’s focus is on “petit indulgences”, moderation, balance and trade offs. She points out what so many people miss: that those skinny people we see chowing down in front of us are not chowing down when we don’t see them. We see them eating, but we don’t see them the rest of the day or night when they are not eating. They balance indulgence with restraint.

Guiliano also promotes food snobbery. Food snobbery is a very useful attitude to have. Is that Hershey’s chocolate really worth it? You will have to eat the whole bar to get the satisfaction of a small, rich bit of dark chocolate. More is not better, it is a waste of your palate.

She also recommends eating fresh, seasonal produce, simply prepared, rather than the processed, chemically enhanced foods so many of us consume. I recommend the same to my clients. In fact, some of the substances in our food supply have actually been proven to mess up our body’s ability to tell if it’s hungry or full (specifically high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils – avoid these at all costs!).

Sensibly, regarding exercise, she recommends increasing the exertions in your daily life, by taking the stairs when possible and walking wherever you can. She also eschews the gym as the place where we Americans fulfill our puritanical compulsion for public self flagellation as a sign of repentance for the sins we have already committed or expect to be committing. She’s probably right there. Nevertheless I think gym visits are a necessary balance to our desk centric work lives. Hey, public self flagellation has its upside. Think of the camaraderie...hmm...?

Guiliano manages to create an entertaining read, and provides a glimpse into an alternative attitude to life and to food. I think her recommendations are challenging to implement, given we live in the US and not in France, yet I suspect most readers will at least get a few helpful tips along the way.