Eating Like a French Woman 101

Summary of Le Plan

French women take pleasure in staying thin by eating well while Americans typically see it as a conflict, and they 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 sûr. 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.

Immerse Yourself

What will it cost you to practice the secrets of French women? 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 program; and if you are past age 40, you should acquire some dumbbells for strength building. C’est tout.

Learning to eat right is like learning a language—nothing works like immersion.

Your Syllabus (Stages of Le Plan)

• Phase I: Wake-up call/Leek Soup Weekend: an old-fashioned inventory of meals, which you should start right away. To start your online food log, go here. This phase is also about taking a clear-eyed look at what you’re eating, which itself, even after a couple of days, can begin your turnaround. Then, as you’re ready, kick off your program with a weekend in which you’ll use one of the first tricks practiced by French women.
• Phases II and III: Recasting and Assessment: an introduction to the French school of portions and diversity of nourishment. You’ll identify and temporarily suspend some key food “offenders.” This is usually a three-month process, though for some a month will do the trick. It won’t be a dietary boot camp, but a chance for your body to recalibrate. There is discipline, but flexibility is vitally important, especially at this key motivational stage: the value of avoiding routine both in meals and activities, emphasizing quality over quantity. No pizza three days in a row, but also no three hours at the gym on Saturday. Here's a reference guide to recasting principles. You’ll acclimate with your five senses to a new gastronomy (a Greek word, even before it was a French one, meaning “rules of the stomach”). Three months is not a short time, but nor is it long for something you’ll never need to do again. Naturally, it takes longer to reset your body’s dials than to lose seven pounds of water, the initial part of many extremist diets. But because it is French, there will be pleasures, lots of them.
• Phase IV: Stabilization: wherein everything you like to eat is reintegrated in proper measure. You have already achieved your reset “equilibrium,” and should be at least halfway toward your weight-loss goal. Amazingly, at this point you can increase your indulgences and continue to slim down, or just maintain your equilibrium, if you are already there. I give advice for practicing ideas about seasonality and seasoning—powerful tools, which are not nearly as much trouble as some imagine. I also present more recipes based on the French knack for variations on a theme, or how to make three easy dishes out of one with delicious results, saving time, money and calories.
• Phase V is the rest of your life. You are at your target weight, a stable equilibrium, and the rest is just refinements. You know enough about your body and preferences to make little adjustments in the event of any unexpected drifts, especially as you enter new phases of life. Your eating and living habits are by now uniquely tailored to your tastes and metabolism, so like a classic Chanel suit they should last you forever with minor alterations over the years. Now you will be eating in a totally different light, with an intuition to rival any French woman—a cultivated respect for freshness and flavor that unlocks the world of sensory delights to be discovered in presentation, color and variety. What you do you will do for pleasure, not punishment.
  
  As an honorary French woman, you’ll be enjoying chocolate and a glass of wine with dinner. Pourquoi pas?
  
  In addition to nourishment, which is the main subject, I’ll describe aspects of healthy living that need to be pleasurable as well. As with food, these do not require extreme measures (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual or financial)—only a sense of balance. They include elements of what I like to call French Zen, which can be learned quickly and easily and practiced anywhere (mainly French women do not go to gyms, but if that is your pleasure, à chacun son gout!). Even the French know there is much more to life than eating, and so here, too, you’ll find the French take on other diversions, like love and laughter. From beginning to end, it will be important to recognize that Montaigne’s apercu is more relevant today than ever: a healthy body and healthy mind work together. In maintaining both there is no substitute for joie de vivre (an expression for which there is tellingly no American equivalent).