French Women Don't Get Fat

I'm reading this book, French Women Don't Get Fat. I'm sure most of you have heard of it, but it's absolutely fabulous! The book's focus is on our mentality of food, opposed to giving a meal plan that says, "Eat this and you'll lose weight." The author is French, obviously, so she let's us in on the French women's view of food.

I want to share a few main points she gives that have helped me and will hopefully help you too. Because even when you're trying to eat healthy, if you don't have the right mentality, and think like a thin person, it won't last. We'll eat too much, or we'll obsess over it and stop eating that way because we feel sorry for ourselves or feel deprived.

One disclaimer, she doesn't give specific guidelines to what we should eat, mostly. It's good to know what to eat, and then apply her principles to it. We should have a balanced meal of carbohydrates, protein, and fats in respectively 50:30:20 ratio. 50% Carbohydrates, which include fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. 30 % Protein such as lean meats, cottage cheese, egg whites, nuts, etc. 20% Fats i.e. avocado, olive oil, hummus, etc. So even while you're listening to these hints, keep in mind that it's still important to eat balanced meals throughout the day.

1. You'll never hear a French woman talking about diets. This concept goes deeper than that, and shows how obsessed Americans are with counting calories, going on this diet, trying this fast, and eventually going back to the way they used to eat because they couldn't keep it up. So rule number one is to not obsess over what we eat and dieting. We can enjoy food and still look good, without depriving ourselves of the things we love.
   
2. French women take pleasure in their food. This concept is based on quality, not quantity. She says French women get more pleasure from one bite of a fine chocolate, more than 20 mini snickers bars. She asks the question, "What can you get rid of, or live with out? And what would depress you to live without it?" For me, I realized anything I eat at home, I'm not even really, truly enjoying it. I'm shoving it in my mouth because I'm bored, or just for the sake of having something sweet. Something I wouldn't want to give up is chocolate cake from a delicious bakery on a special occasion. So it's realizing those things you truly enjoy, and cutting out those things that you're not even enjoying anyways, you're just mindlessly putting it into your mouth while you're preoccupied doing something else.
   
3. Eat sitting down, chew slowly, and enjoy the seasons and flavors in your mouth. Most of the time we eat so fast that we aren't truly enjoying what we're putting into our mouths. So if we eat slowly and truly appreciate what you're eating, for one you'll enjoy it more, and you'll most likely end up eating a lot less. I've been doing it this past week and I've actually left food on my plate, which is a first for me. I stop when I'm full, because I'm listening and aware. She brings the wonderful point that the real pleasure is really only in the first few bites anyways.
   

There's other great points but those are the ones that I've benefited the most from. Hope you get as much from it as I did!