Published two years before Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat by Naomi Moriyama, French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano is another book written by someone who is not a nutritionist, but by a person entrenched in a culture that looks at food differently from the American perspective.
I read both books side by side in yet another desperate attempt to get rid of a copious amount of weight put on from medically induced malnutrition and pain eating. Who would have thought you could gain weight while being malnourished? Yes, you can. And yes, I thought I was eating pretty healthy outside of my pain eating. Standard amounts of fruits, vegetables, decent meat, not heavy on the baked sweets. The nutritionist and dietician looked at my food journals and have talked to me several times and every time they just shrugged and said “you’re doing alright, just keep it up and you should lose the weight.” Took a multivitamin and such. Yet pain eating was taking its toll.
Guiliano presented the concept of smaller portions. Making sure that you’re getting the nutrition you need to be healthy, but also have small portions of the things you enjoy, rather than the big American portions. The fundamental idea that occurred to me – I don’t remember it ever being stated blatantly in the book, but it occurred to me in reading this and the Japanese version – is that maybe American portions from the Food Pyramid or too large or aren’t adjusted appropriately. Then again, I’ve felt that opinion for a while and harkened back to when a ‘square meal’ meant a ‘square’ – i.e. four parts to a meal – meat, fruit, veg, carb. What I needed to solidly internalize was ditch the snacks, eat three filling good meals at proper times, drink more water, and take my time actually enjoying the process of eating.
We’re always in such a rush in America that it never feels like we are truly allowed to sit and contemplate our food. We have TV, our phones, we’re needing to get to the next place, next job, next chore – that food isn’t looked at as a daily event, but just one more to-do-list item to get out of the way.
Since turning off the TV, portioning smaller, and enjoying my food more, I’ve been reshaping my framing of food, which has made cooking more enjoyable. Also, not having to make as large of portions has been letting my grocery budget stretch and I don’t feel like I’m spending hours in the kitchen just to watch the family wolf it down and run away to go do anything else other than actually sit at the table and talk to one another. Grant it – they still wolf and leave, but I sit, take my time, and contemplate the food, or life in general. It’s been rather nice. Now – I can be texture averse and times, and that is also helping me clarify what foods I would rather rethink instead of forcing myself to eat ‘because it’s good for me.’ If I don’t like the texture of spinach, why not find a different type of veg that still hits the nutritional levels, but doesn’t taste terrible?
These are concepts that I learned in the first half of the book. Throughout the book are a variety of recipes – often for some kind of sweet that doesn’t involve a crust. Seeing as I’m not really into sweets, this isn’t a big deal.
It does however make it difficult to utilize the book effectively when used as an ebook rather than a physical book. I don’t want it on my bookshelf, though, so I make due. That is something for you to be aware of if you want to give this one a try. I would suggest renting a copy from the library first. It isn’t an end all be all that needs to live in your house. The concepts, once internalized, aren’t something you need to read over and over again. It’s not like you’re dealing with macro-ratios that have to be adjusted every time you gain or lose a pound.
Oh, and hot water.
Hot water has been a weird godsend. I always thought that sounded disgusting. As long as it’s a decent water that doesn’t have a bunch of funky minerals or chlorine in it, it’s rather comforting to drink if I’m trying to avoid adding sweeteners to coffee or tea (I’m a super taster, which means I taste bitter flavors really well and that makes some things incredibly offputting. That means coffee and tea is just not worth it unadulterated). I add a bit of lemon sometimes. I’ve found at family’s house, I just used bottled water because their well water is sulfurous which is disgusting hot, but bottled water is really neutral.
Books in the Cottage 