French Women Don't Get Fat (Book Excerpt)

FIRST CHAPTER

'French Women Don't Get Fat'
By MIREILLE GUILIANO


VIVE L'AMÉRIQUE:

THE BEGINNING ... I AM OVERWEIGHT

"I love my adopted homeland. But first, as an exchange student in
Massachusetts, I learned to love chocolate-chip cookies and brownies. And I
gained twenty pounds.

My love affair with America had begun with my love of the English language;
we met at the lycée (junior high and high school) when I turned eleven.
English was my favorite class after French literature, and I simply adored
my English teacher. He had never been abroad but spoke English without a
French accent or even a British one. He had learned it during World War II,
when he found himself in a POW camp with a high school teacher from Weston,
Massachusetts (I suspect they had long hours to practice). Without knowing
whether they'd make it out alive, they decided that if they did, they would
start an exchange program for high school seniors. Each year, one student
from the United States would come to our town and one of us would go to
Weston. The exchange continues to this day, and the competition is keen.

During my last year at the lycée, I had good enough grades to apply, but I
wasn't interested. With dreams of becoming an English teacher or professor,
I was eager to start undergraduate studies at the local university. And at
eighteen, naturally I had also convinced myself I was madly in love with a
boy in my town. He was the handsomest though admittedly not the brightest
boy around, the coqueluche (the darling) of all the girls. I couldn't dream
of parting from him, so I didn't even think of applying for Weston. But in
the schoolyard, between classes, there was hardly another topic of
conversation. Among my friends, the odds-on favorite to go was Monique; she
wanted it so badly, and besides, she was the best in our class, a fact not
lost on the selection committee, which was chaired by my English teacher and
included among its distinguished ranks PTA members, other teachers, the
mayor, and the local Catholic priest, balanced by the Protestant minister.
But on the Monday morning when the announcement was expected, the only thing
announced was that no decision had been made.

At home that Thursday morning (those days, there was no school on Thursdays
but half days on Saturday), my English teacher appeared at the door. He had
come to see my mother, which seemed rather strange, considering my good
grades. As soon as he left, with a big, satisfied smile but not a word to me
except hello, my mother called me. Something was très important.

The selection committee had not found a suitable candidate. When I asked
about Monique, my mother tried to explain something not easily fathomed at
my age: My friend had everything going for her, but her parents were
Communists, and that would not fly in America. The committee had debated at
great length (it was a small town, where everybody was fully informed about
everybody else), but they could not escape concluding that a daughter of
Communists could never represent France!

My teacher had proposed me as an alternative, and the other members had
agreed. But since I had not even applied, he had to come and persuade my
parents to let me go. My overadoring father, who would never have condoned
my running away for a year, was not home. Perhaps my teacher was counting on
this fact; but in any event, he managed to sell the idea to my mother. The
real work then fell to her, because she had to persuade not only my father,
but me as well. Not that she was without her own misgivings about seeing me
go, but Mamie was always wise and farsighted; and she usually got her way. I
was terribly anxious about what Monique would say, but once word got out,
she was first to declare what a fine ambassador I would make. Apparently,
Communist families were quite open and practical about such matters, and she
had already been given to understand that family ideology had made her a
dark horse from the start.

And so I went. It was a wonderful year-one of the best of my adolescence-and
it certainly changed the course of my entire life. To a young French girl,
Weston, a wealthy Boston suburb, seemed an American dream-green, manicured,
spread out, with huge gorgeous homes and well-to-do, well-schooled families.
There was tennis, horseback riding, swimming pools, golf, and two or three
cars per family-a far, far cry from any town in eastern France, then or now.
The time was so full of new, unimagined things, but finally too rich, and I
don't mean demographically. For all the priceless new friends and
experiences I was embracing, something else altogether, something sinister,
was slowly taking shape. Almost before I could notice, it had turned into
fifteen pounds, more or less ... and quite probably more. It was August, my
last month before the return voyage to France. I was in Nantucket with one
of my adoptive families when I suffered the first blow: I caught a
reflection of myself in a bathing suit. My American mother, who had perhaps
been through something like this before with another daughter, instinctively
registered my distress. A good seamstress, she bought a bolt of the most
lovely linen and made me a summer shift. It seemed to solve the problem but
really only bought me a little time.

In my final American weeks, I had become very sad at the thought of leaving
all my new pals and relations, but I was also quite apprehensive of what my
French friends and family would say at the sight of the new me. I had never
mentioned the weight gain in letters and somehow managed to send photos
showing me only from the waist up.

The moment of truth was approaching.



Chapter Two
LA FILLE PRODIGUE:

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

My father brought my brother with him to Le Havre to collect me. I was
traveling on the SS Rotterdam. The ocean liner was still the transatlantic
standard preferred by many French people in the late 1960s. With me was the
new American exchange student from Weston, who would be spending the year in
our town.

Since he had not seen me for a whole year, I expected my father, who always
wore his heart on his face, would embarrass me, bounding up the gangway for
the first hug and kiss. But when I spied the diminutive French man in his
familiar beret-yes, a beret-he looked stunned. As I approached, now a little
hesitantly, he just stared at me, and as we came near, after a few seconds
that seemed endless, there in front of my brother and my American shipmate,
all he could manage to say to his cherished little girl come home was, "Tu
ressembles à un sac de patates" ("You look like a sack of potatoes"). Some
things don't sound any prettier in French. I knew what he had in mind: not a
market-size sack, but one of the big, 150-pound burlap affairs that are
delivered to grocery stores and restaurants! Fortunately the girl from
Weston spoke little French, else she would have had a troubling first
impression of French family life.

At age nineteen, I could not have imagined anything more hurtful, and to
this day the sting has not been topped. But my father was not being mean.
True, tact was never his strength; and the teenage girl's hypersensitivity
about weight and looks wasn't yet the proverbial pothole every parent today
knows to steer around. The devastating welcome sprang more than anything
from his having been caught off guard. Still, it was more than I could take.
I was at once sad, furious, vexed, and helpless. At the time, I could not
even measure the impact.

On our way home to eastern France, we stopped in Paris for a few days, just
to show my friend from Weston the City of Light, but my inexorable
grumpiness made everyone eager to hit the road again. I ruined Paris for all
of us. I was a mess.

The coming months were bitter and awkward. I didn't want anyone to see me,
but everyone wanted to greet l'Américaine. My mother understood right away
not only how and why I had gained the weight, but also how I felt. She
treaded lightly, avoiding the unavoidable topic, perhaps particularly
because I had soon given her something more dire to worry about.

Having seen a bit of the world, I had lost my taste for attending the local
university. I now wanted to study languages in a Grande École (like an Ivy
League school) in Paris and, on top of that, to take a literary track at the
Sorbonne at the same time. It was unusual and really an insane workload. My
parents were not at all keen on the idea of Paris: if I got in (hardly a
given, as the competition is legendary), it was going to be a big emotional
and financial sacrifice to have me three and a half hours from home. So I
had to campaign hard, but thanks in part to the obvious persistence of my
raw nerves, in the end they let me go back to Paris for the famously
grueling entrance exam. I passed, and in late September I moved to Paris. My
parents always wanted the best for me.

By All Saints' Day (November 1), I had gained another five pounds, and by
Christmas, five more still. At five feet three, I was now overweight by any
standard, and nothing I owned fit, not even my American mother's summer
shift. I had two flannel ones-same design, but roomier-made to cover up my
lumpiness. I told the dressmaker to hurry and hated myself every minute of
the day. More and more, my father's faux pas at Le Havre seemed justified.
Those were blurry days of crying myself to sleep and zipping past all
mirrors. It may not seem so strange an experience for a nineteen-year-old,
but none of my French girlfriends was going through it.

Then something of a Yuletide miracle occurred. Or perhaps I should say, Dr.
Miracle, who showed up thanks to my mamie. Over the long holiday break, she
asked the family physician, Dr. Meyer, to pay a call. She did this most
discreetly, careful not to bruise me further. Dr. Meyer had watched me grow
up, and he was the kindest gentleman on earth. He assured me that getting
back in shape would be really easy and just a matter of a few "old French
tricks." By Easter, he promised, I'd be almost back to my old self, and
certainly by the end of the school year in June I'd be ready to wear my old
bathing suit, the one I'd packed for America. As in a fairy tale, it was
going to be our secret. (No use boring anyone else with the particulars of
our plan, he said.) And the weight would go away much faster than it came.
Sounded great to me. Of course, I wanted to put my faith in Dr. Meyer, and
fortunately, there didn't seem to be many options at the time.

DR. MIRACLE'S WEEKEND PRESCRIPTION

For the next three weeks, I was to keep a diary of everything I ate. This is
a strategy that will sound familiar from some American diet programs, such
as Weight Watchers. I was to record not only what and how much, but also
when and where. There was no calorie counting, not that I could have done
that. The stated purpose was simply for him to gauge the nutritional value
of what I was eating (it was the first time I ever heard the word). Since
nothing more was asked of me, I was only too happy to comply. This is the
first thing you should do, too.

Dr. Meyer demanded no great precision in measurement. Just estimate, he
said, stipulating "a portion" as the only unit of quantity and roughly equal
to a medium-size apple. In America, where the greatest enemy of balanced
eating is ever bigger portions, I suggest a little more precision. Here's
where the small kitchen scale comes in. (Bread, which sometimes comes in
huge slices here, might be more easily weighed than compared with an apple,
which seems bigger here, too!)

Three weeks later, I was home again for the weekend. Just before noon, Dr.
Miracle, distingué, gray templed, made his second house call. He also stayed
for lunch. Afterward, reviewing my diary, he immediately identified a
pattern utterly obvious to him but hiding somehow from me, as I blithely
recorded every crumb I put in my mouth. On the walk between school and the
room I was renting in the Seventh Arrondissement, there were no fewer than
sixteen pastry shops. Without my having much noticed, my meals were more and
more revolving around pastry. As I was living in Paris, my family could not
know this, so when I came home, my mother naturally prepared my favorites,
unaware I was eating extra desserts on the sly, even under her roof.

My Parisian pastry gluttony was wonderfully diverse. In the morning there
was croissant or pain au chocolat or chouquette or tarte au sucre. Lunch was
preceded by a stop at Poîlane, the famous breadmaker's shop, where I could
not resist the pain aux raisins or tarte aux pommes (apple tart) or petits
sablés. Next stop was at a café for the ubiquitous jambon-beurre (ham on a
buttered baguette) and what remained of the Poîlane pastry with coffee.
Dinner always included and sometimes simply was an éclair, Paris Brest,
religieuse, or mille-feuille (curiously called a napoleon outside France),
always some form of creamy, buttery sweetness. Sometimes I would even stop
off for a palmier (a big puff pastry sugar-covered cookie) for my goûter
(afternoon snack). As a student, I was living off things I could eat on the
go. Hardly any greens were passing my lips, and my daily serving of fruit
was coming from fruit tarts. I was eating this strangely lopsided fare
without the slightest thought and with utter contentment-except, of course,
for how I looked.

Now this was obviously not a diet I had picked up in America, where one
could hardly say the streets are lined with irresistible patisseries (though
then, as now, there was no shortage of tempting hot chocolate-chip cookie
stands and sellers of rich ice cream, to say nothing of a mind-boggling
variety of supermarket sweets made with things infinitely worse for you than
cream and butter). But as I was to learn, it was my adoptive American way of
eating that had gone to my head and opened me up to the dangers of this
delicious Parisian minefield. For in America, I had gotten into some habits:
eating standing up, not making my own food, living off whatever (n'importe
quoi, as the French say), as other kids were doing. Brownies and bagels were
particular hazards; we had nothing quite like them at home, so who could
tell how rich they were?"

(Continues...)


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Excerpted from French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano Copyright ©
2005 by Mireille Guiliano. Excerpted by permission.