French Women Don't Get Fat! Would like to lose 15 pounds

[aquablueness]

How interesting, the good ol' French paradox! i love this!

[Lady Rothschild]

Bchic - good tips.

[mellecyn]

We always say "1 glass a day keeps the doctor away" but to be honest doctors recommend red wine mostly to old people.
And yes, preparing simple meals from scratch (better ingredients without all the sugar they add in cans and processed food), and keeping the portions small is what an average french does. Everyday meal is : vegetables, bit of fish or meat, bit of carbs, cheese or yogurt, fruit. That´s it. And no snacks in between.(except for fruits).
I lived in the US for a while I gained so much weight.....I felt I couldn´t escape from food and my stomach had expanded, my mother was pretty strict when I returned home !!!

[jmcadon]

I have seen a lot of fat french women...just not in magazines!

[BChic]

10/27
W: 130

Breakfast: Baguette w/ butter, cafe au lait
Lunch: Thai Vegetable Curry Soup
Dinner: Wine, plate of cheeses and olives

[BChic]

10/28
W: 131

home sick today - drinking lots of water and juice to stay hydrated! Had some tomato soup for lunch, lots of tea with honey throughout the day, will likely have more soup for dinner.

[Jeneen]

BChic are you back on the French wagon?
I hope your sickness goes away soon!

[BChic]

I am! I can tell a big difference in my skin as I haven't been eating chemical laden snacks, sodas, etc.

Thanks for the wishes - I am feeling a bit better but fever is still high : (

[yeliab]

BChic, good job!! You're doing great! Yes, and the skin glowing is a Wonderful perk! Keep up the good job and hope your fever breaks soon!

Keep us posted!!

[kimalee]

Thanks for posting this. I read this book awhile ago but I don't remember much of it.
I like the 'need-to-eat' market trips...I'm going to start going to the market several times a week. I have a habit of going once every other week and buying tons of stuff that I don't actually want, but only feel like while I'm there.
I also like the part about walking - I'm not really a gym nut, but I looooooooooove to walk!

[BChic]

10/29
W: 131

Breakfast: bread w/ butter, tea w/honey
Lunch: homemade chicken soup
Dinner: deciding between carrot cashew ginger soup OR platter of olives, cheeses, etc.

still on the mend, lots of tea w/ honey again today. Feel much better though, thank you for the kind wishes!

[BChic]

Originally Posted by yeliab

BChic, good job!! You're doing great! Yes, and the skin glowing is a Wonderful perk! Keep up the good job and hope your fever breaks soon! Keep us posted!!

thank you! once I get back it to the swing of things it's easier to keep on trucking : )

[BChic]

Originally Posted by kimalee

Thanks for posting this. I read this book awhile ago but I don't remember much of it. I like the 'need-to-eat' market trips...I'm going to start going to the market several times a week. I have a habit of going once every other week and buying tons of stuff that I don't actually want, but only feel like while I'm there. I also like the part about walking - I'm not really a gym nut, but I looooooooooove to walk!

I love the book, it just makes so much sense! I really like not having to count calories, fat grams, etc etc.

The market trips are key for me too - I eat much fresher food and don't have junk laying around to snack on.

Walking is great! I always hope to live in a city where I can walk to work, the market, etc.

[BChic]

Sample Menu for Real French Woman

Setting The Scene
Chic French Jeanne-Marie lives, not in Paris, but in Strasbourg, a city in the Alsace region near the French-German border. The city is sophisticated as well as historically and culturally important. Because it is a Sunday in July and the weather sunny and beautiful, traffic on the highways is likely to be heavy. Jeanne-Marie and her husband Bruno have decided to get an early start for their drive to Colmar to her parents’s home. They have been invited to enjoy a family dinner.

SAMPLE MENU:

On Sunday a chic French woman eats dinner with her family
Jeanne-Marie and family are extremely fond of pain au chocolat, chocolate filled rolls made by a particular Colmar bakery. They will stop at the bakery on their way to the grandparents and buy pain au chocolate and croissants for breakfast.

BREAKFAST

Around 9:00 AM the family arrives chez les grandparents. Jeanne-Marie’s mother prepares cafe au lait for the grownups and hot chocolate for the two granddaughters. Her vines have produced a bounteous crop of raspberries this year, and she sets out a pot of preserves she has made the previous week to eat with the rolls.
Cafe au lait: 4 fl. ozs. of strong hot French roast coffee made in a pression (plunger style) coffee maker mixed with four fluid ounces hot milk heavy with cream
Pain au chocolat: These rolls of light fragrant dough much like crossants are rolled around a sweet chocolate filling. About the same size as a croissant. Mindful of the large mid-day meal her mother is preparing Jeanne-Marie eats about 3/4 of her pain au chocolat topped with 1 teaspoon of her mother’s raspberry preserves. Her father eats two croissants plus the remaining 1/4 of her roll.

SUNDAY DINNER EN FAMILLE

The Menu
The menu Jeanne-Marie’s mother has planned begins with foie gras, one that is a speciality of the region. This will be followed by a main course of the traditional French dish coq au vin. With this, Mama serves haricots verts, some wonderful tiny, tender green beans she grew in her own backyard garden. Jeanne-Marie has pleaded with Mama to leave off her usual butter sauce. She prefers the natural taste of the crisp new beans.
There will, of course, be salade made from an assortment of fresh greens, three of which are garden-grown. The fourth will be wild. Jeanne-Marie’s father has gathered them morning in the countryside because he remembers how much Jeanne-Marie loved those particular greens in her salade when she was a small girl. He wants his granddaughters to enjoy them too. The greens will be dressed in a vinaigrette. Because this is a special occasion, Mama will use walnut oil (more expensive than olive, but very popular with the French) in her vinaigrette.
There will be a cheese platter following salade. For dessert, Mama rose early that morning to begin a fresh tarte aux abricots, a tarte made with a fresh apricots and cream filling in a butter-rich pastry shell. The meal will be enjoyed at a leisurely pace with a good Bordeaux. Bruno has brought the Bordeaux and also a nice champagne to accompany dessert. Demi-tasses of strong black coffee will end the meal. It will begin about 2:00 PM and take more than two hours to consume. The daughters, age 5 and 7, will sit at table with the adults and eat all of the offered foods.

A Note about Coq au Vin (Chicken in Red Wine)
Tradition says this classic French dish was invented by an innkeeper in Auvergne back in the reign of Henry IV. Maybe he did, but I further suspect that the inspiration came one morning when the innkeeper said to himself: Mon Dieu! Zee old rooster, he eese dead! Now how I cook theese tough old bird so I can serve zee paying guests?
Coq is cock, rooster. But modern French cooks are as likely to use a large hen. The 3 to 5 lb. bird is browned in about 1/4 cup butter. Sauce is made with bacon or very lean salt pork, pearl onions, button mushrooms, minced shallots, thyme, bay and parsley and about a bottle of burgundy wine. Some chefs toss in a few tablespoons of brandy just to make the sauce more interesting. This is not exactly what the American Heart Association would rate a low-fat dish.
The late French chef Pierre Franey, who learned the recipe from his mother, said coq au vin was to be served with thin noodles. The first time I made the dish, I did not brown the chicken enough, nor reduce the sauce sufficiently. In fact, I added water. I ended up with chicken, vegetables, and sauce all coming out pale purple. I served the coq au vin over rice. It turned pale purple too. Julia Child, I am not.

What size portions does a chic French woman eat?

Jeanne-Marie adores the special foie gras of the region. Still her portion is a rectangular slice only about a quarter inch in thickness and not much bigger than one of those wrapped cheese singles squares with which we are familiar in the US.
Her portion of coq au vin is one thigh with several tablespoons of the sauce plus several pearl onions, five button mushrooms over about 1/2 cup of the thin noodles. She eats a bit more than 1/2 cup haricots verts, cooked rapidly in water and blanched in ice water. In the salade course she eats more than a cup of the lightly dressed fresh greens. From the cheese platter, she choose a cantal and eat about 1 oz. with bread. In all, during the meal, she eats about 1/3 baguette or about 8 inches of a regular-sized baguette of French bread.

Jeanne-Marie drinks 4 fl. oz. of wine with the meal and 1 flute of champagne with the dessert. Her 2 oz. portion of strong after-dinner coffee is served in a small, antique demi-tasse and she adds 1 lump (about 1 tsp.) of sugar. (In France milk is added only to coffee drunk with breakfast.)

Mama has prepared the tarte aux abricots in a 25 cm (about 10-inch) tarte pan. The filling is about 1 inch deep. In all there are 8 guests at the dinner; an aunt and uncle have also been invited. The tarte is divided among the 8. The children are given smaller portions than the adults; the three men are given larger portions than the three women. Jeanne-Marie’s portion is about 1/10th of the tarte that has been made with 1 1/2 pounds fresh apricots, 1 cup heavy cream, 2 eggs, and 1/4 cup sugar and put into a pastry shell made with 1/2 cup butter and 2 and 1/2 cups flour with 1/4 cup sugar.

DINNER

The Sunday evening traffic is heavy on the drive back from Colmar to Strasbourg. The family does not reach their apartment until after 9:00 PM. For supper, while her husband picks up the baguette they have arranged for a neighbor to purchase for them before the boulangerie closed, Jeanne-Marie sets out a rectangle of Munster cheese, a plate of sliced cucumbers, fresh radishes, and fresh sliced tomatoes. Since she is tired from the trip, she does not make a vinaigrette for the vegetables. Instead she sets a cruet of olive oil and another of red wine vinegar on the table.
Jeanne-Marie eats a length of baguette 3 inches long with 1/2 sliced cucumber, 4 medium radishes, and 2 sliced Roma tomatoes with a 2 slices of cheese measuring about 2 x 4x 1/6 inch thick. She butters the bread with about 1/2 teaspoon butter. (It is a French thing to butter bread when you are eating it with radishes.) She drinks mineral water with the meal. For dessert she eats two fresh mirabelle plums. Before they left her parents house, her father went to his tree and picked ten that would be the perfect ripeness for eating at a late supper that night. He picked apricots and placed in a separate bag that would be ripe for Monday nights’s supper.
Her father has also given his granddaughters a bag of macaroons (cookies made from ground almonds) from a Colmar bakery. The granddaughters ask to eat a macaroon with their fruit for dessert. Jeanne-Marie tells her daughters that it is late and their tummies are very tired after all the wonderful food they have eaten that day. Their tummies would be very unhappy if they ate a macaroon that night. How much more fun to save the macaroons for a tea party the next afternoon.

CREDIT: http://eurochic.wordpress.com/french-diet-sample/

[BChic]

(CONTINUED)

The Next Day:

SAMPLE MENU:

A chic French woman lunches at a small restaurant, prepares dinner at home for her family
Chic French Jeanne-Marie works on the staff of Strasbourg’s annual Festival de Musique held each June. She must be at work by 9:00 AM, and must see that her daughters are dressed and delivered to a woman who cares for them before she goes to work. As she dresses, Jeanne-Marie sips on a cup of tea and nibbles on a slice of last evening’s baguette, a section of which, she has split and toasted with a tiny bit of butter.

BREAKFAST

1 cup Breakfast Tea made with 1 teabag drunk with 1 lump sugar and 1 tablespoon whole milk.1/2 of a 3 inch slice of baguette spread with 1/4 tsp. butter

LUNCH

Whenever a chic French women eats a rich meal such as Jeanne-Marie’s Sunday family dinner, she immediately compensates. The French believe that the human digestive system is a mechanism that must be well cared for. Without that digestive system properly functioning, they are denied one of life’s greatest pleasures: well-prepared food. The liver too much been seen to. After a high fat meal such as Sunday dinner, it should be given a rest. That calls for mineral water in place of wine and light meals with lots of fresh vegetables.
Monday Jeanne-Marie lunches with two co-workers at a small weinstub near their office. Paris has bistros, but Strasbourg, located in that area of France that has many times over the centuries passed back and forth between French and German control, has wine bars weinstuben. These pub-like eating places feature hearty meals like choucroute (sauerkraut) with sausages and jugs of wine. But this weinstub also serves a hearty salad of hard boiled eggs, and cold vegetables: beets, carrots, radishes, and celery. Jeanne-Marie eats a salad made with two hard-boiled eggs and about 1/2 cup each of the four vegetables with a tablespoon of vinaigrette. This is served with a 1/2 inch thick slice of rye bread (about 5 inches wide) and fresh sweet butter. She eats about 3/4 the slice of bread spread with 1/2 teaspoon butter. She drinks mineral water with the meal. She ends the meal with a demi-tasse of coffee with 1 lump sugar.

DINNER

On her way home from work, Jeanne-Marie stops at several shops to buy the ingredients for the evening dinner. At a produce shop, she buys 8 Roma tomatoes and 2 avocados to make into a marinated salad for a first course, also a Romaine lettuce for salade. She also buys 10 small new potatoes to boil and serve with the fish main course.
The Alsace region is known for its freshwater trout. Jeanne-Marie buys 3 small whole trout, each about 7-8 ounces. She stops at the cheese store. The proprietor recommends a chèvre (goats cheese.) Jeanne-Marie buys 200 grams (about 7 oz., a little less than 1/2 pound). She then stops at the bakery to buy a loaf of the heavy, thick crusted pain de Alsace.
At home, Jeanne-Marie prepares the avocado and tomato in a vinaigrette and sets them aside to marinate. The avocado and tomato salad is eaten as a first course with some of the Alsatian bread. Her salade portion is 1/2 medium avocado and 2 Roma tomatoes. Only when the salad is eaten does she cook the fish. The small whole trout cook quickly in the hot butter. Jeanne-Marie deglazes the pan with about 1/4 cup dry Riesling, the white Alsace wine that goes especially well with trout. This deglazing reduces to a sauce which she serves over the fish. The hot potatoes are tossed in butter and sprinkled with finely chopped parsley. She eats one 7 oz. trout cooked in 1 Tbs. butter and sauced with 1 Tbs. wine plus two small potatoes and drinks one 3 oz. glass of Riesling with the meal.
Jeanne-Marie has washed the Romaine leaves earlier. She crisps the perfect dark green leaves in the refrigerator in a cloth bag made especially for that purpose. After she clears the plates from which they have eaten the potatoes and fish, she tosses the Romaine leaves in a olive oil, red wine vinegar and herb vinaigrette. Her portion of lettuce is a little more than 1 cup of the torn lettuce leaves with about 1 tsp. of vinaigrette. She eats about 1 oz. of the chevre spread on more of the bread with the salad. In all, during the meal, Jeanne-Marie eats one oval-shaped slice about 6 inches in width and 3 inches high and 1/2 inch thick.
For dessert, Jeanne-Marie prepares Abricots a L’Alsacienne. Apricots baked with sugar and kirsch. The makes this dish with the apricots from her parents’s tree. The dessert is made with about 1 pound fresh apricots, 1/3 cup sugar, and 2 tablespoons kirsch. Her portion of this dessert is about 1/4 of that prepared. After dinner, she ends the meal with a demi-tasse of strong black coffee with 1 lump (about 1 teaspoon) sugar.

CREDIT: http://eurochic.wordpress.com/french-diet-sample/