Bonjour everyone! Have you ever wondered why we, French, are staying so thin when we are eating bread, croissants, butter, and cheese on a daily basis? Since I have been in the U.S, my weight went up and down and I wondered what I was doing in France that helped me stayed thinner than I am now. I am not drinking soda, I eat a lot of veggies, and I workout, so why am I still heavier? I feel like I am way healthier than I was when I lived in France. I have been pondering about this, and here 5 reasons I came up with to explain why French are thin. Of course, not every single person in France is thin, but we don’t have an obesity epidemic. Anyway, let’s get to the point.
1. We take our time to eat.
I remember when I was eating meals at home in France, and most of them were at a table with my family, except for breakfast since we all had different schedule. I would still take time to eat breakfast sitting at the table, I was not reading anything or scrolling through my phone. At lunch, I would sit at the table with my parents because they had enough time to come home to eat. When I was at school, we had about one or two hours to eat lunch, which gave us enough time to eat and relax before going back to class. Once again, it was a time to socialize and we weren’t in a rush to eat. At dinner, we would all sit at the table and eat. Yes, the TV was on, but most of the time we would talk to each other. We took our time, and we usually had an entrée, a meal, then cheese and dessert.
Another important thing is that a lot of meals are homemade. My parents always made dinner, and same thing for lunch during the weekend. We usually eat leftovers for lunch during the week. Even when I was at school, we would have a complete meal: entrees, meal, cheese, and dessert that we close to homemade meal.
Taking your time to enjoy your meal and spending time with your family while enjoying a good homemade meal does have an impact on your weight. You aren’t shoving food down your throat and overeating because you aren’t paying attention to a single bit since you are watching TV.
2. We don’t exercise to burn calories, but as a hobby.
Exercise is all about enjoying ourselves and staying healthy. We choose an activity that we enjoy doing that has nothing to do with the number of calories we will burn per hour. Those who run, do it because they enjoy it, not because it has been shown to burn the most calories.
I was a dancer when I was still living in France and was doing several sessions per week. I wasn’t seeing that as a way to get ballet dancer legs or to be more active. I was doing it because I enjoyed it. To be honest, I wasn’t doing anything else besides that. In France, exercise is about relaxing and doing something we enjoy rather than a way to lose weight. We also walk a lot, which is another reason why we usually stay thin.
3. We move more throughout the day.
A lot of people use transportation in France, except for those who live in smaller town where transportations are not as common. I remember walking 15 minutes to the train station to take a train to then walk another 15 minutes to school. I was doing the same thing on my way back home which meant that I would walk at least an hour every day. I am not counting the walking I was doing at school because it was gigantic and we always had to take the stairs to go to our next class (it was a three story building). I am using myself as an example and what I was doing when I was still living them, but those who live in Paris or other big cities are doing way more walking and going up the stairs than I used to, especially if you take the subway.
Obviously, having several options when it comes to public transportation helps because in Houston, we don’t have any, so we have to use our car to go everywhere. I think that we get so used to driving everywhere here that we would use our car to go to the store that is less than 0.5 mile. We also use the drive-thru instead of getting out of our car even when it is faster to go inside the restaurant. Remember that being active throughout the day as a bigger impact on your waistline than you think.
4. We eat at regular meals at regular times.
That might surprise you, but we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner (no, nothing surprising actually). We might have a snack between lunch and dinner, but we aren’t constantly grazing throughout the day. The reason why we aren’t snacking is because we eat complete meals. What I mean by that is that when we are hungry, we usually sit down to eat protein, carbs, and fat. We can wait until the next meal when we are hungry instead of trying to get instant gratification from snacks. I also think that we do that because we eat together, so if you eat too much for snack then you won’t be hungry when it is time to eat.
We also have regular size meals, which means that we don’t have gigantic portions of everything. We tend to serve ourselves a plate and get seconds if we are still hungry. Having a lot of food on your plate makes you want to eat all of it, and if you aren’t paying attention, you might eat more than you need. We have meals with an entrée, a meal, cheese, and a dessert which keeps us satisfied for a while, so we don’t need to snack in between.
5. We aren’t obsessed about calories.
Before coming to the U.S, I don’t even think I was even aware of calories. I would see them on the box of whatever I was buying, but I never though about counting calories. I was eating what I enjoyed eating, and I was also eating nutritious foods, so no need to worry about calories. I started becoming obsessed about calories when I saw how much of a big deal it is here.
Focusing on calories makes you forget about two important things: nutrients and quality. We tend to eat food that are of higher quality and more nutrient-dense. Yes, we eat a lot of bread, croissants, pasta etc., but they aren’t as processed as they are here, and we don’t overdo it. I also think that the relationship with food is different since they are available to us at every meal. If you have bread at every meal, you won’t want to overdo it, because you will have some more later during the day. The fact that our food isn’t as processed probably helps with the satiety too…
The reason why French are thin even though we eat a lot of starches everyday is because our relationship with food and exercise is different. It is the same reason why American and everyone else were thin before. We don’t eat something according to its calorie content. We eat food because that’s what keep us alive and it is also a way to socialize. We don’t do a specific exercise because of how many calories we will burn by doing it. We exercise because we enjoy the activity we are doing. We don’t eat while not paying attention to a single bite we are taking. We are sitting at a table with friends or family or even by ourselves and aren’t reading or watching something that will take our mind off of what we are eating.
Unfortunately, France is becoming a lot more like the U.S, and we are ordering more food, focusing more on calories, and spending hours doing an activity we don’t like. That’s probably why we are getting heavier… And that’s probably why I got heavier too ;). Let’s go back to the basics and focus on quality vs quantity.
Let me know what you think in comments!
