OK, I’ll just speak for myself here.
Why do I get fat every time I go to France?
We know you French women, as a stereotype, are so “plus petite”
(and you are) so I ask myself, "Why do I plump up every time I spend more than an hour there?"
I lived in France many years ago and just returned from a
five-day sojourn in Paris. Thank God it was only five days! After two, I could
feel the familiar lull take over. It goes something like this. “Baguettes and
croissants must not be fattening. They’re everywhere and the French women are
so thin!” Or maybe it sounds like this. “A crepe here and there won’t kill me.
Look at those tiny French women!” Or this. “Butter is real food, not like all
those processed trans fat spreads over in America. Can’t be bad. Slather it on!
Better yet, carve out a piece the size of a slice of cheddar cheese and wrap
that baguette around it!”
When I spent my year abroad in France (a long, long time
ago), I gained about twenty pounds. The “year-abroad twenty” was far more
shocking than the freshman fifteen. Now in midlife, I only needed five days to
gain five pounds. One whiff of the
boulangerie and this healthy eating, gym-going, regimented mom of three let the
epicure inside of me take over. Taste, pleasure, sensation and enjoyment became
the rules of the food game. “Healthy” was implied, right? After all, the food
is all real and magnificent and, as we have already established, the French
women are doing something right.
But what happens when you put a typical super-sized thinking
American into a culture of deliciousness? Five pounds in five days. That’s what
happens.
I don’t come out looking French. I come out an even fatter
American because I brought my over-sized, “may I have a third café au lait?”
mindset with me to the land of small delicacies.
In England, we could order the “big white Americano” coffee.
They sympathize with our gross perceptions of food. In France, the demitasse
should suffice. But, of course, it didn’t. I needed three to get my eyes open.
So, OK, French women. I get it. I know you're all thin and mysterious about it. But I also know that when you're sauntering around your beautiful Paris, you're not drooling at the fromagerie windows or dreaming about the pain du chocolat you'll be having the next morning. I know you have perspective and balance about your food.
Maybe someday I will learn to drink from a smaller glass.
I know that's what you do.
