My love affair with endives

Today, I was sitting at a café, and couldn’t help but hearing the three rakishly thin French girls chatting about how fat they were. At one point “Marlene” took off her stylish Fall-blazer and said,

“Anne-Sophie, look at this arm fat (read skin), I mean I know now, no more crepes, chocolate, pasta…”

The rest of the girls widened their eyes in awe of the centimeter of flesh hanging from Marlene’s arm. Then one of the other girls demonstrated some arm exercises-one of them was picking up her pint of beer (not light) sipping it and replacing it in front of her. She could probably do better with a fork loaded up with mashed potatoes.

Disgusted, I continued to sip my highly caffeinated espresso in hopes it would suppress my eternal longing for a lemon tart.

With the guilt of even thinking about a lemon tart I settled down to continue my reading of “Je n’arrive pas à maigrir”. Or for my fellow Anglophones, “I don’t know how to get skinny”.

The premise of this diet book was aimed at the entire spectrum of the French female-including those who are:

• Snackers
• Stressed out
• Thyroid problem
• Menopause
• Stopping smoking

And my personal favorite

• Can’t be bothered to get off their bums and bouge (sedentary life-stylers)

Generations of women have looked to the svelte Frenchies on this tantalizing subject-in fact there are cookbooks and diet books dedicated to solving the mystery of how French women stay thin. This is why I thought it would be highly educational to read a French diet book.

Well, I’m just going to go ahead and burst the proverbial bubble: French women stay thin because French people make babies with French people and stay in France, thus preserving their glorious ballerina bodies.

Strolling the boulevards in Paris is the best window-shopping, because the majority of Parisian women are living, breathing, smoking…hangers. Perfect for displaying Falls’ newest trends. I usually leave the house feeling good, but a moment in a trendy area surrounded by these gazelles gliding around in their effortless skinny jeans leaves me feeling like a frumpy, dumpy American with a resolve to live off of endives and celery for the rest of my life.

Anyway, flipping through this astounding literary achievement (and their subsequent regimes) taught me one thing. That for any of the cases listed above, I should be eating lots of bread, red-meat, dark chocolate, red wine, butter, fat and cream…in miniscule portions. Aaand, if my weight goes over by .000002 I had better not eat one thing until that microscopic ounce has vanished from my scale. Whatever the cost may be.

Literally, if worse comes to worse, I can drop hundreds of euro at my local pharmacy loading up on calorie burners, appetite suppressors and full lines of smoothing panty-hose. Apparently, appetite suppressors are a highly recommended and effective weight-loss method by the author of this diet book. I’m sure they mix great with the red-wine.

I think we (the rest of the female world) must come to terms that the bone-structure and gazelle like bodies that we so covet are genetic…so tant pis and eat a baguette. French women don’t actually know how to get thin. They are thin, and stay thin by being French. Le voila!

So I (hopefully) will shed pounds by reading diet books, chuffing along the Seine, and using diligently the ‘think’ method to release my inner ballerina.