The French Don't Diet Plan: Book Review
Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 04:30PM 
The French Don’t Diet Plan is a book I happened upon years after reading Intuitive Eating. I discovered it when I was mostly an intuitive eater, but still feeling a bit bad/wrong for eating things with real fat in them, you know like cheese, butter and cream. My body told me those things were okay and in fact I felt pretty good eating these real foods, but my mind wasn’t entirely caught up. Until I read this book.
I actually read The French Don’t Diet Plan soon after becoming engaged to my now-husband, which is a time that many women sadly (in my opinion) restrict what they eat. Not me. We used every kitchen appliance we received for our wedding including our brand-new ice-cream maker. I guess for me, this book removed any last inkling of fear I had of fat: the fear that fat would make me fat, that fat would ruin my health, that it would even look un-sexy or irresponsible to eat it. Imagine that. After reading this book, those fears disappeared and I felt fully healed from any eating issues still lingering in my psyche.
The book begins with the author taking you with him and his family on a trip to Lyon, France, and gives you a glimpse inside his psyche and physical body while there. The trepidation he felt lingering at hours-long lunches that all concluded with decadent cheese. The confusion he revealed in the grocery store when he couldn't find low-fat dairy products. And the utter delight he experienced in his body while eating this way. He lived the French paradox we’ve all read about: eating rich foods led to shedding of pounds that he’d put on in the states. (Disclaimer: you know I’m not saying he was supposed to lose weight or that all weight loss is good, please I hope you know that by now. I’m just saying he was delighted to find that a byproduct of indulging in rich, delicious food actually led to a 25-pound weight loss that he wasn't even trying to achieve.)
Reading about Dr. Will Clower's experiences somehow opened up an entirely new world of food for me. Sprinkled throughout the book are delightful recipes, and they are juxtaposed with ingredient lists for their packaged food versions. For example, a 4-ingredient alfredo sauce recipe sits atop a very long ingredient list for a frozen version of that very same dish. Somehow, full-fat cheese and cream don’t seem half as “bad” when sitting across the page from very long lists of ingredients that you can’t pronounce and certainly can’t describe to your kid without an advanced degree in chemistry. It sort of slaps you in the face (or gently pats you on the cheek) with the realization that one man’s poison is another man’s luxury. Does that make sense? I guess this book just made me embrace cream, butter, eggs, full-fat yogurt and so many other wonderful foods. I discovered that eating them left me entirely more satisfied than I felt after consuming food-like-products.
I started ordering Caesar salads at lunch, and making biscuits on the weekends. My then-fiancé and I made homemade vanilla and strawberry ice-cream. We bought fresh fruit at the farmers market and I’d eat heaping bowls of it mixed with full-fat plain yogurt, with a little peanut butter mixed in (don’t knock it ‘til you try it). I ate my mother-in-law’s béchamel sauce with gusto and her strawberry-rhubarb pies joyfully. And…I was very in tune with my hunger and fullness signals. I only ate what tasted phenomenal and I naturally wanted to stop when satisfied because the entire experience was so, well, satisfying. I wasn’t trying to lose weight for my wedding, but my clothes did become a bit loser. I think I was also so excited for the big day that my appetite lessened a tad in those last days leading up to the big day.
This book, I think, solidified everything I learned in Intuitive Eating and then some. It also broadened my cooking repertoire, much to my husband’s delight. I sometimes re-read portions of this book when I go astray from eating so well. I do have a toddler, after all, and packaged foods are indeed easy! I’m a working mom, and thus I don’t always have time (or energy) to cook biscuits from scratch. For that reason alone, I do have a great appreciation for good-quality packaged foods. Hence, my occasional Favorite-Product-Of-The-Week posts. But I will say that this book carried within its pages very important messages that I’ll keep with me forever.
Oh, and don’t be misled by the word “plan” in the book title. I didn’t find the book to be diet-y at all.
Happy eating, and happy reading…
Book Review
Reader Comments (3)
Sounds great. Will definitely pick this up. Thanks for your wonderful book review and website which inspires me again and again to trust my own body's wisdom about what it needs.
@ Laura -- thank you for your kind post. I'm happy to read your feedback. Enjoy the book!
Liked you on Facebook, too. =) zoqqrl zoqqrl - Red Wing Store.