The French Don't Diet Plan

by Dr. William Clower

  Always bring something home from the restaurant.

  When eating with friends or family, spend more time talking than eating.

  Step 9

  Find Your Peace

  France from 12:00 P.M. to 2:30 P.M. is a beautiful thing. The clatter of forks on plates and the chatter of friends over food just makes you want to sit for a while. When you’re in this environment, you’re drawn into relaxing. And there’s nothing to do about it but enjoy yourself, because other businesses basically close—you’re expected to take a break through the lunch period. It sounds wonderful and it is, but it actually takes some getting used to.

  Imagine my dilemma of starting a new job in a new country, wanting to impress the world with my industry and productivity. In the first few overeager days, I’d run back from lunch at 12:30 to get more work done. But it didn’t take many iterations of marching back to my desk through the empty echoing halls before I realized that no one else was there—except those few heading off to eat a little late.

  No one—the software specialists, the engineers, the secretaries—would be returning until around 2:30 P.M., so if I needed anything at all I’d have to go back out to the cafeteria or the break room and find them there. They were never much help, though, at easing my work-related angst, so I eventually realized that I might as well just relax, sit down, chat with them, and enjoy myself. It was excruciating until the moment it hit me that I needed to just calm down for a second. Moreover, I discovered that I actually got just as much done as I ever had before!

  Although they loathe the workaholic mentality, the French are still very productive people. They’re just much better at pacing themselves: They work hard in the morning, relax for a couple of hours, and then work hard in the afternoon until about 6:30. In fact, learning theory shows that taking a break between bouts of industry can actually be the most efficient use of your time. When you’re engaged in any mental or physical task, sustained effort without a pause soon becomes counterproductive as you lose your edge, make mistakes, and get less work accomplished in the time you do have.

  Thus, the way to really improve your performance is actually to not perform for a while. Your brain essentially needs to rest for periods of time between bouts of effort (be they math, or memory, or learning a new motor skill). So do yourself a favor and take a break. As soon as you let yourself stop for a while and direct your attention elsewhere, you’ll find that you’re much more engaged (and engaging) when you return.

  Throughout this book we’ve talked about high-quality foods replacing high-quantity eating, but the same is just as true for your life. You can speed through your day nonstop to get more and more done until you collapse in bed, but you’ll actually get as much accomplished by taking a breather between quality, focused jags of productivity—and you certainly won’t burn out as fast.

  Stressful Eating

  “Stressors and emotion-focused coping were found to be associated with low self-esteem, which in turn was strongly associated with disturbed eating attitudes. Stressors were also directly related to disturbed eating attitudes” (Fryer, 1997).

  SCIENCE-TO-ENGLISH TRANSLATION

  One hundred percent fat-free, carb-free stress produces disordered eating, which produces weight problems.

  Are you ready for the biggest secret of the French approach? To be thin, healthy, and energetic you need to enjoy your life: Sleep well, laugh out loud, take time to play, and mentally relax. These factors are critical. Compelling scientific data show why the gracious ease of the French approach actually works better in the long term, and a big reason for this comes down to stress reduction.

  Each day, we drive ourselves into a harried frenzy that can cascade into weight gain, high blood pressure, heart disease, and even depression. That’s because living a life out of emotional balance causes blood sugar swings, which turn into insulin instabilities, which turn into fat storage and in some cases, diabetes. These physiological effects of stress provide another explanation for the success of the French approach, which frees them from this slippery slope of health problems. But you can do this, too, by handling the stress your life; otherwise, the molecules you happen to micromanage will be irrelevant.

  Chronic stress can make you fat.

  Stress and Your Body

  Stress is like wine and chocolate: beneficial in small doses and harmful in large ones. Our bodies are built to respond to stress with short bursts of energy, activity, and mental focus. These stressful situations prime you for an “on the edge” level of performance, which begins with a quick shot of adrenaline. But when prolonged, day in and day out, it becomes terrible for every system in your body. And it all starts because stress causes your physiology to think you need energy, so it produces the hormone cortisol.

  What Happens to Your Muscles

  In its turn, cortisol elevates and maintains blood glucose (sugar) levels by speeding up the breakdown of muscle protein into amino acids (to make more glucose). This can lead to muscle wasting.

  What Happens to Your Immune System

  Chronic cortisol also inhibits the immune system by decreasing the antibody and T-cell response to infections, the number of white blood cells, and even slows how long it takes a wound to heal. You get sicker easier, and stay sicker longer.

  What Happens to Your Bones

  Long-term stress inhibits normal bone formation, robs calcium from bones, and decreases the calcium that can be absorbed into your body. This weakens your bones, makes you more susceptible to fracture, and prevents your body from doing the normal work of bone repair.

  What Happens to Your Heart

  Stress is linked to heart attacks. That much is plain, although the reasons why are only now being discovered, with several important leads. For example, the cortisol produced by chronic stress impairs your heart’s most basic reflexes (the baroreflex sensitivity) and actually physically impairs how your arteries function. It also tends to increase the ratio of sodium to potassium in your blood—the recipe for high blood pressure. Whatever the details turn out to be, it’s clear that prolonged mental stress leads to heart disease.

  What Happens to Your Nervous System

  Stressed individuals often become neurological patients and can suffer a range of problems from sleep deprivation to depression. Also, as your daily muscle tensions build up over days you become fatigued, even when you’ve not expended any excess energy. Chronic migraines are frequent and can even induce eating disorders, as noted in this 2005 research by Dr. Sandra Sassaroli: “In female individuals, stress might bring out a previously absent association between some psychological predisposing factors for eating disorders and an actual desire or plan to lose weight. Such a finding suggests that stress may stimulate behaviors related to eating disorders in a predisposed personality.”

  Science-to-English translation? Stress can induce eating disorders where there were none before.

  What Happens to Your Weight

  Stress does everything wrong for your health and weight. It stimulates the hunger drive psychologically and physiologically so you eat more, but it also causes blood to be routed away from the digestive organs at the same time. It inhibits gastric secretions and may exacerbate ulcers. Thus, you are eating more but digesting it all very poorly! Even worse, stress hormones have recently been shown to cause your body to preferentially store fat in your abdominal region.

  Not only are you hungry for more food more often—digesting it poorly and storing your food as fat around your stomach—your eating pace quickens and the size of your bite increases. This quickly leads to overconsumption.

  Once you understand these physical effects of stress, another French paradox clears up: “How can France be such a productive country when they take so much time off?” Our basic physiology explains it by showing the physical benefits of moderation, the long-term health that comes from periodically taking time off, and the mental clarity afforded by hopping off the hamster wheel once in a while.

  If we’re goi
ng to get these benefits, too, we need techniques to decrease stress on a daily basis in our own culture. So practice the lessons below and you’ll kick off a cascade of health effects behind the metabolic scenes. Your cortisol levels will lower, your immune system will strengthen, your blood sugar will stabilize, and your weight will drop. And all you have to do to move in this healthy direction is to relax.

  PEOPLE ON THE PATH

  Dear Dr. Clower,

  Day 5 of “training my body.” It’s been so much easier than I expected. And one surprise has been the sense of something missing—familiarity. I am so familiar with my worries, frustrations, and internal chatter about what I’m eating, how much, how often, and so on. When that goes away, as it has the last couple of days, it’s almost disorienting.

  I sense how much easier and more familiar it might all be if our larger culture had a healthy, pleasure-based orientation to food and eating. Part of the unfamiliarity is just how alien this way of eating seems in our cultural context.

  I’m stunned at how easily I’ve slid into the smaller portions, smaller meals, and slower eating. I have resisted those things for a long time. Now I find I’m looking forward to sitting at the table and taking those small, conscious bites—looking forward more than I ever imagined. There’s a lot that has to change to support these sane practices. Like eating before I jump in the car for an early-morning trip, instead of grabbing the food and eating it on the road. Different—and better, so far.

  —Rona R.

  Love Your Life Like You Love Your Food

  Joie de vivre, or the joy of living, is a common French attitude. It’s about being more committed to finding happiness in your ordinary daily life than being a slave to your schedule or perceptions of productivity and success. This relaxed attitude has been shown to promote heart health, low weight, and even longer lives. It’s great in theory, but how do you live a life you love in the dizzy swirl of our breakneck speed culture? How do you find your peace on your terms?

  Get Real

  There is no difference between an authentic stress and a perceived one. In other words, you can shape your own reality. That’s all nice and philosophical, but this hits home on a practical level, too. There are a million things in your life that you could spin your mental wheels worrying about, from your checkbook to your relationship to the neighbors’ choice of house paint to global warming.

  You have to be selective about which you choose because, as just mentioned, worry cascades into weight and health problems. Really think about the issues in your life that matter. To do this, take a sheet of paper and release your worries by writing every single one of them down—no matter how trivial. But here’s how you do it. Write them down in two columns: those “worth the cortisol” and those that are not. You may be facing some big issues that you cannot escape, but you will find that most of your list falls into the “not worth the cortisol” column. Once you see them for the little things they really are, let them go and just handle them as soon as you can.

  And, for those items you do have to spend some mental energy on, below are some strategies for overcoming them. These suggestions help you find your peace daily by using the very same principles we’ve described so far for loving your food. This is the lesson of the French diet, applied beyond your food and into your life.

  Take Your Time

  The French habits of healthy eating teach you to relax around your food, training you out of the sixty-miles-per-hour gobbling that becomes a superhighway to health problems. And just like you should give your food the time it deserves, the same applies to your personal relationships.

  Think back to the times in your life when you really connected with your parents, spouse, or friends. This never happened when they were stone-skipping their way through tasks, leaving you feeling like item thirty-four on their list of things to do. It was when they finally stopped, sat down, and really gave you their attention. Well, when you’re on the other end, remember that your time and attention are gifts you can give to the people you love, and ones you’ll get back by creating the close bonds that really matter.

  Focus on the people around you and the quality of your life will be enhanced—even though you may not be checking off as many things from your infinite to-do list.

  When people speak to you, you have to silence the commentary that runs in your head about what they’re saying, what they’re wearing, or what you’ll do after they finish. Be totally present to them and what they are trying to communicate. This is not always easy; it’s a skill you’ll need to practice.

  Stop, drop, or enroll. If you’re in the middle of something, just stop what you’re doing and turn your attention to the person in front of you. If you cannot, let them know you’re almost done, finish it up, and then turn your attention to the person in front of you. If you cannot (like when you’re cooking), enroll them to help you!

  Plan on doing nothing. When they get together with family and friends, some people fill their time with wall-to-wall events that are actually nothing more than an extended set of distractions. Plan on doing nothing for a time with those around you. After a while, if you find that everyone’s ready to get out of the house and go do something again, it’s no problem that you didn’t already have an agenda planned. That’s your opportunity to be spontaneous!

  Taste Life with Smaller Bites

  Here’s the rule for our meals: Take smaller bites or you won’t even taste them. When your mouth is overfull, 90 percent of the food doesn’t even touch your taste buds! Instead of swallowing as much as possible all at once to get it over with, it’s vital to taste what you’re consuming.

  The same principle applies to your daily life. Remember, life’s to-do list is infinite. There will always be three more items nagging at you to get started on even before the last one is begun, so make the decision to focus your energy on the task at hand. Otherwise, you’ll always be looking—and living—past the items that are right in front of you.

  When we bite off more than we can chew, our body has its own way of getting our attention with the stress-related health problems that emerge from the over-scheduled life. Less is more in this case. In the same way, whenever possible, take smaller bites of life. Make your tasks, your vacations, and your schedule realistic, and therefore manageable, so you can be more present and more focused on what you’re doing. This is how to savor your life every day.

  Focus on the little things. Even during the melee of the weekday, don’t rush past the little kindnesses that make this spinning planet a tolerable place. Take time to pet your animals, tell someone thank you and mean it, surprise someone you care about.

  On the weekends, whenever you can, take an afternoon nap or an evening bath. These little indulgences allow you to digest the daily whir for a moment and reinforce how much more important you are than your schedule.

  Stop multitasking, so you won’t ever feel as if you’ve got more on your plate than you can handle at any one time. Schedule your events in series, not in parallel, and you’ll be more effective and be less likely to wake up one morning and find yourself completely overwhelmed with your life.

  Pause Between Bites

  Living in perpetual motion is exactly like eating nonstop—both lead to mindless consumption. Our habits of healthful eating teach you to put your fork down between bites, so you can reflect on what you’re eating. You should do the same thing with your life.

  When your schedule is packed from morning to midnight, and life is filled to capacity at every second, you certainly can’t taste it. Have you ever gotten to the end of a day or month or year and thought, “What just happened here? What did I do yesterday?” Or “Where did the time go?” This happens when you try to cram too much into the limited space of your day.

  Be here now, as the saying goes. Live in the present and make it a point to attend to what’s right in front of you: the sights and sounds and smells and textures. To enjoy your life, you have to notice it first. And to notice it, you have to stop
and give your present task your complete attention.

  Be at peace with this math. Your possible to-do list will never end, but your life on this planet will. It’s your choice to subtract some of your errands in exchange for a little added life. There’s always more to do, but you don’t have to do it.

  Plan on seconds! Always put less on your (metaphorical) plate than you think you can accomplish. If Saturday is your cleaning day, have the whole day reserved for that. If you finish and need something else to do, you can always go back and add it on without a problem.

  Keep some of yourself in reserve. Everyone wants your time, and you can easily give so much of yourself that you have nothing left. Politely, firmly, let the askers know that you just can’t do it. Don’t lose yourself to someone else’s agenda.

  Your Relationship with Food Is Like Your Relationship with Life

  Just as we often confuse the love of food with gluttony and value with volume, we can also conflate the love of life with busywork. Don’t you know people who think they’re getting the most out of life when they take on as much as possible, as though at the end of their lives they can look back at a long list of “Been there, done that”? (Got the husband, been to Grand Canyon, got the car, been to Venice, got the house, visited Great Wall, got 2.5 kids, took tennis lessons, got a promotion …) They march through this list as if to say, “See how much I loved my life?” But this is just like overeating an absurd amount of food and looking up as if to say, “See how much I loved my food?”