Mireille Guiliano - French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure

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Mireille Guiliano is French, brought up in Alsace-Lorraine and Provence and educated at the Sorbonne. She first went to America as an exchange student and returned permanently to the United States early in her professional career. She is President and CEO of Clicquot, Inc., whose headquarters are in New York, and a director of Champagne Veuve Clicquot in Reims. Married to an American, she lives most of the year in New York and also in Paris. Among her favourite pastimes are breakfast, lunch and dinner.

www.mireilleguiliano.com

Dear Mireille,

I have just read your book, and I could not put it down! I am a working mother of two small girls and have very little time for anything! I want to teach my daughters to appreciate food and enjoy the experience. Thank you very much for your words of wisdom and for the courage and determination that you must have to have succeeded in the workplace. I am encouraged and heartened by your life experiences and am striving to emulate your philosophy. My husband was so surprised to find the table laid and napkins out for a three course dinner after putting the children to bed! After eating the French Way I have lost 3lbs this weekend Hurrah! Long may this continue.

Kind regards,
Sharon, Berkshire

Dear Mireille,

I loved reading your book. I will definitely heed your advice to drink a lot more water and increase my exercise by parking further from the office each day. I love champagne and dark chocolate and feel confident now that I can enjoy them for the rest of my life. Thank you for strengthening my resolve.

With kind regards,
Carol, West Sussex

Madame Guiliano,

Jai lu votre livre, que mon mari ma achet. Votre philosophic est trs solide, et je voudrais suivre votre conseil quand nous partirons dIrlande pour vivre en France bientt, prs de Montmorillon.

Merci pour le plaisir de lire votre livre,
Beatrice, County Wicklow, Ireland

Dear Mireille,

I read your book French Women Dont Get Fat whilst on holiday in Portugal last week. It is the first time I have read a book from front to back in a long time. Your book has helped me to think differently about what I am eating and you have definitely become my mentor. Greek yoghurt was enjoyed this morning for breakfast, followed by banana my next objective is the champagne with lunch. What a treat!

Thank you so much,
Kind regards,
Sheila, Kent

Dear Mireille,

I bought your book a week ago. I am thoroughly enjoying reading it as it is the best book I have ever read on weight loss. It is charming and funny. Thank you for writing such an inspiring book!

Merci beaucoup!
Maria, London

Dear Mme Guiliano,

I have never written to an author before but felt compelled to write to you as I am really enjoying your book French Women Dont Get Fat As well as being a good read it is a book to dip into from time to time I will treasure it and keep it as a reference for years to come.

With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Elizabeth, Kent

What is more important than the meal? Doesnt the least observant [wo]man-about-town look upon the implementation and ritual progress of a meal as a liturgical prescription? Isnt all of civilization apparent in these careful preparations, which consecrate the spirits triumph over a raging appetite?

Paul Valry

Whatever the state of relations between France and the rest of the worldand we have our ups and downswe should not lose sight of the singular achievements of French civilization. Until now, I humbly submit, one glorious triumph has remained largely unacknowledged, yet its a basic and familiar anthropological truth: French women dont get fat.

I am no physician, physiologist, psychologist, nutritionist, or any manner of -ist who helps or studies people professionally. I was, however, born and raised in France; and with two good eyes Ive been observing the French for a lifetime. Plus I eat a lot. One can find exceptions, as with any rule, but overwhelmingly, French women do as I do: they eat as they like and dont get fat. Pourquoi?

Over the past decade, other nations have made valuable progress in understanding the French capacity for getting away with murder vis--vis food and drink. The cautious acknowledgement of a French Paradox, for example, has sent countless heart patients and wellness enthusiasts sprinting to the wine store for bottles of red. But otherwise, the wisdom of the French way of eating and living, and in particular the uncanny power of French women to stay svelte, remains little understood, much less exploited. With myself as living proof, I have successfully advised dozens of women over the years, including some who have come to work for me at Clicquot, Inc., in New York City. Ive also addressed thousands on aspects of this subject in talks. Ive been teased by friends and business associates: When will you write zee book? Well, le jour est arriv!

Could it be Nature alone? Could the slow wheel of evolution have had time enough to create a discrete gene pool of slender women? Jen doute. No, French women have a system, their trucsa collection of well-honed tricks. Though I was born into it, living happily as a child and even a teenager by what my maman taught me, at a moment in my adolescence the wheels came off. In America as an exchange student, I suffered a catastrophe that I was totally unprepared for: an almost ten-kilo catastrophe. It sent me into a wilderness from which I had to find my way back. Fortunately, I had help: a family physician whom I still call Dr. Miracle. He led me to rediscover my hereditary French gastronomic wisdom and to recover my former shape.

I have now lived and worked in America most of my life. I moved here a few years after university and worked as a UN translator, then for the French government, promoting French food and wine. I married an American and eventually found my way to corporate life. In 1984, I took the leap that has let me live in two cultures ever since. The venerable Champagne House of Veuve Clicquot, founded in 1772, boldly opened a US subsidiary to handle the importation and marketing of Champagne Veuve Clicquot and other fine wines. As the first employee, I immediately became the highest-ranking woman on staff since Madame Clicquot, who died in 1866. Today I am a CEO and director of Champagne Veuve Clicquot, part of the luxury-goods group LVMH.

All the while, Ive continued to practise what most French women do without a second thought. And the dangers I have faced for years now are well above average. No exaggeration, my business requires me to eat in restaurants about three hundred times a year (tough job, I know, but someone has to do it). Ive been at it for twenty years, never without a glass of wine or champagne at my side (business is business). These are full meals: no single course of frise salad and sparkling water for me. Yet I repeat: I am not overweight or unhealthy. This book aims to explain how I do it and, more important, how you can, too. By learning and practising the way French women traditionally think and act in relation to food and life, you too can do what might seem impossible. Whats the secret? First, a word about what its not.

So many of us do double duty, working harder inside and outside the home than most men will ever know. On top of it, we must find a way to stay healthy as we try to maintain an appearance that pleases us. But lets face it: more than half of us cannot maintain a stable, healthy weight even with all the self-inflicted deprivation we can muster. More and more people in the developed world are overweight (65 per cent of America, for example, is deemed overweight; according to recent UK government figures, 20 per cent of British women, and 25 per cent of men, are obese), and the fastest-selling books are diet books, most of them now written like biochemistry manuals. No matter how many of these books appear, there are always ten more on the way. Could dietary technology really be progressing as fast as the marketing? Anyway, the demand persists. Why? Why dont the million-copy wonders put a definitive end to our woes? Simply put, the answer is unsustainable extremism.