Ces Francaises Ne Grossissent Pas

I just got back from a walk. I knew that one is supposed to think on walks, but didn't know what to think about, so my mind automatically began counting my steps. Naturally, that got boring, and I began thinking. Presto!

I think, in order to trick myself, I am going to start referring to it as "going for a think". I want to begin walking because I detest aerobic exercise, but still want a way to get myself up and out. Aerobic exercise is not thoughtful by its very nature. It takes the mind from the mind and onto the body. One's thoughts are caught up in pure muscle movement. I do not begrudge anyone this experience. It is likely healthy to become completely preoccupied with one's physicality every so often. However, so far, I have not found myself built for such exertion.

You see, exercise happens in my life every few weeks; furious, fitful exercise. It comes from the moments when I look in the mirror one too many times and realize that I am not comfortable in my own skin, and not satisfied with the hollow disregard I have for my body. Thus begins the obsession (the project). I chronicle my calories, reducing them ever lower, and crunch my way into tears, all for a matter of days, until I let the project screw itself while I eat my Kettle Chips. It's not about a healthy lifestyle change. It's about pure vanity and envy, which dissolves into anger, frustration and name-calling that I heap on myself. See how sinful and negative a matter of a few pounds can be! It is such a trap for women.

I am reading French Women Don't Get Fat. I know-- trendy diet book, right? And, like, 7 years past the trend. But I think-- hope?-- it might change my life. It actually has somewhat of a spiritual significance, or at least reasonably drawn parallels. Most diet books are "plans", with direct instructions on what and how much to eat on which certain days before reaching this or that level, eliminating some food groups altogether. Then there is the exercise plan, where one must plough away for pledged hours at the gym. These plans are easy to see as legalism. Spiritually, legalism kills-- try to stick to the letter of the law, and you will find yourself either cheating it, becoming self-righteous, or falling off the wagon entirely. No one can thrive under it.

So, Mireille Guiliano's book does away with plans. In fact, it does away with lots of things. There are no diagrams, prescriptions, or pictures. Just stories, principles, and wisdom. Much like the way that Christ did not teach his followers exactly how to behave with rules for situations x, y, and z. He simply gave them parables and principles to live by.

It is a small miracle that I simply do not want to refer to myself with stinging epithets about my looks. Normally, that's how I motivate myself. Fatass. But this is a whole new world. A positive world. A world where I want to eat good food because it is good, and savor it in a smaller portion-- not scarf down fries and cry about it when it's over. Where I can go on a long walk and enjoy it for its own sake, not pound away my guilt on a machine. I can look at this "diet" as a new way of living, not a way to justify or escape from a guilt-ridden state-- just as a life in Christ is a way of living for His joy, and not of achieving self-righteousness.

No, I'm not saying that French Women Don't Get Fat is the gospel of diets. There are probably better plans, and maybe things won't work out for me. But I'm having a happy revelation for now. And now it's time to make some dinner.