Basic Pursuits

How do they do it? Those French guiltlessly dine on endless dishes smothered in rich, butter-based sauces. They never fail to eat dessert. Yet they don't get fat. Their obesity rate is a third of that of the U.S. The bastards!

Americans first deduced, with their penchant for seeking solutions to all problems in a single pill, that it was the red wine that keeps the French so thin. U.S. sales of pinot noir soared. So did our obesity rates.

Californian Michael Seabaugh just spent a month in France and dined unfettered. He was surprised to find at the end of his trip that he had gained only a pound. In his exploration of the French paradox, he came up with two concepts that should be useful to us all.

First, the French take time to enjoy their food. They spend meals at the table relaxing with family and friends rather than commuting in traffic or at their desk in a hectic office. One of Seabaugh's sources suggested that stress eating turns calories to fat more than relaxed eating. That is a dubious premise, but making meals more relaxing is a good idea.

Second, and this is the crux of the matter: portion control. This simple, yet evasive concept is the be all and end all of weight control. Eat less calories than you burn and you lose weight.
For most of us, this means logging our food intake.

Read about Michael's quest here.

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