Eating French

Sorry, I do not agree.
You can not loose weight or stay fit without exercise. Also you have to count your calories.

Chinese origin people eat fast and the majority are very slim .

In Peking Parks I have seen people joining in the morning exercise as a routine.

A.T. Mahmood
London

You don't have to excercise other than normal movement to loose weight and be healthy. Just by laying in your bed all day your body will consume a certain amount.

Of course Calories in vs calories out is very importantant to focus when loosing weight. But negative stress(eating fast can be a symptom) and your attitude towards food can make a difference for people and shouldn't be neglected. What does that chocolate bar mean to you? Delicious treat I let myself really enjoy sometimes and take calorie-responsibilty for or "my diet is ruined, no point in not eating 5 more", "What the heck, I'll start dieting/eating healthy on monday"..

(Why the focus on weight? In Europe, or at least where I live, there's a growing amount of people that look thin but are in reality fat. You have to look at lean body mass and not only on the scale.)

There is a definite link between stress and fat.

Stress leads to Cortisol and Cortisol leads to abdominal fat.

If stress is a factor, then exercise becomes more of a priority.

I've been a victim of cortisol myself and realize what it can do.

What I don't understand is if they love their lifestyle, which I believe the do, their 35 hour work weeks, pension, month of vacation in August, time with friends and family, then why did they elect sarkozy. He stands for getting rid of all of these to pursue the American lifestyle from what I understand.

Of course, I'd be happy to trade.

Hi,
I'm a french webdesigner working both in web agency and as freelance, i uselly work around 45/50 hours per week. The reality is that many of us work more thant 35 hours. We are known to work less beacause Labor unions (i don't know if it's the exaxt word) and the ones who work in administration (which are numerous in France) force the gouvernement to get more and more advantage and to work less and less ... but it's very different in private business, we work much.
Nevertheless, i do agree with this article. We are use to get around 1 or 2 hours at lunch. So i beleave that working hard is to uncompatible with having a good way of life. It's the way we work in France :)

Sorry if my english is not good. But i hope that could have explain a few.

"I beleave that working hard is NOT uncompatible"
sorry

The work stress and lifestyle may not allow Americans do enhoy the French eating habits. The life style is realted to the environment people live and the people around them. That is why more overweight people would like to visit the social network for them especially, such as largeplace.com. They may choose the way that makes them feels better.

I'm french too and I I agree with Loomax on two points :
- Yes we often spend a lot of times for lunch.

- Yes we spend more than 35 hours in our job for the most of us.

- No, i'm not sure that people in the administration are working lesser than people in private business.
I'm a computer ingeneer in a little private company and i'm working very often for different private business and administration. People spend more time at job in little structure (administration or private business) than in a big structure. A typical example is in bank and insurance company (very big structure of private business), people works really lesser than other people in the smaller structure ...

dont1one : Why N.Sarkozy has been elected ? If the other candidate (Segolène Royal) had been elected, she should also sacrifice many of our social advantages (pension for example) because we don't have money to maintain our way of life ! And it is not because N.Sarkozy has been elected that we are all like him ! This is not because G.Bush has been elected in the US that you are all like him ;-)

Just a little conclusion about the french way of life : USA are very (positively) influent on our way of life : music, movies, computer technology...and so on. The food is just a particularity in the french culture, this article reflects just very well this particularity.

The rest is politics ;-)

Thank you for responding.

I think working too many hours is ruining the US. I work at a place that has no sick time, two weeks of vacation, and five holidays a year. The trend seems to be less time off. I think sitting down with a family to share a meal, talk about the day, and be happy is great.

French people also travel more on vacations and see more of the world and different cultures.

I hope France doesn't change too much.

If americans are more obese than French is that they are victims of their own culture and the famous "way of life".

Why do they work so hard ?

The best theory I found is that, first of all, because of the pioneer spirit. But this spirit did not fade away.

Why ?

Americans think it is for having a big car, a huge house and many gadgets and stuff they will never or almost use but we know now that is, nowadays, because the successive governments understood the absolute necessity to retain leadership and that is by pushing economic efforts at max speed and at the expense of the workers ...

For that, they manipulate the whole system (which like it by the way : once started, it goes all the way) in order to make all (or almost) people think that "What they are" is defined by "What they own".

Yet, China is on the way (with a different cultural thinking but, for the moment, more efficient).

For further information :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enginee...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=...

I think only that eating 5 times a day increase methabolism, so if you do a little walk a day (30 minutes) you clearly lose weight. I'm Italian and I work in front of a computer 10 hours a day, I don't have the time do gym but eating the way of the Mediterranean diet http://www.mediterraneanbook.com I can cleary say I won't become fat.

It is not American any more if we eat like that. There are also a lot of overweight people in France. I was recently contacted by a big man from France at largeplace.com. It's hard to say if it is the eating habit that make people to be overweight.