Losing Weight...Without Dieting

Before I start blogging about the specific processed foods we’ve replaced in my home, let me ask you a question in this posting and tell you a little story about the first time I ate unprocessed foods for two full weeks. How many of you gain weight on vacation? I know I do. I usually gain one to two pounds. I try to watch what I eat and keep up my outdoor running and workouts wherever I go but I still manage to gain a pound or two. It’s alright—it happens and I know I will lose it once I get home.

Eating it all...and losing weight
Now imagine going on vacation and completely throwing your diet out of the window. I mean not even trying the slightest to be good and watching what you eat. You eat whatever you want. You eat bread with lots of butter and jam, and chocolatey, cheesey, creamy or jam-filled gooey pastries every morning; cheesy sandwiches grilled in butter for lunch; 4-5 course dinners with rich and creamy sauces; loads of different cheeses and even more bread and butter at dinner. Did I mention lots of red wine and decadent desserts? Yeah, throw those in too. Now imagine eating like this on a daily basis for two weeks straight and losing 11 lbs. Not possible you say? Well, believe it or not, it happened to me while vacationing in Paris with my husband back in 2003 during the holidays. No one was more floored about the weight loss than I was.

We stayed with my cousin—a fun and lively Texas girl living in Paris with her French husband, and the two of them were the best hosts, tour guides and the awesomest cooks anybody could have asked for. We visited all the sites, ate fabulous home-cooked meals at their home (btw, dinner in Paris was always served at 9 or 10PM—one time at 11PM!), and ate a few restaurant meals as well. After a few days of eating all that yummy food I was sure I had made a mistake by chucking my diet. I thought, “…maaaan, I’m sooooo screwed. I’m going to gain weight bigtime on this trip,” or so I thought. I was actually in for unexpected and pleasant surprise.

I was walking through the Louvre one day when I noticed that I had to keep pulling my pants up every few steps. I was really annoyed by this inconvenience and it was ruining the experience for me. I had just purchased the jeans before leaving on our trip and didn’t understand why my previously comfy snug jeans were so loose on me. I thought maybe they had stretched out somehow and attributed the stretching to poor quality and/or manufacturing. I mentioned the loose jeans issue to my husband who told me that he thought I looked a bit thinner, so perhaps the jeans were loose because I had lost weight. After all the food I had been eating on this trip—hell no. I highly doubted it.

That night I went back to my cousin’s apartment and weighed myself. With only two days left in our Parisian getaway, I weighed 11 lbs lighter than when I arrived. I thought, “…how the heck is this possible?! I’ve been eating EVERYTING in sight!” That’s when my cousin’s husband started lecturing us—once again—about the benefits of eating fresh, locally grown, organic, and/or unprocessed/minimally-processed food. He had been saying this all along but to tell you the truth, I really wasn’t listening. “Whatever. Blah, blah, blah—food is food you crazy Frenchman.” But in hindsight I see he had a point.

Food shopping in Paris
Food was bought no more than 1-2 days in advance—most of the time the day of. We went to the bakery for our bread (sometimes twice a day), the fruit and vegetable stand down the street, the fromagerie for cheese, patisserie for desserts, meats from the butcher or the open market and no food was ever purchased from a supermarket. (As a matter of fact, we had to go out of our way to find a U.S. style supermarket—we went only to purchase spring water, laundry soap, bath soap and toilet paper). Everything that we ate was fresh, unprocessed or minimally processed and so accessible to everyone. At that time, I didn't think twice about how my cousin shopped for food and how it could be attributed to my weight loss. I simply thought it was "cute" how they bought everything at speciality shops. Quite frankly, I didn’t care how I had lost weight, I was just glad that I hadn’t gained weight and on we went with our vacation.

Gaining it back
After two weeks in Paris, we spent our third and final vacation week in London before we headed home and by the end of that week, I had gained back 7 lbs. I was so bummed, but I shouldn’t have been really. The Brits are known for their processed food as much as we are. Even in the face of gaining back most of the weight and being forewarned by my cousin’s husband that the weight would come right back as soon as I started consuming overly processed, sodium- and fat-filled foods once again, I didn’t want to believe him. I still thought, “whatever,” and attributed my weight loss to all the walking we had done in Paris, but that too didn’t make any sense. I walked a lot more in London than I had walked in Paris. (The underground was ridiculously expensive and I opted to walk around rather than spend £4 for each subway ride). Not only did I walk less in Paris than I had in London, I also ate less in London. Food prices were crazy expensive in London so I actually went back to watching what I ate—and still gained weight.

Looking forward
As my family and I focus on chucking the unhealthiest processed foods from our meals, I can’t help but to think about those two weeks, and in contrast, how inaccessible fresh, organic, locally grown, unprocessed foods are in the U.S. for some individuals. Sure, you can find it, but it’s much more convenient and cost-effective to buy processed foods.  My husband and I find this a bit frustrating, but as we have our eyes squarely focused on our long-term health, while simultaneously instilling health conscious common sense and not to mention essential cooking skills into my son’s young mind, I am determined to find new, healthy and affordable ways to feed my family. I will also try my hardest to keep foods as simple and as fresh as I possibly can—all this without consuming a multitude of additives, preservatives and artificial flavors. (Yikes! Good luck to me!)

Note: I'd like to thank my lovely cousin, Monica Maurice, for taking five of the six yummy photos you see in this post. With flu-like symptoms and a toddler in tow, she managed to get out and about in her neighborhood in Paris yesterday to take these snapshots for me.