Really, I should just, well, run. Although non-runners may be aghast and scratch their heads at the seeming inanity of it all, running really is a beautifully relaxing, wonderful way to release stress, unleash a cocktail of endorphins that flood every cell in your body, and yes, stay slender and healthy and full of vim and vigor. (I love that phrase: vim and vigor. I sound so Katharine Hepburn.)
French women are not generally known as big-time runners, although they’re surprisingly energetic and active. They may not be avid subscribers to Outside magazine (although, in all honestly, even I stopped subscribing to the rag a few years ago when it began getting all Maxim on women), but they do get up and move their bodies frequently and vigorously. They’re vim and vigor defined, just without all the spandex and puffy marshmallow shoes and energy drinks.
In my travels I abroad, particularly in Asia, I meet so many Europeans — Swiss, French, English, German, Swedish, Belgian, Danish, etc. — and they all, to a person, uniformly look so vibrant and healthy, they’re practically radiating a sunny glow that can blind an unsuspecting backpacker. They’re inevitably lean and trim and can hike for hours with a sixty-pound, internal frame pack strapped to their backs, and still have enough energy to down a few pints at the local beer garden at the end of a long and lovely day. Granted, this is a very self-selected group, as backpackers are generally a pretty active crowd to begin with — I mean, we live out of our little packs for months, sometimes years on end, after all — but the Europeans I meet have this interesting aura about them. Not exotic or glamorous, and certainly not unique, but they do carry themselves with a certain dignity and grace that we American hikers and travelers often lack.
They don’t run on Dunkin’s, that’s for sure. Most of us eat three squares a day, but when I hung out with them at the communal breakfast tables and coffee lounges — whether in Stockholm or Sydney or even Dar es Salaam — I notice that they drink real, whole milk by the glass. They eat slowly and deliberately, just as Mireille Guiliano implores that we do. They eat cereal, sure — a youth hostel in which B. and I stayed for a few days in London served only cereal from what looked like an industrial trough — but they don’t gulp it down as we do while staring, their eyes glazed over, at a flickering TV. They chat quietly over a full meal, then get up, wash their dishes, and move on with their day.
I know I’m venturing into dangerous alien-watching territory here, but I’ve always held a particularly anthropological fascination with the traditional way people eat. We Americans talk about “grabbing” breakfast, or eating it “on the run.” We pile through drive-thrus (even though the coffee shop itself may be completely empty inside) and buy cereal by the billions of dollars a year. I’ve met more than a few people who shuffle sheepishly into work the next morning with their breakfast inexplicably displayed on their shirt or pants — casualty of a careless, crazy commute. I’ve done my share of zipping through convenience stores and bakeries at 7 in the morning, snatching a pint of milk and a pastry in the rush to catch a train. (And this was in rural Japan, mind you, where the legend of the overworked Japanese sarariman remains just that — a legend.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martacolpani/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
With the recession in full swing and more people are out of work, I see the pace of our society even more ramped up, the commutes even longer and the sad looks of anxiety and despair lingering on people’s faces. I’d read somewhere that commuters are finding less crowded freeways and streets, now that fewer people are holding jobs, but that’s not what I see where I live, in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. If anything, we’ve become a nation where even Dunkin’ or cold cereal isn’t fast enough for us — we need the likes of unwrap-and-chew Pop-Tarts. No fuss, no muss, no healthy benefit whatsoever. Even Runner’s World magazine — which really should know better — endorses Pop-Tarts as a decent option for a pre-run snack or post-run recovery meal (with a glass of sugar-laden chocolate milk for protein, of course). Don’t get me wrong — I love Pop-Tarts brown sugar and cinnamon, but when even the nation’s finest and most well-respected and well-researched running magazine concedes to our national obsession with chocolate sugar bombs by it allowing as part of a “well-rounded diet” (and who really has one of those?), you know that we’ve lost our way somewhere.
I’ m writing this as I drink a cup of English Breakfast tea, having polished off a simple scrambled egg an hour ago. It sounds terribly virtuous, but only two days ago I had a Starbucks muffin, which is really not much more than cake in a wrapper. I’m a bit tired, feeling quite run-down, although the tea helped perk me up. I’m craving a donut right now and am just waiting for a lunch meeting at a cafe to get my obligatory cafe au lait that will hopefully perk me up. I could theoretically get up and go for a run, something I haven’t done in a few days, but I have two deadlines in as many days and don’t know when I’ll have time to do anything else.
I’m a Francophile with a nasty case of the busyness, and it’s a burden I and millions of other women struggle with everyday, whether they’re Francophiles or not.
I remember what I once read somewhere, a piece of advice offered by a personal trainer or fitness coach who clearly understands the pressures the average American faces. S/he said that the most important things to remember when it comes to maintaining fitness and good health is that we must eat well, sleep well and exercise, but that if we can do at least two out of three, we’ll be okay. It’s a testament to modern society’s challenges that s/he felt the need to throw that last caveat in, knowing full well that even fulfilling 2/3 of that advice would be a major accomplishment for most of us.
French and other European have an innate understand of the incredible value of that simple piece of advice, and yet we Americans shun it for economic, material, psychological, and other reasons too complex for most of us to really grasp. In the meantime, they maintain that enviable glow of health, while we spend literally billions of dollars on cosmetics procedures, products and chemicals to at least simulate it in our own bodies. Surely there is something wrong with that picture.
What are you doing to maintain healthy habits? What are some of the things that you wish you could do to be healthier and less overwhelmed, and yet you don’t because, well, we’re not healthy and are overwhelmed?
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Hi,
as an introduction – I am English and I enjoy reading your site as my boyfriend is French.
I think you put yourself and your nation down too much. The fat American and the thin French woman are just stereotypes after all. ok, so apparantly 2/3 of Americans are overweight, 1/2 of British, and 1/3 of French – but that’s a difference of degree, not kind. I work in London, and plenty of people here eat breakfast at work, or at the train station. Plenty of people here are overweight and badly dressed too. I’ve never been to America, but I’m sure there’s plenty of Americans who are thin, healthy and well dressed.
don’t beat yourself up over it!
also – what is ‘dunkin’??? I don’t know this word/expression.
cheers,
Kate.
Bonjour, Kate, and thank you so much for your comment!
You’re absolutely right — these are all stereotypes, and I would never want My Inner French Girl to be the repository of anti-American woman hate and discrimination. As you probably know, I cringe whenever I see a new book about the style and looks of French women that’s written by an American because oftentimes the criticism can be harsh and even downright mean against my Yankee sisters.
Of course, there’s a reason for the stereotype. We do overeat to an unhealthy and embarrassing degree here, and although I’m actually quite slender and fairly healthy, I have my share of days where only a bag of Cheetos seems to be my salvation! I’m writing more about the general culture of excess and self-loathing that’s become not only accepted but celebrated in this country and how ill-equipped we have become to deal with the mounting stress that comes from living in a high-tech, recession-heavy world.
I did notice when I was in London (albeit briefly) that the Brits are as casual as we are, and that they eat on the run as well. (I’m thinking of that opening scene in Sliding Doors, where Gwyneth Paltrow is hurrying to work and spilling her coffee on her book. And yeah, I know Lady Gwyneth isn’t British, but the film was! One of my favorite films!) I’m certain they do the same in France, but I lament the trend and what it says about Western culture in general. It certainly hasn’t made us any healthier.
Ohhhhh, Dunkin’. I sometimes forget that I have an international readership (I can’t believe it myself sometimes!), but Dunkin’ Donuts is a chain of hugely popular donut shops. Most of them here in the U.S. seems to be located on the East Coast, but I’ve found them in Asia as well. They don’t attract a cult-like following like Krispy Kreme once did, but they’re reliably good, and I hear that the coffee isn’t bad.
The title of the post refers to a recent Dunkin’ ad campaign that sported the tagline, America runs on Dunkin’. I would say that we run on Starbucks, but c’est la vie!
Salut,
Marjorie
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