Lessons Learned

Part One

I've been reading Garance Dore and falling superbly in love with her essays about her diet and how it changed once she came to New York. It's so very compelling and honest and quite frankly, thought provoking. It really got me to thinking about my "diet." Let me set an important ground rule first: when I say diet, I mean the things that you eat, not the things you don't eat to stay thin. Diet is used in the general sense, nutritional intake if you will.
Now as Garance began her series comparing Paris skinny to New York skinny, she quickly learned something about her very French way of thinking/eating in a town where most meals take place in a restaurant and the portion sizes are often three times what they should be; even a Parisian (with a normally decadent diet) would struggle to maintain their waistline here. But that's not my story, just the catalyst for me to share mine. I quit animal protein. Well maybe quit is a strong word, I largely eliminated it. The carnivore in me will not die and I wouldn't want it to but I knew that meat could no longer be apart of my daily life. That was the first major change. 12.2lbs lost from that alone. Now let me not mislead anyone, while loosing weight is a great byproduct and motivation, my primary concern wasn't weight. Still, I would be remiss in my duties as honest being if I didn't say that it is now a major component.


If you somehow are unaware of Garance check her out here in French and here in English. This is the first article in the Changing Lifestyle series as it relates to New York Skinny, Paris Skinny.