Move Over Bacon, Here Comes Something Leaner...

Hi, it's me again, Shaboom...

Everyday, FS receives my caloric intake and output via email. Sometimes I send it to her meal by meal as the day progresses. Sometimes, I send the entire day to her right before I go to bed at night. I find the former method more efficient as with the latter I tend to forget a croissant here, a bottle of wine there…

We then go back and forth over email sometimes totaling 100 messages a day. I send photos. She asks questions. We laugh. This is how we amuse ourselves, you know, in between her telling her son to keep his hand out of his pants, me telling Obsessed! to keep his hand out of his pants, her wiping her son's nose, me wiping Obsessed!'s nose, her wiping her son's ass, me wiping... um... my own ass, thank you very much.

We have a lot of similarities and it seems like we both have children, but really, she's the only one of us that is a mother, God bless her heart.


After today, she will be posting a summary of what I eat and any methods I have to burn it off. She thinks she's going to get down to the bottom of this weight loss, use the method herself to get French Skinny, and then we'll sell the formula and make millions! *insert evil laugh here.

She will write in grey and I will write in this lovely burgundy color because, um... it's the color of wine, natch.

A Mad Dash

Hi. I'm Shaboom. You might want to read some important disclaimers (click here.)

When FS initially asked me to help with her experiment, she wanted me to begin by sending her my grocery shopping list. This posed a problem as I rarely do my own food shopping. Why? Well... I have taken a lovah (Obsessed!) who is obsessed with a lot of things, one of them being cooking. He does 99.9% of the cooking and therefore does 99.9% of the food shopping.

Obsessed! is like a hyper-active bull in a china shop when it comes to any shopping. Therefore, I really try to have a good excuse every time he asks me to accompany him to the market. "I'm washing my hair."

Obsessed! buys the majority of his meat, dairy and produce at les marchés in Paris which are like independent farmers' markets set up on different days of the week at various locations in the city.

When Obsessed! needs to buy things like paper towels, pickles or pasta, he goes to the French Super Duper Market, aka Carrefour. We walk in carrying our huge eco shopping bags in which we'll transport the purchases chez nous.

Les Marchés is where we get the bulk of the food but Carrefour is where we get the above listed stuff plus yogurt, mustard, pasta, rice, pickles, sugar, flour, vanilla beans, salt, pepper, etc. That doesn't mean we still won't spend hours here and leave with the pumpkin-mobile packed to the gills like a clown car.

See one of the fundamental differences between myself and Obsessed in the photos below. They are super market floorplans with the projected routes that each of us follow when food shopping. Obviously, the red route marks my path and the blue is Obsessed!'s, which closely mimicks the inner workings of his brain waves...

Shaboom!

I would like to introduce you to my fabulous friend, Shaboom Shaboom, who lives in Paris, France and is my inspiration for this whole experiment.

I met her while working a few years ago in California. I think we were friends in about two and a half seconds. She is beautiful, funny, vivacious, unbelievably smart and tells it like it is. And when I say smart I mean speaks 100 languages kind of smart. She would never tell you this, of course, she’s not like that.

She is a single girl, living in Paris. She has a new lover who will be referred to as Obsessed! This name because.....well.....he loves to make love. He may be THE clumsiest Frenchman in that country’s history.

She has her pulse on all things French, wears six inch heels to go shopping, sleeps until noon and is up until the wee hours. Regarding lifestyles the only thing we have in common at this point is that our purses both weigh seven pounds. But hers is a fabulous French bag and mine is a Mommy bag.

I would like to thank her with all my heart for letting me dissect her life in the search for French Skinny in Burbank.

Bienvenue!

Bienvenue!

I want to be French Skinny in 6 months.

There I’ve said it.

A friend of mine moved to France a year ago and dropped twelve dress sizes. She has been posting pictures of all the amazing food she eats. I’m talking chocolate croissants, pizza and French food I’ve never heard of. I'm eating protein shakes twice a day plus a sensible meal and just did a half marathon six weeks ago. We are the same height, my size ten jeans are getting tight and she's a size four. She has given up going to the gym and has seconds if she wants. I ask her about portion control and she laughs at me. What is this madness? I want that madness. I imagine myself in Provence wearing a French sun dress NOT having to be trussed up in my Spanx unitard! Seriously.

Okay, so here's my deal. I’ve been married for twelve years, have a three year old and live in Burbank, CA, USA. I’m not able to walk to the Louvre everyday but there’s always IKEA. Over the next six months I will try to incorporate what she eats, drinks and does into my life to achieve French Skinny in Burbank.

This should be fun.
Apprécier !