Why French Women Have Killer Bodies?

Posted on 30th December 2010 in Uncategorized

French women are renowned for spending large portions of their salaries on health and beauty just so they can look like they were born beautiful.

I have been in France many times and French women never cease to amaze me. Their seemingly effortless beauty has always fascinated me. They look naturally slim, yet only they know, and I know, how much effort they actually put into looking that good.

Every time I’ve set foot on a French beach I’ve been shocked by the amazing bodies of the local women. I’ve never seen so many washboard abs in the one place. Many of them sported by women well in their thirties; yummy mummies surrounded by bundles of kids.

If you, like me, are curious about how they stay slim with so many tempting patisseries full of delicious croissants around… here’s my French woman’s rules to a killer body. Easy as 1,2,3,4…

1.Always Have Breakfast: Not just at weekends, not just when you have time, and not just a coffee on the rush. Have a proper breakfast. Throughout the years I have seen French women confidently eat a breakfast consisting of fruit, coffee and croissant, or a piece of buttered baguette. Whereas I don’t think this is the most nutritious meal you can have first thing in the morning, this does not make French women fat, and they know it.

2.Snack On Crudites: Crudits are small pieces of raw vegetables. Carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, celery… you name it, they snack on it. In the office, at home, on the beach… highly nutritious, high in water and low in fat and calories, crudits are low in sugar too. This is why they are so effective at keeping you full for longer.

3.Be Picky About Your Food: French women understand food. They take pride in their health and appearance, and are very picky about the foods they eat. If you’ve ever seen French women shopping at their local vegetable market, then you’ll know what I am talking about. They will only buy top quality fresh produce. Their baskets are colourful displays of seasonal fruit and vegetables, fresh fish and meat.

You may be thinking, what about the cheese and the bread? Yes, they do eat small amounts of cheese and bread, but here’s what they do next…

4.Work Out: I don’t know one French woman who doesn’t work out. Whether it is at the gym, running, rollerblading, hiking, swimming… they are always active and on the go. They don’t make excuses, they don’t moan about it… they make it part of their daily routine and just do it, because it’s good for them and it makes them look damn good.

I’ve lived and worked with French women both in France and in Ireland, and I am telling you, they don’t do all of this just to get in shape before they go on holidays, they do this all year round. As a result, in the summer, it shows big time!

In my opinion they have a fantastic attitude towards food, exercise and towards their bodies too. A certain pride that can be misinterpreted, but that for me translates into pure charisma.

Now, I am not saying this is the only way you can start to make changes in the way you approach food and exercise. But if it works for them, it can certainly work for you!

Anna Aparicio is a IINLP Life & Business Coach, Speaker and Educator based in Dublin, Ireland.

She specialises in Health & Fitness issues such as: weight loss,cravings,overeating,eating disorders,fitness goals achievement,sports performance, smoking cessation.

Anna uses cutting edge NLP, Hypnosis and self-improvement technologies to create massive changes in her clients, fast.

comments: Closed

Thank Goodness For Our French Translator

Posted on 23rd December 2010 in Uncategorized

I love almost everything about travel. I love the wonder and the newness of entering a culture that I have never been to before. I love meeting new people, trying new customs, and getting aquainted with the foods and drinks that people around the world love dearly. One thing, however, that I always struggle with in my travels is communication. While many people in the world speak English even if it is not their first language, I hate being the tourist that enters a new land and expects people to do things on my terms. So when I was preparing to spend a month working on a photography book in France, I was most happy to have the services of a French translator.

When my company told me that they were sending me and a team of three other photographers to France to get initial shots for a tour of France photojournalism book, I could not have been more excited. That is, until they told us that we would be staying with French people, doing French things, and learning to see France through the eyes of the native people. I was nervous about having to communicate with the French in their own language since I had barely made it through two years of high school French. My French translator was the best resource during that trip.

Our French translator was an amazing French woman that was more than happy to accompany us on the month long journey all around her native country. We met her at the airport and she never made us feel anything but safe and at home in her native land. I took a special liking to our French translator, I guess partly because she was doing the hard work of crossing the language barrier that I always dreaded about travel.

I told our French translator that while I did in fact need and want her to translate for me in most situations, I also wanted her to teach me as much French as possible during our month together. She obliged and we immediately began a month of intensive French lessons. I loved my lessons and I loved feeling like I knew way more about speaking French after just one month with a personal tutor.

Our French translator was the one who talked with me about the importance of learning foreign languages and of realizing that English was not the only language of the world. I learned so much from her that month. We became lifelong friends. I was so glad that she helped me make it through my month in France.

comments: Closed

Tennis Legends: Martina Navratilova

Posted on 16th December 2010 in Uncategorized

Martina Navratilova is an ex-World number 1 female Tennis Player. Born on October 18, 1956 in Czechoslovakia, she became the citizen of America in 1981.Her stepfather Miroslav Navratil was her first coach. Martina won the Czech republic national tennis championship at the age of fifteen. At the age of seventeen, she got her very first professional singles title when she played the match in Orlando, Florida. She became a professional tennis player in 1975.

In 1975′s Grand Slam singles tournaments, she was one of the finalist in both the Australian Open and French Open, but she lost in both the finals to Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Chris Evert, respectively. The same year, she even lost in the semi finals of the US Open the same year after which she made her mind to get the green card of United States. In 1978, Navratilova got her first victory in the Grand Slam singles at Wimbledon and at the same she acquired the world number 1 rank after defeating Chris Evert.

Navratilova was a women of great power and aggression because of which she raised the level of competition. Initially she was on the heavier side and she had to struggle a lot to get into shape for tennis. In this regard Nancy Lieberman, a basketball player, helped her. She underwent severe levels of fitness and exercising which finally got her into shape. She even learned the technique to use graphite racquets, which made her one of the most dominant tennis player.

She again beat Evert in the 1981 Grand Slam singles, in Australia Open. The next year she won the French and Wimbledon Open. In 1983, she won in three out of four Grand Slam events. She had scored the best ever-professional winning percentage as a tennis player. She retaliated back by winning the French Open Grand Slam of the year 1984, which she had lost in 1983. This superb victory was called the Grand Slam by the president of the International Tennis Federation, Philippe Chatrier. From 1982-1984, she lost only six of the singles matches.

Navratilova won women’s doubles titles in all the four Grand Slams of 1984. From 1985-1987, she won six out of eleven women’s singles final Grand Slam tournaments. Steffi Graff started to play in 1987 and from the beginning she gave a tough competition to Martina Navratilova. Graff defeated her in her first Grand slam in the finals of French Open. Navratilova gained back her title by defeating Graff in the 1987 Wimbledon Open. Navratilova’s won her final Grand Slam singles in 1990. Her name was included in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in the year 2000.

The left-handed athlete was known to be the greatest tennis player, be it singles, doubles or mixed doubles. She was the second best female athlete of the twentieth century according to Steve Flink. From 1965 to 2005, she was named as the greatest female tennis player by Tennis magazine. In her career, she won a total of thirty one Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, which is also a world record, eighteen Grand Slam singles titles, ten Grand Slam mixed doubles titles and nine Wimbledon women’s singles titles. She has won one hundred and sixty seven single tournaments and one hundred and seventy seven doubles tournaments, which is an open era record. Navratilova won seventy-four matches consecutively, which is the third longest winning streak in women’s tennis history. Along with Margaret Smith Court and Maureen Connolly Brinker, Navratilova holds the record for the maximum consecutive Grand Slam singles tournament championships.

PPPPP

Word Count 595

comments: Closed

Savvy French Weight Loss Secrets

Posted on 9th December 2010 in Uncategorized

Fed up with trying to lose weight with deprivation diets and bootcamp exercise regimens? Why not take a lead from French, Mediterranean, and savvy women around the world and give the pleasurable approach to weight loss a try? It works for me and it can work for you.

I listened to a great talk last night by Tonya Leigh, a Martha Beck Master Life Coach specializing in weight loss, who has a program that helps women lose weight by tapping into their desire for pleasure. Since this is the only kind of weight loss program I’m interested in these days, she definitely got my attention.

Tonya explained that her weight loss program is rooted in what she learned from the French when she visited her husband in the south of France, while he attended graduate school. So, what were her French slimming secrets, you ask?

Savvy Weight Loss Secrets

1. Focus on quality not quantity. Quality matters and the French cultivate quality time, relationships and appreciate high quality food. Increased quality means you are magically satisfied with less. Eat smaller amounts of really satisfying food.

2. Create supportive rituals. Establish regular meal times where you sit down and really savor your food, take time to honor yourself with a bit of self love and appreciation each day, spend a few minutes visualizing your perfect day each morning and then take little steps to realize it.

3. Savor life. Take time to smell the roses. Find simple pleasures. Engage your senses. Savor your food – see it, smell it, taste it, notice its flavors and textures.

4. Make time for solitude and relaxation. Take 5 minutes and do some deep breathing or read something inspirational. Find something to be thankful for.

5. Clear away some clutter. Any clutter, not just kitchen clutter. Getting rid of closet clutter can be powerful too since everything is symbolic and interrelated. Follow the lead of savvy French women and focus on simplicity and quality with your clothes. Get rid of the clothes that don’t fit or make you feel beautiful. You are better off with just a few articles of clothing that really ft and flatter you.

Isn’t this approach so much more interesting than counting calories and fat grams? If you have read, French Women Don’t Get Fat, you will recognize a lot of similarities here. In fact Tonya used a word – compensation – that I first heard author Mireille Guiliano use in French Women Don’t Get Fat, that essentially means making little adjustments in your diet. When you indulge a bit one day, cut back a little bit the next. (A common sense approach to staying in balance without having to resort to extreme diets.)

Why I Believe in the French Approach to Staying Slim

Everything that Tonya said reaffirmed what I have experienced for myself – losing weight is about so much more than what you eat and how much you exercise. I know that when I become focused on my weight and some new “diet” I’m doomed. I struggle, feel miserable and the weight becomes impossible to budge. Then, when I wake up and focus on things that make me happy – nourishing myself, learning something new, my family, my friends, quality food – and find ways to make my life a celebration, the weight melts away, just like it did this summer! ( In June I weighed around 148 and now I am down to 135 – the low end of my healthy range. Of course, summer is the perfect time to shed a few pounds since you have your natural rhythms working with you, but that’s a whole other discussion.)

I have experienced this paradox for myself. When I get caught up in the “diet” “good food; bad food” mentality that pervades here in the US, following the advice of all the “weight loss experts” I struggle, feel miserable and gain weight. Then when I say, “life is too short” and I embrace the attitude of the French, Mediterranean (or any other savvy women for that matter), indulging in delicious real food that is often higher in fat, chocolate and wine, while focusing on nourishing myself inside and out, I thrive and lose weight. It is so counterintuitive I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced for myself.

I still find myself slipping back into “diet and deprivation” thinking every once in a while. (I am an American woman, after all.) Fortunately, it never lasts for long and that’s when I know it is time to start visualizing my next trip to France, or Italy, or Greece, or Spain (or at least spend some time with one of my favorite French or Mediterranean cookbooks).

Try it for yourself. (You don’t have to travel to another country.) Begin by adopting just one behavior that has you focusing on nourishing/pleasuring yourself instead of depriving and beating yourself up. Before you know it, you will be happier and your clothes will be looser.

comments: Closed

Rozier’s Orleans Diary

Posted on 2nd December 2010 in Uncategorized

At the caf

They are to be found at the far right hand corner; perhaps two or three, perhaps seven or eight.

There is Eugene, very spry, served as a volunteer in the French war in Indochina. He likes women and they seem to like him. In ten seconds he can get any woman smiling. There is Yves, used to run a drapery shop, likes women too, but has slowed down since his last marriage. Spent three years in the Algerian war. There is Alain, a physics teacher, speaks a little English. Always looking for the perfect woman. He likes the English. There is Andr, was with a Tunisien colonial regiment in Indochina, likes his Masonic meetings, always at the theatre. But he has been missing for some weeks. Is he at his apartment in Arcachon? But he had to go to the clinique for a minor operation. It is a little worrying when friends don’t show up.

There is Michelle, who talks little and Nicole who says even less. Ah! but there is Jacqueline who with her sharp tongue makes up for both of them. Sadly Marguerite who has been part of the furniture for as long as I can remember can’t make it any more, and there is Daniel, Raymond, Jacques etc.
I am the only foreigner. They collectively don’t have enough English to read the first sentence of this article, so I will have to translate it for them.

Maybe one or two have a computer, none use e-mail, internet or blog. Most are retired, a few are waiting to retire. None are interested in making any more money. I, though, am still very active professionaly and want to make a lot more money. I am truly a foreigner. However we all get on very well together. Well, most of the time. Maybe I am some strange kind of foreign pet.

We have our favourite waitress. She is pretty and young and always smiles and makes us feel welcome when she shakes our hands. She is also Moroccain. She is a very good ambassadress for her country. Ah! but what is her country?
Today is the great day. The day when France collectively stops smoking at the working place. My caf will still be full of smoke though. The law will not apply to cafs for another year. The psychological shock of taking away this last refuge where smokers, leaving their office, can seek drink, friends and tobacco, would have been too great a risk for any government in an election year.

In my mother’s old village of Milverton in Somerset, England, there wasn’t a single baker’s. In Taunton the county town, not too long ago, I tried to buy some rye bread. None. The English as a nation would appear to have the choice between, white or brown, sliced or unsliced, thick or thin. And they are the nation that gave to the world the sandwich.

I have five baker’s within walking distance of where I live. The best and my favourite is within a hundred yards, as all good bakers should be. The baker is French, his wife Russian, and there are three women who sell the bread. Two are French and one is Moroccain. They are all smiling and friendly. It is a real pleasure to go to the baker’s. The Moroccain is like the waitress in my caf, very pretty, polite and speaks excellent French. Not surprisingly she is the only one who speaks a little English and uses the Internet, so does her husband, so I shall be very polite here.

The other day I had bought a baguette and on the way home it broke in two. It was very fresh, still warm, and half fell to the ground. I shall talk about French pavements another day. I went back to buy half a baguette but the shop refused to accept payment.

They also have I don’t know how many different kinds of bread, one dozen, two dozen? All shapes and sizes, all types of cereals. The only additive allowed is salt. English bread has about twenty two additives I believe. I like my baguette a lovely light golden brown on the outside and properly baked on the inside. I buy it in the morning to eat for breakfast and lunch and again in the evening for dinner. Fresh twice a day.

My friends in the caf are always willing to talk about food, which ranks with the weather and health as main topics of conversation. I said I couldn’t understand my sister-in-law at all. She buys half a dozen industrial baguettes at the super market once a week and then puts them in the freezer at home. After all, one of the reasons for living in France is their bread which must rank above politics and on a par with women. I am trying to teach them British humour. It’s not easy in French and much gets lost in translation.

There is of course Harry’s bread in the supermarket for American visitors. That makes them smile.

comments: Closed