Excuses

Having just given birth to our second baby and received regular confirmation from Bilal that I am still a "well buff wifey", I am once again reminded of how thin and impossibly perfect my figure is.  Bilal is welcoming lots of visitors from La Savine (hip-hop people, in other words) to see our son: - the police were called to my flat because someone called them suggesting that there was drug dealing going on here, MDR.  When Bilal's homies visit, he lets his guard down, i.e. using hip-hop French I don't always understand and openly talking about knocking me up and me being "well buff" after two children: - his "homies" often express open agreement with the second point.  Unlike many Western women, I love this aspect of Bilal and I would never want a herbivore man: - I was always attracted to big, strong and macho men.  I ask him to try and avoid saying things too openly in front of people who aren't from La Savine (who are like him) or church (who have come to accept him as he is), as it is easier to just not have to explain, MDR.

Being a mother-of-two and still beanpole thin, one thing that has become ever more apparent to me is that Anglo-Saxon women have an endless supply of excuses for not being thin.  On the other hand, a Frenchwoman has an iron will and unbreakable self-discipline that enables her to be attractive in any season of life (both the young filly and old bag season, as Zoë Williams put it, MDR).  In this blog post, I outline typical excuses of Anglo-Saxon women and what a Frenchwoman's solutions are.

Excuses

Anglo-Saxon women seem to be under this bizarre impression that they need to eat for two when expecting a baby.  Granted, I have only given birth to two children, but having used the same strategy to stay thin during both pregnancies, my assumption is that the process is repeatable, no matter how many children a woman has: - Bilal is only too happy to oblige in enabling me to prove this, MDR.  During both pregnancies, I observed the rules I observed when not pregnant, primarily portion size.  If you remember them and have an iron will like we Frenchwomen, there is no reason to ever get fat.

Many Western women fall into the trap of comfort eating, the excuse being that because they are sad, depressed or whatever, they comfort-eat.  In other words, what they are saying is they have a bad lack of self-control when their moods are low.  A Frenchwoman knows very well that comfort eating never was the solution to low moods, as it causes large amounts of food to become like an addition, i.e. she is bad-tempered until she gets her fix.

Another common thing Western women do is blame people around them for "unrealistic" images of beauty, i.e. setting off a yo-yo dieting pattern because she does crash dieting to achieve the desired weight, which is followed up by eating more and getting heavier.  They often blame unrealistic images and the men in their lives, as Natalie Grant did in that article.  Our Heavenly Father displayed His wisdom in pairing Bilal and me: - I am able to listen to all he has to say about me being a "well buff wifey", appreciate it, and still remain in full control of my eating and weight, irrespective of anything Bilal does or doesn't say.  Natalie Grant (the author of the article the link points to) would no doubt respond in a similar way if she were married to a man like Bilal who appreciates fine women.

Solutions

Simple solutions are often the best.  A Frenchwoman knows that there is no black magic necessary to achieve a pencil thin figure: - just say "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" at every mealtime!  If necessary, keep doing so until the portion is befitting of a dainty Frenchwoman!  Simple!  This phrase has been key to keeping a Frenchwoman thin for many generations.  A French female learns this phrase that acts as the perfect solution for staying thin when she first starts to talk.

If the food portions available are more than twice as big as they should be, the next solution is to remember what proper food portion sizes are.  Mireille Guiliano discussed portion sizes she regards as standard, though truth be told, they are a little too big for me, MDR.  Even so, the principle  behind the solution is the same: - women should build an idea in their mind about what standard portion sizes are and stick to what they remember.  If she lacks ambition and she wants to use Mireille's portion sizes, she can carry such objects around with her to look at during quiet moments and continue building up her familiarity.

Exercising control of moods is another solution.  A Frenchwoman does not tend to indulge her moods in ways that lead to her indulging herself further with food.  Anglo-Saxon women tend to get angry about things and rant angrily, before resorting to comfort eating to lift their moods.  On the other hand, a Frenchwoman will just light another Gauloise (just kidding, we French women are not the stereotypical chainsmokers Zoë Williams thinks we are), do a Gallic shrug and say "bof".  She knows that self-discipline in general is key: - if she has mastered it over her moods, she will more than likely have self-discipline over food as well.  I am not saying a Frenchwoman never has trying times in life, but her solution is to deal with them by other means, such as more searching for beautiful garments.

The power of imagination is another solution in a Frenchwoman's arsenal.  She considers eating more of her favourite foods and then remembers the joy of being able to fit into all her favourite clothes.  When tempted, she thinks of the joy of being able to walk round in tight outfits and the misery of being too fat to fit into beautiful clothes!  Simple!  The only times I have ever been too big are during my two pregnancies: - the danger during this time is women will slip, given that she won't fit into her previous clothes anyway, so she needs to picture a postpartum shopping spree for the most gorgeous clothes she can find (I wouldn't dream of wearing fashions from 9 months ago) and fitting into all of them perfectly as she has no pregnancy pounds.  One day, I hopped on the train at Marseille-St. Charles at 08.38, arrived in Paris 3h07m later, rushed round shops selling haute couture (that would never fit fat and dumpy Anglo-Saxon women) and found anything I wanted fitted me just like before. I got on the 16.15 train at Paris-Gare de Lyon with my hands full of shopping (plenty of room though, given how little of the seat I took up, MDR) and 3h10m later arrived back at Marseille-St. Charles to find Bilal waiting for me with our sons telling me I was a "well buff wifey" in my latest outfit and that he was treating us to an exquisite dinner at the Vieux Port.  Imaging such situations is the ideal solution for maintaining self-control during pregnancy!

Though France suffers from big government, a Frenchwoman knows the solution is to take responsibility for her own body.  Mireille Guiliano pointed out that "French women choose their own indulgences and compensations.  They understand that little things count, both additions and subtractions, and that as an adult everyone is the keeper of her own equilibrium."  It is nice that Natalie Grant chose to take control of her diet for her own health, but she is vulnerable to falling into the bulimia trap again, as she lays the blame for this at the hands of her ex-boyfriend/fiancé, rather than accepting she is the keeper of her own equilibrium.  Granted, her ex-boyfriend/fiancé was unsuitable for her as a believing lady: - my daddy made it clear he would turn away all suitors if they had no history of regular attendance, participation and volunteering in a church (eventually, he realised it was not possible to fault Bilal on this).  However, a Frenchwoman has self-control and self-discipline and accepts responsibility whatever the men in her life are like: - I would never take the easy way out and blame the men in my life (Bilal and our two sons) for sidetracking me from exercising personal responsibility for staying beanpole thin!

So there you go: - common excuses for not being thin and a Frenchwoman's way round these excuses.  Stop making excuses and be impossibly perfect as we Frenchwomen are!

Why Bilal is a real man

Donald Trump's inauguration will happen soon.  In spite of being a macho man, he won a clear victory in the electoral college vote (with liberals continuing to go on about how he lost the popular vote) over Hillary Clinton, who I and many others are glad to see the back of.  Traditional masculinity has come under attack in recent years.  I am a super-attractive, glamorous and successful woman and I have no objections to women being like me, but I always found real men more attractive than the emasculated men we seem to see these days.

I was recently reading an article about the marks of Christian manhood that talked about marks of Christian manhood and it got me thinking about how Bilal is every bit the real man I desired.  The marks they gave were: -
1. Spiritual maturity sufficient to lead a wife and children.
2. Personal maturity sufficient to be a responsible husband and father.
3. Economic maturity sufficient to hold an adult job and handle money.
4. Physical maturity sufficient to work and protect a family.
5. Sexual maturity sufficient to marry and fulfill God's purposes.
6. Moral maturity sufficient to lead as example of righteousness.
7. Ethical maturity sufficient to make responsible decisions.
8. Worldview maturity sufficient to understand what is really important.
9. Relational maturity sufficient to understand and respect others.
10. Social maturity sufficient to make a contribution to society.
11. Verbal maturity sufficient to communicate and articulate as a man.
12. Character maturity sufficient to demonstrate courage under fire.
13. Biblical maturity sufficient to lead at some level in the church.
Bilal demonstrated 1. in his leadership of Sunday School classes and his informal mentoring of various other boys inside and outside the church (e.g. his boxing club) and demonstrated 2. in countless situations.  He has demonstrated both 3. and 4. with his day job with "Le Trom de Marseille" (as he calls it) and his accumulation of a fortune through shrewd online investments in shares.  He demonstrated 5. by refusing physical contact with unrelated women, which included holding hands with me during courtship (obviously, I learned on the wedding night what he had been labouring diligently to keep under control).  He has demonstrated 6. and 7. through his prolonged willingness to stand apart from the world and its evil practices at whatever cost to his own popularity.  He has demonstrated 8. by how passionately he carries out his church activities and is able to shield himself against outside distractions where necessary.  He has demonstrated 9. by how much joy he has brought to other believers in their fellowship with him, in spite of how shy he is.  He demonstrates 10. by his immense labours within the church and community to spread the Gospel message and help keep young La Savine boys out of trouble.  11., 12. and 13 are not that obvious, given his shy character, but he never shirks his duty to speak about the Gospel when called.

Beyond these issues that are, without doubt, the most important ones, he has shown himself to be a real man by both secular and religious criteria and I am glad I have him, rather than several other half-men who have approached me, but not demonstrated anything an it-girl like myself required.  Bilal has demonstrated manhood in every department.

His early life was spent in the Sahara Desert as a Touareg herdsman.  This is physical hardship at its best: - fiercely hot days, cold nights, defending his family's livestock from predators etc.  He lived in La Savine (probably Europe's toughest housing estate) upon arrival in France and only ceased living there when we returned from our honeymoon.  He feels rather lost in the immense luxury of my penthouse apartment overlooking the Vieux Port, but he likes the proximity of a metro station ("Réga du Trom" as he would say).  All these things have contributed to make him the rugged man he is today.

Bilal has been into strongman training since he arrived in France and came across a Marseille gym during early exploration of the city.  He was not old enough to be allowed in, so he occasionally watched from outside and sought advice from members as they left the gym.  When he was old enough, he took out gym membership, doing odd jobs to earn money to pay for this and other paraphernalia associated with developing the strength necessary for strongman contests (this was before online share trading became common).  He very quickly gained in weight.  He was a fairly shy child, preferring to sit in a corner reading the Holy Bible and other religious literature during break times and was therefore often the victim of bullying (I often used to see him with bruises on his face at church).  However, this soon ceased after he started gaining weight and physical strength.

I think that the ability and desire to have children (coupled with acceptance of all the responsibilities parenthood entails) is a mark of manhood.  If one is among the few people gifted for celibacy, fine, but otherwise, I think avoiding having children (apart from being against Psalm 127:4) is a mark that a man wants to live a freewheeling bachelor lifestyle and is, in reality, a boy rather than a man.  On the occasions before our wedding I mentioned this subject with Bilal, he always said abruptly, "Children are an inheritance from the Lord and I want to conceive as many as the Lord, in His almighty grace, will allow me to conceive".  Sure enough, when we got married, he wasted absolutely no time.  I admit he isn't always politically correct about this: - the Sunday at church after the test confirmed my second pregnancy, I overheard him say with enormous pride to his church "homies", "I've got her pregnant again!  Yes!", punching the air and behaving with the excitement of a football fan whose team has just scored a goal (in a way, he had scored a goal himself).  Someone in the group of friends (hip-hop people, of course: - the image below is from Wikimedia commons and does not depict him or anyone else we know) immediately spudded him and said, "Brap-brap-brap!  You're a big man doing that so quickly both times!  Regardless of what feminists think, I am pleased to have a husband who views the ability and willingness to conceive as the height of being a macho man.  I wouldn't want a boy who viewed children as an encumbrance to his freewheeling bachelor lifestyle: - Bilal also views the ability and willingness to conceive and properly raise children to be a mark of manhood: - he is keen to have a third child as soon as possible following the birth of our second.  I am due in a few months and have still not yet accumulated flabber!

In other respects though, he doesn't fulfil traditional macho values.  He does at least half the work of caring for our son, doesn't mind being seen pushing our son in his pram in public and is seen cradling him in church for most of the day: - he certainly takes much more of an interest in our son than pretty much all fathers I know.  He is generally a very quiet and shy character, but with the glut of people with an opinion to publicly express and the dearth of people interested, a few more quiet people in the world wouldn't go amiss!  I agree with most of Tomi Lahren's views, but she seems capable of little besides ranting!  The media needs people who will go out there and dig out stories, rather than just ranting aimlessly about what is there!  My fashion magazine is a great example of how to do this: - it is at the vanguard of fashion trends, not just reporting them, but predicting and defining them!

Here's to looking forward to a very large happy family with Bilal and gloating to women who lose self-control over their diet during pregnancy and have flabber to lose after giving birth!

Pregnant again

I am delighted to announce that, having had a baby in April, I am a few months pregnant with another baby.  Bilal and I planned have a large family for as long as marriage was on the cards and we are delighted that our heavenly Father has elected to bless us with another baby.

British and American women like to play the martyr regarding their post-pregnancy weight and tell everyone they could not help it.  As I demonstrated, it is entirely possible to be exactly the same weight before and after pregnancy: - I weighed myself on my wedding day and just after giving birth and there was no change.  A Frenchwoman knows how to eat properly and stay thin, whatever her stage of life, whether she be a growing adolescent, in her 20s prime of life (what Zoë Williams calls the "young filly" season), pregnancy, middle age, the menopause (presumably what Zoë Williams calls the "old bag" season), old age and even very old age (and the associated reduction in physical activity).  Regarding the last one , I am thinking of Jeanne Calment (from nearby Arles), who died aged 122, though admittedly, she only had one child (he died, as did his son, leaving her with no heirs).  She claimed to eat nearly 1kg of chocolate a week: - I would say that either old age affected her memory (in spite of claims she was mentally intact until the end), or she was prone to telling tall stories.  Unless she was abstaining from all other food, she would probably have become enormously fat: - as Mireille Guiliano pointed out, French women will normally carry round chocolate in their handbags and have a single square each day to give them their daily chocolate fix.

Our son tended to wake up several times during the night (though he started sleeping through the night aged six weeks) and the work involved with looking after him is generally about average for a small baby (a lot, in other words).  Bilal works in a safety-critical environment, so there is no question that his sleep is most important.  As well as taking care of his sleeping habits, he has been a very attentive father, including during the night.  He took the restrictions imposed on our lifestyle by parenthood in his stride, but then he has always been used to responsibility (the various children's ministries at the church, his family's livestock when in Mali etc).  Bilal has never been a male who lives a freewheeling bachelor lifestyle: - many men who have approached me have unfortunately been that way.  He has always been self-disciplined and this has served him well in life.  None of this treating life as one big party and going off on gap years, accomplishing nothing except clubbing and acquiring a cannabis addiction.  Maybe parenthood isn't quite such a drastic change if you are already used to responsibility?

With this in mind, Bilal wasted no time in expanding our family.  I wasn't checking, but I realised that some of the signs of pregnancy had arrived in the past week, so I went about properly confirming this.  Bilal was naturally delighted: - it is obvious that he has desired a big family throughout his life.  Bilal has always felt lonely as the only believer in his family and I am delighted that he is able to lead a growing believing household like this.

Of course, I plan to continue showing the world that a Frenchwoman has enough self-discipline to remain thin during pregnancy and still give birth to an entirely healthy baby.

The wedding

As discussed, Bilal and I got married during the summer of last year.  Very many apologies for the very long delay.  I continue to be keen to share with the world how impossibly perfect we French women are with the world, but with being a wife and mother, there are many distractions.

It was a fantastic affair and the Marseille high-society event of the year.  Some members of Marseille's high society were miffed that an it-girl such as myself would get married to a hip-hop person from da ghetto like Bilal, but I have no doubt that Daddy vetted all suitors very carefully: - he was the first and only suitor to get through Daddy.  If a man expressed an interest in me, I would give him Daddy's business card and say to go through this channel if he was serious.  I would always advise men to be ready to e-mail Daddy a copy of their Christian testimony (i.e. a brief summary of their life and their coming to Christ).  I must have given out thousands and thousands of business cards out in my time.  Whether they viewed this route as an expression of lack of interest, whether they didn't have the guts to approach Daddy, whether they approached Daddy and Daddy realised there were holes in their Christian testimony, I don't know.  It no longer matters.  Bof (I would light up a Gauloise at this point if I were a smoker, MDR).

After a few months of courtship, Bilal made a proposal of marriage, which I accepted straight away.  As soon as the news of the accepted proposal was public, the wheels of planning swung into action.  Bilal is a very down-to-earth person, but an it-girl with probably the narrowest waistline in the south of France like myself naturally wanted the best!  But sometimes, the best does not come at a great price!  A Frenchwoman who invests the necessary work in knowing local designers (which I do, as a fashion magazine editor and owner), local producers of high-quality food, local beauty spots etc is likely to get a better deal at a crucial time like this!

For the wedding attire, I used my own contacts who I knew were capable of delivering stunning attire not just for me, but for Bilal, since I had never seen him in a suit until our wedding day!  His build is similar to that of Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, a.k.a. The Mountain from Game of Thrones, meaning that he would look silly in any suit that was not tailor-made.  As traditional Touareg and hip-hop clothing is normally loose-fitting, he does not normally experience this problem, but he needs tailor-made clothes if they are intended to be tight-fitting.  With my unusually narrow waistline, I also needed to ensure the skill of the designer was sufficient to illustrate my wonderful feminine French figure to everyone present!

The food needed to be all-things-to-all-men, though there were limits to my willingness to accommodate.  Some English relatives on my mother's side complained about the exotic nature and the small portions, as if I care: - these silly people wanted daft things, such as bangers 'n' mash, fish 'n' chips, curry etc.  For Bilal's family (who entered the church extremely reluctantly), there was an extremely large container of chicken and jollof rice, but this was the only concession we made.  I would like to educate them and the English relatives about what good food is, but I am a busy woman, so I have to pick my battles!  For everyone else, we had a delectable and divine selection of Provençale cuisine served obviously in dainty portions!  The dishes included that quintessential Marseille dish, bouillabaise, made with the freshest seafood.  Olives harvested that morning also featured prominently.  There was a whole smörgåsbord of local specialities, another one being calissons.  Wedding cakes are a very English tradition which we naturally eschewed, so we opted for the French tradition of croquembouche (gluten-free on Bilal's account of course).

In France, the legal part of the wedding can only be carried out by the mayor, so we went to the mairie and got this part over and done with and then went to our church for the religious part of the ceremony.  The church was packed, unfortunately with many people who don't remotely care about what it does and only viewed the wedding as the place to see and be seen (such people were invited for business expediency, rather than because I truly wanted them there)!  Still, the pastor preached an unashamedly evangelistic sermon, which resulted some return visitors, at least one of whom I know to have now been baptised and taken out church membership.  I say with full sincerity that this makes the presence of all the other superficial people worthwhile.  The hymns were "Comment ai-je pu?" ("And can it be that I should gain"), "Béni soit le lien" ("Blest be the tie that binds"), "Croire obéir" ("Trust and obey") and "Je suis tien, Seigneur" ("I am Thine, O Lord"), all of them favourites of Bilal and myself.

Bilal was a sight for sore eyes in his fitted suit.  He looked extremely uncomfortable, as tight clothes are not his thing, but it was nice to finally see him dressed in a suit for the first time.  My wedding dress was absolutely fabulous, as were the bridesmaid's dresses and the suits of the leading men.  It's a shame I may never see him in a suit again, but obviously, now we are married, I get to see other things.

We opted for an open-air reception at the Calanques, with a reserve order of marquees made in case of severely unseasonal weather.  We chose a lovely secluded beach and were undisturbed the whole time: - it was a case of security by obscurity.  Bilal is a very capable swimmer, but will rarely do so in public, as he doesn't like non-family members seeing any part of his body except his face, hands and feet: - Touareg men tend to cover their heads with a tagelmust.  I wonder if this would enrage the opponents of the burkini?  Tee hee!  Anyway, maybe when our family grows and an apartment proves too small, we could choose a new home away from the city centre with high walls and a swimming pool within the ground, so as to give Bilal the privacy he desires.

For the honeymoon, I wanted a destination that was French-speaking, unfamiliar to both of us, offering unbridled luxury and beautiful.  We chose the Van Horne Suite of the Château Frontenac in Québec City, Canada.  Bilal looked rather strange in his hip-hop clothing when we walked in.  I could see that the staff were trying not to stare, so I insisted that Bilal wear a Touareg outfit for dining.  Having spent a lot of his time in Mali living in tents and often with no shelter in the desert, followed by La Savine, Bilal was not used to such opulence and looked rather lost in the hotel.  He isn't really used to eating non-Touareg food and found himself embarrassed asking if they served jollof rice.  Poor Bilal!

Both of us enjoyed the historic city and its waterfront situation.  When we arrived in the city on a ViaRail service (shamefully slow), we were struck by the beauty of the station.  Unusually for the Americas, the city has a city wall and citadel.  We made various journeys on the ViaRail service: - as the speeds are so low, there is an emphasis on service.  Wi-fi has been standard for a long time and there are cheery stewardesses serving food as if it were an airline.

As mentioned in previous posts, Bilal has always been very good with children.  He was determined to experience fatherhood as soon as possible and he wasted no time on ensuring this would happen as soon as we arrived.  I realised I was expecting part-way into the honeymoon.  When we arrived back, he announced that he had booked a dietician appointment for me: - he had been worried that I was not eating enough to ensure the baby's good health, so he insisted I attend it.  The dietician agreed that there was nothing wrong with my diet: - I knew this all along, but Bilal needed some reassurance.  I continued to eat well during my pregnancy and I gave birth to an entirely healthy baby boy with my weight no higher than what it was when I measured myself on the day of the wedding.

But that is another story.  I am sure I will go into more detailed aspects of the wedding later, but I also expect there will be many posts about motherhood.

The folly of crash diets

Apologies to all my eager readers who have been eagerly lapping up everything I have written about how to be an impossibly perfect Frenchwoman: - I am aware that I have not written a post for a long time.  As was said in my previous post, Bilal and I are now engaged.  I have been a woman in high demand for a long time, but so far, only Bilal has been able to win my father's approval to court me.  He is a very handsome Touareg man with an extremely muscular physique and lovely curly hair: - the muscular physique is a consequence both of his tough desert upbringing and his desire to continue to work out when his family moved to Marseille.  He speaks hip-hop French, but hey, as was said at the end of "Some like it hot", "Well, nobody's perfect".

I am hoping to work on Bilal's French.  Although it is his native language alongside his local Touareg language, his accent is a mix of Mali and La Savine, with his vocabulary being hip-hop, e.g. saying "tu voit ce que je veux dire?" at the end of sentences, inverting words (verlan) etc.  Although I am somewhat bemused by his use of French, I would much rather have a big, muscular and tough man from the ghetto toughened by living through years and years of gang warfare with real muscles than an upper middle-class man who has lived a cushy lifestyle, doesn't like the great outdoors and whose only way of looking nice is to stay under a gym sunbed and occasionally work out on sweaty gym apparatus (not to a Frenchwoman's liking, as Mireille Guiliano explains).  If one wants to see some of Bilal's acquaintances without actually visiting La Savine, many of them can be seen in 1.D.3's video Marseille Paname: -

Even though Bilal has grown up surrounded by such people, he is actually a very gentle character who has always resisted the pressure to get involved in a life of crime and who has presented an extremely convincing testimony of his new birth in accordance with what the Bible describes as the signs thereof, even if he is not so good at resisting the creeping influence of the language.  Anyway, I digress.  Bilal and I are in the midst of wedding plans.  We are spending ages obsessing about what we will have for each meal.  A croquembouche will unfortunately be out the question unless we can find a gluten-free version.

Bilal would probably just have jollof rice, taguella, goat's meat and Eghajira if I left the whole thing up to him, but since most of those present will be of European origin, we want something much more sophisticated.  With the exception of Bilal, we are planning to serve some extremely dainty portions, so as to show how sophisticated we are: - they will be so dainty that even the daintiest Frenchwoman will feel no need to say, "La moitié, s'il vous plaît".  Some people will be shocked (e.g. my English relatives on my mother's side), but I will respond that they are entirely normal portions for me.

Already, some people are asking me if I am worried about how I will fit into my dress.  I respond by telling them about how I already have an absolutely perfect figure.  I am aware of an unpleasant story about a crash diet called the LighterLife diet: - a British woman followed this diet on account of a desire to look good on her wedding day and died.  I am not inclined to make extremely inappropriate, insensitive and tasteless jokes about the deceased woman, but the article I have linked to really does indicate how French women really do know best when it comes to diets (or the lack thereof).  As Mireille Guiliano explained, French women never diet: - they simply make permanent changes to their lifestyle to shed the weight, whether this means walking further each day, buying a flat further from the ground floor, cutting out sweet foods, saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" more often etc.  Granted, Mireille Guiliano does not have any children as far as I know, but Bilal and I want a large family and I hope in creating our large family, I will demonstrate to the world how a Frenchwoman maintains her dainty figure even during and after pregnancy.

Samantha Clowe, the lady who unfortunately lost her life to a crash diet, did not understand the rule of the harvest.  The rule of the harvest says that if you wait till two weeks before the harvest to plant your seeds, spray them with hydroponic solution, cover them with bright lamps etc, you will not reap a harvest.  There are too many people who simply do not understand the value of setting good habits early on so that they can be kept with little effort.  Non-French women think they can buy the skimpiest bridal dress and then do a crash diet to fit inside it.  If such women had read the words of Proverbs 24:27 ("Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house"), they would realise that their order of working was wrong.  Occasionally, some Anglo-Saxon women manage to fit into skimpy wedding dresses (the photo below is of Patricia Nixon-Cox), but this is the exception rather than the norm.

I have no doubt that I will look absolutely divine (in the non-religious sense of the word) in my wedding dress.  Bilal is not exactly a perfect gentleman, as he uses the term "bien faite" to refer to my physical appearance, but I know he means well.  He has done very well to restrain his desires for me all this time.  I have no doubt that he will look similarly ravishing in a morning suit.  He refuses to wear suits at work and insists upon wearing a tagelmust and his colleagues have gotten used to this.  Don't get me wrong, he looks gorgeous in that, even though one cannot see much of his face, but I am hopeful that our wedding will persuade him to wear a suit.  Anyway, back to the subject of the baffling situation of Anglo-Saxon women eating like there is no tomorrow, somehow or other finding a husband-to-be (it's beyond me how) and then crash dieting to fit into their wedding dress.  Why won't they just adopt the la-moitié-s'il-vous-plaît diet that Frnech women use?

As a believing woman, I think unnecessarily long engagements are not a good idea on account of the temptation during the engagement, but maybe some Anglo-Saxon women would do well to spend a few months getting their eating habits sorted out before they try sorting out their wedding dresses.

Postpartum dainty figures

Recently, Bilal and I had a discussion about the subject of childbearing.  I asked him what his views were on the subject of how many children to have.  Eventually, after several questions that were essentially identical, but done from different angles, he said he would definitely like to have a "famille nombreuse" (large family).  When I probed why, he cited Psalm 127:4 (which talks about how a large family is a blessing to a man) and his love for the Touareg culture i.e. his desire not to "westernise" and turn his back on his culture by having a smaller family.  The fertility rate for Touareg women in Mali is apparently 6.6 (admittedly using out-of-date statistics).  Also, it is plain for me to see that Bilal is very fond of small children: - he is not as reticent about initiating interactions with them as he is with non-Touareg adults.  The wife of someone he is reasonably friendly with at church gave birth to a son a few weeks ago and I regularly see Bilal cradling the baby, obviously entranced.

Bilal said that he didn't want to push this on me, given that he would not be carrying the children around for 9 months each, but said he would be overjoyed if he did have a large family.  I said that although I don't yet know first-hand what stresses pregnancy puts on a woman's body, once we are married, my plan is to offer no obstruction at all to creating a large family, even if this means no sleep and working at home for a few days each month.  Why?  Because I love him so much.  He has brought me so much happiness and if children and more children will bring him enormous joy, then that's what I plan to give him.  After all, provided we are married at the time, given that he is the most attractive man I have ever seen, why would I ever have any desire resist him?  I would also enjoy a large family myself.  Visiting people from the United Kingdom have told me that they have noticed that in France, having children makes you that much more socially acceptable.  All part of impossible French perfection I suppose.  I know I am always grumbling about taxes in France, but one thing that is great about France is how the income tax brackets favour  couples with lots of children, even if I don't like the way the tax advantages diminsh steeply after the first child.  Then there are various other advantages, including the Carte Famille Nombreuse for discounts when travelling on the trains: - I don't suggest that anyone has children for the sake of financial advantages, but I think it is great that France is doing things to incentivise people to have children.

Some people might call me an enemy of feminism because I plan to give Bilal as many children as he wants and I am always preaching about the importance of having a dainty figure.  How would I respond to such suggestions of betraying feminism?  If I were a Frenchwoman with the characteristics portrayed by Zoë Williams, I would just light up another Gauloise and say, "bof", MDR.

"But aren't you bothered about your figure any more?", Bilal asked me.  I said I didn't think it was a dichotomy.  It is quite possible for a woman to have a wonderful figure very soon after giving birth or even immediately thereafter.  I recall a photo of Catherine Zeta-Jones that appeared around the time after her wedding showing how much baby weight she had lost on account of her desire to look good in her wedding dress: - unusually for a British (in this case, Welsh) woman, she had a fabulous figure in the photo.  I have no expectation of being in this situation, because neither I nor Bilal approve of fornication, so I would argue that Catherine Zeta-Jones could have saved herself the bother of crash-dieting prior to her wedding by not committing fornication, but anyway.  That example aside, I also remember the controversy over the Norwegian WAG Caroline Berg Eriksen's postpartum selfie of her figure.  What would I say in response to this controversy?  I say you go for it girl!

If you've got a lovely figure like that so soon after giving birth, show it to everyone so that women will be willing to aim high!  Why should this woman listen to the grumblings of women who are just jealous that they don't have such a wonderful postpartum figure?  This is what I would call the "crab mentality" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality): - people become jealous at the success of others and try to "pull them back down".  Of course, such wonderful postpartum figures are the norm in France.  There is the perception that a Frenchwoman is so stupid that she doesn't know that heavy drinking and smoking during pregnancy are bad for the unborn child's health, but none of this is well-founded: - in fact, heavy drinking is characteristic of a British ladette, rather than a Frenchwoman.  A pregnant Frenchwoman eats a little bit more than usual (given the need to nourish the unborn child), but her self-discipline when it comes to dainty portions means she has absolutely no weight to lose after she gives birth.  She looks with derision on Anglo-Saxon women who view pregnancy as a time to indulge themselves and then find themselves miserable when they find they have lots of surplus weight after having given birth, possibly suffering post-natal depression as a result of their weight gain, though I admit I would find it hard to avoid post-natal depression if I gained as much weight as Anglo-Saxon women do during pregnancy!  MDR!

I recall the Little Britain character Marjorie Dawes (one of the few British people with the good sense to realise the benefits of halving portions), who commented to two of the fatties at Fat Fighters who had gotten married and were expecting a baby that their decision to have a child was somewhat selfish, given that the child would be born with an addiction to food and would therefore have to go cold turkey.  As far as I know, an addiction to food is not heritable: - after all, my English-born mother was overweight before she began to spend time in France, yet here we are, both with very dainty figures.  However, if an addiction to food were heritable, I would whole-heartedly agree with Ms. Dawes' assertion that they were selfish.

In conclusion, I have absolutely no apprehension about what pregnancy will do to my impossibly dainty French figure.  I am not doing to do a Scarlett O'Hara and refuse to have any more children on account of such fears, knowing that continuing to eat dainty portions, rather than birth control, will preserve my impossibly perfect and dainty French figure.