The Globe & Mail     [ Text ]

Montignac's Method     [ Text ]

By June Rogers

 Imagine a diet where you can drink red wine and eat dark chocolate. Only a Frenchman could pull off this kind of gastronomical feat, right? Well, a Frenchman has. And he's bringing his made-in-France diet to English-speaking North America in the next couple of months.

His name is Michel Montignac and he has sold 15 million diet books around the world, mostly in Europe. His 14-year-old method has allowed the French (including famed French chef, Paul Bocuse), the English (including Queen Elizabeth II), and other hefties across the pond to shed unwanted pounds while allegedly improving their cardiovascular health and lowering their risk of diabetes.

Montignac secured his first foothold on this continent in Quebec a few years ago, where he has since sold 400,000 of his books and opened nine diet centres. Recently, he published a Quebec cook book that included traditional dishes like tourtiere to rave reviews. Indeed, Montignac is all the rage in the province, especially among the glitterati and the academic crowd.

This month, you'll be hearing a lot more about Montignac as he launches one of his best-selling books, "Je mange donc je maigris !" in English under the title, "Eat Yourself Slim!", in Ontario first (at Chapters bookstores), and then the United States.

Anticipating the popularity his diet will have on this continent, entrepreneurs in Ottawa and Vancouver and a group of doctors in Florida have already approached Montignac for franchise rights. After Montignac appeared on an English television program in Montreal last month, Montignac's Web site (www.montignac.com) received thousands of hits from anglophones, asking when his English title would be available.

What may lie at the foundation of Montignac's success is the fact that he is no stranger to diets. Having grown up as an obese child in France where obesity is rare, he was perpetually teased by his classmates. When Montignac turned 15, he swore he'd never become a fat adult and threw himself into a desperate quest for the perfect diet. Over the course of about 10 years, he bought no less than 350 diet books and went on about 30 diets.

Despite his best efforts, he was still overweight at age 35. It didn't help that he dined out while travelling for long periods of time throughout the United States working for Abbott, a multinational pharmaceutical company.

But it was at Abbott that he made his diet breakthrough. Because he had access to its scientific library, he pored over study after study to try to understand the reason for his failure at losing weight. What especially intrigued him was the research on adult-onset diabetes (Type II diabetes) and its strong connection to obesity--approximately 90 percent of adults with diabetes are obese.

Montignac put himself on the diet diabetics are encouraged to follow to control blood sugar levels, such as eating fruits, vegetables and whole-grains while avoiding sugar-filled candies and cakes. He also consulted a guide called the Glycemic Index that ranks carbohydrates from 0 to 150 on how much they raise blood sugar, with white bread as the index standard, set at 100. For example, a baked potato ranks a 95, and is therefore a "bad" carbohydrate, whereas fresh whole-wheat pasta, a "good" carbohydrate, only garners a 45. Other "bad" carbohydrates include corn and white rice. He also incorporated low-fat, high-fibre and food combining aspects to his method.

But he never restricted the amount of food he ate because he was convinced that calorie-counting diets were useless. Montignac points out that in the last century, the North American diet, for example, has actually decreased in caloric intake by as much as 30 percent and yet there are more obese people on this continent than anywhere else in the world. "So lowering calories doesn't work in the long run," he says. "But eating the right kinds of foods does." Within a few months, he had lost 35 pounds without much effort, and he has kept himself at a trim 170 pounds (he's 5'9") for more than 19 years now. His easy success prompted him to write his first book in 1985 called, "Comment maigrir en faisant des repas d'affaires (Dine Out and Lose Weight)."

At first, French dietitians dismissed his diet, primarily because it did not count calories. "On television and radio shows, they dragged me through the mud," Montignac confesses. "But now many of them are coming around to my way of thinking." In fact, he claims, some French hospitals are using his diet for their patients.

The Montignac Method is divided into two phases (see sidebar). The program breaks down foods into four categories: carbohydrates (good and bad); lipids (meat, dairy, oils); carbohydrate-lipids (nuts, avocados, organ meats) and fibre (most vegetables, whole grains). Combinations of such foods as potatoes (a bad carbohydrate) with meat (a lipid) are strictly forbidden. Montignac explains: "When lipids are mixed with bad carbohydrates, their absorption by the body is interfered with and, as a result, a high proportion of the energy the lipids provide is stored as body fat."

By eating foods low on the Glycemic Index--raw fruits, whole grains and legumes--blood sugar is kept at a minimum. This gives your pancreas (which releases insulin to regulate blood sugar) a rest. Montignac claims that the pancreas is the most overworked organ in the body because it is constantly producing insulin to cope with the highly refined foods and sugar found in the Western diet.

If his method is reminiscent of food combining and other diets, he does concede the point. "But Fit for Life, for example, leaves you dying of hunger. My method doesn't," he promises.

There is truth to his claim. After successfully losing 45 pounds himself, cardiologist Jean Dumesnil and his colleagues at the Quebec Heart Institute at Laval University in Quebec City decided to do some research into why and how the Montignac Method works.

The Laval researchers recruited 12 obese men from the general public. They averaged a Body Mass Index of 33; healthy men have a reading of 25 or less. For three weeks, they came to the hospital for their meals. They were put on three different programs: the American Heart Association diet; the Montignac Method; the third was a combination of the two. At no time were they told which diet or even the kind of diet they were on. As well, none of the diets restricted the quantities of food.

While the men were on the Montignac Method, they reported feeling very satisfied with the amount of food they ate. Unbeknown to them, they in fact consumed 25 percent less calories than on the other two diets. "The result was surprising," says Dr. Dumesnil. "That's why we think Montignac's diet works (people just naturally want to eat less)."

As to whether following the Glycemic Index causes weight loss, Dr. Dumesnil can't verify. "The evidence is patchy at best and more research has to be done on that aspect." But he does admit that the Montignac diet favorably affected the men's cholesterol and insulin levels. "Perhaps the lower insulin reaction made the men less hungry, there was no rebound effect and therefore they ate less."

Interestingly, the Glycemic Index is a Canadian invention. Dr. David Jenkins, professor of medicine and nutritional science at the University of Toronto devised the index in the early 1980s. Ever since its release, Jenkins says that the index has been the foundation for an assortment of diets over the years, most recently The Sugar Busters! by Leighton Steward, and The Zone by Barry Sears.

But Jenkins doesn't quite swallow the way in which Montignac has used the index to produce results. When told about the contraindication of eating potatoes with meat, he was surprised. "Food, if you eat too much of it, will be stored as fat and it really doesn't matter what you combine it with."

Jenkins will concede, however, that eating foods low on the Glycemic Index is good for your health. He points to a 1997 study by Dr. Jorge Salmeron and Dr. Walter Willett at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston that followed more than 65,000 women over six years. It showed that women who ate a low glycemic, high-fibre diet had two-and-half times less risk of developing diabetes.

But the dearth of scientific studies on the Montignac Method doesn't seem to be deterring devotees (especially in Quebec). Laurent Lepage, a professor at the Institute of Environmental Science, University of Quebec at Montreal, is one of them. Last August, he put himself on the Montignac Method and has since lost 20 pounds (and has successfully kept them off). A former fanatic of ice cream, baguettes and french fries, Lepage admits it was difficult at first to give those foods up, but now is motivated to continue to eschew them because he feels better for it. "I used to get tired around 10:00 after my morning Danish and again at 3:00 after an ice cream in the afternoon. Now I've got energy all day long because I don't have sugar urges anymore."

Indeed, Lepage says he hasn't felt the least bit deprived. He says having his dark chocolate squares and wine everyday makes up for not having desserts. The only downside to the Montignac Method, he confesses, is that it's the only thing he talks about anymore. "At dinner parties, we don't talk politics or anything else for that matter. Everybody is constantly asking me about Montignac and trying to justify why they continue to eat what they do. But they are clearly interested in what I am doing."

Francine Chaloult, press agent for Quebec stars Celine Dion, Andre-Philippe Gagnon and Isabelle Boulay, among others, says she tried the diet several years ago and was pleased with the weight she lost. But she had difficulty keeping it going. "After a while, you get a craving for steak and french fries and a good piece of bread with cheese."

 The Montignac's Method

In Phase I of the program, which should be followed for two to three months, you are supposed to eat three square meals a day. Breakfast can include high-fibre cereals (made without sugar, corn or rice) and skim milk. Lunch, not dinner, should be your biggest meal, which is typically French. It can consist of meat, fowl or fish, but must be combined only with vegetables such as a salad. Dinner could be a high-fibre, "good" carbohydrate such as whole-wheat bread, but again served only with vegetables such as French string beans. Fruits are to be eaten alone, well after or before a meal. Quantities are not restricted.

After you have lost your desired weight, you proceed to Phase II of the diet in order to maintain your weight over the long term. That's when you can gradually re-incorporate the "bad" potato, in moderation. It is best eaten with the skin on, for example, as well as with other sources of fibre, such as a salad. According to Montignac, fibre helps to keep the blood sugar from the potato in check. But you must still shun sugar, white bread, corn and white rice. Anytime you feel you're putting on weight again, you are advised to return to Phase I of the diet.

In Phase II, you are also allowed one, maximum two, glasses of red (or white) wine a day, provided you begin drinking towards the end of your meal when your stomach is full. Red wine has been shown to have a beneficial effect on the heart and on insulin levels in healthy people.

For dessert, Montignac followers can enjoy a small amount of sugar-free dark chocolate containing at least 60 percent cocoa. At the diet centres in Quebec, Montignac sells his own brand of dark chocolate sweetened artificially.