Make treating yourself a priority and always remember your life is happening now. Don't put off all your dreams and pleasures to another day. In any balanced personal definition of success there has to be a powerful element of living life in the present.

When I grew up in France, I was a normal size. And then I came to the United States and I gained 20 pounds.

Since the pleasure of most foods is in the first few bites, eat one thing on your plate at a time, at least at the start of the meal when you can concentrate and enjoy the full flavors.

Learn to say no, with an eye to saying yes to something else.

I've never been ambitious.

French women love to shop and prepare food. They love to talk about what they have bought and made. It's a deeply natural love, but one that is erased in many other cultures. Most French women learn it from their mothers, some from their fathers. But if your parents aren't French, you can still learn it yourself.

If you believe you can shed pounds quickly by force of will and deprivation, you will in all likelihood not only regain the ones you lost, but add a few more besides.