French women love bread and would never consider a life without carbs.

I am a believer in change peu a` peu (little by little) since drastic changes, including lots of changes made all at once, are often the sort of modifications that don't stick.

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.

French women don't have too many clothes - a few good pieces that last for a while and are classic and timeless.

The real reason French women don't get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America.

I would advocate that chocolate be covered by health insurance, but that is admittedly a very French public policy perspective.

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