I had heard in passing talk about French Women Don't Get Fat ansd wondered whether there would be any "secrets" to eight loss in the book. (I guess the marketing campaign for the book worked enough to get me to ponder what the book had to ffer.) Hence I looked for the answer to my question in The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'French Women Don't Get Fat': Like Champagne for Chocolate, which states:

Guiliano recommends Dr. Miracle's plan as the French way, but it is not unlike the advice that American nutritionists on Web sites and at spas and clinics across the country dispense every day. It is exactly the advice I got last year at Dallas's Cooper Clinic during my annual physical: if you want a glass of wine with dinner, don't eat the bread or skip the baked potato. Do some aerobic exercise; if you're over 40, lift weights. Keep a food diary and cut out the processed junk. Slowly changing your eating habits is far more effective than any crash diet. You don't have to deprive yourself if you learn to make trade-offs. And on and on.

Just what I thought: there is no royal road to thindom.