It's all about how much they eat, and when they eat, that makes the difference.

The words, 'you never have to diet again' are what we've all been waiting to hear. And it seems, if you eat as the French do, you really can have your cake and eat it too.

Over the years we've seen it all - shakes, pills, detoxes - all adding to our diet dramas, and as a nation we spend more than one million dollars a day on weight loss attempts.

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Despite the fact that we’re all striving to drop the kilos and keep them off, 95 per cent of all dieters will regain their lost weight in one to five years, according to the Dieticians Association of Australia.

Sally Asher has ditched diets forever, but ten years ago the mother of two was ten kilos heavier.

“The rigid rules led to feelings of depravation, and then to guilt, and to more overeating - so it was a vicious circle,” Asher said.

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All this changed when she moved abroad. “I started to observe how the French eat, and thought ‘oh look, forget counting calories, carbs and fat grams, I’m just going to eat how they eat’.”

Now she's released a book Losing it in France, which is making waves in the weight loss world.

Suzie Castles says the book has helped her see she was consuming food without realising it. But now she's stopped her boredom fueled binges, fourteen kilos have just fallen off.

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“I don’t miss out on anything, and yet I keep losing weight at the same time,” Castles said.

Fitness trainer to the stars Donna Aston says fad diets make you think you're losing fat, but the truth is “you'd be losing fluid, and you'd possibly be losing muscle tissue if you're not eating enough, and you can lose two kilos on the scales, and actually not lose a single gram of fat.”

• A typical French breakfast includes a baguette and jam, fruit and Greek yoghurt.
• For lunch there's soup, grapes and bread.
• Dinner's a walnut salad, salmon, lentils, and more bread and cheese; accompanied by red wine and berries with ice cream.

While a typical Aussie feast - where bigger is better - includes Vegemite on toast for breakfast; followed by a ham and cheese roll for lunch; and for dinner a big bowl of spaghetti, wrap it all up with a bowl of ice cream and some red wine.

Dietician Melanie McGrice believes the French are onto a winner.

“I'd definitely go for this French diet because of the extra fruit and vegetables that’s in it, and the protein,” McGrice said.

She says the French believe less is more - they choose quality ingredients over quantity.

“It’s something that so many Aussies are doing - they're just having too big portion sizes, but they're doing it day after day, after day, and year after year. That really adds up to extra kilojoules, and extra fat on our hips.”

This reporter is on Twitter at @tinekae

• Losing it in France - www.losingitinfrance.com