How I learnt to resist my patisserie passion – in France

On a trip to Champagne country, Zoe Strimpel follows a good food guide that does not involve overindulging

Ican’t remember, as an adult, ever returning from a trip abroad not significantly inflated around the waist and chin. Trips to Portugal have seen an embrace of pastéis de nata, involving up to eight a day; America can’t be enjoyed without gorging on giant soft-baked cookies, bacon-flavoured doughnuts and pancake stacks. Once, I went on a trip to Puglia while evangelically following a low-carb diet. I managed to resist the bread, but gave myself some kind of cheese poisoning instead. And then, of course, there’s France, a land studded with boulangeries and patisseries of which even the plainest call a siren song (to me).

But as I faced the festive season, with its onslaught of Christmas parties, overindulging and a great deal of worrying about waistlines, I began to wonder if it always had to be like that. Might it be possible to go on an indulgent mini-break to a gastronomic capital and enjoy myself to the full without, to put it delicately, pigging out?

I believed it might be, so I set myself an interesting task. I would go to a foodie capital – en France, naturellement – armed with the bestselling tome French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by (stick-thin) Veuve Clicquot executive Mireille Guiliano. I would see if, having imbibed her sacraments of moderation and the avoidance of processed, carby sugary foods, I could overhaul my whole concept of indulgence and walk away from a French holiday the same heft as I went into it.

Guiliano’s book states from the outset that French women “take pleasure in staying slim by eating well”, eating “with their heads” not – like Anglo-Saxon women – their greedy hearts. French women know that “less can be more”. What this really boils down to – as Guiliano’s recipes show – is shunning sugar and fat, having one piece (not three) of bread a day, choosing fruit for dessert rather than cake and being extremely sparing with one’s cheese intake. The benefits to well-being as well as looks by eating this way are, of course, palpable, and I was excited to see if I could return to London feeling energised rather than carbily foggy and coated in sugary fat. After ordering the book, I arranged a weekend in the newly refurbished Royal Champagne Hotel in Épernay, in the Champagne region of France. Previously a sprawling old house owned by a regional hotelier, the hotel – bought in 2012 by two Bostonians with a France fetish – emerged in July from its renovation chrysalis as a modern splendour facing out over the vineyards of the Marne Valley.

Without the discipline of my new regime, I could easily spend my weekend necking champagne, chomping on artisanal pastry and bread made by the hotel’s baker Patrick Baillet, and gorging on local Chaource cheese and stock-infused ham. But, were I to take Guiliano’s more wide-ranging concept of “pleasure” as being about well-being rather than overeating, I could also choose to trade some calorific edibles in for an embrace of outdoor activity – the area is a Unesco World Heritage Site and stunningly inviting for cycling and walking – and, of course, spa indulgence.

And so I set out on a sunny November Friday. My challenges started immediately in the Eurostar lounge, with viennoiseries (a weakness of mine) as far as the eye could see. But, having had some oat cakes before I started out, I made the very French decision to stick to espresso. On the train itself, where I was offered food and drink, I decided to try the wine ( just a glass, like a Frenchwoman), eat the protein and vegetables, and turn my nose up at the bread roll and pudding.

It was rather a novel experience arriving in Paris not having begun my

By the time I got to Reims, I was hungry – and rather pleased about it

“holiday” by excessive snacking on the train. By the time I got to Reims, I was hungry – and rather pleased about it. While waiting for my lift to the hotel, I didn’t go into the nearest patisserie: I raced the 15 minutes on foot to Reims’ incredible cathedral. Here I wept, not at the velvety mousse of an opera cake, but at the beauty of the stone carvings of saints over the soaring entrance.

By the time I arrived at the hotel, after shocking traffic, old me would have proceeded to eat and drink with abandon. But that approach felt wrong here. As soon as I sat down to check in, the suave concierge handed me a glass – only a third full – of startlingly honeyed Deutz champagne.

The look of the hotel somehow discourages piggy eating. Designed by Giovanni Pace, the architect of the Moët & Chandon, its minimalist but opulent interiors are all sweeps of glass, local quartz stones and pale wood. Rooms do not sink to minibars, instead offering state-of-the-art espresso machines, a bottle of Leclerc Briant champagne from down the road and some tangerines.

Guiliano is adamant that, in the early stages of learning to eat like a Frenchwoman, you must practise simple avoidance. Thus to keep out of