Martian

That's fine, except that it's extremely unhealthy (Atkins and all the others). I've read of a death that's suspected to be due to the Atkins diet, along with all manner of other health problems. Aside from that, it doesn't tend to kickstart healthy lifestyles. More commonly the individual equates being thin with being healthy, assumes he doesn't need the diet, goes back to his old eating habits and eventually regains all the weight. This creates a yo-yo effect that is also quite unhealthy, as it's very hard on your heart.

The only good way to lose weight and keep it off is to change your lifestyle. Diet is a part of that and learning what and how much to eat is what it comes down to for that, but without exercise it's just not enough. The problem is that a lot of people aren't that patient; they don't want to wait six weeks to see results (the generally accepted minimum amount of time for a change to a healthier lifestyle to have an impact), so they go and do these other things to lose the weight quicker. But then they don't have the commitment to keep with it. If you work hard to sweat off your weight a pound at a time, odds are you're not going back to how you were. Nobody's going to throw away years of that sort of hard effort for a twinkie.