I second the opinions of those of you who defend that a healthier lifestyle, with a balanced diet, containing all kinds of food in the right proportions, and with regular exercise, is the (only) way to go. With some discipline and a good choice of meals it is possible to loose weight at a slow but healthy, safe and continuous pace. I'm telling you this from my own experience. All the various quick weight loss diets work by creating partial starvation, including the popular Dr Atkins diet.

Well, in Dr Atkins diet, the assumption is that saturated fats are good and the carbohydrates should be banned because they make you fat, so the solution is to eliminate the carbohydrates from the diet. How does this diet work? Well, normally the body burns glucose and uses body fat as a long-term energy reserve. By eliminating carbohydrates from the diet, and since sugars are also forbiden, the body has nothing to convert in glucose, and quickly runs out of blood sugar. It starts then to break fat down into ketones, using them as "fuel". This process is called ketosis, and not much medical research has been done about it. However it's known that it leads to huge losses of water and that body protein (muscle) ends up being burned also, just as fat. When this ketosis state is maintained for a reasonable period of time (necessary to produce the famous amazing results), it easily induces a dangerous increase of uric acid, and some doctors call it (humourously!...) "the passport to heart attack". This high-protein diet (based on saturated fat red meat) is likely to produce kidney and liver problems, as well as increase the possibilities of osteoporosis.

As you know I'm no doctor, so you shouldn't believe me. Make your own research, read, listen to the specialists' opinions and make up wour mind. BTW, did you know that Dr Atkins developed his own heart problems and that they were kept secret until he had a heart attack in a public place?...

All diets that produce spectacular results are very likely to be unhealthy or even dangerous, and I believe they should be avoided except in very exceptional cases and for very short periods of time. They also have the big disadvantage of not teaching us anything about habits changes, that I believe are the key of a sustained good health. So, Dan, if you just have a little tummy and aren't overweight and exercise regularly, you shouldn't really worry!

Here's a couple of links of recommendations I found useful:
http://www.nal.usda.gov:8001/py/pmap.htm http://www.oldwayspt.org/pyramids/pyramids.html

-- José.