Most diet books make promises that they can't deliver (in the long run) because their concepts (of dieting) are based on the short-term. Very few people who use a diet can maintain someone else's diet strategy for life. That's why they gain the weight back. Successful weight losers look at the long-term. Consider the differences:

Short term weight management strategies:

• focus on denial
• prescribe a specific way of eating

• promise immediate results
• allow no room for lapses
• ban some foods
• emphasize food
• are extreme.

Long term weight strategies:

• focus on what you can do
• prescribe eating strategies based on the big picture
• deliver success gradually
• leave room for indulgences
• encourage variety in your diet
• emphasize exercise and support
• are gradual

If diets worked then everyone would be thin. Dr. Atkins (who appears to me to be somewhat high in body fat himself) brags that more than 7 million people have purchased his book--inferring he's had success with all of them. Yet, he says "lack of funds" has prevented him from doing studies that follow his book buyers to find out if they lost weight and kept it off (interesting that some of his book revenues aren't available for this important research) or just bought the book, used the strategy for a short time, then abandoned it for their former habits.

One of the best affirmations to continue teaching the long term smart exercise and smart eating weight management strategies I continue to promote is the recurrent theme that reveals my audiences made a paradigm shift. "Instead of learning how to lose weight, I've learned how to prevent weight gain. It's changed my life. It can change yours.