Although I don’t intend to give up buying and reading Diet Books, I agree with much of the article below.  I consider myself to have some expertise on the subject, because during the past 60 years I’ve read many hundreds of diet books, and …as part of my Dieting Hobby… I read most ‘major’ diet books as soon as they are published.  I have, in fact, read all of the diet books mentioned in this article, and still own at least ten of them.

Diet books are full of lies.
But they're even worse when doctors write them.
by Julia Belluz on March 2016

One of the perks of being a journalist is that new books cross your desk weeks or months before they’re released.

One of the pitfalls of being a health journalist is that far too many of these books promise to eliminate belly fat forever with their one true secret for weight loss.

Diet books are a multimillion-dollar industry, and it's no surprise, since millions of people struggle with their weight and long for answers about what they can do to slim down. Books can provide valuable tips on healthful patterns of eating. Some are more outlandish than others. But the problem with all of them is what they promise when it comes to weight loss.

No doctor has ever uncovered the solution to permanent weight loss. If someone had found the fix for this immensely vexing and complex problem, we wouldn't be facing an obesity crisis.

But unfortunately, more and more respected doctors, despite their good intentions, are complicit with the publishing industry in confusing science and obscuring hard truths about obesity to sell diet books. It's one thing when actress Gwyneth Paltrow tells people to avoid "nightshade vegetables" on an elimination diet, and quite another when a highly trained and credentialed physician sells a weight loss lie.

Case study: Dr. David Ludwig's Always Hungry.

Recently, a book called "Always Hungry?" landed on my desk. Like dozens of books I've seen before, it makes big promises. The cover of this one said it would help readers "conquer cravings, retrain your fat cells and lose weight permanently." 

But this book wasn't authored by a woo-loving celebrity like Paltrow. The book came from Dr. David Ludwig, an esteemed endocrinologist and researcher affiliated with Harvard Medical School who has run dozens of clinical trials and seen thousands of patients in the 20 years he's practiced medicine. Like many doctor authors, Ludwig wants to share some of what he's learned with people desperate for help.

When I looked more closely at the actual diet he's prescribing for "permanent weight loss," I found that it was based on a pilot study of just 237 people followed for 16 weeks — a blip of time in a dieter's life.
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Here is something I’ve learned
about Diets and Dieting.