And I'm getting very hungry, but for what? It's astonishing how many different diets are being pushed. And then there are the pill, herb, and extract scams. A number of the fad diets are downright dangerous. Use of zero-cal sugar substitutes may not only be extremely dangerous, but there's some evidence that they may cause weight gains.

If you're lazy or disinclined to take a look at it, lets look at some of the usual scam tip-off claims. First, you can not lose weight by eating all the high calorie food you want. It sounds too good to be true and it is.

Now that's annoying, but true. To lose weight you're probably going to have to both diet and exercise more.

No weight loss product or system works for everyone. We're all different and we need different approaches.

Patches, gels and creams -- nothing that you apply to your skin has been proven to cause weight loss.

The unfortunate truth is that there is no "magic bullet" for anything. Oh, we want to believe. We want desperately to believe that we can achieve whatever our dream is without any pain or hard work. And that desire is the hook that every con is based on.

You need to modify your lifestyle and then, to keep the weight off, you need to maintain a healthy diet and a rational exercise plan. We may all wish there were an easier way, but it doesn't exist.