Any new diet will seem to work for a few months or weeks, you're losing weight and everything seems wonderful, you tell all your friends and they buy the same diet book, and then bam the flavor-calorie association kicks back in and you're back to hell. The number-one result of weight-loss science is that 95% of people who lose weight regain it.

This suggests that the important factor in weight loss has nothing to do with any specific diet. Rather the key is the sudden shock to the endocrinological system that goes along with starting a new diet. Given any stable diet, your system will adapt to keep you at a certain weight. But if you constantly change your diet, your system will never be able to adapt.

Proposal: the meta-diet. Get 12 wonder diet books. Mark each month with a corresponding diet (Jan. is Atkin's, Feb is Shangri-La, ...) Every month, ditch the previous diet without a second thought and scrupulously adhere to the new one.