Fad diets are now so numerous that when the latest is introduced, the media must whack the scepticism up to maximum to have any hope of people reading past the first sentence. And yet, they will write a safe few paragraphs in. And yet, they will say, their early skeptical stance giving way to advertorial. And yet, it works.

Being an adherent of the psychological approach, I'm a firm believer that which diet you choose has little effect on your average long-term weight. The main determinant is always going to be your attitude to eating and whether you really, at heart, want to lose weight.

The New York Times provides the perfect antidote to thinly disguised fad-diet marketing with George Saunders', 'Absolutely No-Anything Diet':

"Of late, we have become an aggressive and greedy nation. I believe that soon the pendulum will swing back, and we will become an ashamed, repentant nation. What better way to express our total self-loathing than to all stop eating at once, denouncing the endless cycle of intake and output, the corrupt global system of planting, harvest and feast? I will be happy to show the way."

I'll start tomorrow.

From The Observer Food Monthly and The New York Times