Question: There is usually ads being displayed on various different sites displaying "Eat This And Never Diet Again" What is your thoughts on this bogus claim.

David Nunan answered on 13 Nov 2015:

Great question.

Generally if it sounds to good to be true then it probable is. There are loads of bogus claims about diet – in fact I would say it’s the area were most bogus claims are made. Because everybody eats, everyone’s got an opinion on diet.

The most bogus claim I’ve seen is injecting urine of pregnant women to help lose weight (no kidding!).

And it’s really hard to do good science on diet because it’s really difficult to measure what people actually eat in real life. You can do studies of people in laboratories where you control everything they eat but that doesn’t reflect real life. So I would say take almost all headlines about miracle diets as bogus.

The key is to eat a healthy, balanced diet, with not too much sugar and not too much processed food and get regular exercise. For someone your age, around about 30-60 minutes per day of any activity that gets you breathing heavier and raises your heart rate. These two things will be the best thing you can do for your weight and health.