A weight loss scam:
• Uses personal testimonials, such as “it worked for me” rather than large, good quality scientific studies.
• Demonises food groups.
• Insists you need to “detox”.
• Is sold outside normal commercial distribution channels, such as through the internet, by unqualified individuals or mail order advertisements and multi-level marketing.
• Claims effortless or fast weight loss such as ‘lose 30 kilos in 30 days’ or ‘lose weight while you sleep’.
• Claims that you can achieve weight loss without exercise, or without managing food or energy intake.
• Fails to recommend medical supervision, particularly for low-calorie diets.
• Claims to target fat or cellulite in specific areas of the body.
• Uses terms such as “miraculous” or “metabolism-boosting” or “all-natural”.
• Recommends the use of a type of gadget
• Sounds too good to be true.
• Claims it is a treatment for a wide range of ailments, diseases, and nutritional deficiencies.
• Promotes a particular ingredient, compound or food as the key factor of success.
• Demands large advance payments or requires you to enter into long-term contracts.
• Expects you to believe there is a conspiracy against the product and it’s being suppressed by “big pharma” or “the government”.
• Often has in small print, “Use in conjunction with diet and exercise”.
• Advocates eating less than 1200 calories a day or losing more than 1% of your weight per week.
Zenmode 
I have one Facebook friend who is someone I worked with over a decade ago. She often posts miracle diets, and that is literally the only time I have any interaction with her. Recently she posted a link to cleannaturalmedicine dot com with a post “Boiled Egg Diet – Lose 20 Pounds In Just 2 Weeks”.
I dutifully responded, as I always do “To lose twenty pounds in fouteen days requires a calorie deficit in the order of 5000 calories a day. I haven’t read the details of this diet, but unless it means eating one boiled egg per day, plus running about forty miles a day, it’s not going to work.”
“If it works, you’ll be the first to know”, she gamely responded
a) some people will never listen.
b) how are she and I still Facebook friends?
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