Aimee lost 60 pounds in a year and a half:

"I use a lot of Parmesan cheese on my food. To satisfy my sweet tooth, I make a pudding-type dessert from pureed ricotta, flavored with lemon juice or vanilla. Also, fat-free Fudgesicles are the bomb."

Bowden calls Aimee's Parmesan plan "iffy." If you use the cheese to flavor low-calorie vegetables that you wouldn't normally eat, then it's a good strategy. On the other hand, adding a high-calorie food like cheese to another high-calorie food, like pasta, would work against you. As for her dessert substitution, he says, "I'm not a big fan of fat-free food as a way of life, but having desserts lower in sugar and fat saves you some calories."

Monica went from size 24 to 18 in six months:

"The first thing I did before I started my diet was clean out my cupboards and fridge. Don't torture yourself... Now on Sundays I cook a lot of stuff for the week. I make a big salad for lunch, cook chicken breasts and get veggies prepped. Then when I get home after a long day at work, I can just steam the veggies and reheat the chicken. I find that being tired equals being lazy and making bad food choices."

Bowden applauds what he calls "bullet-proofing" your kitchen: "It's not giving up to say that [you're susceptible to temptation]. You're saying, 'I'm going to set it up so I win.'" You can't eat a pint of ice cream in the middle of the night if there's none in the house! As for cooking ahead, not only do you have control of your food for the week—"you're actually putting some focus and attention on taking care of yourself. The enemy of weight loss is unconscious eating."

Alison lost 5 pounds:

"I have a steady yoga practice with lots of shoulder stands. The pose stimulates the thyroid gland, which controls metabolism."

There's no scientific way to prove this theory, says Bowden, because no one's ever done a study about the effects of specific yoga poses. Then again, yoga has helped people for thousands of years, so he's not about to dismiss it. "I don't know that shoulder stand is a tried-and-true method [of weight loss]. When she does it, maybe that's when she does the rest of her routine, and she feels thinner because her circulation is improved. And as part of a healthy yoga practice it is healthy."

Mercedes lost 23 pounds after having her second child:

"I wake up at 4:30 a.m. five or six days a week to exercise in my home gym. If I had to leave the house to work out, I'd never do it."

Bowden's initial reaction is positive: "If you're committed enough to do it, how can you fault that?" The only problem is if you're going to bed at midnight and waking up before dawn. Sleep deprivation causes an increase in levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), which then tells your body to store more fat. With enough exercise you can compensate, but in the long term this nonstop activity could backfire.

Obviously, what works for one person might fail for another, so it's a good idea to validate a friend's well-meaning advice by doing some research.

via msn.com