A lot of "tips" for weight loss are based on behaviors rather than body chemistry. It's quite common to eat a bunch of snacks (while sitting on your ass watching TV) after dinner. By merely making the rule "no snacks after dinner" that cuts out several hundred (usually empty) calories from a ham's diet.     Another great example is Atkin's. It's not that carbs are bad, but by cutting out or severely limiting carbs you automatically reduce a LOT of food options that are abused by hams. Think about a Big Mac combo with fries and a coke. That's well over 1,000 calories, but if you cut out the carbs (beetus juice, french fries, 3 pieces of bun) you are SIGNIFICANTLY reducing that calories. Sure go ahead and eat a couple burger patties with cheese, it's still way fewer calories than the whole combo meal.