I've noticed a few posts recently where people have been trying to lose weight.

For my I have always found the Slow Carb Diet as found in the "4 hour body" highly successful for losing weight.

The details can be found on several websites but I thought I would copy and paste the 5 main guidelines and helpful tips if it helps anybody:

The Slow-Carb Diet—
Better Fat-Loss Through Simplicity
It is possible to lose 20 pounds of bodyfat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors:
exercise, diet, or a drug/supplement regimen. Twenty pounds for most people means moving down at least two clothing sizes, whether that’s going from a size 14 dress to a size 10 or from an XXL shirt to a large. The waist and hips show an even more dramatic reduction in circumference.
The diet that I’ll introduce in this chapter—the Slow-Carb Diet—is the only diet besides the rather extreme Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) that has produced veins across my abdomen, which is the last place I lose fat.
There are just five simple rules to follow:

RULE #1: AVOID “WHITE” CARBOHYDRATES.
Avoid any carbohydrate that is, or can be, white. The following foods are prohibited: all bread, rice (including brown), cereal, potatoes, pasta, tortillas, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating the aforementioned foods and anything else white, you’ll be safe.
RULE #2: EAT THE SAME FEW MEALS OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat-loss, eat the same few meals over and over again. There are 47,000 products in the average U.S. grocery store, but only a handful of them won’t make you fat.
RULE #3: DON’T DRINK CALORIES.
Drink massive quantities of water and as much unsweetened tea, coffee (with no more than two tablespoons of cream; I suggest using cinnamon instead), or other no-calorie/low-calorie beverages as you like. Do not drink milk (including soy milk), normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. Limit diet soft drinks to no more than 16 ounces per day if you can, as the aspartame can
stimulate weight gain.
I’m a wine fanatic and have one to two glasses of red wine almost every evening. It doesn’t appear to have any negative impact on my rate of fat-loss. Red wine is by no means required for this diet to work, but it’s 100% allowed (unlike white wines and beer, both of which should be avoided). Up to two glasses of red per night, no more.
RULE #4: DON’T EAT FRUIT.
Humans don’t need fruit six days a week, and they certainly don’t need it year-round.The only exceptions to the no-fruit rule are tomatoes and avocadoes, and the latter should be eaten in moderation (no more than one cup or one meal per day). Otherwise, just say no to fruit and its principal sugar, fructose, which is converted to glycerol phosphate more effciently than almost all other carbohydrates
RULE #5: TAKE ONE DAY OFF PER WEEK.
I recommend Saturdays as your Dieters Gone Wild (DGW) day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. If I drank beer, I’d have a few pints of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen. I make myself a little sick each Saturday and don’t want to look at any junk for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fatloss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function and conversion of T4 to T3, etc.) doesn’t downshift from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat. Welcome to Utopia.
There are no limits or boundaries during this day of gluttonous enjoyment. There is absolutely no calorie counting on this diet, on this day or any other. Start the diet at least five days before your designated cheat day. If you choose Saturday, for example, I would suggest starting your diet on a Monday.