When I was in my early 20's my pal that I stayed with while doing my ‘writtens', went on what was then called the Canadian airforce diet. It was essentially a carbohydrate free regime. (Sold as the grapefruit diet etc., in later years.) When after 10 days I returned to his flat he was hardly recognizable; it certainly worked.
Nowadays, this diet has been regularly slammed as very unhealthy. But.......now I'm almost an OAP nothing seems to work except near starvation. While in the UK, I make a point of cycling to the pub etc., but a bad lumber disk or two has stopped me running, and this is the most severe setback (groan) to staying fit and slim-ish. Rocketing past 220 lbs, I had to do something, and the sound advice from FD was not working at this age, at least not with the new physical restrictions. A brutal attack on the problem seemed the only way.
I suggest the following only for those that are not getting results with normal dieting. And needles to say an operating crew member should not do this.
I recently lost 30 lbs in less than a month by a well tested routine.
Plenty of water and almost no food for a couple of days and then slowly start to reintroduce food. I know, this puts the body into conserve mode, but it also shrinks the stomach in much the same way as the multi-thousand dollar stapling operation, it is then just a case of not stretching it again for a while, and never binge. It is nowhere near as unpleasant as it sounds cos the less you eat, the less you want to eat.
The pleasing results are conditional. That is, the slightest transgression and the weight goes back on in hours rather than days...it takes time to make the results permanent. This is the time for the sensible routine to be started. IMHO, shrinking the stomach obviates the need for any of the new drugs that fool us into feeling sated.