High carb, low fat, low carb, high protein–for years dieters and diet books have debated the relative benefits of different weight loss regimens. A new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine settles the argument decisively.

Here’s a new way to shed fat: bet money on it. Thanks to several new websites that enable people to make bets and track their progress, hopeful weight losers are competing against one another to see who can lose the most weight.

Susan B. Roberts, author of The Instinct Diet: Use Your Five Food Instincts to Lose Weight and Keep It Off (Workman Publishing, 2009), is a professor of both nutrition and psychiatry at Tufts University. And while her diet plan won’t guarantee success, it represents just about the best scientific approach to smart weight loss you’ll find. Roberts’ premise isn’t groundbreaking. But some of her advice, especially relating to taming hunger, is worth repeating.

I started yoga a year ago, when we brought a yoga instructor here to the workplace for a lunch-hour class. I have done aerobics and strength training in the past, but yoga was new to me. I really enjoy it, even though I’m still very much a beginner. The class is very low-key and I’m not pressured to do anything more than what I’m comfortable with.

Within just a few class periods I could tell my balance was better and my flexibility had increased. And they’ve continued to improve. Another benefit to yoga – and any other type of exercise – is stress reduction. I find I am able to control my hunger better when I control my stress level, and that happens far more often on the yoga days. I plan to continue both yoga class and the walking I am doing with my co-workers.

I’m also managing to control my weight.

Low-carbohydrate diets burn fat in the liver more effectively than low-calorie diets, according to new findings from the Univerity of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. The results add more to a growing pile of evidence that cutting back on carbs may be the best and healthiest way to trim off fat.

For years the nation’s expanding girth has been blamed on lazy lifestyles. If more of us would just get off the couch and get moving, the thinking goes, we wouldn’t have to worry about weight loss plans and diet books. New evidence paints a more complicated picture.

I’m not fat. I’ve never had to diet. Except for the odd foray into cross-dressing on Halloween in San Francisco’s Castro district, I’ve never worried about slipping into a size 8 evening dress. And I’m not a fan of graphic novels or books. But as soon as I picked up The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude, A Memoir, by Carol Lay (Villard Books, 2008), I was charmed.

By all rights, switching from sugary beverages to sugar-free alternatives should be one of the simplest ways to cut back on calories. But more Americans are imbibing more calories in the form of sugar-sweetened beverages than ever, according to a new report by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Researchers this week reported findings from an experiment most of us would happily volunteer for—a study comparing dark chocolate and milk chocolate.

A funny thing happened after University of Michigan scientists ended an exercise study in which volunteers used devices called pedometers to count the number of steps they took. The research subjects kept on walking. The reason: they loved using their pedometers.