If you love food like I love food, then chances are you, er, have a few extra pounds. Even though I try to be really careful about what I eat, I simply can't resist all the fabulous cookies and cakes and bread that surround me all day (I work in a pastry kitchen).

I actually have lost a lot of weight in last couple of years, even though I do still have just a little nibble of lots of different things. I started reading about how to lose weight safely, and followed a lot of the tips I found. That's why I did pretty well on this LATImes diet quiz. I think I've mentioned before that I'm also a sucker for quizes, so I couldn't pass it up.

It's not a quiz in which you answer the question and then it tells you if you're correct. All the questions and answers follow each other on the same page, but it's still fun. See how well you stack up: I'd love to hear about it.

Remember all the hype surrounding Beyonce and her occasional detox diet?

It's now officially being referred to as the Def Jam Diet. For some reason, everyone associated with the record label is drastically dropping pounds. However, now that Beyonce's (supposedly) pregnant, she can't do drop the pounds with the extreme dieting. (Well, duh, Beyonce, you're gaining weight because you're pregnant.)

There's been question about what exactly the Def Jam Diet is (because it seems to be working for the likes of Jay-Z, LA Reid, and Mariah Carey. Now everyone can breathe easily because the Def Jam Diet "is just the hip rapper way to say Master Cleanse."

Oh. Yeah, anything is more hip than saying you drink nothing but some strange concoction of lemonade, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper.

[via Huffington Post, via NY Post]

MSN money asks use to to take a moment and imagine if no one in the US were overweight. I lose. I can't do it! I know so few people, myself included, who aren't overweight (they consider overweight to be 20 or more pounds too heavy). However, I'll humor them by suspending disbelief, and attempting to imagine.

MSN says, "add the savings up on health, food, clothing and efficiencies, and you could buy a professional home gym for every U.S. household -- or hand each $4,270 in cash." There would be a total of $487 billion dollars in national savings. Read the article for details on how they came up with that number.

What would you do with your extra $4,270 dollars? I'd definitely go out for lots of fancy dinners with no skimping on the dessert course. Hmm.. that would defeat the point though, wouldn't it?

Hooray! Yet another article about the end-all, be-all method to finally, yes finally (!) lose weight!

Ugh.

Strangely enough, the tips in an article by Sally Squires of the Washington Post are absolutely normal, and if I'm going to poke fun at anything at all, it's the fact that the logic behind the Energy Density method is absolutely sound.

Basically, you replace food with a high energy density with foods that have low energy-density. It sounds fancy. It sounds scientific and complicated. Energy density? Do we need to carry around little notebooks with an entire database of foods and their energy densities?!?!

No. Energy density is just a fancy way of saying "caloric bang for your buck." You want to eat foods that give you less caloric bang for your buck, and remove foods that have a higher number of calories for the volume of food you eat. For example, an apple is low density. Mashed potatoes with butter that's the same size as that apple is high density.

It's not rocket science, but if you need more concrete to-dos, here's a list from the article:

• Add fruits and vegetables to cut calories
• Get more fiber
• Add a course to your meal like salad to cut down on a higher density main course
• Sip on soup
• Cut out fat where you won't be sacrificing too much flavor
• Eat dessert, but make it fruit.

Even though the official start of summer isn't until some time in mid-June, we all know that summertime really kicks off with Memorial Day weekend -- and for lots of us, that means lounging poolside for the first time this year, or hitting the beach. Time to get our bodies ready for swimsuits.

Lady Thrills has put together a list of the Top 10 Foods that Help Burn Fat. Granted, you can't just eat a teaspoon of cayenne pepper then sit around on the chaise lounge all day. Getting into shape means eating well overall and exercising. But a little kick along the way from these ten things can't hurt!

1. Cayenne Pepper
2. Cinnamon
3. Ginger
4. Citrus Fruits
5. Apples and Berries
6. Soybeans
7. Bananas
8. Essential Fatty Acids
9. Garlic
10. Dairy Products

[via: GourmetGlam at ThisNext.com]

With the information overload that gets hurled at us on a daily basis regarding health, nutrition and dieting, we might get a little confused. One day it increases your metabolism, the next day it makes you fat. If we listened to everything we read on the Internet, we'd be drinking water and eating...nothing.

However, to help keep us straight with information, Consumer Reports has put together a short list of dieting and weight loss websites. These sites were chosen based on how helpful the sites are, rating parameters like ease of use and clear disclosure of sponsorship policies. The sites are not rated for how well the diet itself works. We're posting the list here, but click over to Consumer Reports for the details on each site:

• WebMD
• The Biggest Loser Club
• eDiets
• The Sonoma Diet
• The South Beach Diet
• Weight Watchers
• Light N Fit
• Trim Life

I am still getting used to my cell phone. In fact, I don't think I quite know how to view picture messages, though I'm sure that I do have a picture and video phone.

So all this new cell phone technology is pretty crazy to me, and it seems like much of it has to do with watching what you eat. Sprint has MyFoodPhone, a service that allows dieters to use their cameraphones to photograph meals and snacks before they eat, then instantly upload the pictures to an online account. Every two weeks a "nutritional advisor" checks the account and delivers feedback via the Web about portion sizes, nutritional content and general eating habits in the form of a video clip or notes.

It's kind of like your nagging significant other calling you to check where you are and what you're eating. "You're at Fatburger eating a Double Kingburger with fries?!?! Get home this instant and eat a salad!!" Something like that.

The secret to weight loss? Grapefruits. Eliminating white sugar. Raw foods. Try again: how about counting calories?

The oldest and tired-est of all weight loss programs, the trusty calorie counter, is the way to go, says nutritionist LouAnn Frisch, interviewed in yesterday's Oregonian. "I don't care what the diet says; weight loss comes down to counting calories. If you want to lose a pound a week, subtract 500 calories from what it takes to maintain your current weight." Multiply your weight, in pounds, by 13, and you'll get the maintenance number.

Good thing I don't want to lose weight - I'd be only eating 1,100 calories a day. That's five slices of Milton's Whole Grain Bread, four eggs, and a bowl of low-fat split pea soup (according to Frisch's recommendations). I wouldn't even have room for milk in my coffee.