To those on a diet -- do you refuse the assistance of your doctor when you've gone as far as you can go with your diet plan? According to a new study, 70 percent of Americans who are trying to lose weight are doing so following their own plans -- and these folks have no interest in seeking a doctor's help.

With many doctors saying that there is no way to safely lose more than a pound or two each week through tried-and-tested methods of watching each meal and regular exercise, a third of the survey respondents had tried dietary supplements of unproven benefit -- pills and powders that promise to burn fat and boost metabolism. I still don't get why people think pills can make them lose weight. That's a much different post, though.

But, this doctor agrees with my thinking, saying "People need to get away from magical thinking ... it's easy to hope for a magic pill that's going to rev up their metabolism or shed their pounds." Does that product exist? Outside of some imaginary world in midnight infomercials, most likely not.