I just read a decent book that makes this same point ('In Defense of Food' by Michael Pollan). The author claims that for all of our nutrition science, consumers are more confused and the incidence of obesity and western diseases is increasing. He attributes this mostly to our inability to understand how nutrition works as a whole system as opposed to our standard approach of one nutrient = one effect on the body.

I'm all for science and learning how our bodies do what they do but all the research in the world doesn't change the simple rule of losing weight: eat less, exercise more.

when in doubt - I ride; run; weight train or swim

+1 If you eat what you need when you're hungry, and stop short of overeating, all should be well. Those paradigms change if the body doesn't function quite right (diabetes, eating disorders, etc) but overall nothing's changed in 1000s of years. If you stick to real food (made from scratch) where possible and avoid processed food as much as possible, there shouldn't be a lot of guess work in ones diet. Hard part is finding those whole foods and un-altered starting products to work with.

Would love to hear your program.

I completely agree. When I get bored and browse "diet" forums, I find the number 1 question to be something like: What should I eat to lose weight?

And, no one wants to exercise (because you know, who needs to exercise to lose weight anyway? deep down we're all supermodels right? [insert sarcasm]).

Being thin for thin's sake isn't very attractive--but add a little muscle and you may just have something going on.