Actually, when you starve yourself your body goes into "starvation mode", meaning that it believes it's food supply is cut off so it begins to store fat and burn it slower. The trick is to get your body to burn fat faster. This is done through proper diet and exercise.

I just started back on the Suzanne Somers plan (with a few moderations that will make it easy for me to stay on it always rather than treat it like a "diet"). And I signed up for Gold's Gym yesterday (boy are my arms sore). I won't be looking all hot and sexy like Jasun by Phoenix, but hopefully by next summer I'll be able to take my shirt off at the beach and not have PETA try to push me back into the water.