The Mail is probably the absolute worst excuse for journalism invented. I put it below The Sun. They were largely responsibly for the disgusting MMM lies.
Also, weight loss through thinking something is going to work? That's been done many times:
"Time after time it has been shown that the psychological power of medicines is a huge part of their overall effectiveness.
But is this specifically a problem for exercise and weight loss?
Well I only know of one good study that covers that question.
The researchers didn’t invent a dummy, sugar pill, but they did the next best thing as Ben Goldacre at Bad Science reports…
Alia Crum and Ellen Langer from Harvard psychology department took 84 female hotel attendants in 7 hotels. They were cleaning an average of 15 rooms a day, each requiring half an hour of walking, bending, pushing, lifting, and carrying.
These women were clearly getting a lot of good exercise, but they didn’t believe it: 66.6% of them reported not exercising regularly, and 36.8% said they didn’t get any exercise at all.
The study abstract reports that one group of the hotel attendants was…
…told that the work they do (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle. Examples of how their work was exercise were provided.
Subjects in the control group were not given this information.
Although actual behavior did not change, 4 weeks after the intervention, the informed group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before.
As a result, COMPARED WITH THE CONTROL GROUP, THEY [THE HOTEL ATTENDANTS WHO WERE TOLD THAT THEIR CLEANING JOB WAS IN FACT 'EXERCISE'] SHOWED A DECREASE IN WEIGHT, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index.
These results support the hypothesis that exercise affects health in part or in whole via the placebo effect."
http://www.drmartinrussell.com/
http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/think-yourself-thin/
The way the mind and the body relate is astounding.