The absolute infallible diet, that's healthy, teaches good eating habits, accounts for a woman's periodic weight swings, and lets you lose weight at exactly the rate you want.
All you need is graph paper, and the will to make it happen.
Label the verticle axis of your graph paper with your weight, and the horizontal axis with the days.
Put a dot at the weight you want to start losing from. This could be your current weight, or a pound or two more if you think you need more space.
Then draw a diagnonal line of reducing weight at the rate you want. A pound every two weeks is good, but you can be more aggressive. The advantage of a gradual slope is you are more likely to develop and maintain good eating habits.
Eat whatever you want.
The next morning weigh yourself and put a dot on the graph.
If you are under the line, then there's nothing to do.
Figure: Mary's chart with a modified goal. The graph covers seven weeks and the goal after the first seven weeks was to never let the line reach the line from the previous seven weeks. Mary lost 15 pounds with this plan over 35 weeks and kept it off. You can see various notations on the chart including fast days, which always brought the weight down two or three pounds.
Here's the tricky part. If you're over the line, then you must fast for the day. Fasting is healthy and you will lose weight when you fast for the day. And since you just went over the line, you'll lose enough to get back under the line.
The next morning weigh yourself again. You should be under the line again, but if not, another day of fasting. If you are under the line, eat whatever you want.
And so on, whenever you are over the line, you fast that day.
Given that most people don't like to fast, you'll find that you relatively quickly learn how to control the calories on the eat all you want days to prevent a mandatory fast. After some fasting and some weight swings, you'll find you get into a routine that lets you gradually lose weight at the pace you want.
When you reach your target weight, then just use a straight line and continue. Eat what you want, but if you go over your target weight, then you fast.
What about Thanksgiving and other big eating holidays? No problem, just level out your chart, or even give yourself room to gain a few pounds and then continue with the weight loss. You're in charge. Make the line whereever you want. Just make sure your strict about fasting when you have to fast.