I lost 15% of my weight and kept it off. It's not that hard. It's not punishing myself, it's going to the gym and taking protein supplements. The "diet that works" is eating a lot of protein because it's the most filling.
Basically, any diet whatsoever will result in you losing weight. Just measuring/charting your weight is effective too. Chewing 7 times with every bite will do it.
High protein diets are particularly awesome for a number of reasons though - in the first couple months you drop a ton of water, which makes the scale drop quickly, which is emotionally rewarding. And, eating a lot of protein tends to result in more rapid satiation. (Water and Dietary Fiber are good here too - so a simple diet trick is, four glasses of water with every meal).
Protein is also good when you are lifting, so is an important component in building muscle mass...
People have a very unrealistic expectation from how much muscle they can gain going to the gym. Some can do better than others, but as for me, I have a very slight frame so I have difficulty putting on muscle mass.
My stats after 7 months: https://imgur.com/Pmnmkc8
Two years later, they barely improved: https://imgur.com/P7qGI5n
"Under the best possible circumstances (perfect diet, training, supplementation, and recovery strategies) the average male body can manufacture between 0.25 and 0.5 pounds of dry muscle tissue per week"[1]
For sure SS will get you stronger in an almost magical fashion (I'm currently doing a modified SS program) but expecting to gain 20lbs of muscle in a short period of time is unrealistic.
[1] http://www.t-nation.com/portal_includes/articles/2006/06-154...
Did you see the articles about Zach, one of Mark Rippetoe's trainees? Based on skinfold caliper measurements, he gained 78 lbs in 6 months, 46 lbs of which was lean body mass, and 32 lbs of which was fat: http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/showthread.php?t...
calipers are just an approximate estimate of someone's body fat percentage, and in this case because of body fat distribution (all the fat is very evenly distributed) they're way off, by as much as 5%
So closer to 25%
If you lost fat and gained muscle, you're doing OK :)
given a calorie surplus.
IMO "the diet that works" can be anything. For some people it actually can be to eat anything they want, but at specific times of the day (and because for instance, they don't actually want to eat that much, it's just a matter of setting limits or not). I don't believe in a diet working for everyone, I think it's complicated, especially as it can affect a lot of other things in your everyday life, and whatever works for someone is fine.
But how high depends on the level of activity and total caloric consumption. You can eat both high protein AND high fat. 40% of calories in protein, 50% of calories in fat, 10% of calories in carbs would be an example of a diet high in protein, fat and low in carbs.
For weight lifters I would recommend 1g of protein per pound of lean tissue (approximate) and the rest of the calories in carbs or fats however you want to distribute those, but some carbs before a workout.