What is my easy loss?

I read a lot of fitness magazines, articles, blogs, etc. You can learn a lot of good things, and also some crazy things.  One thing that I always come across when glancing through is this:

"If you don't eat/drink ______, then you could lose ____ pounds in a year."


Yesterday, I was reading Women's Health magazine...



And I came across this statistic - "People who live in a city with public transportation lose an average of 6.5 lbs in 12-18 months."

Well, when I moved to SF, I definitely did not lose 6.5 pounds.  And, I never got to lose 10 pounds in a year after stopping drinking soda because I don't drink soda.  I feel like I always read statistics like these - and I always think to myself "what do I get to stop eating/drinking to lose X amount of pounds?!?!" 

I guess the positive way to look at it is...if I did drink or eat those things, I guess I could be X pounds heavier, right?!