Yes (I bought the book, which is really just a lot of fluff around the central idea as you summarized), though I didn't stick with it long enough to make it stick, it definitely started a downward weight trend.

His original insight (discovered while traveling in France) was worthwhile, though, and confirmed through testing, and confirmed by thousands of people commenting on his blog: apparently, the body will somehow store calories more when it detects incoming things "it" likes, and won't otherwise (thus the sugar water/flavorless olive oil idea, which provides the calories without the "likes").