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I started dieting at age 12.
Some of you may know that already.

I know now that 12 years old is too early to go on a diet. At the time, I was worried because I was going to be in my big sister’s wedding and I was afraid of what I’d look like in the pictures. Even then I knew that ‘wedding pictures are forever.” I look at those pictures now and I can clearly see I didn’t need a diet. I was a normal 12 year old budding, little woman.

At the time that I decided to start dieting was the same time those little calorie counting books started popping up near the check out in the grocery store. They were about 3” x 4” and listed just about every food in the grocery store. Next to the food item it listed the number of calories in that item. Nothing else; just the calories.

I bought one of those books with my babysitting money and set about memorizing it. All I really knew was that if I chose to eat the items with the fewest calories I’d lose weight and I’d be “healthy.” That’s what all the commercials on TV were saying.

That methodology of dieting didn’t work for me. Little did I know that even at 12 years old, if you continually restrict what you eat you’ll just slow down your metabolism as your body hangs on for dear life. Your body thinks the famine has hit and tries to survive.

By the time I was 15, I tried eating every three days to lose weight. That worked. I lost 30 pounds in a month. I passed out 3 times in the process. I never told my parents. They had no clue I was teetering on a very dangerous slope in my efforts to fit the image I saw in the magazines.

Fast forward. Over the years, I learned a lot of other things about diet and dieting. I fell into the trap of believing what I heard on TV, read in magazines or the newspaper, or even learned in school, was ‘gospel.’ It had been published so it must be true. It must be correct. It must be right.

Well, much of it, (as well intentioned as the authors might have been), was wrong. Dead wrong.

Here is a piece we just released at Plan Z on the Five Biggest Weight Loss Lies.

These are all things I bought into as I continually tried to lose weight. Unfortunately, it was a losing battle. The more I bought into this stuff the more I gained weight — until I developed Plan Z.

I hope they will enlighten you, too.