The best diet I ever did had a main meal eating window of one hour. The book 'said' that I could eat WHATEVER I wanted for 60 minutes, and the other two meals were grass clippings (salad).  My heart raced excitedly, this book was telling me that I could eat and eat and eat whatever I wanted and I would lose 10kg in 10 days!!

Oh the excitement!  I rushed to the supermarket and filled my cupboards with lollies, chips, fizzy and white bread, with a freezer selection of chocolate icecreams.  I came home from work, prepared my meal of licorice bullets, white bread and butter chip sandwiches, icecream and fizzy and set my watch for a timer of 60 minutes.

As I ate as fast as I could, I would graciously fall into a food coma for a full 60 minutes.  Chewing like a snake, as some inane TV soap blared on the TV, I elegantly flowed between the savoury, then the sweet, then back to the savoury again.  As the timer exploded on my wrist, the food bomb radiated into my gut like an elephant sinking in quicksand.  But as the clock rolled over, I felt a deep sense of achievement, that finally, I was going to lose weight…

After 10 glorious days of following the books instructions, (amidst heartburn, constipation, pimples and headaches) I excitedly stepped on the scales…  Did it work?  Would this amazing ground-breaking method of gorging myself revolutionise my XL trousers?
I stepped onto the scales in trepidation.  Beads of sweat glistening on my forehead as I prayed that “this could be it!”  I stood with my feet on the edges, holding onto the walls as the electronic numbers flickered in confusion.  Tentatively, I sank my full weight onto that slim box of self esteem, and as my body weight descended, so did my heart.  I had gained 2kg…

WHAAAAT!  But the book said!  The Doctor on the cover said!  I spent $30 on that book and it said that it would work and it didn’t work!  Piece of ship book!  My and blame towards those white coated experts hit the roof and drove me into a food frenzy.  Screw the window!  Screw the diet!  I’m going to each chip sandwiches WHENEVER I want.  And the cycle of dragging dietary pain began again.

The scales, waited patiently on the cool linoleum floor, smiling.  Waiting for its next victim, savoring the taste of another defeated, misinformed human.

But that was 20 years ago, and now as the diet books lie rotting viciously in  landfill, I know those fad texts and little electronic demons will never invade my self esteem again. So if you would like to send your scales to the dump and really find what works for you.. let's make a time!
 
Katie