Zola’s Story

In June of 2009, I was a mess. That’s me in the pink top. I’m sitting there thinking, “I wish I had shown up late for the family photo so I could have hidden in the back row. Then only my face would show.” That’s how much I disliked having my picture taken. As it turns out, having a front-row seat was a blessing in disguise. Seeing that picture made me vow to take control of my weight. I wanted my body back, even if it meant doing something drastic. I started dieting at 12 years old and have been working at it (in one form or another) ever since. I went to ridiculous measures to lose weight or stay thin. At age 15, I was so fed up with being fatter than other girls that I decided to eat every third day. At 16, I worked a job that required me to ride my bicycle across town all summer long. I worked two shifts so I had to do it twice every day. In between shifts I came home and had one single, solitary, fried egg and a glass of milk. One school year all I ate was a hot dog with no ketchup and a diet soda every day. Any of this sound familiar to you?

One year, at my job, my assistant went every day to a take-out joint and bought me a Chef Salad and a large diet Coke. That was my calorie consumption per day. On weekends I ate a half of a peanut butter sandwich per day and 3 diet orange sodas. Then, as I became more successful I started paying for diets.

I did Dietene, the “shakes only” plus 10 raspberries or half a banana a day diet that was prescribed by diet doctors. It’s the same diet that Oprah Winfrey did. She lost 40 pounds and on her show dragged her fat around in a wagon to show her point. I lost 52 pounds. Although I don’t know Oprah, she and I have yo-yoed in an almost identical concert ever since. She loses weight. I lose weight. She gains it back. So do I. The reasons I gain it back vary. The lack of long-term success stays the same.

I tried and failed on Atkins to Weight Watchers to Slim Fast, Acai Berry etc. You name it, I’ve done it. I spent 40 years and a small fortune dieting.

I even went to the Obesity Clinic at the University of Wisconsin. They studied me and declared my metabolism a disaster. Nothing left. They put me on experimental meds. Then the head of the department left and the program disbanded. I was left hanging. I went to an eating-disorder psychiatrist for 3 months. They even hypnotized me and found nothing wrong. I went to a dietician who reluctantly put me on a 750 calorie a day diet. After one month and a one-pound loss he resigned. I hired a trainer and worked with her 3 days a week for 7 years. No weight loss, but I sure got strong. I took Phen-Fen for 18 months before it had that nickname and before they found out it could kill you. They came and found me two years later to get my heart tested. I was fine, but it was not a success for me. I had only lost 8 pounds in all that time.

Then there are the diets I didn’t do: Jenny Craig, Nutra-Systems, and Seattle Sutton. Anything that required me to buy pre-packaged food, frozen, shrink-wrapped and shipped to me in boxes was out of the question. I figured with those, that as soon as the boxes quit coming, and I had to go back to regular food, the weight would come back.

It made no sense to do a “regular” diet again. I didn’t know what to do, but I was intent on doing one more diet. I got hold of an old diet with some ideas that made sense then my husband discovered an obscure book about obesity written by a science writer and targeted at doctors. I watched the book’s author deliver a mind-blowing lecture on why we get fat. The author convinced me that most of the diet advice we have been sold and told for decades is wrong. At last, I was connected to some credible, brand new weight loss information. For the first time in my life, I knew why I got fat, and more importantly, what to do about it. This is when I started designing a new way to diet and developed a new mindset about eating. I dropped 28 pounds in a little over five weeks and I kept it off. My doctor took me off my blood pressure meds and the weight kept coming off.

I know what you’re going through. I’ve lived through more than my fair share of dieting horror stories – but you don’t have to make the same mistakes I did.

Today Plan Z has dieters in over 42 states and ten countries. The reason our program is so successful is that I’ve taken the education that I’ve learned along with all of my diet failures and have developed a program that truly works.

Now I’d love to share it with you.