The Zola Diet Story
If you have struggled with your weight for years, and you feel like you have done anything and everything to try to lose it, then you’re just like me.
I felt like I specialized in “Extreme Diets That Don’t Work”.
- I started at 12 years old on my self-imposed hard-boiled egg diet.
- By 15 years old I decided that eating every third day would be my ticket to losing weight. I have to admit that worked. I lost 30 pounds in a month. Problem is I passed out twice. Not a good diet. That experience set off a series of diets and extreme weight management measures that continued for decades. Sometimes I could stay skinny for a few years, but I did absolutely crazy things to make that happen. At most I’d eat once a day and sometimes it was only popcorn.
- I did the “medically prescribed shakes” like Oprah did. She dragged 40 pounds of fat in her wagon. I had 52 in mine. Then it came back.
- I lost 38 pounds in a month eating “pre-packed fuzz” that I mixed with water. That weight came back too.
- By the way, I tried all the other diets too. I even ordered pills from the back of magazines. I did hoodia. I did acai berry. If it had the word diet in it, I was on it. Nothing worked. The weight came back. It always does. Until now.
Some say the secret is exercise. I say baloney. I had a trainer for 7-1/2 years. I worked out with her three days per week , every week. I never lost weight. I got stronger. Then I went into a special weight-lifting program. I got to the point where I could leg press almost 500 pounds. I could bench press 160 pounds. All I proved was you can be strong and still be fat. I could toss my suitcase into that upper cabinet in a flash, with one hand. But do you think I lost weight? Nope. I could barely fit in the airplane seat. If I had to sit in the middle seat on a flight, I crossed my arms in front of me so I didn’t dare touch the person next to me. I was humiliated. Until now.
There is one diet methodology that works. This one. My doctor helped me find the original protocol. It’s over 50 years old. We had to dig hard to find it and that’s a shame. The obesity clinicians knew the solution a long time ago. There’s so much “crap” out there today; so much misinformation. And you and I have been “feeding off of it” for years; diet after diet after FAILED diet.
This diet is different. I could tell immediately when I first started the 1950’s version. I only lasted 3 days on the original because it was so bland and tiring. I knew immediately that my talents as a food writer and a person who loves to cook were at a crossroads, and if I was to survive this diet I was going to have to make it better. I started, immediately, to design flavorful recipes for the diet. I might have been restricted in ingredients but I was not to be deterred. I’ve seen all the cooking shows and those versions where they stand a chef in front of a table full of “theme ingredients” and ask them to cook something up don’t intimidate me. I can always think of something. This time I had to come up with things for my OWN benefit. I had real motivation.
About 2 weeks into the diet I emailed my doctor. I told him, not only was I having amazing results (I had already lost over 20 pounds) and that I felt good. I was not suffering on this diet. I had suffered before, for my own good, but this time was different. No shakes. No powdered crud. This time I was eating organic, good food and my husband was thrilled when lunch and dinner times rolled around. He could not wait to see what I came up with next. Unlike other times, this time he was supporting me in my dieting.
I suggested to my doctor that he should start an addition to his practice, offering this new diet to his patients. I offered him three things. First, I’d help him build the business plan. I have plenty of experience with that. I have built more than one company and even sold one to a Nasdaq-traded firm. I have done small and large. I could see this really taking off for him. I told him I’d contribute my recipes and I started writing them up each morning after I invented them the night before. I sent them to him. I also told him that if he’d give me a small referral fee I could send him prospective clients til he could handle no more. I knew right off the top of my head several female CEO’s who are constantly vowing to lose weight. They say it’s a big priority but somehow, like me, they fail to meet the goal.
Instead of starting a new clinic on his own, he and his wife/partner Kimberly flew out to see me. My husband joined the discussion. Within 15 minutes the doctor and his wife suggested that they were not the ones to start that business; that I was.
They went on to discuss how I’m the one who’s been writing a food/entertainment column for years and inventing recipes for my readers. I was the one with an 800,000 person “fan base”. Was this not just a logical extension?
After I got over my shock their points made perfect sense.
It took me another 20 minutes of listening and adding a few comments before it really sunk in. They were so right. And more importantly, I had a whole new sense of urgency to get the news out. I was losing weight at a rapid rate. I was not suffering in the process. My mood and energy were fabulous. I looked forward to getting on the scale every day. I had every ounce of motivation I needed.
But I had fear.
I thought, how am I going to be diet spokesperson? I’m fat. And if I wait until I’ve lost all the weight I really need to lose, several months; even a year could go by. How many people would suffer in the meantime; not knowing about this new diet protocol that actually works? I was enraged. I had to get over it and get over it fast. I had to take my self-esteem and re-direct it. And I did.
I started doing more research. My husband helped. He’d been watching me yo-yo up and down for so many years, seeing me now, inspired him too; inspired him to help me. He signed on to the new diet company and declared his title to be VP of Anger Management. Why? Because we have so many reasons to be angry. Not only dieters have reason to be angry but their loved ones who have watched them suffer the humiliation do too. And even the loved ones suffer from gossip chatter and embarrassment . Everyone involved deserved to know the truth. They deserved to find out the real story behind the obesity epidemic this country is mounting, and they had to be given access to the facts.
We found the facts.
There’s a powerful, new book (Good Calories Bad Calories) and a recorded lecture by a brilliant man named Gary Taubes. Gary was hired to find the truth behind obesity and what causes it. He doesn’t work for a food company. He’s an independent, award-winning science writer. It took him five years to find and consolidate the truth. The whole thing is meticulously researched. The recording you see on this website was part of our findings. The piece so moved me I cried when I watched.
I cried because I finally felt exonerated. I was set free, knowing that I did my level best to lose weight and keep it off, but I had never been told the truth about how I got fat in the first place. I had never been told the truth about how the weight would come back; no matter how hard I tried to keep it off. I found out my problem had nothing to do with being lazy, unmotivated, a food-writer, a great cook, or even without discipline. I had been written off in one way or another to any, or all of those things, through no fault of my own. I cried because I got really, really angry. I felt relief, but at the same time I got really peeved. “They” had known since before I was born. They could have helped my mother with HER weight issues. They could have saved millions the suffering. But “they” is not a person, it’s not a company, it’s not a lobbying firm in Washington DC. They is one mistake piled on top of another, one assumption built bigger and stronger because to unravel the mistake would have caused an uproar too loud to comprehend. I had to just accept that it was all water under the bridge and get on with finding a way, in my world, to end the suffering.
And so The Zola Diet was born. Born of a need to tell the world that dieting doesn’t have to mean going up and down the measurements on a bathroom scale for the rest of our lives.
Obesity can have an end. Obesity is not a disease and it’s not your destiny.
There’s a plan that those of us who need help can follow. It’s The Zola Diet. There’s a logical progression that’s not that hard. It doesn’t even take all that much discipline. You really can lose about 30 pounds in about a month. Level off. And start losing again until it’s all gone. There’s the real prospect of having your metabolism re-set so you can eat like a real human being again. And it’s within reach with The Zola Diet.
The Zola Diet is intended to be the last diet you’ll ever need.
Our goal is to get you off the diet roller coaster, get you out of diet jail and let you get on with enjoying food as a healthy part of your life.
