I had this terrible habit in my teens of imposing diets upon myself, under the guidance of no one wise enough to tell me otherwise. They were ridiculously unhealthy; nutritionally and psychologically.

This one occured at age fourteen, somewhere between the piles of diet magazines and my own constant food-centric rumination. I had mentally stumbled upon a diet so perfect, I thought at the time, that I may have cracked the key to eating. Regardless of societal three-meal-a-day norms, regardless of evolutionary hunger cues, regardless of all the common sense that you'd expect a bright girl to possess, there I stood grinning at this glowing prospect I now held; The Hundred Rule.

All and every food was permitted - in 100 calorie servings. And of these servings, I was allowed fifteen each day. I deemed these servings 'meals' in attempted psychological trickery. Fifteen whole meals! It was a diet of pure indulgence! And all this while I was creating a daily calorie deficit of about five-hundred; I was thrilled!

Thrilled; I posted myself entirely against my better judgement. An apple was a 'meal'. A cube-inch of cake was a 'meal'. Each 'meal', as I called it, was far too small to be labelled thus. And with this I had eliminated the experience of satiety. I was never full, and seemed to obsess about the next few incoming calories.

I think I managed a week or two. What had I achieved? Certainly no weight loss; I simply hadn't the weight to lose. Rather, I'd turned into a tired, miserable and hungry shadow of myself. I'd eroded the natural ghrelin and insulin cycles that had previously captained my appetites. I'd taught myself that my efforts result in failure, and instead of recognising the inherent stupidity of the plan, I attributed this personally.

Harshly and personally.

I'd lost to the monster again.