I changed my relationship with food and stopped dieting

The challenge

Debra had been yo-yo dieting all her life. She was coming up to a significant birthday and was disillusioned that she was on the extreme end of disliking herself and being uncomfortable in her body at this moment in her life. She would sabotage her diet when she was not perfect enough in eating 'good' foods or if she ate 'bad' food. For example if she ate chocolate or had to eat different food on holiday she resorted to all-or-nothing thinking and sabotaged her otherwise healthy eating because she had been ‘bad’.

The effect

Debra was tired of her struggle with food, with the emotional highs from losing weight to the lows of self-sabotage. She wanted to feel better going into her next decade and to stop yo-yo dieting. She wanted to feel more confident. Her wardrobe and drawers were full to the brim of clothes across a wide range of sizes as she never knew what size she would be and she found this overwhelming. She also only wore the 'baggy' clothes that she could hide behind. 

Solution

Debra worked with me virtually and in-person for 12 one-hour sessions supplemented with training videos and resources explaining NLP techniques and other mindset approaches.

We identified her habits around food, her strategies, and what small changes she could make to intervene. She told her food story - the beliefs she holds about food. A key belief was ‘I am disorganised’. This came up as she reflected on not liking to-do lists and how this affected her relationship with her husband who loved lists! When she realised this belief was untrue, we used N-step technique to change it. As a result, she completely cleared her wardrobes and drawers and her office. It had a longer term impact of organising her eating. 

Another key to change was reframing her labeling of food by introducing categories that allowed her more flexible thinking and more flexible responses to situations where her ideal food wasn't available. We also identified the language she used to talk to herself and changed the sub-modalities of her inner voice to develop more self-compassion. 

We created a well-formed outcome and created a resource anchor that focussed on how she would feel rather than how much weight she 'needed to lose'.

Result

In her interview with me one year on, Debra said how she can’t bear to think how she was. She reflects that her struggle with food was like an addiction and it took the inner work she did with me to get rid of those dark days, to get rid of unpleasant thoughts around food. She reflects that she now spends virtually no time thinking about food, is her ideal weight consistently and she no longer sabotages. She also reflects how we looked at other blockages that didn't appear food related at the time and that was where she got the massive value. The coaching sessions and NLP training alone, never mind the weight loss, gave her confidence. With these new perspectives, she was able to create balance. She reflects how she feels so wonderful in her clothes that it makes her smile and she feels very comfortable in herself. She is confident with her weight for the first time since she was ten years old.