I had always enjoyed food for as long as I can remember, and it became a "hobby" from childhood, a way of getting my rocks off. Unsurprisingly, when you are eating for reasons over and above sustenance, you are likely to put on weight. I was pulled up in a routine school health check as a child and confronted with my obesity, and promptly lost quite a lot of weight.
However I was alawys struggling to keep it down and was always overweight although to a lesser degree right through into younger adult life. Around 1990 I went on a very strict diet and exercise regime and dropped to 10.5 stone, and was for the only time in my life the correct weight for my height. From 1992 after lay-preacher training, and then especially in 1993 after my first child was born, I was caught emotionally unprepared and started comfort eating again.
In 1995 when my second child was born I coped even less well. In 1998 I had a minor nervous breakdown and took voluntary redundancy, and retrained to be a teacher. A family crisis in 2002 led me to abandon any kind of nutritional control at all and by 2005 when I gave up teaching I was 16 stone and a 44" waist.
I struggled to drop a stone over the following year but then levelled out at a portly 15 stone. It was in 2007 when I had the opportunity to train as a hypnotherapist and have myself treated at the same time that I finally overcame the mental aspects of my problem and I dropped to a more reasonable 12.5 stone in six months, so by the time I was qualified and launched my own hypnotherapy practice, I was my own best example of what hypnotherapy can do.
However I was still encountering a mood problem, getting either severely cranky or severely fatigued and depressed when hungry. With no time or resources to employ anyone to help me formally, I listened to all kinds of advice and got no universal answer. finally after experimentation I discovered being on caffeine when hungry made me severely cranky, so I cut it out at work. However when I attempted to reduce calories, I then got exhausted and severely depressed.
Finally on a hunch I took strong doses of caffeine with reasonable amounts of food and felt better than I had in years! After a lifelong struggle I now have an understanding of my problem - I have a physical metabolic imbalance as well as an emotional dependence on food. To maintain my current weight thus requires a regime of mental and physical exercise and to keep an eye on calorie consumption. I also have to take stimulants with food during the day.
The story is still not over! I want to find a way to get to 10 stone without becoming either a zombie or a psychopath, but at least right now I can keep a reasonable weight and stay happy, motivated and confident. I have kept under 13 stone for over a year now.
I am a fully qualified and experienced hypnotherapist, Reiki practitioner and Stress Counsellor, based in Undercliffe, Bradford. I am proud to be a volunteer therapist for Bradford Cancer Support
The following Cookies are used on this Site. Users who allow all the Cookies will enjoy the best experience and all functionality on the Site will be available to you.
You can choose to disable any of the Cookies by un-ticking the box below but if you do so your experience with the Site is likely to be diminished.
In order to interact with this site.
To help us to measure how users interact with content and pages on the Site so we can make
things better.
To show content from Google Maps.
To show content from YouTube.
To show content from Vimeo.
To share content across multiple platforms.
To view and book events.
To show user avatars and twitter feeds.
To show content from TourMkr.
To interact with Facebook.
To show content from WalkInto.