For as long as I can remember my life revolved around food. And not in the fun, enjoyable way.

I was OBSESSED. I would think about the next meal before I had even finished the meal I was eating.

It was breakfast as soon as I woke up, snack a few hours later, 11 am lunch because I was STARVING, early afternoon snack, late afternoon snack, dinner time (still starving) then dessert. All the while wondering what I was going to eat next.

If a food thought popped into my head about something yummy to eat I couldn’t get rid of it until I ate it. Whether I wanted to or not. Whether I was actually hungry or not. But, then again, I never truly felt hungry. I only thought I did. I told myself I was because I hadn’t eaten for 3 hours so my body must be feeling deprived. I had better go and get some more food to shove in my face.

This food obsessed cycle went for about 3 decades. Give or take a few years. I am now 43 and the cycle has ended. FINALLY. I finally feel free.

While I was in this cycle there were a few things happening. 1. I hated myself. 2. I felt disgusting. 3. I had literally no self worth. 4. I didn’t believe in who I was. 5. I had no purpose to encourage me to feel better, to do better.

That all changed when I brought our daughter into the world. Throughout my whole pregnancy we had no idea if we were having a boy or a girl. Early on in my relationship with my husband we were at a friends wedding in Fremantle. We travelled from Sydney so we were there for about 5 days.

One afternoon, a day or two before the wedding, we were all at a pub (friends and family attending the wedding) when this feeling came over me that we were going to have a little girl together.

I held onto that feeling and knew it was true. So when our daughter was born I made a promise to myself and to her that I would do everything I can to protect her, to guide her, to give her the love she needs and to be the mother I never had.

This was my purpose.

My purpose has grown and evolved into helping other women end their weight loss battles and to fight the weight loss monster which lives inside some of us. To help end this crazy cycle of hatred, eating, disgust, more eating, self loathing and even more eating.

We deserve better than this. YOU deserve better than this. However you got to where you are right now, it doesn’t matter any more. What matters is freeing yourself from this cycle and opening yourself up to a world of love, admiration, gratitude, strength, positivity and happiness.

I want to share with you some power moves which will end the overeating cycle. For good!

Love

Love yourself. Even if it is only a teeny, tiny, teensy little bit to begin with. That is all you need to get started. You can allow the love to grow as you begin to grow.

Tell yourself this love statement every morning when you wake up.
“I love who I am. I am a beautiful person. I deserve to feel love, to give love and receive love.”

Notice how you feel after only a few days of saying this.

Every thought you tell yourself you believe whether it is negative or positive. Your brain cannot tell the difference. Your brain doesn’t choose negative or positive. Your brain will believe anything you tell it so why not tell it you are beautiful. You are strong. You’re capable. You are loved. You are worthy.

Wayne Dwyer says “As you think so you shall be” and “You see it when you believe it.”

How many times have we said “I’ll believe it when I see it.”? Why not change that around and allow yourself to see it first, then you will believe in it. Visualisations are powerful things. Visualise yourself as you want to be. Picture in your minds eye that amazing, confident, inspiring woman. You see that often enough and then you BECOME it. Your mind will not know the difference. It doesn’t know you are not this person. Only you do. Trick your mind into believing and the rest will follow.

Repeat multiple times a day “I love myself. I Love who I am. I am an amazing person. I deserve to feel happy”.

Watch as you grow, evolve and blossom. Yay!

Admiration

Who do you admire? For me I admire strong women who use their talents and intellect to inspire other women to do the same. This is an exciting time for women. We are standing up and owning ourselves more than ever. It will still take time but we cannot let ourselves believe the crap any more. We ARE beautiful. We ARE strong. We ARE amazing.

Admire this in yourself. Admire this in others. Surround yourself with a tribe of strong, amazing women who are there to lift you up and admire you back.

The verb admire means “to look at with wonder and pleasure”. We don’t do this with ourselves often enough. When was the last time you looked at yourself with pleasure? When was the last time you celebrated who you are?

If you have a great day at work and your presentation went amazingly; do you celebrate? Or do you brush it off and dismiss how awesome you were? I bet its more than likely the latter. As women we tend to remove ourselves from any of the good we did because we are afraid we will look big headed, stuck up, showy. We have been taught to underplay our accomplishments. Don’t shine too bright in case you make someone else feel bad.

Bullshit. We have every right to shine and believe in our accomplishments.

Admire yourself. Admire every struggle, every win, every flaw, every blessing, every advantage, every pitfall; EVERYTHING!

Gratitude

What do you have in your life right now that you are grateful for? Do you think about it often? Or even every now and again?

If you had to write down 3 things, off the top of your head, for which you are grateful what would you write?

Go and grab a piece of paper and a pen and write them down. I’ll wait.

What did you write? Was it hard to think of something?

When I first starting doing this exercise I found it a little challenging. I hadn’t ever stopped to consider what I was grateful for. I had never actually showed gratitude for any of the wonderful things I have in my life. I wanted and I expected but I was never grateful.

Gratitude is a powerful move towards loving who you are and loving the life you have. It can move mountains of pain, hurt, hatred and disgust; and open your eyes to the true beauty that is your life.

Continue to write down 3 things you are grateful for every day and notice how this shifts your mindset. You will begin to feel differently almost straight away.

Strength

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” Unknown

When our son was born sleeping it was beyond devastating. Even though I knew absolutely we would have a daughter, the death of our son was no less heartbreaking. I believed, at the time, I would never be a mother and I couldn’t understand why he was taken from us.

Getting through the day was confronting. It was painful. It was tough.

We all have times in our lives when we want to curl up into a ball and stay there forever. We want to be invisible and for the world to leave us the fuck alone. But it doesn’t. The earth keeps spinning and life keeps going.

Eventually we have to dig deep and find the strength to keep going. To find a way to live again. Even in the darkest of times there is always a strength inside of us which pulls us back into the light.

Find your inner strength. Use it to put down that biscuit and remind yourself that you are strong. You are beautiful and you are bloody worth looking after. Food is not your comfort anymore. YOU are.

Positivity

I reckon I was one of the worlds worse for negativity. My immediate thought to anything was negative. My whole view of the world, and especially myself, was negative.

Thankfully all of that has changed and I feel so free. Ahhh…it is the best feeling. I’m not perfect though. I still have negative thoughts but the difference is I now recognise those thoughts and I challenge them. I ask if they are real or if I am making them up. Am I seeing the situation negatively and, if so, how can I change it to be more positive?

I must admit it feels a little uncomfortable sometimes seeing the positive and feeling the way I do now; which is happy! I was in a state of negativity for so long it was completely ingrained in me. I knew no other way. The uncomfortable feelings are slowly receding and eventually they will completely disappear.

To change those negative thoughts into positive ones do this: Reverse it and replace it.

Reverse the negative thought right out of your head and replace it with a positive one.

Reverse “I am hopeless” and replace it with “I am capable”
Reverse “Why does this keep happening to me” and replace it with “Thank you for the lesson. I am ready to learn”.

In time the negative thoughts will lessen. They probably won’t completely disappear forever but what will happen is you get quicker at reversing and replacing; and you will no longer believe the negative thoughts. You will only believe in the positive.

Happiness

Happiness is a tough one, isn’t it? We all want to be happy. We strive for it on a daily basis, yet where is it?

Most of us look for happiness on the outside. Happiness will arrive when I get a boyfriend. Happiness will arrive when I lose 30 kilos/pounds. Happiness will arrive when I get my dream job. Happiness will arrive when I earn X amount of dollars.

Notice how these are all external? Where is the happiness from the inside?

Happiness will arrive when I love myself more. Happiness will arrive when I feel grateful for my life. Happiness will arrive when I look at the world with positive eyes. Happiness will arrive when I welcome it into my life.

Happiness is ME!

Now, you are probably asking “How does this have anything to do with me not eating til my stomach is about to burst?”

I can tell you it has EVERYTHING to do with how much you are overeating. You are overeating because you do not love yourself, you do not admire yourself, you do not feel grateful for who you are, you do not know how strong you are, you do not see yourself with positive eyes and you do not look within yourself to be happy because of all of the above.

I have done the work and I can tell you I do not over eat anymore. I do not eat my emotions and I do not think about food every minute I am awake. I still love food (kind of goes with the territory as a nutritionist) but the food I love is nourishing. It is supplying my body with the nutrients it needs to grow, evolve and blossom. I feel amazing for the first time in over 30 years. I love myself and I admire the person I have become.

Food does not control me anymore. I control it. I listen to my body when it is hungry (my tummy is genuinely rumbling right now for some lunch) and I listen to my body when it tells me it has had enough food.

I don’t feel the need to stuff my face with chocolate, biscuits, ice cream and all the other unhealthy foods I would eat when I was feeling lonely, sad and depressed.

My life is full of things to be grateful for. I appreciate them everyday.

I AM HAPPY.

That is a sentence I never thought I would say. Happiness was for other people. Not me. I didn’t deserve it.

Guess what? I do, and so do you.

Look for it inside yourself. It is in there. It may take a little while to find it but keep looking. With eyes, heart and mind wide open, keep looking.

You will find it.

Losing weight, loving yourself and your body as well as loving food in a healthy way is not easy. If it were then all of us would be floating around in a beautiful cloud of happiness, skinniness and complete bliss.

What it really takes is guidance and support from someone who has been there, done that and got the t-shirt (not an XXXL. Yay).

I’d really love to be that person for you, to show you how amazing you truly are and release the beauty inside you.

If you’d love to find out more then please book a connection call (completely free) so we can have a chat about how I can guide and support you.

How to stop thinking about food all day long