I think being vegetarian, people always assume you eat a healthy diet and are generally slim. However, my own experience is far from this theory.
I struggled with food and eating from quite a young age. I was always a fussy eater, although I was a slim child – right through into my early twenties. Then I left home to go to university, and at that time I also decided to become a vegetarian.
Unfortunately my lack of experience in the kitchen as well as not fully understanding what a vegetarian requires nutritionally led me down a path of junk food and generally unhealthy eating habits. Coupled with the alcohol infused lifestyle students tend to adopt, my weight started to become a problem – and before too long I felt a need to ‘diet’.
Unknown to me at the time, this would evolve into a long-term vicious circle of dieting and deprivation …an eating pattern that took me well into my thirties. An obsession with food, eating and dieting which even led me to become a slimming consultant myself – taking my obsession to a whole new level! I was on a mission to help others lose weight; although I soon began to realise that actually, diets don’t work. They provide a temporary state which is rarely maintainable due to the deprivation they cause – because when we get there, we rebel and then consequently the weight starts to creep back on!
The other thing I learned is how one diet cannot be right for everyone. Yes it’s true that certain foods cause us to gain weight and eating a proper balance of the right foods can help us to lose weight; but what about food intolerances? Being heavily influenced by what certain diets tell us to eat will allow us to lose weight perhaps temporarily (as it’s usually a different way to how we have been eating), but who knows what our own bodies really need?
By eating a more-or-less carb based diet for probably over 10 years, I managed to successfully maintain a body shape and size I wasn’t happy with at all! Just because I was told that was how I should eat on a particular diet I subscribed to. It wasn’t until I discovered hypnosis and reduced the quantity of food I was eating and the type of foods I was eating to suit ‘my’ needs; just by listening and responding to my body – that I finally achieved a body size and weight I was satisfied with …and still am today.
Hypnotherapy provides a natural way to lose excess weight and achieve the size and shape you desire; and you can still live your life and eat what you want …which is a great feeling.
