How my work in weight loss services made me so anti-dieting!
I’ve been helping people with their weight for over a decade now. For a short time I was a Dietitian in a hospital but hated working there. I soon found my passion when I got a job in NHS Weight-loss services. I loved helping people make it easier for themselves to build healthier habits.
Since I’ve worked for NHS Weight-loss services I’ve heard the same story over and over again…
“I wish I’d never started dieting in the first place. I’d give anything to be that size again.”
Our clients were mostly women who’d tried ALL the diets. Nothing worked for them, they’d pile the weight back on every time. Plus a bit more with every diet they failed at.
Women who started out wanting to drop a dress size for their wedding. Years later they found themselves 4 sizes bigger after yo-yo dieting up & up…
They often thought weight-loss surgery was their only option.
It was the story of my Grandma. She died when I was 11 and had struggled with her weight all her life.
A few years after she died, I was shocked to find some old photos of her from before all the dieting. I couldn’t believe how slim she was – she looked amazing!
Apparently, she was still carrying her baby weight in the photos. Even though she looked fantastic, she thought she had to get her body back – the one from before she had 3 kids!
So, she spent the next 3 decades stuck in the cycle of yo-yo dieting.
That really stuck with me.
This is why I’m taking a stand against the dieting industry and all their bullshit advice.
Dieting leaves you bigger & feeling more & more miserable about yourself. It sets you up to have a really shitty relationship with food.
And do you know what, I could’ve quite easily gone down the yo-yo dieting path too…
I love food, but in my teens my diet was awful. I’d skip meals & binge later coz I was ravenous. Or I’d have cake for lunch at school!
Until I got interested in nutrition & healthy eating.
I made the effort to eat well, but still struggled with a bit of binge-eating in my 20s. I was always active, so my weight stayed pretty stable.
Until 2006 when I worked hard to get fit for a conservation & trekking expedition in Borneo…
That summer I was the fittest I’d ever been.
When I came back to the UK, I started my Postgraduate Diploma in Dietetics. The course was pretty stressful & I dropped most of the physical activity I’d been doing before… But I carried on eating as though I was still exercising loads.
I gained a stone in about 6 weeks!
I spent the next 2 years in denial about why my clothes were tight.
When I didn’t enjoy my first Dietitian job, my weight started to creep up further. I knew I needed to do something.
But instead of ‘going on a diet’, I focused on tweaking my habits & improving my emotional health. Because I knew if I started dieting, I’d end up bigger long-term, like my Grandma.
It would’ve been so easy to get sucked into dieting though; I was impatient for results.
But I knew slow & steady was healthier. And focusing on new habits would last forever. I made small tweaks to my eating habits – mainly reducing the treats & snacks. Slowly, but surely the extra pounds came off and my clothes fit me again.
No special recipes or special foods. No complicated rules or miracle cures. All I did was take a step back to be honest with myself about what I was doing. Then focused on making some changes I knew I could stick to forever.
Exactly what I work on with my 1-2-1 clients now.
Ditch dieting forever – dieting makes it worse and you deserve better!
Need help to ditch dieting forever? Want to eat normally again AND lose weight healthily ..? While still enjoying the cake & chocolate? Hell yes!
I can help you ditch dieting forever, either with my 1-2-1 support. Or if you prefer to work independently, you can learn all the skills I teach my 1-2-1 clients, on my ‘No More Diets’ online course.
My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Tea of the week is Earl Grey – the classic! Need to see if I can find some more of that Teapigs Earl Grey Strong though coz that was so good.
- I was surprised I didn’t hurt as much as I thought I would after doing Aerial Hoop. When I woke up on Friday I just had a few aches & pains and a little stiffness… then Friday evening it kicked in! I’ve been hobbling around all weekend – even just walking made my arms hurt!!! Looking forward to going again this week though. Hopefully it will feel a little easier each week…
- I was also feeling a bit shit over the weekend coz I had a bit of a sniffle. So we haven’t been on a decent hill walk again, although we did manage to get out to do a spot of litter-picking down by the brook.
- Started watching ‘The Luminaries’ the other day, enjoying it so far, but the costumes are EPIC! I love Victorian outfits and one of my dreams would be to be an Extra in a Victorian film shoot – fingers crossed for next time!
- I’ve kept up my morning walks so far this week and the weather has been gorgeous. Been doing my little exercise routine too, but wishing I’d started doing the exercises my husband reckoned would be good to prepare for Aerial Hoop! Oh well…
- Bird Nerd Report: amazingly I’ve seen kingfishers two days in a row – one of them flew high up over my head when I was stood on the bridge by the brook! Also seen more woodpeckers and lots of tree-creepers too. The greenfinches seem to be everywhere at the moment too. Yesterday I saw a pair of goldcrests really close up to the path I was stood on. I think it was a male trying to impress a female, bless him he was trying so hard, but I’m not sure she was impressed!