Are you sick and tired of going on a diet? I get it. I was on a diet most of my life, it was my normal and I didn't question it. Until I hit my forties. At the time I was working as a leader in education and work overwhelm, unregistered impacts of ageing and my daily habits caused me to steadily gain weight. Now my yo-yo dieting was a problem because I had neither energy nor motivation to go on a diet again.
It was only when I started to study neurolinguistic programming (NLP) that I found another way to lose weight, without going on a diet, a way that changed my relationship with food and myself. Training in NLP was a game changer for me. You could say I found a way to think myself slim. I undid my go-on-a-diet programming – those triggers, habits and self-talk that led to me losing weight and gaining it back – as well as uncovering the one key that unlocked the ease and flow in weight loss for me. And for the first time, I kept my weight stable.
From my own experience, from research and from helping other women, I've learned that losing weight and keeping it off is complex, not least because our bodies are not designed to do so. We unravel one aspect that’s holding us back and feel great for a while, only to then discover another layer that needs tackling.
When I applied NLP and other mindset tools to help me and other women lose weight, I discovered those same shifts that changed our relationship with food also helped boost our confidence, which then impacted in the business world. The process I followed has helped me develop more self-compassion and self-acceptance, which I believe is key to losing weight and bringing about change in our life. This is all in my book so you can benefit from our learnings too.
To be honest, I have struggled with the idea of working in the weight-loss industry as it has such negative connotations for me. I prefer instead to focus on wellbeing and self-empowerment, helping you to make small changes that develop a sustainable lifestyle bespoke to you. I aim to help you to feel truly happy with who you are and find balance in your world, because it’s not enough to lose weight to achieve an image or body that other people tell you you should have.
Caroline Tyrwhitt is an NLP trainer and a Personal Care Institute accredited health and wellbeing coach. She has a great passion for education, words and women’s empowerment, and this has been reflected in her career – from the banking industry in the 1980s, working as a technical editor in Toronto, doing degrees in linguistics and education as a mature student, to a twenty-five-year career in the education sector, through to her current work with women around confidence and their relationship with food.