My Weightloss Story - From Start to End
I’ve been battling my weight since I was a teenager. Not that I was fat, but the pressure of being perfect had already got to me (in Azerbaijan, where marriage was all that counted, all your marriage prospects were based on your appearance) .
I remember I was 13 or 14, peeling walnut skins for my grandmother to make scrumptious baklavas when I thought wistfully that when I’m married I could eat anything I want. I just needed to deprive myself up until that point.
In my mid-teens my grandmother, who was a seamstress encouraged me to eat less, because my proportions were not 90-60-90. They were 100-70-105. That was not good enough… So she encouraged me to scrub the floors on all fours and drop a box of matchsticks and pick them up one by one to have a flat tummy.
Dieting wasn’t hard. It became a lifestyle.
First, my grandfather got seriously ill and all the money went on his medical supplies. Then, the Soviet Union collapsed and food magically disappeared off the shelves. The government reduced and then cut off gas and electricity to my home town, so even if you had food, cooking was a major palaver. Without electricity, you didn’t have a fridge to store anything in. So, it’s like life itself conspired for me to diet.
I remember starting a job at the Prosecutor’s office at 17. I found a particular diet in a magazine where you had to soak rice overnight, then boil it 4 times getting rid of all starch and then eating it on an empty stomach. I choked on that disgusting tasteless mush every morning because then I could eat ‘anything I wanted’ after a 4 hour fast.
I felt starved in those days. But it wasn’t just for food: it was for fun, for connection, for love.
So when I had the opportunity to access nice food, I indulged. Then the inevitable deprivation followed, and so I yo-yo dieted for years and years and years.
You know how sometimes something is staring into your face and it’s so obvious and yet you choose to blank it out… That issue was my weight.
My unhappiness reached its peak this year. Sometime in April, my sister scheduled her wedding to take place on 30th September. So not only did I have to be in the best shape for her, but also I had to look my best for all the relatives I haven’t seen in years. The pressure was on and I just wanted to numb myself down with food. After all, I knew that diets didn’t work and I couldn’t fit in enough exercise with the childcare and work commitments.
It was a major wake-up call. Why on earth am I not using my tried and tested methods on this issue? It’s having such a massive impact on the quality of my life!
So I did what I do best - I threw everything at it: shamanic journeys, hypnotherapy, constellations, meditations, Compassion Key, movement of being, etc. etc. etc.
It was such a beautiful journey. It’s hard to put it into words, but here’s the essence.
In the process, I reconnected with my newborn self, who was starved. She was besides herself, and as I comforted and placed her on my left shoulder, I viscerally felt her, as if she filled up an empty space in my heart.
The transformation was incredible and immediate. I stopped eating certain foods, like cheese for example. I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. I no longer need comfort from food. If she is distressed, I can comfort her. And you know what? The weight has been melting away all by itself.
No deprivation. Never again.
That first night when I curled up in bed holding this version of myself in my arms, I felt such an unconditional love for her. It was the first time in my whole life when I said ‘I. Love. Myself.’ and I meant it.
I’m not saying that you’ll feel the same way if you join my 5-week programme. Your journey might be different. But what I do know is that deprivation does not work. Trusting your body, your impulses and your intuition does. To reconnect with that trust and knowing, you need to remove what’s in the way. And that’s what this programme is designed to do.
Join me here: www.gularavincent.co.uk/end-emotional-eating
With all my love
Gulara