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Success of the Month: Hayley
Someone who's had a great success in giving up restrictive diets is Hayley, 24, from Queensland who wrote me this lovely letter last month.As you'll read below, Hayley didn't have immediate success with the ideas in my book The Don't Go Hungry Diet. Moreover, Hayley's weight loss has not been what you'd call fast.
But Hayley doesn't mind one bit! The most important outcome for Hayley is that she knows she's now escaped the yo-yo diet bandwagon once and for all.
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:10:55
To: Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis
Subject: Just a quick thank you
"Dear Amanda,
I just wanted to write you an email to thank you for changing my life in such an important way.
I was an overweight child and obese as a young adult consequently most of my life has been about battling with my weight.
After losing weight with a popular weigh loss group when I was 19 I thought I had solved the problem but I was wrong. Post weight loss I could no longer lead a normal life if I wanted to stay thin.
I would breakdown in tears every time I had to go out for dinner because I knew it would result in more weight gain and I began to exercise obsessively and get furious if anything interfered with my grueling regime.
This abnormal behavior did not help my weight problem though and after a year of gradual gain I began cycles of starving myself, which would inevitably be followed by a binge. This went on for two years with me trying to hide my problem from people. Within 4 years I had gained 8 of the 20 kilos I had originally lost.
A year ago I read your book and at first I thought it must be too good to be true because the only way I had ever known weight loss to happen was through starvation and suffering. Six months later however I decided I had nothing to lose by giving it ago.
The change has been gradual. Firstly I threw out my scales then I started drinking full cream milk (something I have longed to do since I was 12 years old when I was first forced to swap to skim milk because of my weight problem).
After this I worked on being able to gauge when I was full (I never had a problem gauging hunger). This took a long time because I was so used to eating carefully weighed portions.
In six short months, though, the binging has stopped, I no longer have a breakdown at the thought of going out to dinner and I have already lost 4 kilos.
So thank you Amanda, your wise words have given me the courage to change for good and now I know I will never have to be fat again.
Hayley"
What our readers say...
"What I loved the most about Amanda's weight loss program is that it was so simple and so totally different to all the weight loss programs I have tried over the past 20+ years. I did not have to count points, weigh food or only eat specific foods. I travel a lot and dine out a lot with clients so eating specific foods, weighing food and counting points does not work for me. Amanda's consulting program helped me see my weight loss journey as exciting and positive. Amanda's consulting helped me fine tune how to go about changing my eating and exercise habits so I could lose weight almost effortlessly. I lost 5.3 kilos in 16 weeks and have kept if off now for over 6 months. I am still quite stunned about how easy it has all been. I have been trying to lose this weight for over 15 years. Also I know without any doubt that the weight I have lost is permanently lost as I have permanently changed my habits. I have had several people (including my husband) say I look 10 years younger. Not only do I look 10 years younger but I feel it too. Thank you Amanda and I am so glad I "found" you PS: I threw out all the trousers in my wardrobe that are now too big for me. There is no going back!"