The Beyond Chocolate Principles

Audrey, Clare and I have been working tirelessly for the last couple of months, to create our brand new website, which will be launching at the end of this month. In the process we've been writing about Beyond Chocolate and Beyond Temptation. We’ve been creating pages called: What’s it all about, How does it work etc. Writing about that now has really made me think. It's been over 10 years now since we first started and sometimes, my life of dieting and stressing about my weight just seems light years away.

When I look at the list of Beyond Chocoate principles, I can barely remember a time in my life when they were not simply a part of me, a way of life, second nature. They just seem so obvious to me these days that it can be a challenge to remember what it's like not to tune-in, not to eat when I'm hungry and not to eat what I want. I do have a foggy recollection of pushing myself into punishing exercise routines (which I'd give up within days) and I can certainly remover all the diets and the soul destroying overeating, but it's amazing to realise that today I feel good about the way I eat and the way I look without much though or effort.

It has taken a huge amount of effort over the years though to get to this place. And it's not that I don't struggle at all, just that my struggles and challenges are different. Now that I have the basics under my belt without a second thought, my focus is on making sure that the food choices I make really contribute to my overall health and well being. I continue to explore different ways of moving my body, in ways that really work for me. I love walking and I walk regularly and I still haven't quite found a way of stretching or strengthening my muscles and stung supple that really works for me. I've tried various forms of yoga and pilates and nothing quite fits the bill. I'm still exploring. And, without the basic principles under my belt and years of practice and effort, I don't think I'd be in a position to think about what I want to eat and how I want to move without feeling deprived and diety and falling into the all or nothing trap.

I can't stress enough how valuable the principles have been and still are. While to begin with using them was contrived and deliberate, they really have just become a part of me now.

I feel so desperately sad when I look around me and see so many women still caught in the diet trap, still looking for the miracle that will make them thin, still hating their bodies, still blaming themselves for not being able to stick to the eating plan. I feel furious when I see the mixed messages in the media about body size. I am frustrate to the point of bursting when I read about  the obesity crisis and there appears to be a complete lack of understanding or care about what it's really like to struggle with weight gain and overeating. The platitude and judgements about the 'problem'  are insulting and so damaging and rainy aren't helping anyone.

I am so, so glad that there we have a growing team of Chocolate Fairies ready to offer women real solutions, hope and freedom from the tyranny of dieting. There's a one day workshop in London on September 22nd where Sarah, a very experienced Chocolate Fairy will take you through the principles one by one so you know exactly how to experiment and work with them and there are more workshops on their way around the country.  There’s Gretel in Norwich (who many of you will know as she often writes wonderful posts for this blog), and Chocolate Fairy, Ella, in Lewis who will soon be running an 8 week Beyond Chocolate course and Sonia down the road in Brighton who will be running workshops all over East Sussex. There will be half day and one day workshops available in Birmingham, Leamington Spa, Warwick, Worcester and Solihull run by Trish and Suze, Wendy will be running workshops in the East Midlands (and in Devon and Cornwall,  if there’s demand) and Joyce will be running more workshops in London too. They will all be on our new website very soon with more to come. So, if you want to experience the principles first hand, book yourself onto one of their workshops. If you look at the testimonials on our webiste, you'll see just how wonderful a day the workshop is.

Have you ever thought of becoming a Chocolate Fairy? Of being part of the solution? We still have a few spaces on the next Fairy Training. Do think about it, women all over the country need empowerment, freedom, hope and balance when it comes to their relationship with food and their bodies, and there aren't many places they can find those things. At Fairy HQ we'll keep working tirelessly to make sure they can.

How I talk about Beyond Chocolate

I am training to be a Chocolate Fairy. At a recent session, one of the more memorable discussions for me was that of honesty and testimony: how we remain authentic in our work spreading the Beyond Chocolate message.

Now, I really struggle with the prospect of being a Chocolate Fairy who tells people about how wonderful Beyond Chocolate and how much it’s changed my life, because I am still overweight.  I find it hard to believe that anyone would appreciate the changes that have occurred in my life over the past 3 years.  This may be true for some people I will speak to, they simply won’t be able to see the differences as my fat will be all they can see.  However, this assumption is largely based on my own insecurities and on my unsuccessful attempts to talk to people about Beyond Chocolate and elicit a positive response.

It occurred to me over the course of the training weekend why that was.  I always consider myself an honest and open person, I love to talk, especially when the subject is “me”.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  However, on closer examination I realise I don’t give people the details so I don’t really get the point across.  I talk about Beyond Chocolate in a more general sense.  I dabble in a bit of diet-bashing and make some very obvious comments to the detriment of the fashion industry, but I never really talk about my experiences or my relationship with food.  In fact when we were asked to think about this I realised I had blocked a lot of the pain from my memory.  

I had forgotten about the almost permanent feeling of guilt I had when I thought about food, which was pretty much all of the time.  The anxiety that I felt around eating food in restaurants or in friend’s homes, how I made choices based on whatever diet I was “on” at any one time instead of what I wanted or what my body was telling me that I needed.  I remember asking my friend on several occasions to fry onions in water instead of oil, she always accommodated but the shame I feel looking back at those times because I would binge on my own later.

The lack of guilt around food is the most significant change.  I don’t feel guilty eating food I enjoy anymore.  I feel unpleasant and experience regret when I eat food that feels wrong in my body.  What that food is depends on what day or time of day it is and what kind of mood I’m in and what I have been doing.  

Before I was constantly sneaking food and eating it in secret.  The boxes of chocolates I have bought under the guise of them being a gift then taking them home and guiltily consuming them at speed until the sticky chocolate clags up my mouth and I feel so thirsty and sick I swear I’ll never do it again.

I can’t say that I never binge now but I can say that I sometimes go very long periods of time without doing so.  I am going through a difficult stage at the moment and my episodes of overeating and bingeing have increased.  But I have something that I never had before… awareness.  I am not halfway through the box of chocolates before I realise it.   I know what I’m doing and I know why, most of the time, and I have tools to help me explore what I’m really stuffing down – usually anger.  Or what I am replacing with the food - usually love.

I know things about myself now that I simply had no idea about before my work with Beyond Chocolate.  I know that I overeat instead of living because it’s safer, nothing will change and I won’t have to face up to the fact that I create my destiny and things don’t just happen to those who are fortunate enough.  This is my work in progress and it won’t end.  I always want to be working to better myself but I also want to appreciate how far I have come, and it’s only by being honest and recalling what my life was like when I was endlessly dieting with no real hope of success, in any form, that I can truly see that.

I hope that I will run workshops one day, if I want to, because I do want to shout about it.  I want to scream that you are not alone and that it doesn’t have to be like this, to all of the women who feel that there is no hope and who are so tired they simply cannot go on in this battle with themselves over their bodies.   I want to do this because it’s true for me and my work with Beyond Chocolate is one of the most authentic things in my life.


Abbi Welch is training to be a Chocolate Fairy. If you would like to join our team, get an intensive dose of Beyond Chocolate for yourself as well as learn how to offer support to other women who want to stop dieting and have a healthy relationship with food and their body, read more about our Professional Training Programme.