Brave or foolish?

Writing the Overeating Dialogues with Kirsty and Abbi has been such laughter filled, challenging and creative process and together, we've done it, we now have a fully formed, well rounded, rather lovely script. Well, they have written it and we've tried our hardest to squeeze in a song or a rap, or a little dance but sadly (and sensibly) we're sticking with dialogue!

Three generous, 'up for a laugh and a new experience' women have joined our little company and will be stepping up on stage on the 3rd November as actors. We would love a couple more women to join us.

Right now I feel scared and excited in equal measure. If I listen to my scornful, know it all of a gremlin I imagine making a fool of myself, looking like an amateur, getting it wrong, in public, in front of my friends, my family and Beyond Chocolaters. I tell myself that I am both crazy and arrogant to think we can pull it off with panache. I start to wish I'd never had the idea... Of course, my know it all gremlin would say that... Typical. Luckily I don't have to listen to that bollocks. I tell it to bog off and when I've shut it up, I remind myself that what I (and the others) am doing is brave and daring thing. That by speaking up and taking a risk, we may well empower countless others to do the same, I remind myself that I am willing to look a fool when it comes to my passions and my beliefs. I am prepared to go out on a limb, risk criticism and disdain and that there is no shame in getting it wrong, in being imperfect, nothing to be gained for protecting myself from failure. I am willing to take the risk and to have fun and enjoy myself in the process. It's a bit like engaging in an extreme sport. You wouldn't catch me dead bungee jumping but I imagine that the thrill and the fear I would feel would be something akin to what I'm experiencing now. We're taking a huge leap of faith and I am confident that it will be exhilarating.

Have I put you off yet? Oops! That wasn't supposed to be the point of this post at all...

Fancy joining us? Go on, you know you want to. This is our final call! It will be fun and challenging and such an achievement. I am still pinching myself to believe that we are really doing this. That we have taken an idea, a dream, a vision, and with the help and support of Abbi and Kirsty and the Beyond Chocolate community we are turning it into a reality.

There won't be pages and pages of lines to learn. The roles are all pretty much equal, no main parts and small ones and none of them are very onerous or difficult. There are even some roles with no lines at all. The commitment we'd need from you is to be available all day and evening on 3rd November for the performances and then on the following dates for rehearsals in London:

Tues 18, 25 Sept, 2, 9,16, 23 Oct, 7-10pm and  all day on 27 Oct  for tech and dress rehearsals 11am -  6pm

Some of the rehearsals will be in NW3 and some in W6 - we'll be arranging lifts to and from tube stations and proving dinner and cake :)

Get in touch with me as soon as possible  if you'd like to take part or if you want to find out more. sophie[at]beyondchocolate.co.uk

Willpower, is that what we need to stop overeating?

Willpower - I just looked it up in my online dictionary and here’s what it says “Control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses : a stupendous effort of will.” 
What’s wrong with that? Why would it not be helpful to deliberately make an effort to restrain an impulse that we have decided is ultimately not good for us? Sounds like exactly what we need by the bucket load if we want to stop overeating. Well, I think not and I think the reason lies with the word stupendous. More on that in a moment.
Have you ever heard the expression “she has an iron will”? What image does that metaphor conjure up in your mind? If I imagine I can see before me a woman with an iron will, I see someone strong, braced, rigid, eyes fixed, jaw set, muscles tense and tight, her breathing is shallow, almost imperceptible. She may even have her fists clenched. She’s making herself impenetrable, immovable, so solid nothing will push her off course, she's ready for a fight if necessary…. Are you willing to humour me for a moment? Stand up and try that posture. Imagine yourself summoning all the will you have while you stand in that posture. I imagine that if you really put stupendous effort into it you’d resist just about anything right now. If you stayed as focused as this, if you maintained this stance, your will truly would be as iron, able to withstand almost anything it comes up against. Powerful. Strong. ‘NO’ is on the tip of your tongue. Nothing will topple you. 
How do you feel? What are you aware of in your body? What are you thinking? How much effort does it take to stay this strong and focused? How long do you think you could sustain this posture? Could you stay like this all day? All week? All your life? So, isn’t this ability to summon our will and create a body that knows how to say no, stay solid and unmovable, resist... a good thing? Isn't learning how to use our willpower the answer. Then we could summon the power of our will whenever we needed it and, with stupendous effort, to say NO to overeating?

The way I see it is this. Making a stupendous effort, which doesn’t always feel like it’s all that hard at first, is ultimately unsustainable. I’ve been reading a fascinating book about habits. I was very interested to read that scientists have discovered that willpower is not infinite. We don't have a never ending source of willpower. Even in the course of one day the more willpower we exert, the harder it becomes to keep drawing on it and by the end of the day we are very likely to have run out. And I was surprised at just how many things in a day we draw on our willpower to manage. Just how many things in my day I do, even though I don't really want to; getting up early with my alarm (and resisting the desire to turn over and go back to sleep), making packed lunches for the kids (honestly, I'd really rather not, it would be so much easier to pay for school dinners) cleaning the loo (resisting the urge to turn a blind eye to the grime), supermarket shopping (hate it), sitting in traffic jams (holding back the desire to scream at every red traffic light), taking the rubbish out (resisting the whisper to just walk past and ignore it), balancing my accounts (resisting the urge to distract myself with yet another cup of tea), clearing my inbox of junk mail (rather than giving in to the desire to shut my laptop and do something far more interesting) taking myself to the dentist (when every bone in my body wants to stay away). I could go on and on. These are all necessary tasks which I am responsible for and which I choose to do. And, they require me to draw on the power of my will to say yes to, over and over again, even when I sometimes want to say no. The things which might be easy enough to do or resist at the beginning of the day and the tasks that require our focus and attention, become far, far harder by the end of the day. We draw on the power of our will many times in the day to do things we don’t want to do or to resist the things we are drawn to and temped by… not just overeating. We may not realise it as they are small, seemingly insignificant things sometimes and each one in itself may not require stupendous effort. Just a bit of effort. And it all adds up. So is it any surprise that by the time we get home after work, or the children are finally tucked up in bed, we simply do not have the energy it takes to stay in that effortful posture? Is it really any surprise that, particularly at the end of the day, the willpower to say no to chocolate or cake or pasta or whatever has quite simply run out? Is it really that surprising that we draw on every ounce of willpower to do what we have to do for others, to be there, show up, perform, and that there's little of that left when it comes to taking care of ourselves and saying no to overeating, whatever the time of day? Who are we letting down but ourselves when we give ourselves a moment of respite from working so hard? Add to that the very fact that eating something nice feels like the one thing we are actually giving ourselves, a treat, a break and is it any wonder that we just don't have the energy to summon more willpower to resist? Resistance is futile. Even if we try, we are almost guaranteed to give in, it's just a matter of time.
The way to stop overeating is not to use willpower. If we truly want to stop overeating, the way to do it is this: decide that we want to stop. That's the single most important step; to make that decision and set our intention. Then, make sure we have support in place, whatever works for us. It could be a person or people to talk to, books to read, a forum to post on... Then, find out as much as we can about the behaviour we want to change, becoming curious about why, when and how we overeat, so that we understand the triggers, cues and motivations and we can see what we get out of the behaviour and how it helps us cope. Then, we can plan to change those overeating behaviours one small step at a time, and each time be willing to tune in and stay present to whatever we are experiencing in the moment rather than ignoring ourselves and using willpower. Stopping involves taking ourselves gently by the hand and saying no to eating, not with superhuman, stupendous effort but by learning to acknowledge and experience how we are feeling, what we are thinking and recognising our body talk. Being able to stop overeating means learning how to soothe away the discomfort, the pain, the agitation... Stopping involves identifying what we are truly hungry for and allowing ourselves to have that. Or acknowledging what it's like when we can't or don't know how to let ourselves have what we truly want. Changing our overeating behaviours and habits does indeed require effort and commitment but if it feels like you have to make stupendous effort, your are pushing too hard and you are likely to run out of steam and sabotage your efforts. If you have to draw on willpower you are fighting a losing battle. You'll only manage it for so long and eventually, a few minutes, days or weeks later you'll relent and give in. It, is quite simply inevitable. Scientifically proven even.
Willpower: wonderful, useful, empowering, effective, in short bursts. I am very, very grateful for the power of my will. But not for stopping overeating. Gentleness, commitment, willingness, openness, presence, curiosity, sustained effort (the kind that involves stretching not tearing), these are the qualities to draw on if we want to stop overeating. It's very different from using willpower, which involves ignoring ourselves and our needs, shutting ourselves off from feeling. Rigidifying and fighting. Tuning-in is the opposite; it means paying attention to ourselves, acknowledging, feeling, softening, co-operating with ourselves. We can all do it, every one of us. The more we practice tuning-in, the easier it is to stop overeating.  (A lot more on this in our new book - Beyond Temptation, out on Sept 6th 2012) My verdict; willpower, not helpful.

Does stocking up really work?

Why is it that when we want to treat ourselves or binge or find solace in food it's always the same old friends we turn to? Chocolate, biscuits, crisps, ice cream, cheese, pastry, bread and butter, peanuts, pizza... Our lists of forbidden, naughty, fattening, unhealthy foods are endless. We see it every time we run a workshop. We believe that in large part the irresistability of these foods is fuelled by deprivation. The more we tell ourselves that we can't or shouldn't have them, that we have to cut them out of our diet, whatever the reason (whether it's because we think they are fattening or unhealthy or addictive or too expensive...) the more we want them. And even when we can go weeks or even months without them, the moment they are around again, we just can't resist and we find ourselves polishing them off in those overheating moments. So, does stocking up on them undo the years, often decades, of deprivation and all or nothing thinking about these foods? And if so, exactly how does that work? And what about the notion that it's the sugar or the carbs in these foods that keeps us hooked, not the deprivation? What about the idea that they are addictive? These are the questions I'll explore in this post (and that we've written more fully about in our new book Beyond Temptation).

Starting with the last question first; do I believe that sugar is addictive and harmful? I wish I could answer that question with a simple yes or no. I can't. I've been doing lots of research, reading, exploring and experimenting (on myself) on this subject and so far my results and conclusions are inconclusive. But here is what I can say. Let's say that in the spirit of being my own Guru I decide, after all my explorations and experiments, that I do indeed find it impossible to eat sugar in moderation, what would that mean and what would I do? I could choose to treat it as a harmful substance, a drug, and cut it out of my diet completely. Would I also choose to cut out refined flour products and fruit sugar? Mmmm... More research and experimentation necessary. And let's say I decide that all these are harmful and addictive, I could decide to stop eating them, completely. The question is not weather this is right or wrong - it may be right for some and not for others, it may be true for some and not for others. The question for me is can I make this a choice and one that I can stand by and feel comfortable with? One that I can sustain and find ways of managing when I slip up? Sucrose, fructose, carbs, they are everywhere. If I choose to cut them out of my diet, it may well help considerably, if I really believe in what I'm doing, not just dabbling in another fad because I think it might help me lose weight. It's one thing to cut these foods out because I genuinely believe they are bad for my health and well being (including perhaps my weight) and quite another to cut them out in the hope that this strategy with help me get into my bikini this summer or will be the answer to my life-long weight problem.
The key here, I believe, is to be my own Guru. To take the time and give these questions the serious consideration and exploration they deserve. Then I can make a choice based on my own experience and beliefs. Otherwise I know I'll just be jumping on the next bandwagon that comes tearing around the corner when I struggle to say not to an ice-cream this summer. I'll be convincing myself that it's not sugar I need to avoid it's fat or artificial additives or bread or whatever. Don't stop eating sugar because someone tells you it's addictive or because you read it in a book! Read 100 books if necessary, do as much research as you can but most importantly experiment, on yourself. That may well take time, months, even years, and the answer will be one you trust. Indisputable. If you find that cutting sugar or carbs or whatever out of your diet really helps, does whatever it is you want it to do, and you are willing and able to sustain it, why would you not? If you really do find that cutting out these foods puts a stop to your overeating 100%, then you will have solved the problem and that's fantastic. But what if that's not how it goes. The way I see it is this. Let's say I do discover that my desire for my forbidden foods is fuelled by their chemical composition and I decide to cut them out, will that be the solution? Problem solved once and for all? In my experience that's not always how it goes. Wanting to cut them out is one thing, being able to (sustainably) is another. And partly, for me, that's because of the emotional tie I have to these foods and what they represent, along with the fact that they are everywhere and are not universally recognised as a drug (unlike alcohol for example). The fact that eating chocolate is part of how I say "fuck this" to the world when everything gets too much, the way crunching crisps helps me manage my anger and frustration, the fact that time alone doesn't feel the same without a latte and a pastry or the cinema is just not the cinema without a bowl of popcorn are an important part of the picture. The way these foods a universally regarded are treats, fit for special occasions, that we are urged, encouraged and cajoled to 'just have one, just a little bit' means that resistance is pretty much futile. Would anyone goad an alcoholic to "just have little drink, one won't hurt surely?" Even if I know that these foods are not good for me (whatever that might mean for me) that is not always enough to stop me. My willpower, my commitment to taking care of myself, my determination to look after my body are simply not enough and in those moments I crumble and give in! However fervently I believe that cutting out any particular food group is the answer, doing it is another matter entirely. And how we do it, how we approach changing the way we eat and the foods we choose is what makes all the difference. That's where stocking up and learning to manage my overeating come in. Because I am not a machine, I am not made of iron and much as I'd love to, saying that I am cutting a food out of my diet is just never enough to make it work for the long term. Stocking up, really giving myself the message that I am allowed to eat whatever I want, is the only way to give myself back the power to CHOOSE. Only when I am allowed to say YES do I also have the freedom to say NO. No without feeling deprived and hard done by. A no that I mean and feel comfortable with. And the thing about stocking up is that it takes time. A long time in most cases. Years, not even months. I used to find chocolate, bread and butter, all my forbidden foods irresistible. Today they sit in my cupboards and I hardly notice them. And when I do, I know it has nothing to do with the foods and everything to do with my desire to overeat. To eat anything as long as I have something to shove in my mouth and stop myself from being present. Stocking up takes commitment and patience and courage. You don't have to stock up on tons of the food in your home if that's too scary, you can just remind yourself every time you want chocolate or crisps or whatever that it's your choice. You can allow the yes as well as the no. And for a while you may eat and eat and eat them more than you feel comfortable with. Often we feel that we fail at stocking up because we end up eating it all. That's how it goes. That's part of how it works We eat it all once and then again and again. Keep going and keep working on your desire to overeat at the same time and the day will come when you know that the irresistability of the biscuit tin has less to do with the biscuits than with the urge to eat. Because if we don't deal with our overeating and we just cut out the so called offenders, we are very likely to find ourselves overeating whatever we are allowed to eat or turning to other behaviors to zone out, treat ourselves, comfort, soothe etc.

 Ultimately I wonder if the thing that really keeps us stuck is the desire to find a solution. Our desperate need for an answer. If only we knew what to do, what would work, then we could do it and everything would be ok. What I am discovering is that the more I do this work the more I realise that there are no answers or definitive solutions, that managing my desire to overeat means being willing to accept the reality that there are no solutions or answers. As the years go by  I am increasingly willing to accept that I will always know far less than I don't know.  The more years I spend researching and exploring, the fewer answers I have. And that leaves me with the only thing I can work with: me. Myself. And that's what all the addictions and compulsions are about for me, keeping myself from really paying attention to and responding to myself. Because most of the time I'd rather distract myself from the discomfort of being me.

So whether we choose to stock up or cut out, the key is to do it with compassion, curiosity and gentleness knowing that nothing will be fixed or sorted, knowing that every choice, whatever it is, takes commitment and effort and willingness to pay attention to me. Day after day. One tiny step at a time. And with support.

Are we all emotional eaters?

I often used to eat when I was bored.  What I used to find uncomfortable, no, make that intolerable, about being bored were the feelings of frustration and low level anxiety that accompanied the boredom, when I didn't fill every single moment of my day with something (anything) to do. The more I listened to the quiet whispers of my mind, when I did have a lull in activity, the quiet little voice that said  "you should be doing something, you are nothing if you are doing nothing, who are you anyway? You're not good enough, you should do more not less, prove yourself, get it right, be beyond reproach, make sure you are approved of and admired, keep going, come on, don't stop, it's not enough, you're not enough ...." the more anxious and frustrated I felt. And eating, as always, distracted me from those feelings and those thoughts.

My overeating had a very clear pattern. I'd head straight for the fridge when I arrived home after work (in my pre-chidlren days) and stand there are the fridge thinking "What can I have?" I used to overeat in the evenings after dinner, once everything I needed to do was done and I could finally sit down. I used to overeat at night, in bed, before I went to sleep. I used to overeat whenever I was alone. No rhyme or reason, just me alone meant I would overeat. It was like a mathematical formula. Sophie + alone = overheating  (s+a=o) I always had a croissant or Danish with my coffee, a few biscuits or some chocolate with my tea. I always had another helping of pasta or seconds of pudding. I would always eat the whole sandwich, both halves, finish every crisp in the pack, every square in the bar of chocolate. I didn't really question these habits, so were they were just that, just habits? Not emotional eating or comfort eating, just habits?

Well, that may be one way to look at it.  Today I see it a little differently. They may well have become habits (dictionary definition - regular or settled tendency or practice, especially one that it hard to give up) and, the way I think of it today, any behaviour that becomes a habit is a behaviour that, originally, I created for a reason. It had a purpose once, even if as time goes by I stop associating that behaviour with its original purpose and it just feels like a habit. So, while it may not be directly driven by feelings or emotions they played a part in me creating the habit in the first place. The fact that I habitually took food to bed with me, to eat and read before I feel asleep, may not have be directly triggered by any feelings of anxiety that I was aware of at the time, and at some stage when first I chose to take food to bed the food had a function, it did a job.

Here's the thing about habits. Even if we don't identify any feelings associated with them, NOT doing what we've always done WILL engender a feeling. Not taking food to bed when it has always been my habit to do so will leave me feeling something... In my experience that was fear! Not finishing every square in the bar of chocolate will leave me feeling... longing, wanting, sad. Not hugely, heart-wrenchingly sad, just a little sad. Even though I know I can have chocolate whenever I like, I will have an emotional response of some sort when I choose to stop when my impulse, my habit, is to finish it off. If I tell myself it's just a habit that I have to break and simply stop doing it, or doing something else instead or talking myself out of the need for the habit without recognising how I feel, ignoring the fear or anxiety or sadness (however mild or slight), numbing myself to my emotions, I  know, for myself, from my experience, that I will turn to other behaviours and create new habits to deal with the situations, emotions and thoughts that my eating originally helped me to manage. Because even when I don’t acknowledge the feelings or recognise them, they are there and I cannot hold on to them indefinitely without some kind of outlet or some way to numb them. If I am not willing to see that my eating in bed provided a comfort, a moment of numbness, a buffer between me and sleep, the dreaded nothingness of the night, that scary moment when I really let myself do nothing at all, if I ignore all that and just stop eating, summoning willpower and resolve, that anxiety will come out somewhere else. Of that I have no doubt. If, on the other hand, I am willing to recognise that I am an emotional being, I feel, all the time, and if I am willing to acknowledge how the food helps in that moment and allow myself to be with that fear or the anxiety or whatever the feeling, to work with it, just for a minute, I will be dealing with the real issue. Not the food or the eating, but the fear itself, the fear which drives my eating and my habits. And if I can make friends with that fear, if I can trust myself to be with it and know that it will not swallow me up, that it will not destroy me, then I no longer need the habit of eating to numb myself. Choosing not to overeat may even feel liberating, joyful, exciting and empowering and, a Brene Brown so rightly says, we cannot numb our emotions selectively.  When we numb anger, sadness and fear we numb our capacity to truly feel joy and happiness.

A habit is just another word for a behaviour driven by thoughts or feelings which we don't know how to stop doing and don't always understand the reasons for.  In my experience getting to the root of the habit, working out what it does (or did) for us and dealing with THAT is the key. Recognising that even those moments when we eat and cannot for the life of us work out what is behind it, will leave us feeling something when we STOP doing it. Which means that all our eating, in some way or other, is emotional. We may not always be aware of it but we are always, always feeling something. We are, I believe, all emotional eaters because we are all emotional women and in everything we do and experience, our thoughts, our emotions and our physical bodies are involved. All the time! And I think that is something to celebrate not shy away from. I am proud to call myself emotional and grateful to have recognised and worked with my emotional eating habits.

Actors wanted!

On 3rd November 2012 we will be putting on a performance at the Canal Cafe Theatre in London, to celebrate the launch of our new book; Beyond Temptation. Everyone talks about weight loss, about dieting, about feeling fat and being fat. We want to talk about the eating, the overeating, we want to talk about what it's really like and that's what this show is all about. It's about giving a voice to the shame, the guilt, the judgements, the prejudice and the pain experienced by women who overeat. It's about telling the truth about the struggle to have a healthy, balanced, normal relationship with food. It's about waking people up to the reality that women who overeat are the norm, they are the majority and they are neither stupid or greedy nor lazy. It's about showing that not only overweight women overeat. So, so many of the women who look fine and acceptable by our current social standards are just as likely to struggle with food as those who are judged to be too big. Its about giving those women (you, me and everyone for whom this resonates) a voice, rather than continuing to peddle the fantasies we read about in the media, day in, day out. It's about dispelling the myth that all we need to do is get a grip and use a bit of sodding willpower, lose weight and everything will be ok.

We are looking for women who would like to join us, get up on stage and take part. You don't have to be a professional actor, if you have some experience of acting in any capacity, if you feel comfortable up on stage, if you truly enjoy performing, you are the woman we are looking for. There will be lines to learn but not endless pages or long scripts to memorise. There's a place for those who want to play a small part with just one or two lines or for those who are more gung-ho and want to take on more. It will most likely be challenging, scary, exciting and most importantly lots and lots of FUN!

We'll be giving two performances on Saturday 3rd November (tickets on sale soon), a matinee at 3pm and then an evening performance at 7.30pm. The theatre sits 60 people and there will be Beyond Chocolaters, journalists, family and friends in the audience. You'll need to be available, in London, for regular weekly rehearsals with Sophie, Audrey, Kirsty and Abby in September and October on the following dates:

Tues 18, 25 Sept, 2, 9, 16, 23, 30  Oct 7-10pm
Saturday 27 Oct 11am to 6pm

And of course on the day of the show - 3rd November, you'll need to be available from 10am until the end of the shows.

We have not yet finalised a location for the rehearsals but they will be in London, either central or north (probably in the Camden area).

If you'd like to be a part of this exciting production, please drop a line as soon as possible to sophie@beyondchocolate.co.uk or give us a call anytime on 07904125997

The Overeating Monologues

Remember the Vagina Monologues? Well, we reckon it’s time for the The Overeating Monologues. Time for women to break the taboo and speak up. So, that’s what we are working on right now and it’s one of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on to date. Audrey and I and two wonderful Beyond Chocolaters (whom I shan’t name just now as I haven’t checked with them before writing this post - though you’ll know who they are soon enough) have been meeting regularly to create a play/show/performance - not quite sure what to call it at the moment - called The Overeating Monologues, to celebrate the launch of our new book, Beyond Temptation.

I have never done anything like this before, so I am incredibly grateful that the others are experienced in theatre and play writing. If the final performance is anything like our writing meetings there will be much laughter and just as much sighing and pause for thought.

I feel so sad that we put ourselves through hell, daily, about the way we look and the size of our bodies. And that the impact of our desperation for a body that says “I am acceptable, I am lovable, I am in control, I am successful” means that we mess with our eating to such an extent that it can become the most shameful and secretive part of our lives. And then we get caught up in a sticky web of vicious self hatred or equally destructive self pity.

I want to live in a world where women (and men) are not judged by the size of their bodies, the make of their clothes, the size of their salary... I want to live a life free from the obsession with food and nutrition. The Beyond Chocolate principles have literally saved me from a life of endless dieting and misery. Had I not stopped dieting all those years ago, I dread to think what my life would be like today. I want to shout out to the world that I will not collude with it’s prejudice towards women who overeat, whatever their size. Overeating is not a disease, it is not a sin, it is not a horrible, shameful indication of how out of control we are, it is simply a coping mechanism, a way to self soothe, a way to treat ourselves or a result of a complex biological and hormonal process that I understand far too little about (and am interested in learning more about).

The Overeating Monologues will give women a voice. If you are interested in taking part in any way (on stage, back stage, in any other capacity - or even if you’d just like to come and see the show in the autumn) we’d love to hear from you. We'll let you know the exact date (sometime in November) and venue in London as soon as we have these confirmed. In the meantime... watch this space!

Beyond Temptation?

Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.

I recently attended Sophie and Audrey Boss’s first ‘Beyond Temptation’ workshop and can recommend it 100% - it will definitely help those of you who have been working with Beyond Chocolate for a while to move up to the next level. It will also serve as a good introduction to anyone who is looking for a new way forward that takes them away from self-destructive over-eating and dieting.
Before I say anything else, I would like to thank those ladies on the course who told me they read and enjoyed my blogs – I was very humbled and pleased to know that what I write is helping other people – I write very much to help myself process things I’m learning about myself and about being a Beyond Chocolater and it’s great to know that other women find that helpful with their own practice.
I loved being on the workshop; it was a very safe space with very lovely women all speaking the Beyond Chocolate language of non-dieting and managing food and our eating in a more caring and productive way. Every woman on that course was truly inspiring, truly beautiful in her own right and I hope they all got as much out of the day as I did.
So – am I now beyond all temptation? Can I walk past a bakery without being sucked in as if by some horizontal Charybdis? Do I turn my nose up at buffets? Am I eating only salads and ‘healthy foods’? Am I getting my five-a-day? Am I exercising religiously? Do I follow all the Beyond Chocolate principles to the letter? Would you hate me if I said ‘yes’ to any or all of those?!
Because actually the answer is ‘of course not’! That’s not what I want for my life. I love bakeries, buffets and salads – I don’t want to be beyond some of them and grimly champing my way through others because they’re ‘good for me’ … after all, if nothing else, the goal-posts on what’s ‘good for us’ changes almost daily.

I want to be able to eat cake when I want cake. The difference now is that I know when I’m hungry for cake and when, actually, I really do want the freshness and crunch of a salad, or a crusty French stick, or the soothing smoothness of home-made soup, or the rich meltiness of Cadbury’s Giant Buttons.

One thing the Beyond Temptation day reminded me was of the importance of finding out about myself, my appetite, my needs and desires. If I don’t know what I want, it’s likely I’ll eat something that’s available and if it doesn’t satisfy, I’ll eat something else and something else until I’m either so stuffed I can’t possible eat any more, or until I hit something that is satisfying. Eating by trial and error is very much part of learning how to utilise the Beyond Chocolate principles in my life.
So, I will be practicing Tuning In for a while. It’s easy, cheap (!), quick and virtually undetectable. At least it will be once I can do without closing my eyes and muttering to myself … The more I Tune In, the more I will find out about myself, the more likely I am to be able to spot more exactly what I want to eat, how much and when. And when it all matches and I don’t over-eat, boy does it feel good! And that feeling acts as a spur to me to do it again and again.

So, as I said, I don’t want to be beyond all temptation, but I do want to be in control more often than not – and I also want, on occasion to dive headfirst into a very large, very sticky cake! Hooray for Beyond Chocolate!

Lighten the Load

Do you have any idea just how many women overeat? Not just a little bit every now and then but the kind of overeating that we feel ashamed of, that we hide from our friends, colleagues and family. The kind of overeating that we would be mortified if anyone found out about. The overeating that we think is disgusting, out of control, crazy… So many women do it. The most damaging thing about it is the guilt and the shame that we carry around with us like a heavy rucksack on our backs. What makes overeating so painful, so agonising, is the way we torture ourselves about it. And it’s the secrecy that perpetuates the shame and the pain.

Have you ever talked about your overeating? Or is it a secret? Have you ever talked about you overeating with your mates, your mum, your sister or your partner? Do you mention it at all? Maybe you make light of it, pass it off as an inconsequence, allude to it without going into detail about how you really feel, or maybe you avoid talking about it altogether. Do you talk about what it’s really like to be desperate to lose weight or how you feel about your body? Mostly we stay silent, we hide, we keep the secret. We don’t talk about overeating. The idea of telling anyone is horrifying.

In fact, if we are willing to talk about it, we can lighten the load. By being honest, with others and with ourselves, by not hiding and guarding our overeating as a secret, we make it more ordinary and less dramatic. Barely a decade ago no one would have admitted to feeling depressed. Today there's so much less shame about it than there used to be and so much more understanding and compassion. How would it be to tell someone about your overeating? Someone you trust. You don't have to tell them everything. It doesn't have to be a big confession, it's about taking one small step towards telling it as it really is rather than colluding with womankind about how pathetic we are, how all we need is a bit more willpower, an ounce more self control. When we can talk about it, about what it's really like, even just a little bit, we start to dispel the taboo and we feel lighter, freer and better about ourselves. And in talking and breaking the silence, we give others permission to do the same.

You don't have to carry the guilt, shame, embarrassment (whatever it's like for you) around with you all the time. Join us for the Beyond Temptation Workshop on 3rd March and lighten the load. Meet like minded women, have an eye opening, enlightening, memorable day - one which will show you how to transform you life with food so that you feel normal and in control around food.

Why everything you have tried in the past hasn't worked and why Beyond Temptation will

Virtually every conventional approach deals with overeating in one of two ways.

THE JUST STOP IT APPROACH
The dieting industry’s favourite answer to overeating is simply to tell you to STOP IT! You know it’s bad for you. You know it’s why you’re overweight, you’ll feel better if you don’t... so just stop it. Summon every ounce of willpower or determination or whatever it takes to resist the urge and control yourself. If you want to lose weight badly enough, then you’ll do it, right?

THE OVEREAT, BUT ONLY ON FREE FOODS APPROACH
Some programmes incorporate overeating as part of their solution. The alternative to eating too many chocolate bars is to overeat as much as you like as long as you choose foods that they say are not fattening. They suggest you turn to low calorie, low fat, low carb foods (or whatever isn’t on their forbidden list) or fill yourself up with low calorie drinks. Binge on carrot sticks or celery, stuff yourself with ‘free’ soup, cram in as much cucumber or spinach as you like, nibble on rice cakes all day if it helps or pick at lettuce leaves and sunflower seeds in an attempt to satiate the insatiable. Some of these programmes positively encourage overeating with days when you can ‘eat as much as you like’ as long as you stick to certain foods. They go as far as to exhort you to ‘pile your plate’ with as much as you want.

None of them address the question of why we overeat and how we can stop. Not just for the few weeks or months but for good. Relying on willpower or simply replacing overeating chocolate with overeating carrots is not the answer. The sad reality is that the diets pave the way to overeating. Whatever diet we choose, we spend so much time depriving ourselves of the food we really want that as soon as we give up dieting, we’re eating for Britain... overeating all those off limits goodies, taking the brakes off... until the next diet.

THE BEYOND TEMPTATION APPROACH
In our first book, Beyond Chocolate, we wrote about own experience as two women who had struggled with our weight for years. We shared our personal stories and described how we transformed our relationship with food and our bodies. It’s six years since we wrote Beyond Chocolate and we haven’t stopped exploring and experimenting for a minute. We certainly have not stood still, happy in the knowledge that we’d cracked it! The 10 principles are the basis of a healthy and balanced relationship with food. As we say in the book, we didn’t invent them (well, the ‘Be your own guru’ principle is unique to Beyond Chocolate) we simply took age-old, common sense ideas and made them accessible. And since then we’ve been looking at overeating in depth, we’ve questioned and investigated. We’ve watched all our wonderful participants grappling and experimenting and out of their work and ours has emerged a process, a way of engaging with the part of us that is driven to overeat, the part of us that turns to food for comfort, or sweetness or distraction or just because it’s there, the part of us that falls into the trap over and over again, despite our very best intentions, despite everything we know. We have created a process which is not only unique and effective but which teaches us so much about ourselves and our overeating that we believe it enriches every part if our lives.

We have been diving into the subject of overeating day after day, we have put it under the microscope and observed it, we’ve worked with it and we’ve carried out experiments (on ourselves!). We know more about overeating than we could ever have imagined was possible to know. And we’ve poured all of that knowledge and understanding into our new book and our new Beyond Temptation Workshop.

The aim of both the book and the workshop is to guide you to stop overeating and discover how to live your life without turning to food, any food, as a treat, a salve or an escape. The way to stop is to identify the reasons you overeat and then deal with them, with a set of practical, effective tools.

Join us on March 3rd, we'll be taking you on an overeating tour and by the end of it you will have all the information, insights, experience and tools you need to have a relationship with food which feels balanced, healthy and free. See you there!

Hands up anyone who overeats

So many women overeat. So many. And so many women overeat and feel ashamed and guilty. We waste so much energy beating ourselves up, hiding the truth from our families and friends, trying to hide the truth from ourselves. The most destructive aspect of our overeating is the emotional and psychological pain and stress that goes with it. Being overweight is not (despite what the powers that be would have us believe) synonymous with poor health but stress is. Being healthy is not just a natural consequence of being slim. All we seem to hear these days is “Lose weight and you’ll be healthier” Really? (At this point I actually want to bang my head against the wall in frustration! - How can they be so stupid/blind/crazy/ignorant/irresponsible - take your pick). The more extensively I read about diet and health, the more I see it, the same message over and over again - stress is the killer, not fat. And we can be stressed at any size. I’m not saying that there is never any association between being overweight and being unhealthy. Sometimes weight does have an impact on our health but not always and not universally. In fact in many studies show that being consistently overweight has been proved to be a positive where health is concerned and that it's certainly healthier that yo-yoing up and down, which is the best that the diets have to offer.

Oh dear… I’ve gone off at a tangent. My apologies. The thing is the more we hide our overeating and feel ashamed about it, the more we beat ourselves up and hate ourselves for it, the more unhappy and stressed we feel. And that is definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, bad for our health. So, today, take a risk, stop beating yourself up about your overeating. Next time you overeat, instead of being angry and calling yourself all the names under the sun (if that’s what you do! It’s certainly what I used to do). Find a touch of compassion for yourself. If you are reading this blog then you have already taken one step towards changing things. Towards feeling good about the way you eat and the way you look. Instead of telling yourself how crap you are take yourself gently by the hand and remind yourself that you are working on it…

And then when you are ready, think about talking to ONE person you know about what it’s really like. There are sooooooo many women who overeat, just like you do, you could help yourself and one other person feel better by talking about it. It’s so good to know that we are not alone. And breaking the silence stops the shame. And that feels really, really good. And when we feel good, we are less stressed. And that has to be a good thing.

A festive Strategy for dealing with the food 'thing'

My father would have celebrated his 74th birthday on Christmas day. This is the first Christmas - and birthday - that we celebrate without him. Double whammy. Christmas this year is going to be tricky and I am busy putting some support strategies into place so that I don't fall into a big black hole full of christmas pudding and chocolate.


If food is your thing then it will always be your thing. Over the years, I have learned how to manage my relationship with food and, mostly, I don't have much of a food thing at all. But when the going gets tough I get the urge to revert straight back to my default setting. For years, I ate compulsively to shut out anxiety and sooth sadness. Eating and the self loathing that came with it provided the perfect distraction from the difficult stuff going on in my life.


Thankfully, nowadays I have a better way of dealing with stuff than by using food. Rather than pushing them away, or stuffing them down, uncomfortable feelings need to be let in, acknowledged. The more I know about my anxiety and my sadness, the better equipped I am to find other ways of looking after myself. So, I invited the angst and the pain to tea and got to know them over a slice of cake. I asked them to tell me more about themselves, about what they needed to feel safe and if they had any suggestions on how they thought I could make that happen.


They talked about how scary the whole birthday/christmas without dad thing felt, about how much they missed him. And how freaky it felt to want to cry all the time. They asked me to stop running away from them. They wanted to be wrapped up in lovely, soft, warm blankets and held. We talked, I listened. Together, we came up with a Festive strategy. And it looks something like this:


As soon as I become aware that I am running away from myself, distancing myself from my feelings and from the people around me I will sound a special festive alarm bell and remind myself that this means something needs my attention. I will take a deep breath and tune in. I know that this alone is enough to break the trance, the automatic hand to mouth action. I will name anxiety or sadness or frustration or whatever it is that is making me want to run away and I will conjure up the softest, fluffiest cashmere blanket I can imagine and carefully and lovingly tuck my feelings up in it. As they nestle in and doze off peacefully, I will bring myself back to reality and move on: without needing to have another bite (or another sip or another drag). 


I think this is a pretty good strategy hand I know from previous experience that it works pretty well. I am sure that sometimes I'll decide to carry on regardless. This is OK,  I like to eat lots at this time of year, as long as I'm doing it consciously and I don't beat myself up about it. I also, crucially, have back up:  a couple of mates I know I can call on if I need some hand holding and of course my sister. Also, very importantly, I am making sure that I eat delicious, fabulous food so that I don't have to deal with feelings of dissatisfaction as well. I have an evening planned with J for some time-out a deux and I've got Bing Crosby playing in loop while I decorate the whole flat with tinsel. I think I've got everything covered.


Do you have a festive strategy to deal with the food 'thing'? Have you ever invited your 'stuff' to tea and had a chat? What did you find out?


Have a wonderful festive season everyone!

How to Survive the Christmas Party Season

Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.

The internet is full of helpful last minute advice to beleaguered party-goers on how to survive the Festive Season with all those parties that all involve all that food and drink ... I’ve added my Beyond Chocolate inspired thoughts on this well-meaning but misguided advice. As for the parties and food and drink – bring them on!

So when they suggest...

1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Give something you would like to receive, possibly a fruit basket or some low fat muffins. The favour just may be returned.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: Tell you what, if someone gave me low fat muffins they’d end up wearing them ... yes, it might be lovely to give someone a basket of fruit or cake, but not if it’s with the intention of ‘saving’ them from eating ‘bad things’ or in the hope that they will reciprocate with ‘good’ things ... bah!

2. Take a vegetable or fruit plate to a party. Be the designated driver. Save your friends and your waistline at the same time.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: Ok, veg or fruit plate sounds nice, but unless you only eat your own food at parties, this isn’t going to stop over-indulgence. Avoidance tactics don’t stop over-indulgence; it just pops up somewhere else – like when you get home and no-one’s watching. How much better it is to see what’s available and make a choice based on what you like and what you feel like eating
3. Don't let family or friends pressure you into overindulging. When they say 'You have nothing to worry about — you're fine as you are' reply: 'The reason I'm fine is because I've worked hard to lose the weight, and I'm not going to blow it now'.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: Why not just say, ‘Thank you’, Tune In and make your own decision about whether or eat or not?

4. Be assertive. Refuse food and drinks if you don't want them.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: This is more BC – if you’re not hungry or thirsty and don’t want to eat –refuse politely. Saying a polite 'no thanks' with a smile, repeated, broken record style, usually works. They will give up eventually!

5. At a buffet, limit the number of choices on your plate. Enjoy a few smart selections instead of giving in to overzealous sampling.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: You know what? I like sampling. That way I get to taste foods I may not have had before. It doesn’t mean I then scarf down the whole lot, but experimenting with tastes, textures and new foods is one of life’s pleasures.

6. Keep your hands full of anything but food. Take along photos, a branch of mistletoe, a camera or anything else that will keep your hands occupied.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: Oh, this isn’t going to look odd at all, is it?! Again, avoidance tactics are doomed to failure. It’s far better to make an active choice rather than spend the whole party pretending that food doesn’t exist and then eat the contents of your kitchen when you get home!

7. Plan a guilt-free event — organise a dance party and serve a hearty buffet of veggies and low-fat dips.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: What a shame it is that pleasure is so wrapped up with guilt in our culture. Why can’t we throw any sort of party we like and enjoy it?
8. Deliver cards in person to your neighbours and/or friends. Do it on foot and get a little exercise while you boost your community spirit.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: I approve of exercise by stealth. Hand-delivering Christmas cards if your recipients live locally is an excellent way of getting some fresh air and a bit of free exercise)

9. Give party leftovers and gifts of cakes, biscuits and chocolates to the local food shelter. You'll remove rich foods from your grasp and provide a treat to those in need.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: This sounds like one of those very good ideas dreamed up by someone who lives in a big city where there are homeless shelters. I wouldn’t know where to take excess party food in the small rural town where I live and, by the end of a party, most left-over party food is good only for compost or throwing away in my experience. And I don’t want rich foods removed from my grasp, thank you very much! I want to choose whether I eat them or not.

10. Keep your mind off food and your heart in the right place by volunteering. Charity organisations, toy drives and other endeavours can use all the help they can get.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: ?? I don’t think I have ever heard this before. Volunteering in order to avoid eating? Whatever next?! Volunteer because you want to help out, not because you’re avoiding eating, for goodness sake!

11. If you slip a little off track, don't dwell on it. That doesn't solve anything and can ruin your holiday fun. Just learn from the mistake, make sure to weigh in as usual and most of all, keep your sense of humour and good cheer.

Chocolate Fairy Gretel says: Firstly, I don’t have a ‘track’ to slip off. I don’t ‘dwell’ on my eating – I may reflect and learn from how, when, where I ate. I certainly don’t consider it a ‘mistake’. It happened and maybe I don’t want to do it like that again, but it wasn’t a ‘mistake’. I don’t ‘weigh in’. I can imagine worse things, certainly, but ‘weighing in’ comes pretty close to a worst thing. I hope I will always have a sense of humour and good cheer, neither of which is dependent on me torturing myself over food at this time of year.

Merry Festive Season whatever you are doing and Enjoy!

Revenge Eating

Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.
Revenge eating occurs when something has happened to annoy or inconvenience us. Revenge eating is a way of ‘getting back’ at whoever or whatever that was; whether it was a rude shop assistant or an empty shelf or an ungrateful relative or even when we wake up in a bad mood.
Imagine that you’ve seen a photo in a cafe window of a succulent sponge pudding, upside down in a pool of creamy yellow custard, and it has a slice of pineapple on top with a cherry ... and you decide that tomorrow lunch time you’ll go to that cafe and have that pineapple sponge pudding for lunch. You look forward to it all the rest of that day and all the next morning. But when you get to the cafe and order the pudding, what appears in front of you doesn’t look anything like the photo in the window. What appears in front of you is a rock solid disk of something that has apparently drowned in a bowlful of custard. There may be a pineapple slice and a cherry in there somewhere but you lack the necessary tools to excavate them from this sorry mess.
And besides, this wasn’t what you ordered. So you take it back, complain, get the money back – but the lack of pineapple upside down pudding in your life is causing a problem. The problem is that the body was expecting that pudding, the mind and senses had been anticipating the enjoyment of the pudding and now – no pudding.

So, revenge eating becomes an increasingly attractive option. Revenge eating consists of instantly purchasing something similar or even bigger than the thing you’ve been deprived of and eating it defiantly whether or not you actually wanted it. In the case of the pineapple upside down pudding, it was an iced Belgian bun with fresh cream in and a cherry on the top. No need to excavate to find any of those ingredients.

But it’s not the same. It’s not satisfying. Advanced revenge eating then entails eating everything else in sight that’s (a) edible, (b) not nailed down and (c) not someone else’s. And at the end of this restless bingeing the revenge eater was left with a profound dissatisfaction with herself, life and the continuing lack of pineapple upside down pudding.

At some point it may well become essential to the preservation of life as we know it, for this particular revenge eater to procure a satisfactory pineapple upside down pudding one way or another, but at the end of that particular episode I was left with an over-full stomach and an aching dissatisfaction in my chest.

What Beyond Chocolate has helped me to see is that revenge eating hurts no-one but myself. It won’t matter how much I eat; the cafe that cruelly deprived me of pineapple upside down pudding will not suffer in the least if I eat myself into a catatonic state or feel sick all afternoon. It’s only me that has to cope with the after-effects of my revenge eating. So I am gradually learning how to cope with food disappointment and the lack of availability of what I want on occasions, and to do so without revenge eating.
Enjoy is one of the keys to this process – if I won’t enjoy eating the substitute, it’s better to wait until I can find something else I would enjoy. Tuning In will help too – what is it that I actually want? The sweetness of the pineapple? The creaminess of the custard? The fluffiness of the sponge? And Stop When You’re Satisfied will save me from the uncomfortable after-effects of over-eating.
It’s time to take revenge in other ways ... ;)

Goodbye old friend

Something sad happened the other day. If you read this blog regularly you will know that we have been busy writing the final draft of our new book: Beyond Temptation, which is all about overeating. So overeating has been very much at the forefront of everything in these past months. Anyway, last week, my partner J was out one evening and, as usual when this happens, I organised a little dairy fest. J is allergic to dairy so we have very little of it on the menu but I love it so when he’s out I take advantage and make up for it. Depending on my mood I’ll go for cauliflower cheese, VERY buttery mash, cheese on toast , creamy deserts - that kind of thing. Yesterday, I found a particularly scrumptious looking piece of Lancashire cheese which I intended to enjoy with some olives, salami and soft, chewy bread and butter, followed by my favourite creamy rhubarb yoghurt. I’d done my shopping and the goodies were in the fridge waiting when I realised we’d run out of milk so I dashed back out to grab a pint. 

As I was making my way to the shop I thought about how times had changed. In the past, an evening on my own at home would have been the perfect excuse for a binge. I thought of all the things I would have bought in preparation: cheese, salami and bread and butter would probably have made an appearance...along with chocolate and crisps, nuts, something cakey and certainly some sweets too. Any type of Haribo or maybe liquorice torpedoes. As I pictured the bags of sweets in my mind, I was hit by some sort of weird nostalgia. I haven’t scoffed my way through an entire packet of Haribo for some time now and a part of me missed that. A part of me longed to have that numbing, repetitive, sugary experience again. As I waited for a red light to change I decided that tonight I was going to eat me some sweets, a whole bag of sweets. Like the old times.

So as I rushed in to the supermarket to grab the milk I made a quick detour to the confectionary aisle. By now, I was quite excited at the thought of a date with a bag of Haribo. I stood there scrutinising the dozens of different types on offer for quite a while. I looked at the Cola Bottles and at the Gummy Bears. I considered the Tangfantastics and the Strawbs and even the Milk Bottles. None of them really appealed. Sure, I would gladly have a few but the idea of a eating a whole bag of Cola or Milk Bottles made me feel quite nauseous. So I changed tack and studies the mixed bags instead, maybe variation was the key here. I surveyed the Star Mix and the Super Mix and the Liquorice Favourites but they didn’t feel quite right either. As I stood and dithered, it suddenly hit me that the reason I couldn’t make my mind up was that I actually didn’t want them. Standing in Sainsbury’s at 6pm on a Monday night in front of the sweets I had a revelation: after years and years battling with Haribo, the war was over. I JUST DIDN’T WANT THEM.

I paid for my pint of milk and walked home, feeling a bit sad. It feels like I’ve lost an old friend. And in a way I have. Today, I know how to reward myself for surviving a tough day without diving into a bag of Cola Bottles, I know how to treat myself without turning to the Strawbs, I know how to enjoy and evening at home without the company of Gummy Bears. And yet, knowing that my friend Haribo was always there if all else failed was comforting, reassuring. Haribo has always been my plan B, my back up. 

But hey ho, if the time has come to bid a fond farewell to my old friend Haribo then so be it. 

So goodbye Haribo. And thank you. Thank you for the years of comfort and childish delight. I’ll miss you.

“She can eat anything she wants and still look good!”

Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel. 

“She can eat anything she wants and still look good!”

I remember thinking that about some women, usually prefaced with, 'It's not fair!'


I used to think that really slim women somehow managed to be slim effortlessly, and that they had the 'key' to some miracle something that meant they could eat whatever they wanted, all the time, and still remain so slim. I used to find it infuriating when I saw a really slim woman eating an icecream or a cake or a chocolate bar - how dare she! How dare she be so slim and still eat all those fattening things!!


And, to some extent, I still catch those thoughts from time to time - my Gremlin is good at hanging on to sticks with which to beat me whenever I let my guard down. It's all your fault (so says my Gremlin) that you're so fat, look at what you eat! Don't think you can get away with eating stuff like that, gloats my Gremlin, and think you can lose weight! If that Gillian McKeith woman put all the food you eat on a table, the nation would be sick and food sales would go into a downward spiral ... everyone would just be DISGUSTED because you are disgusting....


It's poisonous stuff and if I catch the Gremlin at it, I shut him pdq and do my very best to rid my mind of those slimy, poisonous, UNTRUE slanders.


And anyway, how do I know what those skinny women eat? I may have seen them eating icecream or a cream cake or a chocolate bar, but what if that was ALL THEY ATE ALL DAY?! I know from my own experience that if I want to eat icecream, cake and/or chocolate, other food has to go out the window - there simply isn't room for it all any more. At one time I would have eaten the icecream, cake and/or chocolate AND my meals and then more icecream, cake and/or chocolate because I was so disgusted with myself. And so it would go on, giving my Gremlin ample sources of sticks to beat me with.


So when Daughter Number 2 said, “Hey mum, you’re looking good and you eat anything you want,” I was quite shocked to hear those words applied to me ... Daughter Number 2 was being complimentary, rather than envious; she was noticing that I no longer restrict the foods I eat based on some diet or other. She was supporting me as I did my exercises by noticing that I have toned up and am looking pretty good considering my advanced years ;)


And so the tables have turned. I appear to turning into one of those women I used to envy, although I’m still having trouble convincing my Gremlin of that!

Writing and Rum Baba

I'm in heaven. Audrey and I have come to my favourite place in the world to complete the first draft of Beyond Temptation. At this moment in time I feel like the luckiestwoman alive. Every day I wake up to blue skies and sunshine, I can have a dip in the pool or a walk along the coast. I have a coffe and the lighest broche I've ever tasted and then I sit down with my sister (and best friend) to write about what I am most passionate about; women and their relationship with food and their bodies.

I can't describe just how much fun the process of writing is. I sit propped up on a comfy couch (overlooking the pool) with the laptop, Audrey lies on the other couch, feet up and we write all day and all evening and into the early hours of the morning. We debate each sentence, argue, grapple, get stuck, keep talking. Oh, and we laugh and laugh. Last night while we were writing about overeating triggers, we just seemed to find everything hilarious. We laughed so hard our sides hurt and we had tears running down our cheeks. It was two o'clock in the morning and I hope we didn't disturb the people in the apartment next door! Writing this book is so satisfying and exciting. We're really getting to the nub of overeating and it feels so empowering to be putting into words the work we've been doing both personally and professionally for the past few years.

Last night, after writing for several hours we headed up to Ostuni (the little white washed town on the hill) for our favourite dinner - a panzerotto. A panzertto is a sort of pizza with mozzarella and tomato inside, folded in half and deep fried in oil. It is light and crisp and absolutely divine. I hope that it's the last thing I ever eat. I've been eating panzerotti made by the two Torino sisters since I was 8 years old. After our panzerotti we went up to Ciccio's the ice-cream bar. Audrey didn't fancy ice-cream and had her heart set on a Rum Baba and to her dismay when we got there they'd run out of the little individual ones. She had a taster of pistachio ice cream and some almond one... but nothing hit the spot. She really wanted Rum Baba. They did have one, a rather large 8 portion beauty for £18, but nothing smaller. She sat there with me as I ate my ice-cream looking miserable, consoling herself with the thought of coming back tomorrow when they'd have a small one. And then I thought, why not just the buy the big one? So it's £18 but we'd only spent £5 so far on dinner and Mrs Ciccio had told Audrey it would freeze perfectly. "Get it" I suggested, "Why not?". Her face lit up like a child's! She was up like a shot and came back with a huge box holding her treasure. When we got back to La Rascina she had to wait an hour or so for it to de-frost and when she finally took her first bite she was transported into Rhum Baba heaven... it was the lightest, fluffiest, most delicately flavoured Baba ever, with sweet whipped cream and cherries on top... her huge grin and moans of delight were worth every pound. Giving ourselves what we want is so good for us, even when we tell ourselves it's indulgent or unnecessary. I am sure that our writing was more productive and fun for it. She was happy and satisfied and relaxed... all thanks to the Rum Baba but most importantly because she didn't shy away from giving herself what she wanted and satisfying her desire.

More writing today - we're aiming to complete three chapters on tuning-in to feelings, thoughts and BodyTalk... a chapter for each, a lot of detail... my heart flutters at the thought, spending the day doing something I love is just so wonderful, I am a very lucky woman indeed.

To Eat or Not To Eat – that is the question!

Gretel Hallet, is a Trained Chocolate Fairy and is running the Getting Started half day workshop in Norwich - perfect for beginners to experience the core principles of Beyond Chocolate and equally great as a refresher for any Beyond Chocolater. If you live in East Anglia and want to know more about Beyond Chocolate or her workshops, get in touch with Gretel.

I did something last night that I haven’t done for a couple of years at least but which I used to do on an almost daily basis. Before you get too excited, I’ll tell you that I'm talking about biscuits here! I ate the last one up so I could throw away the box and free up the tin for new arrivals. In this case it was a chocolate and coconut covered ‘snowball’, but in the past it could be almost anything – slices of cake, lumps of cheese, half packets of crisps, the last two doughnuts from a packet of six ... anything that ‘needed eating up’.

There are opposing issues here; on the one hand the issue of waste, on the other hand the issue of over-eating or eating when not hungry (and/or eating something I didn’t really want in the first place).

On the one hand, I can see that throwing food away is a waste (and this is one of the issues which is explored in the Beyond Chocolate Workshops) – and no-one particularly likes to waste money on food that is just being binned. There are, of course, lots of ways to avoid waste and I’m sure you can think of them for yourself, so I won’t go into them. Whether or not it’s desirable to eat food up rather than throw it away is the other question...

I don’t buy food I don’t like (unless specifically requested to do so by other members of my family), so technically all food in the house is food that I enjoy eating. If (when I eat) I stop when I’m satisfied, there’s often food left over. Recently it took me over 2 weeks to eat a packet of biscuits I would once have eaten in one go ... so all the while those biscuits were in the tin, they were technically left over and taking up space that could have been used by another biscuit. And what about the pizza we had the other evening? There were 2 slices left over but I didn’t eat them to get rid of them – I threw them away.

What I’m groping towards is an understanding of why I am happy to throw some food away and yet feel I have to eat up other food to get rid of it. I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of it in those terms before – that there are some foods I will eat rather than throw away, even if I don’t want them at that time.

Most illuminating – I thought I had no problem with waste – I thought I’d happily throw food away if it was no longer required, but it appears not. Food has acquired a sliding scale of virtue in my subconscious and some appears to deserve to eaten up rather than thrown away!

What, then, was the difference between the snowball and the pizza in my subconscious sliding scale of worth? Maybe it’s to do with whether the food is ‘complete’ or is the remainder of a previous meal? The snowball was the last from a packet of 12; the slices of pizza were the rejected remnants of supper. Intact food ‘deserves’ to be eaten up, previously enjoyed food doesn’t? Is that the difference for me?

Clearly this is something I’ll be working on for a while yet to see where the logic lies and what, if anything, I want to do about it. I don’t want to eat when not hungry any more. I don’t want to over-eat just to get rid of surplus food any more. So now I am aware of what I’m doing, I get to choose what to do about it ... that’s the Freedom of Beyond Chocolate!