My Weight Loss Story
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My Weight Loss Journey
Nadine Rosechild Sullivan, Ph.D.
I have struggled with food and weight issues since the age of twelve.
I am one of twelve siblings, 3/4ths of whom are (or have been)
more than a hundred pounds overweight, and 5/6ths of whom are
(or have been) more than fifty pounds overweight.
Our mother fought excess weight her entire life, and won, and
ultimately lost, more times than I can remember.
It is hard for me to deny the part genetics played in my overweight.
Like most of you reading, from my early teens, I tried every diet that
came along.
Some of them worked for a season.
For me, the only thing that worked with any regularity was full out
liquid fasting.
Obviously, as a lifestyle, that is very hard to maintain.
Five times I wrestled myself into living on a milk-based or fruit juice
diet for six months at a time, and lost all or most of my excess.
And I cannot count my own shorter fasts of ten days or better.
Across the span of decades, in any given year, there may have been
8 or 10 of them. (When it came time for the short, pre-op liquid fast,
I was already a veteran.)
When I added hypnotherapy as a modality to my counseling practice, I became quite impressed with its results.
In my own experience, hypnotizing others and receiving hypnotherapy, I find that when used to uncover and address
unconscious motivations, fears, phobias, and trauma, the combination of exploratory hypnotherapy and post-hypnotic
suggestion can have amazing and liberating effects.
Not unlike deep prayer or guided meditation, hypnosis can be a means of connecting with our inner selves.
Well done, it can be deeply spiritual.
About two years ago, while actively doing weight loss hypnosis for clients, at more than 160 pounds overweight, I also
sought out hypnotherapy for my own weight issues.
In my own experience, in some ways, hypnosis worked better than any diet I had ever been on.
It actually changed my attitude toward, and relationship with, food.
My hypnotherapist helped me explore my psychological and unconscious connections to food and weight and sense of
self. That hypnotherapy uncovered the motivations driving me to overeat and revolutionized my use of food.
Food lost its hold on me.
That exploration led to enough behavioral change that, in the next six months, I lost 40 pounds.
Over the next year, I maintained a significant portion of that loss.
However, my physical realities would not be denied.
I still had significant weight to lose.
I had long-standing hypertension and high cholesterol. My snoring heralded the beginning of sleep apnea, and I was at
the onset of diabetes.
About that time, my daughter decided to have weight loss surgery, and to stop her, I spent two days researching the
risks in the academic and medical journals.
Instead of finding the ammunition I needed to talk her out of it, the medical articles talked me into it.
When I compared the risks with the weight I still had to lose, my growing weight-related health issues, the approach of
menopause, the damage I had done to my metabolism in the decades of yo-yo dieting, and my inherited genetics, I
made a decision to take the help that surgery offered. (Even with the small, nutritious, balanced meals I found
satisfactory after hypnosis, my body treated every attempt to lose weight as a natural disaster it was bound and
determined to resist. From an evolutionary perspective, in a famine, I would have been deemed "the fittest" and
survived.)
I followed my daughter to the operating room, just two and a half months behind.
Pre-op, the work I did in hypnotherapy prepared me to face surgery without fear.
Post-op, my explorations in my unconscious have been of longstanding benefit and continue to bless and strengthen me
as I undertake a new way of life.
I remain not-driven by food, any food. . . .
With the help of the tools I combined, hypnotherapy and weight loss surgery, I have reached and am maintaining my
target weight and enjoying a mental and physical freedom I have not known since early childhood.
I wish you all the best, and am available to help hypnotherapeutically, as you move forward toward your own victories
and freedoms.
© 2010 Nadine Rosechild Sullivan, Ph.D.
Nadine Rosechild Sullivan, Ph.D.
I have struggled with food and weight issues since the age of twelve.
I am one of twelve siblings, 3/4ths of whom are (or have been)
more than a hundred pounds overweight, and 5/6ths of whom are
(or have been) more than fifty pounds overweight.
Our mother fought excess weight her entire life, and won, and
ultimately lost, more times than I can remember.
It is hard for me to deny the part genetics played in my overweight.
Like most of you reading, from my early teens, I tried every diet that
came along.
Some of them worked for a season.
For me, the only thing that worked with any regularity was full out
liquid fasting.
Obviously, as a lifestyle, that is very hard to maintain.
Five times I wrestled myself into living on a milk-based or fruit juice
diet for six months at a time, and lost all or most of my excess.
And I cannot count my own shorter fasts of ten days or better.
Across the span of decades, in any given year, there may have been
8 or 10 of them. (When it came time for the short, pre-op liquid fast,
I was already a veteran.)
When I added hypnotherapy as a modality to my counseling practice, I became quite impressed with its results.
In my own experience, hypnotizing others and receiving hypnotherapy, I find that when used to uncover and address
unconscious motivations, fears, phobias, and trauma, the combination of exploratory hypnotherapy and post-hypnotic
suggestion can have amazing and liberating effects.
Not unlike deep prayer or guided meditation, hypnosis can be a means of connecting with our inner selves.
Well done, it can be deeply spiritual.
About two years ago, while actively doing weight loss hypnosis for clients, at more than 160 pounds overweight, I also
sought out hypnotherapy for my own weight issues.
In my own experience, in some ways, hypnosis worked better than any diet I had ever been on.
It actually changed my attitude toward, and relationship with, food.
My hypnotherapist helped me explore my psychological and unconscious connections to food and weight and sense of
self. That hypnotherapy uncovered the motivations driving me to overeat and revolutionized my use of food.
Food lost its hold on me.
That exploration led to enough behavioral change that, in the next six months, I lost 40 pounds.
Over the next year, I maintained a significant portion of that loss.
However, my physical realities would not be denied.
I still had significant weight to lose.
I had long-standing hypertension and high cholesterol. My snoring heralded the beginning of sleep apnea, and I was at
the onset of diabetes.
About that time, my daughter decided to have weight loss surgery, and to stop her, I spent two days researching the
risks in the academic and medical journals.
Instead of finding the ammunition I needed to talk her out of it, the medical articles talked me into it.
When I compared the risks with the weight I still had to lose, my growing weight-related health issues, the approach of
menopause, the damage I had done to my metabolism in the decades of yo-yo dieting, and my inherited genetics, I
made a decision to take the help that surgery offered. (Even with the small, nutritious, balanced meals I found
satisfactory after hypnosis, my body treated every attempt to lose weight as a natural disaster it was bound and
determined to resist. From an evolutionary perspective, in a famine, I would have been deemed "the fittest" and
survived.)
I followed my daughter to the operating room, just two and a half months behind.
Pre-op, the work I did in hypnotherapy prepared me to face surgery without fear.
Post-op, my explorations in my unconscious have been of longstanding benefit and continue to bless and strengthen me
as I undertake a new way of life.
I remain not-driven by food, any food. . . .
With the help of the tools I combined, hypnotherapy and weight loss surgery, I have reached and am maintaining my
target weight and enjoying a mental and physical freedom I have not known since early childhood.
I wish you all the best, and am available to help hypnotherapeutically, as you move forward toward your own victories
and freedoms.
© 2010 Nadine Rosechild Sullivan, Ph.D.
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