3 High Fliers Open Up About Their Obsession With Chocolate

WE‘VE ALL heard of comfort eating, and yet when we feel the pinch of our too-tight jeans and that inner voice chastising us for ‘doing it again’,we realise that there is nothing comfortable nor comforting about it.

You might think that scoffing a bar of chocolate is your very own guilty secret, and you’d be surprised to know how many outwardly successful people just like you are inhaling chocolate so fast the evidence is gone before the wrapper hits the table.

Here are three recent case studies of REAL people who realised their chocolate habit had to stop - and made it happen.

Andy, mid 40s, entrepreneur.

Andy goes to the gym four times a week. He enjoys a dram now and again. He’s a family man - with a guilty secret. Each night when he takes the dog for a walk he buys a share sized bar of chocolate - and eats it all-by-himself.

The first couple of chunks might be savoured, the rest inhaled, and the evidence squirrelled away in the bin. He’s got a strong physique, but knows he could feel and look much better if only he quit the sweet stuff.

He’s since quit the chocolate and given up snacking. He’s dropped a notch on his belt, reduced his weight by 5.5kg (12 lbs), and now has a healthy disinterest in sweet treats (much to the amusement of his children who have been trying to force feed him cake).

Katie, late 50s, office worker.

Katie sees herself as a smoker, and she eats chocolate. She comes home from work, has supper, then settles down for a night of Netflix; within a few minutes the chocolate cravings kick in and off she pops to the nearby shop where she’ll stock up on her favourite treats. Once cocooned back on her usual spot on the couch she’ll eat the lot. Two to three packets of crisps and whatever chocolate caught her eye that night.

“It’s only a couple of quid”, she tells herself, so it’s not the money that made her realise she had to stop, it’s the fact that she barely tastes any of it and as soon as it’s gone she’s berating herself for having troughed it. Katie is, in her own words, “three stone overweight”, and “doesn’t like exercise”; this chocolate is pushing the lifestyle she dreams further out of her reach and her willpower (which easily tires out) is not enough to regain control.

Katie no longer eats chocolate or crisps. She doesn’t miss either (watch this space for an update on her smoking too).

Karina, early 50s, entrepreneur.

“Whenever I go to buy petrol, I buy sweets,” Karina tells me. “I didn’t think it was a big deal, except that I can’t not buy them and sometimes I find I’ve eaten most of the packet of Maltesers before I’ve even got halfway home. When I do get home, I’ll keep up with the snacking because there was nothing satisfying about the sweets on the drive home.”

Karina no longer eats chocolate, sweets, pastries, cakes or crisps and whenever anybody offers her some she simply tells the truth: “No thanks, I don’t eat that stuff anymore, go ahead if you want some.”

Before these three lovely, professional, successful, smart and capable people came to me for hypnotherapy & coaching they were:

➡️ Gaining weight.

➡️ Pumping sugar into their bodies causing imbalance and stress.

➡️ Isolating themselves

➡️ Stuffing down their emotions.

➡️ Negating their hard work at the gym or feeling too overweight to go.

➡️ Wasting their money on sweets they weren’t even enjoying.

➡️ Annoyed and criticising themselves for their behaviour.

➡️ Exhausted from the sugar and constant inner battle about whether or not they should be doing it.

So, why didn’t they just stop?

They tried to “just stop”, but still found the chocolate and sweets in their hands, in their mouths, in their bellies - and very very rarely in the bin. For a while it felt easier to just ‘live with it’ than try to stop it.

The MAIN reason they kept eating the chocolate or sugary snacks is that they were ‘deciding’ not to eat it at a conscious level (5% of your mind), but the chocolate addiction was being driven by the unconscious mind (which is the REAL driving force and makes up approx the other 95% of your mind, yes, really!!).

They had, in a nutshell (not a fruit and nut though!), fallen into bad habits that were set to run like clockwork. Each one had their own ‘special set of circumstances’ that triggered them to head to the shop and fill their face.

The initial rush of the feel good chemicals (serotonin) were short lived and left them feeling even more flat than when they first started. Your reasons for eating the chocolate might not be the same as theirs, why you’re doing it will often come to light during a hypnosis session with me, and even if it doesn’t, we can still get you the results you want (which I’m guessing if you’re still here is to STOP doing it, and make healthier choices).

Now Andy, Katie and Karina have switched their sugary slippery slopes for better solutions like drinking water, eating fruit, dancing to music - instead of numbing out their feelings.

What’s your story? Do you know why you eat those little squares of hard brown stuff? Do you wish you could stop but think it’ll be too hard? Do you convince yourself that it’s a reward or a little treat after a hard day? The ‘thing’ that you are eating to try to alleviate stress is actually causing you more stress? Do you want to nail the habit once and for all?

Truth is, the chocolate (or crisps or snacks) are never a treat when the habit stresses you out, causes you to gain weight, disrupt your sleep, when your behaviour goes directly against your goals and who you want to be - when you feel rubbish about yourself and know you’re trapped in a vicious circle.

Andy, Katie and Karina came to see me for hypnotherapy in autumn 2022, and four months on haven’t gone near any of the stuff at all - and they don’t miss it.

Each of them bought ONE SINGLE hypnosis session and stopped their snacking habit completely (available in person and online).

💖 What if you could stop the sugar and lose weight without maxing out your willpower?

💖 How would it feel to make healthier food choices without a major headache?

💖 Imagine if ONE single hypnosis session with me was all it took to annihilate that habit?

If that sounds good to you, it’s time to reach out.

Email me sophia@sophiahanson.com, or ping me a message on WhatsApp - 07787 701 131.

P.S. - The BEST part is, once we’ve done this session you are unlikely to even be interested in chocolate or those old go-to feeling-numbers. You’ll look at chocolate like it’s a weird thing that other people do but not you. What’ve you got to lose - except a few pounds from your middle!

Email me sophia@sophiahanson.com, or ping me a message on WhatsApp - 07787 701 131. And, if you’d love to feast your mind on good stuff, come and get involved on Facebook.