There she was: A tall, leggy, waif thin, gorgeous blonde.
But it wasn't me. It was a picture of a model tacked to the inside of my school locker door. I thought that if I could look like her, I would find happiness, and that my life would go as I wished.
I was only 13 years old.
This was the beginning of a decade of continuous war against my body, in which I struggled with food compulsions and binging episodes. At this time, the act of overeating became an experience of release and wild abandon.
Out of fear that my binges would be punished with dreaded weight gain, I forced myself to throw up afterwards, sometimes multiple times a day. I was caught in a cycle of secretive binging and purging rituals, and lived with a heavy burden of shame and self-loathing.
Eventually, as I graduated high school and entered university, I stopped being bulimic, however, my binging, compulsive eating, and bad body image still continued. Guilt and disgust with myself continued to shadow me.
For years, I felt stuck in my own miserable food jail.
Today, I am now happy to say that I maintain a healthy, natural weight without the slightest shred of deprivation or punishing exercise.
Yet, it didn't happen overnight. I went through many stages, learning from people and events that serendipitously entered my life. Each stage revealed a new insight and a new step forward.
It began with an environmentalist who initiated me to the ways of Nature. Spending time with Mother Nature softened my fiercely negative body image, and planted a seed of self-compassion. Then a trip to India sparked the beginning of a spiritual odyssey in which I learned self-love and self-respect through the teachings of the divine feminine.
The philosophy of yoga helped me understand that true happiness resides within, and is not achieved through external accomplishments, including being thin. I dedicated myself to practicing yoga and became less needy of external validation.
Yet despite my insights, spiritual tools and the progress I was making, I wasn't invincible. I fell many, many times, seemingly moving backwards.
After India, I worked in the French Caribbean and developed a habit of daily binges on mouth-watering French patisseries with tropical fruits. And even after studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and moving to New York City to become a health coach, I was still binging, and still struggling with my out-of-control cravings and my weight.
I felt like a hypocrite.
I could have hidden this fact from you, but I want to be honest. I want you to know my true story because it's important to me that you know that I know what it's like to know better and to overeat anyway.
From personal experience, I know what it's like to struggle with weight loss. I know what it's like to pressure myself to be thin, to battle an eating disorder, to struggle with the emotional ups and downs, and to feel burdened by guilt and shame.
I also understand the bitterness, confusion and disappointment of investing time and money to attain knowledge and spiritual tools, and yet still not being able to translate it into the results you want for yourself.
Then after, I'd almost lost hope that anything would ever change, I discovered the key I'd been missing--pleasure.
I learned how consciously adding pleasure to my life could help me escape the hell of hating my own body and to allow me to lose weight naturally. And woman, I want you to have the same key.
I work with women of all ages through my live Pleasure Camps, online programs, popular website, social media outlets, and through my private coaching. I'm honored to have helped thousands of women from all around the world, lose weight, heal emotional eating, and look and feel feminine -- pleasurably. My work has been featured in Elle, Glamour, Prevention magazine, New York Times, ABC, NBC, on the Discovery Health Channel, and more.
Raised in Ireland and Australia, I now live and teach in Mill Valley, California with my husband, David Trevors.
If you can relate to my struggles, if you too have been battling with your body, then let me help you escape this prison and join me on a new journey to pleasurable weight loss. I can't wait to share with you the missing key you need to have the sexy, feminine body that you enjoy to the fullest, and a new, liberated and balanced relationship with food.
