During peri menopause – those years leading up to menopause - my weight began to climb. It seemed slow, so I didn't really notice it until my clothes were tight and I couldn't deny it anymore. I stepped on the scale one morning to see the cold hard numbers: I had gained 20 pounds in two years. And the trend didn't seem likely to end. At this rate, I would one day be a 500-pound old lady.
What was happening? I decided to look into it.
I learned that women heading toward menopause begin to lay down stores of fat. Fat holds estrogen, so as we quit manufacturing our own supplies of estrogen, our bodies plan ahead by hoarding it.
Okay, this is all good information, but who cares? I want to get rid of this fat, to reverse the weight gain, and…this is the kicker…WITHOUT PILLS. I didn't want to take hormones or diet pills. I simply wanted to eat as much as I wanted, and stop this weight gain.
I started by asking myself a few questions:
1. What does food represent to me?
2. Why do I eat when I'm not hungry?
3. Why do skinny people seem to eat whatever they want?
The answers were simple: Food represented comfort. I ate when I wasn't hungry for nutrition - I was hungry for comfort, for security, for that wonderful feeling of well being that comes from satiation..
But skinny people eat when they are hungry for nutrition, not for comfort. How do they do that? Surely they need comfort too. Maybe they get it elsewhere, and not from food. The irony is that by eating this way, they can easily fit "forbidden" treats into their plan without going overboard. And since they aren't ashamed of their eating, they do it in public – where we see them – eating whatever they feel like eating.
It was at this point that the lightbulb went on in the thought bubble above my cartoon head:
Eating is in your mind.
Our eating is dictated by our emotions, not our stomachs.
What if we could fix that, so that we truly WANTED to eat only when our bodies – not our hearts - were actually hungry?
What if we could change what we WANT? What if we could reprogram our brains to change – permanently -what we want to eat? To train our brains to respect our bodies and crave only healthful foods?
That's when the LimbaSlim solution hit me. Hypnosis works on the principle of suggestibility: implanting a suggestion when the brain is in a particular stage of relaxation called alpha. After a hypnosis session, one feels strong, in control. It is a wonderful feeling, and really works to keep cravings at bay. But the cravings always come back. The suggestions in hypnosis aren't lasting – they need something more.
Aromatherapy also works, to an extent. But maybe there was a way to make it work even better. Smells have a unique ability - to transport us, to trigger memories long forgotten. The smell of the ocean on a particular day, the smell of a certain long forgotten perfume - out of the blue, a sniff can take us back in time. Science calls this olfactory memory. The smell triggers the limbic system of the brain – the part of the brain responsible for emotion and memory. Remember how we decided that overeating was more emotion than nutrition?
What if, I reasoned, one could combine fragrance and meditation to create a double whammy of alpha suggestibility? Could that potentially create an unstoppable motivation to achieve one's goals? A brand new smell coupled with a motivational meditation would give the mind a brand new path - a trigger accessible anytime, forever, to bring one's mind back to a place of willpower and self assurance by simply taking a whiff of a brand new smell uniquely associated with that feeling of strength and calm.
This is why I invented LimbaSlim. It is a unique program that combines aromatherapy with a guided meditation you do at home. The meditation is only 10 minutes long, and teaches you to love your body and crave only healthful nutritious foods. Before listening, you dab a bit of LimbaSlim fragrance beneath your nose. Then you carry a pocket-sized LimbaSniffer with you to reinforce your willpower throughout the day. AND IT WORKS. My weight now goes down instead of up. I am not on a diet, and I eat exactly what I want to eat, in whatever quantity I need. I feel better than I've felt in many years, as I have happily released those 20 pounds without consciously changing a thing. I listen to the LimbaSlim meditation about once a week now, and I carry the LimbaSlim fragrance with me always, either in a necklace or the LimbaSniffer.
I know I will never be overweight again. It was all in my head all along.
Thank you for reading my story.
Rebecca Barnard is the owner of LimbaSystems, LLC, in Friday Harbor, Washington, where she lives with her husband, two teenagers, five ducks, two cats and a dog named Sugar.
