Core You Hypnotherapy

01/05/2026

The next time a craving hits, have a glass of lemon water first.

You’re not just distracting yourself,�you’re putting a brake on the habit loop.

The smell and sharp, sour taste pull you out of autopilot and brings your nervous system back into the present moment.

Then the physiology kicks in.

Lemon gently supports blood glucose stability, more stable blood sugar means fewer spikes and crashes, so fewer urgent sugar cravings.

It also contains vitamin C, which helps lower cortisol.
If you’re an emotional or stress eater, cortisol is often running high… and that’s when sugar cravings ramp up.
�This is a small but powerful way to calm that cycle.

Then there are the polyphenols, plant compounds that support metabolic health and improve insulin sensitivity over time.
Better insulin response = your body handles sugar more efficiently, instead of storing it or craving more of it.

And here’s the often overlooked part.
The sour taste actually helps retrain your palate.

When you regularly expose your taste buds to sour foods, your desire for overly sweet foods starts to decrease.

Your taste buds renew every 10–14 days, so this shift can happen faster than you think.

So instead of fighting cravings…
You’re shifting the biology and the brain behind them.

Small habit. Big ripple effect.

30/04/2026

Biology 🧬
Your appetite is tightly regulated by hormones, blood sugar, and gut signalling. Insulin resistance plays a large part within this, but it’s just one of the aspects.

Hormones like GLP-1 are released in the gut after eating and help switch off hunger and increase satiety signals.

Your gut microbiome plays a role in this by producing compounds (short-chain fatty acids) that support GLP-1 release and metabolic health. Without a good microbiome, this becomes blunted, satiety isn’t signalled.

If this system is dysregulated, you’re more likely to:
* feel hungry soon after eating
* experience stronger cravings for high-energy foods
* struggle to feel fully satisfied

Epinutrition 🥦🧬
Food isn’t just calories, it sends instructions to your body that signal gene expression. This is the biological bridge of lifestyle and choices and metabolic health.

Psychology 🧠
Habits and learned patterns.
Repeating behaviours strengthens neural pathways in the brain (basal ganglia), making eating responses more automatic over time.

Stress, boredom, or certain environments become cues, which trigger learned eating behaviours, followed by reward (dopamine release).
That loop is what keeps patterns running.

Nervous System 🫀
Stress physiology has a direct impact on appetite and food choices.
Elevated cortisol can:

* increase hunger signals
* drive preference for calorie-dense foods
* impair prefrontal cortex function (decision-making and impulse control)
At the same time, a dysregulated nervous system increases the need for quick, reliable energy, often interpreted as cravings.

Most approaches focus on restricting food. That’s why they don’t work long term.

When you address all of these, you start to see real change:
* more stable appetite regulation
* reduced reward-driven eating
* fewer intrusive thoughts about food

This is the framework I use.

Yes calories matter, but you need to change the biology of the body, calm the nervous system, understand reward driven behaviour, and the power of food to change gene expression.
Otherwise your body will fight against the reduction.

28/04/2026

We tend to think of vit c as immune system support.

But its actually supporting the HPA axis (stress response) and helping to regulate cortisol.

Research shows it can reduce the spike in cortisol during stress and support adrenal function when you’re under pressure.

One controlled study in women with chronic stress and elevated cortisol found that taking around 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily for 8 weeks significantly lowered both cortisol and DHEA-S compared to those who didn’t supplement.

So if you’re under ongoing physical or emotional stress, vitamin C can help bring those stress hormones back toward a more balanced, healthy range.

What else vitamin C is doing 🤩

* Histamine regulation
Vitamin C helps break down histamine in the body. When levels are low, histamine can build up, leading to things like headaches, skin flare-ups, anxiety, and poor sleep (all of which are often worse during stress).

* Nervous system support
It’s involved in making neurotransmitters like dopamine, so it can support mood, focus, and resilience when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

* Antioxidant protection
Stress increases oxidative stress in the body. Vitamin C helps buffer that, protecting your cells and supporting recovery.

* Energy + resilience
It also supports iron absorption, which impacts energy, this can take a hit when you’re run down or stressed.

* Collagen production 
Vitamin C is required for the enzymes that stabilise and build collagen fibres. Without enough vitamin C, your body literally can’t form strong, structured collagen properly.

* Skin, joints, and connective tissue
Because collagen is the main structural protein in skin, joints, ligaments, and blood vessels, vitamin C indirectly supports skin firmness, joint strength, and tissue integrity.

* Wound healing + repair
When your body is repairing itself, whether that’s skin, muscle, or internal tissue, collagen demand increases, and so does your need for vitamin C.

* Stress connection 
Chronic stress increases cortisol, which can break down collagen over time and slow repair. At the same time, stress burns through vitamin C faster, so you end up with less of what you need to rebuild.

Vit C 💪💪

27/04/2026

Your mindset matters 🧠

Most people begin weight loss with a goal and there is nothing wrong with that in principle.
But often it is the goal itself that gets in the way.

A goal based mindset tends to become a performance mindset. Think about sports, you either win or you lose.

💪I have got to be good
💪I need to stay on plan
Behaviour becomes tightly monitored, usually paired with restriction.

The problem is life doesn’t work like that. life isn’t about winning or losing.

You can’t always stay on plan and you can’t always sustain restriction, and when you don’t it gets labelled as failure.

Weight loss is not a performance. It is a process.

It is about learning what actually works for you and what is sustainable long term.

It involves changing your relationship with food, stress, sleep, movement, circadian rhythm and hormones.

These are not rules to perfect. They are parts of you and your life to understand.

This is a process of relearning, of growth, of building trust with your choices and your body.

One that requires an iterative mindset.
One that reflects, learns and adapts.
One that stays curious about what can be repeated, what needs to change and what information the body is giving you.

This is why other markers matter, not just the scales, but energy levels, sleep quality, brain fog, emotional balance and physical pain.

These things offer feedback,

When we look beyond the number on the scales, we start to understand why certain choices matter. When we can see and feel improvements in health, we bring back a sense of agency.

That is where real progress comes from.
Not perfection.
Not failure.
Just information.

Don’t let the scales be a measure of performance, let them be a source of feedback.

💕

22/04/2026

Yes, eat more than you need and you’ll gain weight. We all get that…eat less move more… yes it’s the mathematics, but it’s so reductionist….aargh!

Explain that to the peri/menopausal woman whose weight is climbing… despite no change in diet.

What changed?

Why could you “eat anything” when you were younger, but not now. Why does middle age spread happen ?

It’s not just willpower. It’s biology.

Your body’s ability to manage insulin changes.

As estrogen declines, cortisol rises.
Cortisol raises blood glucose.
Blood glucose raises insulin.
Chronically high insulin drives insulin resistance. Couple this with a diet that’s top heavy in carbs and this will start much earlier than menopause.

Insulin isn’t just about blood sugar. It influences:
– Appetite
– Behaviour
– Reward pathways
– Fat storage
– Satiety
– Even memory

Calories don’t modulate for any of the above, insulin does.

Insulin resistance is at the root of so much:
Anxiety. Depression. Addiction.
Brain fog. Fatigue. Obesity.
Alzheimer, Coronary artery disease, Diabetes, fertility, 13 cancers,
The list goes on…

Yet some still bring it back to “eat less, move more.”

That kind of reductionist thinking fuels shame and self blame, as if it’s just a lack of discipline.

It’s not.

Obesity is a neurobiological condition, underpinned by insulin resistance.
It’s one of the key drivers for epigenetic changes.

Calorie counting?

It often disconnects people from their bodies, driving disordered eating and loss of internal cues and interoceptive awareness.

So tell me…
why are we still treating the body like a calculator?

Rather than educating and empowering.

Understanding the complexities of obesity sit in the psychology, neurobiology and social aspects.

17/04/2026

You know what you should do, but you just don’t seem to be able to do it.

You’re not lacking willpower

It’s your habenula 👋

The brains anti reward system.

It’s in charge of putting the breaks on dopamine and serotonin.

It’s activated each time an expected reward doesn’t materialise. Like going on a diet and not reaching your goal.

When the expected reward isn’t received, dopamine is suppressed, and future efforts are met with ‘what’s the point’.

It’s through continued pattern recognition, that the habenula becomes sensitive to these percieved failures.

In an attempt to protect you from feeling like you’ve failed, it offer a less than helpful ‘meh’ feeling which stops you from trying again.

It’s the reason why you know you should eat better, but don’t, or drink less but don’t, or stop smoking and don’t etc etc…

Understanding the habenula helps to shift blame, your mindset matters. When it comes to behaviour change you need to learn the language of the habenula.

The thing is…it’s not just about the mind, the gut microbiome is deeply connected to your emotion regulation system, in particular the habenula.

This is why you can’t just treat the mind, you must also understand the body. When the gut is inflamed, this has a direct impact upon the neurotransmitters that communicate and calm the emotion centre.

This results in increased anxiety,
negative self talk,
lack of motivation
depression

It’s not just your mindset that has to change.

💕

14/04/2026

When we think about dieting, we often focus on food.

But what if the real impact isn’t just what you eat… it’s what dieting does to your emotional world?

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory shows that our emotional states shape how we think and behave.

Positive emotions like joy, satisfaction, and curiosity expand our thinking. They make us more flexible, open, and better able to regulate ourselves.

But when we shift toward negative emotional states like guilt or shame, or when we impose strict rules and control, we create the opposite effect.

They narrow attention, and push us into control mode, and we often mistake that control for safety.

So when we apply this to weight loss, eating becomes tied to thoughts like:
I shouldn’t have had that
I’ve ruined today

This isn’t just a passing thought.

You’re putting your brain into a narrowing state and activating a stress response in your nervous system.

Not only does this create a physiological shift in the body, but over time it can lead to more rigid thinking, and a reduced capacity for joy, spontaneity, and presence.

Positive emotions help loosen the hold of negative ones and create upward spirals of wellbeing.

This is why healing your relationship with food isn’t just about eating differently.
It’s about restoring access to joy.

Not guilt.
Not shame.
This is how you move from control… back into choice.

💕

08/04/2026

30/03/2026

You don’t lack confidence, you have a self trust problem.

Confidence is a feeling…
and feelings change

So if you rely on confidence, you’ll only show up when you feel like it.

That’s why you keep starting and stopping.

Every time you say…
I’ll start Monday
I won’t snack
I’ll go for a walk
and then don’t
You break trust with yourself.

Your brain learns ‘I can’t rely on me’.

That’s the real issue

Not confidence…Self trust, and self trust is built through proof.

Small things, done consistently, even when you don’t feel like it !

That’s where real confidence comes from.

Not motivation

Just evidence

So stop asking
how do I feel more confident
and start asking
how do I become someone I trust.

Because when you trust yourself
confidence follows.

💕

24/03/2026

What ever you’re looking to change, you need to know that the mind doesn’t need to see the entire journey.

It just needs a clear small single next step.

From a neuroscience perspective, dopamine isn’t just released when you achieve a goal. It’s released in anticipation of progress.

When a task feels vague or overwhelming, the brain registers uncertainty, which then increases resistance and stress. This ultimately reduces motivation and halts you before you’ve even started.

When you define a specific, achievable next step, you get a shift:

• Cognitive load decreases
• Perceived effort lowers
• The brain predicts success

That prediction is what triggers a dopamine response, reinforcing focus, motivation, and sets the ball in motion.

So instead of focusing on the end goal, focus on what is the next actionable step.

Motivation is not something you wait for.

It’s something the brain generates in response to clarity and achievable action.

Progress creates momentum not just psychologically but also neurochemically.

Sometimes… that next step is just starting a conversation.

You’ll be surprised how different things feel when your brain no longer has to figure it all out alone.

21/03/2026

When something feels real enough, when you can feel it, your mind begins to accept it as reality.

You only have to think about how powerful this is when it comes to worst-case scenarios…

Your body reacts, your emotions rise, your whole physiology has changed, and yet nothing has actually happened.

That’s the power of your imagination.

It’s why allowing yourself to daydream matters.

This is why hypnosis is so effective.

It allows you to mentally rehearse the outcomes you want, while layering in the emotional depth that makes those experiences feel real.

This is how the mind learns.
Not just through words or images, but through feelings.

Emotion is the glue that makes change stick.

It’s not enough to simply see the life you want…

You have to feel it.

💕