Leslie M. Thornton

#1. Doughnut devil. I was 7 years old, I couldn't stop eating mini donuts.. When sweets came around, I was taken over by a force I could not control. This led me on a path of self-loathing, depression, and an inability to live freely or see outside myself for the majority of the first 20 years of my life as I consistently kept up food diaries, scribbled messages of how disappointed I was of myself, exercised, and based my mood every day on how big my body looked in the mirror that morning.

#2. Escaping judgment. I got the opportunity to study abroad in Mexico for a semester in college. This was the first time I ever lost all sight of and contact with ANYONE I knew outside of the occasional email. There was no one around to judge me. For the first time in my life I began questioning my own values and beliefs separated from those of my family's. I stopped drinking alcohol, I stopped caring about how much I ate (gained 30 pounds), and started caring a lot more about being a better, less selfish person.

#3. Independent learning. Post college graduation, I got the chance to learn what I wanted to learn. My favorite topics were self-development, and spirituality-related. The idea that my mind and my body were separate entities from myself was introduced to me after listening to the first YouTube video that popped up after searching, "how to achieve inner peace" on Google. This. Was. Powerful. If I wasn't my mind and I wasn't my body, then who was I?

#4. With this new way of looking at things, I had to find a way to kick this food/body image obsession right where it would hurt. This library book practically leapt into my arms one day called, The Alpha Solution for Permanent Weight Loss: Harness the Power of Your Subconscious Mind to Change Your Relationship with Food--Forever by Dr. Ronald J. Glassman. It was a book that taught self-hypnosis for weight loss. Through harnessesing the power of my unconscious mind through multiple modalities, including hypnosis, food no longer controls my life.

#5 My freedom. Once I released myself from food prison, I was then able to most effectively start on a path of meaning and success. I readily accepted a nursing job, and realized I wanted to help people create a healthy mind and feel good.

#6. Because of my life experiencs, weight loss coaching became the most amazing answer!

Here's to hoping my path has led me to yours!