Senior educator, perimenopausal. 10lbs lost and transformed relationship with food.

Clare was fantastic at looking at the big picture and breaking my long term goals down into bitesize, achievable steps. These steps looked at my relationship with food and how I could improve my bad habits with realistic targets. Initially, this might be by addressing just one, seemingly small negative thing that I was doing and giving me an alternative to work towards. These small gains were achievable and therefore promoted a positive sense of self. Achieving these goals made me feel like a winner and made long term success realistic.

Having the weekly check ins with me over the phone to discuss my progress for the week really helped me work towards my goals. This involved going over my goals for the previous week and working out what I had achieved. 

As well as my relationship with food, Clare also worked with me in discussing how I could improve my overall fitness levels. I think that when I’ve set out on a new fitness programme in the past, I’ve gone in over the top and burnt myself out within a few months. Clare’s tips were realistic and achievable, even in my busy working day. If I didn’t always manage to keep moving, Clare would look at what I had achieved and make me feel good about that whilst finding ways to address the things that were challenging me.

I feel that I am much more in control of my eating. I am more mindful about what I eat and take more accountability for it. If I go to the food cupboard now, I find myself having a conversation with myself about what I am about to eat and how it will make me feel afterwards. If i go ahead and eat it, then I know that I will be able to balance my intake elsewhere. Gone are the days when I sit on the sofa and consume a whole tube of pringles and a large bar of chocolate without even engaging with what I was doing. My binge eating is now under control.

Through Clare’s coaching, I’ve realised that you don’t need high impact cardio to keep fit, there are other more gentle ways of getting exercise that suit me better. This is so beneficial to my mental health and as a result I feel much more positive about things and more in control.

The most useful tips and/or techniques to bring about a change were: Being mindful about my actions and being informed. Clare shared with me the nutritional value of foods, what I should be aiming for regarding proteins and carbs etc… and which foods were most likely to benefit me at my age. I think being knowledgeable about what you eat is so important at any age, but as I hit 50, Clare helped me to realise that I needed to be kind to my body and give it the right fuel to promote long term health benefits.

Clare also helped me find suitable exercises to promote muscle retention. I’ve always shied away from gyms and weights, but it’s amazing what you can achieve in 20 minutes in your lounge with a couple of dumbbells!

I now have more energy now. I’m not hungry all the time because I’m getting the right nutrients, at the right time – especially protein, vitamins and fibre. In the past when I have gone on a diet, I have focused on calorie deficit to bring the weight off. Clare has helped me to realise that as well as controlling calories, I also need to think about the type of fuel I’m consuming and how this makes me feel. I now see this not as a diet but as a lifestyle choice and feel lighter and fitter as a result. I don’t get the hip pain anymore, that I used to get when I was running, which is great. My sleep has improved and even though I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, I am better equipped at using my breathing to help me get back to sleep instead of lying there stressing for an hour or two as I did in the past.

I’d recommend Clare to anyone wanting to improve their understanding of nutrition and the relationship with food, at any age. I wish I’d known all this when I was in my twenties as nutrition is so important as a building block for the future. I’m perimenopausal and I think women of this age could benefit so much from working with Clare. I would recommend that, if you haven’t done anything about improving your diet and well-being, or feel things have spiralled a bit, then get in touch with Clare. It’s so easy in this busy world to allow your diet, health and wellbeing to take a back seat, but investing in this is so important. I think Clare could help both men and women of any age to take positive steps to a healthier lifestyle.

Clare is a very friendly and supportive person who is dedicated to helping others. She is professional and knowledgeable but has a way of explaining the science behind nutrition so that even I can understand the impact small changes can make. Clare invests so much time in her clients. She made me feel special and I know that she created a bespoke programme for me, not one that she pulled off the shelf and tweaked a bit. She listened to what I wanted, engaged with the baggage I brought to the table (and at 50+ there was plenty of bad eating habits to deal with!) and found a way to work with it. She was flexible too, if something wasn’t working for me she would spend the time looking for alternatives. What Clare did really well though, was making me feel normal and offering suggestions as to why I did certain things. Understanding this has really helped me to address the issues I had with food and deal with them in a healthy way. 

I really liked the fact that at our weekly check ins, Clare was always prepared for the meeting and knew exactly what we’d said the previous week, such as what my weekly goals were. She listened and then summed up for me concisely what she thought I was saying, so that any misunderstandings were avoided. Then she offered ideas for my next weekly goals which she sent to me shortly afterwards in an email so that I had them on hand to refer to. For busy people, this was great as it meant we achieved a lot in a concise time.