Hello, I’m Kirsty

I know what it’s like when food starts taking up far too much space in your head.

In my 20s, my relationship with food became complicated. What started as a difficult relationship gradually became a cycle of overeating, restriction, over-exercising and trying to be “perfect” – while constantly thinking about what I should or shouldn’t eat.

Food became something to control, earn and balance out. And the mental noise was exhausting.

At 28, a friend helped me realise just how much my world had shrunk. I wanted my life back. I wanted to enjoy meals out, socialise, exercise because I enjoyed it and, most of all, stop constantly negotiating with rules and the bully in my mind.

With the help of an incredible therapist and a lot of deeper work, I began to understand that my behaviour wasn’t random.

There were patterns underneath it. Emotions, beliefs and experiences that had shaped the way I responded to food and exercise – often without me even consciously realising it.

I started to understand how the subconscious mind can create patterns that once served a purpose, but can eventually leave us stuck in behaviours that no longer serve us.

Rather than judging what I was doing, I learned how to become curious about it, and how to question myself, the pattern or subconscious response, and resolve the issues.

• What emotion was driving the behaviour?
• What was really going on underneath the food or exercise?
• What was I trying to manage, avoid or cope with?
• What patterns had I learned and continued to repeat?

The more I understood the connection between what I was feeling, what I was thinking and how I was behaving, the more I could begin to interrupt those old patterns and make different choices.

Slowly, things changed.

I learned that restriction can give food even more power. I stopped seeing foods as simply “good” or “bad” and began rebuilding trust in myself. And more importantly, I began to recognise which emotions were triggering which behaviours.

Food stopped being such a battleground. Exercise became something I genuinely enjoyed. I found more flexibility, balance and – perhaps most importantly – more mental space for the rest of my life.