Emotional eating hypnotherapy in Penzance and online
Change your relationship with food, with help from someone who has lived it.
If you keep eating when you are not hungry and cannot explain why, you are not greedy and you are not weak willed. You are soothing feelings with food.
I did it for years before I understood what was happening. Whole packets of biscuits, whole bars of chocolate, because they made me feel good in the moment. I thought that was just who I was. It was not, and it is not who you are either.
Why do I overeat when I don’t want to?
Because eating like this is emotionally driven. Boredom, sadness, stress, loneliness, even celebration: when a feeling shows up that we have never learned to recognise or meet properly, food is the quickest comfort there is.
“It’s not the food you love, it’s the feeling the food gives you.”
Once you truly see that, everything starts to change. The work we do together is about learning to recognise those feelings when they arrive, meeting the need underneath them, and redirecting or nurturing them, so food can go back to being what it really is: fuel, and pleasure, in their proper place.
Why slimming clubs haven’t fixed it
Most people who come to me have been around the diet loop many times. Lose weight at the club, plateau, lose motivation, regain the weight, feel ashamed, go back. Research has consistently found that the large majority of people who lose weight through dieting regain it within a few years.
The weigh-ins and the clapping add shame to a problem that shame helped create. And when you plateau, the clubs have little to offer, because adjusting calories and macronutrients past a plateau takes real nutrition knowledge that their group leaders are not trained or qualified to give.
Most importantly, none of it answers the real question: what is driving the eating in the first place? Until that is dealt with at the root, the loop continues. That is exactly where this work is different.
What about Mounjaro and Ozempic?
Weight loss injections are everywhere at the moment. If you are considering one, or already taking one, that is a conversation for you and your GP, and I will never tell anyone to stop a prescribed medication.
But here is what the injections cannot do: they change your appetite, not your relationship with food. Research consistently finds that when people stop taking them, much of the weight tends to return, because the reason for the eating was never dealt with. [Link a credible source on weight regain after stopping GLP-1 medication.] In that sense they are another sticking plaster, and an ongoing monthly cost for as long as you stay on them.
This work is different. It is finite, it deals with the root cause, and the tools stay with you for life. And if you are on an injection now and want to build the habits that will hold when you come off it, the two work well together, and I would be glad to help.
How Hypno-CBT changes your relationship with food
We start with awareness, because you cannot change a pattern you cannot see. Through the CBT work you learn to spot the feelings that send you to the biscuit tin and what those feelings actually need instead.
Hypnosis then helps everything you have learned stick at a deeper level. Working with the subconscious mind is what turns understanding into new habits, so that one day you catch yourself thinking “normally I would have eaten over this”, and realise you simply did not.
This is freedom with food, not another diet. You still eat the foods you love. What goes is the compulsion, and what stays are tools you will have for life, because challenges will still come and cravings are part of being human. The difference is that you will be the one in charge.
Many clients also find something unexpected: new hobbies and interests. When food stops filling the gap, people reconnect with what they actually care about. For me it was getting back into horses after years away, and my eating settled as my life filled back up. For you it will be something of your own.
Help from a therapist who is also a nutrition-trained personal trainer
Alongside my hypnotherapy qualifications, I am a certified personal trainer with Level 3 nutrition coaching training, and I have learned from some of the best nutrition coaches in the country. This matters most in two places.
The first is plateaus, the point where slimming clubs run out of answers. There are specific, evidence-based ways to adjust calories and macronutrients when weight loss stalls, and I can guide you through them.
The second is age. Most of my clients are over 40, when hormones shift, blood sugar becomes harder to regulate, and stomach fat becomes stubborn, especially for women. Understanding how food, insulin, and hormones interact makes the difference between fighting your body and working with it.
And if your goal is body composition, if you train hard but your eating keeps undoing the work, this is exactly the pattern I lived myself. Healing my relationship with food is what finally let my training show.
Take the First Step
What to expect from your sessions
We start with a free, confidential 20 minute phone consultation, so we can be sure I am the right person to help before you spend anything.
Sessions are one hour, online via Zoom or at home within about 10 miles of Penzance. The plan is organic: we agree where you want to get to, review each week honestly, and shape the work around what is actually happening in your life. Where hypnosis is useful I bring it in at the end of a session, and you will receive a personal hypnotherapy recording, made with your name in it, to keep.
Sessions and fees
- Free 20 minute phone consultation
- £85 for a one hour session
- 8 session package: £675
- 12 session package: £999
About me
I’m Kathy Brewerton, HDipCBH, CPT, MNCIP. I hold a Level 5 Higher Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy from the UK College of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy in London, I am a registered member of the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists, and I work in regular clinical supervision. I struggled with emotional eating for years and came out the other side, which is why I do this work.
An honest note about eating disorders
Emotional eating and eating disorders are different things, and I am careful about the difference. If you are underweight and seeking further weight loss, or if you are making yourself sick or heavily restricting food, the right first step is your GP, and I will always say so, including at the free consultation. I am not a dietitian, and this work is not a treatment for anorexia or bulimia.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I eat when I’m not even hungry?
Because the eating is not about hunger. It is about a feeling that wants comfort, most often boredom, stress, sadness, or habit tied to celebration. Your brain has learned that food changes how you feel, fast. The work is learning to spot the feeling and meet its real need, so food can stop doing a job it was never meant to do.
Will I have to give up the foods I love?
No. This is not a diet, and restriction is part of what keeps the loop going. You will still enjoy the foods you love. What changes is the compulsion: food stops being your main way of coping with feelings, and you gain the freedom to choose rather than being pulled.
How is this different from a slimming club?
Slimming clubs work on what you eat. We work on why you eat, at the root, and use hypnosis to help the new patterns stick at a subconscious level. Combined with proper nutrition knowledge for plateaus and for over 40s, it is a different kind of help altogether, and the aim is that you never need a slimming club again.
How many sessions will I need?
Everyone is different, and it partly depends on how long the pattern has been running and the effort you put in between sessions. The 8 session package is the most common starting point, and we review progress together every week from the very first session.
I’m taking Mounjaro or Ozempic. Can we still work together?
Yes, and it can be a strong combination. The medication manages your appetite while we deal with the emotional patterns underneath, so the change holds when you eventually come off it. Decisions about the medication itself always stay between you and your GP. I will never advise you on prescriptions either way.
Take the first step
The first step is a free, confidential 20 minute phone consultation. No pressure, no obligation, just a conversation about your relationship with food and whether this approach is right for you.
kbhypnocbt@outlook.com
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