How Annette Stopped Food Obsession & Lost Weight Naturally | Slimpod Success Story 2025

I can add more, actually. I mean, I know we had a chance the last time we chatted. I was in Provence and I was just starting my holiday.

Yes.

And of course, if you can imagine, holiday in France and Spain, um, you know, pastries, baguette, cheese, what have you. And I did eat lots of lovely things, but even surrounded by boulangerie and, you know, delicatessens and food and my family— so it wasn't just me, there was a big lot of us who were all eating beautifully well. So even with all of that and the house full of pastries and breads and cheeses and treats, the food noise was still gone. So even with that kind of— yeah, it was amazing. It is amazing. And I did partake. I did have pastries. But what I found, I think in the whole 6 weeks I had one whole pastry to myself. Most of the time I might take a bite and hand it on or say, "No, I don't want this," or whatever. And that wasn't a conscious, deliberate thing that I must control. It's just the way it went. But I did eat baguette and cheese. I just adore. So I did eat that. And I figured you know, when I came home after 6 weeks of this— can you imagine, 6 weeks? Because I was only on week 9 when I left. Um, I thought, oh well, I'm bound to have put a few kilos back on and I'll work with that, blah blah blah. Anyway, I jumped on the scales, no weight gain, none. 6 weeks of living in France and Spain, eating out probably every second day. Um, no weight gain. I'd lost 200 grams, which is neither here nor there, but I stood there and thought, "I don't think that's ever happened in my life." I would always expect that there would be, you know, some weight gain, and I would be cool with that, but I would have expected it. And so I sat back and I thought, "Well, you know, I ate—" This is going to sound amusing, but I ate like a normal person. You know, I had bread when I wanted it. I had pasta at dinner on occasion. Other times I'd have a salad and protein. Um, you know, I ate a bit of pastry. I had a glass of sangria quite often. And, and no weight gain. No weight gain. I, I was honestly, it was just extraordinary. Um, and as I mentioned, you know, in the houses surrounded by all of this glorious food, um, there was no noise saying, come and get me, come and get me, you know. Yeah, incredible, incredible.

So, so just take me back to the start, uh, because you started with SlimPod in April 2025.

April 1st was my— yeah, yeah, April Fool's Day, um, in 2025.

And, uh, and what happened? Because you posted in SlimPod Club something about food noise, and That was the heart. I was just fascinated.

I know. Well, I would say from day 1, so I would have started the pod in the evening. So I would have watched your video and put Trevor on and listened to that maybe once, maybe twice. And then the following day, there was no noise. And I was eating lean food. And I remember that night, I'd, um, I'd had a pear earlier on and I put half in the fridge and I walked past the fridge thinking, oh, I could have that half a pear, and then thinking, no, I don't need it. Um, and that was just half a pear. There was nothing calling me, Sandra. And it used to, like, I could be in my bed at night reading my book, you know, I've had dinner, I'm in bed, I'm supposed to be getting ready for sleep, and, you know, rice crackers and cheese and biscuits would call me. So the noise was was really very strong. Um, and as you know, you know, it doesn't matter how much you consciously don't want it, I'd invariably get up and go and grab a midnight snack. Um, all of that's just gone. Yeah, it's just gone, and it stayed gone, which is incredible. I did listen to the pods while I was away, so that 6 weeks I was traveling, I did listen to, um, Slim Pod and also, uh, Sugar Pod, although sugar has not been a big problem for me ever. But I, but I love that pod anyway because of the, the wider message. So I did keep listening. Um, but yeah, it, it's fascinating. So yes, from day one and it continues.

Um, and it continues. And what, so what was life be like before? What, um, what, cuz there's been a dramatic difference obviously. Uh, what was it like before? Um, and okay.

I, I think I would be obsessed with food really. Um, You know, I was probably at my peak, I was probably 20 kilos overweight, but a lot of the time I would be hovering 10 kilos overweight. And I would be thinking, you know, what can I eat next? What can I cook? I would shop and buy all sorts of treats. They would be in the cupboard. You know, the notion of just having 3 meals and eating what I needed was was not there. I ate a lot bigger meals too. That would be part of it. I would certainly eat larger meals, but then there would be something calling me to have something afterwards, you know, be it yogurt and nuts, or it would be a big serve of yogurt and nuts, or biscuits and cheese, or whatever. There was always something. And then thinking, well, what can I eat next? And then, of course, worrying about, oh, I've just eaten that, I shouldn't have eaten it, you know. It was a constant headache, constant headache. And as you've rightly said in your educational videos, I could deal with that on occasion with willpower. And I've lost weight this time round in about the same rate that I might have done in my other goes at it. But this time, it's, it's easy. I'm not obsessing. There's no obsessing about the food. Um, I just shop for healthy food, I eat healthy food, and that's the end of it. It's, yeah, it's quite extraordinary. I was going to mention too, like, even this week, um, because being away for 6 weeks, I did wonder whether I would have some sort of, uh, you know, going backwards a bit. And I went shopping, I think it was yesterday, so I've been home maybe 5 days. I got terrible jet lag, so very bad lack of sleep, very bad jet lag. I had some bad news in, in my friendship group. And even with all of that, I went to the shops, uh, yesterday afternoon, and when I got home, it was 2 big bags of whole food, completely whole food. And I had a, I had a moment where I realized it hadn't occurred to me at any time to buy anything else. You know, I hadn't gone, oh, I'm going to get some chocolate. Oh no, I better not. Or do I feel like pasta? No, you better not. I just bought vegetables, protein, fruit, yogurt. This, you know, there wasn't even any thinking about it. It wasn't conscious. That's just what I shopped for. Came home and made fabulous dinner. So yeah, something has changed.

Dramatically. Yeah, amazing, amazing. Uh, it's just, um, it's, it's such a, uh, a big, big thing though, isn't it? Um, to— because, so how do you think the, the whole, um, because now you've got, uh, the comparison of what, like, what life was like before and now with no food noise, um, and no food session, because that's really what it's about. Um, how, how do you think that— that is it that you're eating less? What, what kind of— what is the biggest impact between the two things?

I think I'm eating less. Um, but I'm just— I think as I was mentioning with my shop, I'm just eating whole food. Um, I just don't eat— I don't eat processed food. I don't— certainly don't touch ultra-processed food, right?

Um, I just eat whole food and love it, right? So that's fascinating. So your choice of food has changed, and that's been the biggest impact, you think?

I, I think, um, it's probably the amount would be the biggest impact, because prior to SlimPod, I still had a great diet. I still ate a lot of whole food, but my pantry, like, like my meals probably would have been based on whole food, but then I might have had much more pasta. I would have had a pantry full of, um, you know, chocolate, full of chocolate-related treats. And even the notion that after dinner I would often have Greek yogurt full of nuts and pepitas, which is really beautiful food, but I didn't need it. I didn't need it. So I haven't done that ever since I started on Slim Pot. I haven't had yogurt and nuts after dinner. It was almost religious. So the food was always good, but it was too much of it. Serves were way too big. And then, as well as the really good food, there was always a pantry full of treats. Yeah. Yeah, wow. Yeah.

Um, so the, um, your, um, your holiday, the whole thing about your holiday, how did that change as well? How did your food choices change there, or did they not? Because I'm trying to compute it. Yes.

Okay, so, so on a holiday, ordinarily I probably would have hit the boulangerie and, and tried one of everything. Um, And we did go to the boulangerie because there's a gorgeous one around the corner from my daughter's apartment. So she was desperate to show me everything, you know, so she would buy all these lovely things, um, and I would just cut them all into quarters and have a quarter and go, yeah, that's lovely, that's lovely. But I didn't need to eat the whole thing. In fact, in fact, um, I didn't want to eat the whole thing, you know. And I remember when I was traveling around in Menorca with my other daughter who has celiac disease, and we were finding every gluten-free bakery on the island of Menorca. And then she burst out this big platter of gluten-free pastries and was handing them to me. And I'd have a bite and go, yeah, that's nice. And I'll hand it back. And she'd go, no, you have it. I said, oh, Phoebe, I don't want it. I just don't want it. And it wasn't that I was saying, oh, I mustn't have it. I just didn't want it. And I could appreciate how lovely the pastries were. And I would, you know, some of them, you know, I would enjoy, but I just didn't need the quantity of it. Like the sensation of trying them was satisfied with a small piece. And another example, which was you know, it caused a bit of laughter in my family. When we were on in Costa Brava, there was this spectacular ice cream shop, and the man, you know, said that he had world-winning ice cream, this ricotta and fig ice cream. And my whole family, including the toddler, have got these giant cones, you know. But then I noticed on his shelf he had a baby cone. It was no bigger than this, Sandra.. And I said, oh, are they— can you buy those? He said, yeah, yeah. I said, well, I'll have one of those. So I had this cone this big and it had about 2 teaspoons of ice cream on it. It's perfectly fine. Perfectly fine. I tasted the world-winning fig and ricotta ice cream. I was totally happy with that. You know, so I took part, but I didn't need a giant one. So, and I was totally happy. And again, um, it wasn't a fight. I think that's the thing, Sandra, it wasn't a fight. I wasn't going, oh my goodness, I want a giant one. No, you better not. Um, I didn't have a great interest in having one, but everyone was having one. It's a world-winning, medal-winning ice cream. I said, oh, I have a tiny one. Perfectly happy with that.

Um, perfectly happy. Yeah, so tell me more about the fight, because obviously, obviously previously that, that's what you would say about food obsession, that you'd— yes, that would be— explain food obsession, a constant fight. Tell me more about that.

So it would, it would have been, um, you know, the battle of wills. So, you know, I would be somewhere and go, oh, you know, look at this, it looks fabulous. And then I— then there would be the other part, there'd be one on my shoulder saying, have it, have it, have it. And then the other one on my shoulder was saying, "No, you shouldn't. You shouldn't have it." And sometimes the "have it, have it" one, and sometimes the "shouldn't have it" one. But it was always difficult. And then I might walk away with, if I didn't have it, I'd walk away with this sense of superiority that I had managed not to have it. That's gone. Like when I had my little baby ice cream, I was happy as a clam. I'd just have my ice cream and move on. So that battle didn't rage. What, what else would happen? Like in Spain particularly, I found that harder to have plain whole foods. And there was a couple of restaurants that had spectacular pastas and pizzas. So my kids would be ordering pizzas, my little grandson would have pasta, but they had this fabulous salad, which I think I posted on the Facebook page, which was just greens, apple, salmon, raw salmon, and an olive tapenade. And I had that. Beautiful. Um, so that kind of choice. I would look at menus looking for something cleaner. Um, I'd eat, I'd eat pasta if I, if there wasn't an option, but I didn't really want it. Um, I wanted to eat the cleaner food because it feels better. Yeah. So, and in the past I might have done that if I was giving it a big push to lose weight, but it would have been a struggle. So yeah, so I think I said earlier to you in this call that, you know, I'm losing weight at a beautiful rate, and I've done that in the past like many of the Potters would have. But this time there hasn't been the fight. It's just been— I hate to use the word— it's just been easy. It's just been easy. Yeah. And I've been religious with Trevor, you know, religious. Um, and in the early days, in the first month, I probably listened to him twice a day, maybe 3 times a day. Um, and even as I mentioned, even when I was away, I made sure I listened to him every day. And I did get behind on the videos, but I kept up with, with the, with the pods, and I kept up with my wins., every day. I just put them on my phone instead of in a diary, which I used to do. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's been remarkable. Right.

And so you, um, that when you, when all this fight stopped, uh, you, you said it was day one. Um, it was day one. Yeah. What, how, um, how much weight have you lost or how has that all—

Oh, in that, in that 8 weeks in that, in that 8 weeks before I flew to Europe, I'd lost 6.5 kilos. Um, and then I maintained while I was away, and then I weighed myself a couple of days after I got home and I dropped another half kilo. Um, so, you know, I know I'm losing again, but I haven't weighed myself since because I'm not obsessing about that. Um, I'm not— oh, that's another thing that happened. Um, in terms of the fighting and the struggle. Like, I was a daily weigher, and a lot of your clients would have been daily weighers. And before I went away, I thought, "Oh, I wonder if I should weigh myself today?" And then I thought, "Well, it doesn't really matter. Just push on. What's going to change if you weigh yourself? Just push on." And I didn't. So that was an amazing change as well. Yeah, incredible. Incredible. So So I think I probably would like to lose another 7. I think I'm 1 kilo away from the top of my healthy weight range, you know, those medical tables. Um, so, and I haven't been there for, you know, 7 years. So yeah, it's, it's exciting. It's exciting. Yeah.

How, how, and so have you got more, uh, belief or confidence that you are gonna keep the weight off now?

Yeah. Oh, well, if, if France and Spain showed me anything, it showed me that. I, I, and I still am reeling, um, because I came home and I had to go out. I came home Thursday night, so Friday I was completely jet-lagged and all over the place, and I had to go out on Saturday. And I put these jeans on that I bought only a few days before I left, and those jeans— I, I went to this shop that I'd been to before, and I was previously a size 12, and I asked for the size 12s and and I put them on and thought, oh, these are a bit big. I stuck my head out the cubicle and said, excuse me, I think I'm going to need a smaller size. So they were a size 10, and I bought them just before I got on the plane. I'd left them here. Um, so I thought, oh, I'll try those jeans on. They're probably going to be too tight because I hadn't yet weighed myself. And I thought, oh, it's perfectly fine. So I knew early on that I hadn't put on weight, um, which, as I said, I don't think that's ever happened to me ever, um, on an overseas trip. I would, I would expect to put on 2, 3 kilos and go, never mind, I'll get it off again. Um, and that taught me something, and I think I put this on my Facebook post. It taught me that, you know, and we know some things intellectually, don't we? Um, but we don't know them in our being And this taught me that, that you can eat a bit of everything. You can have something yummy that you might not ordinarily have. You can have the glass of sangria. You can be a normal person with a normal attitude and not put on weight. That's been, it's been extraordinary for me. Um, extraordinary. Amazing. Yeah, I'm a very disciplined person, and so I've done it in the past with true grit. You know, nothing would get past my lips, and that's no way to live. Whereas, you know, overseas, quite a lot got through my lips, and I didn't put on weight anyway. I was active, but I wouldn't say I was so active that, you know, I could have eaten anything I wanted. Yeah, it's, it's been incredible. Fantastic. Fantastic.

It's been so lovely talking to you. It really, really has, because as I said on the call that we had on the phone, you know, this whole food noise is such a big thing at the moment because the weight loss medication, etc., is cutting that out. But we have so many people doing SlimPod and, and SlimPod and and the jabs together. All right. Yeah. And, and so they're, they're getting full benefit of everything. And yeah, it's all— it is, it's, it's really interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. No, look, it's, it's, as I said, it happened immediately. And I remember chatting to a girlfriend the first morning after and telling her how incredible it was that it's just gone. And then she told me her struggle with food noise, always thinking, what's next? What's next? What's next? Yeah, that's just kind of gone, which— and it stayed gone. And as I mentioned, to be in France and Spain surrounded with fridges full of the most extraordinary stuff, and I had some— that was the beauty of it. I had some of that beautiful stuff. But to still manage it and still feel fabulous and then get straight back into, you know, watching the portions a little more. Now I'm back in Sydney and again, as I mentioned, it's already coming off. Yeah. And so just the last—

I won't keep you much longer. Just, I mean, when, when the food noise goes, because so many people just don't get that, they don't know because they've been so consumed with all of the obsession for so long, they don't understand what silence is like. Uh, and so, um, just, just explain a little bit about what silence in your head is like and also what it empowers you to do, because that is, that's the crux of it, isn't it?

Yeah. Isn't it hard? How does one describe silence? In— I almost I almost know about the silence in retrospect. It may be not as I'm sitting here, I can go, oh, there's no food noise. It's after I've been out to dinner or after we've gone for a walk past Boulangerie or like yesterday when I came home with my shopping and every single thing in that shop was whole food. And, and as I mentioned, I was jet-lagged, tired, and it had— had a friend had some problems, so I was a bit stressed. But there was no point, Sandra, in the supermarket— no point. At no point did my head go, oh, get yourself some chocolate, you know, go and get a packet of chips, or, or go and get those cheese and crackers. At no point. I went in to get some chicken and some veggies and some fruit and some yogurt. And I, you know, I rummaged around, oh, I'll get some blueberries, um, and brought all that home. And it was only after that, it was only later, I went, wow, I didn't even think about getting anything else. And I didn't feel deprived, I didn't feel, um, triumphant. I just did my shop quietly, you know, quietly. Um, yeah. And then I bring it all home and I can't wait to cook it. Um, yeah. Incredible.

So, so it's, it's completely silenced the, um, the gremlin that is, or the little devil, would you say, that is sitting on the shoulder?

The little devil.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, that is saying, go on, go for it.

That's right. That's, that's kind of gone. And it's probably replaced, if I, if I think about it, I'll give you an example. Like when we were in France and we'd had a busy day, we were out doing a whole lot of shopping and we'd been looking at, you know, clothing market and all these other sorts of markets. And I knew that there was a food market somewhere near. So I said to the kids, look, you guys keep doing this, I'm going to the food market. And I went deliberately. And this was conscious, but deliberately because I needed fresh food. I needed it. And you know, and you know what those markets are like. And I think I posted that on the Facebook page too, just, you know, eggplant, tomato, beans, asparagus, and brought it home and cooked up the most exquisite vegetarian dinner. So that is something that is in my head, but not in a manic way. It's just, oh, I need some vegetables, you know, I need some fresh vegetables. And look, to be fair, even my daughters were saying that by the end of the trip. Because some of the restaurants, you know, had a lot of oily food and not as much salad as we would normally eat. Australians live on salads. Yeah. So the food noise to eat the other stuff was gone, but there was also a real desire to go and get that raw food. Yeah. Which is lovely. Yeah. Lovely. Amazing. Look, I won't keep you any longer.

I've kept you long enough. Okay. And it's just fun. I just, uh, love that. It is just, uh, absolutely fabulous. Um, and it, and it's just, you know, I just, uh, yeah, it, it, and for me it was the final piece.

I think I mentioned on our phone call that, you know, my original trainings as a biochemist and, you know, I've sort of done health and fitness stuff most of my life. I've been an aerobic instructor, all that sort of stuff. Um, and so I could do it in the past, and I did, but then I would put weight on again. But this time, it's just made it easy. So all of those natural things to want to eat well just flow, whereas before I'd have to push. So maybe there's no push, it's just a flow, which is gorgeous. Amazing.

Yeah, it's great. Actually, you mentioned you being a biochemist. Yeah. When you saw, you know, when you saw the way this program works, um, how, how did that—

how did you, uh, look at it all? It all makes an awful lot of sense. And I think the Dale Pinnock stuff was fascinating for me. And even though I'm a biochemist, I mean, I trained a long time ago and I've worked in other fields since, so I'm not a practicing biochemist. Um, but when he spoke about, um, when insulin and glucose flood the brain and they shut off those receptors for the, um, full signals— is— yeah, that I went, wow, uh, because I love all the scientific stuff. And I know Dale says, don't worry about that, just eat whole foods, you know, which is true, um, but I love, I love to know that kind of stuff. It's fascinating. Yeah. So it all fits. And I think, but, you know, I couldn't get the weight off and keep it off just being a biochemist. You know, it was the head, as you know. And yeah, it's incredible. It's been incredible.

Thank you.