Hi, I’m Chantelle. I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to understand why weight, hunger, and behaviour never responded to the advice I was given.

I started dieting at 13. Like many people, the only time I ever lost weight was on very low calorie diets. And like clockwork, the weight always returned within a few years. Not because I lacked discipline or motivation, but because those approaches were never sustainable.

Weight has always been part of my family history too. My mum is morbidly obese, and over time this has had a significant impact on her mobility. She is now largely housebound. Watching that unfold made it impossible for me to believe that obesity was simply about willpower or poor choices. The consequences were real, complex, and life changing.

The turning point for me came during a prolonged period of burnout and chronic stress. Over that time, my weight increased from around 154lbs to 196lbs, and for the first time in my life I felt completely unable to regulate my hunger. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it under control.

My calorie intake crept up from around 1500 calories a day to well over 3000. I wasn’t “giving up”. I was overwhelmed, anxious and dysregulated. What I later realised, with the help of therapy, was that I was misinterpreting anxiety as hunger. The physical sensation was almost identical. That same gnawing, urgent feeling in my body that dieting had trained me to respond to with food restriction or compensation.

That experience fundamentally changed how I understood obesity.

Dieting doesn’t just fail to address emotional regulation. In many cases, it actively disrupts it. Chronic restriction is known to dysregulate the body, increasing stress responses, food preoccupation, and impulsive behaviour. And when someone is dysregulated, everything else goes out the window. Planning, consistency, and “good habits” don’t stand a chance.

This is the context most weight-loss advice ignores.

GLP-1 medications were the first thing that helped calm my appetite in a way that felt biological rather than moral. Food noise reduced. Hunger softened. For the first time, weight loss didn’t feel like a constant internal battle.

But what surprised me just as much was what happened around food.

My preoccupation with dieting eased too. The constant mental arithmetic. The scanning of menus. The background loop of “what can I eat later?” or “how do I undo this?”. That obsessive, planning-heavy relationship with food began to loosen its grip.

That mattered more than the appetite change alone.

Because for years, even when I was eating “well”, a huge amount of my mental energy was tied up in managing food, weight and diet rules. GLP-1 medication didn’t just affect how much I wanted to eat. It reduced how much space food took up in my head.

At the same time, it became very clear that the medication wasn’t doing everything.

It didn’t teach me how to regulate stress, interpret body signals, or build habits that would hold under pressure. It created space, but it didn’t tell me what to do with that space.

That’s where most people get stuck.

A lot of people are led to believe that you take the jab and everything else falls into place. When weight loss slows, stalls, or reverses, frustration and self-blame creep back in. Not because the medication “failed”, but because the support around it was never there.

And for many people, that support isn’t accessible anyway. Private coaching, therapy, and specialist input around behaviour change and emotional regulation are expensive. People are left knowing there must be more to it, but without the tools to work it out.

That gap is what this work is about.

Drawing on my background in psychology and occupational therapy, and my lived experience of obesity, burnout, chronic stress, and caregiving, I focus on the part that sits alongside GLP-1 medication. Emotional regulation. Behaviour change. Habit formation that works in real life, not just in theory.

I’m not interested in extreme approaches, rigid rules, or turning health into a full-time job. I’m interested in what helps things hold over time.

This space exists because obesity is complex. GLP-1 medications help, but how they’re used matters.

Disclaimer: I hold an MSc in Psychology and an MSc in Occupational Therapy. The information shared here is educational and based on research and lived experience. It is not medical advice. Please consult an appropriate healthcare professional for individual guidance.