"I went to see Julie after a friend of mine had been to stop smoking. I knew my eating habits were bad and I was 18 stone – about 2 stone overweight and was having regular tests for high cholesterol at the doctors. I was eating big meals, lots of chips, chocolate and biscuits and drinking about 12 cups of coffee a day! I was also drinking a lot of beer but didn’t want to give this up! I just wanted to feel better!

After my first session with Julie I changed from white bread to brown, started eating salads, drinking water and cut the coffee down to about 4 cups a day. I was still finishing food off my kids’ plates though so this was the next session for Julie.

By my third session (less than a month after my first) I had started going for a walk every evening after work and had lost half a stone.

By the end of September I was 17 stone feeling much better, eating healthier – but still didn’t want to cut out the beer, even though I knew this was stopping me losing more weight.

By Christmas 2004 I was down to 16 stone, eating healthily and going to the gym. 

Then I got a bit complacent, stopped going to the gym and my weight started to go up again. I was also going back to the chocolate and biscuits so I decided to go back to Julie!

After one session in April 2005 I completely stopped eating chocolate – and have never eaten it since!

Although my eating habits have remained really good and I am certainly so much healthier than I was back in 2004 my weight started to creep up as I continued to drink cider. I could drink 15 pints a night and then move onto Bacardi – even though I would hardly know how to speak let alone walk I would walk through Huddersfield at night in a daze! Of course, I then wanted to eat and it was usually a pizza! 

So in June 2008 I booked another package of sessions with Julie. The first thing she did was get me off the cider. To be honest, even though she’d stopped the chocolate 3 years before I never thought she would stop me drinking. But she did! I haven’t had any alcohol now for 2 months. I am back drinking water and have only had maybe 3 packets of crisps in the last 2 months. I am back down to 17 stone and at my free follow up session Julie helped me to knock the evening 'boredom' snacks on the head.  

People now notice how well I look and I feel 100 times more fit. It I hadn’t met Julie I would have died – if not from drinking too much from being hit over the head walking through the back streets of Huddersfield!"

Warren Townsend