Testimonials

Hi Helen, how are you?

I’m really well. I’m excited.

You’re excited.

But I’m a bit nervous.

You’re a bit nervous? You’ll do great.

But I’ll be okay.

You’ve talked in front of hundreds of people before when I’m there so I know you’ll do fine. And this is Kelly Pappas. Kelly, this is Helen Duhigg.

Hi there.

Hi Kelly, how are you?

It’s the three of us. It’s just the three of us.

So Helen, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your story and your experiences? You’d been dieting for maybe 30 years you told me.

Well, I think actually, Jon, I’ve thought about it and I think it’s about 45 years.

You’d been dieting for 45 years.

When I was 10 I was solid, I carried too much weight. If I can share anything to help others do the same I will. When I was seven I was abused and I think my body started to protect me from that early age. I didn’t realize it, but I went on and I got —

Yeah, I try to —

Pardon?

Go ahead, sorry. I was just going to say I’ve had so many people tell me similar stories because — and I talk about it in the book, what I call emotional obesity. Emotional obesity is actually the need to be fat in order to protect yourself emotionally from traumas in your life. And I remember I had one caller — after I was on TV here in Australia for the first time, I had a lady call in and she told me how she had been abused by a babysitter for three years and the whole time that she was being abused she got heavier and heavier and heavier until she got so heavy that her babysitter said, “Oh my God, you’re so fat and you’re gross,” and the babysitter left her alone.

And so weight actually protected her from a horrendous experience and so that’s left such an indelible mark. And what I tell people is, when you have a situation like emotional obesity, dieting is not the answer. You’ve got to address the real issue. If you don’t, your body’s always going to be fighting to protect you. It actually thinks it’s using fat to save your life because you actually feel safer when you have the weight. So I just wanted to make that important point but go ahead, Helen, I’m sorry.

That’s so important and I realized that that was me. I mean, I was like you though, that I’d started at a lot earlier age, and my abuse went from that abuse to sort of other types of abuse which continued, but I couldn’t lose weight. It didn’t matter what I did and I was always motivated or think I’d go on a diet and I’d go and I’d swim and I’d walk but nothing happened.

I remember in 1985, I had major surgery and I actually left the hospital heavier than when I went in there and people couldn’t believe it. They just rolled their eyes and they’d say to me, “You’ve got a slow metabolism,” and I used to say, “Well you can do all these wonderful things and do heart transplants. Can’t you turn my motor up?” But everybody would tell me I had a slow metabolism.

And you know what’s so frustrating about that, Helen, is that people think — there’s just this general stereotype out there that overweight people are just lazy or they should just eat less. And then you’ve got all these naturally fit people that eat whatever they want. They never make an effort, they never diet, and they’re pointing the finger at overweight people saying that overweight people are lazy or over indulgent when they’re eating whatever they want and they’re perfectly thin.

So my main message to the world is that it’s not about dieting; it’s about understanding why your body needs the weight in the first place. And if you can get that right and get your body to want to be thinner, it all happens automatically. So yeah, so you’re in the hospital and –

I left there heavier than when I went in and I had major surgery and other complications. I actually drank water for six weeks. I wasn’t meant to drink water. It was meant to be a vitamin supplement but I just couldn’t stomach that, so I thought, “Well I’ll just drink the water,” and I might have lost a couple of kilos in the beginning and then it just stopped. And it was just the pattern and I knew I couldn’t do anymore.

And people would look at me and say, Have you been working out, but at the same time I hated every part about myself. I hated my weight. I didn’t want to look like that. I remember at 20 I went to Weight Watchers. I was 20 and they gave us three wishes and my three wishes were the same. To look different, to look different, to look different. I mean, at 20 I could be wishing for heaps of things. But I just wanted to — I hated it. I don’t think — I couldn’t look in the mirror, I couldn’t have a photo taken. I think my daughter is one person who just knows how much I hated it. I couldn’t go shopping for clothes. If it wasn’t for Jackie I possibly wouldn’t have any. She’d say try this on mom but I hated it. My whole life I just hated it.

And I knew, I honestly knew, it wasn’t what I put in my mouth. And to get doctors to believe me — I mean, they wanted me to have lap banding and the whole lot and I said why? It’s honestly not what I put in my mouth.

And then they don’t believe you. They say —

No, they don’t. He said to me — he said, “All you big people are the same.” He said, “Go home and write down everything you put in your mouth and you’ll see you eat twice as much as what you think you do,” and I just burst into tears and he said, “Oh, sorry, sorry.” I said, “It’s all right,” I said, “You don’t know how much I hate it.”

But as you said, 13 months ago I was 144 kilos which I converted to 317 pounds, and my health was terrible. I mean apart from — there were parts of my life I loved but I hated everything about me. I was on medication for high blood pressure, I had my Type 2 Diabetes as you said, I was an 11 tablets a day. My sugar levels would actually go up to 24 and I wouldn’t know it.

Wow, wow.

I mean they wanted to put me on insulin, but then they wouldn’t put me on insulin because they told me I’d gained more weight.

That’s right. It's a real catch 22 with people. To treat Type 2 Diabetes, the way they treat it is by giving you insulin, but then insulin makes you fatter and that makes your Type 2 Diabetes worse. So it’s a real catch 22 to treat it that way. And we’ll talk about — actually in the next show we’re going to talk about the best way to treat Type 2 Diabetes or what’s been really effective for a lot of the people that are on The Gabriel Method.

This morning I took my sugar and it was six. It gradually, from the time I started reading the book it started coming down, coming down, coming down and it’s all effective. I know everything that Jon talks about has helped it. The only thing I want to point out which has been a real learning thing for me, in over my last 13 months I’ve had twice — well, I've had stresses come into my life and I thought, “Oh no, what’s happened?” and I’ve noticed — I've learned about relaxation and everything else, and the twice that I’ve experienced those stressful times, my sugar levels became elevated. So there has to be something in the whole thing and that’s what I wanted to mention about it.

Well, I’ll tell you exactly what it is, and that is that stress causes insulin resistance and insulin resistance elevates your blood sugar because it makes your body stop listening to insulin so you can’t lower your blood sugar. So that’s why stress, more than anything, is the real culprit in Type 2 Diabetes.

I mean I also suffered — I know someone has spoken to you about irritable bowel. I mean my irritable bowel was so bad I couldn’t leave my house at times. I’d be out and it would be terrible, but it is so — it’s virtually, I hardly suffer now. That was another thing with my health.

The other thing, and I know you talked about it last week, was sleep apnea and I think this is quite amazing for me. In 2002 I wasn’t well, I couldn’t sleep. My kids were telling me, “Wake up mom, you’re snoring.” So it went on and I went to the doctor and they did a sleep study. Now this is before I even knew about The Gabriel Method. They found that, yes, I did suffer from sleep apnea.

Now at that time my daughter was being married in 12 months time and I didn’t even bother to think about trying to lose weight because I knew why bother? Nothing’s going to happen. And I didn’t make any effort. And throughout that year, once I got the CPAP machine it was incredible. One day I got on the — I said I’m losing weight and but I had done nothing different and I didn’t take in tune that the CPAP machine was different. And I thought, “I’m losing weight,” and during that period I lost about eight kilos for Jackie’s wedding and it wasn’t done deliberately. It got to a point where I couldn’t keep using the machine. I was going through a pretty tough time in my life and I couldn’t afford it.

But when I read the book and I thought, “Hey that’s what happened to me.” I got on the sleep apnea machine and exactly what you said, Jon, I lost this weight. I was getting oxygen to my body, I had stopped yawning. I was always forever yawning. But that was basically the state of my health going back then. It was terrible.

So just walk me through it. You would go on diets for the last 35 years and what would happen? Like you tried — what type of diets were you on, for example? What type of diets?

God, Jon, I’ve done them all. I’ve done them all. I’ve done Jenny Craig, I’ve done Weight Watchers, I’ve done the cabbage soup. I did Jenny Craig with a girlfriend and we were both motivated and I — we would swim, we would walk, we would do the whole lot. And I loved her food and I was so keen and whatever. And the thing happened, I lost a few kilos and all of a sudden I just stopped losing weight. So of course then I was a wardrobe eight and then I was cheating, so then I said get stuffed and I never went back. Sorry, everybody.

And that was what I suffered the whole time, and it was just the pattern and it didn’t matter. I’ve gone to see naturopaths, I’ve gone to — you name it, I’ve done it. Jackie organized for me to go and see a person who's into the liver and the whole lot. And it was wonderful but that was — I just went to see them and I was just punched into a computer and punched out the other end and that was really disappointing. So I had tried everything.

And then about 13 months ago you got the book, right? How did you come across the book?

Well, 13 months ago I saw a specialist who wanted to do surgery and refused to do it until I lost some weight. And so I said, “It's not what I put in my mouth,” and he wanted me to have lap banding. And I knew it wasn’t the answer. And then my doctor wanted to give me medication to suppress — to go to my brain to suppress my appetite, and I knew that wasn’t the answer.

So I got on the internet and I put in weight loss, as I had done many times before, and I came across this book that I had never seen before, and it said loss weight without dieting. Now am I allowed to tell them, Jon, what I thought?

You can tell them whatever you want, Helen.

I thought what bullshit.

I’ll be careful the next time I agree to that question.

Anyway, so I read on and within 20 minutes I had ordered your book, two of them, and then I received it in the mail about 10 days later. I read it that way weekend, and at that point, I’d love to say to me it has been one of the easiest books I’ve had to read. I think it’s just the simplicity of it, the personal parts of it, it just made reading so easy. And people have also said that to me. There’s none of the great terms and everything else. It’s just wonderful. So I managed to read it within the weekend, but as soon as you talked about the physical, emotional and mental side I knew there had to be something in it for me. So I mean with all the stresses and everything I'd had and whatever, and I knew there had to be something. So I read the book in the weekend. I mean, it’s become my bible. I think, well I’ve got your first one and your second one and I call them my Old and New Testament but –

That's going a little too far. You told me when you read the emotional section something clicked for you, right? You had like an experience.

Well, it wasn’t really in reading the book. In reading the book I understood the whole thing. To me there’s so much common sense in it, and like from my point I didn’t go into that chapter of the chemistry of the whole FAT programs. I thought, “I can leave that out. There was no need to do that.” But when it all came around and everything happened was with the CD.

So this is what my callers or my listeners are going to know. How did it happen? So you'd been dieting for 35 years, you’ve been heavy for 45 years, you’ve tried everything, you read the book, you started losing weight. How did you start losing weight? You weren’t dieting anymore; what happened?

Well, when you talked about the mind and the consciousness and everything else, well several years ago I had learned about how powerful the mind was in treatment and that I had to get me over an episode of abuse. And so in the back of head I always knew the mind was always very powerful. And I thought, “Okay, so I’ve got to listen to the CD,” and I must admit, I did three nights in a row and I never got past the shoulders so I thought that was a waste of time. So I’m a morning person.

Did you fall asleep?

I’m a morning — yes, I fell asleep and I –

Well, I designed it so that people would fall asleep while listening.

Yeah, but I wanted to hear what you said. I wanted to hear it.

Believe it or not, it works just as well whether you’re awake or not because you still hear it and your subconscious still takes it in, takes the suggestions in, and it still helps.

I do believe that.

I get that question a lot.

I do believe that, Jon. I don’t dispute it because I still listen to it now and I do fall asleep, but at the initial time. So I decided I’m a morning person and I thought, “Okay, I’m going to listen to this CD,” and it was 4:30 in the morning and I got all the way through. And the only part that really sticks in my mind this morning was you talking about you’ve got to let go of the past.

Now this is something that I’ve never formed grudges, I’ve forgiven, I don’t think about anything that’s happened. Today is today. So in my heart and in my mind I thought that I had let go of all of these. My only explanation is, is that obviously right back down there in the roots of everything I hadn’t. There was so much hurt and damage right back at that level and this is where I started encourage people, you’ve got to look further, you’ve got to go back there.

And I listened to that and at the end of the tape, and I don’t mind sharing this and I live on my own and it’s 10 to five in the morning, I was a blubbering mess. I was crying uncontrollably and, at the same time, I then felt physically ill and I had this great release or whatever and I ended up dancing around my house and I felt lighter. As much as that will say, I had this joy and I just knew that something, as you said, something had changed and I knew that this was going to work for me. Now I had a girlfriend ring me up who knew something that had happened in my life and it was just quite amazing, but that was how powerful listening to the tape was for me.

I’ve had so many people also tell me that when they’re finally able to forgive the past, that they just feel lighter. And I’ve even had one lady, I talk about it in the book, in the success profiles chapter, Chapter 17. It wasn’t about weight for her. She didn’t have weight problems. Her boyfriend had weight problems so she got the book for her boyfriend and he was losing weight, but she read it and the forgiveness section, talking about letting go and forgiving, had such an incredible impact on her health. She’d had lifelong problems with her stomach and she’d gone to naturopaths and she also couldn’t put on weight. She couldn’t eat and she had all kinds of problems.

When she was finally able to forgive the past everything changed. So I’ve had it from both sides. From people that can’t — people that are anorexic and can’t gain weight and also people that have weight problems. It’s forgiveness. I always talk about forgiveness is never about forgiving the other person. You’re not doing something for the other person. You’re doing something for yourself. You’re letting go of your baggage is what you’re doing, and when you let go of your mental baggage, you can let go of your physical baggage because your physical baggage is sometimes — your physical weight is sometimes a manifestation of mental weight. So forgiveness is always about doing something for yourself, not the other person.

I think for me, Jon, in my case, I truly believe that I didn’t have any feelings, but what I did have, and it was more a thing let go of the past and do it, and even though I never thought of the past, and when I sat up there crying and I looked — I'd been involved in a legal battle and I lost everything. My house, the whole lot and whatnot, and I was over all of that, yet in looking at me, stored in a cabinet was this pile of papers. Now, I had no intention of ever doing anything with those papers. I was over it; it was gone. But I knew, I looked at them and I thought get rid of them. Well, I burned every one of them but, to me, it was not just letting go of that whole past thing, as well as forgiving and just letting it all go. There was no point in me keeping those papers there.

So that was really the turning point for you, wasn’t it? Just that experience of letting go and forgiving?

Oh, exactly, exactly. I mean, for me, if I can say and to encourage people, in just doing that, I'll be happy. Now I ate a good diet, I ate protein in the morning. I did so much of what you tell us to do. And now for the first eight weeks the really only change that I made was I started to crave water and, yes, I drank —

I have to say something about that, Helen, because this is really important for people that are listening. I have found this also with myself, is that when your body wants to burn fat you crave water. You need the water in order to flush out the toxins that come out when you burn fat. And if you don’t drink enough water your body won’t burn the fat. So if you’re craving water, that means your body wants to burn fat. That’s a really important indication.

Well, with all the diets you go on, you know drink water, drink two liters, and it was always an effort. My body just craved this water. There’s been no effort, Jon, and what happened in those first eight weeks with just that, the major change, I lost 18 kilos.

Which is about 40 pounds I’d say.

Yes. The other funny thing in that time, my body was telling me to do other things. Now when my mother was alive and I’d take her to the shopping center she’d want me to park at the door to go in the entrance. One day I went to the shops and I’m parking right down this other end. A completely and conscious thought came to my head and I got out of the car and though, “Geez, what have I done? You’re parked right down here,” and that was just an unconscious thing that obviously my body was telling me you can walk a bit further. And they were the two major things that happened to me.

So basically, once you experienced the shift of letting go, it was an organic process. What really happened is your body had a high set point because it was defending you from some past trauma. Once you let that go, it’s like your set point shifted. Your body just wanted to be thin. It happened more organically. You started craving more water and you had more energy and you wanted to be more active. So am I right in saying it was basically a more organic type of experience rather than trying to force yourself on some sort of program?

Oh, Jon, it was the easiest thing. I haven’t forced myself to do anything.

Helen, so in these first few weeks, what were you doing in the Gabriel Method? You were listening to the CD and reading the book? What were you actually actively doing?

Well, in the first two weeks, Kelly, I had started listening to the CD — well, I was listening to the CD, but I did have a really important thing happen because I thought about what’s happening and we had to turn off the fat switch. So I thought — I’m walking around saying, “Turn off that switch, turn off that switch,” and, of course, I thought, “Oh, this is ridiculous.” So I turned to the book and this is what I encourage all the people that I’m helping, is that the answers are in the book. And I thought, “How will I know that I’ve turned the fat switch off?” And I do believe in fate. Anyway, I opened to the chapter, I think it was seven, but it’s the one on SMART Mode and it just said you have to understand one thing. You can’t make changes in your normal waking state. You have to do it — and that taught me the importance of SMART Mode.

I hope Jon will go into that.

It’s not an active wheel and so I — that told me, then, the importance of that CD. To keep listening to it and to make sure you get back there in SMART Mode. The hardest thing I struggled with was that I lead a pretty busy life, but my mind used to wonder off and it used to frustrate me during the tape because I listen to it mainly in the morning. But all I can say to that is, the more you do it, the better you get at it and I’m getting much better now.

But that’s basically what I did. I just drank the water, I listened to the tape, and it was only after I heard Jon speak in Brisbane, and that was at about five months, that I started really taking in the importance of the Omega 3s food, digestion, the wheat grass and those things. So basically I just listened to the CD.

And you just phased — basically you phased changes in, which I talk about doing. You start with one thing, just visualization, and then you phase the changes in over time and that’s what I’ve seen you do.