‘I don’t think about food all day anymore, I live my life’
Diane, pictured here before and after her transformation, lost 4.5 stone with simple 9-minute daily habit(Image: Slimpod)
A 61-year-old driving instructor says she ‘doesn’t think about food anymore’ following a remarkable four-and-a-half-stone weight loss. Diane, 61, has dropped from a size 18 to a size 10 since she started listening to a straightforward nine-minute daily audio podcast.
Over 350,000 people across the UK have enrolled in Slimpod, a British fitness programme where participants listen to a nine-minute audio recording each day. Rather than focusing on dietary restrictions, calorie counting, or regular weigh-ins, the podcast addresses ingrained habits and helps users reduce food-related thoughts.
Sandra Roycroft-Davis, a Harley Street behavioural change and sustainable weight-loss specialist and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Weight’s Over: Take Back Control, developed the programme. It’s presently offered with a 10-day free trial, allowing people to test its effectiveness without any financial commitment.
For Diane, this unconventional approach has proved instrumental in helping her silence food-related thoughts after more than 45 years of dieting. Throughout the years, she repeatedly lost and regained weight.
By her 60s, post-menopause and wearing a size 18, she had mostly resigned herself to her weight being permanent, saying: “Yo-yo dieting was my whole life and it was just miserable.” She began using Slimpod hoping to see results and reports noticing a shift in her snacking habits almost immediately, even before any weight loss became apparent, the Mirror reports.
Try Slimpod free for 10 days
Slimpod’s ten day free trial allows people to start without paying anything for the service. Meanwhile, shoppers who do get on well with the system can currently get 12% off using the premium Slimpod Gold programme when they pay in three instalments if they use the code SLIMPOD12.
She said: “Within just a couple of days I noticed I wasn’t snacking. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even want crisps, and they were my thing.”
In the months that followed, her portion sizes decreased naturally without conscious effort, certain foods started tasting overly sweet, and making healthier choices felt more instinctive rather than restrictive. Despite having once called herself ‘the laziest person on earth’, she discovered a newfound enthusiasm for physical activity.
Beginning gently with Zumba classes, she now works out daily, adding: “I can’t believe I’m saying these words, but I actually enjoy exercise now.” Diane says she feels ‘on top of the world’ after the transformation, which has also improved her sleep and emotional wellbeing while giving her confidence a significant boost. “I don’t think about food all day anymore,” she said. “I live my life.”
In recent years, those seeking to improve their health have increasingly embraced technology and mobile applications to support their fitness goals. Weight loss platforms such as Simple provide both nutritional guidance and workout recommendations, and may appeal to individuals seeking exercise motivation.
While traditional calorie-tracking applications such as Noom and MyFitnessPal prompt users to monitor their food intake, these typically operate on the principle of creating a calorie deficit and increasing awareness of daily consumption patterns.
Slimpod offers a somewhat different approach, addressing the psychological aspects of eating rather than focusing on rigid dietary requirements. The underlying principle suggests that conventional dieting causes people to fixate on food even more than usual, through activities such as weighing portions, recording intake, imposing restrictions, and constantly planning upcoming meals.
Slimpod aims to reduce preoccupation with food, helping diminish or eliminate persistent food-related thoughts. Sandra Roycroft-Davis, who created Slimpod, spent years dieting herself and came to understand that traditional methods often left individuals feeling personally responsible when their wellness efforts plateaued.
Rather than concentrating on what people consume, Slimpod examines why they eat – exploring ingrained habits, conditioned associations and emotional catalysts, with the podcast designed to modify these patterns rather than imposing another set of rules requiring conscious adherence.
Sandra clarifies: “Slimpod is about reducing the need for willpower in the first place. When healthier choices begin to feel instinctive rather than forced, they’re much easier to sustain.
“Food noise can make eating feel like a conversation that’s happening in your head all day long. If we can change some of the automatic patterns driving that conversation, food can begin to occupy far less mental space.”
Over 4,000 users have shared positive feedback on Trustpilot about the programme, which currently holds an Excellent rating with 4.6 out of 5 stars. One five-star reviewer said: “As a cynic, I looked at the Slimpod ads for a long while just thinking ‘yeah right.'”
“I’m a demon when it comes to the diet phase but hopeless at keeping it off despite all good intentions. This is different. Your brain is properly in charge, using all your existing knowledge about what healthy eating means to make rational decisions, not just reacting to willpower and then crashing when you can’t sustain it anymore. I wish I’d found it sooner.”
Another customer praised it as a ‘refreshing approach’ to be healthy, adding: “Not a diet but lots of support to change the mindset to want to eat healthier, move more. I feel so much more relaxed around eating after decades of dieting. I joined because I was curious and was totally fed up with diet plans. I haven’t weighed myself but notice clothes are looser and I am feeling really happy and positive.”
As with all fitness programmes, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution that works for everyone. One three-star reviewer said: “I joined the 10-day trial and listened to the pods every day and night.
“However, I didn’t lose any weight, so I decided not to continue. My impression is that it is geared for people with portion control issues – my problem is I eat the wrong stuff. My experience of Slimpod as an organisation is that it is very ethical and transparent and definitely not a scam. My advice to anyone thinking about it is to try the free trial; there’s nothing to lose. I hope it works.”
Another happy customer added: “After a lifetime of yo-yo dieting, I’m finally free. I have lost over three and a half stone, but more importantly, I have fallen back in love with life. The mental change is amazing; everyone around me can see it. I wish I had done this sooner. I’m never dieting again, and instead of hiding away I now say yes to everything.”
Slimpod’s ten-day free trial enables new users to try the service without any initial financial commitment. Those who find the programme suits them can currently get 12% off the premium Slimpod Gold programme when paying in three instalments by entering the code SLIMPOD12.
