Mag O’Donnell had struggled with her weight for as long as she could remember.
The Kerry mum had tried every fad diet there is and joined every diet club available over the years.
While she often managed to shift the pounds to some degree, the diet never stuck and she always ended up heavier than she had been to begin with. However, the mum-of-three is now over six stone down and she told RSVP she is determined to maintain her healthier lifestyle. Her trick? Hypnotherapy!
“I’ve always been overweight, since I was a teenager,” she told RSVP. “I’ve fluctuated up and down a little bit – in my early 20s, I got very heavy and lost some weight through a weight loss programme. But I gradually started gaining and gaining and gaining. I went on to have three babies in four years, which didn’t help.
“I was at that stage where I had nearly accepted that I was always going to be on the heavier side, but the baby weight took a different toll on things.
“I had been heavy but for every pregnancy, I would put on about five stone and only lose three of it, so it was gradually gaining with every child. I was feeling horrendous. Before I got pregnant with my third child, I had made an appointment about starting weight loss injections because I felt like nothing I was trying was working.”
Mag before her weight loss
After having her third baby, Mag was still unhappy with her weight, and realised most of her clothes were now too small for her. Around the same time, she heard about a family friend who had lost weight recently and looked fantastic. When Mag got in touch with her to ask what the secret was, she was told it was hypnotherapy. She got the details for a programme called Hypnoslim, in which clients are hypnotised into leading a healthier lifestyle.
The Hypnoslim programme, which is available from the Weightloss Clinic, is a six-week programme comprising of different hypnotherapy sessions, designed to reprogramme your mind to choose healthy foods.
The idea is that the hypnotherapy will make you no longer want to overeat unhealthy options, but will gradually make you crave healthier options.
For Mag, she admitted that while she had her doubts in being hypnotised, after she began the programme she got “the ick” for junk food and takeaways.
“I haven’t eaten a single dessert, piece of chocolate, sweets, nothing,” she said. “I just have no desire for it. In the year since I did it, I haven’t eaten a takeaway.
“But I haven’t counted a calorie. I eat full-fat everything, but I just eat clean. I don’t know how to describe it, but I suddenly got the ick for sugar and for greasy stuff. Will I ever eat things like that again? I actually don’t think I will, because I know how bad they make me feel.”
Now Mag is over six stone down and feeling better than ever, thanks to her new healthier lifestyle.
“I knew what I should be doing – eating smaller portions of healthy food,” she said. “It just clicked for me and it has been a game changer. I did one six-week course and it’s changed everything. I lost five and a half stone between November 2023 and May 2024, and within the year it’s now been six stone and five pounds.”
After thinking at one point that she would never be able to lose weight long term, it’s been fantastic for Mag, who recently tied the knot, to feel the physical and mental benefits.
“I can wear whatever I want,” she said. “I can wear things I like, instead of just clothes that are covering me up. I can exercise, I can go to the swimming pool whereas I would have been too self conscious before.
“Mentally, everything has lifted. I was being so horrible to myself. If someone said things like that to my children or my family, I’d be horrified, but it was my inner voice saying those awful things to myself.”