The people that that my stuff works for (is this you?).

Hi! You get the best results and feel happiest when you’re working with someone who is just the right fit for you. I work best with people who are the right fit for me, too.

Read the stories from my clients, below. If these case studies don’t speak to you at all, that is a-okay — I would still love it if you use my materials, and anything else I offer, to figure your own stuff out — and we can just hang out later on the blog. Sound good!?

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Case Study #1: Stop thinking about food. Start thinking about the stuff that matters.

It’s hard to know where to start, because I’ve been trying to lose weight, and watching what I eat and how much, for as long as I remember. I’m not exaggerating — for as long as I have memory, I felt like how I looked was wrong, and I needed to change how my body looks if I ever wanted to look good.

Basically, I tried to eat as little as possible and would work out (once I was old enough for people to ‘work out’) to burn extra calories. This is a full-time job. No, it’s actually like full-time slavery — there was no night off, or weekend breaks, or vacation time. Good Lord.

Anyway, I came to Laurie when my younger sister was getting married and I really wanted to look my best at her wedding. I had to admit to myself that none of my weight loss endeavors had ever really dropped significant weight — I’d been between a size 8 and 14, and I was pushing a 14 at the time.

Because what she describes doesn’t sound like a diet — which is all I’ve ever done because that’s all I knew how to do — I thought, what the hell. I mean, after trying every possible way to lose weight on the planet, you start to think that maybe you’re not supposed to lose weight. Maybe you’re supposed to be heavier, you know?

Well, I had no clue what I was really in for, because losing weight for good does not start with more rules or eating or not eating something. It starts with changing the way you think.

I sort of had to take a leap of faith here, because I was worried that if I listened to my body, I would just eat and eat and eat. I mean, when I’ve lost control before, I have seriously gained. But this isn’t ‘losing control’ — this is listening to myself.

I have a hard time explaining exactly what ‘listening to myself’ means to my friends who also constantly are trying to lose weight, because it’s not just losing weight — I’ve stopped thinking about food, and started thinking about the stuff that actually matters in life. ‘Losing weight’ is just what has happened naturally as I’ve started listening to my appetite.

I mean, specifically, I’ll explain the stuff we’ve done together. Laurie taught me how to check in with my appetite throughout the day by using a numbered scale, instead of monitoring the food I’m eating. That helps me be my own self-regulator of what to eat and when to eat. When I’m not hungry — but I want to eat — she taught me how to look at my feelings and my thoughts to see why I want to eat. It’s emotional hunger, and I feed it by giving myself what I’m really hungry for (comfort, rest, beauty, pleasure).

I was also a total binge eater, I healed that through an exercise Laurie taught me: I write down all of the reasons I should have overeaten. I thought that this would encourage me to pig out again, but it just took two times of completely overeating in a fury, and then looking at why I should have done this (like, it’s the way I’ve learned to escape, I want to avoid something, I have a belief that I don’t deserve happiness) to feel compassion for my pigging out self.

I realized, oh, I just haven’t known any better. And I can choose learn other ways to handle things.

The self-discovery piece is really amazing. We also built in really simple habits and rituals into my life to support the work I’m doing forever. They’ll change as I grow, too.

What I tell people is that I dropped two sizes, but that’s not the biggest change in my life. For one, I’m just happier. I get to listen to people at lunch without monitoring how much they are eating and comparing that to what I’m eating. It’s so freeing to stop eating just because I’m full, without any internal debate about how much I ‘should’ eat. It really is freedom.

But also the big change is that I feel good about how I look — and I’ve lost weight, but I started liking myself before then. If someone had told me that I could like myself now, I would’ve freaked out because I’d be terrified that liking myself now would mean just staying fat.

That’s exactly the opposite of what has happened — and then, losing weight is just what happens when I love my body and do things from there. Not to sound cheesy, but it really has become about liking myself, and accepting myself, and believing that I deserve good things.

It really is such freedom. I’d recommend that for you, too.

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Case Study #2: Goodbye, Candy Bars with Moral Judgments About Me

You know what’s amazing? I decided to work with you because I was so sick of obsessing over the not-eating of junk food. It wasn’t about losing weight for me. I battled with unhealthy food in my mind constantly, and constantly lost. I felt like some kind of addict.

For years, I’ve wanted so badly to consistently eat healthily, and feel good, instead of cracked out on sugar in the afternoons. But no matter how hard I tried NOT eating food with no nutritional value, I always, always, always returned to crappy snacks and late night chocolate inhalations.

So, I was excited that you were not going to tell me what to eat and what not to eat — I mean, who among us doesn’t know that if you eat more salad than you eat grilled cheeses, your heart will be healthier, your thighs will be thinner?

I knew what to eat, but I didn’t know that my thinking around food was creating my compulsive candy bar consumption. I had no clue that the more that I told myself, “Do not eat the grilled cheese and bisque,” the more my mind heard, “Eat the grilled cheese and bisque.”

That work, all of the work around food-rules, absolutely liberated me.

I would write down all of the rules I had about food. We would examine them, and whether living like they are true has produced results that I want.

Of course, they had not. I was always at war with food. And the more we looked at these rules I had created for myself, the more hilarious they became.

I literally crack myself up when I start thinking, “I cannot have baked goods in my flat.” Because, of course I physically can have baked goods in my house. What, is there a baked goods detector that blows them up as they sneakily attempt to creep into the door?

It’s so liberating. I can also choose to eat baked goods, or choose not to eat them. Now, I walk out of my building after work and I see that newspaper stand with the candy bars, and they have no moral judgments about me anymore. There’s no, “If you eat me, you’re a bad person — do not eat me!” Instead, it’s just a freaking candy bar.

I can eat it — that’s fine. That does not make me bad. I’ve undone the battle. Now, I am free to eat it if I want it, or not eat it if I don’t want it. I’ve lost about 8 lbs, but I’m not trying so hard to eat healthily — and I’m eating much healthier.

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Case Study #3: You’re telling me that I’m not alone in my crazy, food-obsessed behavior?

I took the Guerilla Weight Loss Class because I was just completely tired of feeling fat, trying to lose weight and failing — and feeling miserable. The worst part was that I felt like there was something wrong with me.

Feeling doomed to a lifetime of feeling unattractive, overweight, and obsessed with what I should eat and what I shouldn’t eat, is totally and completely isolating. I felt so alone in this. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t just exercise more and eat less.

Laurie was actually a friend of mine before I worked with her.

I’ve watched her eat cheese ball appetizers and salads and drink plenty of red wine, and she’s thin. Whenever I would say, how can you eat that and be such a tiny thing? She’d say, Well I wasn’t always so tiny — now I just listen to my body and only eat when it wants food, and I eat what it wants me to eat.

To me, that did not seem possible. I felt like I struggled with my weight, as do my sisters and mom, because of our genes and because we all learned to ‘clean our plates’ growing up, and that’s just the way it would be. I mean, I was sick of this, most definitely, but I also didn’t see a way out. How could I when it’s almost all I’ve known, you know?

So, almost out of desperation, I signed up for one of Laurie’s classes. I actually was moving continents at the time, so I didn’t participate in class very much, and didn’t listen to the final classes or do the work until class was over. To be truly honest, I also didn’t participate because I was embarrassed that I thought the way I did about food. I didn’t want to be ‘found out.’

When I listened to the recordings, I realized the most amazing thing: so many other seemingly happy and normal people are silently tortured over their weight and food, like I am. The other people in the class seemed really impressive to me — there’s a doctor, a writer, an interior designer, a non-profit worker. These are normal, funny, productive people.

I can’t believe that I’m not alone in this. I’m telling you, these are regular people that are always trying to lose weight, too.

So, right now, my day is spent working to build my business, not worrying about what I should or shouldn’t eat. When I worry if I should eat something, I ask myself: ‘Am I hungry?’ If the answer is ‘Yes,’ I eat and pay attention to how full I’m getting.

And, if I’m not hungry, I look internally to see why I felt like eating. I ask, ‘What am I really hungry for? A break from the computer? Chatting with a friend? Free time?’ I give myself what I really want to eat.

I’m losing weight.

I’m also using Laurie’s Surf Guide to exercise more, and I LOVE it. It’s short, thank God, and even though I have just moved and I’m incredibly busy, I’ve started working out regularly for the first time in my life. Instead of trying to ‘making myself’ work out, I am learning how to go with my own natural flow. I have natural energetic times of day, and that’s when I exercise. I also choose activities that I naturally enjoy, which for me is working out with a buddy and in group yoga classes in the mornings.

I also know which goals that are the right ones for me — the ones that compliment activities I already enjoy doing which usually means learning a new skill, like wall-climbing, or doing a yoga class without feeling antsy.

I enjoy dinner with my husband. I’ve stopped overeating almost entirely.

The last thing that I deeply value, that I wanted to mention, is that all that I’ve learned from Laurie’s class, and knowing her as a friend, are ways that I can live, permanently. I can always check back in to my body — and the more that I do it, the more automatically it happens. It’s sustainable.

That’s why she says it’s “the last weight loss class you’ll ever need” — I might go back to her for a tune up one day, but I have the tools I need to have a normal food relationship and be at a low weight for my body, and she’s explained how to actually do it.

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You in-a-nutshell? Contact me and we’ll get started immediately, darling one. If I don’t have time in my schedule, you’ll be the first to know when there’s an opening.

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Wildly successful clients share these qualities:

You are ready to commit the time and energy to do the work. When you’re ready to really change your life, you make the work we do together a top priority in your life. You feel ready to open your mind and try new things. You thoughtfully do what you can with your assigned work and you come to class on time (figuratively speaking) because you feel committed to the process. You do all of this to create the good stuff that is right for YOU, in a way that’s sustainable and doable and natural.

You can begin to look inside yourself. You know that sometimes it can feel scary to look inside yourself, but you’re willing to learn more about this. You feel ready to begin to examine the loving ways that we all can limit ourselves. You feel ready to look at how we can limit our happiness by our thinking and patterns.

You see that trying to control your behavior has not worked that well. And that changing your actions has not really worked that well, either. You have seen that action is always an important piece of change, but it’s not the only piece. You are open to new ideas. You’re okay with talking about your feelings, though you never have to.

You want to understand why. Why have other efforts not worked for you? Why is this the area where you feel stuck? What really makes you tick? What does ‘joy’ mean to you? The answers are the secrets to your fantastic kingdom that waits for you, even now.

You want to work with a normal human being. Eh, by “normal” I think I mean “non-sleazy” or maybe “down-to-earth” because I wouldn’t really call myself “normal,” necessarily… I mean, my roommate is Ramón. You would definitely not be into someone who pretends to be perfect and have-it-all-together (because that feels gross… also: does not exist). Besides, I would never want you to be like me. I want you to be like you.

My people, I have been to the mountain top! And also, where you are now. I have personally, successfully, changed careers and also my entire relationship with food — and have not foregone my nightly red wine and daily chocolate nibblings. I stay in the work of this, realizing that we’re never ‘done,’ but also that there are big shifts and milestones that create tremendous relief and results.

At this point, you probably have a sense of whether this is you — contact me if you think we’d work well together.

I’m so excited to hear from you.

(You might be curious to know a little more about me. Go here to learn more about who I am.)