A 61-year-old driving instructor says she no longer thinks about food after losing four-and-a-half stone. Diane, who has gone from a size 18 to a size 10, credits a simple nine-minute audio podcast she listens to every day.
More than 350,000 people in the UK have signed up for Slimpod, a British fitness programme where members listen to a nine-minute audio recording each day. The programme does not focus on what to eat or calorie targets, instead tackling automatic habits and helping users eliminate food noise.
Created by a Harley Street specialist
Slimpod was created by 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. It is currently available with a 10-day free trial.
For Diane, the programme helped her after more than 45 years of dieting. Over the years, she lost and regained weight, and by her 60s, post-menopause and a size 18, she had largely accepted her weight was there to stay, explaining: "Yo-yo dieting was my whole life and it was just miserable."
Rapid change in snacking habits
She started listening to Slimpod in the hope it would make a difference and says she quickly noticed a change in her urge to snack. She explained: "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."
Over the following months, her portions shrank without her managing them, some foods began tasting too sweet, and healthier choices felt more natural. Despite previously describing herself as 'the laziest person on earth', she now exercises every day, adding: "I can't believe I'm saying these words, but I actually enjoy exercise now."
Diane said she feels 'on top of the world' since the change, which has also improved her sleep patterns and mood. "I don't think about food all day anymore," she said. "I live my life."
How Slimpod works
Slimpod tackles the mindset around eating rather than strict dieting. The theory is that conventional dieting makes people think even more about food by making them weigh it, log it, and restrict it. Instead, Slimpod focuses on why people eat, looking at automatic habits, learned associations, and emotional triggers.
Sandra Roycroft-Davis explains: "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."
Customer reviews and free trial
More than 4,000 customers have reviewed the programme on Trustpilot, where it currently has a 4.6 out of 5 star score rated Excellent. 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 just can't sustain it anymore. I just wish I'd found it sooner."
Another customer praised it as a 'refreshing approach', 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."
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 just 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 give the free trial a go, there's nothing to lose. I hope it works."
Another happy customer said: "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 allows people to start without paying anything. Shoppers who get on well with the system can currently get 12% off the premium Slimpod Gold programme when they pay in three instalments using the code SLIMPOD12.
