If you are one of the millions of Americans who try to lose weight each year—and fail—Hungry Heart owner, Lauren Grant, wants you to know the solution could be locked in your brain. Breaking out of the diet/binge cycle was just the first step in turning one of her toughest life challenges into a thriving career and business. Lauren Grant and her Hungry Heart team are reaching out to help people break free from the trap of using food or dieting to cope with life, helping them to lose weight naturally. In the process she is creating local jobs and business franchise opportunities. Sound too good to be true? Read it for yourself!

“Food was my best friend and my worst enemy for over 30 years,” explains Denise Frankel, Irvine franchise owner and Hungry Heart counselor. “I used and abused food in every way possible. I was on the ‘all or nothing diet’ for decades. I would either eat everything and anything or eat virtually nothing at all. This resulted in wide fluctuations in my weight for decades. At my peak I was over 200 lbs and at my lowest weight I was close to 100 lbs. It took years and years to realize that the real reason I was eating was to comfort myself—not because I liked the taste of food! However, once I realized this, I still was not able to make the changes and stop eating for emotional reasons. There was no program available to give me the tools to implement the changes in my behavior. When I heard about The Hungry Heart, I had my eating under control for over ten years, so I felt this was something I was destined to do - to provide other people with the opportunity to overcome this cycle in just a couple of months and gain back the quality of their lives. Overcoming the diet/binge cycle starts with having a loving, supportive, and overcome the issues I had been dealing with- The Hungry Heart Program enables clients to overcome the cycle in just a couple of months.” 

Lauren Grant, founder of The Hungry Heart, shares that the program provides individuals with the necessary tools and materials to overcome their vicious love/hate relationship with food. “You need to find out what the core issues are that are triggering you to reach for the food,” explains Lauren. “In most cases, it will be because of an inability to deal with emotions like stress, fear, anger, worthlessness, sadness, anxiety, or even the simplest feelings of boredom or loneliness. When a person does not feel comfortable about facing these kinds of emotions, they often turn to food to distract, comfort, or reward themselves. Through The Hungry Heart program we help clients regain control over how they cope with their emotions and how they deal with day-to-day real life issues. Clients will regain the quality of life that they have lost. They stop using food as a coping tool, learning to eat only when they are hungry, stopping when they are full, and making healthier food choices. As a result, they lose weight naturally and permanently, and feel better about themselves.”

The success of The Hungry Heart starts at the simplest level – it is a program that really works. Lauren Grant has created a program with a unique approach to overeating. Instead of dealing with the outward problem—the fact that a person cannot stop the diet/binge cycle—she starts with the inward emotional problem. Lauren opened the first Hungry Heart office in Orange County 14 years ago with the goal of helping as many individuals as possible overcome their issues with food. With continued growth since its beginning, The Hungry Heart has now expanded to reach more of central Orange County. All of The Hungry Heart counselors have had their own personal battles with food and have overcome their issues.

Elizabeth Stead, another Hungry Heart Irvine counselor, had her own struggles with food as well. “It took a long time to gain a healthy approach,” she says. “I had been counting calories since my early teens—trying and trying and never feeling successful.” Elizabeth is excited to be working with a program that helps people who are in the situation she once was in. “Clients come in unsure where this is going to take them, and then the next week they feel as if the program was written for them. All the pieces start coming together.”

The Hungry Heart offers an eight session systematic program where, in each 75-minute session, you will learn how to approach food in a manner that will set you up for lifelong success. You will be able to stop your out of control eating so that you can finally lose weight naturally and permanently. How? By working through the emotional issues that are causing your unhealthy relationship with food.

The program uses hypnotherapy as a method of uncovering clients’ emotional issues. According to Lauren, hypnosis is a process where the body becomes very relaxed, which then allows the mind to be more receptive to new ideas and suggestions.  “I grew up very conservative, so I was as skeptical as anyone about hypnosis. The name just has a sensationalized connotation attached to it. Once you learn what it really is, it makes sense. What most people do not know is that we are in a state of hypnosis every day. When we drive home in our car we are on ‘autopilot.’ We are not thinking about the route; we’re thinking about other things. We are in complete control; our mind is just open to other things. We use hypnosis to create positive changes in our approach to food, internal dialogue and physical activity.”

The Hungry Heart utilizes a comprehensive approach to effectively assist individuals in overcoming this cycle. Instead of taking years to figure it out alone, clients can use The Hungry Heart’s comprehensive, proactive approach to overcome this cycle in a matter of months. “I spent years and several thousand dollars attending workshops, buying books, and looking for the one key idea to get me over this challenge,” Deborah De Mauro, another Hungry Heart counselor in Irvine says. “I had black and white thinking; I would starve myself and then binge. It was triggered by stress and anxiety and I would use food to comfort myself and create a false sense of security. I eventually learned how to deal with whatever was going on in life. I became a counselor because I want to help people step into the greatest version of themselves. That, to me, is why my job is so satisfying. I know what it is like to be in that kind of pain.”

“This program really worked... it addressed my emotional eating – an issue that none of my other diets or programs addressed,” says Laura, a Hungry Heart client and Laguna Niguel resident. “I knew how to lose weight. I knew how to eat and how to exercise. I just did not know why I was not implementing these aspects into my life to lose weight. The Hungry Heart program taught me why my ‘former dieting self’ persona was not working. It taught me how to retrain my mind, let go of old negative patterns that were holding me back, and it gave me the tools to recognize bad habits and overcome them. I feel a renewed sense of self and confidence to be healthy, happy and me!”

Lauren and her team exude a passion for helping people achieve success stories like these. “I had been a business owner for over 20 years,” says Denise. “However, the business I was involved in was neither rewarding nor fulfilling. When I learned about The Hungry Heart program, a light went on. I knew right then and there that it was my destiny to help other people overcome their battle with food throughThe Hungry Heart within a couple of months – something I had spent 30 years doing alone. When I see the way this program changes peoples’ lives, it is so rewarding. To watch my clients move from a place of despair and hopelessness, to a place of hope, and finally to gain back joy and happiness – this makes those 30 years seem worthwhile! I am thrilled to be able to assist clients in gaining back the quality of their lives.”