From Skeptic to Practitioner: How Tapping Changed Julie’s Life Through Depression, Weight Gain, and More

I recently received this incredible testimonial from Julie that I wanted to share with you:

“Hi Nick! I was first introduced to EFT tapping about 6 years ago when I was suffering a deep depression and I went to a therapist to help. I thought that it looked really weird and wondered how this strange tapping could help, but I was desperate to feel better again, so was willing to try anything! I followed her instructions and practised it in between our sessions. I can honestly say that it was one of the pieces of the puzzle that put me back together again!

Fast forward to September 2024. I did a rare thing and weighed myself! I have been overweight all of my life but my clothes were getting tight! The scales showed me at the heaviest weight I had ever been! It shocked me into doing something! A week later someone was offering a free weight loss webinar – using tapping! I had forgotten how powerful it was! To date, I have lost 1.5 stone (21 pounds) because I’ve retrained my brain not to desire sweet things, ice cream or chocolate!

Because this weird-looking technique worked (and continues to work) so well for me, I had a strong desire to share the Emotional Freedom Technique with others; I have trained as an EFT practitioner!”

Julie, thank you for sharing your powerful journey! Your story touches on something I hear all the time — that initial skepticism (“this looks really weird”) followed by that moment of astonishment when Tapping actually works. And not just in one area of life, but across different challenges, from depression to weight management.

What I find most inspiring is that your experience was so transformative that you’ve now become a practitioner yourself. That’s the ultimate testimonial — when someone goes from skeptic to advocate to guide.

Let’s explore why Tapping worked so powerfully for you, and how others might experience similar breakthroughs in their relationship with food, weight, and emotional wellbeing.

The Skeptic’s Journey: When “Weird” Becomes Wonderful

Julie’s initial reaction to Tapping — thinking it looked “really weird” — is something I hear almost daily. And it makes perfect sense! Tapping on your face and body while talking about your problems does seem strange at first glance.

But this initial skepticism actually highlights something important about how we approach healing:

We’ve been conditioned to believe that effective solutions must be complex, difficult, or come in a pill bottle. The idea that something as simple and accessible as tapping on specific points on your body could create profound change seems too good to be true.

This skepticism is often a protective mechanism. Our brains are naturally wary of new approaches because change — even positive change — represents uncertainty. And uncertainty triggers our primitive brain’s caution response.

What’s beautiful about Julie’s story is that despite her skepticism, her desire for relief was stronger. She was “desperate to feel better” and “willing to try anything.” That willingness to step beyond skepticism is often the doorway to transformation.

Depression, Weight, and the Nervous System Connection

What’s particularly fascinating about Julie’s story is how Tapping helped her with seemingly different issues — first depression, and then years later, weight management. While these might appear to be separate challenges, they’re often connected through the same underlying mechanism: nervous system regulation.

When our nervous system is dysregulated — stuck in stress, anxiety, or survival mode — it affects virtually every aspect of our wellbeing:

• Our mood plummets as stress hormones flood our system
• Our eating patterns shift as we seek comfort or energy
• Our sleep suffers, further compromising our health
• Our ability to make conscious choices diminishes

This is why conventional approaches that focus solely on willpower, dieting, or positive thinking often fail. They’re addressing only the surface behavior, not the underlying nervous system patterning that drives it.

Tapping, on the other hand, works directly with the nervous system. By stimulating acupressure points while focusing on specific issues, Tapping sends calming signals to the amygdala — the brain’s alarm center. This helps shift the body out of stress mode and into a state where healing, clarity, and change become possible.

Retraining the Brain: Why Tapping Works for Weight Management

Julie’s experience of losing 1.5 stone (21 pounds) by retraining her brain “not to desire sweet things, ice cream or chocolate” points to a profound truth about successful weight management: it’s rarely about the food itself.

Instead, it’s about the emotional and neurological patterning around food. Here’s how Tapping creates such powerful shifts:

1. Breaking the Stress-Eating Cycle

For many people, food – especially sweet, high-calorie foods – becomes an unconscious stress management tool. When we’re anxious, sad, or overwhelmed, our brain craves quick energy and comfort. Sugar delivers both.

Tapping interrupts this automatic stress response, giving your brain a different way to process emotions. As your nervous system calms, those intense cravings naturally diminish.

2. Addressing the Emotional Root Causes

Food cravings often have emotional origins that go beyond simple hunger. They might be connected to:

• Childhood patterns of using food for comfort
• Unprocessed emotions that we’re avoiding feeling
• Beliefs about deserving pleasure or restriction
• Stress from work, relationships, or daily pressures

Tapping allows you to address these emotional layers directly. As Julie discovered, when you clear these underlying triggers, the desire for problematic foods naturally decreases.

3. Rewiring Neural Pathways

Our brains run on habit loops — neural pathways that strengthen with repetition. If you’ve spent years reaching for chocolate or ice cream in specific situations, that pattern becomes deeply encoded.

Tapping helps disrupt these automatic neural pathways while you’re creating new ones. It essentially helps your brain “forget” the old programming around food while establishing healthier patterns.

4. Reducing Resistance and Self-Sabotage

One of the biggest challenges in weight management isn’t knowing what to do — it’s actually doing it consistently without self-sabotage. Tapping helps reduce the internal resistance that often derails our best intentions.

A Tapping Sequence for Food Cravings and Emotional Eating

If you’re inspired by Julie’s story and would like to try a Tapping sequence for food cravings, here’s one to get you started. Remember to modify the language to fit your specific situation:

After completing these rounds, check in with yourself. Has the intensity of the craving changed? Often, you’ll notice it’s significantly reduced or has shifted in some way. If it’s still present, continue with additional rounds, getting more specific about what might be driving the craving.

The Deeper Layers: Beyond Food and Weight

What makes Tapping so powerful for weight management is that it doesn’t just address surface behaviors — it helps you explore and heal the deeper layers that drive those behaviors.

Here are some of the common underlying factors that Tapping can help address:

1. Safety and Protection

For many people, carrying extra weight unconsciously serves as a form of protection or boundary. This might stem from experiences of feeling vulnerable, unsafe, or exposed.

Tapping might sound like:

2. Visibility and Being Seen

Some people unconsciously use weight to manage how visible they feel in the world. This might connect to fears around being seen, judged, or attracting unwanted attention.

Tapping might address:

3. Identity and Self-Concept

When you’ve been a certain weight for many years, it becomes part of your identity. The prospect of change can trigger uncertainty about who you’ll be at a different weight.

A Tapping approach might include:

4. Worthiness and Deservingness

Many weight issues connect to deeper questions of worthiness and whether you deserve to feel good, take up space, or prioritize your own wellbeing.

Tapping might explore:

The Freedom of Finding What Works

What strikes me most about Julie’s story is the profound sense of freedom that comes from finding something that actually works. After years of struggling with both depression and weight, discovering an approach that creates real, lasting change is nothing short of life-changing.

This is what I sometimes refer to as the “finally effect” — that moment when you realize you’re not doomed to struggle forever, that change really is possible. It’s the sweet spot between hope and evidence, where you can see a new future opening up before you.

For Julie, this effect was so powerful that she decided to train as an EFT practitioner herself. This reflects something I’ve seen countless times — when people experience profound personal transformation through Tapping, they often feel called to share it with others.

From Personal Healing to Helping Others

Julie’s journey from skeptic to practitioner beautifully illustrates one of the most inspiring aspects of the Tapping community. Many of the most passionate and effective Tapping practitioners came to this work through their own healing experiences.

This creates a special kind of wisdom — the practitioner who has walked through the fire themselves brings a depth of understanding that can’t be learned from books alone. They know firsthand that the technique that looks “weird” on the outside creates profound shifts on the inside.

If you’re feeling inspired by Julie’s story and wondering if Tapping might help with your own relationship with food and weight, remember that her journey started with simple willingness. She didn’t believe in Tapping at first — she just tried it, practiced it, and let the results speak for themselves.

Your Invitation: The First Tap is the Hardest

If you’ve never tried Tapping before, or if you tried it once but didn’t stick with it, consider this your invitation to begin (or begin again). Like Julie, you might be surprised by how this “weird-looking technique” can transform areas of your life where nothing else has worked.

You don’t need special equipment, expensive programs, or years of training to get started. All you need is your own hands and a willingness to try something new.

Start with the sequence above, or simply tap through the points while focusing on whatever challenge feels most pressing in your life right now. Notice what shifts, what thoughts arise, and what sensations you experience in your body.

And remember, as Julie’s story shows us, Tapping isn’t just for one specific issue — it’s a tool for overall nervous system regulation that can help with everything from depression to weight management to whatever challenge you’re currently facing.

Looking for more support with food cravings and weight management?

• The Tapping Solution App – Features specific meditations to help address emotional eating, food cravings, and body confidence:
  • Getting Back on Track (Weight Loss/Body Confidence) – The stress and judgement we feel about getting off track with our health goals can often leave us feeling even more stuck and discouraged. This Tapping meditation will help empower you to get back to making healthy choices.
  • Motivate Me to Eat Better – Release resistance to healthy eating and begin to feel excited about eating better with this Tapping meditation.
  • 7 Day Wellness Reset Challenge – Sometimes having structure and guidance around what to tap on each day can help cut through resistance. This challenge is designed to help bring joy, pleasure, and ease to the process of taking care of your body. We’ll tap to shift your mindset around wellness, build nourishing habits, and create sustainable changes that help you feel your best.
  • Cravings Busters Quick Taps are great because they’re 2 minutes long; it’s easy to say “let’s just take 2 minutes to tap” when you are having a craving. We also have our more standard versions in our Cravings Busters Collection when you need extra support.
• Find a Certified EFT Practitioner – For personalized guidance on addressing food, weight, and body image issues with Tapping

Note: You can access these meditations by clicking the links above using your mobile device, or type the name of the meditation into The Tapping Solution App’s search function.

I’d love to hear about your experience with Tapping for food cravings or weight management. Have you tried it? What shifts have you noticed? Or if you’re just getting started, what questions do you have? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Until next time… Keep Tapping!
Nick Ortner