Hypnotherapy is often a last port of call for people seeking to lose weight, but it can be an incredibly effective tool. All too often I receive a phone call when people are feeling low, beaten down and helpless in the face of their weight gain, have tried many diets and programmes, and yet just don’t seem to be able to maintain their ideal weight.
Why? You have heard, no doubt, of yo-yo dieting, it’s a simple term for somebody who sets a weight goal, diets hard, achieves that weight goal, but then soon regains the weight they lost, and often even more. You can read all you like about mindset and diets that address the psychology of weight loss as well as the nutritional aspects, but unless you take time to truly understand why you live what you know to be an unhealthy lifestyle for you, and rewire your brain to respond differently, losing weight and getting healthy could remain distant dreams.
I’d like to share something a recent client, Neil, from Manchester, has to say following his reacent time with me.
“I had tried all the options. I had long struggled with weight coming off and going back on, but made no meaningful changes. I thought hypnotherapy was a bit ‘out there’, but nothing else was working.”
Neil isn’t unusual. I have often heard my profession being described as ‘out there’ , or even ‘a bit woo woo’, but if it’s woo woo that works, which it does, I am not going to worry!
Neil goes on: “Hypnotherapy is not something I had ever believed in, but I opened my mind, and I am so happy I did. Sally’s 45-minute sessions felt like ten minutes.”
Let’s look at that statement. Those 45-minute sessions were indeed the hypnotherapy aspect of my work with Neil. After a detailed conversation looking at Neil’s lifestyle and eating habits, we were able to agree on the most damaging aspect – his love of (he says addiction for) a daily lunchtime kebab – and using hypnotherapy break this habit. No longer does Neil crave a kebab, not at lunchtime, not at the end of a night out, not ever. Instead, we have replaced this bad habit with a good one – making a healthy choice instead. When under hypnosis, 45 minutes indeed feels like just ten.
Neil goes on to say: “She helped me break it all down – all my thoughts and feelings and beliefs around food and health and how I feel about myself – and then rebuilt it, correcting my subconscious responses to triggers and helping me take control.”
Our attitudes to food, to diet and exercise, are often the result of trauma or events that happen in our past, often forgotten or buried deep. By working to ‘rewire’ your subconscious, we can then put plans in place to help the client make permanent changes in the way they go about their lives.
To do this I use BrainWorking Recursive Therapy, or BWRT. This is a short-term therapy developed by Terrance Watts to quickly and permanently change the way your brain reacts to certain stimuli – from stressful situations (such as preparing to give a speech, or visiting a dentist) to non-stressful but unhealthy situations,, such as always having a kebab at the end of the night, or always smoking a cigarette when with certain friends. By changing the way your brain responds to these stimuli, we can change your behaviours – break the habit, reduce the anxiety or quash the phobia.
Neil is well aware that hypnotherapy is not a magic wand, that he has to put the work in to get the results he needs, but what he has now is a new way of looking at his life, a new way of thinking about himself and a new impetus to continue to make the changes he wants to make.
“The work I have done with Sally has really helped me understand the root cause of my issues, and change the way I deal with life’s problems,” he says. “It’s effective because it gets to the heart of me, and my needs. It’s not a crash diet, or random fitness routine. It’s real life changes with tools to help me for the rest of my life. I’ve come a long way, losing more than three stone already, but it’s the ongoing lifestyle change that I can now maintain that will really make the difference.
“Sally was lovely to work with. She made it easy for me to open up and delve into my personal issues, things I would never have acknowledged or addressed without her support.
“Yes, at first it felt like a big financial commitment, but the sessions have proven invaluable, and what she has taught me is priceless.”
If you’re feeling at the end of your tether and close to giving up on ever losing weight, and keeping it off – call me. Or better still – don’t wait for that moment, call me and make the changes you need to make right now.
Call me on 0161 374 0227 or, if you prefer, email me at sally@mindsolutions.co.uk
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