Losing weight is one of my favourite topics when it comes to hypnotherapy. Weight loss approaches vary from tough talking reality checks to aversion scripts to resolving underlying beliefs, and breaking patterns of habit, usually I use all four. But not always…
Some clients are either not self aware enough or just not emotionally ready to address underlying beliefs around losing weight. Sometimes clients simply refuse to believe that they have any psychological limitations to their eating habits, and that their food addiction is ‘just a habit’. But what is a habit but a pattern that has resulted from an initial cause? And if that habit is one that now displeases you, then it probably began from a psychological limitation, or a negative belief. But I won’t go on. Essentially I am not here to preach, but to work with your own reality. I can point things out to you but if they do not resinate, I’m not going to push it.
In my experience MOST clients have psychological blocks underlying their food habits. But if the client is not ready to listen, I’m not going to force them. Instead I will focus on providing a reality check, pattern breaking habits and aversion hypnosis.
Approaches to Losing Weight Using… Aversion
Aversion basically involves creating a really off-putting experience in direct association with the thing you want to stop. For example, imagine that KFC that you cannot resist starts to resemble something else that is warm and smelly, about the same weight and has a sticky texture? Catch my drift, so to speak? In the case of smoking, imagine suffocating in a tiny room filled with cigarette smoke and dirty ashtrays. You get the picture. Most people respond well to aversion because when you are in a hypnotic state, your imagination is heightened. You then associate the negative experience with that bad habit and you don’t want to do it anymore. Then you can start losing weight.
Using… Reality Checks
So losing weight is your focus, but you are still buying cake ingredient in the shopping? You need to prioritise your weight loss. How much do you want to lose weight? Why? What do you gain by gaining the weight on? Since you are still buying the cake mix, there must be some benefits. What do you gain by losing weight? What do you lose, by losing weight? What do you lose by gaining it? This is where strategies often come into play, where we find alternative behaviours that you can do instead of eating unnecessarily.
Using… Pattern Breaking
There are techniques I show clients to redirect the urge to binge eat. These are essentially neuro linguistic programming (NLP) techniques that allow your unconscious mind to process that urge in a different way, and release it. I also help you to really believe in yourself at your ideal weight, so that the new reality can take hold. I do this with direct suggestion and a host of other NLP techniques. This all helps towards breaking patterns.
As far as those underlying beliefs go, that’s a whole other realm that I have blogged about before and nine times out of ten, it is where I start with you. If losing weight is on your agenda, give hypnotherapy a go. Of course, you need to be ready for change to happen for it to work for you. If you aren’t ready yet, I may be able to help there also 🙂 Horizons Clinical Hypnotherapy Sunshine Coast.