Try to imagine letting go of your hunger cravings by closing your eyes. Think about what it would be like to eat only healthy foods. Imagine hypnosis actually helping you lose weight…
The good news is that it works.
Gordon Cochrane, a psychotherapist at the University of British Columbia, has eight suggestions for hypnosis that you can try right now.
When I tell people I earn a living as a psychologist hypnotizing individuals to lose weight, they often ask:
Is it effective? My response usually makes their eyes light up with a mix of joy and incredulity.
Most individuals, even my colleagues at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Counselling Psychology, where I teach hypnosis, are unaware that incorporating trance and meditation into your weight loss attempts will help you lose more weight and keep it off for a longer period of time.
Although hypnosis predates carb and calorie monitoring by several centuries, this age-old attention-focusing technique has yet to be fully acknowledged as an effective weight management strategy.
Until recently, there was little scientific evidence to back up reputable hypnotherapists’ legitimate claims, and a slew of unrealistic promises from their issue cousins, stage hypnotists, didn’t help.
Even after a convincing mid-nineties reanalysis of 3 hypnotic studies revealed that psychotherapy clients who learnt self-hypnosis lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t (and, in one research, kept it off two years later), hypnotherapy has remained a well-kept weight reduction secret.
Unless you or someone you know has been cheerfully forced by hypnosis to buy a new, smaller wardrobe, it may be difficult to think that this mind-over-body approach may help you get a handle on eating.
Seeing truly is believing.
So see for yourself. You don’t have to be enthralled to learn some of the crucial weight loss teachings that hypnosis has to offer.
How to Use Self-Hypnosis for Weight Loss
Some of the diet-altering recommendations my weight management clients receive in group and individual hypnotherapy are included in the eight mini-concepts that follow.
1) You have to look within.
Hypnotherapists think you are equipped with all you need to achieve. You don’t require another crash diet or the most recent appetite suppressant.
Slimming is about trusting your natural talents, just like riding a bicycle. You may not recall how frightening it was the first time you tried to ride a bike, but you kept practicing until you could ride without thinking or effort.
Losing weight may seem just as out of reach, but all you have to do is find your balance.
2) Seeing is believing.
People tend to achieve what they believe they are capable of. That is also true of hypnosis.
Subjects who were duped into thinking they could be hypnotized (for example, when the hypnotist claimed they’d see red, he switched the switch on a hidden red bulb) showed enhanced hypnotic susceptibility.
The expectation of receiving assistance is critical. Let me recommend that you expect your diet to be effective.
3) Emphasize the positive.
Negative or aversive suggestions, such as “Cupcakes will sicken you,” may work for a while, but if you want long-term improvement, think positively.
A father-and-son hypnosis team, Drs. Herbert Spiegel and David Spiegel, came up with the most common positive hypnotic suggestion:
Too much food is bad for my body. I can’t live without my body. I owe it to my body to cherish and safeguard it.
I encourage my customers to create their own positive mantras.
One 52-year-old mother who has shed over 50 pounds or more says on a daily basis:
Food that is unnecessary is a burden on my body. I’m going to get rid of whatever I don’t need.
4) If you can imagine it, it will get real
Visualizing triumph, like athletes preparing for competition, prepares you for a victorious reality. Imagining a day of healthy eating helps you visualize the steps required to become that healthy eater.
Too difficult to visualize? Find an old snapshot of yourself at a healthy weight and think about what you were doing differently back then; envision recreating those routines. Alternatively, imagine receiving counsel from a future older, wiser self once she has reached her ideal weight.
5) Make food desires fly away
Hypnotherapists frequently use symbolic imagery, urging clients to place food desires on fluffy white clouds or hot air balloons and send them flying away.
If KFC’s Colonel Sanders’ logo can get you off your diet, hypnotists know that a countersymbol can get you back on track. Allow your mind to sift through its image rolodex until one catches your eye as a sign of craving relief.
6) The Two strategies approach.
When it comes to losing weight and keeping it off, hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which helps modify unhelpful attitudes and habits, are a great combo.
Clients who learn both lose twice as much weight without falling into the dieter’s trap of losing some and gaining more.
If you’ve ever kept a food diary, you’ve already tried CBT. For a week or two before learning hypnosis, my clients record everything that comes out of their mouth. Raising consciousness, as any skilled hypnotherapist knows, is a critical first step toward long-term change.
7) Change, change, change.
Milton Erickson, MD, the late hypnosis pioneer, highlighted the necessity of employing pre-existing habits.
To break a client’s lose-regain cycle, Erickson suggested she gain weight before losing it—a difficult sell nowadays, unless you’re Scarlett Johansson.
Modify your highest-calorie appetite to make it easier to swallow. How about a cup of frozen yogurt instead of a pint of ice cream?
8) Our mind “thinks fat”.
No suggestion has the potential to override the survival instinct. As much as we like to think it’s survival of the fittest, we’re still designed for survival of the fattest in times of famine.
A personal trainer on a starvation diet asked me to help her kick her gummy bear addiction.
I tried to explain that her body believed the chewy candies were essential to her survival and would not let her go until she had enough calories from more nutritional meals.
No, she insisted, a suggestion would enough. I wasn’t surprised when she left.
There are a few more things to consider while using self-hypnosis to lose weight.
Repetition creates perfection
One gym class will not give you washboard abs, and one hypnosis session will not help you shape up your diet.
But repeating a good suggestion in your head for 15 to 20 minutes every day can change the way you eat, especially if you do it along with deep, natural breaths, which are the basis of any program to change your behavior.
Congratulations, you had a regression
When clients find themselves overindulging despite their best efforts, I congratulate them.
Relapse is viewed as an opportunity by hypnosis, not as a tragedy. If you can learn from a genuine or imagined relapse, why it happened, how to handle it differently, you’ll be better prepared for life’s inevitable temptations.
Trying self-hypnosis for weight loss is easy (Here’s how)
Hypnosis experts often describe it as “a gastric band… but for your brain”. It’s a powerful audio booster that experienced therapists use, and we’re happy to give you free access to it for a limited time.
Just listen once and see the results for yourself.
Click here to download your copy of this Weight Loss Booster Audio…
