It is hard to believe with the two major storms we were just hit with, but Spring is right around the corner. For many, this is a time when our attention shifts to our health, and more specifically, to our weight.
In the past, you may have tried restrictive diets and demanding exercise programs, and you probably experienced some success. I am also willing to bet that you went back to your old eating patterns, and your old unhealthy habits. Perhaps you even put the weight back on.
If you are like many of us who have tried and failed at dieting, you may have thought that you were to blame for your return to your previous patterns of behavior. It is likely that you experienced some self-doubt, and you may have even felt some depression. The cruel physiological fact it that these emotional states caused you to hold on to more unwanted weight.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, then I want you to know that you are not to blame. You tried to force yourself into a weight management program that told you you couldn’t do things, that you couldn’t eat things. You were focused on the things you couldn’t do and couldn’t have - and that made you want them even more!
It is a vicious circle, and it seems like it is the only way to get the results that you want. Well, good thing that isn’t true at all!
You eat and move the way you do because that is how your mind is programmed to think about food and exercise. Hypnosis is so successful in helping people to shed unwanted weight because it reprograms the mind to change the way you think about food, eating, and exercise at the source.
Using hypnosis, you will lose unwanted weight by adding healthy and nutrient dense foods to your diet, and by gradually increasing your daily activity, simply by walking one more step than you did yesterday. You will eliminate your unhealthy cravings while building up your desire to eat foods that are good and healthy for you.
The changes you make using hypnosis are permanent. Unlike unrealistic diet and exercise programs that are difficult to stick with, hypnosis changes your behaviors, creates new healthy habits, and more importantly it works.
Here are five ways that hypnosis addresses subconscious behaviors and leads to sustainable weight loss:
1. Hypnosis provides insight into what is really going on
We often act on beliefs and habits that are stored in our subconscious without even realizing it. Hypnosis helps tap into the subconscious mind for insights into what is really going on that can be keeping you from successfully having a healthy relationship with food.
2. Releases hurtful emotions that lead to eating
Hypnosis brings clarity to the emotions that have been holding you back and allows you to discover if the emotions are even valid—based in reality or based on a misperception. Once understood, you can release the hurtful emotions, leaving you with insights that help guide you toward better decisions. By discarding emotional baggage, you feel lighter and better. You reduce emotional eating and begin to feel in control of your life.
3. Creates a new default response
Hypnosis creates new pathways in your brain. If your go-to response for stress is to eat ice cream, you may have linked the feeling of stress with the response of eating ice cream and now it has become a well-worn path in your brain. In hypnosis, you work on removing the cause for the underlying stress itself, but also on updating your response to stress by changing that old habit to a new one. For instance, drinking warm tea in response to stress provides a relaxing alternative that doesn’t carry the hidden price tag of excess weight gain.
4. Taps the power within
By reaching deep down inside and tapping into your own inherent power, you can actually see and hear things differently. What’s filtered and brought to your conscious awareness changes. For instance, you can put food back into its proper place by seeing it for what it really is: energy and nutrition for the body. You come to realize that the only one putting food in your mouth is you, and that you have all the control over your eating.
5. Re-imagines your future
Hypnosis gives you the ability to reprogram your subconscious mind toward the future you want. Imagine doing the activities that lead to weight loss, like grocery shopping for healthy food and eating healthy meals. See yourself as a smaller size and imagine walking around in your lighter body. Hypnosis lets you say to your subconscious mind, “This is the path we’re on; this is where we’re headed.” The change you want to achieve is then accepted by the subconscious mind as true, and you see results quickly.
Keep in mind that hypnosis itself doesn’t change people—instead, it helps rid them of the real or artificial barriers to a healthy outlook and returns them to their joyful, healthy selves.∎
Karen Gray is a Certified Hypnotist, a Registered Nurse, and the owner of Green Mountain Hypnosis in Lebanon, New Hampshire. For more information on how you can use hypnosis to change your life, you can visit www.greenmountainhypnosis.com, contact Karen at karengray@greenmountainhypnosis.com, or call (802) 566-0464.