Chapter 1 - Mayo Hypnosis Clinic

How To Lose Weight
Secrets of Success
by
Michel McGuinness
Please feel free to share this e-book
with your friends
www.mayohypnosis.ie
Copyright 2015. Michael McGuinness
Author
Michael McGuinness
DHP B.Ed MNCH MCHPA MICHP
Michael is one of Ireland's most experienced hypnotherapists.
He has performed over 25,000 inductions and innovated many
life-changing subconscious strategies. He is a graduate of the
Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy, which
was the first college of hypnotherapy in Ireland. Michael was a
member of the first group of graduates from that college.
Subsequently, he set up a private practice in Maynooth in 1995.
Weight management was of special interest to him and he was
also was perplexed as to why so many people failed with
traditional slimming methods. This led him to studying the
effect of nutrition and psychological factors on successful
weight management. He also did extensive research to discover
what were the factors common to overweight people who
successfully maintained their weightloss long-term, so that this
could be replicted in a weightloss programme. This all resulted
in a unique coaching programme, called The HypnoSlim
Programme. It has transformed the lives of so many people
down the years.
After a long number of years in practice in Maynooth, he
returned to my native Mayo in 2007 where he founded the
Mayo Hypnosis Clinic, Castlebar.
Introduction
It is time for a fresh start.
Forget about everything you have ever been told about weight
loss. Start right now with an open mind and the following
knowledge and strategies can help you achieve remarkable
results.
You may have the DESIRE to be successful but you also have
needs that are in conflict with that desire when it comes to your
relationship with food: reward yourself, relieve negative
emotions and so on - this book can help you solve that.
You have a conscious EXPECTATION that you can succeed
but deep down you believe that you will fail – that is what has
happened in the past and subconsciously you expect that to
happen again. Your past does not have to be your future – this
e-book can help you transform your expectation.
You are now embarking on a journey that
can change your life.
Disclaimer
All content presented is for educational purposes only, it cannot
be considered as a substitute for the advice of a medical
practitioner or any other such health professional.
This e-book is downloaded on the strict understanding that the
author cannot accept any responsibility for any loss or injury
arising from the use or improper use of the download or any
content contained therein.
While every effort is made to provide accurate information,
statistics shown cannot be guaranteed to be up to date or
accurate. The author is not responsible for errors or omissions.
Table of Contents
Author........................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................5
Overview...............................................................................8
Diet...........................................................................................13
Chapter 1.............................................................................14
How to create a healthy diet ..........................................14
Chapter 2.............................................................................27
Implementing your Plan.................................................27
Mindset....................................................................................40
Chapter 3.............................................................................41
Undoing the Brainwashing............................................41
Chapter 4.............................................................................46
New perceptions.............................................................46
Chapter 5.............................................................................62
Emotional Eating............................................................62
Subconscious ...........................................................................66
Chapter 6.............................................................................67
Subconscious Transformation........................................67
Overview
Only a small percentage of overweight people who diet
actually reach their target weight and maintain the weight loss
long-term. What do they do that is different? This e-book
address the three pillars of their success:
1. DIET:
You have developed eating habits over time that cause you to
crave junk food, crave sugar and feel false hunger. Learn the
diet habits of naturally slim people, work in hornomy with the
instinctive nutritional needs of your body and feel satisfied and
full with natural, healthy foods.
Going on a “diet” is usually the first step for those people who
are unsuccessful in their attempt to lose weight and maintain
the weight loss. It is the one thing you shouldn't do. If “dieting”
means eating fewer calories than you need to MAINTAIN
your healthy weight, then you will cause problems with your
metabolism and set yourself up for a serious problem with
binge eating, obsessing about food and yo-yo dieting. If
“dieting” means eating or drinking anything other than natural
unprocessed food and drinks, then you will end up in failure.
Forget about fad diets, pills and liquid diets (which are for
babies). In this section about diet you will discover how to
approach eating so that you have the best chance of success.
2. MINDSET:
Since you were just a child you started to develop certain
thinking about food. Those early patterns of behaviour have
become automatic and have developed into ingrained habits in
adulthood This e-book can help you to discover how to relate
to food in a responsible, mature way.
When overweight people embark on a weight-loss programme,
the focus in on following some “imposed diet” and finding
some source of motivation – be it from a group, buddy or other.
Also, they use one of those sources to keep them accountable.
However, unless you develop self-responsibility, selfmotivation and self-accountability you will not maintain the
weight you lose. One thing that never changes for those people
is the thinking structure that is an intrinsic part of the way they
relate to food. Our thinking drives our feelings, which in turn
drives our behaviour. People who successfully manage their
weight change their deepest held perceptions about food. This
section can help you to create a new mindset and liberate you
from the destructive thinking that has developed over time,
much of which is now automatic thinking.
3. SUBCONSCIOUS CHANGE:
When you have repeatedly carried out certain eating habits
over time, they now have become ingrained subconsciously you need subconscious change to break these old patterns of
behaviour.
This FREE e-book covers the first two pillars of successful
weight management. Subconscious change involves
communication with your subconscious mind. The hypnosis
programme covers the third pillar. Details are available at the
end of the e-book.
N.B.
It is very important that you integrate the three pillars from
the beginning. It is crucial that you have your subconscious
working with you as get to work at implementing the new
approach to diet and your new attitude to food.
Before you start:
It is important to know that certain medical conditions can
affect your success. The first consideration in unexplained
weight gain is the fact that some medical condition could be
the culprit. If someone is gaining weight without any change in
eating habits, then it is important that consideration should be
given to the possibility that some condition is the actual cause
of the problem.
Biological Factors:
Numerous genetic variables are associated with obesity and
various medical conditions. Body weight is also affected by
hormones and biological pathways within the body. People
who are obese can find it harder to lose weight as these
hormones and pathways tend to be dysfunctional in those
people.
Examples:
Underactive thyroid:
This is where the production of thyroid hormones slows down
or stops. This causes the metabolism to slow down and causes
more fat to be stored.
Leptin.
Science has now discovered that virtually everything to do with
weight loss for both men and women is controlled by one
master hormone. This hormone that controls 100% of your
body’s ability to burn fat is Leptin. Being resistant to the
hormone leptin is a major cause of obesity. Leptin is involved
in giving a signal regarding the required level of fat that needs
to be stored. When the leptin isn’t managing to deliver its
signal, the brain thinks that you are starving. It can be almost
impossible to overcome cravings in the face of the leptindriven signal.
Just as the insulin production mechanism can malfunction in
the case of diabetes, the leptin mechanism can also malfunction
(leptin resistance). The main causes of leptin resistance are:
1.Calorie deficiency - shortage in the amount of calories
consumed relative to the amount of calories required. (One of
the big side-effects of restrictive dieting is that it affects leptin.
This can be one of the reasons why after a period of this type
of dieting, the person is overcome with an irresistible craving
for food).
2. Excessive calorie intake – the opposite to the first reason.
Eating junk food that is high in calories and low in nutrients is
the main culprit for this.
3. Excessive sugar consumption – the over-consumption of
sugary junk foods.
4. Lack of exercise.
5. Stress - Stress can lead to emotional eating BUT it also
affects fat storage in the body. Stress increases cortisol, a
stress hormone, as well as insulin. Both of those hormones
speed up fat storage. When you are in a constant state of stress,
“fight or flight,” your metabolism slows down.
If you eat when under physiological stress (even when eating
the healthiest foods in the world) you fail to digest, assimilate
and burn calories. Stress causes blood to flow to arms, legs and
away from the digestive system. It gets you ready for “flight or
fight”, preparing your body for a physical contest and speeding
up your thinking. If you are under ongoing emotional stress
(financial worries, relationship conflict, family stress, work
stress and so on), you fail to burn calories and you also are not
building muscle.
If you have physical stress in addition to emotional stress
(smoking, drinking, processed food, restricted calories and so
on), you are compounding your overall stress level. While
anybody's stress level goes up and down as they meet stressful
events, it is the ongoing high base level stress that is the
problem.
Medications :
Many medications can prevent weight loss or cause you to gain
weight. Steroids can cause weight gain. Talk with your doctor
and ask him or her to suggest alternatives to your current
steroid medications. Birth control pills and HRT can cause an
unhealthy build up of estrogen in the body and can cause fat to
accumulate on hips, thighs and rear. Some psychotropic and
anti-seizure drugs can also affect your weight.
Behaviour is driven by biochemistry and physiology and not
just a matter of decision or motivation. It is important that
you rule out such factors as the underlying cause of obesity.
Diet
Management
Chapter 1
How to create a healthy diet
Hunger is what drives you to eat, so before we look at what and
how you should eat it is important that you understand hunger.
There are three types of hunger: physical hunger, emotional
hunger and fake hunger.
1. Physical hunger.
Physical hunger is a gradual build up of the following
symptoms:
Feeling empty in the stomach.
Rumbling in the stomach.
Dizziness or light-headedness.
Headache.
Irritability.
Difficulty in concentrating.
Nausea
Dieting can result in your inability to recognise hunger signals
and an inability to recognise fullness. It is normal for hunger to
occur 3 to 5 hours after eating. It is helpful to think of a scale
of 1 - 10.
0 = Starving, headache.
3 = Hunger pangs.
5 = Feeling comfortable.
6 = Satisfied and content.
8 = Overfull.
10 = Nauseated, feeling guilty that you have eaten so much.
You might want to start eating at number 3 on the scale and
finish eating when you have reached number 6. Do not allow
yourself to be starving before you eat, or become overfull when
you stop.
Managing physical hunger.
What causes hunger in the first place? Our body needs energy
and nutrients and we have a built-in mechanism to tell us what
the body needs. Hunger is the signalling system to drive us to
consume the nutrients we need.
Processed food prevents the built-in mechanisn from
functioning properly, so we end up craving junk food instead of
craving the healthy food. The good news is that when we start
eating healthy food over a period on time, this mechanism
starts working properly again.
Junk food contains a lot of empty calories, it is high in calories
and low in nutrients. We could eat a lot of processed and still
feel empty due to the low nutrient content. Natural food is high
in nutrients but low in calories, so eating this food makes us
feel satisfied. The food we eat is either used up, excreted or
stored as fat. Calorie rich food gets stored as fat.
People don’t need to work harder at food management, they
need to work smarter. Working smarter means working in
harmony with the nutritional needs of the body. So what is
necessary to control hunger? The simple answer is having a
diet of wholesome, natural food.
Fibre fills us up and we feel satisfied. Generally, processed
food is low in fibre. Even though we are eating a lot of
substance when eating junk food, the body is not obtaining a
lot of nutrients so, we keep eating more and more of the food
as it is nutrient poor. You could be eating processed food all
day long and still be hungry, due to the fact that your body is
not getting the required nutrients. When we are eating the food
that nature intended us to eat, the body regulates the amount of
food we crave.
2. Emotional hunger.
Emotional hunger is a sudden development of an empty
feeling. This feeling has to do with the surfacing of some
uncomfortable emotion inside. That emotion can be stress,
loneliness, boredom, sadness, anxiety or other emotions.
Sometimes it can be the result of some buried emotion from
previous experiences with which you might not be in touch.
You have learned to respond to this feeling with food. The
food temporarily masks the feeling with its sensory and
physiological comfort. When you get in touch properly with
your body and emotions, you can easily recognise different
sensations.
3. Fake hunger.
This is is where you experience a “sugar crash” in your body,
this results from a “spiking” of sugar in your body from having
previously eaten something with a high concentration of simple
sugars (chocolate, sweet cake etc). When you will have stopped
eating this junk food, this type of hunger will be no longer a
problem
Understanding the food you eat.
What NOT To Eat
Sweets
Fast food
Biscuits
Chips and other similar snack foods.
Cakes and other pastries.
Besides all the above-mentioned items, there are other types of
foods that should also be avoided, greatly limited, or consumed
sparingly.
They are:
Foods containing any trans fat (they enhance the texture,
flavour and shelf-life of many processed foods - from biscuits
to pizza)
Foods high in saturated fat (those are solid at room
temperature).
Foods high in sodium.
Foods high in sugar.
Convenience is the one thing the above foods have in common.
There is a variety of health risks associated with diets high in
these types of foods. These foods are unhealthy to be
consuming.
What TO Eat
Your plan should consist of significant amounts of the three
essential nutrients: protein, fat and carbs. Your body needs a
significant amount of all three.
Protein
MINIMUM protein intake should be about 50 grams per 100
lbs you weigh. Protein impacts on our level of hunger. You will
be hungry again soon after your meal if the meal does not have
a protein source. Maintaining the essential amount of protein
during the day will ensure that will not feel hungry. Choose
non-meat protein products whenever possible.
Good Sources Of Protein
Chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, beans, nuts.
You can find out the content of protein in your food by
checking the label on the packaging or online for non-packaged
foods.
Protein sources to avoid or limit:
Luncheon meats
Bacon, pork chops
Certain cheeses (avoid highly processed cheese)
Other facts about Protein:
1 gram of protein has 4 calories.
Protein is necessary to build muscle. We should have sufficient
intake of protein each day. The more muscle we have, the
better we burn off fat. We tend to lose muscle as we grow older
and find it more difficult to burn fat. You could eat the exact
same food at fifty as you did at twenty but you can carry a few
stone extra fat on your body.
Protein stimulates the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is the
digestive hormone that encourages us to burn and metabolise
fat. Having protein in our diet signals to our bodies to feel full
and satisfied.
Fat
Maximum of 30% of your total daily calorie intake should
come from fat.
Good Sources Of Fat
Fish (mackerel, salmon and sardines, etc.)
Fish Oil
Nuts & seeds
Olive Oil
Canola Oil
Other Facts About Fat
1 gram of fat has 9 calories (Pound Of Fat = 3500 Calories )
Diets that are high in trans / saturated fats can be cause
different health problems, including heart disease. These fats
are often termed "bad fats". Polyunsaturated / monounsaturated
fats can help prevent the same health problems from occurring.
These fats are called "good fats".
An important point about low-fat and non-fat dairy products.
Avoid processed dairy products. People buy low-fat dairy
products in the belief that they are better, the opposite is the
case. (Fat does not make you fat, the excessive consumption
of calories (mainly from sugar) makes you fat). See the
section on sugar later on. The fat contained in high quality
dairy products helps us to digest the dairy product, helps us to
feel full and turn off the hunger mechanism. Buy REAL milk
and REAL butter – the spreads are not better for you. If ever
you are in doubt about the best food to eat, just think of what
your granny used to eat when she was growing up. The latest
research shows that the food past generations have eaten is
clearly the best. Stay away from processed foods with a long
list of ingredients, they are slowly poisoning you – you are
much more likely to die from cancer and other illnesses if you
continue eating this type of food. Those foods can also be
highly addictive due to added ingredients.
Carbs
50% of your total daily calorie intake should come from carbs.
Complex carbohydrates
Complex carbohydrates are broken down in the liver to form
sugar. The energy of complex carbohydrates takes longer to
break down than the simple sugar in sugary junk foods, they
are released more slowly and you do not get the famous
damaging “sugar spikes “from this sugar. Many people are
afraid to eat carbohydrates due to the popularity of lowcarbohydrates diets. People are not aware of the different
carbohydrates, how some are good, and some are bad. Good
carbohydrates stabilise blood sugar, balance energy and give
well-being feelings long after eating has finished.
Some examples of healthy foods containing complex
carbohydrates:
Whole Barley, grapefruit, apples, prunes, lettuce, pears, plums,
oat bran cereal, oatmeal, asparagus, spinach, oranges, cabbage,
carrots, wholemeal bread, onions, brussels sprouts etc.
Simple carbohydrates.
Simple carbohydrates cause swings in your blood sugar levels,
change your mood, lead to compulsive eating and lead to
weight gain. Additionally, they cause withdrawal symptoms
when you stop consuming them.
We find these sugars in abundance on shelves in shops and in
the average western diet. The sugar energy from fizzy drinks,
biscuits, cakes, chocolate and desserts, flood your bloodstream
with glucose almost immediately.
Switching from the refined sugars in sugary foods to natural
sugars in fruit can be for most people, the most decisive
factor in long-term weight management.
When you consume simple sugars you will get a short “sugar
high”, then you feel your energy drain, your mood drops and
you feel hungry again. Those sugars do not solve the loss of
energy, emotional drainage or hunger, they create the opposite
of what you want. How you feel for a few moments while you
eat those foods is not what is important, it is how you feel for
the 16 hours a day while you are awake.
Eating sugary foods means that you SACRIFICE the good
feelings of sixteen hours a day for the few moments you get a
high from sugary junk foods. You also sacrifice the good
feeling of being slim and looking good for those sixteen hours.
You still get your sugar requirements into your bloodstream
from natural foods but will not cause the mood swings, create
cravings, lowered energy level or cause compulsive eating.
Remember you can develop an addiction to simple sugar in the
same way as someone gets addicted to other drugs. You have
to quit the high concentration intake of sugar. You will always
have a low intake of simple sugars in many foods, but it’s the
high concentration of sugar in food that does the “spiking”
damage.
Some examples of foods containing simple carbohydrates:
Table sugar, bread made with white flour, all baked goods
made with white flour, fruit juice, most packaged cereals, pasta
made with white flour, fizzy drinks, biscuits, cakes, chocolate
and desserts, etc.
Simple carbohydrates are refined. They tend to be more
fattening and are usually found in foods with the least
nutrients.
The TRUTH about sugar.
The guidelines introduced in the late seventies recommended
reducing overall dietary fat consumption to 30% of total energy
intake and saturated fat to 10%. Fat was seen as bad and the
root cause of growing obesity. When you remove fat from
food, it becomes tasteless, sugar was used to replace the fat.
Low-fat products became the rage.
Some low-fat products can have as much as ten times the sugar
content of the full-fat product, the low-fat products can cause
you to become MORE obese. It is important that you read the
labels for the sugar content. 50% of the sugar we consume
today is from items that people expect to be sugar-free such as
tomato sauce, fat-free salad dressings, commercially prepared
smoothies, barbecue sauce, multi-grain crackers and cereals,
hamburger meat and all types of processed food.
If you are consuming sugar on an ongoing basis, you have a
high level of insulin corresponding to that consumption.
Insulin is the hormone that causes an increased level of fat to
get stored in your fat cells.
Ghrelin is the hormone that signals hunger to the brain. The
body increases ghrelin if a person is undereating and decreases
it if he or she is overeating. However, it doesn't respond to
sugar – it doesn't register it as food. This is why you feel
hungry despite eating food with a high sugar content. All you
get from such “food” is a sugar hit in the brain.
Rule of thumb for shopping:
Make sure to read the labels. If the label lists sucrose, corn
syrup, sugar, fructose, white flour, etc, they contain simple
carbohydrates.
Purchase foods that are not refined or highly processed.
You should choose fruit instead of fruit juice, which is very
high in simple sugars.
Factory produced versus nature.
Simple carbohydrates are created in a factory while complex
carbohydrates are designed by nature. Many similar foods can
have remarkably different levels of sugar. For instance, some
yogurts are sugar- free while others can be as high as 20%.
It is an excellent idea to make a shopping list of your regular
foods an compare the brands. Purchase the ones with the lowest
sugar and calorie content. You would be amazed at the
difference this can make to your weight in one year.
Be careful not to consume calories in liquid form. Energy
drinks are in vogue but the sugar content is extremely high in
such drinks. These drinks are not particularly filling. You are
just creating hunger by drinking them.
Drinks To Avoid
Energy drinks and fruit Juices - yes, fruit is healthy but fruit
juices you purchase are full of sugar. The name "fruit juice"
confuses people, they assume that it must be healthy. Water is
the best drink. Just add a slice of lemon if you do not like the
taste of unflavoured water.
IMPORTANT fact about Cooking
Cooking is another important factor when talking about your
diet. When you cook at a heat above 248 degrees F (120
degrees C), new chemicals are created. Acrylamide is one of
those chemicals, this chemical is indexed as a probable human
carcinogen. Cooking at high temperatures can pose a risk of
several types of cancer. Boiling, steaming, and baking are your
best options. So, limit the use of the frying-pan, the deep-fat
fryer and other methods that cause food to become charred. It
is a matter of concern that a lot of what many youngsters now
eat is food that is cooked in a deep-fat fryer, it doesn't auger
well for their long-term health.
The “FAT” Problem
Being overweight means you have a “fat” problem – your diet
and exercise habits are causing you to have excessive fat stored
on your body. People get confused between “fat loss” and
“weight loss”. If you stand on the weighing scales and you are
5lbs lighter and it is “fat loss”, then that is good news. If most
of the loss is muscle tissue loss, then that is bad news. You
need MORE muscle tissue not less, as the more muscle you
have the better you burn fat. It is the padding of fat that makes
you look fat. For instance, you can have two people weighing
the same where one is solid muscle and the other with little
muscle and a lot of fat. The one with the fat can look a few
stone heavier than the other. Therefore, the weighing scales in
not a good indicator of your fat percentage. The look in the
mirror or a tape measurement or the belly fat pinch test is a
better indicator of how much fat you are carrying.
Unfortunately, when people lose weight on weight loss
programmes, much of that loss CAN be muscle loss.
The Weighing Scales
While the weighing scales in not a good indicator of fat loss, it
has an important role to play in weight management. How to
we know that we are making progress in anything we do? We
must have a means of measuring progress. What gets measured
is more likely to get done. When I coach people who are quite
obese, it is not unusual to hear them say that they don’t weigh
themselves, they don’t like to know how heavy they actually
are. It is important to know where you are right now if you
want to set targets.
When it comes to your weight, if you don’t consistently
measure your progress on a weighing scales, one day you will
step on the scales and become horrified at your weight. If you
measure your progress on a regular basis it is easier to stay on
track. It is better to see the scales as a means to measuring
“your progress in achieving your goal of maintaining a
healthy eating pattern on a consistent basis”.
Your weight on the scales can be influenced by many factors.
One such factor is your level of water retention which can vary
according to how much water you drink ( the more your drink,
the less you retain). your menstrual cycle, if you have
consumed alcohol, etc. Your level of water retention can vary
from 3 to 5 lbs per week. So, your weight can fluctuate
independently of how you eat. It is better to see the TREND
on the scales from month to month.
A Final Note
Many weight loss programmes promote supplements ( protein
bars, drinks, etc) as part of their programmes. These
supplements are no addition to weight management, this is
just another revenue source for the company. (Very strange that
any programme that should be promoting healthy eating is
promoting processed food).
Nothing other than wholesome natural foods should be a part
of your diet. About 40% of adults are at their healthy body
weight – you should be modelling what they do.
Processed food has a long shelf-life because the microbes won't
eat it due to the additives. If the microbes won't eat it in the
packet, they don't wan't to eat it in your stomach.
This is why this type of “food” gives you no energy, you still
feel hungry and it can cause digestive problems. More recent
research shows that processed food is more closely linked to
cancer than previously believed.
Chapter 2
Implementing your Plan
Lifestyle Habits of Slim People
Slim people do not diet
That is because dieting makes you miserable, fat and obsessive.
Dieting sends your body into famine mode. This will cause
weight gain when you start eating additional food.
Slim people eat junk
Yes, most slim people eat the occasional hamburger, dessert or
chocolate. They know the occasional piece of junk food is not
going to cause any problem. No food is BANNED.
Slim people do not binge
Slim people tend to stop eating when they feel SATISFIED.
They know they can always have more food later when they
are hungry. People tend to feel hunger every three to five
hours.
Slim people are not obsessed
They tend to think about their choice of food if they get
hungry. They decide what to have, eat it, and then forget about
it. Thinking about food creates the urge to eat it.
Slim people do not abuse food
You abuse food when you eat for emotional reasons as opposed
to hunger reasons.
Slim people exercise.
This can be the decision to take the stairs instead of the lift, to
walk instead of taking the car. It is good to think of exercise as
any movement that speeds up the heart rate. You do not have to
jog or go to the gym to get exercise.
Slim people see healthy eating and exercise as a lifestyle.
If a slim person starts putting on some weight, he/she will
readjust to a better lifestyle habit, they do not “start a diet”.
Conscious Eating
The greatest satisfaction we get from food is from the taste
buds in the mouth. This is where we get real pleasure from
food. The quantity of food is not what matters, it is the length
of time we hold each mouthful of food. Slim people can get
more satisfaction from eating than overweight people, even
though they eat much less food. Slim people tend to take
smaller mouthfuls of food and savour each mouthful before
releasing it down into the stomach. Will you get the same taste
from a small bite of a biscuit as from the whole biscuit? There
is no difference in taste level, there is just more bulk with the
full biscuit. Now you can see how this awareness can decrease
the quantity of food you eat.
Calories should be not wasted, do not waste the taste. When
you are eating, you should pay conscious attention to eating.
You should be aware of the taste, texture and temperature of
each bite, savour each second of having food in your mouth.
You can see why eating while focused on your favourite soap
or engrossed in a telephone conversation is not a good idea.
Dieting
Restrictive dieting results in losing touch with innate hunger
signals. If you continue to do this, your innate defence
mechanism will kick in and will overpower you to eat more
than you require. You will start eating excessively and piling
the weight back on again. Plan your eating each day in
accordance with the natural rhythm of hunger This will result
in slimness and you will never be starving.
Restrictive dieting leads to the classical yo-yo dieting to which
most overweight people succumb. They blame themselves for
not being able to continue with the diet but it is not their fault,
nature is more powerful than willpower.
Additionally, when you deprive yourself of the required intake
of food, your metabolism slows as the body thinks there is
starvation. When you take in excessive food in your overeating
cycle, the body now stores the additional food as fat due to a
slower metabolism. Your body is now preparing for the next
famine.
Research has shown that reducing people’s required food
intake by 30% or more produces symptoms of irritability, loss
of endurance and obsessive behaviour around food. The
obsessive behaviour continues long after the person starts
eating properly again. The diets of many popular weight
management programmes available today suggest an excessive
reduction in calorie intake.
You have become overweight due to taking in more calories
than your calorie requirement per day. Planning to lose weight
by taking in way fewer calories than is required for your
healthy weight is a foolish one. I have seen weight loss
programmes suggesting calorie intake of 800 calories per day,
where the required calories to maintain a healthy weight is
1,800 calories. This is disastrous for your long-term fat storage.
Restricted calories affect your fat burning and muscle building
hormones, causing you to lose muscle and make your body
more prone to storing fat.
___________________________________________________
The GOLDEN RULE of successful weight loss:
Eat the required calories as if you were ALREADY your
healthy weight (eating what you would need to MAINTAIN
your healthy weight). The way you lose it is the way you keep
it off. This rules out crash diets, fad diets and every diet under
the sun that is not designed to continue as your lifestyle
diet for the rest of your life.
N.B. Healthy, wholesome food is high in nutrients and low in
calories, junk food is high in calories and low in nutrients. Junk
food quickly puts you over your calorie threshold and you can
still be starving throughout the day. You can eat a substantial
quantity of healthy food and still stay within your calorie limit.
___________________________________________________
This strategy will gradually bring your weight down as you are
not eating sufficient calories to MAINTAIN your excessive
weight. If you work off the excessive fat by additional
expending of energy through exercise, weight loss will happen
faster. Losing weight like this is not instant, but you must think
of the long-term. You might be inspired by spectacular weight
loss stories such as, “I lost six stone in six months”, weight loss
testimonials. This is a foolish way to lose weight. You never
see the three years later testimonial where they have put the
weight back on, plus additional weight. Unfortunately, many
weight loss programmes suggest the opposite to what is in your
interest: to start to lose weight quickly. This is to convince you
that you are successful on the programme and get you
believing in their strategy.
My aim is to keep this guide concise. I will not delve into the
evaluation of calorie intake, calculation of BMR (calories you
burn with no exercise at all), etc. This information is readily
available online. Search for a BMR calculator, this will give
you the required intake of calories for you. You can also get
online calorie counters to give you the precise number of
calories in different foods. This will give you a clear guide.
You might be quite surprised by the number of calories you
find in various foods. You can also find calorie burning
calculators, which will show how many calories you presently
burn and how different activities burn calories specific to your
situation.
This will guide you to what you should be eating every day.
The slim person is not counting calories but he/she knows what
food, and in what quantity they should be eating to maintain
their healthy weight.
However, as your body has been trained not to be in tune with
real hunger, retraining it with the required intake of calories for
your healthy weight is essential. The fantastic news is that by
eating REAL FOOD (non-processed, natural food) over a
period of time, hunger regulates itself beautifully.
You can use the online calculators or / and packaging labels to
discover the calories in the foods you want to eat. Remember
you should eat enough calories as if you were already your
correct weight. You might be surprised by your calorie
requirements if you are not particularly active.
Use BMR calculator to discover the required calories for
your correct weight and then use a multiplier.
Sedentary (little or no exercise) BMR x 1.2
Lightly active (light exercise 1-3 days per week) BMR x 1.375
Moderately active (moderate exercise 3-5 days per week BMR
x 1.55
Very active (hard exercise 6-7 days a week) BMR x
1.725
Extra active (very hard exercise 6-7 days a week) BMR x
1.9
(The Harris Benedict Formula Calculator will do this
online).
The above section is the technical approach for estimating your
food requirements – it is necessary to provide this information.
The EASY way to discover what you should be eating to
maintain your healthy weight is to set out a healthy food plan
and then use the scales to see if there is a downward TREND
on the scales. If necessary, you can keep adjusting your plan so
that the downward TREND continues until you reach target
weight.
This is simple and straight-forward and a far cry from the
calculations that must be done with conventional weightloss
programmes that make your meal planning complicated, This
approach is in line with the approach to meal planning of
naturally slim people.
If you lost just 1lb of weight per week on average for 52
weeks, you lose 52 lbs per year – 3st,10lbs. If you follow my
golden rule (eat what you should be eating as if you were
ALREADY your correct weight) the initial weight loss is
greater due to the difference in the level of calorie
consumption, this tapers off to settle in at 1-2 lbs per week.
IMPORTANT. There are times when you will consume
additional calories: going on holidays, weddings, weekends
away (weekends!!!) etc - you will go up on the scales. That is
O.K. Resume your plan again and get your downward TREND
going on the scales.
There can be setbacks in life that can affect your healthy eating
plan, bereavement, illness, separation, financial problems, etc.
Those events can thow you off-track, that is to be expected.
Setbacks in life and setbacks with your eating plan are
INEVITABLE.
Every successful story, every successful person has met
setbacks along the way. Successful people expect setbacks
(without setbacks, you will never be truly successful with any
major goal). Successful people see setbacks as feedback, they
learn from the experience and that learning is crucial for their
eventual success. Unsuccessful people see setbacks in a
different light, they see themselves as a failure, they blame
themselves, they blame others, they blame the programme –
they find every EXCUSE possible. ATTITUDE is the
difference between success and failure (your attitude is
ingrained subconsciously – this is another reason for
utilising the power of hypnosis). If your WHY to succeed is
big enough, NOTHING is going to stop you achieving your
goal – no matter what setbacks you experience.
If a setback happens, PROMPTLY get yourself back on
course. It is so common for people to let themselves drift,
regain weight and then they have to claw it all back again to
where they were before the setback.
My goal is to help you take responsibility for the management
of your diet – not to be spoonfed by a company. I want you to
be proactive and take charge and become self-motivated. This
empowers you and gives you a sense of being in control of the
way you relate to food.
There is a lot of information on the internet about meal
planning - meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and
you are given the exact calorie count per meal.
Plan your eating
Plan you eating times for each day. Leave no more than 4 hours
between meals. Planning what you will eat each time will help
drive you to eat according to the plan. It has been proven that
most people enjoy knowing when their next meal is and are
less likely to search for other food when they know their
schedule. Therefore, it is important to set a meal time and stick
to it. If you feel like eating when you follow a planned day, it is
not hunger, it is emotion dressed up as hunger. We can confuse
“feeling uncomfortable” and “feel like eating”. We can
mislabel emotions. Always wait for your next scheduled meal
or snack time.
The most successful plan is one of three main meals and then
a small filler between meals. This goes with the natural
rhythm of hunger.
The filler snack should contain a healthy protein source and /
or fruit. Keep yourself hydrated with water / flavoured water
throughout the day.
You should include a protein source in ALL three main
meals. You have learned already that no matter how many
calories you eat in a meal, you can start to feel hunger if the
meal does not a have a protein source.
Eating protein speeds up your metabolism. Protein takes a lot
of work for the body to digest. When you eat 100 calories of
protein, you will use up 25 of those calories just to digest it.
Once again. I will mention processed SUGAR. Foods
containing sugar in high concentration will cause withdrawal
symptoms. It will cause you to feel empty, drained of energy,
restless, hungry and cause mood swings. You may have
believed in the past that eating more of it solved the problem. It
did for a little while, then you were back shortly with the same
symptoms again. Sugar does not solve the problem, IT KEEPS
IT GOING. Replace refined sugars with the natural sugars in
fruit. Soon you will feel better, feel less hungry and on your
way to a slimmer, healthier you.
If you are highly obese, do not cut your calorie intake by
more than 25%. As your weight falls, keep cutting back on
the calorie intake. You will finally reach the point where you
consume the necessary calories to maintain your correct
weight.
Start every day with a substantial, healthy breakfast.
If you are going on a long journey by car, you will first fill up
the tank. Think of your body in terms of the car. People who
start the day with a proper breakfast are 50% less likely to be
overweight. Fill your tank every morning and ensure it stays on
green ALL DAY by eating on a regular basis - remember you
eat three main meals and a snack between main meals. This is
crucial to keep the sugar levels from falling to red on the dial.
If the level falls, you body takes over and will drive you to eat
a junk food that rises the sugar level quickly. You are then off
on a spiking - crashing pattern for the rest of the day.
IMPORTANT.
We are born to be a certain height, weight and programmed
to need a certain level of calories and eat certain foods - like
every other species on the face of the planet. If we don’t give
the body the food it requires, no matter how much junk food
we eat, the body will create a hunger for the food and
nutrients it needs. Working in harmony with the nutritional
needs of the body is crucial for success.
Practical Tips
Healthy home policy.
Many families are now choosing this policy. It means that only
healthy natural food is bought to eat at home for adults and
children alike. “Treats” can be eaten when one is out for the
day, etc. You are not being “nice” or “loving” towards kids or
adults by giving them junk food. Don’t train children in
wanting unhealthy food. Sugary food makes them hyperactive,
it affects their learning and emotional state and sets them up for
long-term sugar addiction and life-long obesity - that is not
loving tender care, is it? When unhealthy food is in the house,
it gets eaten. Even people who would never want to eat it, end
up eating it when it is in the house after visitors coming or any
other such reason.
Hunger and thirst.
We can be confused between physical hunger and thirst. Take a
drink and if that does not solve the craving, it must be hunger.
Research has shown that 37 % of people actually confuses
thirst and hunger signals.
PROVEN tip about water.
Drinking a pint of water before meals can lead to a 75 calorie
reduction in the calories consumed. Water makes your stomach
feel full, so you are less inclined to clear your plate. While 75
calories may not seem like a lot, if you do this before breakfast,
lunch and dinner every day, it mounts up to losing over 20lbs
in one year.
If you increase your daily intake of water, your body will begin
to shed its excess fat, including the fat stored as cellulite. The
water will also help strengthen the collagen in your skin,
helping to reduce the lumpy look.
Eating on the go.
Don’t do it, it is a very bad habit, you are breaking one of the
most important rules about eating in the process: slow, mindful
eating.
Make a shopping list
Make a shopping list for the items you NEED at each
shopping. Unless you do this, you will be influenced by the
presentation of items, the choices made by other shoppers, etc.
Make sure that you are not shopping on an empty stomach.
Prepacked lunch
If you are driving a long journey, going for lunch during work
or even when shopping in town, have a healthy option
available. When people don't have a prepacked lunch, there is
the tendency to choose convenience food that is full of calories.
Always have a bottle of water in the car.
Choose real food
Choose Mother nature’s food which is natural, non-processed
and good for you. Just think of it, you feel good as you eat it,
you physically feel good after eating it when you are physically
hungry and you feel good for making a good choice. Those are
three pluses for naturally healthy food. When you eat junk
food, you feel good while eating it, you feel physically bad
shortly after eating it and guilty for eating it. that is one plus
and two minuses. Healthy eating is an OVERALL more
pleasurable experience.
Mental food diary
Research shows that when you keep a written track on what
you do, it tends to influence behaviour. However, writing a
diary is a chore and it isn’t something that would continue.
Practice making a mental food diary instead.
Non-food weight target rewards
Create non-food rewards that you can control that will
encourage you to attain healthy eating and exercise goals,
especially those that have been difficult to reach. An effective
reward is something that is desirable, timely, and contingent
on meeting your goal. Have a list of non-food rewards. Keep in
mind that numerous small rewards, delivered for meeting
smaller goals are more effective than bigger rewards, requiring
a long, difficult effort.
General rewards.
Get away from the idea of using food as a reward. Reward
yourself for work well done in life with activities that bring
you pleasure, instead of eating food. You put in a hard day at
the office - have a soothing bath, listen to a relaxing audio, etc.
Those type of activities are pleasurable, they don’t add to your
weight and you won’t feel guilty afterwards.
Important points from this section.
Recognise the different kinds of hunger.
Mindful eating - eat slowly and enjoy each mouthful.
Switch from refined sugars to natural sugars.
Eat three main meals and filler snacks, no more than four hours
between eating times.
Eat lean protein with each meal.
Eat a substantial breakfast EACH morning.
Make a shopping list and switch to brands with lower calories,
fat and sugar content.
Drink sufficient water - are you confusing hunger with thirst?
Eat the calories you need if you were ALREADY your healthy
weight.
Use non-food rewards.
Make a mental food diary.
Plan your eating.
Give your body the food it instinctively needs.
Healthy home policy - have choices between healthy foods.
Mindset
For Success
Chapter 3
Undoing the Brainwashing
One function of this e-book is to undo the food brainwashing to
which you have been subjected since you were born. I know
that you may blame yourself for being overweight, not being
able to say no to junk food, unable to stop reaching for food
when you feel emotional discomfort, etc. The truth is that you
can stop blaming yourself right now. You are where you are
due to all the conditioning that you have been subjected to all
your life.
No matter how hard you try, your conscious willpower will
never be a match for the powerful conditioning in your
subconscious mind. Your eating patterns have been reinforced
again and again over time, they have become a formidable
force inside you. Why do you think 95% of all diet plans fail?
It is helpful to think of you conscious mind and subconscious
as two separate individuals.
The conscious mind is a small, rational and logical person and
the subconscious mind is a powerful, primitive, emotional
person. No matter how hard you try to influence this powerful,
primitive, emotional person you just can not get through to this
person. This powerful person does not respond to rational
argument.
The good thing about this powerful individual is that it learns
in a visual, feeling way and is influenced by imagery and
indirect language communication. We can use its way of
learning to communicate with it and transform the way it
behaves. The hypnosis programme can help you to
communicate with the mind at a deeper level and bring about
profound changes in the behavioural patterns.
Thinking matters.
Slim people with a healthy eating pattern are committed to
being slim and have no inner conflicts in their mind about food.
The slim person can enjoy the occasional unhealthy eating
episode, but these episodes are in the plan. They might have a
Sunday dessert, have a treat on special occasions, do a little
unhealthy tasting here and there but all this is highly conscious,
controlled and to plan.
On the contrary, overweight people are not eating to plan feelings, fleeting thoughts, sensory stimuli, etc, drive their
eating patterns. Beliefs, attitudes and conflicting wants have a
huge part to play in the way we ultimately behave.
The word “conviction” is a highly significant one when it
comes to making a profound change in our lives. Conviction is
the final judgement where we decide this is it, no matter what
the discomfort or the sacrifice of what we give up, the desired
outcome far outweighs any negatives along the way.
The slim person would have the conviction that the pleasure of
ongoing feelings of: balanced energy, better mood, healthy
eating, their living in a healthy body, better health into the
future, a longer life, being able to wear different fashion styles,
being admired for their figure, the wonderful feelings slim and
enjoyment of their slimness for the 16 waking hours each day
is better than the occasional pleasurable moments of
unnecessary eating. The overweight person has decided the
total opposite to this.
An analogy is useful here.
We develop an emotional attachment to a substance/behaviour
in a similar way as we develop a relationship with a person.
Example. A woman is in an abusive relationship with a man.
She knows that she is better off without the man but she stays
in the relationship - maybe breaking up and going back again.
She may still have emotions for the man, maybe she has
concerns about being alone, financial difficulties, etc. She will
stay like this until the moment comes when she is prepared to
sacrifice the benefits she is getting from the relationship. When
that moment comes, she is free from the destructiveness of the
relationship but has to adjust to a new and challenging space
where she has to find new solutions to her different needs.
Similarly, the overweight person has to make the decision to
enter that space where food is no longer providing emotional
benefits and now has to find new solutions to met the needs
that food previously met in his/her life.
When we examine this closely, we can see how the beliefs held
by the overweight person sabotage their success. Are any of
those thoughts familiar: this once will not matter, now that I
broken my daily plan I will keep going, I will start tomorrow,
I deserve a treat, I do not smoke or drink, it is my time out, it
smells delicious, it helps me when I am bored. The
overweight person is using all these excuses to deprive
themselves of all the benefits the slim person experiences
from their healthy, controlled eating. Your present weight is
the result of the sum of your individual decisions, every
decision matters. Each decision you make takes you towards
slimness or obesity.
The moment of conviction is our moment of transformation.
There can be a gradual build-up of convincing beliefs or just
one overwhelming moment in time. The moment of conviction
is the moment that the heroin addict begins the journey of
becoming clean forever, that the smoker decides to quit for
good, that momentous change happens in a person’s life. The
person has now made a final decision where there is no going
back, no matter what the sacrifice of positives or what risk is
involved. This is a moment that can potentially turn a person’s
life right around. The overweight person has not yet reached
that moment of conviction.
Presently, it is the temporary pleasure of junk food you are
choosing. When you choose the benefits, your life will be
transformed. People who gorge on junk food think that they are
deprived if they have a healthy diet. Would their lives be worse
without it? Is the life of a person who stopped the pleasure of
smoking worse off without cigarettes? Is the person who has
abused alcohol worse off having stopped drinking? Is the
person who has quit taking illegal drugs worse off without the
pleasure of the drugs? Of course, they would never dream of
going back there again. Why do people addicted to eating junk
food believe that their lives would be worse off without it? The
answer to this is the effect of society’s brainwashing. Do you
want to be the victim of brainwashing or do you want the
benefits of being free from junk food and over-eating that bring
misery into your life?
The moment of conviction will occur when you have
considered the pros and cons for healthy & unhealthy eating
and you decide on the healthy option. Take time with your
decision. Remember, you can’t have both, you decide whether
you want all the benefits of slimness or not.
The idea of not being in control of your eating is an illusion.
The marvellous thing is that we are IN COMPLETE
CONTROL. We execute the CONCLUSIONS we have
reached. When I use the word “control”, I do not mean rational
control, I mean subconscious control. Your subconscious
guides you away from pain towards pleasure, as it sees it. The
subconscious can perceive emotional discomfort as more
painful than living with obesity. It can decide that altering your
emotional state at any given moment of time by eating junk
food, is more beneficial than tolerating obesity.
Chapter 4
New perceptions
It is helpful to think of the structure of behaviour in terms of
the growing plant – roots(thoughts), stem(feelings) and
flowers(behaviour). Our thoughts drive our feelings, which in
turn drive our behaviour. Many overweight people try to
change their behaviour but find that they fail repeatedly. If you
cut a weed at ground level, what happens to the weed? It grows
back again because the roots are still in place. If we try and
change our feelings and behaviour without changing our
thought structure, we are drawn back to the same old feelings
and behaviour again.
If you think of a tree growing, some of the roots may be visible
above the ground, but the vast majority are below ground level.
In a similar fashion, we are aware of some of the thinking that
holds our feelings and behaviour in place but most of it is
subconscious. The aim of this chapter is to help you look more
closely at how your thinking is driving your destructive eating
patterns.
The Ultimate decision
The length of time that the average overweight spends each day
eating unhealthy foods is less than fifteen minutes per day. Are
those fifteen minutes worth the loss of all the benefits accruing
from making healthy choices? You can even eat something
healthy for those fifteen minutes that would give satisfaction
without causing all the destruction. Remember, the aftermath of
unhealthy eating is guilt, worse mood, physical discomfort and
decreased energy in addition to obesity, problems with health,
longevity, etc.
If a doctor said to you that he would give you “a treat pill” that
gave you a high for a few minutes but the made you feel
physically worse afterwards, made you feel guilty, lowered you
energy level and, of course, contained hundreds of calories,
would you take it? Yet, this is what you do when you eat junk
food. See how brainwashing distorts our thinking.
The power of NOW
This is the space between a feeling and your reaction to the
feeling. It is the space for creativity and rational choice - it is
where we are MINDFUL. So, start today being mindful and see
the broad picture before you react. Such questions as, “how
will I feel ten minutes after making the choice, is the difference
in the feeling worth the bad choice, etc. Mindfulness puts you
in control - you disengage from automatic reactions. Overeaters often get carried away by the urge to eat and make a bad
decision, and then afterwards feel guilty about the decision.
While healthy eaters feel bad about bad eating decisions before
they eat, and so make a good eating decision.
Your old automatic sequence:
Uncomfortable feeling – thoughts of the pleasure of eating –
then eat the food.
The hypnosis programme can help you create a new
automatic sequence.
Parts in harmony
Part I. The part of your that wants to be slim.
Part 2. The part that wants pleasure from food.
The question is how to decide on your eating plan each week
so that both parts are catered for and both are in agreement
that the plan is fair to both. The problem with overweight
people who engage in “dieting” is that is there is no harmony
between both parts. When a person goes on a diet, the “want to
be slim” part takes over to the exclusion of the other part and
the “weight loss” begins. The “want pleasure from food part ”
is neglected and gets real angry and with a powerful force takes
over from the “want to be slim” part, the overeating REALLY
begins and the weight starts piling back on again. This is the
typical yo-yo dieting. If you can GET AGREEMENT between
both parts, the goal of successful weight management gets
more easy. Now make this practical by doing the following
below:
With your knowledge from the “what to eat section” and “The
success scale” shown, later on, work out an eating plan for
each day / week. Continue this ongoing planning into the
future. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Planning is crucial for success. People plan for every aspect
of their lives except for eating. They plan for their work,
activities, finances, family, etc. If people lived their lives with
spontaneity, just “going with the flow of their feelings”, their
lives would be in chaos.
The power of one
Every decision matters. Each time you make a decision about
eating, it takes you further towards slimness or obesity.
Keeping stacking decisions towards slimness. Now you know
why such comments as, “this one time won’t make a difference
or I will start tomorrow” when you decide an unhealthy choice,
is not the right thinking policy. When you repeat such
comments over a year, it adds up to considerable weight gain.
Finding the right solution.
Most overeating is emotional eating. The person is stressed,
angry, bored, lonely and this is the trigger for automatic eating
- the opposite to mindful eating.
The sequence:
There is a life problem → causing a feeling → reactive eating
→ temporary numbing of feeling → guilt feeling for
overeating → the original problem is STILL there + the
original negative emotional is probably still there. If hunger
in not the problem food is NOT the solution ever.
Are you using food as the SOLUTION for problems? What
are the other possible solutions to deal with the feeling as
opposed to eating?
Positive and negative motivation
To help you find alternative solutions to food, its is necessary
to look at two types of motivation: negative and positive
motivation.
Positive motivation: All the good reasons you have for
changing your behaviour - look slimmer, more energy, etc.
Negative motivation: All the reasons you have to continue
with the behaviour. This is what locks unwanted (consciously)
behaviour in place. It tends to be more powerful than positive
motivation and it must be transformed to bring about lasting
change in behaviour. The behaviour is fulfilling some
emotional need in the person. You either have to transform the
emotions that are driving the behaviour and /or find a new way
of meeting an emotional need. ( I deal with the emotional side
in the next part of this section).
It is helpful to think of this process as a balance scales. There
are needs on both sides of the scale and the side with the
greater needs tilts the scale to behave in one way or the other.
The greater the emotions linked into the reasons to behave in a
certain way, the more it exerts pressure on the scales.
An example of temporary change in thinking with the
emotional charge: A girl who is overweight with bad eating
habits is getting married in six months time. She has a great
desire to look slim in her wedding dress, so she goes on a diet.
The emotion involved exerts pressure on the positive
motivation side, so it tilts the scale to good eating habits and
she loses weight for the wedding day. Her mind was prepared
to temporarily suspend the benefits from overeating due to
overpowering need to be slim for the wedding day. However,
now that the need to be slim for the wedding day is over, the
need to use food to deal for everyday negative emotions comes
into play again and tilts the scale to bad habits again.
The girl didn’t just want to lose weight for her wedding but
EXPECTED that she could do it due to the importance of the
day - so she succeeded. This now brings us to an important
law of the mind: the law of expectation.
WHY slimming programmes have an INITIAL success
People attending weight loss programmes have the belief that
the programme will help them to lose weight. They are given a
diet and are inspired to be successful. Their craving for junk
food “disappears” and they follow the diet slavishly and may
lose considerable weight. Where did the cravings go? They
“disappeared” because they believed that this what would
happen. The Law of Expectation (what the mind believes, the
mind achieves). In the same way that a smoker who smokes a
cigarette every half-hour and goes on a ten-hour plane flight
without any craving for a cigarette, where did the craving go?
Again, the law of expectation.
Of course, there are additional forces involved in weight loss
programmes: you might be competitive and want to succeed,
fear the embarrassment of being the one not losing weight, etc.
You go along each week to the programme and you don't want
the embarrassment of not losing weight. So, you lose some
weight, you get applauded, you are ready for next week, you
might even be the biggest loser. This has nothing to do with
weight management - this is playing weight loss games.
Conventional weight loss programmes can help to temporarily
boost your willpower. Sooner or later after pushing your
willpower to its limits (sometimes after losing a lot of weight),
you begin to be one of the worst performers, you begin to lose
interest in the game. You also see others caving into the
challenge, you have lost your drive and you drop out and start
doing what REALLY makes you happy - you start overeating
again and the weight starts piling on again. Sounds familiar?
What was happening was in conflict with your subconscious
programming and sooner or later you would revert back to
the relationship with food that was “normal” for you.
WILLPOWER: Willpower is the conscious effort to achieve a
goal that is in conflict with a more powerful deeper goal. It is
like a game of tug-o-war, you will inevitably lose the battle.
You have to control the forces that are controlling you – you
need skill power, not willpower.
About 5-10% of people are highly suggestible, those are the
people who would be chosen to take part in hypnosis stage
shows. Those people would tend to easily drift in and out of
trance states in everyday interactions. Assuming that the same
percentage of attendees at weight loss programmes are highly
suggestible, it would count for the percentage of attendees who
maintain the weight loss over an extended period. They simply
have become subconsciously influenced by the dynamics of
group meetings. Wouldn't it have made more sense if that 510% had consulted for a hypnosis consultation instead – it
would have been faster, cheaper and have cut out all the
nonsense. The vast majority of the remaining 90-95% would
also achieve subconscious change had they decided to do the
same.
Many different dynamics are behind the “success” of
conventional weight loss programmes. One example is the
teacher-pupil scenario: attending class each week and having to
have weight shed (the homework done). Another is
transference (which is very powerful) - this is where the person
is developing feelings for the advisor and wanting to please by
losing weight. Ongoing one-to-one weight loss programmes is
an example of this: the overweight guy with the glamorous
advisor. He is developing an attraction for the lady (may not
aware of it consciously) and is chuffed by her happiness at his
success. While the guy is on the programme, he will probably
keep losing the weight. However, as soon as he leaves the
programme his motivation is gone and he is back to the old
eating habits again. Such weight loss programmes are aware of
those dynamics and will try to keep the client on the
programme for as long as possible. Hence, they may offer
maintenance programmes and the like. You will also notice that
their success statistics are based on the clients still on those
programmes.
People blindly buy into very strange activities of weight loss
programmes, For instance, some programmes get their clients
to stick achievement stickers into a booklet, this is an
appropriate activity for toddlers in a playgroup, it is not an
appropriate activity for profound mindset transformation for
someone with a food addiction, is it now?
Traditional weight loss programmes are a great business model
- their success is based on your FAILURES. Losing weight,
then regaining it and going back to the programme is the model
for their business success. The profits are made from repeat
business. Their marketing strategy is usually to get new clients
and hold onto existing ones, its easier to hold onto an existing
client than get a new one – this is not good news for the clients.
It is time you get wise to the way traditional weight loss
programmes operate and take control by reaching to methods
that help to give YOU back control of your eating habits.
Long-term, traditional weight loss programmes help clients
lose euros NOT lbs.
The weight management industry has succeeded in creating the
impression that weight loss problems can only be resolved by
attending weight loss programmes, this disempowers
overweight people. When you consider that 95% of attendees
then fail in their attempt to maintain weight loss, this sense of
being disempowered is further reinforced to a degree that
overweight people develop a “learned helplessness”. When this
happens it becomes almost impossible to succeed. Overweight
people will tend to go from one weight loss programme to
another and then to the latest programme that really works,
believing that this could be the one. Of course, it all ends up in
tears again. Conventional weight loss programmes, whether
they are one-to-one or groups are just a VARIATION of a
method that is doomed to fail for 95% of participants.
It is empowering to take responsibility – only YOU can do it,
you just need the strategies for success of SUCCESSFUL
slimmers. When you depend on an outside source for ongoing
support, you are admitting that you don't have the inner
resources to self-determination when it comes to your weight.
There is a total disbelief subconsciously that you are the master
of your own destiny. YOU have got to be the captain of the
ship, the master of your fate.
Don't just follow what OTHERS are doing that – we tend
follow the flock. With a failure rate of 95%, that is not very
smart. This approach is HARD, with failure almost inevitable.
We should work smarter not harder. Wouldn't it make more
sense to follow the strategies of the 5% of overweight people
who SUCCEED?
N.B
Another aspect of expectation has to do with the way we
respond to feelings. This has to do with whether or not we
believe we are empowered. When we feel empowered, we can
do things purposely as opposed as “going wth the feeling” For
instance, the mother who “feels like” staying in the cosiness of
her bed when the alarm goes off to get the kids up for school,
has no problem in doing the oppposite of going with the
feeling, gets up and acts purposely. It is of enough importance
to do this – she has a big enough WHY. Yet, when this same
lady “feels like” having a biscuit, she goes to the cupboard,
gets one and eats one. Which urge is the strongest? People
BELIEVE that they can't overcome the urge to eat junk food
when they are not physically hungry – how wrong this belief is.
No matter what the feeling is, you can create a space between
yourself and your feelings and act purposely.
Unravelling your automatic thinking
The problem with the mind is that decision making has now
become automatic. Since the moment you were born you were
having negative and positive experiences about food and all
that learning have now become condensed into automatic
thinking responses.
The purpose of the following work that I will ask you to do is
unravel some of the automatic thinking and create new and
better responses to your feelings and life experiences.
List how junk food or overeating is of benefit to you. What
feelings are triggering the thought of food that creates the urge
to eat it. Many people cannot label feelings, they just “feel
like” eating, they think of a food and then there is a compulsion
to eat it.
If there is just a sense of emptiness no matter how much food
you eat, this may be an emptiness from what was robbed from
you in the past: innocence, a loved one, emotional nurture, etc.
Overeating in this case may be used by your subconscious to
push down any rising emotions that may be too painful to
surface. If this is the situation, getting professional help to
address this may be in your best interest.
Obesity may serve the function of protection: smallness may
feel like vulnerability, this would comes from the pain of being
small and vulnerable as a child. It may help you to avoid
getting into a relationship, this would be the case if you
suffered in relationships in the past. It may be guilt and you
want to punish yourself for things you feel bad about from the
past. It may be repressed anger that you have turned inwards.
As you can see, these issues are not usually dealt with in
weight loss programmes, so you may have been in the wrong
programme when you sign up for a weight loss programme.
You may be able to label emotions: stress, anxiety, anger,
loneliness, boredom etc. If you can recognise the emotions that
trigger emotional eating, then make a list each emotion and
what non-food solutions you can create for the different
emotions.
Sometimes it can be a case of feeling the emotion,
acknowledging the emotion and allowing it to pass, while you
allow you mind to drift off to some pleasant memories that
can help shift your emotional state.
Concentrated attention.
Be careful what keeps coming into your mind. What we keep
focusing on, we tend to create it, whether we want it to be or
not to be. The deeper mind does not understand negatives. If
you get up in the morning and start thinking all day about the
chocolate that you should not be eating, the urge to eat it keeps
increasing. The secret is to focus on what you “want” not
what you “don’t want.”
What is your “driver”? Are you the “I want to” group or
the “ I have to” group?
This is an important question. If you are in the “I have to”
group, you want to have a healthy diet due to the unwanted
consequence of being overweight. What you are doing is
against your will. There is conflict in your mind. The “have to”
group is a difficult group to be in. This is the group in which
you have people who suffer from addictions but manage to stay
free from the substance: the alcoholic for example. People in
this group keep slipping in and out of the group. They are
doing well or else relapse in doing whatever is the addiction.
The “want to” group is doing well due to their decision about
the lifestyle they wish to have. For instance, the person who
doesn’t drink alcohol, not because he is afraid he might become
an alcoholic, he just thinks life is better being free from the use
of alcohol. It is very easy for him to stay in this group.
Healthy eaters in the “want to” group are not eating healthy in
case they become overweight, they eat well as a lifestyle
decision - they want to put healthy food into their bodies. It is
easy for them to stay in this group.
The success scale: 0 – 10
Overweight people are either “on” a diet or “off” a diet, “good”
or “bad”, “in control” or “out of control” The real question is
the level of your control. Nobody is starving all day long or
eating all day long. So, the terms they use are not helpful.
If you think of five on the scale for the day, you are neither
eating to lose of gain weight. Think of each number below or
above the number 5, if maintained for the week equals two
pounds. Your goal would be to keep the number at six for each
day, at six as an average for the week. The good thing about the
scale is that there is a sense of always having control. If you
have a bad start to the day that would bring the average for the
day to four, you can then make a good eating choice later on,
maybe go for a walk - so that you bring the number to six
before you go to bed. If you have plans for the weekend that
could bring the number to four for a day or two, try to get a
number seven for two days during the week to get an average
of six for the week. I am using the number six all the time as it
represents a release of two pounds of fat per week, this is the
average type of success you would be expecting if you start
eating as though you were ALREADY your correct weight.
Obviously, anyone who is quite obese might be aiming at seven
or eight on the scale for the week.
Overall eating experience
Let's look at what is really going on when somebody decides
about eating. Let's break this down into components: the
feelings while you eat, the physical feelings ten minutes after
eating and the way you feel ten minutes after eating, when we
compare junk food with you favourite healthy food.
In general for junk food, people would say that they give ten
marks to the junk food and seven marks for healthy food while
eating it. Three marks for junk food and eight marks for
healthy ten minutes after eating it. One mark for junk food and
nine marks for healthy food for emotional feelings ten
minutes after eating it (guilt feelings comes for junk food here).
Fourteen marks for junk food and twenty-four marks for
healthy food - the total marks. The overall experience is better
for the healthy food than junk food. The person has deprived
themselves of a better overall enjoyable experience by eating
junk food. What marks would you give to the different aspects
of your eating experience?
The “Weight Loss” Mindset
Your excess weight is not the PROBLEM, it is a symptom of
the problem – which is your bad relationship with food and
your attitude to being physically active. When your focus is on
“losing weight”, your focus is in the wrong place. If your focus
is on losing weight, you will probably spend the rest of your
life “trying to lose weight”. If you get your focus on
establishing healthy eating habits - eating the way nature
intended you to do and creating a new attitude to activity,
your weight will look after itself.
Getting away from the obsession about losing weight is crucial,
all it does is create tension between your desire to be thin and
your desire to treat yourself with food. This is another huge
problem with weight loss programmes, the focus is on losing
weight, how much weight is lost and stepping on weighing
scales. If the REASON to stay from junk food and not over-eat
is to lose weight, you are in the wrong space.
The definition of success of the weight loss programmes is
“weight lost”. The biggest loser wins the national prize for the
programme, even though that person may be eight stone lighter
due to starving themselves to “win the competition”, having
lost as much muscle as fat. The person who lost one stone but
has changed their mindset about food is just the forgotten one.
Fortunately, an increasing number of people are moving away
from the concept behind the programmes and many of the
programmes are hiring leading experts in marketing to win
back customers. Seemingly, the tide is going out for
conventional dieting programmes and that is not a bad thing.
The “Exercise” Mindset.
If the word "exercise" inspires you to creative avoidance, then
avoid it. Start having your “activity thrills” whenever you can.
When you reframe a word you change the way you feel about
it.
Walking is a super-easy way to keep fit. (On a practical
matter, you don't burn fat for the first 25 minutes of walking,
you burn sugar. So, an hour's walk three times a week is
better than 30 minutes six times a week)
Park your car a little further away from the entrance to shop,
office, etc.
Get off the bus a few stops earlier.
Do more window shopping.
Take the stairs every chance you get.
Sign up for charity walks.
Dance to a workout video just for a few minutes.
Find as many activities as possible that you enjoy, every step
or move makes a difference.
Don't wait for the spirit to move you - move the spirit.
Thinking about being active is the hardest part. Movement
comes before energy, the reason you have no energy to move is
that you are not moving. JUST DO IT, put one foot in front of
the other and think how good it feels when you get into the
swing of activity.
Emotions and Exercise
Exercise can lift your mood and improve your emotions. When
you exercise, your brain releases endorphins, adrenaline,
serotonin and dopamine. These chemicals can improve your
mood. In addition, after exercising your muscles will relax
deeper because of the workout – easing tension and strain.
Exercise Equipment
The secret to continued use of exercise machines is that you
combine them with engaging visual and aural stimulation. It
might be watching your favourite soap on TV or whatever you
can do that interests you. It is important you combine the
exercise with some stimulation. If you exercise and watch the
four walls, its only a matter of time before the machine ends up
in the garage.
The reason that walking is the most used form of exercise is
that there is a constant changing visual and aural stimuli. You
are putting one foot in front of the other without even noticing
it. Having others engage in exercise with you is beneficial, time
passes more quickly, the exercise is more enjoyable and people
tend to motivate each other.
Research proves that a moderate level of regular exercise can
be as beneficial as medication for depression. The way exercise
affects mood can not be underestimated. It is amazing how
many people who love exercising hate to exercise. The reason
for this is that exercise is associated with “trying to lose
weight”. It has a negative connotation. We should exercise for
the good feelings it creates. Weight loss and all the other health
benefits are an additional spin-off from exercising. Weight loss
should not be “the reason” for exercising.
REMEMBER: The way you lose weight is the way you keep
it off. If you lose and maintain your weight lose with excessive
exercise, you must maintain that level of exercise indefinitely.
(Of course, this is also the case with your approach to food).
Chapter 5
Emotional Eating
The “past” does influence your emotional eating. There is no
such thing as the “past” in the deeper mind, everything is the
“present”. You are a body here and now with a collection of
images, language patterns, conditional responses that you have
developed since you were born. Every learning experience you
have had since you were born does influence the way you
think, feel and behave. “The child is father to the man”,
(Wordsworth). Many of the emotional and behavioural
patterns you have today were learned before you were seven
years of age. In many respects, you are looking out through the
eyes of a child in an adult body.
Significant adults, in their effort to be compassionate and
loving to you, could have significantly influenced your weight
problem of today. The link between uncomfortable emotions
and junk food could have been created back in those early
years or later on in your life.
Example: the child is upset for some reason, the parent feels
sorry for the child and offers a chocolate to the child. The child
now feels better. The chocolate has changed an unpleasant
emotional state to a pleasant emotional state. The
reinforcement is repeated again and again over time until an
unpleasant feeling will automatically drive the child to eat
something “nice”.
The “past” is the filter through which we evaluate events,
create different emotional responses, develop attitudes and
create different behavioural patterns.
Often a healthy attitude towards food is created by responsible
adults in a child’s life but circumstances in later life can find a
comforting release through eating, alcohol and other such
behaviours and through repetition, this develops into a
powerful habit that becomes deeply engrained in the
subconscious. The “past” does not mean childhood years but
all experiences since you were born leading up to the here
and now.
The emotions that drive us to eat can be locked-in emotion
from experiences that traumatised us in the past or from
ongoing everyday stress, anxiety, anger, etc. If emotion is
creating a lot of difficulty in your life, you need professional
help to deal with it. If you have tried different diets or weight
loss programmes in the past and have unresolved emotional
issues, you were just fighting a losing battle. You were
attending the WRONG programme.
IMPORTANT
We are wired to be tribal. There are three drives at the core of
human motivations: safety, belonging and mattering. It’s
neurological… it’s primal… there is nothing you can do to
override or change this subterranean subconscious
programming as much as you may try.
Many people find themselves alone, isolated from the tribe and
this is not good. Many mothers (and some fathers too) find
themselves alone at home each day as the children are away at
school. Many people go home from work each evening and
spend the evening alone. There are people living in a loveless
relationship where they feel alone and empty even in company.
It is important that we address the emotional emptiness created
by isolation. This emptiness is a major factor that drives
emotional eating. There are ample opportunities for people to
get involved and be part of a community. Many mothers get
together for coffee (and fruit) mornings, do valuable
community work, etc. Anybody who spends a lot of time on
their own should find opportunities to get involved with other
human beings, doing something that is of interest and also be
of help to others (mattering).
Unfortunately, some parents use the alone time to attend
slimming programmes – using the time to focus on their
weight problem!!! Find something better to do, something
enjoyable that will make you feel good. On the matter of
slimming groups, you probably know by now that I am not a
lover of the concept.
We should model success, not get into a group with people who
have a similar problem. We should instead get involved with
people who don't have the problem, we then can model and
be inspired by the success of others and achieve the
confidence to succeed.
It is important that I explain to you at this stage WHY you
really crave junk food when alone or have negative emotion
starting to rise within you. Also, it is important that I give you
the sequence of how it happens. When emotion starts to rise,
subconsciously you want to get instant relief from the emotion
(instinctively you want to move from pain to pleasure). Your
mind qucikly searches for a solution that worked in the past
and then quickly flashes the solution into your mind and
creates the urge to carry out the behaviour. All this happens
very quickly subconsciously. That is the sequence of what
happens subconsciously. This is why hypnosis is SO
EFFECTIVE for unscrambling the sequence so that it no
longer can run. Now let's look at WHY the subconscious
chooses that behaviour.
In addition to the effect of the chemicals on the brain (and.of
course, the pleasure of the taste), there is another important
element to the drive to eat when it is an emotional need,
rather than when the need is physiological.
One part of an experience tends to trigger off associated links
of the experience. You would not be consciously aware of all
of this as it happens subconsciously. For instance, when you eat
a piece of cake, you are not just experiencing the physiological
effect of the substance you are consuming – you are triggering
off the associated emotion from past experiences when you
were eating cake. You are remembering the joy of the birthday
party, being comforted by a loving adult, being protected and
cared for, etc. This is a very powerful element of the drive to
eat when the need is emotional. You will also notice that it is
usually childhood junk food – biscuits, sweets, bars, cake,
crisps that you crave when it is an emotional state that drives
you to eat.
This insight is probably new to readers, it may be the insight
that will radically change your approach to weight
management. When people eat emotionally, they think that it is
the substance contained in the food that they crave – it isn't, it
is the emotional state that is triggered off by eating. The act of
eating becomes the release valve to temporarily release the
build up of emotional tension. When the eating has finished,
the conscious awareness takes over and possibly the person
feels guilty for having eaten the food and have a sense of being
out of control.
Subconscious
Change
Chapter 6
Subconscious Transformation
The problem with any feeling or behaviour that has become
automatic is that it is very difficult to change it. You can try
hard (willpower), but it is as though there is a power inside you
forcing you to do the opposite. Through willpower, we can
temporarily act in opposition to ingrained patterns of behaviour
but eventually we are drawn back by force. Unless we change
those automatic responses, we will stay stuck in the unwanted
feeling or behaviour.
When we learn something that has become automatic, we tend
to develop a "closed mind" about the feeling or behaviour, we
find it very difficult to "open up to change". The mind tends to
protect automatic behaviour and emotions from change This is
where direct communication with the subconscious mind is
important. The state of hypnotic trance is a state of mind
where we become "open to change". Communicating with
the mind in this focussed is the fastest and most powerful way
possible to create desirable behaviour, and transform limiting
emotional responses.
The big drawback of conventional help methods for weight
loss is that they are limited in how they can transform old
established patterns of emotional responses and behaviours. No
matter how dysfunctional the emotional response or habit is,
there is a positive intent behind it - it serves some important
emotional need in the person. Unless this need is changed or
met in some other constructive way, the person will revert back
to the dysfunctional emotional response or behaviour.
The benefit of hypnosis is that you can access and transform
the unhelpful subconscious patterns. You are then free to create
new emotional responses and behaviours without having
conflict in your mind between conscious wants and
subconscious beliefs.
The subconscious pillar is the most important pillar of the
three pillars of success. You can discover the successful
approach to diet and create new thinking about food BUT if
you don't create new subconscious patterns, all you have is
knowledge – you don't develop this knowledge into
automatic eating habits.
The HypnoSlim Programme
SUBCONSCIOUS CHANGE:
While we can consciously develop new thinking about our
relationship with food, developing this into a skill that
automatically drives our behaviour is the REAL problem. We
have old habits developed, we have emotional needs that
previously have been met by food and we have a whole range
of deep-rooted responses that are deeply ingrained and will
overpower any new thinking about food. When you have
repeatedly carried out certain eating habits over time, they now
have become ingrained subconsciously - you NEED
subconscious change to break these old patterns of behaviour.
Hypnosis is the KEY to create this deep change QUICKLY.
This programme can change the way the subconscious mind
looks at food. At a deep-down level, the cravings
start to disappear. You'll start to find that you're eating less and
enjoying it more automatically. Far from depriving yourself,
you will feel that you are taking care of yourself more with less
food. Soon it will become a joy to see and feel a healthier,
happier, thinner you!
You can consciously motivate yourself for a period of time to
over-ride the deepest desires, but they will eventually
overpower the conscious effort and you end up back at square
one again. and possibly even worse. This is why many weight
loss programmes can fail. This programme is a fast and a very
effective therapy to bring about lasting changes in the
relationship with food.
The programme can help you:
* Overcome the craving for food.
* Maintain a balanced eating pattern.
* Begin to feel good about yourself.
* Overcome the destructive thinking about food.
* Develop motivation to lose weight.
* Acquire triggers for instant positive feelings.
* Become more active physically and enjoy it.
Understanding Hypnosis
Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, which feels like
something between sleeping and waking and has qualities of
both these states. You experience a similar feeling to the one
you experience as you are drifting to sleep at night.
Because hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, or
awareness, at no time will you be asleep or unaware of what is
going on. You will, however, be likely to feel more relaxed
than ever before. A feeling of peace, serenity and wellbeing
generally accompany this relaxation. Most people experience a
very pleasant energy increase after the session.
The HypnoSlim Programme
FREE Assessment Consultation (15-30minutes).
Your consultation is on a private one-to-one basis.
Firstly, I assess your problem with weight and make
recommendations about the best course of action. I will explain
how the process and hypnosis works and answer any questions
you may have. If you think that it is for you and you decide to
proceed, we can continue with your initial session. There is no
obligation to proceed with the programme if you think it isn't
for you or should you wish to reflect further.
Coaching Sessions
ONE initial session is required and a follow-up. Each session
is of ONE HOUR duration. Most of the coaching time
involves trance work.
In addition to subconscious transformation work, I will also
assist you if necessary with the first two pillars of success: diet
and mindset.
___________________________________________________
Testimonials
"I used to eat when I was sad, bored, stressed, even when I was
happy. Every emotion seemed to trigger a desire to eat. That
has now changed thanks to HypnoSlim. I have managed to
break the link between emotions and food."
Nuala Rodgers.
"There was no struggle involved as change happened at a
subconscious level. The only way that worked for me".
Gerry Rodgers
" I tried so hard to lose weight all my adult life without
success. I was doing it all wrong, I was trying to follow diets
that were not natural for me to follow. so naturally they all
failed and the weight went back on. The programme
transformed my thoughts and feelings about food, as well as
creating new habits".
Martina O'Shea.
"The programme changed my life. It was like flicking a switch
in my mind, where my desire for junk food was switched to a
desire to be slim. It is amazing how easily and how quickly
change can happen".
Amanda Kelly
___________________________________________________
CALL NOW for your FREE Assessment Consultation or
if you have any queries about the programme.
Tel: 094 9060226 or 086 161 2301.
[email protected]
LOCATION:
54 Lakeview, Rathbawn Road, Castlebar.