How Hypnotherapy Can Transform You From Flab To Fab

Since I started as a therapist many people have come to see me for weight loss hypnotherapy (I prefer to use the term ‘weight management’ but do accept weight loss as the common term). Some of those people have only wished to lose a little weight; others have wanted to lose several stone or more. The first thing that I do with my clients who want to lose weight is determine how much weight it is they want to lose. At this point I can assess the reality of them reaching their goal and advise them accordingly.

Sometimes people will come for weight loss therapy and it will be acting as a mask for another deeper issue that they have not resolved. The weight issue will feel like an ‘OK’ thing to address with a therapist, whereas the deeper issue may not consciously be apparent to the client.

I’ll go more into how hypnotherapy can help someone wanting to lose weight later on, but first I want to talk about what obesity is and what causes some people to be overweight.

Obesity is defined as carrying too much body fat for your height and gender, to the extent that it poses a risk to health. A person will be medically considered obese if their body mass index (BMI) is 30 or greater.

An ideal BMI will be between 20 and 25. We can work out a person’s BMI by:

1. Squaring the person’s height in metres

2. Dividing the result by their weight in kilograms

For example, if a person was 1.75m tall and weighed 70kg then their BMI would be calculated as follows:

1.75 X 1.75 = 3.06

70/3.06 = 22.88 = the person’s BMI

A person becomes overweight due to taking in more calories over a given period of time then their body needs for maintenance, growth and activity. The rate at which we burn off calories is termed metabolic rate. Our metabolic rate is often faster during periods of growth and puberty but generally steadies out during adulthood. If we are active, our metabolic rate is generally higher as we need more calories to maintain an even weight. If we have a sedentary lifestyle we would need fewer calories, and taking in more calories than we need would be easier and would cause us to put on weight.

Obesity causes around 30,000 deaths in England every year and is only beaten by smoking. Two thirds of adults in this country are overweight and of these 22% of men 23% of women fall into the category of obese. This indicates that they are at least two or three stone overweight and their excess weight is putting their health at risk. Obesity increases the risks of several serious conditions including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, high blood pressure, gallstones, infertility and depression.

In children, the number of those described as obese has tripled over the past twenty years. We are seeing some 10 out of every 100 six year olds as obese, a figure rising to 17 out of 100 by the time they reach 15. Childhood obesity is a strong indication of continuing obesity and weight problems into later life.

So, how can hypnotherapy help?

When a client comes to see me for weight loss hypnotherapy the first thing that I have to do is assess their suitability for therapy. During the consultation I would ask a few questions about their lifestyle and any issues they may have before going on to determine the client’s BMI. This is done by measuring the client’s weight and height, and then doing the calculation above. If the person is classed as overweight or obese then I should be able to work with that individual to help them reach their goal. Somebody who is a normal weight for their height and gender should not be attending therapy to lose weight and I would not see somebody in that situation (although I would have to question why they feel the need to lose weight). Once the client has been assessed I can begin therapy.

The weight loss hypnotherapy that I conduct is based on the following three guidelines:

1. It is not based on depravation – I do not ask people to give things up but to reassess their eating habits. Hypnotherapy can help with reprogramming their subconscious into eating healthily which includes taking pride in their bodies and looking after them.

2. It is about identifying and accepting the programmes that the client’s subconscious is running from and deciding to change them.

3. It involves looking, if necessary, at where these programmes came from. This helps clients to understand their situation and stop blaming themselves.

The first step of weight loss hypnotherapy is to ascertain the client’s goal and assess the length of time this may take. I always inform my clients that a healthy rate of weight loss is 1 – 2 pounds per week. So if a client wanted to lose 14 pounds they should expect it to take between seven and fourteen weeks to achieve that goal. The next step is to take a detailed history of the client’s relationship with food and dieting. During this part of the therapy I will be listening to the words that the client uses and looking for any patterns that may link to the reason why that person has a weight issue. Once that has been done I need to find out how motivated the client is to lose weight on a scale of 0 – 10, with 10 being extremely motivated. I do this by asking the client to score themselves and I always look for at least an 8. If a client is not at least an 8 in terms of how motivated they are then that indicates that some motivational work also needs to be incorporated into the therapy, and the reasons for the lack of motivation will also need to be explored. The next step in the therapy is to go through the danger times and places with the client. This can be insightful for the client as they may not realise that there is a pattern to their eating habits. For example a client could always overeat when visiting family or a friend. We would then look at ways to handle those situations in future so that the overeating comes to a stop. After looking at the danger times and places I ask my clients to come up with a list of benefits of weight loss. If the client has several benefits written down this can act as a motivational tool. Benefits could be anything from having more money to being more active with their children.

Once all of the above steps have been completed it is time to move on to the actual hypnosis. This part of therapy will vary from client to client depending upon what their goal is and what has been revealed during the pre-hypnosis work. What I say during hypnosis will depend on what the client has revealed to me. One example I can give you is from some weight loss therapy that I did with an actual client of mine. The client was overeating because they kept buying lots of unhealthy food at the supermarket on impulse and then feeling they had to eat it all because they had bought it. Therefore the hypnosis that I did with that client involved visualising themselves in a supermarket surrounded by morbidly obese people stuffing cakes, chips and other unhealthy food into their mouths in a way that was disgusting and sickened the client. The client had to visualise the obese people trying to force them to buy all of the unhealthy food and eat it but realise that they did not want to be like that, and that they wanted to push away all of the unhealthy food. The hypnosis involved the client going through many aisles of the supermarket and being faced with the same situation, but getting stronger and more able to push away all of the unhealthy food because they wanted to lose weight. The final aisle in the supermarket that the client had to visualise was full of healthy food that the client felt that they loved and wanted to buy and eat. The client was then asked to pick up the healthy foods and walk towards the checkout. Just before the client got to the checkout they were asked to imagine a big stand full of healthy and positive treats that the client could choose from as a reward for picking healthy food and rejecting the unhealthy food. Once a treat had been picked and they had checked out of the supermarket with the healthy food, I put the suggestion in their mind that they would begin to apply this to their real life so that they could reach their goal.

That is a basic overview of what is approximately one hour of hypnosis. It turned out to be beneficial for the client who went on to achieve their goal, and I have since used variations of that hypnotic screed.

So there you have it; how as your hypnotherapist I can help you to reduce and control your weight, leading to you living a happier, healthier and more fulfilling life.