Over the years as a Hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner, I have seen many people who want help with losing weight. Often these clients will know a great deal about weight loss, and will have spent a great deal of time and energy and frequently money in the determined pursuit of weight loss.
They know all about what they should and shouldn’t be eating, what their goal weight is, how many ‘sins’ they can have at any one time, how many calories a particular food has etc., etc. So many different rules and regulations about eating! In fact so many rules that they have often forgotten what it is to really relish and enjoy the food that they eat, eating has often become a task and possibly even something to dread.
We can then add into the mix the idea that they also want to ‘lose’ something too, i.e. weight and it is no wonder that many people yo-yo their way through diet after diet after diet.
The idea of ‘losing weight’,
A client wants to lose weight. The unconscious mind, were all of our behavioural patterns reside is not keen on solely ‘losing’ something. How we describe what we want to achieve, right away puts this part of the mind in a bit of a quandary.
‘I’m losing something, ok, but what am I gaining from that?
Losing anything is usually an uncomfortable state for the mind especially when all of our conscious thoughts and actions are driving this idea of loss. When we lose something we are often sad or hurt or distressed and so the idea of loss is frequently not the best place to start when wanting to change how your body looks and feels.
To focus purely of the loss of weight, even when it might be clinically advisable is too one sided for the mind and so can be a struggle. To balance lout the equation we need something else.
Towards and Away From
The full balance equation of change is:
‘I am working away from being heavier than I want and towards gaining ….. Something?’
I like to encourage all of my clients to think about and focus upon what they will gain as a result of losing the weight they want instead.
It could be slenderness, or tone and fitness, improved health and mobility in fact anything that provides the key ingredient of a motivation to move towards. All of these are powerful motivations to work towards and so much easier for your unconscious mind to want to work as hard as it can for you in order to help you feel fitter, more slender and have greater freedom of movement.
Compare the two types of thoughts:
First weight loss, what does that mean to you? How do you feel when you think about weight loss? What memories and thoughts come to you when you consider losing weight? Remember that collection of thoughts and feelings associated with the phrase ‘weight loss’ and then place it to one side.
Clear your mind and body, think of something totally unrelated, take a few deep breaths and shake the feeling off.
Now take a few moments to think about becoming a more slender you, fitter and more toned, healthier. What can you do now that you couldn’t do before, for example? What does that feel like? What thoughts and feelings are associated with that kind of thought pattern?
And now compare the two sets of thought patterns. I bet they feel decidedly different. Which one do you think would be easier to work with to help you help yourself become the size and shape that you want and more importantly maintain it as well?