Weight Loss Hypnosis

Weight Loss Hypnosis: Hope Or Hype?

One way or another, obesity is big business. Fast food outlets, junk food ads, candy as reward – people make fortunes creating obesity; and others make fortunes combating it. Weight loss can be difficult, and in many cases, a lifelong endeavour; often with little or only temporary success. Is weight loss hypnosis the answer? An easy solution?

Weight loss hypnosis focuses on that part of eating disorders that relates to habits or behavioural patterns. Certain stimulations trigger eating habits and over eating. Weight loss hypnosis is supposed to address those stimuli and triggers and to “re-programme” the brain to disassociate those stimuli from eating.

For example, watching TV may be associated with unhealthy munching. There may be an association between emotional stress and eating. Boredom may become associated with getting something to eat. Not recognizing a difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger may cause over eating (being hungry because you want to be rather than because you are). Weight loss hypnosis attempts to reverse those habits.

Craving fast foods and junk food, or satisfying a ‘sweet tooth’, can be extremely difficult to combat under the onslaught of advertising. If one is overweight, one can sometimes feel like the rope in a tug-of-war between the forces being enriched by your over-eating and those opposed to it.

How Helpful Is Weight Loss Hypnosis?

Without a doubt, any successful weight loss programme requires a change of lifestyle and a change of mind. One cannot be successful in maintaining weight loss without having the right mental attitude towards it. Weight loss hypnosis is designed to help to create the right mindset – to visualize the ‘slimmer me’, create a positive perception and lasting positive motivation.

However, weight loss hypnosis is NOT a magical cure. It is not a single visit to a hypnotist who magically changes your mind to suddenly have all the right thoughts and attitudes. It is not a quick fix to fool the brain. Weight loss hypnosis is an assistance in relaxing the mind to be more receptive to new ideas and to break old habits.

One can order a weight loss hypnosis CD or tape through the mail, but logic must surely dictate that a CD isn’t going to put you into a trance from which you emerge cured. It is designed to use in conjunction with a weight loss programme, to create a relaxing atmosphere where your mind is receptive to the suggestions offered by the speaker. Constant, relaxed, repetitive listening is supposed to help to develop a gradual change in thinking.

Weight loss hypnosis has a place in a weight loss programme, but self-hypnosis should be reinforced by regular visits to a professional hypnosis therapist.