Trying to weight can be the most frustrating and demoralizing way to spend your life. It is so easy to make a habit, whether it is food, or any other habit. What we like to eat most of is not always good for us, and the kinds of foods we don’t often eat are usually the foods that would be best for our health and our bodies.
Research over the last 50 years has argued many different lengths of time to make or break a habit. In the 60s it was thought to be 21 days, but a recent study has found that it can take between 18 days to 254! Now they came up with an average of 66 days but that is not particularly helpful for those of us who may take 254 days to really change our ways …….that’s just over 8 months!
Now think about it, our eating routines and habits, and food preferences, are well established by the time we head for young adulthood. No wonder it is hard to stay on a diet and, of course, by the time we reach middle age, well we are stuck in a rut. Added to that is the problem that our metabolism does change and usually slows up as we grow older, therefore our weight is often compounded by this as well as our bad eating habits.
So there needs to be a strategy to losing weight that involves longterm change to our thinking and habits. Mostly though, when we try to loose weight we do it for a particular reason, like a wedding to go to, or a vacation, particularly if it involves a swim suit. Or maybe we see the doctor and we are told that our BMI is high and need to lose some weight, so we work hard on that for a few weeks and then let things slip again because we go back to our regular and preferred eating habits. And likewise, after the wedding or the holiday, we return to our regular lives and go back to the usual routine daily habits. Boom – the weight is back before we know it!
This leads to a sense of failure, and then a cycle of failure can be created, with the seesaw of weight loss and weight gain, that can end up making you feel really down on yourself and less likely in the future to attempt a healthy slimming way of eating.
For healthy and successful weight loss you need to take a strategic approach. You need to eat less, sure, and you also need to eat healthy food. You need to have less of the food that has become an unhealthy habit for you, food that is high in calories that provides little in the way of the vitamins, minerals, proteins or healthy carbs that we need to have for a healthy body, and more of the fruits and vegetables that you are probably not in the habit of eating except as a side.
Find yourself a healthy-eating book, app, or website and find recipes and foods that you can enjoy day to day. Healthy calories and calorie control is the name of the game, smaller portions, and then some regular exercise that is within your scope of daily life and physical ability. It is pointless trying to keep up an exercise routine that is excessive, just as it is pointless to try and eat so few calories that you are perpetually hungry. Remember healthy calories are the name of the game.
Where we are going here is to design a new routine of eating and exercise that you can really hope to keep to……because here is the crux of the matter: we have developed our eating habits over many, many years and it is extremely likely therefore that breaking those eating habits is going to be nearer that one year mark, not a quick fix diet. One year! Not one month! So yes….indeed….. what is needed, is a change in lifestyle, a complete rework of your way of thinking about and living with food.
It is highly likely that the majority of people you think of as slim are already eating healthily. It is rare that someone is slim while still eating fast food, chips and chocolate and large portions on a regular daily basis. Possibly under the age of thirty, a person may get away with it, but those bad habits will be very ingrained by their thirties and forties when the weight will pile on and boom – changing those bad eating habits is what we are talking about, that is how it works.
So now you will be asking how on earth can I keep it up for a year! Well changing your eating habits, changing your life style is a feat of the mind. Changing your mind is crucial and this is where hypnosis comes in. Your subconscious has all the habitual eating preferences written in from way back. Some of it will be family favorites, some will be secret foods that make you feel good, some will be foods that manufacturers have designed especially for you to want more and more of.
These three elements are where we can begin. The foods that make you ‘feel good’ are a great place to start with hypnosis. Hypnosis can help root out the feeling that leads to this habitual eating, what is the need that is not being fulfilled that is highlighted by this feeling. Instead of distracting yourself from the feeling with a food and eating too much of it, like chips or chocolate, hypnosis can work on the feelings that are leading to the distracting behavior. Change can be made through the subconscious mind to understand where the feeling came from and rewrite our response to it. Beginning to understand your feelings and emotions is a major part of hypnosis work.
Habitual preferences to foods, often created within the family, in childhood can also be changed through the subconscious in hypnosis. A hypnotherapist can help you change your thoughts about a food through suggestion while in a hypnotic state, reinforced by self-hypnosis at home. That broccoli spear can look mighty inviting when you open the fridge if you want it too! Likewise hypnosis can change your thinking about those foods that are designed commercially to make you want more and more, in the same way, by changing your thinking toward nice yummy healthy food instead of the food that helps you stay overweight and unhealthy.
So hypnosis can change your mind, change your pattern of behavior, but what it can also do is continue to support your mission to be slim and healthy by using self hypnosis and guided suggestions on hypnotic audios to keep you on the path. Then you can go those 8 months and further to change those habits, and have a healthy lean body forever not just for that vacation or wedding.
7th Path Self-Hypnosis – http://www.liferenewalhypnosis.com/7th-path-self-hypnosis/
Through teaching you self hypnosis, I can help you learn to program yourself for success, live in the moment and become more confident about the future.
5-PATH Hypnosis – http://www.liferenewalhypnosis.com/our-services/
In state of deep physical and mental relaxation, and a state of focused attention, you can then begin ‘change work’ with me to help you towards your goals.
Call me now to book a free 30 minute consultation
to find out more and see how hypnosis can help you
619 569 6131
Videos and Audios:
Hypnosis for a healthier, leaner you
Audio:
Video: https://youtu.be/YAA-vsnP9tw
Anxiety and fear
Audio: https://soundcloud.com/cat-h-thomas/hypnosis-relaxation-for-fear-and-anxiety-1/s-VBgyn
Video: https://youtu.be/jXOmW4bKIq0