Category: Weight Management

Using your imagination to change the world… or Why size really does matter!

31/8/2016

Our brains are inextricably linked with our bodies. Whatever our body experiences our brain responds; and whatever thoughts we have our body responds. Our brains constantly try to make sense of the world by thinking and doing and responding.
Very often, if we’re facing a particular problem, we try to think our way out of it. And often this works. However, what if it’s not that easy? Perhaps we’re suffering from chronic anxiety, pain or a specific phobia. Sometimes, it’s not always so easy to simply think our way out of it.
A technique often used by hypnotherapists is that of ‘changing the submodalities’. This is a very effective and powerful way of changing the experience of an experience.
Have you ever thought about how you experience pain, for example. Often we just say we’ve got a headache, or toothache or that we pulled a muscle. Sometimes we might add extra detail, and try to explain what that pain feels like – “My head feels like it’s in a vice,” “A sharp shooting pain in my tooth,” or the “searing heat” of a torn muscle.
Hypnotherapy uses our way of experiencing the world to help us make changes. We all use particular representational systems. These are, for example, based on our senses. We see things, hear things, taste things, smell things, and feel things. This is how we experience the world.
Changing the submodalities is simply changing the way we experience things using our senses in our imagination. For example, can we change what we see in our imagination from colour to black and white – if so we might just be able to change our experience of whatever it is.
Can we represent our experience of pain as something we can use in our imagination? For example, does it have a shape, or a colour, or a texture? How big does it seem to be in our experience? If we can imagine this, then we have the potential to change our experience of it by changing the size, colour, texture etc – changing the submodalities.
There are many different techniques in hypnotherapy that utilize changing the submodalities, ranging from those used for phobia release, through to weight management, smoking cessation and pain. And they all have the potential to change how we experience things.
If you’d like more information on how hypnotherapy might be able to help you then do please get in touch:

Central England Therapy Centre 0121 444 1110
Rachel’s mobile at RMB Hypnotherapy 07733 839 591
email - rmbhypnotherapy@aol.com

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7 tips for successful weight management

31/7/2016

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A course of hypnotherapy can work really well to help you lose weight and to keep those pounds off once they’re off.
Here are a few practical tips that you might find helpful whilst undertaking a course of hypnotherapy. Many people find that being aware of these can make the process of weight management a lot easier.

1. Always be prepared – As with anything, a lot of success hides in the detail of being prepared. Try to think ahead and purposefully avoid unhealthy patterns in your eating, for example, if you usually buy chocolate as part of your weekly shop decide to substitute it with something that you enjoy but which is better for you. Always be prepared with something different.
Remember your own personal triggers and plan for them. Plan ahead each day if you can and look at all the potential pitfalls that might crop up within your day. Be prepared!

2. Change the way you look at things – in psychology nobody really likes the idea of losing anything so instead of thinking about losing weight which obviously implies a feeling of loss, realise that you will be gaining health and fitness.

3. Prepare for change – Becoming someone who is fitter is all about changing patterns and routines, and noticing what’s going on in your thoughts.
Begin to imagine yourself as someone who is slimmer, in better shape and more active. See yourself as having achieved your goals. Prepare for it by buying new clothes in the size you wish to be. Make your goals achieveable.

4. Be mindful – To start with, you might think about food a lot but that’s only natural. Just be aware of the fact you will. Experience these thoughts fully, and don’t try to deny them. Let your thoughts be there; be aware of all the judgements you make about the process of losing weight and about yourself – and remember that thoughts come and go. Over time this will get easier. To help, make sure you keep yourself occupied. Keeping your mind focused on other things and keeping your body active can both help.

5. Fruit and vegetables – It might sound a bit boring but have lots of your favourite fruit and vegetables available and already prepared to eat so that when you have the urge to eat something that perhaps you know you shouldn’t you have something ready and waiting for you, making it easier to make healthier choices.
Water - Sometimes we mistake feelings of thirst for feelings of hunger. Always have a bottle of water with you. Take sips whenever you want to knowing that water is good for you. Drinking water can help fill you up and dissipate hunger pangs.

7. Breathe deeply – breathing deeply can help with relaxation. If you learn how to breathe deeply down into your abdomen feelings of tension soon disappear. This can help with anything – feelings of anxiety and stress – and ultimately help with the choices you make, including those surrounding food and drink. Breathing deeply helps to put you back in control.

And, of course, adding hypnosis into the mix can add a very powerful extra dimension to weight management.

I offer hypnotherapy sessions for weight management at Central England Therapy Centre in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Please get in touch if you’d like to find out more:
07733 839 591 - rmbhypnotherapy@aol.com - or fill in the contact form.

Please remember it’s always a good idea to seek medical advice from your GP before embarking on a course of hypnotherapy for weight management.

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How can hypnotherapy/mindfulness help you lose weight?

23/1/2015

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This article is based on a series of BBC Horizon programmes "What's the right diet for you?" first shown in January 2015.

Tanya Byron, a clinical psychologist, and Dr. Chris van Tulleken, research scientist and TV presenter, took 75 overweight volunteers on a diet programme lasting for three months, during which many of the participants had life-changing experiences.

Armed with ‘hidden’ cameras and aided and abetted by various ‘obesity scientists’ from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, they set about testing the theory that if you are trying to lose weight, you need a diet that is tailored to your specific type of eating habits. The type of over-eater the participants were depended on the results of lab tests based on their genes, their hormones, or their psychological profiles. The results saw them grouped into 3 categories:

1. Feasters – those people who once they started eating just couldn’t stop. These people had a hormone deficiency which meant that once they were physically full the signal to their brain was much weaker and so they wanted to keep on eating.

2. Emotional Eaters – those people who tended to ‘comfort eat’ in response to stress or depression.

3. Constant Cravers – those people whose genes disrupted the signals to the brain to say they were full so were constantly thinking about food and craving it all the time.

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I was beginning to theorise how I might use hypnotherapy or mindfulness techniques with these three categories of over-eaters.

The series of three programmes, showing their progress over a period of three months, involved:

The Feasters – being given a non-stop sushi buffet. The normal intake for most people in this situation would be 5 or 6 bowls. The feasters were seen to consume up to 17 bowls.

The Emotional Eaters – these people were put into stressful situations such as retaking a fake driving test and abseiling down a very tall lighthouse. They also underwent brain scans where they were induced into experiencing a low mood and then monitored when they anticipated the ‘comfort food’ of their choice.

The Constant Cravers – were subjected to a grip-force test 2 hours after a main meal, where they were presented with different foods. The force with which they gripped the monitoring equipment showed how much they desired that food at that particular time; they were also taken to a fun-fair where they had to wear glasses fitted up with cameras to show where their attention was drawn.

The diets they were given for the next three months depended on which group they fell into:

The Feasters were given diets that made them feel full (high protein/low gi) – fish, chicken, pasta, lentils, basmati rice.

The Constant Cravers were told to go on an intermittent fasting diet which required that their calorie intake on just two days a week was no higher than 800. They also had to cut out bread, pasta and fruit but could eat meat, eggs, fish and vegetables.

The Emotional Eaters were told to undergo a course of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy coupled with group support meetings such a diet clubs.

By the end of the three month study, the group of 75 people had lost a total of 103 stone, and the one who’d lost the most had lost a massive 3st 4lb.

Having watched the programmes, I concluded that hypnotherapy and mindfulness, or a combination of both, could help all three categories of over-eaters:

The most obvious one was the Emotional Eaters – hypnotherapy employs techniques based on Cognitive Behaviour – in other words, understanding why we do things and recognising when we do them so we may have more control over what we actually do. Hypnotherapy can also work successfully with helping people to increase their motivation to do something. The relaxation employed in hypnotherapy also helps to overcome the stress response.

Mindfulness could easily help with the Feasters. At one point, they were advised to eat their food more slowly. This enables the level of their gut hormone to increase to a level that makes them feel full. Mindfulness encourages us to relish every single mouthful of food (or drink) and to really take our time to enjoy it. I regularly take mindfulness meditation sessions which involve people making a single raisin last for over twenty minutes!

The Constant Cravers could also be helped with hypnotherapy. It was suggested that the Constant Cravers tried to see the world of food in a very different way. In other words, instead of looking at fast food outlets and snack bars as friendly things, they were encouraged to see them more as ‘the enemy’ trying to get them to stay overweight. Hypnotherapy often involves getting people to ‘reframe’ the world, or parts of it, into a more helpful one just as the participants were trying to do here.

So, by the end of the series, it was really interesting to see how well these people had got on with their weight-loss programmes.

More interestingly for me, it was good to know that each type of over-eater could be helped using techniques from both hypnotherapy and mindfulness.

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Using your imagination to change the world… or Why size really does matter!

7 tips for successful weight management

How can hypnotherapy/mindfulness help you lose weight?

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