Hypnosis for Weight loss
A Natural Solution

As a therapist who utilizes clinical hypnosis, people often ask about it’s effectiveness for weight loss. Hypnosis can be effective for weight loss, helping individuals change eating behaviors naturally without feeling deprived. Change is lasting and permanent in contrast to external fixes such as fad diets and pills. How might hypnosis work, and how might it help with your weight loss goals?

It’s a tool to tap into a client’s internal resources.
Clinical hypnosis is not something a therapist does to you. A client uses the therapists’ words and suggestions to utilize internal resources for positive change. Adjusting eating behavior is about trusting your innate abilities, as you did when you learned to ride a bicycle. You may not remember how difficult it was the first time you road a bike, but you kept practicing until you could ride without much thought or effort. In the same way losing weight may seem difficult at first, but with hypnosis it’s a matter of conditioning the mind and body until behaviors conducive to weight loss become effortless and automatic.

Hypnosis can increase awareness of eating behaviors.
When eating habitually and compulsively we’re not attuned to the taste of the food, the amount we’re eating, or the signals that tell us we’re full. There’s a disconnect between the mind and body. Often clients report becoming more aware of the act of eating in as little as one sesssion. Consequently they find themselves eating slower, pausing, and really tasting the food in contrast to eating mindlessly. This gives the body time to send signals to the brain that the body has received the amount of food it needs. The up side is a person can actually enjoy their food more while eating less, without feeling deprived. And they stop to think about choices rather then reacting impulsively.

It can help alter unhealthy relationships with food.
Food is meaningful to everyone in individual ways. We develop a relationship with food that may result in unhealthy eating patterns. In childhood we may learn to associate food with comfort, security, and the love of our mother. Or we may have been told we were “good” for finishing everything on our plate. We also internalize unconscious messages that condition eating behaviors. For example, if food was scarce while growing up, we got the message we better get what we need now because there might not be food tomorrow. Or were told there are starving people in the world, so we should feel guilty if we don’t eat everything. Consequently, a client knows overeating is unhealthy on a rational level, however, they feel compelled to do so regardless. With hypnosis a person can become more aware of beliefs and patterns and resolve this conflict at the source.

It inspires creative weight loss and spontaneous solutions.
The state of hypnosis involves the creative and intuitive part of our minds coming to the forefront, while the critical and analytical mind recedes to the background. In this state we’re able to move past blocks and gain new perspectives. Individuals find creative ways to change behaviors that lead to weight loss. For instance, a mother realizes she typically cooks too much food for her family and eats the leftovers. She loves her family and shows this by providing plenty, however, has received the message from childhood that wasting food is wrong. She finds ways to cook less decreasing the amount of leftovers. In practicing hypnosis she spontaneously became aware of this pattern and changed it on a conscious level, resulting in her curtailing behavior that was sabotaging her weight loss goals.

By reducing subconscious resistance to change.
Often there are subconscious motivations for self sabotaging weight loss efforts. Sometimes extra weight may be protective in some way, or a certain body image feels comfortable. There is some embedded purpose to staying the same. Rationally, a person wants to lose weight but there’s a part that is resistant to the change. With hypnosis, a client can increase awareness of inner conflict and resolve it on a deeper level, again, leading to more lasting and natural results.

Increasing feelings of self esteem and control.
A therapist can use hypnosis to help people increase feelings of confidence, self esteem and control. Often people get stuck in a feedback loop that goes something like this; “I’ve had a setback, I feel bad about myself, therefore, I eat more.” A person is likely to be successful if they learn to be compassionate with themselves, seeing a setback as a learning opportunity rather then a personal shortcoming. Weight loss often involves setbacks and plateaus, so it’s important to feel empowered and good about oneself through the process.

And it can reduce eating in response to stress.
Finally, hypnosis often involves a relaxation response, often resulting in an extraordinary feeling of calm and peace. Suggestions are given to recall this feeling whenever one needs to. A client learns to deal with stressors that in the past would have led to unhealthy eating. And after a few sessions of hypnosis clients often report feeling calmer in general.

In an increasingly fast pace society where people want quick and easy solutions, it’s not surprising that weight loss is sought in the same way. Each day brings a new fad diet, a new pill, or a quick fix. The paradox is that what seem like easy and fast solutions often turn into a lifetime of fleeting hopes followed by disappointments with little progress overall. Change is a process that must happen from within, and hypnosis is one tool that can help a person do so while achieving meaningful and lasting results.