Weight Loss – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

If you have been struggling to make successful progress towards your weight loss goals, then it is likely that there are psychological, behavioural and emotional factors that keep hindering you.

Whenever I help someone with weight loss, they will tell me about how they use food to manage their emotions, such as stress, sadness, boredom, happiness and for a perceived sense of comfort from food. There will be unhelpful behaviours involving unhealthy food choices, such as overeating or snacking in front of the TV. And there can be a host of other thoughts, patterns and habits that keep the unhealthy eating patterns going and that make it hard to just take back control over your eating habits without help.

You probably have a reasonably good idea of what constitutes a healthy or unhealthy food, and about what you should be eating if you want to feel healthier and happier. Yet the habits, emotions and associations that have built up over time mean that making good decisions is easier in theory than in practice. Yet, whether you learnt your behaviours around food at an early age, or they just crept in at some point along the way, it is certainly very possible to take back control over your eating habits, to enjoy eating just the right amount for you and to build the focus, motivation and determination you need to achieve your weight loss goals.

One client recently told me how, following her hypnotherapy sessions, she no longer uses food to manage her emotions and doesn’t need sugary snacks any more to help her cope with the challenges and demands of work and family life. Another recent client has ended her regular evening binging habit and is now making more and more balanced and healthy decisions about what to eat, when to eat and how much to eat. And another client, instead of sitting all day at his desk and then at home in front of the TV, is now being more active and is enjoying moving more and getting fitter and healthier as a result of the steps he is taking.

Weight loss hypnotherapy can help you to increase healthy eating habits, increase your focus, willpower and control, reduce emotional eating, and through to build your motivation, self-regulation and the ability to think of both the short-term and longer-term consequences of your eating decisions. Rather than having an urgent need to eat something unhealthy, wolfing it down quickly and then feeling guilty about it, you can learn how to have control over your eating habits and how to  be able to maintain these healthy behaviours into the future.

You might also want to take a look at some of my previous weight loss articles using these links:

Weight Loss – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

Nutritional Wisdom and Food Choices – Weight Loss Hypnotherapy 

Hypnosis and Mindfulness For Weight Loss Success

What Are The Key Strategies for Weight Loss Success?

Weight Loss and the Impact of Self-Hypnosis

Overcoming Emotional Eating – New Weight Loss Video Testimonial

Targeting Triggers, Behaviours and Habits

Part of any successful weight loss hypnotherapy programme involves helping you to learn how to have control over your eating habits so that you eat when you are hungry and you stop when you have eaten enough. You learn how to stop thinking about food all the time, how to feel in control over your eating decisions and how to stop using food as a way of dealing with how you feel.

Pellegrini et al (2021), conducted a review to summarise the evidence evaluating the possibilities and limitations of self-hypnosis and mindfulness strategies in the treatment of obesity. Hypnosis can help you to increase self-control, improve exercise levels, boost self-esteem, strengthen motivation for changing eating habits and reducing stress induced overeating. Mindfulness strategies can help with emotional eating, eating in response to food cravings, eating mindfully and with negative emotional states.

Based upon a review of existing weight loss research and evidence, they found that “both hypnosis and mindfulness provide a promising therapeutic option by improving weight loss, food awareness, self-acceptance of body image, and limiting food cravings and emotional eating. Greater effectiveness occurs when hypnosis and mindfulness are associated with other psychological therapies in addition to diet and physical activity.”

As so many of my clients have discovered, weight loss hypnotherapy (including aspects of cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness) can help with taking control over your eating habits, feeling better in yourself and achieving weight loss.

There’s more on this here: Hypnosis and Mindfulness For Weight Loss Success

Consistent with psychological and behavioural approaches to losing weight, there is evidence that regulating your cues around food can help you with tackling overeating and losing weight.

Research has shown that an approach to weight loss that focuses upon the regulation of cues around food and eating can help with sustainable weight loss (Boutelle et al, 2022). Rather than any approach based upon dieting and food restriction, by regulating and managing your cues around food and eating you can decrease overeating, learn to tolerate any food cravings and handle any urges to eat when you are not physically hungry. This can be important because, as I often tell my clients, we can’t eliminate unhealthy foods from our environment, yet you can learn to be indifferent to them or to calmly tolerate any thoughts and feelings towards consuming them. You can’t stop others who try to push unhealthy food or excessive portions onto you, but you can learn how to calmly and confidently say no thanks, or to only eat what you need.

In reality, a successful weight loss programme will tackle your existing behaviours around eating, the effective management of your emotions and feelings around food, your relationship with food and your eating habits. You can reach a point where you eat only when you are hungry, you make good choices, you eat mindfully and then stop when you have had enough. You can take back control over your eating habits and your choices and decisions around food. Once your mindset and behaviours are in the right place, the weight loss follows. You start to find it easier and easier to focus upon the factors you can control, such as through adopting the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that allow you to achieve weight loss and to feel healthier and happier. You get to take back (and keep) control over food and eating habits in ways that become your new, more positive, default habits, behaviours and relationship with your body and your health, and in your relationship with food and with eating.

To your health and happiness,

Dan Regan

Weight Loss Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

Need some help to take control over eating habits? Book your Complimentary Hypnotherapy Strategy Session to chat about weight loss hypnotherapy with Dan now: Appointments

Find out what other people have said after their hypnotherapy sessions for weight loss and controlling eating habits: Hypnotherapy Testimonials

And check out these powerful weight loss hypnosis downloads that can start helping you right away: Hypnosis Downloads

References:

Boutelle, K.N., Eichen, D.M., Peterson, C.B., Strong, D.R., Kang-Sim, D.J.E., Rock, C.L. and Marcus, B.H., 2022. Effect of a Novel Intervention Targeting Appetitive Traits on Body Mass Index Among Adults With Overweight or Obesity: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Network Open, 5(5), pp.e2212354-e2212354.

Pellegrini, M., Carletto, S., Scumaci, E., Ponzo, V., Ostacoli, L. and Bo, S., 2021. The Use of Self-Help Strategies in Obesity Treatment. A Narrative Review Focused on Hypnosis and Mindfulness. Current Obesity Reports, pp.1-14.