Nutritional Wisdom and Food Choices – Weight Loss Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

So many people who come to see me describe their never ending battle to try and achieve their weight loss goals. They tell me about all the different diets they’ve been on and how they lost some weight for a while, only to put it back on again. They describe how they seemingly self sabotage their own success through their unhealthy relationship with food and their habits around eating. They’ll tell me about emotional eating, eating when not hungry and mindless eating.

And, most of all, they will tell me about their frustration, annoyance and disappointment that, despite knowing what they should be doing, they continue to struggle to lose weight and keep it off.

Taking control over eating habits and feeling healthier and happier are things that can be positively achieved with the right psychological approach and behaviours. In the same way you will have learnt unhealthy patterns, habits and behaviours around food, you can also learn how to eat the right amount of the right things and to handle any challenges that may come along.

When I was younger I used to struggle with my eating and weight. I would use food to deal with how I was feeling and I would then feel annoyed with myself for putting on weight. It became a cycle of habitually eating poorly and feeling bad. Yet, in the same way that you can using hypnotherapy, I managed to finally break out of this cycle and adopt much more positive and healthy eating habits.

It’s always a pleasure and joy when my clients describe to me how they no longer snack for the sake of it, how they can leave food if they don’t need it and how they feel better in their body and in their clothes. With the right mindset and habits, weight loss and achieving the size, shape and weight you desire, become easier and easier each day.

 

Nutritional Wisdom and Food Choices

So many people struggle with their weight, and despite the many diets and slimming clubs out there, the number of people who aren’t in control over their eating habits seems to continue to grow. However, this is in stark contrast to recent research that suggests that we may all possess more ‘nutritional intelligence’ in our food choices than previously thought.

Non-human animals have long been considered to have the ability to select foods based on their micronutrient composition. However, it was always unclear whether humans also have this ability. Now, this recent research suggests that our food choices may be smarter than previously considered and that they may be influenced by the specific nutrients, as opposed to just the calories, that we need (Brunstrom and Schatzker, 2022).

In their studies they found that people had a significant tendency to make food choices that offered greater total micronutrient intake and a broader range of micronutrients. The research provides new evidence that micronutrient composition influences food choice (a form of ‘nutritional wisdom’) and suggests the potential for a complexity in human dietary decision making that has not been previously recognised.

Rather than seeking a balanced diet through consuming a variety of foods, it may be that we make choices that support getting the nutrients we need.

But of course, even if we have this ability to make smart choices in what we eat to optimise nutrients, somewhere along the line there seems to also be a tendency to override this ability and to consume more than is needed, leading to being overweight and an increase in obesity.

Part of that may be the easy availability of high calorie food, where the sugar and fat content creates urges for even more of the same. It could be that you aren’t being mindful in your eating and food decisions so that your natural ability to select food is unable to guide you. Or maybe it’s the psychology of habits, patterns and emotions that leads to having an unhealthy relationship with food, not being in control over eating habits and being unable to achieve and maintain successful weight loss.

Whatever the specific factors that interfere with your weight loss goals, it is possible to change them to thoughts, feelings and behaviours that support you being slimmer, healthier and happier. I’ll mention more about the effectiveness of weight loss hypnotherapy in a bit, but before that, let’s take a look at what people who successfully lose weight and keep it off are doing and that you can learn from.

 

Long Term Weight Loss Strategies

There can be many reasons why you have ended up putting on weight. One of the most common drivers of eating when you aren’t hungry can be emotional eating. Food can become a with a source of comfort to help you to try and feel better when you are anxious, stressed, sad or bored. You may have at some point developed unhealthy eating habits and behaviours that seem to keep repeating over and over again (even when you know they aren’t helpful to being the size, shape and weight you want to be). These patterns and habits may go way back to when you were growing up, or they may have started later, yet now they seem to have a drive and power of their own.

And for some people, the initial focus and motivation may happen yet the challenge comes around maintaining progress and staying focused. After the initial burst of healthy eating, you find yourself slipping back to where you started (with all the annoyance and frustration that goes with it). You can lose weight but you just can’t maintain it.

With many of my weight loss clients, they know what they should be doing and what they should (and shouldn’t) be eating, yet the emotions, patterns and habits continue to sabotage their progress. And we already know from research the kind of things that successful weight loss maintainers do that supports them losing weight and keeping it off.

Phelan et al (2020) examined the behavioural and psychological strategies among people who maintain their weight loss in a commercial weight loss program. They found that weight loss maintainers practice more frequent healthy dietary choices, self-monitoring and psychological coping strategies, as well as having more willingness to ignore food cravings and had a greater habit strength for healthy eating (also see: What Are The Key Strategies for Weight Loss Success?).

Some of the key strategies of the successful weight loss maintainers included keeping low-calorie foods accessible, setting daily intake goals, recording daily intake, measuring foods, thinking about past successes and remaining positive in the face of any weight regain.

Now, there is nothing radical here and the chances are that you have tried some, or all, of these things to support your weight loss efforts. This suggests that perhaps the crucial factors that you need to work upon to support changing behaviours are the psychological factors. These would include developing focus and discipline for self-monitoring, developing coping strategies to prevent emotional eating, and building positive, sustainable and healthy habits and patterns that start to become the new normal for you. Funnily enough, these are all the things that I help people to achieve when they work with me to succeed with their weight loss goals.

For example, here are the comments that Karen wrote after her sessions:

“I cannot recommend Dan highly enough. He has enabled me to get control of my destructive eating habits after a lifetime of one diet after another failed, I continually returned to picking, snacking & mindless eating & the weight returned. Despite regular exercise & good healthy meals.

I have used the tools he gave me,counting & breathing exercises,  listening to his audio tapes at home , as well as attending in person hypnotherapy sessions with Dan.

I am thrilled to say I am now in complete control, I can honestly say I have not looked back since my first session , no snacking, picking or mindless eating.

I didn’t put myself on a diet because I generally eat good healthy meals , it was the in between meals that was a problem for me. I have lost over  half a stone in 6 weeks since my first session without dieting. I do exercise 5-6 days a week too, my motivation is sky high, I feel so much better about myself in every way.

I still enjoy going out for meals & sometimes a glass of wine or 2, however these are considered decisions of which I feel completely in control. I return to my good choices immediately & easily.

I can fully recommend Dan for all your problems that are hard to fix” Karen, Newmarket.

And so, people who are successful with weight loss develop their strong habits for healthy eating choices, keep track of what they are eating through monitoring, and they encourage themselves and stay positive if they do encounter a blip along the way. And these are all things that can be easily developed and strengthened through having the right mindset.

 

Weight Loss Hypnotherapy 

As the above strategies demonstrate, addressing the psychological aspects of eating is vital if you want to achieve weight loss and reach the weight, size and shape that you desire. You need to develop control, be able to manage your emotions effectively, be able to encourage yourself and adopt consistent healthy eating habits, thoughts and behaviours. All of this is certainly possible with an approach such as weight loss hypnotherapy.

It’s well established that psychological factors influence your eating and therefore your weight. Bad eating habits and an unhealthy relationship with food can lead to eating too much and making unhealthy choices. Emotional eating, in response to how you are feeling, can lead to excessive eating of high fat and high sugar foods. Your levels of stress and anxiety, along with your self image, self-esteem and sense of self-worth, can all affect how successful you are with losing weight and keeping it off.

Psychological interventions can help with weight loss by helping increase healthy eating habits, increasing willpower and control, reducing emotional eating, and through aiding motivation, self-regulation and the ability to think of both the short-term and longer-term consequences of eating decisions. Cognitive behavioural therapy is one approach, and research has demonstrated that adding hypnosis to cognitive behavioural therapy leads to significantly better results with issues like weight loss (for more on this look at these articles: Should all Cognitive Behavioural Therapy include Hypnosis for better results? and Hypnosis Enhances Results Of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Updated Science and Evidence).

Part of any successful weight loss hypnotherapy programme involves helping you to learn how to have control over your eating habits so that you can maintain these into the future for yourself.

Pellegrini et al (2021), conducted a review to summarize 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

If you are currently struggling to achieve the weight loss results that you after then do get in touch to have a chat about how hypnotherapy can help you. Rather than using deprivation and willpower and struggling with the same old eating habits, choices and challenges, you can soon increase your levels of self control, boost your motivation, tackle emotional eating, change eating habits and boost your self-esteem. You can finally end your unhealthy relationship with food and your battle with food cravings and instead enjoy being in control over your eating habits and, as a result, feeling healthier and happier each day.

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:

Brunstrom, J.M. and Schatzker, M., 2022. Micronutrients and food choice: A case of ‘nutritional wisdom’in humans?. Appetite, 174, p.106055.

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.

Phelan, S., Halfman, T., Pinto, A.M. and Foster, G.D., 2020. Behavioral and Psychological Strategies of Long‐Term Weight Loss Maintainers in a Widely Available Weight Management Program. Obesity, 28(2), pp.421-428.