Weight

A calorie is a unit of energy. You take in energy when you eat and drink, and burn it off in your daily activity. When the amount of calories in the energy you eat and drink equals the amount you burn off, your body weight remains about the same. You can become overweight if you consistently eat more calories than you burn off.

If we are a little overweight we will not notice many problems except perhaps feeling discontent when looking in the mirror, and feeling unhappy when we cannot fit in our favourite clothes comfortably. However when that little extra increases to a few stones overweight the risk of developing health problems such as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, high blood pressure and some types of cancer also increases. Excess weight also makes arthritis more likely and can make breathing and sleeping difficult. Snoring and excessive sweating are also side effects. The more overweight you are, the more likely you are to have health problems Everyone knows that the key to achieving your ideal weight is to eat a healthy, balanced diet and take regular exercise, but for a person suffering from a weight problem this elusive task can be a nightmare. Failure to lose weight can lead to despair, causing people to seek comfort from further overeating, leading to more weight gain and more despair. It then becomes a vicious circle that can be very difficult to break.

Diets only have a short term effect, if any, because as soon as we stop dieting, we revert to our old eating habits and the weight piles on again. In fact, someone who has a weight problem has programmed their subconscious to eat in a particular way, and it has nothing to do with normal eating satisfaction.

When someone with normal eating habits gets hungry their subconscious sends a message indicating that fact. When that hunger has been satisfied, the subconscious sends a feeling of satisfaction, so the person no longer feels the urge to eat. If that feeling of satisfaction is overridden, it is because of the need for an extra satisfaction.

This extra satisfaction is a comfort or protection, either to compensate for something that was missing from their life, or an unhappy experience, at the time they first developed their overeating habit. Of course, if someone has been overweight since childhood, it could just be a case of developing overeating habits at a very young age, possibly from parents, so it becomes a matter of breaking the old ingrained habits. Snacking at work or in the car, for example could also be purely habitual. To change the behaviour pattern, we have to get to the source of the problem at a subconscious level, and then persuade the subconscious that the current overeating habits serve no useful purpose. The subconscious can then transfer the satisfaction derived from overeating onto something that is more advantageous and beneficial for the individual, and a new, healthier lifestyle becomes the norm.

How can I lose excess weight?

Diets based on willpower can work and so can diets based on food supplements and food replacements but more often than not they are short term.

People tend to go back to their familiar behaviour patterns with food.

In order to lose excess weight, you need to burn off more calories through physical activity than you take in from food and drink. This means tipping your energy balance by eating fewer calories, burning more off or, preferably, both.

The rate at which we burn off calories is termed the metabolic rate. Our metabolic rate is often faster during periods of growth and during puberty but steadies in adulthood If we take up exercise and are active our metabolic rate is generally higher and we would need more calories to maintain our weight.

If we have sedentary lifestyle we need fewer calories, since our metabolic rate is slower.

If we then consistently eat more calories we will put on weight.

These unused calories are stored as fat. Exercise does not only use up calories it also raise our metabolic rate.

Eating a healthy balanced diet combined with exercising regularly will be very beneficial for maintaining a healthy weight. The challenge is to achieve a healthy balanced diet in a comfortable way. To achieve this we must look at our own individual relationship with food and our habitual eating patterns.

Hypnotherapy is a valuable tool in weight reduction and weight control. Hypnotherapy focuses around the individual and the individual’s particular issues around food and weight. It is not based on deprivation, but on reassessing eating habits and reprogramming the subconscious mind into eating healthily. It is also about identifying and accepting where the individual’s habits and beliefs come from. Negative detrimental habits will be changed to positive healthy habits.

This is carried out in a relaxing positive way. Hypnotherapy helps by tackling the root of the problem and by making positive changes to the subconscious mind. Permanently replacing old eating patterns and habits into new healthy beneficial ones will ensure the target weight will be maintained. Whether it is weight gain, weight reduction or maintaining a healthy weight, hypnotherapy is a personalized treatment for the benefit of the individual.

The benefits of a healthy weight are enormous. Emotional and physical changes are evident. Vital energy levels will increase. Health benefits are numerous too. Confidence and self esteem will improve dramatically as will libido. Skin, hair and nails will look more youthful and life expectancy will increase. The positive feelings that accompany good health and increased vitality are tremendous and will open many new doors.