Written by: Olga Willemsen, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
“I tried so many diets. I starved myself, and as soon as I stopped, I went straight back to my usual eating patterns and gained all my weight back. I find myself at night or on weekends in front of the TV, shoveling pizza into my mouth. And I simply cannot resist ice cream, chocolate, cookies, and pizza. I keep eating what is not good for me, especially if I have a glass of wine or two on the weekends. I eat when stressed or upset, even if I don’t want anything. Over the years, I keep gaining even more weight.”
Such and similar stories tell me my clients when they first come to me. And then the change comes quickly. They gain control over their eating behavior. They become confident, and the weight starts melting away.
Hypnotherapy helps them to change limiting beliefs and emotions underlying their eating behavior, and this is a game changer for them.
Understanding weight loss challenges
The main approach to weight loss is caloric restriction. But our mind is wired for survival, and eating and liking foods is one of the main survival mechanisms. We especially love and crave sweets and foods high in fats because they’re high in calories.
Caloric restriction can deprive your body of essential nutrients and impact your well-being and health.
So when we restrict our eating, we’re trying to fight against our survival behaviors, and this fight is programmed for failure.
Moreover, feminine physiology is designed to carry and give birth to children. That is why the feminine body is especially resistant to weight loss during caloric restriction and regains all the weight after dieting.
The situation is complicated by the rapid modern lifestyle. Busy work and parenting schedules do not allow to devote time to physical activities.
And weight loss is not just about looking good and feeling fit. Obesity is accompanied by increased rates of all-cause mortality, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and strokes.
The mind-body connection
Eating and gaining weight always have additional psychological reasons. The more weight you carry, the bigger you are and the thicker your isolation layer. And the more deformed your body is, the more you become unattractive to potential partners.
The excess weight has a special psychological function, making you look and feel bigger and stronger. You may desire this unconsciously if you feel too weak and incapable or if your tasks are hard and heavy.
Or you’ll feel so sensitive and vulnerable, unable to deal with your relationships and the outer world, that you need some sort of insulation to protect you from the influence of other people in the world. You keep eating and insulating yourself from the outer world.
Also, if you experience any sort of abuse, verbal, physical, or sexual, you want to protect yourself from it in the future. And extra weight can play the role of such protection, making you unattractive to potential abusers.
Or maybe you simply learned the eating behavior from your family, your parents, or caregivers who were eating much and also carried excessive weight. you have been eating together, enjoying the food. This gave you the feeling of belonging to your family and safety, acceptance and being loved. So whenever you eat, at that moment, you recreate the good feeling of belonging but pay a high price for the consequences.
In any of these cases, if you don’t deal with the psychological reasons and root causes, your body will keep holding onto excess weight and onto established eating behavior patterns that support it and help you gain more and more weight.
In a holistic and successful approach to weight management, you want to deal with the eating behavioral patterns and their psychological root causes and make human physiology work for you and not against you.
What is hypnotherapy?
Hypnotherapy treats the root causes of your emotional eating and works with your unconscious mind. It can change your beliefs, emotions, and old behavior patterns.
It can help you gain control over your eating behavior, stop cravings, and raise motivation for exercise. Not only that, you will be more confident and have more self-esteem.
Hypnotherapy is a safe, scientifically proven, and effective method that changes your mindset and gives sustainable weight loss.
The benefits of weight loss hypnotherapy
The advantage of using hypnotherapy is that you work with your unconscious, with the root causes of the weight issues. You address both physical and emotional aspects of weight management. This changes your behavior permanently.
My clients, after going through the program with me, choose easily for healthy and nourishing foods easily and refuse foods that are not good for them.
They become also more physically active and do regular sports. This also supports the weight loss.
Weight management becomes effortless and sustainable.
Does hypnotherapy for weight loss work?
“I was skeptical about hypnotherapy, but now I see how easy it was for me to change, and I am convinced” - a single mom of two teenage boys was sincere at the end of our program. She went from hating cooking, not having time for it, and buying deep-freeze pizzas to structured planning, shopping for fresh foods, enjoying cooking healthy foods for her and her boys, and getting rid of her cravings in just one month.
Another client went from eating ready-made deep-freeze foods to cooking fresh homemade meals and noticed additional changes: “I stopped binge-watching Netflix, too.” Both of them, being moms, were especially pleased with themselves because they became a good example to their children in good eating habits, healthy self-esteem, and self-respect.
A younger client also changed her decision-making and choices, not just around eating: “I have now joined a gym despite a busy agenda but also started going out more to meet more people, which helps to improve my work/life balance.”
Clients notice changes in their behaviors and relationships both at home and at work.
The hypnotherapy process
Weight issues usually have a long history and have several underlying negative or limiting beliefs. That is why working on them requires several sessions.
Each session addresses a separate belief or an aspect of weight management. In my sessions, I combine hypnotherapy coaching and teach effective tools to my clients.
Such a combination helps to create sustainable results and empowers clients.
If you haven’t succeeded before, hypnotherapy gives you a new chance to improve your weight, relationship with food, lifestyle, and self-esteem.
You can reach out to me and book a free discovery call to talk about your personal situation and your wishes, and I will explain to you how my hypnotherapy services can help you.
Conclusion
Hypnotherapy is effective for weight management and achieving your ideal weight because it addresses underlying negative beliefs about your body and weight and considers your physiology. It gives you control over eating behaviors, enables a mindset transformation, and helps you to live a healthier and happier life.
Olga Willemsen, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Olga Willemsen, Ph.D. is a hypnotherapist and transformational coach certified in Neo-Ericksonian Hypnosis, Rapid Transformational Therapy, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. She combines her knowledge and experience of hypnotherapy, neuroscience, psychotherapy, NLP, and CBT to create a unique practice, and she can help with anxiety, panic attacks, burnout, sleep disorders, and childhood trauma. Her number one priority is empowering clients to live up to their highest potential. Working online or in-person in The Hague ‒ in English, German, Russian, or Dutch.
