Weight Loss
Tired of the struggle against weight?
Weight loss should not be as complicated as it seems to be nowadays. Typical weight loss processes involve a struggle and a fight: Diets, counting calories, surgery and hypno-surgery, medication, self-discipline and willpower – are all common approaches people try when wanting or needing to lose weight. It is all “more of the same thing” – different forms of fighting the fat, trying to reduce it, cut it, prevent it, while typically not succeeding in the long term.
There is ample research today to show that diets don’t work; that they never have and never will. Lack of willpower is often blamed, but in fact you are fighting biology when you diet, and it is a fight you simply cannot win.The changes that occur in the body when you diet are threefold, broadly speaking. On the mental side, you become more aware of food, how much you want it, and it becomes much harder to resist. In the body, changes occur in the hormones that suppress and increase appetite – dieting causes the level of appetite suppressing hormones to decrease, and the level of appetite-boosting hormones to increase. This is exactly the opposite of what we need. Thirdly, there is the metabolic change. Your body becomes a lot more efficient in lowering the amount of energy it requires to run itself – again, the last thing we want to happen. If this is not bad enough, consider this: Researchers have found that the reduced metabolisms that resulted from extreme dieting remained reduced for years afterwards. Dieters return to their original pre-diet weights, or more, yet now have a much lower metabolism than when they started dieting. This is detailed in a fascinating study that was conducted over a period of six years with the cast of the American version of The Biggest Loser 2008.
There is a saying: “if you’ll always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”. If that makes sense to you, you are welcome to consider a different approach for achieving more successful long term results. An approach that does not try to fight the fat. An approach that is about understanding how the body works in relation to fat, and being friendly with the body (and with the soul of course) so it will no longer need the excess fat, so it will let go of the existing fat and of producing more of it . The known fact is that “what you focus on is what you get”. You might have heard it as “energy flows where attention goes”. That is why what is needed is an approach that focuses on ‘how can I do good to my body’, instead of on ‘how can I fight the fat’.
Achieving a lifelong healthy weight loss is actually easy to achieve. It does not require self-discipline or self-control. Counting calories is not needed. And it is also not too good to be true, in case you were wondering… It does take a while though. And it does usually require some changes in life, sometimes small, sometimes big. Helpful tools include hypnotherapy and NLP, some knowledge about food, and about the way the human body functions in relation to fat, food, time and a few other interesting things.
How is this done?
NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) models what works for others. In this case, NLP models naturally slim peoples’ unconscious mind and body strategies. In addition I model the success of people who used to be obese and have become slim for life.
Hypnotherapy “programs” these effective unconscious strategies into the subconscious mind, and that’s how people can become slim with no struggle, losing weight occurs naturally. End of the struggle. End of rollercoaster dieting.
Most people go through many different diets, all starting with a list of things to count, a list of things to avoid and a list of things that are ‘allowed’ in certain quantities. The focus is on struggle, on avoiding. Most of these people start by losing weight rapidly but eventually end up gaining this lost weight as well as some extra weight to boot.
Diets don’t work because people starve their bodies of certain nutrients, starve it at certain times and starve it because they focus on what NOT to eat. This puts their body into starvation mode. In starvation mode the body wants to hold on to every little bit it has, and nothing you do will really change much.
My approach is NOT about dieting, NOT about avoiding or having willpower. It’s not another diet. It’s the natural diet-free way of naturally slim people, who automatically and effortlessly are slim. Most slim people LOVE to eat. They know how to truly enjoy food. Here you will transform yourself to be slim simply by doing what naturally slim people are unconsciously doing: simply by listening to your body. It’s simple and it’s natural, it’s enjoyable, and it goes with your body and not against it. It is modelled from what works for people, and that’s why it works.
Listen
The focus is on listening to your body. When you listen to your body you can’t eat things that make your body feel bad. The change is a change in mindset and creates listening to your body that makes it hard to eat what is not good for you or to eat amounts that are bad for you. Listening to your body and letting yourself experience what happens when you do that, helps you find what your body really needs. It’s about introducing new options and finding out what your body is missing. I never tell you to avoid eating anything. I only suggest to experience new ways and foods, and by listening to your body, it will take on board what is good for you. It is very easy to get used to good things. The process of getting you to naturally listen to your body eventually makes it natural to ENJOY eating only what is good for your body and at the right times and amounts for your body.
Fun and Active
Listening to your body also makes it hard not to exercise or be active. When you listen to your body, you can’t not notice that it has a NEED TO BE ACTIVE, TO MOVE. This makes it easy to get positively “addicted” to exercise that you enjoy. It’s got to be FUN, and that’s why you’ll get addicted to it so easily. And don’t worry, I have not yet encountered a single person that did not find the FUN activity for them.
By the way, I’m not talking about over-exercising either! Over exercising has a negative effect on weight loss in relation to effort that is put in. Excessive exercising put the body and mind into a certain stress mode that makes all this effort be quite inefficient on losing weight. As mentioned, What we’re doing here is learning to listen to what the body truly wants and needs. Your body does not truly wants or need either no or excessive exercise, your body just wants to move actively and have fun.
Time
During the years of working with people on weight problems I have found fascinating connections between time and fat. These time-fat connections exist in many areas of life. I work to change these time perception strategies that used to support fat.
Emotions – Body
Experiencing stress, anxiety, low self esteem, anger, frustration or trauma can often trigger the body’s primal survival instincts that cause constant hunger ( hunger for the quickest source of food typically). I work with people on healing these emotions, and naturally the body responds positively by letting go of cravings and of fat.
Personality
In the first session we set an outcome picture of the way you want to be after you have made the change; the way you will look, feel and behave as a slim person. Your relationship with food and activity will be at ease and natural in this outcome. This outcome picture sets the map for our change work. Still, for many people it’s not easy to believe they can truly turn into ‘real’ slim people, for life. We work on integrating the change into your personality so you will no longer operate from a ‘fat person personality mode’ but from a naturally slim person mode, and shift to a slim person’s personality. When people can’t think of themselves as slim it can get in the way of weight loss.
Homework
The session is only one and a half hours out of a 168 hour week. Homework is just about visualizing, experimenting and experiencing different things. It takes a few minutes each day. People who practice their homework tend to have better and faster results, as well as lifelong change.
How long will it take?
Most people will require around 6 sessions initially. Naturally, some people require less or more sessions. Typically, people start experiencing the change from the first or second session, and progress continues with the work in and outside of the therapy room, until they feel good and natural with becoming a slim person. This way goes with the body and not against it, hence weight comes off slower in the beginning and faster eventually. People who maintain a follow-up session once every few weeks for a while are the most successful in making it a lifelong change.
Consider if all that makes sense to you. I am happy to be here to assist you in this major life transformation. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
Warmly,
Yael