Teaching Hypnosis Clients to Maintain Weight Loss
Part 1
By: Celeste Hackett
October 1, 2012
Much has been taught and written with regards to how to use hypnosis for weight loss, but little has been written about how to help your clients maintain their ideal weight once it has been achieved. What good does it do your business when clients experience thrill upon thrill as they watch pounds and inches disappear if later they have to agonizingly watch the same weight creep back on again? Most clients, by the time they reach your office, have experienced many times before the disturbing cycle of losing and regaining weight. Keep in mind they have come to you hoping for a different sort of experience, and if you want to give them something of real value that must mean permanent change after they are fitting into those size 7 jeans again. But is permanent weight loss even possible? I believe it is.
After years of battling with my own weight issue, and most times those battles meant using hypnosis, I finally lost an excess weight of 35 pounds. I am greatly relieved to say I have also managed to keep off the weight since February of 2010. That’s right; next February I’ll have successfully kept those pounds off for 3 years. Now that I am at this point in my weight journey, I feel more confident than ever that I can control my weight. In fact, I can weigh anything, within reason, that I want to anytime I want to. If I hadn’t experienced this myself, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. The good news is that I am not the only one maintaining weight loss like this, so you can be sure this is not a fluke of nature, and if I and others can do it, so can your clients.
So just how is weight maintenance achieved? It seems it’s somewhat easier than we thought. The rules of weight maintenance are to 1) Clients must weigh themselves (in the nude) first thing in the morning, after they go to the bathroom, and 2) Clients must immediately cut way back on calories, that very day (and night), that they find they are any more than 2 pounds over their ideal weight, even if it’s just a tenth of a pound over. If your client cuts back enough, (such as fasting or semi-fasting for the day) and if her metabolism is working at optimum level, the weight will be totally off the next day after the fast (or cut back day).
If your client finds it is very difficult to fast or semi-fast on far fewer calories for a full day, have her simply cut back to half of what she normally consumes for two or more days until the weight comes off. If she is someone who has a sluggish metabolism, she may need to fast or semi-fast for more than one day until the weight comes off. Some clients, instead of cutting way back on calories like this, or in addition to doing so, also find that increasing exercise for the day helps them get the weight off quicker and easier.
Don’t forget to teach your clients self-hypnosis and/or offer them a recording to make these lower calorie days easier to deal with. These “low cal” days are when your clients will really appreciate such tools which can help them boost their determination, re-inspire them with the benefits of keeping the weight off, and even suppress their appetite.
You may have heard that it isn’t good to weigh yourself every day. And proponents of not weighing often say that the reason you shouldn’t is because it can be discouraging when your weight fluctuates, which it can do daily, after you drink water, after you eat, after using certain medications, after you work out, when your bowels or bladder are full, or during your menstrual cycle etc. But for those of us who weigh daily, we have found that if you weigh the first thing in the morning before the meds, water, eating, working out, and after you go to the bathroom, most of the time the weight is, well, rather accurate.
Also, if you tend to do a “fasting day” on a day when your body really was sensitive to something and was just holding water (and the like), the pay off will be that once your body rebalances you’ll have the excitement of seeing your weight go below your ideal weight by a pound or two which won’t cause a normal healthy person to starve, but only means nachos and ice cream for lunch that day are totally guilt-free. Now wouldn’t that be nice? I can tell you personally. It is.
There was a very interesting study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that supports weighing every day. The study was conducted at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center at The Miriam Hospital at Brown Medical School in Providence, RI. It consisted of 314 successful dieters split into a control group and 2 intervention groups. The outcome of the study showed stepping on a scale every day, and adjusting eating and exercise habits accordingly, can go a long way in helping dieters maintain weight loss. Dr. Rena R. Wing gave a statement to the press that “if you want to keep lost pounds off, daily weighing is critical.” But she also warned that, “”Stepping on a scale isn’t enough. You have to use that information to change your behavior, whether that means eating less or walking more. Paying attention to weight — and taking quick action if it creeps up — seems to be the secret to success,”
But did I actually say your clients should consider fasting? Yes, but please make sure they check with their doctor first especially if they have health problems such as diabetes, kidney disorders, or other serious conditions. Not everyone is suited for an all out “water only” fast, but most people can do a partial fast throughout the day. One option for example would be drinking low cal beverages from the time your client wakes up until the early evening. For instance your client could consume one or two high quality protein drinks, plenty of water, coffee and tea, and/or maybe some broth-based soup throughout the day. In this example the fast would end in the early evening with light vegetable salad and/or an apple.
In apparent support of this theme there have been some studies that do show fasting can benefit us. As recently as May 17th of this year scientists published a paper in Cell Metabolism. The paper spoke of work done on laboratory mice at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies which found that regular eating times and extending the daily fasting period may override the adverse health effects of a high-fat diet and prevent obesity, diabetes and liver disease in mice. ”It’s a dogma that a high-fat diet leads to obesity and that we should eat frequently when we are awake,” says Satchidananda Panda, an associate professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory and senior author of the paper. “Our findings, however, suggest that regular eating times and fasting for a significant number of hours a day might be beneficial to our health.”
In my next article, I’ll offer 8 different fasting options, including my personal favorite. I’ll also share some very special additional tips, tricks and techniques you can use to coach your client into permanent weight control. Ideas your clients will find very useful and I believe you’ll be able to use in your business to help take your work to a wonderful new level of expertise.
