Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool when it comes to breaking the habit of comfort eating.
Weight loss is a very emotive subject for many, due to the rollercoaster of experiences their weight journey has taken them through.
No one comes seeking hypnotherapy at their first experience of being a few pounds over their desired weight. The clients we see have often felt their lives and self-esteem have always been dominated by what weight they are.
Most will say “I know what I need to do, I’ve done it before, I have lost weight, but it is a yoyo battle.”
Weight “LOSS”
I hate diets or even weight loss plans, they straight away trigger a sense of loss and deprivation. This is a trigger for the problem state that drives people to reach for a comfort food.
My most used saying is “You can’t not do something by trying not to do it.” This is because as soon as you take your awareness to that something, you are straight back into your old habitual feelings and therefore behaviours.
The key is to do something else instead that fulfils the same positive intention of the behaviour you want to stop.
Your life depends on it.
We are talking unconscious drivers here, the ones that are effectively keeping you loved, safe and secure within the world.
Comfort eaters use food to satisfy this deep need, one that is a basic need for the survival of the human race!
It is hardly surprising then that resisting that cake is often impossible.
I could go into the science of the hormones and neuro chemicals that are produced in this scenario that drive the need for this behaviour, but what you want to know is how you can stop the desire and need for comfort eating.
The Key to achieving your desired weight is to stop the need for comfort eating.
I will repeat that as it is vitally important:
The key to finally having a good relationship with food, one that gets you to be your optimum weight for health and happiness is to stop the need for comfort eating.
But as I said earlier, you can’t stop something by trying not to do it, you need to do something else that fulfils the same positive intention.
This means you need to feel loved, safe and secure within the world….
When you feel loved, safe and secure you will not be searching for further comfort from food as that intense need for comfort will not exist.
Hypnotherapy can help you resolve the issues that left you lacking in a sense of safety and comfort:
There was a point when you learnt that food fulfilled this need.
Physiologically food does provide this comfort, but so do other things.
Often these behaviours are learnt in childhood or at a time when life was challenging, a time when instant comfort was really needed.
This time is very likely no longer relevant despite feeling like it is.
Hypnotherapy and a powerful technique called Integral Eye Movement Technique (IEMT), can help you to emotionally resolve the events and situations that taught you to comfort eat and establish more beneficial replacement that fulfil the same need.
Feeling is believing, believing is being:
Hypnotherapy can help you access positive feelings that already exist, but you are not relating to your identity or your relationship with food.
These are feeling of worth, confidence, pleasure, safety, love, happiness, and yes that good feeling of comfort.
When we feel what we feel, we believe them to be relevant. Once we believe them then we live them out.
If you feel loved, safe and secure in the world then you will believe lt. Once you believe it you will easily do the behaviours and thoughts that will reaffirm that.
Hypnotherapy speaks language of the unconscious mind
Hypnotherapy is able to achieve this because it speaks the language of your unconscious mind, where all you want to change resides.
The language of your unconscious mind is your breath, your body and your imagination. Exactly the tools we are working with in hypnosis.
If you would like to know more about how hypnotherapy can help you resolve the root cause of your relationship with food and build new more positive beliefs and behaviours, then consider finding someone such as myself who can help you do this.
Word of warning
Do not be tempted by quick fixes, virtual gastric bands or aversion therapy if you know you are eating for comfort.
You can’t trick or deny your innate survival response.
Using these techniques instead of resolving the root causes will likely drive your unconscious mind to find a new way of being heard.
That new way will add to your problems not resolve them.
This by the way is my opinion from the science I know and the experience I have, deliverers of these techniques will disagree!
You can book a free consultation to discuss your individual needs by calling the clinic on 0333 772 6233 or got to www.healthfulmindclinic.co.uk/contact-us.