How Hypnotherapy Can Support Healthy Weight Management
Vermonters may not yet be full throttle into the glory of Spring, but there is hope. With that hope comes shedding clothes and, perhaps, excess weight left over as a reminder of a long, cold winter.
Before the recent boom of weight management drugs, people relied on fad dieting as the overall method to lose weight, along with types of diet pills. Changing the relationship with food by changing behaviors or reflecting on emotional patterns was an elective that usually occurred in conjunction with therapy. Now that newer GLP-1 agonists are available, there appears to be even less emphasis on changing food-related habits or behaviors. It is an option.
As a Life Coach specializing in hypnotherapy, I want to make rapid change by using hypnosis to help my clients change the behaviors, habits, attitudes, and emotional patterns that hold them back and no longer serve them.
For many years, I’ve worked effectively with clients on weight management. Often, the core issue for clients remains the same: their relationship with food and the belief that their willpower will succeed in the weight-loss process. As opposed to stopping smoking, we can’t stop eating. That means what we put in our mouths at mealtime or a between-meal snack is a conscious choice, at least it should be.
Relationship with Food
Here are the basic steps towards improving a healthy relationship with food.
Cooking and eating mindfully encourages us to be fully present during meals, paying close attention to hunger and fullness signals.
Address your issues. Many unhealthy eating habits stem from emotional or psychological factors, such as stress, anxiety, guilt, or past trauma. It is essential in healing one’s relationship with food.
Stop demonizing specific foods or labeling them as “bad” or “off-limits.” This behavior often leads to guilt and shame when they are consumed, which can trigger disordered behaviors such as binge eating or compensatory restriction. The exceptions are foods that need to be off-limits due to their impact on health, such as those high in cholesterol or those that can affect blood sugar levels.
Focus on nutrition and nourishment. This personalized, whole-person approach also includes education on using food as fuel, helping individuals rebuild a healthier perspective on nourishment and energy intake.
Work towards body acceptance. This means shifting the focus from weight and appearance to health, functionality, and well-being. The process includes learning to appreciate the body’s capabilities, rather than focusing on imperfections. This journey toward body acceptance is often a gradual one, but essential in reducing the compulsions associated with restrictive eating, bingeing, and purging.
Willpower vs Imagination: What is Coué’s Law?
The best way to address willpower vs. imagination is to understand Coues Law, a principle of psychology related to hypnosis and imagination. Émile Coué (1857–1926) was a French psychologist and pharmacist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion.
This is a law of the mind, and it simply states that when the conscious will is in conflict with the imagination, it will lose, but only 100% of the time! It is a vital law to understand in order to achieve any goal or outcome.
The reason is that, to have the motivation, belief, and energy to act and behave in the ways required to achieve an outcome, you first need to create emotions or feelings.
Emotions and feelings drive behavior. We don’t do anything until we have first created enough desire to do it. And this is true for all of our beneficial healthy behaviors as well as all of our vices.
For example:
We won’t make a sandwich until we generate enough desire or hunger to motivate ourselves to act (we do this by imagining what we’d like to eat).
We won’t start a diet until we create enough fear that something has to change, or alternatively, generate hope first.
What generates emotions and feelings more strongly than anything else is our imagination i.e., what we picture/visualize or hear (our self-talk) in our mind.
So if we want to achieve a goal and our imagination is focused on the fears, doubts, and distress of not having achieved the goal (picturing what could go wrong etc), we’ll demotivate ourselves and actually create the feelings and emotions that cause us to act/go in the opposite direction of our preferred outcome.
An example of Coues Law in operation:
The will says “Don’t eat the chocolate cake”.
In order for your mind to process this statement, it has to imagine you eating the chocolate cake before it can understand what you’re not to do.
But by then it’s too late. The very act of imagining the cake has created the corresponding emotions and feelings that go along with that picture. You might feel want/desire/fear/powerless to say no.
This is an example of conflict. The will and the imagination are going in opposite directions, and what you are imagining is winning (because it has the stronger emotions).
The way to manage this law is to focus your imagination on what you want with all the positive feelings attached to the outcome, not on what you fear.
In this simple example, you could say “Do eat the salad”, thus the will is saying what you want and the imagination is picturing you eating the salad and creating the feelings of vitality/achievement/pleasure, etc. that go with that picture (for you). So no conflict.
The whole mind is working congruently and creating what you want.
Think about how, in the past, you attempted to motivate yourself by telling yourself what not to do. Has it worked? Probably not. So you can begin to be effective by stating what you do want instead.
I will conclude with these examples to give further clarity. Obviously, each action requires more work, but the idea is to focus on what you want to do.
Don’t smoke. Do breathe easy. Do enjoy your break as a non- smoker.
Don’t get drunk. Do drink water. Do stay sober.
Don’t gamble. Do deposit the cheque into your account.
Don’t spend the week’s wages on shoes. Do pay the rent.
Please reach out to me at sherry@sherryrhynard.com to leave a comment, request more information, or schedule a gratis consultation.
