If you are overweight you may be tired of everyone telling you that losing weight is just about eating less food and or consuming fewer calories. You may have tried every diet old and new. But, sometimes it seems that our bodies have found a way to turn a plate of lettuce into a pound of fat! Many people who attempt weight loss discover sooner or later their efforts are complicated by metabolic programming that keeps weight on the body regardless of how one changes their eating habits.
If you or your friend or client is overweight and you’d like to see if such programming is affecting weight loss efforts take the following questionnaire:
Do you find that no matter how much you starve yourself the weight just doesn’t fall off as quickly as it should?
Do you find yourself eating less than your more slender friends and still don’t lose weight?
Do you find your food cravings going way up even as the pounds begin to fall off? As if you were starving instead of dieting?
Do you become tired and lethargic when dieting?
Do you gain back all the weight you’ve lost from a diet with alarming speed?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions you probably have some subconscious metabolic programming to hold weight on your body instead of burning it up for energy as it should.
Now here’s the good news! There are many ways we can deal with this programming through hypnosis so you don’t have to fight your body as well as your food cravings to lose weight!
First, we must look at the likely causes of this programming. The metabolism of food is the intricate process by which nutrients from food are consumed and utilized by the body. It is a complex process in which several factors are involved. One is the function of the thyroid gland, the “master switch” which regulates the rate of cellular metabolism. Through hypnotic imagery we can turn up the production of thyroxin, the primary metabolic hormone produced by the thyroid gland. More thyroxin means more fat burned more weight loss and more energy for you. There may be medical reasons for thyroid dysfunction, which is why we suggest a full physical examination and possible testing of your thyroid function before proceeding with a course of hypnotherapy.
Another key element to the body’s metabolic processes is the activity of two key pancreatic hormones: insulin and glucagons. These key metabolic hormones cause our body to store or burn fat. The types of food you eat directly affect the activities of these hormones. In general, it seems that most carbohydrates, including sugars, cause the secretion of insulin, which increases sugar metabolism and storage. Glucagons, secreted after a low carb meal, help the body burn protein and fat, including the body’s own fat reserves. This is part of the reason low carb diets are becoming popular.
So how does hypnosis help you change your eating choices? Because all eating habits become rooted in the subconscious mind, simply deciding to eat differently rarely is sufficient to create long term changes in our eating habits. The imagery of hypnosis targets these subconscious programs and changes them in a way that is both permanent and nearly effortless. Personal hypnotic scripts which can be recorded on a self hypnosis tape and listened to every night in bed can be created by working with a Hypnotherapist. In addition, it is of critical importance to address emotional eating habits, a process I outline in my three part article True Secrets of Permanent Weight Loss.
Exercise is also a key component in the activation of the metabolism. Researchers have discovered that regular exercise, even as little as thirty minutes a day, speeds up metabolism not only during exercise but also for many hours afterwards, even when you are resting. Of course, many of us have a hard time with exercise. Enter again the power of hypnosis. Hypnotic suggestion can be used to increase one’s motivation toward physical activity as well as increase strength and endurance. But often it takes much more than direct hypnotic suggestion to get more involved with exercise again. One of the innovative processes we use can take you back to what you enjoyed doing physically as a child. You can pick one or two of these activities that you will again enjoy! We use the power of hypnosis to bring back the excitement you experienced as a child at play. We can also return to those traumatic experiences that caused us to turn ourselves off to the joys of physical activity, and rescue the past self from these traumas. An experience of being rejected, humiliated or injured on the playground in a team sport, for example, can lead one to shut down the desire to play outside. Our rescue mission allows the child to receive comfort and a promise of safety from the adult self along with an invitation to play outside in a new way with the adult.
One of the more common sources of metabolic programming is genetic. Some human genetic lines (South Pacific Islander and Eskimos provide just two extreme examples) preserve fat on their bodies more readily because these traits served their ancestors well for thousands of years, especially in times of famine. Changing these genetic codes within our DNA may be difficult for even the most skilled practitioners. However, with hypnosis we can persuade the metabolism to override these DNA programs and help us let go of fat. Many times my clients have said to me “My whole family is overweight!” This is the time to utilize specific hypnotic suggestions geared to override DNA programming.
Another common theme among those who struggle with weight loss is that the subconscious mind may be afraid to lose weight because if one’s weight problems disappear than one might actually have to face other scarier issues. One client told me in trance that if she lost that weight over which she was obsessing she would have to “Do something with my life, and I don’t know what to do!” At the Institute we can test for these issues and offer a plan of healing. One valuable technique that can be used here is a journey to the future self to discover how to successfully fulfill one’s life purpose.
Another common theme I have discovered among women clients with metabolic programming to stay fat is the body’s need to insulate itself with fat in order to protect itself from unwanted sexual advances. A large number of my obese clients are victims of childhood sexual abuse. Many others have gained weight to silence their own unmet sexual needs within an unfulfilling marriage. Others use weight as an excuse not to meet men and thus risk rejection or betrayal. If you are not aware of such subconscious programming it could be deeply buried in the subconscious mind, and still be affecting your metabolism. Your hypnotherapist can help you discover and heal these problems. I have personally experienced great success in rescuing clients from early sexual abuse trauma, which has often resulted in rapid weight loss without any apparent dietary change.
I have given you some of the more common causes of cellular programming to retain fat and I’ve outlined some of the steps needed to reduce or eliminate such programs. If such programming complicates you or your patient’s efforts, call me at (707) 539-4989 or (800) 950-4984 for a free weight-loss consultation.
David Quigley is the founder of Alchemical Hypnotherapy and author of the popular textbook "Alchemical Hypnotherapy". He is a graduate of Duke University in comparative religion and transpersonal psychology, and of the Hypnotherapy Training Institute in Corte Madeira, California. David has extensive training in Gestalt, primal therapy, group process and Jungian psychology, as well as courses in Ericksonian and clinical hypnosis and NLP. David teaches throughout the United States and Europe, including speaking at the United Nations Enlightenment Society and numerous hypnotherapy conferences. As the Director of the Alchemy Institute of Hypnosis in Santa Rosa, CA David has trained and certified well over 2,000 professional hypnotherapists since 1983. In addition to teaching workshops, intensives, retreats and weekend training, David maintains a busy private practice in Santa Rosa.
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