Articles and broadcasts are proliferating regarding obesity becoming a national epidemic for our children and ourselves. Though that may seem obvious to all who simply look around their community, what I find most amazing is the enormity of misinformation about the subject.

A “diet miracle” show I recently saw on television focused in part on a very overweight woman who eventually emerged as an aerobics instructor and in a whole new body, as you can imagine. Though tremendous air time was devoted to this women’s workout schedule, the program didn’t seem to explore the statement the women made early in the interview about feelings of abandonment and estrangement from her long traveling husband or the fact that the ring on her finger was visibly missing in the later, slimmer shots. A closely listening viewer would also have noted the many references to obesity as having been a family issue of her parents and relatives. Maybe the weight issue was not biological; maybe eating was a coping mechanism this woman learned years earlier as a child, a way of dealing with stress. The woman later mentioned that her son had, “Caught the disease…” and was now substantially over weight himself. Had her son learned to cope through eating from her, just as she had learned it when she was a little girl with her own parents? I think she took charge of her life when she took charge of her marriage and at that moment successful weight loss could have occurred with many methods.

A better program perhaps, was the Dateline NBC series begun in early 2003 comparing the experiences of six people using different weight lose methods: the Atkins Diet, a personal coach, Weight Watchers, the low fat USDA food pyramid, Slim Fast and hypnosis. Though the greatest amount of pounds were lost by Rick using the Atkins Diet, 80 of a 150 pound goal, he was reportedly limping and suffering from a painful case of gout two weeks into the program. Eventually the gout was brought under control with medication and the help of Atkins, who began sending him daily “At Home” meals. Rick lost a tremendous amount of weight but on meds and with the personal attention of Atkins, it didn’t sound like fun to me.

Perhaps more remarkable was Marc, a Boston pastry chef who selected the assistance of a hypnotist. Marc lost 37 of his 50 pound goal at the latest weight-in and, compared to the reports of the other participants, seemed to have experienced the greatest physical, mental and emotional ease in the process. It struck me that the success of the weight loss effort was perhaps more connected with the mental and emotional outlook of the individual rather than the actual weight loss method. Though Marc reported ease and satisfaction with his hypnosis weight management program, Rick also succeeded, persevering through painful gout, he achieved significant weight loss with Atkins. Aligning mind and spirit in weight management however, is a lot more than right thinking or will power.

Imagine someone carrying a tray of glasses across the room when one falls off and breaks on the floor. Having broken one, imagine the person now dumping the entire try on the floor and saying, “Might as well break them all, I’ve broken one already”. Pretty weird but that’s exactly what happens to many people when they have a no-no and slip off the diet wagon. Rather than stopping and climbing back on the wagon, they do the equivalent of, “Hey, might as well break them all” and devour the entire table; sound familiar?

I don’t mean to imply that everyone who wants to lose a few pounds has emotional issues needing a counselor’s couch but if you’re more than 20% of your appropriate body weight, there are issues occurring that will power and wishful thinking alone won’t fix. Furthermore, the real difficulty with “dieting” is how do you stop if the root issue is emotionally driven? Does dieting need to become a lifetime effort? What happens when you want to stop Atkins, Slim Fast or whatever? Unless the emotions are clearly aliened in a weight management, note that I didn’t say dieting, the process will be rooted in feelings of self-denial, deprivation and anger; not a good combination for the foundation of any effort.

Hypnosis weight management assists one to look within, understand why they’re selecting what they’re eating, helps them to identify their real goals so that permanent change takes place that can last forever. If you had seen the Dateline story, you would clearly have noticed that Chef Marc realized that being slim and fit were more important than eating, self satisfaction and life fulfillment was no longer in his stomach, it was in feeling lighter, fitter and more attractive. Weight for Marc was simply a reflection of a part of his life that was out of control, mastering his eating was regaining control of his life.

Hypnosis is a form of motivational coaching. In hypnosis one feels extremely peaceful and relaxed, kind of like being in a daydream where one can see more clearly the links between their earlier experiences and the evolution of their emotional reactions. In this relaxed, dreaming sort of mood, the participant can ultimately be guided to more easily and readily incorporate acceptable suggestions for change of unsuccessful habits and achievement of their desired goals.

So what’s the process, how does hypnosis work? Trying to “diet” is like asking you to NOT think of a bright red stop sign. You see, for the mind to NOT think of something it must first bring it to mind. Not thinking of ice cream, cake and all the other things one must not eat on diets forces us to first create the thought in our mind and as result, creates enormous internal conflict. Changing one’s internal goals and motivations however, eliminates the thoughts and conflicts.

Weight management hypnosis at the OCEANSIDE Healing Center is a four-phase process and begins with a realistic understanding of hypnosis, demystifying erroneous perceptions and beliefs. The next step assists the client in learning self-hypnosis, to form new ways of achieving satisfactions previously obtained through eating. The hypnotist is simply a motivational guide, kind of like a limo driver, the passenger tells the chauffer where they wish to go and rests back, watching the scenery, daydreaming in an internal dialogue. Third step provides the client with techniques for ongoing motivation, through audiotapes and post hypnotic suggestions. The final phase is follow up, meeting with the client to access the results and refine the process.

Hypnosis is not magic; it’s really quite simple, a state of mind we bring ourselves to whenever we go to the movies and let ourselves be captured by the story on the screen. Whenever we drift away in music, with a good book or drive by our exit on the highway, we allow our creative, subconscious mind to take over for a moment, abdicating thinking from the more deliberative, comparative, analytical part of the mind. Call it yoga, meditation, acupuncture or hypnosis; it’s really all about balancing the mind within the body, isn’t it?

In future articles, specific areas of hypnosis will be explored and some remarkable stories told about the uses and results of hypnosis.