January 2008 - Awesome Weight Loss Tips for Your New Year!

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Are you an emotional over-eater? This New Year is a great time to set your goals to get healthy and finally lose the weight. First off, I’d like to remove the word “loss”, because your unconscious mind revolts at the word “loss”. “Releasing” the weight is a better choice, as it’s more about what you will gain in self-confidence, not to mention better health.

I’d like to add a caveat here and that is that most people who overeat, aren’t eating because they’re truly hungry, they’re emotional eaters. You might find yourself eating due to stress, low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, finances, and on it goes. That fact is many overeat because they don’t want to feel their emotions. Food can mistakenly feel like a best friend, which is why most diets don’t work, because when we think we’re taking away a best friend, the pain surfaces. In most cases, when the emotional pain is released, the weight “release” will follow because there’s little or no emotional eating. Over weight often equals some part of your life that is unresolved. And for others, added weight happens simply because they haven’t been shown how to eat healthy.

How can you know if it’s truly hunger or emotions? Hunger comes on gradually over time and you begin to realize you’re truly hungry. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly such as when stressed, lonely, bored, angry, etc. So it may be more important to focus on “why” you’re over eating, not “what” you’re eating.

Another issue I’ve seen that leads to overweight, particularly with women, is we tend to be the caregivers for our families and we often take that so far that we no longer know “how” to nurture ourselves, so food becomes a quick fix. This is an issue I often discuss with my clients and I suggest beginning to make an ongoing list of healthy ways you can reward or nurture yourself that have nothing to do with food. Examples: Taking a hot bubble bath just for you, listening to your favorite music, getting a massage, crafts and creative projects, etc. This causes you to begin thinking of what gives you pleasure and gives you a tool box to draw from when needed. Initially when I ask my clients to do so, they often draw a complete blank, so this is a great exercise.

When weight has been more of a lifetime issue, there is usually an emotional root cause behind the weight gain. Consciously we may say we want to lose weight, but if there’s a deep belief or a fear surrounding dropping the weight, we often end up sabotaging our successes. Many of my clients have said: “I get so close to achieving my desired weight and then I end up sabotaging my results.” Here are just a few root causes or issues I’ve seen get in the way. The good news is hypnosis can release them for good.

• Childhood abuse: Most children blame themselves when they’re abused, (physically, emotionally or mentally) often thinking: “I must have been a bad child for daddy to be so angry with me”. That adult child still carries the blame and so being overweight can be a way to continue to prove there’s something wrong with you.

• Negative messages in childhood: If we’re told we’re ugly, or won’t ever amount to anything, we continue to reinforce that belief by overeating and proving it.

• Abusive marriages: Years of hearing you’re not good enough, or a variety of mental/physical abuse can be totally absorbed by your unconscious mind, a type of self-hypnosis, and after years of hearing it, you begin to believe it and your eating behavior mirrors it.

• Having to be the caretaker for your family as a child, often having to assume an inappropriate adult role as an unprepared child, taking care of or counseling parents. These are children who are emotionally neglected. The message this child may pick up is, “my needs aren’t important”. Food then fills in for those unmet needs.

• Sexual abuse: Whether as a child or an adult, particularly with women. Many of my clients can recall being slim and looking great, but they were abused or taken advantage of and so the unconscious mind has decided being slim and attractive is dangerous. Unconsciously there is weight gain to act as a protective barrier and or to prevent this from happening again.

• Growing up in an alcoholic family: Chances are, not only did you not get your needs met, but adults of alcoholic parents often have high sugar cravings. Instead of drinking like their parents, they crave sugary foods.

• Having a mother who was always on a diet, a mother who often projected her own issues of overweight on you as a child, even though you had no weight issues.

• Being overweight to spite a parent, a way of getting back at them, only you’re hurting yourself along the way.

• Being forced to be a clean plater as a child, so today you feel compelled to eat everything even if not hungry.

• Food as a reward: Often as children we’re told if we do a good job, or finish this or that, we’ll get dessert. Psychologically you may feel that even today, the way you reward yourself is with food.

• Being poor as a child, or being part of a large family where there wasn’t always enough food to go around. Unconsciously you may have vowed to never let yourself be hungry again.

These are just a few of the issues that may be behind weight gain. The good news is, understanding them and releasing the root cause can set you free.

Now for those of you who like statistics

What does it actually take to lose a pound? Did you know that one pound of body weight gained or lost equals about 3,500 calories? Therefore, releasing a pound requires 3,500 calories not eaten, and or burned up. The opposite is true also: for every 3,500 calories eaten over time, beyond what you burn up, you will gain one pound. The following scenario describes how an average person might gain or lose weight. If you added 250 calories from 2-3 slices of bread, or a medium cookie, or a bag of chips, every day, beyond the calories you burn up, without boosting your activity level, how long might it take to gain 1 pound?

Remember: 3,500 calories = 1 pound gained
3,500 calories ¸ 250 calories per day = 14 days to gain a pound.
Note: Just eating that extra 250 calories a day could amount to an extra 26 pounds gained at the end of a year. It does sneak up on us doesn’t it?

Much of it is a matter of math: What if you could simply eliminate 500 calories a day beyond the calories you burn up? Those calories might be hiding in those two glasses of cola, seconds of dinner, or a plate of French fries.

Here’s how the math works:
500 calories per day x 7days = 3,500 calories a week = 1 pound lost
every 7 days, or 4 pounds a month.

The fact is each of us has what I call a “set point”. That set point is how many calories you are burning, based on your activity levels. If you eat more than that set point, you’ll gain weight. If you eat less than that set point, you’ll release the weight. Pretty simple math. If you want to find out an estimate of how many calories you may be burning each day here’s a great website that will help you compute it:

https://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/calories-burned

I’ve also found a fabulous herbal tea that cleanses the colon and helps to support weight loss. By cleansing the colon, you not only get rid of toxins in your body, (better health) but you improve the absorption of your food, feeling less hungry and more energetic. Click here to learn more about this Amazing Tea.

I want to close with a piece of wisdom; while you can successfully release your weight, what is more important than anything is that you are happy with whom you are, and that you feel good about yourself and your life. If we base our worthiness on the unrealistic weight images often shown in glossy magazines, we are simply buying in to someone else’s marketing pitch. In the end it is only creating an obsessed society striving for totally flat stomachs and six-pack abs because we are sold an image of what true happiness is about. Focus on healing the inner you first and your healthy weight will be much easier than you ever thought possible.

Hypnosis can go along way to help you lose weight, even if you haven’t used hypnosis to release the root cause, because the unconscious mind can support you in feeling full on less food and truly craving healthy food instead of self-sabotaging junk foods. Your unconscious mind can be your best friend. One of the tools we make available is a personalized CD of your session which you can continue to use at home to reinforce your positive new unconscious behavior. Call or email us to get more information. This is your year…make it your best ever!

“Every extra pound you are carrying on your body equals a pound of pain you’re carrying in your heart” Dr. Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.

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