Hypnotherapy to replace Food and Body Obsession with Natural Healthy Eating
I am very
often contacted by clients seeking help with weight loss or eating disorders. We
have a chat about their relationship with food and their body image. They are
often quite aware that they are totally obsessed with their weight and dieting.
They have very strong ideas about what they should and should not eat; some of
them are professionals in the weight management or health industry, they are
personal trainers, naturopaths, dieticians, and weight consultants. They are
very upset by their “laziness” and secret eating habits. They usually say they
need strong will power and control, as they constantly break their dieting rules
and other healthy living regimes. They want me to force them to restrict their
food, to stick to their regime, to control their thoughts.
There is a
better way to lose weight and to overcome eating disorders than dieting and
control. There is no need for force, no need for restrictions, no need to be
obsessed, no need for food to rule our lives. We can use hypnotherapy to return
to our nature and to implement natural healthy eating habits. The body naturally
knows how to be healthy; the body naturally knows how to maintain its healthy
weight. The body naturally makes us hungry when it needs food, the body makes us
crave what it needs, and the body is naturally using its fat storage for energy
when it is needed.
Unfortunately, we do not live naturally anymore, we do not listen to our bodies,
and we usually lose the natural connection between the body and mind very early
in childhood. There are many reasons; we are bombarded with food advertisements
from a very early age, the food is used as a reward, we are given sweets to
cheer us up when we are upset, or we have to eat the food we hate because “it is
good for you”. Once the natural eating is forgotten, we usually tend to overeat
and we try to control eating, we start dieting, we start developing the
obsession with food and the body.
There are
many levels and many symptoms of the body and food obsession. In our culture
there is more and more significance attached to the good look, to the body
image, and especially to being slim. The media are full of beautiful bodies,
full of all kind of diets, fashion, styles; the “body” industry is booming,
starting with the health and slimming clubs, special programs on TV,
supermarkets are full of all sorts of “health food”. Who is not affected? The
obsession may be restricted just to looking slim, but it is usually extended to
the signs of aging and all other aspects of body image. There is a new medical
and dental industry, performing expensive and risky medical procedures to look
younger, to change the body shape, even just to style the body parts.
The body
image obsession can sometimes become very disturbing and it can completely take
over the person’s life, causing overwhelming negative feelings. The obsession of
being slim is very often associated with food obsession and eating disorders.
The symptoms consist of constantly thinking about your body, judging yourself or
others (and feeling being judged) by the look and especially by weight, feeling
guilty about your look, avoiding social situations, covering your body,
depression, constant checking of your weight, constant checking the amount of
fat on your body, comparing yourself with others all the time. Very often the
obsession leads to the distorted self image; it is like looking at yourself in a
bent mirror in the amusement park. It is very common for young, beautiful girls
to focus on one aspect of their body and to see themselves as ugly. In extreme
cases the person can be dangerously underweight, but still seeing herself as
fat.
Food
obsession usually forms together with the obsession about the body image and
weight. Children are exposed to this food obsession from a very young age; there
is always somebody in the family dieting and commenting on what they should not
be eating. There is a lot of food around and children may tend sometimes to eat
more than they need. They might put on weight and in our weight obsessed world
it will be noticed straight away, they can hear comments, they may be called
names. They may start dieting; parents may start restricting food as they want
their children to be slim and happy. The vicious circle starts. Restrictions and
dieting make us think more about food, we try different diets, we make ourselves
starve and then we lose the will power and we overeat. The world around is full
of confusing information, there is such abundance of food, every label and
advertisement trying to promote each item as healthy and delicious, food shows,
cook books sold as bestsellers, all those colorful food displays and packaging.
And everybody seems to diet and be concerned about healthy eating. Everybody is
an expert on “what is good for you”. There are scientific researches, sometimes
contradictory, there are medical advices, there is also a big complementary
health industry focusing on food supplements and detoxifying diets not
necessarily founded on research.
We are all a
bit over occupied with food. Most of us try to restrict our food and follow
diets from time to time, and we may be disappointed when we cannot follow the
restrictions for long. But sometimes the food obsession becomes so strong, that
it takes over the entire life. There is constant thinking about food, either
planning the next meal, or planning some rules and diets. The happiness is
connected with food and being able to control the food intake; each breaking of
rules brings an enormous guilt and self hate. The stronger the rules and
restrictions, the more difficult it is to follow them. Sometimes the result is a
yo-yo dieting, when there is a pattern of successful weight loss followed by
gaining more weight when the restrictions become too difficult. Sometimes the
person follows very strict diet rules during the day with a big food binge in
the evening. There are different patterns of overindulging and restrictive
diets, and more serious eating disorders may form. The food obsession can become
so strong, that the person can show signs of phobia when it comes to specific
“bad” food. I have had clients who would shake when talking about chocolate or
even bread. Clients can also develop physical reactions to some food, the most
common is constipation or upset bowel, also headaches etc. Sometimes they
believe they have specific food intolerance, and they are obsessed about these
foods and cannot stop eating them at the same time.
There are
reasons why some people are only mildly affected by the body and food obsession
and for some it becomes a major issue and the source of absolute misery and
depression. We all always deal with our lives the best way we can and we find
the best solutions we can to cope with various difficult situations. The
obsession with body and food and the eating disorder is usually just a copying
mechanism. Sometimes there are some traumatic events in our lives and it is
easier to have other strong distractions and to think about body and food
instead. Sometimes we may feel lonely and abandoned; sometimes there could be
some very strong fears or other emotions. The reasons of obsession can be rooted
in early childhood, but very often it starts at puberty or is triggered by some
events in our adult lives. These feelings and emotions could be too strong and
too frightening, we may feel too insecure to deal with them and it is easier to
be obsessed with food and body.
The most
important part of overcoming the body and food obsession is to remember the very
simple truth that it is nobody’s fault, and especially not yours. Life is just
difficult at the moment and you found the way to cope. However, you can find a
better way. The first step is to realize that you are living in the current
moment, in the now, not in the past. Whatever the past was, we cannot live in
the past, and yet we tend to stay and dwell on the old stories, and see the past
through the eyes of our three years old self, and carry with us the old guilt,
old regrets, judgments and beliefs. It changes when you start seeing the past as
old stories and lessons, so you can leave the old emotions and unhelpful beliefs
where they belong, in the past. The next step is to realize that the fears and
worries about the future are not real, as you are never in the future, you just
imagine it. Once this is done you are ready for the third step, you can learn to
deal with the current situation, you can learn to better handle what happens
now, and you are ready to build the natural strength and self confidence. You
are free to connect with your body and implement the natural healthy eating.
This all can
be done by accessing your internal resources during hypnotherapy. Since we can
be only in the now, only in the current moment, we already have inside us much
more than we can imagine, all the wisdom and necessary solutions are already
within us, in our subconscious mind. During hypnotherapy you will be just
accessing your internal resources and replacing the faulty solutions and beliefs
with the ones which suit you best. There are no limits to what you can achieve,
the only limits are the old beliefs from the past, and you can always change
them once you realize that they are not true. There are different techniques
which we can use in hypnotherapy to assist with those changes, and there are
different levels at which the changes can be made. The changes on the body level
involve implementing the natural eating and exercise habits, there are changes
on the thought level, just clearing the mind from the obsessive thoughts and
finding other ways to cope with stress and worries. On the emotional level we
can learn other ways to deal with emotions, and we can also go to the roots of
the difficult emotions and solve them, letting them go completely. We can also
access the deepest level, the very source of our being and bring the natural
strength coming from the deepest realization of our own roots.
The natural
eating habits are very easy to implement in hypnosis. The subconscious mind is
the part of the mind which is very closely connected with the body and it steers
the body. The body is like a little child; it wants to please us, but it does
not know how. When we are stressed or upset, the body feels that there is some
treat, some pending disaster, so it stores energy as a fat to protect us. It is
enough to connect with our body in hypnosis and ask it to use the body fat as
energy. The body happily follows once it understands that we really want it.
There are
also two major connections between the body and mind which need to be restored.
The first one is the natural hunger. The body knows exactly how much food it
needs and it naturally makes us hungry when it needs food. However, we lose this
connection early in the childhood and we tend to take other emotions and
feelings for hunger. Once the natural connection is restored, we feel physical
hunger only when the body needs food. The second connection is about the food
choices. The body naturally knows which food and which nutrients it needs. It is
natural for our body to make us crave what it needs. When this connection is
restored in hypnosis, we crave exactly what the body needs, and the other food
becomes boring.
There are
also some other changes which need to be done in hypnosis, especially eating
very slowly and enjoying the food. Slow eating is essential for the body to
realize that it has enough food. It usually takes about twenty minutes for the
food to reach all the sensors in the body, so when we eat quickly, we can easily
eat twice as much as we need. And when we eat quickly, we just swallow the food
without really enjoying it, so even when we are full we feel a bit empty. It is
very important to enjoy food, and we can enjoy it more when we eat very slowly
and we pay attention to all the senses, especially to aromas and taste. The body
notices when it has enough and it produces the joyful satisfaction, so we
automatically stop. This is how the body works naturally, so once it is very
strongly reinforced in hypnosis, the food obsession dissolves.
The same
approach, connecting with the body and applying its natural resources, could be
applied to health issues, especially to solving the health issues connected with
food intolerances or allergies. It can be also applied to healthy exercise, as
the body is naturally enjoying any suitable form of physical exercise.
Enjoyment is
very important for anything to work. One of the most important factors to
remember is that life is to enjoy, body is to enjoy, food is to enjoy and
exercise is to enjoy too. The enjoyments and allowing yourself to enjoy your
life and body is one of the most important aspects of all hypnotherapy work in
all my sessions. Enjoyment and freedom to be naturally who you are works and
brings happiness. Control and beating yourself on the head, and trying to use
the will power against yourself may work for a short period, bringing more
distress later.
For more information about the hypnotherapy
treatments please read
Hypnotherapy for weight loss
Hypnotherapy for eating disorders
