Lose weight the manageable way.

The best weight management techniques are easy to follow and you can adopt them using a mix of ideas from this website including, easy weight management, dealing with temptation without even noticing, self hypnosis and the best bit, learning to love food again instead of seeing it as an obstacle to your happiness.

 

My Personal weight loss - the proof is in the pudding

HOW TO LOSE 100 LBS THIS YEAR
When my weight eventually settled down after a period of sustained loss I had lost over 6 stone. I had not skipped a meal, had not radically changed my diet, still socialised, including going out for meals and having the same things to drink, never gone hungry by using the best weight management tips science can offer, and this is how I did it.

 

The weight is over - learning the technique

It started in 2011, mid June when I trained to be a hypnotherapist. I wanted to add this skill to my extensive range of therapeutic skills to support my client group, who were all dealing with issues around drug and alcohol misuse, as well as anxiety, confidence, low self esteem, and a myriad of other issues.

I did not set out to lose weight

As I trained many people asked me to help them lose weight using hypnosis. I did not set out to lose weight, I had no target weight, I decided I would use hypnosis on me as a test, to see how effective it was and then I had a measure of it’s effectiveness, to share with those who wanted to lose weight.

 

Low Mood eating

At the time my weight had crept to the most it had ever been. My weight had always been seasonally very variable because I experience Seasonal Affective Disorder, a form of depression associated with the diminishing levels of light in winter. The symptoms of this are very low energy, a desire to hibernate and a compulsion to eat comforting food in the form of carbohydrate rich stodgy food.

 

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

The effects of seasonal affective disorder mean that I had tended to gain between one and two stone every winter and lose it in the summer. I accepted my weight as a part of my condition.

 

Self Hypnosis

The muted summer of 2010 combined with moving to a windowless office meant that I had failed to shift the weight and so was in excess of 17 and half stone when I started hypnosis. I adopted some key self hypnosis techniques and within a short time I dropped considerably. Within four months my weight had fallen by three and a half stone, pretty much a stone per month. This was obviously not sustainable and I was also concerned about how healthy it was. So what had been so effective?

 

Realise you feel full to STOP eating

I had hypnotised myself to be alert to when I was truly hungry but also to be aware of when I was full. I also hypnotised myself to only eat at meal times and so I did not snack.

June 2012

Work charity event

Jeans last worn for a party night in 1997

12 stone 2lbs

 

Why do we eat when we are not hungry?

To develop the best weight management approach I looked into the science of why we eat when we are not hungry. Using my addictions expertise I realised that I was being triggered or it was a form of emotional eating, just as it was for my winter SAD related eating. After 4 months I started to research the driving force to snacking, identifying what triggers us to over indulge and used this to adapt my environment so that I would not be around anything which would limit my continued success.

 

The tests - Christmas, meals out. socialising with friends

Soon it would be Christmas, I planned how I would manage with excess food around me. In reality, although I planned, I had no issues as hypnosis was so effective.

 

After Christmas, weight loss had radically slowed, I was losing weight at a much more sustainable level. By April I had dropped another stone and by June, a whole year later I had dropped to just over 11 stone. Total weight loss, from around 17.5 stone to 11 stone or 100 lbs and a BMI of 23.3

January 2013

A photo by a friend impressed with my weight loss & that I can still eat.

A year and a half on from starting my hypnosis. Food is still a passion.

 

Beat Food Cravings

I used some of the techniques that work for addicts to support my own overeating. If it can work for addicts who have found it hard to change until they used these techniques I figured it would work for me to deal with something as simple as over-eating. As an addictions expert, I used all my skills and techniques that I used to support addicts to deal with triggers to snacking, dealing with any unnecessary thoughts about eating, food cravings, and also used techniques from specialist addiction recovery programmes to deal with any irrational thoughts that I had. As the website develops it will offer lots of tips to support your motivation and practical tips to aid lifestyle change, for now use the best weight management techniques to get the weight you want.

 

Ongoing fitness

Since then my fitness has fully restored so much so that I entered the Sheffield Half marathon in 2013 and this had a marked affect on my weight. I gained half a stone, as I trained every few days and was eating more as well as growing muscle. So in the space of two years I had lost over six stone, never skipped a meal and ran for the first time in almost 30 years and completed 13 miles. What are you waiting for, try out the best weight management techniques for yourself.

Sheffield Half Marathon

2 hours 34 mins

11 stone exactly

May 2013

 

Small steps lead to big changes

Effective Weight Management and Dieting - what is the difference?

Effective weight management is the answer to many of the problems we have with weight gain today. If you read some of the more fanatical diet books out there, weight management and dieting can easily be mistaken for the same things. There are may doctors who are specialists in the field of weight, obesity collectively called bariatric medicine who would never diet nor would they view diets as anything other than short term, short sighted and largely a waste of time effort, money and pain such as Dr Ian Campbell.

 

In reality there are some key differences between the two. The split into WHAT you can eat, WHEN you can eat and HOW MUCH you can eat.

 

Diets are prescriptive

What you can eat: THE  CARROT SOUP DIET or THE CABBAGE SOUP DIET.

What you cant eat: Atkins, (no CARBS)

When to Eat. Eat, every few hours five or six small snack meals per day, or direct you to fast after a particular time or even every few days.

How much you can eat: WEIGHT WATCHERS.

 

Demonise Food

Some diets like the renowned Atkins diet appear to almost demonise certain foods or food groups.  The Atkins diet works, to limit the body’s access to carbohydrates and instead access the food intake around protein and fats.Others take the same draconian approach with either no dairy, gluten free, low GI etc.

 

Why do diets fail?

Diets tend to fail when they are this prescriptive because of the way the brain operates. Prescriptive diets suggest what can and what cannot be eaten. The brain operates such that it can not not think about something. This means that in order to not think about  something it first has to think about it to eradicate it from its thoughts, which by doing this, it has already thought about the thinking it is not thinking about.

Confused? Here’s an example to help.

 

Try not to think about this.........Don’t think of fried chicken. No don’t think of fried chicken, and especially not succulent and glistening fried chicken. So the more you remind yourself that you are not having something, because the diet you are on says I cannot have chicken, the more your mind thinks and then fixates on it.  By fixating on something, something that is not available to you, because the diet says it is not allowed to eat, then, the thing you are not allowed becomes more prominent in your thoughts, more desirable and ends up being something that you crave.

 

Your brain will try and outsmart your diet 

Our brain will find ways to outsmart diets. Diets fail, resulting in lost self esteem, feeling of failure, or even describing eating as cheating and restoring any weight changes and worse weighing more than at the start.

 

Effective weight management means never having to
"Be on a diet" again! 

 

Weight management is non-prescriptive and instead it is a process of small techniques that support mind and body to enjoy all the food eaten, be aware of grazing absent mindedly and reduce non-enjoyment eating. Effective Weight Management is a lifestyle of healthy eating. Using Weight management will mean NEVER HAVING TO DIET AGAIN.

 

I personally lost 100lbs and have maintained for three years. Using a mix of hypnosis, emotional eating management and working with the psychology of eating.

Here is a Before and After comparison...

Weight loss of 100lbs in less than a year and maintained ever since.

 

Enjoy food forever

Weight management allows all foods to be eaten, with the focus on enjoying all foods, having a healthy relationship with all foods, getting portions right and using food to meet your hunger and appetite needs instead of being used to manage mental health issues such as boredom, anxiety, control issues and anger.

Portion size

Why is it getting harder to get the balance right?

Portion size has become harder and harder to control in the last 30 years because what we see as a normal amount of food on our plate has changed. Because of this it has become harder and harder to get sizes right and stick to it.

 

It all started here

Globally this process of buying and eating more than we want began in the late 60’s when a Chicago cinema chain wanted to sell more popcorn so they added extra sizes instead of just one. David Wallerstein, the man given the job of getting us to buy with our eyes instead of our stomachs began the process of portion inflation and then took this to his next employer, MacDonald’s who took it to a newer level with the super-sizing of almost it’s entire menu.

 

Imported United States culture and portions

The recent growth in over ordering and over eating in the UK has many reasons the influence of US culture has been significant though. Since people have been holidaying in the USA, and returning to claim that; "The food there is unbelievable. The portions you get are massive,” There has been a shift to put more food in front of us.

 

Value for money

Value for money has been another key factor. When we get more for our spend we associate this with it being a good thing. Food manufacturers and retailers here have been slowly and consistently inflating portion sizes.

 

As portion size grew, so did everything else

What was once a large portion has now shrunk to a medium or regular size portion; crisps now come in enormous family bags and even our cutlery has put on a few pounds too. The growth in size of our portions has had a knock on effect on the landscape of the table too. Plates have got bigger, dining tables have grown to accommodate the size of the plates, pans have been getting bigger, as have cutlery, condiments and almost all food stuffs.

 

Restaurants use visual tricks

Restaurants use visual tricks to get us to eat more and yet not notice the portion excess. They often serve the plates on other plates to give a feeling of even greater value and quality, yet still appearing to be appropriately sized meals. Dining room plates have grown so much that some plates now do not fit in standard size kitchen cupboards, resulting in kitchens groaning under the strain of portion inflation.

 

Profit seeking makes us fat

The amount that we are being encouraged to eat has expanded because there is more profit in it for food retailers. Food volumes are inflating as consumers demand proportionately more for their spend. The food industry focus on what is profitable, the responsibility for this lies with food purchase decisions not the way it is promoted. To combat this follow the advice around the site.

 

2 for 1 offers, multi packs, three courses for the price of two and free fill ups on drinks, have all been used to get the consumer to spend more. Buying and eating food, just because it is "good value" is making our food intake and our waistlines grow. To take back control, plan your eating around how hungry you are not how much you can consume for your budget.

 

Avoid the traps

Portion size is significantly different today and for those looking at techniques to weight loss there is an opportunity to make long term weight changes by learning to avoid the traps set by business to get you to over indulge. Click on the the 25 healthy lifestyle tips tab to help you avoid many of the over eating traps. For simple tips to take control of your food portions see the tips on portion sizes tab below.

 

For more advice and support to deal with portion size or weight contact me

Portion Sizes - How to get it right and stick to it?  

Portion sizes have grown over time and so have you, so to take back control you need to make small changes that you will be able to maintain easily.

To combat portion inflation I have included some easy to follow tips to and take back control of the amount of food you eat.

 

START SMALL

Firstly remember, when making any changes it is better to make small, sustainable changes than large, extreme yet easily abandoned changes, so if your portions have got bigger than they need to be start small. Changes take 66 days to be a habit so making small sustainable changes will be more effective than huge unrealistic goals.

 

SMALLER CUTLERY

Eating with smaller sized cutlery. This does not have to be eating with child size cutlery but just means being mindful that there are much bigger, grander cutlery sets and more modest ones, which will make it easier to eat smaller mouthfuls of food and allow you to take your time to eat meals. This hormone Leptin, which tell give you the full feeling, takes twenty minutes to be released after you start eating, so you will start to feel full before you have eaten as much as you may have done with bigger cutlery.

 

OUT OF SIGHT IS OUT OF MIND

You often eat with your eyes so continue cooking the same amount of food but use smaller plates and plate up a smaller amount. Your brain is easy to kid as much of the tips in the website will go onto explain. Whatever your brain sees, it is happy to eat and once it sees an empty plate it accepts that it must be full. So it is better to see less food and you will be soon happier eating smaller amounts of food and get lasting control of portion sizes.

 

KEEP LEFTOVERS BEYOND GRAZING BY FREEZING ASAP

Keep the left over food out of sight and enjoy the food that you have on your plate. If you are still hungry after the meal, you can always top up. After a very short time you will find that the plated portion is enough. Any leftovers can be frozen and so save you the effort of producing another meal and more importantly from over portioning food for your next meal.

 

Move to smaller pans once you have settled on the new portion size

Once you get the portion sizes and plate sizes right, cook using smaller pans. If you prepare too much you eat too much. If you use bigger pans it can easily lead you to preparing too much food as the pan will look less full and so you will add more food than is necessary.

 

ENGINEER OUT COOKING TOO MUCH

To support you further with portioning you can engineer out the habit of preparing too much food by making your own portion scoops.

A good way of doing this is weighing out your dry rice, I typically use 50g per person, then I use a cut down 2 litre plastic lemonade bottle pour the rice in , mark off the height of the rice and then cut the scoop down again to the height of the rice so you can never put too much in.

 

Now let’s deal with outside the home.

 

Take back control of food buying decisions

If you don't buy something then it is less likely that you will eat it. Take back food buying decisions by being aware of who and how businesses and friends can influence your choices. Whenever you buy cooked food away from the home, ask yourself Who is influencing me on my portion sizes here? How hungry am I? How can someone or some business make me choose what I eat? Instead of what businesses want you to ask which is usually How much can I get for this amount of money?

 

It is better to have a little quality than a lot of rubbish. Remember you are worth it.

 

AVOID THE SMALL VERSES LARGE LABELING TRAP

Research by Brian Wansink shows that we will eat more food for many reasons but one reason is that if we are told that a portion is small or half portion we will eat more of that than if we are told the same size portion is labelled with a description that it is a full size or max size portion. So don’t fall into the trap of believing that a portion is small just because that is what it is described as.

 

Hypnosis for portion control

Hypnosis is really useful to help you with portion sizes as it can be used very effectively to help you be more connected to each and every moment that you eat food. It can help you to really enjoy your food and enjoy it to such an extent that you do not overeat as it would reduce your enjoyment of the food that you have eaten so far. I have used it to manage my own weight see my own weight loss story, where I used self hypnosis to safely guide my weight down by 6 stones to a very healthy weight today.

Small steps to big changes

Small steps are essential for sustainable changes. Trying to do big changes instead of breaking a task down makes it more likely that you will either give up or meet an obstacle that you are not ready to address both of which will undermine your self esteem and your confidence. To boost your confidence whilst addressing with issues like addictions, anxiety, confidence, and weight management break your long term goal down into set short simple goals. as you meet each target your confidence will grow and your motivation to take on bigger and more demanding challenges will grow with it.

 

Learning to be accepting of yourself will allow you to break problems down into smaller stages allowing more mini successes which will help raise motivation and also make your confidence grow over time.

 

Small steps to breaking habits

One example could be dealing with habits like nail biting. Hypnosis is great a dealing with this issue. One practical thing that you can do to address this can be choosing to leave on nail unbitten. So accept yourself as a nail biter but not someone who bites a particular nail. Very quickly you will establish a different pattern of behaviour and once you have stopped biting that nail and it has grow longer you could then add another nail to leave unbitten. I have used this technique to stop nail biting in conjunction with hypnosis and can not imagine nail biting again.

 

Be realistic with goal setting

Acceptance is built on being realistic about how much you can change at any one time. To prevent failure when learning to be a different, you also need to be realistic about how long change can take.

With weight management ask yourself how long ago you were at the weight you want to revisit. This gives you some scale of how long weight change takes naturally. You should be looking at no more than 2lbs or a kilo a week and that it will change in cycles, some weeks will be faster than others. Many people fail to reach and maintain their weight because they reject adopting realistic goals.

 

See the bigger picture

The small steps approach also includes acceptance that there will be obstacles which may need to be overcome, it may appear as if a backwards step is taking place. This is very common when making lifestyle changes like, addressing an addiction, getting fitter, quitting smoking because reverting back to old behaviours is very common after you have started to make changes.

 

One strategy to employ when making lifestyle changes to keep motivation up and boost confidence, is to view the change journey as a long term event instead viewing it day by day.

 

Here, the person adopting a new lifestyle is then able to see that, should they experience a small setback, they see it in the context of all the other changes that they are making instead as a big event in itself.

 

For example: someone giving up smoking who has not smoked for 7 days may view a cigarette today as a failure but viewed over the last year, then this lapse can be seen as progress. Over a year, one day in seven smoking instead of every day is a huge change, and has clear health and financial benefits. This pattern will eventually lead to longer periods of smoke free living until reaching total abstinence. Ultimately, focus on the progress made instead of the minor disruptions to the progress. Using a success diary can help focusing on progress.

 

Equally, when someone lapses from alcohol abstinence use by taking one drink they can use their next period of abstinence to remind them that they have already made progress with their small steps and should just resume this approach and see how far they get next time.

 

The process of seeing an event over a long term can further be supported by viewing set backs as areas for further learning. By viewing each set back as a new point of learning a person is able to see this event as a point of personal development instead of a failure. For example someone who is new to a life in recovery may find that they drank when they socialised with their friends. Instead of regretting this and seeing this as a failure they could instead reflect on this and recognise that they needed to plan better next time and either tell people that they cannot drink, choose a venue where there is no opportunity to drink alcohol or not to attend with those people.

 

Small steps to feel in control

By employing these techniques a person undertaking lifestyle change still feels in control of their destiny instead of a failure as their self esteem is still intact and their motivation to maintain this change is in place as they view any difficulties as planned and necessary to reach their destination.

 

Ultimately small steps for change are sustainable and easier to maintain over the period needed for the change to evolve into a new lifestyle habit.

Can a Chocoholic be Hypnotised to hate certain foods?

A chocoholic is someone who has a love of chocolate to the extent that they have little control over it. Some foods can be really hard to resist and so it is common for some people to resort to drastic measures to deal with their cravings resulting in the often asked question “Can I be hypnotised to dislike certain foods?” |The type of hypnosis where someone is hypnotised to dislike something is called Aversion Hypnosis.

 

HYPNOTISE ME TO HATE CHOCOLATE
In principle it is possible for self proclaimed chocoholics and those who feel they have no control over other foods stuffs to be hypnotised to dislike a particular food. As a hypnotherapist, I am able to offer this as a solution to help manage weight or bingeing. Whilst I do offer this treatment, I offer it in conjunction with treating the other, underlying issues.

 

Hypnosis for change

 

TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT DISLIKE?
People who ask to be hypnotised to hate any food stuff should consider if they want this to be a temporary dislike which will decline once they have learned all the skills to managing their weight or if they would like it to be permanent. Choosing to stop permanently so that you can never have a piece of chocolate is very disempowering. It suggests that chocolate has control over you and by choosing to hate it forever you will never regain control from it again.

 

Can I Hypnotise People to Hate Substances for those with Drug Addiction and Alcoholism?

I can treat people to dislike substances using hypnosis but I work with addiction practitioners to make sure the treatment is appropriate.

FROM  BIG AMOUNTS TO SMALL IS BETTER THAN SUDDENLY STOPPING
Alcohol users, for example may need to cut down slowly making a sudden dislike is very dangerous. Sudden stopping of alcohol use can and does lead to fitting, so seek professional help before making sudden changes.

 

Alternatives to hypnosis for Addictions

When dealing with dangerous addictions like heroin or alcohol there are treatments which can be prescribed to prevent drugs working or make a person very ill if they took the drug. This medicine, prescribed by professionals is used to prevent relapse and the risk of death. Chocolate and other food stuffs do not have that high level of risk associated with them. Just because you can be hypnotised, it is important to address reasons for overeating. Using Aversion Hypnosis does not treat any underlying reasons for bingeing on food.

 

Treat the Cause not the Symptom

As a therapist I would encourage the client to allow me to support them to identify and treat this issue so that they felt more positive about certain situations and were able to manage them independently instead of using a particular foodstuff to sanitise their thoughts and feelings.

 

SOME FOODS ARE ADDICTIVE
Recent research has shown that some foods such as sugar and simple carbohydrates affect the same parts of the brain that heroin and alcohol affect. This suggests that people are using food to deal with their negative emotions and feelings, just as addicts do.

 

Learn to love food instead of hate chocolate

It would be much more beneficial to the chocoholic to support them to deal with those feelings effectively instead of denying them the food that they use to deal with it at the moment. Once properly dealt with the client would not need to overindulge but could instead be able to savour and enjoy that food stuff as others do. The risk of not treating the underlying issue, the real cause of weight gain and instead focusing on the foodstuff, the symptom, is that the problem will emerge in another unhelpful way, such as bingeing on, or overeating another food stuff.

 

Unknown ingredients could make you ill!

To use hypnosis to dislike a particular food stuff is very straight forward. You could get someone to associate it with all the things which they find repulsive so that each time they smell it they would feel sick. This is not always useful though, because there are times when you may eat something whilst unaware of its contents and so would be ill even though you would normally have been happy to do so. The other main reason that I am reluctant to treat someone in this way is that it is very dis-empowering. It suggests that, for now and for ever, a food stuff can control you when in reality with effective treatment you could gain control over this and the key underlying issue in your life with the right profession support. Whether a chocoholic or a bread snacker, the choice is yours!

Weight Watcher - Be free to eat what you want, mindfully.

Every weight watcher is looking for the miracle cure. Using the techniques of mindful eating will help give long lasting healthy weight without ever having to think about dieting again. Whether you want to drop a dress size or a more, using the techniques on this site will guarantee that you will lose weight permanently and help you to achieve a healthy weight.

 

WEIGHT MANAGEMENT INSTEAD OF WEIGHT WATCHING
By using the tools and techniques located across the website you will be able to stop being a life time weight watcher and instead have the ability to eat when you want, what you want, eat the right portions for you and have a weight that does not fluctuate but instead sits at a healthy level with only natural changes connected to the seasons and your own body.

 

Mindful eating is being aware of everything you eat and learning to enjoy everything that you chose to eat, reconnecting with your food and not letting anything undermine this experience.

 

Hypnotise yourself to lose weight

Hypnosis is a very effective way to lose weight, read about how I lost over 6 stones in a year to get to my ideal weight without missing a meal, having to endure those ridiculous shakes, or follow a rigid unnatural eating regime; better still come and meet me at my clinic.

 

THE MAGIC CURE FOR WEIGHT MYTH
The food industry and the diet companies have been good at confusing us with food labelling, leaving people simply describing food as either good or bad. They have also created the myths that there are magic cures to solve weight issues.

 

Treat the Cause instead of the Symptom

The reality is that your weight is a symptom of your lifestyle, get that right and your weight will sort itself out. Deal with your stress, identify your food triggers, feel fulfilled and manage boredom and we will have one less food obsessive and one more person who lives a happy fulfilled life.

It has taken many years to develop the lifestyle that you have adopted. Change should be done slowly to be permanent.

 

SMALL CHANGES TO HAVE A LASTING  WEIGHT
Do something too extreme and you will give up after a time as it is not sustainable so make small and realistic changes. Simple changes, such as smaller portions. Make a food scoop to prevent over eating. Keep junk food out of your home. Avoid Halo foods and labelling any food good or bad.

 

Relax and watch the weight just fall off

 

MANAGE STRESS TO BEAT COMFORT EATING
Try something new too; you can use self hypnosis, try out the tools which help boost your confidence to end emotional eating. Develop Stress-busting techniques which will stop you using food to deal with stress. It is so much better than dealing with the symptom, YOUR WEIGHT.

 

The Weight is Over

 

TRY GROUP HYPNOSIS FOR WEIGHT LOSS
I run hypnosis weight management groups and one to one appointments in Sheffield. If your want to stop worrying about what you can eat, deciding if food is good or bad and instead want to be free to enjoy your food contact me for details.

 

If you are fed up with being a lifetime weight watcher, use the tips and techniques on the website to take back control.

Sheffield Hypnotherapy Weight Management Consultancy

As a Sheffield hypnotherapy weight management practitioner- who used these techniques on himself first, I can offer personally tested, specialist treatment, which allows you to reach your target weight. Weight management is so important in our lives for many reasons. A healthy weight affects so many aspects of our lives.

 

I used the techniques below to make a huge shift in my own weight a short time ago.

 

BEING OVERWEIGHT CAUSES BIG PROBLEMS
An unhealthy weight affects us in so many ways, self esteem, motivation, anxiety, depression, pregnancy, sleep, and energy levels. At the most extreme it affects life expectancy. Raising risks of heart disease, heart failure, and diabetes.

 

BEAT YOUR FOOD CRAVINGS
I use a successful mix of hypno-therapeutic techniques which allow you to better manage food cravings. These techniques work to manage cravings for any food stuff whether you struggle to control eating sweet things, especially chocolate or savoury foods and baked goods such as bread and pastries.

 

RIGHT PORTIONS TO GET THE RIGHT SIZE
Hypnosis helps to get eating patterns back in order, eating at the right times, feeling full when after meal times and feeling hunger in readiness to fully enjoy your next meal. My programme will help you to eat the right portion sizes for you, without snacking.

 

Motivation support to keep the changes going

My career as a Hypnotherapist is a development of my longstanding career supporting people make changes in their lives. I can help boost your motivation to keep your changes going forwards so that you make sensible realistic long term changes in your weight.

 

BEAT THE SUPERMARKETS TO REACH YOUR GOAL
I will support your to reach your target weight by teaching simple techniques which will reduce your likelihood of overeating, snacking when you are not even hungry and the tricks the supermarkets and restaurants use to encourage you to make poor food choices generally.

 

ARE YOU AN EMOTIONAL EATER?
As a Sheffield Hypnotherapy practitioner, my training and career specialisms include Stress Management and Addictions too. Many people eat to manage their feelings, just as addicts use their addictive behaviours to manage their feelings, some eat to deal with their stress during the day.

 

Manage stress to beat comfort eating

I will give you new ways to deal with these daily stresses, which will help you to feel calm relaxed and more in control of your eating but even more importantly more in control of your life.

 

ENJOY MAKING FOOD CHOICES
Finally, I will teach you practical skills to regain control of how much you eat. There has been a lot of research to explain why we eat, what food choices we make, what causes us to carry on eating when we do not feel hungry and what we can do to make better, healthy and happier food choices.
Much of this information will be available on the website as time permits.

 

Check out the sections on Motivation, Addiction, Self hypnosis, to learn more.

25 Healthy Lifestyle Top Tips to Weight Loss

How Healthy lifestyle research came from the military seeking to keep its soldiers safe

 

These easy to follow 25 Healthy lifestyle top tips to weight loss are built on years of food research.

A huge amount of the research into why we eat when we are not hungry has been conducted by the US Military. Ironically whilst we can use this information to stop eating junk foods and over eating when we are not hungry to develop our own healthy lifestyles. They conducted this research because they wanted to get their troops to eat more not less. A lot of the research was conducted into why we eat, because the soldiers may not be able to get food easily in a combat zone and so need to be encouraged to graze and top up when they have any opportunity.

 

So thanks to their hard work here are the top 25 weight loss tips which will support your healthy lifestyle.

 

We eat with our eyes

The science suggests that we will continue to eat until our eyes cannot see anymore food. Even when we are full up.There has been lots of research into why we over-eat. Follow these simple tips and you will find that you no longer over-eat and watch as the pounds melt away. I used all the tips on this page to lose over 6.5 stone or almost 100 lbs without skipping a meal, giving up my favourite foods or missing out on social occasions. Starting at 17.5 stone I am now just under 11 stone and my BMI is under 23.

 

The main reason we put food in our mouths is not that we are hungry but because it is in front of us and available. If we pop to the fridge for a drink we may also grab a quick snack, a handful of something, not a lot, but those snacks add up over the year. Research tells us that if we are less than 6 feet away from food and we notice it, we are much more likely to eat it. Either now or later, despite not being hungry.

 

Tip #1 Keep "ready to eat" food and treats at least 6 feet away from you.

The harder you make it to snack on junk food, the easier you make it to adopt a healthy lifestyle and lose weight. If you keep snacks in a container you are less likely to snack than if you put it out in the open.

 

Tip #2 Put snacks in a container. Better still put it in a container that is not see-through.

This halves the amount of absent minded snacking that takes place. Wrap leftovers in the fridge in tin foil and earmark it for another meal or lunchtime sandwiches instead of just saving it.

 

#2b Keep the wrappers and dirty plates in view to remind you what your have eaten.

If you have the evidence of what you have already eaten in front of you, you will feel fuller sooner. There is a famous piece of research where students were given chicken wings, some had the bones in front of them others had them tidied away. The group who had a reminder of how much they had eaten ate significantly less than those who had clean tables and clean plates. Knowing this makes it easier to make good lifestyle choices. Restaurant owners know about this and tidy away as soon as you have finished so that you will order more food, unless they want you to leave!

 

Tip #3 Keep empty packets, sweet wrappers and dirty plates in front of you whilst you eat.

You will eat less, because you will feel full, and you will feel full sooner than if you can’t see what you have eaten.

 

Tip #4 Trying to reduce the junk food you eat? Want to eat less chocolate? Do you keep treats in your desk drawer?

Keep the wrappers for the week in front of you or in the treat drawer, and you will eat fewer.

Trick your brain into thinking that you are eating more than you really are and you will still feel full.

 

Tip #5 Use just slightly smaller plates and have slightly smaller portions.

Slightly reduce your food crockery size and you will plate-up less food and so eat less. Despite this you will feel just as full because your brain will assume it has eaten the same amount. Over time, scale down plates and portion sizes more and notice yourself scaling down too. Little by little is the key here.

Better still use white plates and avoid blue ones. A hospital in the UK wanted to get its patients to eat more of the food they offered. They found that presenting food on blue plates lead to patients eating 25% more food. White plates were the most unappetizing colour.

 

Tip #6 Use tall thin glasses to reduce the amount you drink.

Tall thin glasses, as used to serve expensive lagers, give the brain a false sense of consuming more than you have. Again the brain feels more full and so you eat or drink less. Short and deep food bowls appear to be hold less and so people put more food in to make up for this. Notice the shape of some ice cream sundae bowls, tall and thin at the bottom. The food industry have playing tricks with our brains for years. To build a healthy lifestyle, do the same and reduce how much you eat and drink.

 

Tip #7 Pack Meals with Veg and Salad.

When you are eating a hamburger, go crazy with the salad and light on the mayo. Single burger, lose the cheese and you will lose the gut. Our brain feels full based on volume of food eaten not on what that food consisted of. So to lose weight, pack in more low calorie, healthy food and gently edit out the high calorie, high energy foods.

 

Slow Down your eating. Give Leptin a chance!

 

Tip#8 Eat slowly to fully appreciate your food.

Big isn’t always beautiful. If you want to lose weight naturally without doing anything different, just by having a healthy lifestyle, then scale down a little at a time and watch yourself shrink too. You need 20 minutes before the hormone Leptin is released in your body. This hormone is the messenger that tells your brain and your body that you have had enough to eat. So the less you eat in those first 20 minutes the less you will eat before you feel full. There are lots of useful tips to help you just by knowing this fact. Focus on smells, tastes and textures of your food. Savour each mouthful and notice how full you will feel.

 

Tip #9 To help you slow down, use smaller plates, and use smaller cutlery.

Small cutlery slows you down. Small plates just make you automatically put less food on your plate which will also help you slow down your eating.

 

Tip #10 Have warm food or food which needs cutlery to eat it which takes longer to eat. Giving Leptin more time to send out its message.

Food which takes utensils to eat and warm food both take longer to eat than fast food. This gives Leptin more time to act and signal that you feel full. Perhaps I should recommend that you opt to eat everything with chopsticks?

 

Tip #11 Cut sandwiches into smaller bite size portions and support a healthy lifestyle by only picking up the next bite once you have fully eaten the last piece.

Again allowing time for Leptin to signal that you are full.

 

Tip #12 Eat a small bowl of soup before you have your main meal will result in you eating less food because you feel full sooner.

Research has found that you will eat less despite eating two courses. This is because eating takes longer and so you give leptin a chance to signal that it is full. You will plate up less food on the second, more calorific, course as long as you eat the soup first before you plate up the next course. Cafeterias, where you get your starter, main and desert course plus extras like bread result in you doing the opposite. here people will over order it they do not plan what they would normally eat and copy that volume.

 

Tip #13 when eating a snack, keep healthy snacks to hand and unhealthy ones away from your self.

Make unhealthy snacking harder on yourself and you will do it less. by keeping fruit and  nuts close to hand you are much more likely to eat these than chocolates. Healthy snacks give slow and steady energy release and so reduce energy and mood dips which cause people to eat even more junk food.

 

Tip #14 Keep unhealthy snacks out of the house so that you have to make an effort to purchase junk food.

Only buy as much as you are going to eat, this makes your association with junk food become more negative.

The bigger the container the more you will eat. A huge bag of crisps will result in you eating more than if you had lots of mini bags of crisp. Healthy lifestyle research has shown a family bag or share bag will cause you to eat more than if you had the same amount in front of you but in smaller, individual bags.

 

Tip #15 If you have oversize bags of food, separate them into individual portions and store in ziplock air tight container.

You will eat less at each occasion.

The least healthy, fattening and heavily sweetened food is the cheapest to make and the most profitable, so has the most money for advertising.

 

Tip #16 Beat the advertisers.

If you do not buy junk you cannot eat it. Adopt a healthy lifestyle, buy food because it is on your shopping list, not because it is cheap.

 

Tip #17 People buy more of one product if it is labelled as MAXIMUM OF FOUR ITEMS per customer.

This limiting is there to get you to buy more, not to preserve stocks for others. The more junk in the house the more you will eat. Take back control of what you eat, use a shopping list.

Research has shown that if we are distracted when we are eating we continue to eat because we have not seen the amount of food we have eaten. If you do not notice what you are eating you do not feel as full.

 

Tip #18 Focus on the Food.

When eating focus on the food not others and you will fill up with less calories.

 

Tip #19 Turn the tv off when eating.

Do not snack next to the t.v. or at the cinema.

How full we feel is affected by who we are with and what we are doing. If eating out with friends, we will eat more than if eating alone. Sometimes double. If eating out with someone who has a more healthy lifestyle than us we make better choices too. Research has found that girls on a first date tend to eat less as they don’t want to appear “unladylike” by having a big appetite,whilst men will eat more, to appear more “Manly”. Some people may eat more just because the bill is being split.

 

Tip #20 When eating out plan what you want to eat to avoid over eating.

Concentrate on your food and be assertive about how much you want to eat.

Hidden calories account for the creeping weight gain. If people gained weight quickly then they would notice, stop and adopt a more healthy lifestyle. Some of the most hidden calories are in drinks. Some fizzy drinks contain 14 sugars in a single can, with popular drinks having at least 8.

 

Tip #21 Carry a bottle of water all the time.

You will drink more of it and so less sugary calorie dense fizzy drinks.This is the simplest and also one of the most important tips to adopting a healthy lifestyle. This tip alone could have a massive impact on your weight, your mood and your mental and physical functioning.

 

Tip #21(b) Don't confuse thirst for hunger.

Make it easy to manage your thirst by keeping a bottle close by. If you have not done it already make this healthy lifestyle choice now.

Sugar free fizzy drinks, those zero calorie sweet drinks confuse your brain too. The brain expects to have some food coming when you drink these and so when none arrives because it is artificial sweetened it sends a signal to eat. Many people snack, not long after drinking these drinks.

 

Tip #21(c) Avoid snacking by drinking water instead of artificially sweetened drinks.

Variety maybe the spice of life but it is also the engine of weight gain too. The more different things you put on your plate at a buffet the more you will eat. Also the closer to hand the food is the more you will eat. Use these tips to deal with buffets and you will keep the weight down.

 

Tip #22 Be the last to join the queue at the buffet and you will have less choice and so eat less.

 

Tip #23 Eat away from the buffet, if possible in another room out of sight of the remaining food, even outside and you will not be tempted to graze on the leftovers.

 

Tip #24 Limit the variety of things that you put on your plate and you will eat less.

Pile that plate with healthy food and limit the high calorie food to just two items and you will fill up without the calories.

Food is often labelled low fat when it only means it has less fat than before. This can be as little as 10% less fat so if you are adopting a healthy lifestyle it would be better to avoid this food altogether.

 

Tip #25 Read the labels.... Carefully.

Use caution when reading the nutrition advice and ask yourself. What are they manufacturers not telling me?"

Some foods are nicknamed Halo foods because they appear healthier than they really are. The label will say REDUCED or LOW IN (sugars or fat) or HIGH IN (something like vitamins). These labels often leave people with the impression that they are healthy, when they are high in fat, sugar or salt.

 

Tip #26 Healthy lifestyle tip Take everything with a pinch of salt (not literally).

A bonus tip to keep you going.

So if you want to develop a  healthy lifestyle which will lead to weight loss without going on one of those diets which tell you what to eat or what to avoid, just start by adopting the easiest of these tips and as you get used to it use more and more of them. As I said before I used these tips to drop from over 17 stone to just on 11 today. All with sensible, fun and easy tips. Good luck.

Food Addiction

Food addiction like all addictive behaviour is a counter-productive mechanism to express how you truly feel, using food instead of clear, confident communication. Like all addictive behaviours, this is more than just eating too much. Food when it reaches addictive levels is a source of anxiety, a loss of control and something which has devastating consequences for the addict.

 

EMOTIONAL EATING
Using food to manage your emotions is common but may leave your feeling powerless, weak and confused. Treatment for this condition is complex but very effective and can be totally effective allowing you to live a full and productive life where food does not control your life and you have a stable healthy weight.

 

Why do people get addicted to food?

Research has found that certain foods impact on the same parts of the brain which addictive substances like heroin and cocaine stimulate. The food stuffs which do this are simple carbohydrates like white bread and pastries as well as sugar. This may explain why some people resort to overeating  and snacking on these foods but would not want an a piece of fruit if it was available. On these occasions people are not eating to satisfy hunger but instead using food to change their feelings, their moods and distract them from something which is causing them some for of emotional discomfort.

 

Treating food addiction

I have extensively history dealing with all forms of addictive behaviour and am able to support a food addict to regain control of their behaviour.

I use tools which support anyone with a food issue regain a healthy relationship with food and eating. This will allow someone to use food in a healthy manner and learn and develop the skills to communicate effectively so that they are able to manage their own mental health in a safe and successful manner.

 

EXPRESS EMOTIONS INSTEAD OF EATING THEM

Through hypnosis and various therapies, many of which are contained within the website I will help you to develop self awareness so that you can identify any negative emotions which you are feeling. Using assertiveness and confidence building techniques I will support you to be able to safely express those emotions and convey your own wishes so that others recognise and respect them.

 

QUIT ADDICTION NOT FOOD

Food addiction is a complex addiction to treat because it involves a substance which is essential to live and an activity that cannot be removed from normal healthy functioning. Despite that, hypnosis and therapies like CBT and tools such as Act As IF and One thing I have Learned will serve to impact massively on your self esteem and your behaviours such that you can be fully recovered from your addictive behaviour and able to live a life in recovery from addiction and live fulfilled and complete. Access support groups as part of your changes including FA.

 

Use the website to learn about how to deal with any addiction and how the tools and techniques can support you with your own behaviour.

Basal metabolic rate how do your calculate it?

The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is a useful measure to determine how much food you need to eat each day. This measure is the amount of energy that a person uses when they are at rest all day. To make sense of the BMR just imagine you spend all day in bed, doing nothing, then this is the amount of energy you need to keep you alive to do just that. The amount of energy that you do as you go about your daily life added to this figure will give you a very accurate estimate of how much energy your body has used that day.

 

This a very useful calculation as this can be used as a rough guide to know how much extra energy you really need to get through your day.

 

The section on “How many calories may I eat each day?”  highlighted how inaccurate the general information is for energy needs. The National Guides in the UK suggest 2500 calories for men and 2000 for women, but as we are all different these guides are very misleading. Using the Basal Metabolic Rate will offer much more personalised information.

 

How to calculate your BMR

Men BMR =

88.362 + (13.397 x weight in kg) + (4.799 x height in cm) - (5.677 x age in years)

Women BMR

= 447.593 + (9.247 x weight in kg) + (3.098 x height in cm) - (4.330 x age in years)

 

Then with this figure multiply this by the figure which best describes your level of activity.

Little to no exercise Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.2

Light exercise (1–3 days per week) Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.375

Moderate exercise (3–5 days per week) Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.55

Heavy exercise (6–7 days per week) Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.725

Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra heavy workouts) Daily calories needed = BMR x 1.9

 

This gives a much more accurate measure of the energy needs you have for yourself.

 

Follow the link to a quick Basal Metabolic Rate Calculator

 

Armed with this measure you can use it to slightly reduce your energy uptake and so, overtime make modest and sustainable weight loss until your BMI is within the normal range or at your target weight.

The Wedding Diet for Special weight loss occasions

A Wedding diet is a really strong motivator for making long lasting weight changes. My hypnosis practice offers a great way to get you to the perfect weight for your perfect day. I will support you to identify and reach a realistic goal for your wedding and help you to manage all the difficulties which can stop you looking perfect for the day.

 

I have used all the techniques myself to lose over 6 stones and maintain that weight loss by hypnosis without skipping a meal, starving myself or doing anything unhealthy.

 

I run a regular hypnosis group where anyone who wants to lose weight for a special event can have the benefits of hypnosis and strategies to deal with emotional and unhealthy eating approaches and group support. Using group weight management helps to build greater motivation and plan for any occasions which may undermine your long term goals. This cost effective way of accessing treatment can support you all the way to your big day as it is so cost effective.

 

PERSONAL CONSULTATIONS
For intense weight management support for your Special Day I offer personal consultation. One to one sessions of hypnosis and support around your food triggers, will help you with healthy weight loss and look perfect on your special day.

 

WEDDING HYPNOSIS PACKAGE
The Wedding Diet hypnosis package uses all the tools mentioned throughout this website alongside having the benefit of enjoying your weight changes with a group of people with the same goals as yourself.

The programme looks at your goals, helps deal with overeating, getting your emotional eating back in check whilst helping to deal with any stresses and fears you have around the big day which may result in you overindulging.

The programme is available to anyone working towards an event when you want to look your best.

 

Personalised Group Service

I can offer an exclusive group service if you want to have your own group, open only to people that you invite, perhaps the wedding party, or you are the groom and want your and the men to look and feel at their best. So lose weight and develop your own weight management skills whilst spending time with your friends.

Does TV cause weight gain?

There are a number of ways in which tv causes weight gain and makes us fat.

 

Sedentary activity

TV is a sedentary activity and so you are doing less than you would be instead of slumped watching TV. TV burns around 45-55 calories per hour about the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar or a single finger of a Kit Kat. Compared to sleeping which burns from 44 calories for every 100 pounds you weigh. Incredibly, it is easier to lose weight by sleeping than watching TV.

 

WATCHING TV BURNS FEWER CALORIES
TV is so poor at calorific burn because when watching people remain incredibly still. Filming of people watching tv showed just how little people moved. They even stayed rigid when having conversations and moved as little of their body as possible if they were passing objects like plates and cups.This lack of energy consumption, compared to any other activity results in TV being the most energy efficient process and results in a relative weight gain compared to any other activity.

The lack of movement also makes people get fat because when watching tv people are less aware of the other things that they are doing, including eating.

 

Lack of awareness of what they are eating

By being focused on tv we are unaware of just what we are eating and also how much we have already eaten. Part of my hypnosis treatment for weight loss focuses on raising awareness of what is eaten because it is so fundamental to weight management. TV lowers awareness of what we are doing and instead watching tv causes people to mindlessly gorge on food. This leads to sustained over eating. For people who are obese, and especially those who over consume sugar, Leptin the hormone which signals the brain that they are full becomes less effective and so obese people who eat in front of the tv are even more likely to become fatter still, as they are even less likely to feel full from the food that they are eating.

 

EAT MORE HIGH CALORIES FOOD
Eating whilst watching tv not only is mindless eating but demands a type of food which demands little attention to consume. This is typically easy to hold, naturally bite size food that does not stain, spill or squirt juice. Most food that is tv friendly is high calorie, sugar or fat dense processed food, much of which are designed to be eaten mindlessly, and lead to problematic weight gain. Chips, biscuits, chocolate, pies, sandwiches and Pringles Crisps make a virtue of it’s mindless quality in it’s advertising “Once you pop, you can’t stop".

 

TV watchers eat up to 25% more food later

By being unaware of what you have eaten because of being distracted by TV, people who eat whilst watching also eat up to 25% more later in the day without realising it according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

 

TRIGGERED TO EAT MORE BY ADVERTS
Research says that we are most likely to mindlessly eat food and experience weight gain if it is visible. Being visually triggered to eat food is the much more likely when watching tv because of direct advertising, product placement, programme sponsorship and programme content with lots of programming dedicated to cookery and travel which focus on eating. In 2010 the junk food companies spent $4.2 billion according to Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. Research confirms that tv watching indicates a correlation between poor food choices and high fat diets (Sonia Livingstone 2004). If Food manufacturers could sell their products in the same volumes without having to advertise, they would. Advertising is to persuade consumers to like their products. Is it possible that if products were left for consumers to decide if they liked processed food without external promotion, they may find that they preferred simple, healthier, natural products?

 

TV raises appetite in those who are not hungry

TV content dedicated to food causes viewers to think about food which can in turn increase appetite, resulting in greater consumption, of likely high fat sugary foods.

 

TIME WATCHING TV IS TIME LOST FOR COOKING
The culture of tv is making people fat too. This culture of wanting to watch more tv is resulting in devaluing cooking and having family meals and replacing them with quick to prepare microwave ready meals which are HFSS foods (High Fat, salt, and sugar)..By 2002 Britain ate double the amount of ready meals as France party because families wanted to sit down to watch tv.

 

TV stress increases emotional eating

People over eat to change how they feel (see food addiction). TV content is skewed to raise emotional experiences through cliffhangers, conflict and aggression or relationship loss and love. By experiencing these dramatic emotions, emotional eaters are just as likely to respond by over eating. Many people plan emotional eating by preparing chocolate or biscuits before they expose themselves to their TV experience and with it, the foundations of their weight gain.

 

TV ENHANCES BODY IMAGE ANXIETY
TV also solicits feelings by re-enforcing anxiety and inferiority by having gladiatorial type programmes which expose conflict and either resolution or retribution such as Jeremy Kyle.

Body image issues are maintained by dramatic cues such as the bad guys are often overweight, arrogant, lazy and flawed whilst good characters are beautiful, strong, intelligent and agile. Subtly this leads to personal anxiety for obese people who are culturally portrayed as weak and limited.

 Due to increased workloads in addiction, anxiety and depression, I will not be running group work for the foreseeable future.

 

Group weight management sessions

When it comes to Group weight management there are no good foods or bad foods, no counting points, no obsessing about what you can and can’t eat. Nor are there any reward foods. There is no public weigh in. My own weight loss and sustained weight management has come from working with food rather than treating it as the enemy and using this programme can help you make long term changes too.

 

What can I expect during the sessions

The sessions consist of:

• Hypnosis, to support with, motivation, maintaining changes, confidence and using your subconscious to support you in this.
• Specific techniques to manage destructive eating patterns such as snacking, overheating, bingeing, and emotional eating etc.
• Techniques to deal with managing eating in varied environments, such as business meetings, buffets, office environment, meals out etc.
• Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), to support you to have a greater range of choices and perspectives which helps keep you calm, relaxed, positive and resilient.
• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), to help you understand how you choose to think can affect your moods and how you can change this and so change your moods. This is key to affecting emotional eating.
• Research into what influences us to eat, what causes us to stop eating and the foods we are predisposed to eat. This will help you make choices where you are no longer at war with your body but eat in sync and in a calm and confident way.

 

How long is the programme?

Participating each week, for 10 sessions will give you a range of skills to help you manage your weight and further sessions can be attended to reinforce all the skills and knowledge you obtain.

 

How long are the group weight management sessions?

The groups will be approximately one hour per session.

The content will be a mix of all the techniques mentioned earlier and will touch on a mix of issues connected with group weight management. E.g. A session could  include approaches to deal with what to eat, where to eat, why we overeat and aspects of motivation towards healthier foods and disinclination towards less health foods.

The groups are for 10-15 and the sessions will reflect the needs of the group. This means that you get a whole body approach to weight loss as well as being be able to self focus on your own issues.

 

What will Hypnosis be like for me?

In Hypnosis  you can hear my voice, my suggestions and can use these supportive suggestions to support you after the sessions and into your longer term goals.

You may feel totally aware of your surroundings or choose to get absorbed by the calming and relaxing environment you choose for yourself during the hypnotic process. Use the Q and A section here to discover more about hypnosis.

 

After the sessions and beyond

You may find a new approach to eating. For me, it was a new pleasure in eating. Being able to appreciate my food instead of being focused on volume or not wasting anything. I found it easy to notice if I was bored, stressed, or hungry. Now I can recognise when I used to eat out of boredom or was snacking as I dealt with an issue or puzzle in my head instead of actually being hungry. I still enjoy meals out, food choices and can eat with my family.

 

How much will it cost?

Each group costs £10 per session attended and there are no further costs involved or products to buy.

The sessions are for me to pass on my knowledge and experience to help you learn and practise the skills of managing your weight and to support you at the start of your weight loss journey.

 

My personal experience

Since using these Group Weight Management techniques I have experienced a slow and steady weight loss, averaging less than 2 lb per week and now have a healthy weight, my BMI is around 24, I am around 6 stone lighter and around 12 inches smaller in the waist.

I have  never skipped a meal, nor have I fixated on food, obsessed about food, or cut any food or food group from my diet. I continue to socialise, eat out and entertain at home and found this new approach to eating both easy and refreshingly natural.

My partner has also lost weight as she absorbs my new interest in food by what I am choosing to eat.

Hypnosis has helped me focus on enjoying my food, whilst my friends have focused on my gradual return to a healthy weight.

 

The weight is over - Bon appetite!