Preventing holiday weight gain with hypnosis
As we will be soon moving into the holiday season, it is a good time to re-evaluate our relationships to our bodies and the food that we eat. Most of us make conscious efforts to eat fairly healthy during the year, but it seems around the holidays we are triggered by old family traditions, festivities surrounded with a plethora of food and drink, and activities that throw us off our normal routines.
We are programmed in our subconscious mind to respond to food the way we do anything reinforced with emotion as we go through life. As we learn to change the way we look and feel about food our bodies will automatically change. Hypnosis is a helpful tool to use to help change this perception about food and our bodies. It allows access to your subconscious mind to override old beliefs and negative perceptions and replace them with more positive ones.
Some simple techniques that a person could incorporate is to eliminate distractions as best you can while eating. Pay full attention to what you are eating. Eliminate the phone, TV or driving while eating. Don’t read while you’re eating. Pay attention to every bite and enjoy it! You will find as you pay more attention to your food, you will always eat less .
Whenever we take a bite of food, not only are we absorb ng the nutrients, we are a so swallowing our beliefs and feelings regarding this food and how it will metabolize in our body. Every thought and feeling you have literally programs your body to respond. If you feel that a bite of chocolate cake will destroy your “diet” and that it is “bad” for you, your body will respond to this thought. If you repeat this often enough to your body, it becomes reality. Love your food as you eat it. Your body will digest it differently.
Another way to help with not overeating and improving your relationship to food is to become acquainted your internal body signals and start to recognize if you’re eating for hunger or for emotional reasons. Become familiar with what it feels like to be “no longer hungry” as opposed to being “full” or “stuffed.” Are you eating for comfort or are you truly hungry? Just being conscious of this can change the way your body responds to food.
Is it ok to eat for emotional reason? Yes…as long as you pay full attention to it while you’re eating and enjoy it. And then move on! Don’t spend the rest of the day beating yourself up over this choice. And become aware of how your body feels after eating certain foods. Find what foods make you feel your best and what foods don’t. Everybody is different.
During a hypnosis session, all of these new healthy habits can be reinforced, replacing old habits that no longer serve you. Hypnosis can help to change your relationship to food, manage stress that drives us to make poor food decisions and change our perceptions of our bodies in positive ways. What a great way to move into the holiday season!
