Learning to experience hunger
In conditioning your mind to eat less it will be important to learn to experience hunger. You may have developed the habit of impulsive eating which affects many people. Impulsive eating is where people eat at the first sight of food or they may think they want food when in fact the body really needs hydrating or the mind needs stimulating.
As you experience hunger it is important to intervene to help your pre-occupation with food subside and for your attention to be placed elsewhere. Initially you may find it a challenge but as time goes on you will get used to the process and begin to automatically eat less. In summary you will be carrying out new habits that are conducive to eating less.
In effect you will be reconditioning yourself away from the habit of overeating and instead learning to satisfy yourself with something non food based. This will help break the cycle of over eating and as the weight drops your feelings of achievement will motivate you to carry on.
3 Steps to eat less
1. As you notice you have a craving to eat ask yourself if you are truly hungry. If you have eaten a decent meal within last few hours and common sense tells you that you haven’t burnt off the calories, then you probably don’t need to eat again until your next planned healthy meal. So in other words STOP and think before you impulsively eat food.
2. If you realise that you don’t actually need food to fuel your body at this time then intervene immediately by taking your mind off to do something that diverts your attention away from food. It is always advisable to have a bottle of water with you so you hydrate your body. You may divert your attention away from food by catching up on some work, doing self hypnosis, reading a book, going for a walk, doing some housework or visiting friends. It really doesn’t matter what you do so long as your mind is distracted.
3. Finally having succeeded it is important to congratulate yourself and affirm your success. Do this by mentally telling yourself that you are a winner when it comes to controlling food and hunger. Your subconscious mind will begin to program that you are successfully in control of food and you have adopted new behaviours when you experience hunger.
How hypnotherapy helps
Hypnotherapy and hypnosis for weight loss helps control the amount you eat by using a number of mind programming tools. During a hypnotherapy session the hypnotherapist will often help you to relax and focus on embedding new beliefs that you are in control of food so that you eat less. Certainly with my own clients I ask them to see, hear and feel themselves in control of food eating less and eating better. Furthermore a professional hypnotherapist will always teach you self hypnosis so that you are empowered to program your mind to eat less each day.
