Most diets don't work!

According to a study done by the U N Food and Agricultural Organization in 2013, obesity levels in the UK have more than trebled in the past 30 years. At the time of the report, 24.9% of people living in the UK were classed as obese. A really worrying factor linked to these figures is the inevitable increase in health problems linked to weight gain- heart disease, strokes and diabetes.

So what is to blame for this sharp increase in our modern world?Well it’s just that - the modern lifestyle; our busy but sedentary desk bound jobs, lack of exercise and the plentiful supply of high calorie convenience foods, all contribute to this mega problem. How to solve this problem? Diets aren’t the answer. The dieting industry is a billion dollar industry but the sad fact is that most people who diet tend to regain most or all of the weight they lose within a year of finishing their diet!

Why diets don’t tend to work long-term?

Diets don’t tend to deal with the permanent lifestyle changes required, such as a sustainable long-term change in our eating habits and attitude to food. Many diet plans are temporary and can be difficult to maintain on a permanent basis, often because they are too restrictive or they totally deprive us of our favourite foods. These regimes can be adhered to short term but don’t work in the long run. By causing us to count calories or consciously measure portion size or totally emit types of foods, many diets can make us more obsessed with food and our eating, than we were before. This can take the pleasure out of eating and/or can lead us to want more of certain foods and a diet-overeat/binge cycle can start.

Also, many diet regimes do not deal with the emotional aspect of overeating. They rely on willpower and ignore the automatic unconscious emotions/beliefs/behaviours that cause many to overeat. Chronic overeating or bingeing can be linked to early life trauma or emotional upset and these issues need to be addressed to change the habit of overeating permanently.

Worse for us still, is constant yo-yo dieting. The cycle of losing then regaining weight can totally imbalance our metabolism. It confuses our bodies and they begin to hold onto fat, which when we reduce our calorie intake causes the body to burn muscle or lean tissue instead of the fat.

Hypnosis, especially the virtual gastric band programme is highly effective for helping weight loss. How does virtual gastric band hypnotherapy work?

It causes a permanent change in our attitude towards food and eating. It trains our subconscious mind to believe that our stomach is smaller than it actually is and we become fuller quicker on smaller amounts of food. It trains the subconscious mind to be more in touch with when we are actually satisfied and don’t need to finish everything on our plates. The programme also supports the client to make important lifestyle changes such as including some exercise in each day, drinking more water and consciously chewing whilst eating to connect to the body’s natural feeling of having had enough to eat. A good hypnotherapist will also address any emotional eating that plays out in the person’s life and deal with this too.

Source - The State of Food and Agriculture 2013 - United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization.