3 stages of hypnotherapy to accelerate long-term weight-loss

Did you know a quarter of people abandon their resolutions after just one week? A staggering 60 per cent give up within six months.

Below are three key proven phases of hypnotherapy designed to help you identify, achieve and maintain your ideal weight-loss journey starting in 2016.

1. Establishing your intention

Hypnotherapy works simply on helping you to identify what it is you no longer want. Once that is established, the next step is to help you to excite your subconscious mind, helping you to alter your pattern of behaviour so you feel safe and secure to make change. Only then will those changes be effective and long lasting.

For example you may say, "I don't want to be five stone overweight any more". The next stage is to identify all the negatives about being five stone heavier. Usually it is a pattern and build up of behaviour such as stress, low self esteem, lack of confidence, poor relationships and not feeling you deserve to feel healthier and fitter.

A realistic time scale is then set for you to achieve your target weight with smaller milestones for you to achieve in between. A healthy diet, nutrition and exercise life style plan is drawn up focusing on helping you to get to be a slimmer and fitter you.

2. Change your mindset

Once you have identified your goal, the hypnotherapist will look at all of the advantages of you feeling fitter, healthier, more attractive and more confident to stay on track and back in control.

Our subconscious determines our beliefs, patterns of behaviour and our emotional responses. How we feel and what we believe directly influences our health.

The exciting part is to excite your subconscious mind to make those changes in a variety of ways. Through hypnosis, you can listen to a mind enhancing programme that will directly speak to your subconscious. Just like selling it to your subconscious, focus on all of the benefits of being five stone lighter (or whatever your personal weight-loss is) and use words and phrases that stimulate long lasting change. Creative visualisation plays another key role in helping you to visualise, feel and mentally rehearse what it will feel like to have reached your target weight. In effect, rewiring your old, worn out patterns of beliefs and behaviours that are no longer beneficial to you.

3. Trust yourself

The role of the hypnotherapist is to help you to trust yourself by applying a number of gentle and compassionate tools to help build trust in yourself to feel confident to make that change. It will reinforce  your belief system that you deserve to be and feel healthier, fitter and more comfortable with yourself.

Frequently people are scared to make that change. A lot of resistance comes up, often with the following conversations going on in their head, "Will people still like/love me if I am thinner?", "Can I cope with the attention and comments of appearing more attractive?".

They may even be scared of failing and letting themselves down, or appearing weak to their friends and family. It may be that you need some regression work to help you connect with your younger self, to let your younger, vulnerable self know she/he is safe, secure and loved.

When we come from a place of trust we are better equipped to make the right decisions for ourselves, to stick to what matters to us personally.

Good luck with your weight-loss in 2016. Decide not to be in that 60 per cent of giving up. Remember by applying the three strategies of having a clear intention, the right mindset and trusting yourself, you will be much better equipped to achieve your goal and accomplish what matters to you. By choosing to work with a hypnotherapist whom you trust, you will have more clarity and support.