Most diets don’t work – the diet industry relies on that fact to keep you coming back time and again to renew your slimming memberships and diet food plans. The trouble with diets is they are all about restriction and deprivation, so while you are counting calories or focusing on what foods to avoid, it brings your mind to focus even more on the things you cannot have. Once you have reached your goal and spent many weeks in this restrictive state, it is human nature that you’ll want to indulge again, often resulting in regaining the weight and sometimes more besides.
The best way to manage weight loss is to go for slow and sustainable changes that become lifelong habits. This way, you improve your health long term. There are several ways that hypnotherapy helps. First, let's explore the relationship between sleep and weight loss.
How does sleep affect weight loss?
Quality sleep is crucial for weight management. Research shows good sleep of around 7 - 9 hours reduces cravings and supports healthier food choices. https://www.webmd.com/diet/sleep-and-weight-loss
Lack of sleep has been linked to eating more dense carbohydrates and sugary foods. It is thought that lack of sleep affects your hunger hormones, so that you produce more ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry, whilst lowering the levels of leptin, which help you to recognise when you are full. Hypnotherapy promotes deep relaxation, easing sleep anxiety and enhancing sleep quality, setting the stage for healthier eating habits.
Too much stress causes weight gain.
The stress response in our bodies comes from a primitive, yet essential survival mechanism. The body's response to perceived stress is to produce more cortisol, which in turn stimulates your fat and carbohydrate metabolism, creating a surge of energy in your body and retaining visceral fat around your belly. This also increases your appetite. Elevated cortisol levels can cause cravings for sweet, fatty and salty foods.
Hypnosis helps calm the nervous system. As you experience the deep relaxation of hypnosis, cortisol levels are lowered which can stabilise your appetite and those unhelpful cravings. You will also benefit from tailored suggestions from a qualified hypnotherapist which will help you reframe your perceptions of stressful events, enabling you to manage life feeling more in control and able to cope. By managing stress through hypnotherapy, you can support your body's natural weight-loss mechanisms.
How does hypnotherapy change eating habits?
Of course, you still need to be mindful about the food you eat. Hypnotherapy is a powerful tool to address the unconscious drivers of your eating habits, so it's easier to lose weight. Emotional issues which may have previously led to disordered eating can be addressed through tailored hypnotherapy, giving you peace of mind as well as supporting healthier eating patterns. Using the power of your imagination, with the virtual gastric band or virtual weight loss protocols, therapeutic suggestions help you feel fuller more quickly, so you naturally reduce the size of your portions and feel less inclined to snack, enjoying the space between your meals. If you find certain cravings problematic, aversion suggestions can be highly effective, so you simply don’t struggle with temptation anymore.
Using hypnotherapy to support you in your weight loss journey can liberate you from restriction and calorie counting. Imagine still being able to enjoy your food whilst installing healthier sustainable eating habits that stick. If you'd like to find out more about how hypnotherapy can help you lose weight, why not book a free consultation to discuss the changes you want to make? https://calendly.com/askmelaniedaviesmindsolutions
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