Psychology and weight loss are two inextricably linked concepts. Without high-quality psychoanalysis and elaboration of one’s own attitudes, solving the problem of excess weight is very difficult. Any experienced nutritionist knows that the success of body weight correction depends 80% on the client’s psychological attitude and willingness to become thin and change something in their life.
That is why today, training to become a nutritionist psychologist is becoming increasingly popular, who can not only create a balanced menu and a gradual weight loss program, but also work through the destructive attitudes of his clients and help them break out of the captivity of their own beliefs, fears and blocks.
In this material, experts from the Wellness Consulting Academy will talk about the main reasons for gaining excess weight, touching on aspects of the psychology of losing weight. How to overload your brain and allow yourself to finally become slim - read here...
Excess weight as a cover for psychological immaturity
Whatever one may say, many overweight clients of nutritionists argue that their excess weight is not laziness and unwillingness to put things in order in their heads and plates, but because of poor heredity. There is a genetic predisposition to gaining extra pounds, but it is not a key factor in a person’s gradual obesity.
That is, people in whose family many relatives were plump only need to more closely monitor their figure. They can stay lean and fit with a little more effort than those who are blessed with genetics and a good metabolism.
However, very often everything happens completely differently: people who are inclined to have a full physique begin to blame their genes, which supposedly prevent them from losing weight. “Nothing can be done - everyone in our family was fat” is a standard excuse from those who are accustomed to looking for someone to blame for their mistakes.
This is a consequence of the psychological immaturity of the individual, infantility and unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s own actions. It is much easier to blame someone or something for your troubles than to admit your mistakes and begin difficult work on yourself.
With this category of clients, you need to actively work on the sector of responsibility and self-confidence. As soon as they learn not to make excuses for their own inaction, excess weight will begin to decrease, and weight loss will become real.
Self-hypnosis for weight loss: how to do it
For self-hypnosis to help you lose weight, you need privacy. It is important that you feel comfortable in this place, it is important that no one disturbs you. Sit down, relax, listen to pleasant relaxing music.
Once you are completely relaxed, focus on your breathing. Inhale. Exhalation. Inhale. Exhalation. You must control them. You should only think about your breathing. Inhale. Exhalation. Slowly, without rushing.
Imagine yourself from the outside. Take a closer look at yourself. Mark all the shortcomings, everything that needs to be removed. And gradually remove it. Watch how your body changes, watch how unnecessary volumes disappear. And then you see yourself - so slim, thin, incredibly beautiful.
Feel yourself in a new body. Feel how easy and pleasant it is for you. Feel how slim and flexible you are. Feel how content your body is.
Imagine trying on a new beautiful dress in a store. See how beautiful it sits on you. Notice how attractively you are reflected in store windows in this dress. Feel the admiring glances of men.
And this attractive, slender woman in a beautiful dress is not some stranger, but you in a couple of months. Convince yourself of this. You will succeed. You will be transformed. Everything will work out.
Remember this woman as best you can. She is so familiar, yet so distant. You must always remember that if you stick to your diet, that distant attractive woman will come closer. Remember her movements, her beautiful figure, her happy appearance. Remember it in moments when laziness or the desire to eat something forbidden comes over you.
Tell yourself clearly what exactly you want (for example: “I want slender legs and a wasp waist”, “I want to lose belly fat”, “I want to lose nine kilograms”). Repeat your wishes several times. Re-introduce the new you.
Play the music again. Close your eyes. Count to five. Open your eyes. The world should appear to you in a new light. You must feel confident, you must feel the strength to overcome anything within yourself. You must know for sure that you will be able to lose weight. You have to want it very badly.
Excess weight as protection
Self-doubt causes people not only to make excuses, but also to defend themselves from what they fear most - excessive attention and disappointment. That is why excess weight acts as a kind of reliable armor for such individuals.
They hide behind it like in a shell that will not allow them to invade their personal space and cause pain. Women “need” extra pounds to control the attention of men. They are confident that by spoiling their figure, they will reduce the pressure of the opposite sex, lose their former attractiveness, and, therefore, reduce the risk of getting burned in a love relationship.
Behind them they probably have many disappointments and unsuccessful love stories, betrayal and betrayal, and superficial relationships. They do not want to be loved only for their appearance, so they become unattractive in order to teach others to appreciate them for their good character and spiritual qualities. They deliberately protect themselves from new love, because if there is no relationship, there is no suffering, there is no risk of being deceived and abandoned.
Men who have suffered a fiasco with the woman they love can do the same thing - hide behind excess weight so as not to be noticed or perceived as a person, and not a beautiful cover.
Delving into the psychology of weight loss, in such cases the nutritionist must work through the client's fears of being rejected, not accepted, betrayed or used. Only then will he learn not to defend himself, but to treat people without prejudice and fear of stumbling upon the same rake again.
Excess weight as a way to show complacency
In addition to people who are insecure, there are those who, on the contrary, are overly confident in themselves or want to appear so. They perceive their excess weight as an opportunity to stand out in society, to challenge generally accepted stereotypes of beauty, to prove to everyone that the canons are nothing for them, they will overthrow what is a value for others.
The concept of body positivism is not always based on accepting yourself for who you are. Sometimes this is a cover for one’s own pride and desire to rebel, proving one’s importance in society. The people we are talking about now believe that everyone should love them as they are, so they do not strive for self-improvement.
They will not lose weight just to please the opposite sex or their significant other. They consider themselves self-sufficient and will not allow themselves to cave in. But here they are driven not even by the desire to put their interests above others, but by attempts to do everything their own way, proving their superiority.
Most likely, they were underestimated in the past, they were little taken into account, their initiatives were not noticed, so now such people want to prove to the whole world that they are able to go against stereotypes and do what they want. Dieticians need to carefully work through these traumas and incorrect attitudes to show these clients that doing everything against others does not mean becoming more valuable and important.
Excess weight as a matter of importance
Being fat can not only be a way to show your worth and self-satisfaction, but also to increase your importance in society. When there is nothing else to stand out, such a tool is used.
“The more massive my figure, the more impressive I seem, the more they will take me into account,” this is what these people think. They naively believe that being overweight is a sign of wealth and wealth, so they gain extra pounds to look more respectable.
Unfortunately, this very stereotype has been in effect in society for a long time: fat means there is money, significance, and influence. It is not for nothing that there is such an expression as “a significant person”; the semantics of this definition is not accidental.
That is why experienced nutritional consultants always take into account the psychology of clients’ thinking when developing a weight loss program. This allows us to understand why they began to gain excess weight, what aspirations drive them, and what they are running from.
In this situation, the client needs to explain that massive appearance and weight in society are not always parallel to reality. You need to focus on determination and self-realization, and not on trying to seem more important only due to your weight.
Excess weight as a sign of self-pity
The psychology of excess weight is often based on the desire to feel sorry for and console oneself. For many, food is a way to compensate for stress, close their eyes to problems, and reward suffering.
Vulnerable individuals who are often offended, do not give free rein to their emotions, do not discuss conflicts and fence themselves off from difficult situations, feel sorry for themselves with the help of their favorite dishes. They eat to avoid feeling pain and loneliness, to forget about difficult situations, and to alleviate disappointment and dissatisfaction.
They easily indulge in their own eating disorders when they are once again faced with the fact that they feel bad. Nutritionists need to teach such clients not to feel sorry, but to love themselves, not to hide from conflicts at the dinner table, but to go to the negotiating table and discuss problems and look for solutions. It's much more complicated than it is, but also much more effective in the long run.
Once this incorrect psychology is corrected, losing weight will not be such an overwhelming task.
How self-hypnosis for weight loss works
The image of a beautiful self in the future is evoked in order to strengthen the will of the person losing weight. After all, losing weight is not so easy. You need to deny yourself food pleasures, you need to force yourself to constantly move, you need to fight hunger. It's very easy to break down.
Do you feel like you're on the verge of a breakdown? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, imagine yourself in the future. Want to eat this delicious cream bun and put off your run until tomorrow? The beautiful you-in-the-future has become even further from you, but her path is not so close. And it is the awareness of this that allows you not to give up on your intended goal, toss the bun aside and run for your sweatpants.
Excess weight as a desire to be free
There is also this stereotype: slim people sacrifice their freedom for the sake of their ideal weight. Proper nutrition and constant fitness are perceived as a burden that those who want to look good have piled on themselves.
“Is it possible to love broccoli soup or spinach smoothie? It’s real torture to eat exclusively healthy foods,” think well-wishers who feel sorry for the phytonies. They chose a completely different path for themselves: not to deny themselves anything, to eat what they want, to do what they want, no matter what consequences lie ahead.
This is their psychology: to lose weight you need to suffer and limit yourself in many ways, but for us freedom of action is more important. True, supporters of proper nutrition and sports do not consider themselves hostages of the situation, do not suffer from frameworks and some kind of fictitious shackles.
They enjoy their choices, love what they eat, love going to training and are incredibly bored if they are not there for certain reasons. They are free to make their choice and have already made it.
Therefore, clients who reason in the manner described above need to be conveyed: freedom is multifaceted, and sometimes the decision to start living differently, denying oneself laziness and negligent attitude towards health, is the highest manifestation of freedom.
Is it possible to lose excess weight while enjoying food using self-hypnosis?
This is indeed possible, but only if you use your thinking abilities to combat a large appetite. At the same time, consciousness is capable of creating a false feeling of hunger and it is very important not to violate this fine line between these two opposite feelings. It is the brain that plays the most important role in this process.
So, Eric Robinson (Doctor of Psychology, Liverpool) created his own method of proper weight loss that anyone can use. He is sure that you can feel completely full even just by remembering your last meal, how you ate something delicious.
After conducting a series of studies, Eric found out that many people do not even realize that their appetite is subject to hidden psychological factors that are the cause of most modern cases of obesity. Our brain simply does not notice what and how much we eat; it is easy to deceive. This was proven by Jeff Branstrom, who conducted tests on several people. All subjects were asked to eat a bowl of soup, but they did not know that there were tubes at the bottom of their bowls through which more soup could be added. Thus, most participants were able to eat a larger amount of food than was presented to them at the very beginning.
Thus, it was concluded that the amount of food consumed is very important for regulating one's appetite and satiety. You need to evaluate it before consuming it, and not just eat what is poured in. You can pour in your quota and convince yourself that there is a lot of food here and you can get enough of it. Such facts completely refute the theory that the feeling of hunger arises only due to hormones in the stomach. Everything, one way or another, mostly happens in our heads.
The method of “mindful eating” with self-hypnosis for weight loss
Eric Robinson proved that the feeling of hunger will decrease by asking what you had for breakfast. This is how suggestion works in the direction that a person has already eaten something. So he can't be hungry now. American scientists continued to study this theory. They found that a person can convince himself that he is eating a certain dish. You just need to think about it. That is, you can eat broccoli and get satiation while imagining a cake. Remember not to eat while watching a movie. You won't notice the amount you consume. The factors responsible for remembering what is consumed in a given period of time are dulled.
Memory and self-hypnosis are two interrelated factors. They help people control their hunger and feelings of fullness. Using the method of “mindful eating”, people can more easily tolerate diets. Enjoy every meal without reducing the sensuality of the process itself. Don't force yourself into strict diets and workouts. Use our tips.
