Weight loss: Are you focusing on the right things?

Weight loss that lasts

• Are you tired of trying to lose weight?
• Sick of using one approach after another, but nothing seems to stick?
• Do you want to be healthier, fitter, to look and feel great?
• Do you want to love your body again?

Many approaches to weight loss focus on the wrong things. They fail to take into account that eating is a social activity and one of life’s simple pleasures. These weight loss programs take the joy out of eating, by reducing food into mere portions of protein, fat and carbohydrate. They make exercise seem like an unpleasant chore, incorporating activities that people don’t enjoy and are not sustainable in the long term.

For many:

• Weight loss becomes all or nothing
• Food becomes good or bad
• Exercise becomes hard work.

People fight against nature and ‘fail’, and then beat themselves up for their perceived ‘failure’, which makes losing weight even harder.

Say goodbye to diets!

Diets offer a short-term fix to a long-term problem. They centre on restricting what you eat, rather than taking a holistic view of your overall physical and emotional wellbeing. To make a sustained change, you need to make the right choices and continue to make those choices in a range of situations. That means understanding and addressing the reasons why you make those choices in the first place.

Research has shown that by restricting what you eat, by fighting against the role that food takes in life, and by beating yourself up, you make blowouts inevitable. That’s why so many people struggle to lose weight and keep it off. Instead, you need to be kind to yourself and focus on the right things.

• Say goodbye to diets and learn to listen to your body
• Refocus your attention on long-term success
• Get to the root cause and regain control of your life

Exercise: what’s in a name?

Part of sustained weight loss involves being active, but most of us lead sedentary lives. Much of our employment offers little opportunity to move. Desk jobs, in particular, are extremely bad for our health. Then we spend our downtime in front of the TV or computer. To burn calories we have to make a dedicated effort to ‘exercise’. Exercise becomes a chore, something we have to think about, forcing a trip to the gym or out for a run.

Many people start an exercise program and go at it hard for a time. Before long, they run out of steam or something disrupts their momentum. As with all-or-nothing dieting, one hiccup can derail the entire program, and we struggle to get started again.

Making sustained change is about understanding what motivates you, finding ways to incorporate more activity (rather than ‘exercise’) into your every day, and choosing to expend your energy on things that you enjoy.

What motivates you?

People want to lose weight for all sorts of reasons. Maybe you want to be healthier, to feel lighter and fitter or wear that little black dress on your next birthday. Perhaps you want to see yourself differently. Perhaps you’re sick of feeling out of control, or exhausted from trying without long-term success.

Similarly, people struggle to lose weight and keep it off for many different reasons. Maybe you struggle to be active because it feels uncomfortable and is not something you enjoy. Or you eat when you are bored, stressed or emotional. Perhaps you can no longer hear the signals your body sends that tell you when you are hungry and when you are full. Maybe you eat mindlessly, in between meetings or picking up the kids, and forget to slow down and truly enjoy the food you eat. Or you eat to fill a hunger that isn’t hungry for food at all.

Many people struggle to maintain their ideal healthy weight. They have tried repeatedly without long-term success. Starting and sustaining a lifestyle change such as weight loss can feel daunting, especially after you have tried and failed. That’s where I can help.

Lose weight naturally

Together we will identify and address your underlying blocks to losing weight. We will tap into your core strengths, shift your underlying beliefs and assumptions (for instance, that you ‘can’t’ lose weight, that change will be ‘hard’, that you just need more ‘will-power’), and refocus your attention on success.

• Learn to listen to your body again
• Use each of your five senses to experience your food fully
• Feed your head-hunger in healthier ways
• Get active in ways you actually enjoy
• Form new habits you can realistically incorporate into your life, whether you are at home, work, on the move, or out with friends
• Stop beating yourself up
• Reach your goals without missing out on the things you love.

I guide and support you through the process and help you find strategies for lasting change. Using a holistic approach that incorporates NLP, hypnosis and mindfulness, you will create new habits that focus on the right things.

About the author

Christine offers hypnotherapy in beautiful Byron Bay. Zoom sessions are also available. Learn more.