Weight Loss Tips 1
Weight Loss Tips 1
There are numerous articles written on the topic of weight loss tips. It can be useful to refresh your knowledge, particularly when you slip back into old habits. My article on weight loss tips shares a wealth of experience dealing with weight loss hypnotherapy patients. These weight loss tips consider some of the emotional issues and eating habits that can knock you off your desired weight loss path.
Weight loss tips #1: Make time to eat
Making time to eat is about making your eating plan a priority in your life. It’s about you valuing YOU, your weight and your health. Without this, your other priorities will eat you up! At the start of this process, it will seem like eating is at the forefront of your mind. But that is only natural when you want to make a change. Aim to do this in a series of small steps. As you gain momentum through this series of weight loss tips, it will then feel natural and happen more unconsciously.
In the absence of making time to eat, you are likely to skip meals. This is an absolute no-no! Low blood-glucose levels and fainting or bingeing are your mind and body’s attempts to compensate when there is no food.
When I treat a new weight loss hypnotherapy patient and offer them weight loss tips, I find that they have usually failed because they have tried to give food less importance in their life. I use hypnotherapy to help them explore their strategies, beliefs and values related to food and the rituals that surround eating. I help them embrace the new habits that will create healthy eating lifestyle changes.
Weight loss tips #2: Eat regularly
Eat meals regularly. Ensure that you have some food at least every four hours. This prevents you from feeling too hungry and then compensating by overeating. When you get too hungry, there is the temptation to binge on food. This is when you eat in excess without the usual satisfaction or fullness responses limiting the quantity.
Some people live by the belief to “eat when you are hungry.” This can ignore the way that emotions can affect your awareness of hunger. Many people suffering with anxiety or depression are vulnerable to rapid unhealthy weight loss (or weight gain) because stress hormones interfere with the functioning of the digestive system. Your mind’s perception of hunger and “feeling full” can become distorted.
When I treat a new weight loss hypnotherapy patient and offer them weight loss tips, I find that the majority of my patients seek my help because they have lost control of that “full” awareness. Suggestions are used in the hypnotherapy induction to create a clear path of communication between your mind and your digestive system, putting you back into control. By eating regularly, you are helping yourself to reduce those binge episodes.
Weight Loss Tips #3: Eat food slowly
Eating food on the “go” or eating in a hurry can cause you to overeat. When eating slowly, a swelling stomach gives “gastric feedback” to your brain telling you that you are now full. But when you eat quickly, this signal has not yet been communicated and more food is still on route. This situation is made worse when you are eating “buffet style”. You can lose the awareness of your portion size because you re-fill a partially full plate and continue eating.
When you make time to eat, you can chew your food slowly and more frequently per mouthful, reducing the chance of indigestion. You can appreciate your feeling of fullness and are more likely to enjoy the taste of the food. When you eat food slowly, you will eat less food because you will feel fuller earlier.
When I treat a new weight loss hypnotherapy patient and offer them weight loss tips, I help the patient visualise turning down their “meal pace-setter”. Ultimately, this is about being relaxed enough so that you can take your time to eat. Use breathing techniques to help you relax. Any deeper past issues that resist these changes are identified and re-framed (using hypnotherapy regression techniques) so that slowing down at meal times can feel like a natural choice.
Weight loss tips #4: Keep hydrated
Drink fluids regularly is important on most expert’s list of weight loss tips. During meal times, ensure that you have a glass of water. It will slow down the pace of the meal and help to fill you with zero calories. If you prefer something with more taste, chose something that is low calorie.
Reduce your intake of any drinks that can be harmful if drunk in excess e.g. reduce tea and coffee to reduce your intake of caffeine. But still enjoy these drinks in moderation. If you severely deprive yourself of something, you can build up a binge response.
In between meals, keep the fluids up. Quite often the temptation to eat more food following a meal is an indication that you are still thirsty. This can be in the form of having plain water or low calorie drinks. If you have a small healthy snack, have a low calorie drink with it. Keep a glass of water with you if your work situation allows it. Reaching for a drink can give your mind a welcomed mini break.
Use water or a low calorie drink during those vulnerable times when you are likely to snack but don’t need to have it e.g. when relaxing in the evening. You may have an eating association with a certain time of day, an activity or an emotion. In my hypnotherapy consultations, many patients associate (confuse) hunger with boredom. So when you are trying to fill your time at home, eating food becomes “an activity” rather than something you are doing because you are genuinely hungry. Ensuring that a drink is available can help break this association.
Weight loss tips #5: Clear out the junk food (to begin with)
When you want to change your eating habits, keeping those unhealthy snacks available in the cupboard will play on your mind and reinforce the strength of that habit. In the way those habits have been learned, they can be re-learned simply by eating something healthy.
If you justify keeping those snacks available, it signals that you’re using food as a comfort or a reward. I’ve heard many hypnotherapy patients justifying keeping unhealthy snacks available in case guests arrive, so that they have something to offer them. The problem is that the majority of the snacks don’t get eaten by the guests, so you buy more unhealthy snacks just in case. Justifying keeping it for the children or the partner only encourages them to eat unhealthily too. It’s those food associations or habitual eating patterns that remove the feeling of “choice”. When you slowly change the eating response, your mind gradually accepts that food can be something that you just “eat.”
It may take a few weeks to re-learn this food dissociation in this way, but when your mind has accepted this change, eating the occasional snack will seem like a “free” choice once again. That’s the time to re-introduce a small amount of those unhealthy snacks into the cupboard so that you don’t feel deprived and it prevents you bingeing. As far as weight loss tips are concerned, this often surprises most patients to structure their weight loss plan in this way.
By starting your weight loss programme slowly, these and other weight loss tips will change some of your rituals that pre-dispose you to eat more and to feel out of control when stressed. A weight loss hypnotherapy course will help personalise your treatment to your specific issues. You all relate to food in different ways.
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