If you could bottle the ‘secret’ to easily and effectively loosing weight – would that get your attention?
The drug companies would love you to think that they have the ‘magic bottle’ of pills that you just need to take to see weight loss. I have huge respect for the medical profession, but some of these guys and gals would love you to part with between £5 and £50,000 for private surgery that promises easy weight loss … someone I know recently went through a gastric band operation and is 12 weeks post surgery and as I write is still not seeing any benefit because they are can’t seem to ‘adjust the band’ to the right size to give her the restriction she needs … it’s becoming demoralising (but she’s £6k worse off). I don’t have personal experience of these weight loss methods, but what I do know is that neither of these methods really address the core issue.
Then I come onto the diets – from the current fad diets the celebrities are using, to the weight loss ‘clubs’ that no doubt, like me you have tried on and off over the years (they are signing you up to a lifetime of yo yo dieting in my view). For my friend, it’s a constant battle, a conscious effort to stick to the ‘plan’ and from a mindset point of view her life is now full of ‘shouldn’t, mustn’t, need to’s …(things we call modal operators of necessity – which are the best way to motivate yourself) … but what if I told you that you most people approach their weight from an unhelpful angle because they don’t realise that …..
Weight loss has very little to do with food and everything to do with your relationship with food
We are all the product of our thinking. When we find ourselves acting in a way that we want to change (in this case the behaviour of eating) we need to look at where to make the change. Despite what you are told by the weight loss industry the answer is not in the fridge, but in your head.
In a previous blog I’ve covered that if we want to make change, we need to do this at the unconscious level. In NLP we talk about the Communication Model – we teach this as a basic NLP fundamental to all our NLP Practitioners – thoughts create feelings, and feelings create actions/behaviour – these actions directly shape our life. For many food is an overused ‘self-medication’ for our emotional state and we use it to change our feelings (e.g. when we’re down, depressed, tried, bored etc) – how about we work instead to change your thinking?
How have I used NLP to change my weight?
NLP has for many years been said to be one of the fastest, easiest and least evasive ways to make powerful change in your thinking – much faster than I would imagine you could even contemplate if you’ve not come across NLP before! So there was no reason why it couldn’t help with changing the behaviour that lead to weight. I went through a breakthrough session that we call the Weight Change Paradigm – it turned out the issue was not as you might think, to do with my thinking around health and fitness, the issue for me was in relationship and family. I changed my thinking, I put down a ton of baggage I had been carrying around for years and now my relationship with food is totally different. I don’t weigh myself very often (think I’ve got on the scales twice since I started thinking differently) and my success is around now my clothes feel – e.g. the inches I am loosing. I am not interested in BMI – I am interested in how I feel. I have a compelling goal (set using the NLP goal setting techniques we teach on NLP Practitioner course) and a huge “why” that is attached to my goal – a why for me, not for anyone else.
What can I do now to change my thinking around food?
The weight change paradigm is the best way to help you – but in the meantime, why don’t you try out the below. You may recall an earlier blog about Submodalities. If you haven’t seen it, take a look and have a go at the exercise around your favourite movie. Once you’ve done this – think about how you could use this technique to help you change the way you feel about a certain food?! Think of a food that is your ‘go-to’ food for your ‘pick me ups’ – how about you follow the process in the Submodalities blog to make it less compelling?
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Laura is passionate about helping people realise their potential, and achieve the results they deserve. She believes, if you change your thinking, you can change your results. If you’d like to find out more about Unleash Your Potential, you can check out our NLP courses and coaching options, and link up with us via our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or link up with Laura via LinkedIn. You can of course also email us at: [email protected]
