I did a single hypnosis session with a man who was too busy to come back for any follow-up visits.

I bumped into him a year later and he had lost over 30 pounds.
Of course he said it had nothing to do with the hypnosis!!! Shortly after seeing me he just mysteriously started exercising and eating healthier foods…

This is not that infrequent. Hypnosis feels so natural and normal for many people that it feels as if the changes just naturally come from within themselves. But that’s exactly what is supposed to happen. All this baloney fed to the public by the movie and TV industry that gives hypnosis frightening and almost magical powers are severely exaggerated.

Essentially we are assisting your to communicate with your unconscious mind and to get your unconscious mind to co0perate with your conscious desires to lose weight and get fit. As long as there are no hidden conflicts or what we call “secondary gain”  the process of releasing stored energy (a.k.a. “fat”) can be simple and almost effortless.

I used to be a little taken aback when someone said, “I don’t think the hypnosis really helped, I just changed my diet and I started working out.”  Now I say, “exactly!” and that’s the way hypnosis is supposed to work.

Bells don’t go off! You don’t hear an announcement over the emergency broadcasting system: “THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM YOUR UNCOSNCIOUS MIND. THE HYPNOSIS IS NOW WORKING. I REPEAT. THE HYPNOSIS IS NOW WORKING. PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS AND UPDATES…”

Wendy came to me after repeatedly seeing my ad in the newspaper and yellow pages. She had been in a severely abusive marriage and the turmoil was continuing years after the divorce as her ex-husband continually challenged her custody of the children and blatantly refused to pay his court ordered child support.

We did a lot of work with self- esteem using Time Line therapy™ techniques. During one session, after taking a short bathroom break she came back into my consulting room in tears. She had looked in the mirror and for the first time in her life had “forgotten to notice” a certain scar she had on her face she had never before failed to notice.

She was crying because she actually saw herself as attractive for the first time in her memory.

Results: within an 8 week time period after our initial intervention she lost approximately 20 pounds. She came back for a reinforcement session several months later because a new issue had come up with her ex husband. We released her limiting decisions regarding these events. Particularly her need to engage in response to her ex husband’s provocation. This was a result of a decision she’d made as a child to “Fight back” on the playground. Once she released this she was able once again to continue eating healthy food in moderate amounts.

Bill was an older gentleman who had been very successful in business. He had done quite a bit of work on himself over the years through traditional therapy. He recently had suffered an injury and as a result had been a lot less active than prior to the accident and had gained a significant amount of weight.

As a child he had always been a bit heavy. He remembered cringing when shopping for clothes being sent to the “husky” department as a boy. We released the negative emotions of anger, sadness, fear, shame, guilt, hurt and a number of limiting beliefs and decisions about himself using Time Line Therapy™.  We did a few NLP techniques as well as hypnosis.

Results:
From our very first session he was able to consistently avoid his previous addiction to gumdrops.

In less than 8 weeks he had lost 19 pounds.

A month or two after completing the initial phase of our work together he came in for a reinforcement session prior to going on a cruise. His goal was to enjoy the cruise and to have lost an additional pound upon returning. He was successful in this.

He delighted in the fact that while his friends on the cruise gained as much as 15 pounds, he actually continued to gently and steadily lose weight.

He came in for an additional reinforcement session before the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays. At that point he had lost an additional 10 pounds and was working out 3 times per week with a buddy.

He looked great. Not too long ago I was having breakfast with my son in a local restaurant and Bill came in and sat at the next table. We said our hellos and  then returned to our respective tables. I couldn’t help overhearing him though when he ordered his breakfast. He told the waitress, “Please hold the potatoes”.

Mary had been on every diet in the world at least twice. She had struggled and struggled to lose weight, never losing more than 8 pounds.

She had a number of limiting beliefs and low self esteem issues. She had also had gotten pregnant and married as a teen. The relationship turned abusive and although she eventually left it, there seemed to be some residual scars.

The day before we were to work together, Mary, “mysteriously” hurt her back. She almost “backed” out of working with me. But I insisted that the back issue was actually part of what was in need of healing and we did several sessions in her living room rather than postpone our sessions. We released her negative emotions (which are often carried in the physical body) and limiting decisions and beliefs about herself. Her back problem rapidly healed.

Within a week or so she began working out with a Pilates instructor and doing regular cardiovascular workouts. She also had some positive relationship shifts with her current long-term boyfriend. We did NLP Submodality shifts and Anchoring as well as Hypnosis at each of her sessions.

Result: She lost 8 pounds the first week. Note: We had to release her limiting beliefs that 8 pounds was all she would ever be able to do since that’s all she had been able to lose in the past.

After 8 weeks, Mary had lost 20 pounds. The most significant part of this intervention was the lack of stress and increased amount of ease with which Mary shifted her focus from obsession with food to focus on health and well being. She was not on a “diet” She just started making better choices. A number of troublesome issues in her life seemed to resolve themselves. She began to feel more resourceful and positive with fewer mood swings and negative states.

Sarah came to me frustrated because she would find herself eating Ice cream in large quantities several times a day. She was also addicted to high-carb “comfort foods” like macaroni and cheese.

At age 5, it was she who discovered the body of her father after his fatal heart attack. She sat with the body for many hours before anyone else came home. Her dad had often taken her for ice cream and had loved macaroni and cheese.

Using Time Line Therapy TM, we released Sarah’s childhood trauma. We also used Time Line Therapy to release her pertinent limiting decisions and beliefs. We used NLP Submodality techniques and Swish Patterns to change her internal representation of macaroni and cheese and ice cream. We ended each session with powerful Ericksonian hypnosis.

Result:
Almost a year after our work together, Sarah still hadn’t touched macaroni and cheese. She was able to eat ice cream, but now in moderation. She changed the way she had been eating in general and began to follow a nutritional plan (not a “diet”) that worked well for her body. She also instituted a sensible program of moderate exercise. Not surprisingly, she also lost weight.