Week 6 Hypnotic Weight Control Challenge

Posted on August 14, 2011 by

Just a quick entry on the blog today. Things are progressing into a nice pattern. I’m eating well and consciously. Lots of exercise that’s fun and enjoyable. Listening to my recordings daily. Effortlessly and easily.

A few comments have been made about measurement. As I mentioned last week it’s not the scales that are important. What’s more important is how you feel about yourself and the changes that you notice personally. Compliments from other people are icing on the cake, although not to be relied upon as we should be able to govern our own emotional state and not rely upon others for that.

What I’ve noticed is that I’m using the tightest (although it doesn’t feel tight) notch on my belt. I’ll have to put another hole in it or get a smaller belt. I am feeling good about myself. Feeling healthy, fit and thinner. I’ve also noticed that the bulge I use to have that started just below the sternum has gone. That was affirmed recently.

I’m also noticing that I am more aware of the feedback I get from my body. Listening to when I really am hungry, thirsty etc. The feedback is good.

That’s it. The weekend is just about done. It’s been a good weekend as I’ve been in the surfboat (coaching), cycling and swimming. Now looking forward to a great week ahead.

Have a good one. :)

Wayne

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Week 5 Hypnotic Weight Control Challenge

Posted on August 6, 2011 by

Wow, what a week. This is now the 5th week of my personal weight control challenge. I’m bearing all as I share with you what I experience in my journey to becoming my ideal weight of 80 kilograms. What I’m experiencing is just what my clients experience as they also move towards their ideal weight.

Have you been following along with me?

Last week was about creating that movie of the you at your ideal weight with your voice, your photos, your powerful memories and feelings. That was the beginning of learning to focus on what you want.

Before we go further can I share with you some more observations from the past week? It could have been a challenge and instead it wasn’t a challenge at all. I had one of life’s dreaded events called “the corporate conference”. You know, those work trips in nice hotels, plenty of food, alcohol on tap as well as plenty of work of course. I’d been on those on a number of occasions over the years. This time it was different. I became aware over the course of the week that I was only eating small portions at meal times. I was consciously eating. Choosing fruits and at times also having a biscuit or sweet. Drank plenty of water and enjoyed a moderate intake of alcohol. So it was a good result for me. What an observation.

Last week I said that I would tell you why I don’t use scales. Here is the reason why. When you step on the scales, what you are seeing is an outcome from PAST choices and actions. You are seeing historic data. You had been making decisions, choices each day that could have been good or they could have been bad. You ate, you drank, you exercised,  you had certain thoughts and beliefs about yourself. The scales are just showing you the result of the PAST.

This principle can be seen in other areas of your life eg bank balance, relationship, career.

NOW, what if we flipped this around? What if, instead of looking at the scales to look in the past, we created our future. What would happen if you get in touch with the feelings, pictures and sounds of what it is that you desire.

This is why I don’t use scales. I’d like to suggest that we can create our future more effectively than by looking at the past. That is, look to the future. What is important is that we have an outcome that is well formed. In the context of our weight control challenge this would be stating our outcome – in my case 80kgs. In addition, creating pictures, sounds (our voice, music etc) and feelings of what we will experience in that time when we experience our goal.

I’ll share with you an example of an exercise that I recently took a client through. Imagine a circle on the ground in front of you, maybe about 3′ to 4′ (OK 900mm to 1200mm) in diameter. In the centre of this circle create a holograph. A 3D representation of you at your ideal weight. What are you wearing? Are there any sounds with this picture? What are the feelings that are present in this picture? Where are they located in your body? Is there a shape to the feelings? How does the intensity of the feeling rate?

Now, make that picture of your ideal you even better. Can you brighten the colours? Make them more vivid? Turn up the sound? Speed up the music or slow it down to suit the ideal you. What about the posture? Can you make it more confident? Stand taller? Maybe make the picture move in a way that represents the new you. Take it skydiving, surfing, water skiing for example.

When you have this holograph as best as it can be get ready. Take a deep breath and step into that holograph. From that new position, see what you can see through your own eyes. Hear what you can hear and feel what you can feel. Feel your hands running down those hips. See the body that you have. Listen to what you hear others saying and what you are saying to yourself. Play with this exercise so that you are so totally in touch with this new reality.

When you have explored this experience and increased the intensity of all the senses then step back out of the circle. Do this as often as you want to feel good about yourself. This is another part of taking you TOWARDS your goals, your ideal outcome.

Enjoy the exercise and I’d love to hear your feedback on what you experienced.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe to follow the journey or join me on Facebook. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

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Week 4 Hypnotic Weight Loss Challenge – Focus

Posted on August 1, 2011 by

Welcome to the fourth week of my journey along the weight control challenge. To recap the journey so far we’ve discussed conscious eating, that is being mindful of our eating. We looked at decision making and noticing choices that were being made.

Interestingly, after adjusting my hypnotic recording to increase my desire to listen to it every day I have done just that, ie listen to it every day. Alexandra has noticed that I’ve been leaving food on my plate, making healthy choices and not participating in eating trances. The glass of wine or two has been cutback to Friday and Saturday evenings. Although we did enjoy a glass or two on Alexandra’s midweek birthday recently.

Moving forward, what’s the next step? Focus! Have you ever noticed that when you ask someone what they want that they define it by saying what they don’t want?Why not try it just for fun. What you might see is that they get so focused on what they don’t want that they attract it to themselves in double quick time.

There is a saying “energy flows where focus goes”. So if we focus on what we don’t want then we see our energy flow in that direction. Reference points here might also be credit card debt, driving accidents and so on.

You may have already done this in some aspect of your life – repeatedly saying to yourself “I don’t want my debts to get worse” ,”I don’t want to be fat”, “I don’t want to be alone” etc. What happens when you say that? You probably see a picture of yourself in debt, fat or lonely. The picture are vivid, may have some sound in them and most likely have intense negative feelings. And in the end, “you become that which your feared”.

Have you ever considered doing the opposite? That is, to focus on what it is that you do want. The trick is that first of all you have to define what you want, specifically. When you know what you want then you can begin to focus on it. How will you go about creating this focus in such intensity that “energy” begins to flow in this direction and change begins to occur? Little by little at first and then taking on more energy, increasing, creating that which it is that you are focusing on.

My suggestion is to create the vision. In this time we are blessed with many tools that we can utilise to create something wonderful. A focal point for our mind so that we can see the picture of what we want to be in bright vivid colours, sound and richness of feelings. With this in mind I set out to create a movie on my iphone. I looked for pictures that captured the times when I felt strong, fit, healthy, dynamic, a winner, and 80kgs. The wonderful thing is that we can use a voice that we trust implicitly – our own.

I made a couple of “takes” until I got something that captured the essence of what I am becoming, that is, me at my ideal weight of 80kg. You could just as well use the same concept for anything you want to create in your life.

My next bold step is to share it with you. If you are reading this in the interest of following my personal challenge and learning more then I know you will watch the attached video in the spirit in which it was made. Should you decide to have a chuckle then enjoy the chuckle but you missed the point of the exercise.

There it is  – focus on what you want.

Have a great week and next time I’ll share why I am not using scales.

I’d love to have you join me by subscribing and also sharing your comments with me.

Posted in conscious eating, hypnosis, mindfulness, NLP, Personal Change, Self belief, weight control, weight loss | Leave a comment

Week 3 Hypnotic Weight Loss Challenge

Posted on July 25, 2011 by

As I started this little journey I didn’t realise how many lessons I would attract in to my life. The last week was no exception. I was at home, reviewing the third of the four golden rules – Eat Consciously, and starting to study it in more detail. What is it and how does it help you control weight?

First, let me take you to a picture you may, or may not,  be familiar with. Have you ever driven your car along the freeway and then taken your exit and said to yourself wow, where did that time go. You didn’t even realise where the journey went. You were in a sort of driving trance with your subconscious guiding the driving.

Likewise you may have had a meal in front of the TV. You watched the TV and before you know it the meal is gone and you don’t even remember eating it. Sort of like an eating trance. The  issue here is that you are bypassing the critical factor and food just keeps going in. So what happens if food just keeps being consumed like some incredible waste disposal unit? Answer, lots of additional weight. Not very helpful. This may be an extreme example but you get the picture.

By chance, last week I was visiting a mentor of mine on the Central Coast and we began discussing the concept of conscious eating. What is conscious eating? Its a type of mindfulness or “being present” when you are eating. Do you know what being present is? Lets use this example. When you are in a conversation, and you are paying attention to every word the other person is saying, you’re totally there. Nothing around you is distracting you from that conversation. You are being present.

An example of conscious eating may be helpful for you to relate to. Brian, my mentor, sat across the table from me. He passed me two sultanas and said feel the texture of the sultanas between your fingers. Take your time. Next, hold the sultanas up to your nose and smell what you can smell. Appreciate the aroma. Now, break one in half and put it on top of your tongue. Feel the texture of the sultana on your tongue as you roll it from side to side. Taste the taste of the sultana as it gradually dissolves and runs down your throat. Now do the same with the other half of the sultana.

This is conscious eating. Appreciating the meal we are having. Slowing it down. This gives more time for the stomach to send the message when it is full as well as letting the saliva in your mouth do its role of starting the digestion process.

I’d like to suggest that if you are serious about weight control that you consider this rule – Eat Consciously.

Do it and see what happens. I’d love to hear you feedback and read your comments.

Have a great week.

 

Posted in conscious eating, mindfulness, Personal Change, Self belief, weight control, weight loss | 1 Comment

Week 2 Hypnotic Weight Control Challenge

Posted on July 18, 2011 by

We’re now into the second week of my personal weight control challenge. To recap, I am doing this to experience what my clients go through and at the same time demonstrate the power to change using hypnosis and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). My goal is to achieve and maintain my ideal weight of 80 kilograms by 4th October.

Lets review what has been happening in the past week and then have a look at the week ahead.

Interestingly, the awareness that has been opened through suggestions in my hypnotic recording continues to amaze me.  BECAUSE I’m noticing more of what is happening around me in relation to my eating, drinking and exercising AND I’m motivated to create a change in my life IT MEANS I can achieve the weight outcome that I desire. You can too.

One of the keys to change is the desire and the “why”. A question that I’ve asked myself several times is “why do I want to make this change to be 80 kgs?”. Maybe you have asked yourself this question.

Can I suggest that you ask yourself the following questions:-

- what do you get from being overweight?

- what don’t you get from being overweight?

- what do you not get from being overweight?

- what don’t you get from not being overweight?

Okay, now back to the last weeks awarenesses. Some of these things that I’ve noticed may seem like no-brainers. We all know the things we should do but do we always follow through with action? Experience would indicate no. The trick is to create a self-awareness within my client so that they can be aware of the choices they are making and the actions they are taking so they can get the results that they want.

My first “awareness” last week was that when I considered my daily habits I noticed that I was having, on average, 2-3 glasses of wine each evening. I think it was a habit that I’d sort of slipped into over the last 12 to 18 months. So I discussed this idea with my wife (rather than telling her) and we decided to enjoy good wine on the weekends and leave the weekday evenings wine-free. To assist me with this I included a suggestion and some metaphors for change in my hypnotic recording that I would lose the desire for alcohol. I’m happy with the change so far and as I took the lead on this my wife is also happy to go with this action. Of course, I’m maintaining flexibility. If we want to celebrate a special occasion midweek I’m happy to do that. :)

Now that I’ve mentioned my wife. I must say she is an incredibly talented cook. Therein can lie a potential challenge to any weight control challenge. First, include the cook and then have them on-side with you in the challenge. Part of this is the preparation of smaller meal portions rather than larger ones. This area is covered in the very first week’s hypnotic recording. The suggestion included here is that you will be satisfied with smaller portions of food and that you will recognise sooner when you are full.

Lessons from this week- you have have to want to change, awareness precedes a change in behaviour, notice what you experience and make choices that support you. One thing that I guarantee you will notice is that there will appear to be more time for you to decide what action you will take when responding.

In the coming weeks – The incredible lesson of learning to eat consciously. The power of seeing your future with your vision board.

Have a great week. :)

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Week 1 Hypnotic Weight Loss Challenge

Posted on July 10, 2011 by

Last week, I made the decision to bring my weight down to 80 kilograms to be in line with my BMI for my height. As a hypnotherapist and practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) I thought it would be more powerful to demonstrate the ability to create change rather than talk about it. The old adage – “actions speak louder than words”.

What’s happened in the last week?

Firstly, I thought about the goals of what I wanted to change. That is, to bring my weight from 92.9 kg to 80 kg over three months (by 4th October) and stay there, while increasing my level of fitness. An important add on is to also record what it is you get from achieving the change you desire. For me it was feeling good about myself, feeling fit and healthy and knowing that I was making an investment in my longevity.

The next step is exactly what I do with my clients. Taking the goals above, and already knowing my beliefs around weight, food, body image and alcohol, I prepared a personalised hypnotic recording that utilised specific suggestions, imagery and NLP to begin the change process. Change begins in the mind. My task was to listen to my personalised hypnotic recording daily to adjust my own perceptual filters.

From Day 1 I began to notice some really interesting things began to occur. Within me, I noticed that I was being aware of what I was eating and drinking as well as the amount of exercise/movement in my life. What was really interesting was what happened outside of me.

I’ll start with what I noticed within me, within my thought processes. The recording was made on Sunday afternoon.  I listened to it that evening and almost every day. You think it would be easy to listen to a 23 minute tape each day, wouldn’t you? The fact is that it is also easy to not listen to a 23 minute tape each day. This is exactly what you as a possible client might also experience. The learning here? Make sure the tape also includes a suggestion to desire to listen to the tape every day and link it to the benefits of achieving the goal.

There is a saying that “energy flows where focus goes”. During the last week my focus at a subconscious level was on me at an ideal weight of 80kg. The week was mostly of a very distinct increase in my conscious awareness about

  • what I ate,
  • how often I ate,
  • when I ate,
  • why I ate,
  • how much I ate.
  • my feelings when I ate,
  • how often I exercised,
  • type of exercise,
  • emotions and desires around exercising

It was an interesting week. I was curious to discover more about my experiences to make the change work even more compelling. Using my observations and notes my next task will be to make another hypnotic recording to build upon the work started in the first recording . This time the recording will be even more powerful than the first as the feedback from my notes (or my clients experiences) enables me to hone in on the beliefs, thoughts and feelings that will successfully take me to my goals.

The things that happened outside of me were quite amazing. I listened to my personalised hypnotic recording on Monday and Tuesday mornings. On Tuesday I went for a walk at lunch time. As I walked through Martin Place I passed a newsstand which had a sign that just leaped out and spoke to me so vividly. It was like the message was just for me, just like Steve Martin in the movie LA Story. Anyway it was a sign that said

I walked past and continued to think about the message on that sign. Within two minutes I bumped into a friend and had a brief conversation. This resulted in me being invited to join him at our surf club gym twice a week for a 45 minute workout. Tuesdays and Thursday at 5.15AM. That’s right….AM! He was away the rest of the week and I’ll join him this week. That will be interesting.

As I walked back to work I was prompted from within to go and take a photo of that sign to remind me. The pic is attached for you.

Wow, the words and time have just slipped as I’ve shared my story with you. Next week I’ll share with you my continued progress, the power of a vision board/movie and give you the feedback from the gym.

Probably the most powerful learning from this last week is a greater understanding of the challenge that confronts my clients when they begin to work on changing their mind to change their weight. This is such an important lesson that will make me an even more effective practitioner of change.

See you next time.

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Physician Heal Thyself – A personal weight control challenge!

Posted on July 3, 2011 by

Who said that? The principle is to apply what you know to yourself. As I was sitting at my desk last night and discussing Hypnotic Weight Control with my wife, Alexandra, she noted that my own weight thermostat could possibly be on the higher side and may need to be reset.  You can imagine how pleased I was to hear that.

So I checked the scales. I haven’t been on a set of scales for quite some time (and much happier for not doing so). They indicated that my weight was 92.9 kgs.I went and checked my BMI (Body Mass Index). 177cm and 92.9 kgs put me as

Your BMI is 29.65

Overweight (BMI 25-29.99) According to the BMI Calculator results, your weight is above the ideal range for your height. Being overweight increases the chances of developing a large range of chronic and serious health conditions. Many of these diseases can be prevented by making changes to your lifestyle. If you improve your diet and increase your level of activity, you can significantly reduce the risks to your health.

Now, you can google for a BMI calculator. Some of the posts indicate that they can be misleading as they don’t take into account body composition ie how much muscle or fat you have. However, even given that I think I ould do with some adjustment :)

That was a little sobering. What is my ideal weight? Back to the BMI calculator and it appears to be 78kg. Lets say its a little out and round it up to 80kg. Thats my target.

MMM What to do?

Please take note of the next sentence as this is where my change started.

I made a decision to lead by example. I’ll do and go through exactly what I do with my clients.

So there you have it. My awareness has created a change in behavior AND I’ve made a decision to change.

You’re invited to follow me on this journey and join me if you wish.

Step 1 – Know what you want, specifically.

In my next post we’ll explore more of knowing what you want and getting in touch with it.

I’ll also let you know any insights I have on the way. Lets have some fun with this.

Posted in Personal Change, Self belief, weight control, weight loss | Leave a comment