★Medical Hypnosis for Weight Loss

This is going to take me a while, so I’m going to do it in several installments.

Ohhh! I look forward to it MCM! :O)

I decided to use some of the information I’ve been reading about relating to self hypnosis to create a very personalized “script” for myself. I thought it might be helpful for some of you if I posted it here and shared some information about the process so you could create a script for yourself. Here are some of the ideas I highlighted in “The Alpha Solution” by Ronald Glassman as I read the book. I made some changes to the script in the book to personalize it and make it what I believe at least will be more powerful and effective for me.

Here are the lines I highlighted from the various chapters:

After generations of research, study and experience, many scientists, doctors, and therapists agree that medical hypnosis is the most effective and permanent method for helping their clients reframe the unhealthy habits and behaviors that are wired in their subconscious mind.

…eating late at night and then going to bed almost guarantees weight gain. Your body has no time to use the calories you’ve ingested, so instead stores them as fat…

…Within days, I immediately felt a difference…I was making better choices…my nocturnal binging stopped completely!…Within a month there was a nearly 100 percent change in my relationship with food. The pendulum had swung from the worst possible eating behavior to eating the way a thin, healthy athlete would. But I wasn’t dieting. I didn’t feel deprived. I had simply experienced a change of mind. Within a year, I lost more than 50 pounds. And twenty-five years later, I am 100 pounds lighter. I am thin and fit, and most importantly I have never struggled with food since the medical hypnosis treatment permanently rewired my subconscious overeating mind to be a healthy-eating mind. I eat like a thin person. To ensure that I will never struggle with food again, every few weeks I listen to the recording of my second session with the therapist. This replenishes and reinforces my brain’s healthy food blueprint. To combat stress – the number one relapse trigger for overeaters – I also meditate for twenty minutes nearly every day. Meditation is a wonderful stress reliever and also helps me see my subconscious thoughts, which puts me in further control of my choices and actions.

I can see when my mind is wandering to food and address it objectively. This produces a sense of empowerment – not deprivation!

…Everyone can learn how to use medical hypnosis and attain his or her ideal relationship with food and a slim and healthy body. Moreover, whether you know it or not, you are already an expert on your struggle with food. You know most of your triggers and what your “gotta have it” foods are. There two pieces of information are all you need to use your natural alpha state to modify your food preferences.

The next eleven chapters of this book are designed to replicate the exact process that clients go through when they come to see me, and allow you to do it for yourself.

…most overeaters, snackers, and bingers eat for emotional reasons. The Life Log is about awareness, and knowledge, which is the essence of medical hypnosis. Medical hypnosis is about becoming aware of who we are and how we respond to the outside world, then reshaping our knee-jerk reactions to the people, places, and things in our lives so that we respond in a way that is nurturing, satisfying, and healthy for us.

The Alpha Solution for Permanent Weight Loss capitalizes upon your brain’s natural ability to picture, learn, and establish new behaviors. You were not born with a preference for fries and pizza, your brain was trained to crave these things.

…medical hypnosis uses our imagination and words to rewire our subconscious minds, redrawing our minds to create patterns of healthy eating. This redrawing takes determination, work, and time; it is not magic.

…If you are honest with yourself, follow the directions in this book, and are diligent about listening to the CD you will be recording, you will see dramatic changes in your life before you know it.

Can you imagine yourself not in a struggle with food?

…I could not imagine what would happen if I lost the weight. It was a huge part of my identity, and it had always served as an excuse to remain passive rather than reaching out to achieve my full potential.

(He goes on to list the thirteen most common things that prevent medical hypnosis from being as effective and powerful as it can be. These are the lines I highlighted in the section.)

…trying to lose weight for someone else never works…This is something that you need to do for you. Right here, right now, you need to decide whether or not you want to do this for you and whether you are really ready for what might be the biggest change of your life – no more food struggle, losing weight, feeling better, being free. This is huge.

…Being ready for this kind of change is like being ready to have children. You never are totally ready. At some point you just have to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Yes,” and dive into the process…Furthermore, in my experience, when a person’s out-of-control eating is addressed, then everything in that person’s life gets better. When you are healthier, you have more energy, time and ability to focus on the other areas of your life.

…I have had clients in their seventies and eighties come to see me to address their struggle with food and to reverse conditions such as heart disease and type II diabetes. Medical hypnosis can also help manage blood pressure and ease the pain of arthritis, which is aggravated by excessive weight.

…With the Alpha Solution, you can change your mind at any time. Nonetheless, you should keep in mind that the longer the thinking and behavior have been in place, the longer it typically takes to change them. You will notice changes in the first two weeks, but it may take time to permanently change the habit.

…Unless you have suffered a severe trauma that has inspired an unhealthy relationship with food, you can change your food blueprint using the methods in this book.

I cannot tell you how many clients I’ve seen whose partner, mother, father, sister, brother, or even friend likes the fact that the person caries a few extra pounds. Some jealous men and women secretly or subconsciously prefer their partner to carry a few extra pounds because they think the partner is then less likely to attract others to have affairs. So they sabotage the partner’s attempt to be lean, strong and healthy. Mothers, sisters, and friends become competitive and don’t want their daughter, sister or friend looking better than they do. Fathers don’t want men coming near their daughters. Brothers don’t want their brothers getting the girls they can’t. This sabotage comes in many forms.

…If you have been sabotaging your success, you’ve got to figure out why you feel you don’t deserve happiness…How is not succeeding working for you?
Even though when you overeat, snack, or binge you may feel possessed by a large, powerful force and feel like you have no other choice but to eat, you need to know that it is you who is reaching for that food and swallowing it. So from here on out, you have a choice. Either you can blame the world and your mother for your woes, or you can take your life back into your own hands and get well. The first step: Make the choice not to blame someone else for your problem. You should never let anyone else’s voice have more power than your own.

…I taught him how to meditate, which is hypnosis without the use of suggestion. Meditation is the best exercise I know for reducing stress and bolstering positive thinking.

Part of the medical hypnosis process is taking an inventory. If you are not honest about what you are eating, how much you are eating, and how you are eating, then the hypnosis session you create for yourself will not help you all that much. How honest are you being with yourself in your Life Log? This is as good a gauge as anything. You will succeed only as much as you let yourself succeed. If you are rigorously honest, you will get substantial results.

…awareness is not enough…it’s the action…

Trance or hypnosis is a scientifically proven natural state of consciousness that everyone experiences every day…

Meditation is just hypnosis without the use of suggestion.

…many scientists have correlated the alpha state to when the subconscious mind is especially receptive to words and images. I agree. Hundreds of thousands of cases where people have used hypnosis and suggestion to heal, alleviate pain, and change their minds during the last two hundred years show us not only that this is true, but also that the alpha state is the best state for accessing, watching, and talking to the subconscious mind.

…if a person’s brain has a blueprint for binging on Oreo cookies when upset, the binging will become a repeat occurrence because the subconscious mind has been patterned for this. This kind of blueprint is what leads to unhealthy cravings, snacking, overeating, and ultimately weight gain.

When we are in the alpha state, our subconscious mind-the place where our food preferences and behaviors are stored-is most receptive to suggestion, new ideas, and change.

At its heart, hypnosis is a creative visualization process supported by language.

…our imagination is as strong as our most powerful and primal sense. More than our intuition, our imagination is truly our sixth sense. So if we can use our imagination to provoke our most primal and physical and emotional responses, then we can certainly use our imagination to reframe a physiological response to certain foods.
For instance, perhaps you have a three o’clock snacking problem where every day you crave a sugary or salty snack at three (assuming you’re not diabetic or hypoglycemic). This might be due to the fact that when you were young your mother provided you with an after school snack as soon as you came in the door, which was around three o’clock. When it comes to general programming, such as with eating, the brain is very straightforward: Like any and every other muscle and organ in our bodies, its cells get trained to work one way. If you were to then use medical hypnosis, you would slow the mind down to an alpha state and talk to the subconscious mind to create a new association with three o’clock. Maybe you’d picture a full stomach or an apple instead of 1,680 calories’ worth of Doritos and a 300-calorie soda, or a 160-calorie skim latte instead of a 550-calorie medium Strawberry Banana Smoothie from Duncan Donuts.

…medical hypnosis also uses the imagination to make the problem smaller using visualization. The first of the three steps of the Alpha Solution is a Release, which essentially tells the subconscious mind to let old patterns and habits go. The Release uses the imagination to tell the brain to picture shrinking and destroying a box containg all the old messages. This visualization actually convinces the subconscious mind that the box and everything in it-food, behaviors, problems-are gone. As we will discuss in Chapter 4, the subconscious accepts this because it does not know the difference between fantasy and reality. Essentially, the subconscious mind will go for this imagined reality hook, line, and sinker because it “saw” it happen. As a result, whatever was put into that box is removed. The unhealthy bluepring is addressed and put in its proper place.
Likewise, the second and thirst steps of the Alpha Solution, Reframeing and Reinforcing, also use the imagination to introduce new, healthy eating habits and behaviors to the subconscious mind.

Unlike other diet approaches where the body is stressed, starved, and sublimated, there are no side effects or dangers with hypnosis. Remember, it occurs naturally and it is safe, effective, and relatively easy. The medicinal benefits of clinical hypnosis have been documented in hundreds of academic studies and some of the world’s top universities and medical centers.

…two groups of people who should not use medical hypnosis without the supervision of a therapist: those who have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and those who have endured the trauma of rape and/or sexual abuse. In these particular cases, special considerations will be necessary.

For nearly everyone who is overweight, overeats, has cravings, nocturnally binges, or is thing but struggles with the pull of certain foods such as chocolate or bread, medical hypnosis is the permanent answer to their food fight.

…medical hypnosis is the only method that helps your subconscious mind to reframe the hardwiring so that you will want to make healthy food decisions to support and promote your body’s well-being.

…we will spend four chapters identifying the language and behaviors specific to your needs and habits so that your subconscious mind will respond and be receptive to change.

…the brain can manage only so much interruption at a time or it overloads. When we address one problem at a time, it insures that the changes we’re making are effectively loaded, accepted and used. There is no thought confusion.

the formal name for repetitively talking to the subconscious mind in the alpha state is neurolinguistic programming (NLP).

…After three weeks, most people feel in control of food rather than food is on control of them. They are also usually amazed. In three weeks, they have effectively reprogrammed a lifelong challenge, and they can get on with the business of losing weight and living their lives. I tell these clients to continue to listen to the CD every other night until they reach their goal weight. They can listen every night, but every other night is enough.

..Once people reach their goal weight…I recommend that they listen to the second CD once a week or once every two weeks for the rest of their lives. This is a way for them to check in and continue to reinforce their new food blueprint…I went through this entire process twenty-five years ago, and I still listen to my CD once every few weeks. Because of this, I have never fought to stay thin; I am simply healthy and fit.
medical hypnosis is the most powerful tool for weight loss and weight control I know.

…the best part about medical hypnosis is that you don’t need to be a doctor or even a therapist to take advantage of this tool’s healing power. You just need to follow the instructions in the remaining six chapers of this book and use medical hypnosis to draw a new food blueprint and create a new life in the privcy and comfort of your home.

The brain makes up about 2 percent of you body’s weight, but uses 20 percent of the body’s blood…each day the body makes more connections than all the world’s telephone systems put together.

…all of these systems ( skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, urinary, endocrine, immune, reproductive and nervous ) work to keep your body healthy, strong, and alive by maintaining a balance: the right amount of oxygen, the right amount of sugar and salt, the right temperature, the release of toxins. This internal balance is called homeostasis. Homeostasis is your body’s magnetic north, its ideal state. And your body is perpetually trying to work to achieve health and homeostasis all day, every day.
When we overwhelm our bodies with too much food-sugar, salt, fat, or even too many vegetables-the body’s systems cannot keep up, so we gain weight and, even worse, become fundamentally unhealthy. Our immune systems get beaten down and we feel generally awful. And when we don’t feel well, the last thing we want to do is to make the effort to exercise or even cook ourselves a proper healthy meal. We’re so tired and lethargic that we automatically reach for whatever foods are easiest and most familiar. It becomes a vicious cycle.
Fortunately, there is one part of the body that, while affected by these poor conditions, can work with us to change this unhealthy behavior and imbalance: the brain. If you change your brain, the rest will follow.

…”neuroplasticity refers to the ability of neurons to forge new connections, to blaze new paths through the cortex, even to assume new roles.” This means that your brain, my brain, anyone’s brain-from eight to eighty-can be rewired. (in the absence of certain degenerative brain diseases.)

…the more we use our brains, the more dentrites we grow. This is true regardless of our age. In fact, they have found evidence of more dentrites in active sixty-year-old men and women than in men and women in their twenties. They also found that the brain’s cortex is thicker among those who meditate and exercise. This means you can strengthen and change your brain for the better.
Because we have the ability to make our brain stronger by making new connections, we can rewire our brain to change its habits…The Alpha Solution uses three steps to make these new connections.
1. Release – we formally let go of the old picture and messages.
2. Reframe – we provide our brain with a new picture.
3. Reinforce – we strengthen the new picture by repeatedly presenting it to the brain.

This simple three step process works because our subconscious mind does not know the difference between fantasy and reality In fact, the brain perceives fantasies and real experiences as the same thing. Don’t believe me? Think about a nightmare you have had. Did you wake up with your heart racing? That’s because your subconscious mind thought that whatever was happening in the dream was real. This is why a scary dream scares you and why you feel good when you wake up from a pleasant dream. Our reality is made up of a set of images that are presented to the mind again and again, making them recognizable and “real”. If you presented your mind with a “reality” filled with healthy food preference and exercise over and over, then eventually that would be what is “real” to you.

…the languages and images you will be presenting to your brain are written by you and for you specifically.

…For many eople, food related behavior – overeating, snacking, and binging – is the number one response to stress.

…the first step of the Alpha Solution is to release the old pictures and unhealthy wiring. But before you can release your old patterns, you need to know what they are.

…how we learn to eat as children is our blueprint for a lifetime of eating.

Food is our original and perhaps our most primal way (besides touch) of relating to and connecting with our parents.
…over time, this builds a natural association between food and comfort.
Today, alarming numbers of us are raised on junk food. And even though these days you know that you should be eating healthy foods such as lean protein complex carbohydrates, and green vegetables, you still crave crap: fried fast food, soda, snacks with chemicals you can’t even pronounce.

…these days we are eating twice as much as we did twenty years ago, and a larger waistline is the result. The good news is that portion distortion is one of the easiest things to fix with medical hypnosis.

Do you walk from your front door straight to your refrigerator?

While “food is love” is one of the most deeply entrenched and powerful wires in our brain, it too can be released and reframed.

I’ve realized that the blueprint of overting that gets set in our subconscious minds early in life is all a response to one thing: stress. The stress of family life, the stress of school, the stress of feeling not pretty or handsome enough, the stress of not fitting in, the stress of too much attention or not enough, relationship stress, work stress, marriage stress, mother and father stress, the stress of getting older…I could go on.
The fact is that life is stressful. And, depending upon one’s early life circumstances, people’s subconscious minds learn to cope with this stress in different ways. Some learn to exercise, while others learn to starve themselves, drink, bite their nails, cut themselves, smoke, talk about it, sleep, or work it out. And many of us-particularly in the United States, where 66 percent of Americans are overweight- learn to eat.
(He goes on to list some things to help you identify your early food profile)

1. When you are trying to diet do you find some of these things difficult? Control portion sizes, Control Snacking, Control cravings (those times when a food comes to mind out of nowhere and you feel like you must have it immediately.
2. Do you eat due to stress or as a means of de-stressing.
3. Do you ever binge on food? Do you feel like you sometimes attack food or eat especially large portions, you binge.
4. Do you ever purge food via extreme exercise, vomiting, or laxatives? (If you are purging, I strongly suggest that you see a medical professional. Purging is common and extremely dangerous and can cause irreparable damange. If you continue, you can loose your teeth, get acid reflux, become malnourished, have a heart attack, even die. Yes, people do die from purging. So please, seek help.)
5. Do you ever eat in the middle of the night? (I don’t mean late night eating. This is getting up and eating in the middle of the night after you’ve gone to bed.)
6. Do you snack when there is no real need for food?
7. Growing up, were you ever told to clean your plate?
8. Growing up, was food ever used as a reward for being good?
9. Growing up, were you ever sent to bed without dinner?
10. Do you use food in a way that is hurtful to you? This includes overeating, binging, sneaking food, or eating extremely unhealthy food. In other words, would you feed a child or a puppy or a kitten the way you are feeding yourself?

…based on your answers to these questions, make a list of the behaviors you want to change.

If you are ready to smash the record that plays over and over and over in your head, then you are ready to do a Release, which is the first step in retraining your neuropathways to have a healthy wiring for eating.

As soon as you do your Release, you should move on to crafting and working with the first script and then, ten days later, the second.

Great info for anyone trying to assess eating-behavior issues and replace with new tapes.. I would just like to repeat what you stated: “If you are ready to smash the record that plays over and over and over in your head, then you are ready to do a Release, which is the first step in retraining your neuropathways to have a healthy wiring for eating”

Though, I’d also like to say, we hypnotize ourselves daily, another way to express medical hypnosis is ethical hypnosis with a concentration on areas that get to the root.

This is the reason I use Blue Mirror and Process Affirmations.

Many people focus on an affirmation without ever giving the problem thought.

Years ago I went to an Institute to learn a method called Trans-Por.

After learning to easily go to the alpha state, one uses a 3×5 card with the meaningful suggestion for their life, and like you form an affirmation)positive, present tense in 1st person ->I am) you read it before during and after reaching this state.

Also-> bedtimes and mornings are the best time to nourish your mind with all of the new beginnings you’d like.

Some good hypnosis posts

I only posted the above, to introduce more about hypnosis. I’m not a believer of purchasing other peoples’ downloads on hypnosis tapes. If you’re going to use a hypnosis tape, learn a lot about it, and do it yourself (for many reasons)

An old post of mine on Hypnosis

When we let go, we invite and bring change.

What is a release? Simple. We make a formal statement to the subconscious mind that our old patterns of behavior – our tendency to snack each time we walk in the door, our use of food as a substitute for love, our weakness for chocolate – no longer exist.

In the release you will picture yourself putting all your old food patterns and messages in a huge box, sealing the box, shrinking the box, and then smashing the box until it now longer exists. This essentially gives your brain the picture that these old messages no longer exist. It believe that what you pictured really happened and that those patterns have been obliterated.

How to do a release.

Doing a release is perhaps the most important part of the process you have begun. Telling the subconscious mind that the struggle is in the past not only creates a parking space for the new desired healthy relationship with food but is also a major action and physical demonstration of your commitment to heal.

When doing a release, you’ll need to make some time for yourself and the process. For the release to be truly effective, it needs to be done with the proper intention and integrity. In other words, what you put in is what you will get out. The first thing you need to do to get ready for your release it to compose an Anchor Statement.

The anchor statement

An anchor statement is a short empowering phrase that supports your desire to be lean, strong and healthy. The anchor statement is used in all three phases – release, reframe, reinforce. It is a key phrase in the “scripts”. This phrase will become linked in both your conscious and subconscious minds to the process of healing. After using the anchor statement in the release, whenever you say the anchor statement to yourself, it will connect you to the release and your desire to be lean, strong and healthy. You will find that once you start using it – when you have a craving, feel emotion and want to binge or overeat – it will rescue by anchoring you to your true desire to be healthy. After some time the phrase also becomes an automatic message of relaxation.

Come up with a phrase, a sentence or two that you find empowering.

Here are some examples

I control food. Food does not control me.
I am free, now and forever.
I am lean strong and healthy.
My body is precious and I treat it accordingly.
I value my brain, body, and life.

(Here is mine: I make healthy food choices because I love and respect myself. I choose to live a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life.)

Let Go

Once you have the list of old patterns you want to change and your anchor statement it’s time to find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for about an hour that is very comfortable. Comfy chair or lying down.

1. Read through the release script once.
2. Note that the first section of the release includes an introduction – a series of exercises to relax you. This relaxation step is used with the scripts.
On your first reading you will (I am making a cd for my release as well as my other scripts.)
3. find places to include your anchor statement and old habits.
4. Read through the script four or five times.

5. Once you feel comfortable with the script for the release and feel you are ready ( you don’t have to memorize it word for word ) Take some time to become truly, truly comfortable and relaxed, close your eyes, breathe, and begin your release. The actual release takes about twenty minutes or so

Here is the relaxation part of the script. Use something like this for the release and on your recordings.

The relaxation script

(Be sure you’re in a comfortable position with your eyes closed and your head and neck supported well. Place one hand on your lower belly and feel it rising and falling as you breathe. Breathing in this way elps induce relaxation and sleep.)

Take a deep cleansing breath in through your nostrils and then exhale through your mouth.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Continue to breathe in a normal fashon.

Through your nostrils.

If you have trouble breathing through your nostrils, just breathe through your mouth.

And just continue to breathe normally.

Observe the flow of air coming in and out.

Leave the rest of the world on hold.

(To help relax further)

Tense up all the muscles in your forehead.

Squeeze your eyes shut so they’re squinched up as tightly closed as possible.

Clench your teeth.

Nor tense up all the facial muscles.

Tighten.

Tighten.

Hold that.

A little tighter.

Tighter.

Tighter.

And release.

Let your facial muscles go.

Breathe.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Good.

Notice how good the facial muscles feel, so relaxed.

Now, be sure your head is supported well, no strain on your neck or back.

Les your head just feel heavy, supported, tension-free, easy.

Now, raise your shoulders toward your ears as if you’re trying to touch your earlobes.

Higher.

Higher.

Higher.

And let them drop, like they have weights pressing on them.

Nice and heavy and relaxed.

Let them go.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Good.

Now, I want you to think of yourself as being as relaxed as a rag doll.

Imagine you’re looking at a rag doll slumped in a chair.

Totally effortless.

completely relaxed

Imagine being that comfortable and relaxed.

Hold that image and thought in your mind as you continue to relax further.

Now tense up all the muscles in your arms.

Make fists.

Squeeze.

Tighter.

Tighter.

Tighter.

And release.

Relax.

Let your arms just drop and relax, like heavy weights.

Let them feel heavy.

Now bear down on the belly.

Tighten up your abdominal muscles.

Squeezing.

Tighter

tighter

tighter

and relax

take a deep breath in through your nose

and a nice long exhale through your mouth

let go of any remaining tension

drift and relax

and finally, tense up all the muscles in your legs, from the buttocks all the way to the toes

tense your calves

point your toes

hold that

tighter

tighter

tighter

and let them drop

nice and heavy

like logs

and relax

take another deep breath in through your nostrils

and exhale, letting the breath out through the mouth, nice and slow

let it all go

notice how your body feels now

so relaxed

like a rag doll

noce how slow your breathing has become and how much slower it will be over the next few minutes

notice how cool the air in on your inhale and how warm it is when you exhale

good

at this point, the body has moved into a meditative, profoundly relaxed state and will conue to be relaxed with each breath

Great relaxation technique toward alpha state(:

For myself it isn’t picking up the “wrong food” or eating when I’m not hungry.It’s not doing enough exercise to support my healthy diet w/my small frame.

I don’t even deny myself an occasional “health cookie” (: or piece of dark chocolate. Though I may have to figure something out re: them.
Here’s a small example of my rationalizations I use to add them to my food groups haha

I don’t believe in cutting down food (with my current choices), I just need to up my exercise and use affirmations, “hypnotic suggestions”, “visualizations” to tell my body it needs to behave the way I want it to. I believe that is more than possible.

Here are my suggestions for today (inspired by MCM’s thread here):

1. My metabolism is as fast as it needs to be for my weight to be at my desired goal.

2. My food choices match my metabolism to be at my desired weight goal.

3. My workouts get better and better to be at the perfect ratio of calories and energy expenditure to be at my perfect weight and be easily able to maintain that weight.

4. My food choices are creatively appetizing for my healthy weight goal.

5. I love feeling great so much I do everything to support that goal.

The Release

(You would use the relaxation script to enter the meditative state and then continue as follows for the “Release”. I decided to enter this text straight from the book instead of personalizing it the way I did. In mine I’m carrying a backpack with my old messages in it, and instead of a ballroom I picture an underground cavern, like the Dwarved build in Khazaad Dum in Lord of the Rings, I also imagined that I had gone on a very long journey to finally reach this place. In mine I also imagined that I had been taught some magic words from Gandalf that would help me shrink the box and that once I destroyed the box I could get to the door on the other side which I could walk through and start my new life. I know it’s silly, but it made it very enjoyable to me. I don’t know if you want to do something like that to personalize it for you or not, not know if you’re supposed to or not. Laurie might have some input with regard to this.)

Imagine now that you’re in a very large room. A room the size of a ballroom.

You are the only person there.

And the only object in the room is a huge box sitting on the floor.

Make sure you see the box so tall that you have to look up to see the top. Picture it so wide that you can’t see around it or get around it. And because it’s so huge it must be heavy, and therefore too heavy to push out of the way.

Make sure you see the box as vividly as possible. It’s a giant wooden cube. Give it color. Give it a texture. Whatever allows you to see it with greater distinction.

Now put all the messages that you want to get rid of, eradicate forever, in the box. (This is where you include your early food profile messages. Eating when you’re not hungry might be an example.)

Picture yourself lugging these heavy messages in a bag across the floor, dragging them up a ladder, and heaving them into the box.

Hear the thud as they hit the bottom of the box.

Now picture yourself sealing the box. Making it airtight.

Wrap it in a huge sheet of plastic.

Seal it up.

Now see that this box is completely sealed. It’s airtight. Whatever is in it cannot get out.

These messages are sealed in the box.

And what is in that box is your old relationships with food. Your struggle. The messages you no longer require.

Think of everything in that box as being compartmentalized. Separate from you. Not part of you in any way. Disconnected from you and your life.

I want you to use your inner voice now:
Repeat each of the following phrases exactly like this,
Say the following phrase to yourself:

My craving for crap exists sealed in the box.
My need to clean my plate exists sealed in the box.
My need to eat as soon as I walk in the door exists sealed in the box.
The feeling of being deprived of food or love exists sealed in the box.
My need to eat as much as I can exists sealed in the box.
My need to eat to please exists sealed in the box.
My need to retaliate by eating exists sealed in the box.
My use of weight as armor exists sealed in the box.
My use of food to relieve stress exists sealed in the box.

See that everything in the box is in its rightful place.

Know that you cannot miss what you no longer want.

Say to yourself:

My conscious desire to be free of the struggle is represented by the box.

See how the conscious desire to be lean, strong, and healthy is now also the subconscious desire. The minds are synchronized now. They both want you to be lean, strong, and healthy without feeling deprived, without dieting-in fact, feeling empowered.

Say to yourself:
I am ready to take total control of my relationship with food.

Now I want you to imagine the box truly looming over you.

You’re seeing it, you’re looking up at it. It’s towering over you.

It’s a roadblock. And you need to get past it because on the other side is a door to health and well being.

so you need to put the box in its proper place and perspective.

Now imagine that the box begins to shrink. Picture it getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

Still remaining sealed. Airtight.

Picture it now where it has become so small that you are looming over the box.

And picture it shrinking even further until it becomes the size of your thumbnail.

And picture it shrinking even further until it becomes the size of your pinky nail.

Now take a good look at your relationship with that box.

How can something this small have any control over you?

It can’t! It’s powerless. You can kick it, walk over it or around it, do anything you want to.

It is in no way, shape, or form a roadblock to you anymore. You can see beyond it.

Not only did you take control of the box, but you’ve also changed your entire perspective on it. You tower over IT!

The box is in its proper place. You have released your old food messages.

rather than just feel in control of that box, now take the experience to the next logical level and picture yourself lean, strong, and healthy, crushing that box under your foot. Smash it down. Pulverize it. Feel and see how good that feels.

Feel the release of the struggle and empowering feeling of being in control of food. Turn that struggle into dust.

You now control it.

You have eliminated it.

And as you do that, repeat this phrase in your innter voice:

“_________” (Use your anchor statement here)

When you’re done crushing the box, picture yourself stepping back and looking down at what is left. It’s nothing but dust.

The phrase”_______” (Use your anchor statement here) will forever be associated with the elimination of that struggle.

The struggle is gone.

Anytime you use the phrase “_______” (Your anchor statement) you are reminding the subconscious mind that you are in control of what, when, where, why and how much you eat.

The phrase becomes a conditioned response, an automatic reflex to make a healthy choice for mind and body. This picture of the dust matches your conscious desire to be free of the struggle and to be lean, strong, and healthy.

So, in essence, your conscious and subconscious mind are in agreement. You are free of ambivalence. Conscious desire is your subconscious response. The phrase becomes more meaningful the more you use it; like any conditioned response (reflex), it becomes more and more automatic.

When you are done with the release you should feel proud of yourself. To celebrate you may want to burn your list of old messages and patterns if you made one. Now that you have released your old messages it’s time to release and let go of the food itself.

Again, you might want to ask Lauri’s opinion on this ‘cause she knows more about hypnosis than me, but I made my release pretty elaborate, like a movie. I used a lot of descriptive stuff – not just “a large ballroom”. I pictured myself also walking out of the door to a bright beautiful valley. I imagined special effects as I shrank the box. I imagined what it would look like and feel like walking out into the bright sunshine and seeing the clouds and fields and flowers and rocks and so on. You could probably find something kool to relate your release to too. Maybe something from Star Wars, or Batman, or something else.

What do you think Laurie?
Anyone?

In response to themadcookieman’s post:
Very cool. It should be personalized!

MCM you’ve done a great job on this entire thread! So many wonderful ideas!

Thanks for the encouragement, Laurie. If I’d known what I was getting myself into ahead of time, I might not have started! LOL

Can you believe I used LOL! omg, i’ve become one of those people

ttyl

bff

“HEP ME HEP ME, SOMEBODY HEP ME, I BEEN HIP MO TIZED!!!”

What’re these?ttyl bff

I’m not that progressive(:

I’m not a texting afficiando, but I DO know these. “ttyl” is “talk to you later” and “bff” is “best friends forever”.

And thank goodness you’re not a progressive, there are WAY too many of those around these days.

In response to themadcookieman’s post:
(smiles)

Once you’ve done your release one of the things you want to start doing is putting your anchor statement to use. Start saying your anchor statement regularly to yourself throughout the day. Say it to yourself before you eat, or when you get a craving. Write it out with your affirmations. Write it on a card, laminate it, keep it with you. Put a copy on the dashboard of your car. Do whatever it takes to cement this powerful phrase in your mind.

Taking an inventory.

Define the foods you want to have more control over and less desire for.

Not all foods are your problem. There are probably only five or six foods that are responsible for your weight.

There are significantly different brain patterns for the foods that pull at you and the foods that don’t.

Soon you will feel indifferent to those foods that once sent you into a binging spiral.

It is time to identify were and how you are eating your “trouble” foods.

(In the book he has a long list of foods for you to go through, I’m not even going to attempt to type out the list. Maybe we can find a good list of foods online somewhere and add a link.)

Identify your “Gotta have it” foods. If you have the book you can go through the list and identify the “gotta have it”, “indifferent”, and “borderline” foods.

Gotta have it foods might be something like pizza, or oreo cookies, or chockolate ice cream. A gotta have it food might be something very specific, like “salt and pepper” flavored Pringles, for example. It’s good to identify specific foods that trigger you.

A borderling food is one that’s not your first choice, but can still give you trouble. Maybe you’d rather have ice cream, it’s really calling to you, but since you don’t have any you’ll go ahead and devour the entire bag of giner snaps.

Indifferent foods are ones that don’t have much power over you. You can take it or leave it.

Besides specific foods, do this for specific “meals” as well. Spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread, for example. Two double meat cheese burgers with chili cheese fries and two chocolate shakes, maybe.

Once you have your list of trouble foods group them by these categories.

1. Sugary carbohydrates: Cake, cookies, donuts, pastries, sugary cereals
2. Chocolate: Bars, sauce, milk, …
3. Candy: gumdrops, butterscotch,…
4. Frozen desserts: Ice cream, frozen yogurt, ice cream sandwiches, popcicles…
5. Sugar-laden drinks: Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, fruit drinks,sugary juices
6. Salty, crunchy snacks: Chips, pretzels, crackers
7. Savory carbohydrates: Pasta, rice, bread, pizza
8. Potato: French fries, has browns, baked…
9. Fried foods: fried chicken, catfish…
10. Cheese: Mozzarella, Cheddar, American…
11. Nuts: peanuts, peanut butter, cashews,…
12. Fast Food: McDonalds, Taco Bell,…
13. Any particular meal that has a grip on you: Mac and cheese, French Toast, a particular sandwich like a Monte Cristo or a Reuben…
14. Anything else:

The next step is to identify and record how you are eating the foods you listed. One of the keys is to identify the links between food and location that have been solidified by behavior.

Refrigerator eating: standing and eating ice cream in front of the frig.

Cupboard and sink eating: getting a spoonful of peanut butter, gobbling up a few handfuls of dry, sugary cereal, etc…

TV Eating: we all know what this is

Bed Eating: eating a bag of popcorn or a bowl of ice cream while watching a movie in bed

Car Eating: snacking on the way to work or running errands etc…

Supply Room Eating: scarfing down a bag of m&m’s while running your copies

Desk Eating: Eating while you work, got some candy in your desk drawer?

“I just have to get something in the kitchen eating”: while your family is eating or after dinner, running into the kitchen for an extra piece of that cheese cake or whatever.

Cleanup eating: picking and grazing while cleaning up after a meal.

Movie eating: do you eat junk like a trained robot at the movies.

Grocery Shopping Eating: you pick up a bag of chips while at the store and eat the entire thing while you shop.

Closet Eating: hiding food and eating it while no one is around. Sneaking food.

Now we are going to go through the list one more time and write down next to each of the food groups how much you are eating: An entire bag? A box? Two plates’ Worth? This is the final step for getting a good complete picture of your food blueprint.

MCM – This is so informative.

The HOW you eat:
Its every bad or secretive eating behviour right there in black and white. Seeing it is realising how ridiculous it is – yet we do it! Myself included. I am known to many as a really disciplined eater – but I do almost all of those things! I love the ‘eating like a trained robot at the movies’ – i did that last night and felt so rotten and guilty afterwards. This is what makes me yo-yo diet. In and out of bad behaviour….

The WHAT you eat:
Everyones trouble food WILL differ slightly, but the common element of all the foods in that list are that they are high in fat and sugar and probably have a good memory or comfort factor attached..?:?
Correct me if i’m wrong, as i am only drawing on my own experience to share on this subject.

Would love to hear other’s views of MCM’S latest installment of this fascinating thread!

Much love and appreciation to you MCM!
Anoushka :O)

I’m glad you’re enjoying the thread. Practically everything I’ve included is out of “The Alpha Solution for Permanent Weight Loss” by Ronnald Glassman. I found it at the “Dollar Tree”, a chain store we have here in the states. I got it for a dollar! If you’d like a more thorough explanation of all of this I’d recommend getting a copy. The published price was $30, but I’ll bet you can find a copy somewhere for less. Even if you can’t, what’s $30 bucks when it comes to your health. I still have some more installments to make, but “slow and steady gets the job done”.

I’m sure you could use these ideas for all kinds of usefull stuff. Laurie knows a lot about hypnosis. I haven’t read through the links she posted yet, but I’m sure they are worthwhile. I also picked up a book called “The Relaxation Response” I found at a thrift store. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve seen it referenced in more than one book I’ve read so I picked it up. I’ll bet Laurie could recommend some books on this fascinating subject.

wow! does this thread bring back some positive posting/sharing times.

I am definitely going to reread this. And even without a full read now, I am sure its quite good and looking forward in checking it out in 2016(: