Maintaining a healthy weight is simple, so why isn't it easy?

The UK is the most obese country in Europe (23% of adults) and third in the world behind the USA and Mexico. Obesity is rising rapidly, not only for adults, but for children too. The health implications of this are huge, with some experts telling us that the current generation will be the first not to outlive its parents.

Most people who are overweight or obese want to do something about it, not just for health reasons. At any one time, 10% of women in the UK are on an active weight loss programme. The loss of self-esteem and confidence which often accompanies obesity spills over into general life.

Whatever your genes, a healthy diet, combined with moderate exercise, is bound to achieve optimum weight outcomes. Most people already know what a healthy diet is, so why is obesity so prevalent and rising? If you are trying to follow a healthy diet in today’s world, you are taking on powerful forces, compared to just a few years ago. The Food Industry makes you fat and the Weight Loss Industry keeps you that way.

The Food Industry

The Food Industry is not interested in providing you with a healthy diet. This is not cynical, paranoid, or even controversial – it’s the law. The directors of food manufacturers and retailers (including restaurants) are legally obliged to maximise returns to their shareholders, in other words, making as much profit from you as possible. If they can do this by making and selling you good food, then great! However, if they can make more profit by selling you an unhealthy load of old rubbish, then the law says they must do so, within applicable regulations, of course. That’s just the way it is, and it's not going to change.

Fifty years ago, obesity was unheard of, so what's changed? People haven't - evolution doesn't work that fast. Sure, we have more sedentary lifestyles these days, which doesn't help, but what is new is the rise of the Fast Food and Processed Food sectors, which now offer us a bewildering range of new food choices, backed by massive marketing and advertising. With modern busy lives, we now eat an incredible amount of highly processed foods, in pursuit of "convenience". Typically, these are high in fat, sugar, salt and additives. Inevitably, there has been a corresponding decline in home cooking, where we decide precisely what we eat and, by doing this, we have surrendered control.

The Food Industry pays a lot of very clever people a great deal of money to manipulate you into buying the maximum quantities of the most profitable products, and they are highly expert at it. Hypnotherapy reinforces your ability to take back control from those who seek to exploit you for maximum profit. You control your food choices and eating behaviour, not them.

The Weight Loss Industry

Weight loss is big business. Products include low calorie food ranges, meal replacement products and various pills and potions, but the industry also includes surgery, diet plans and books and slimming clubs or consultants. Like all industries, every provider seeks to make a profit from you – nothing wrong with that, provided they deliver the results they promise. Take a look at each approach to see where the profit incentives lie.

All weight loss products and slimming clubs make maximum profits when you use them for a long time or return to them time after time. So, it is in these companies’ financial interests for you to fail to achieve permanent change, because then you would stop being a customer.

If you’ve tried one, you’ll know that diets nearly always fail to achieve lasting results. That’s why we have terms like “serial dieting” and “yo-yo dieting”. The reason diets fail is simple – someone else is telling you what you are supposed to eat or not eat. When you return to what you naturally want to eat, the weight also returns.

Despite the growth of the Weight Loss Industry, obesity continues to increase. If any of these approaches actually worked, it would completely dominate this hugely lucrative market, and none does. Anyone who artificially alters their eating behaviour for a period of time can lose weight, but the Weight Loss Industry is not so keen to publish the 1 and 2 year follow-up data. By contrast, the weight loss hypnosis research cited [here] includes follow-up data for up to 2 years. Photographs of a few, carefully selected, success stories with beaming smiles are no substitute for valid measurement - don't be fooled.

Taking Back Control

While it's nice to blame everyone else, the real reason for rising obesity is ourselves. Nobody forces us to eat too much, choose unhealthy food or drink too much. And nobody forces us to be gullible enough to believe that this year's fashionable weight loss programme or product range will be different from all those others that failed in the past. What is needed is a change in our relationship with food and eating behaviour, naturally leading to healthy food choices and consumption. That's where hypnotherapy comes in, helping you to take control and turn your good intentions into reality.

With hypnotherapy, there is no diet – you eat what you want, when you want. When you have taken control, you will naturally be attracted to healthy foods and simply lose interest in food you know to be unhealthy. This change means that your weight loss can be healthy, natural and permanent. You will never have to waste money on weight loss products again.

Food is now plentiful compared to fifty years ago with post-war rationing. However, this means that the urge to "Finish everything on your plate" has changed from avoiding the waste of scarce food to a recipe for overeating, especially with increasing portion sizes. You will still hear parents drumming this message into children, storing up more obesity problems for the future. Hypnotherapy can help you to learn this new control - when to stop eating.

Deep down, you know that there are no short cuts. If you are overweight, the only way to achieve permanent change is to take control of the fundamentals - food choices and eating behaviour. If you can do this by yourself, then do it. If you find it difficult, then hypnotherapy is for you.

A course of hypnotherapy can seem relatively expensive because you are buying a sizeable chunk of expert time for one to one sessions. But, it is a one-off cost which can transform the rest of your life, and Payment Plan options make it affordable to everyone. There is no need for ongoing “maintenance” or “support” or “meetings” that can go on costing you money for years. On the Diploma course, the 2 years' support puts it in the same price bracket as a Slimming Club. So, weight loss hypnotherapy makes financial sense too.