Safe, Sustainable Weight Loss - How NLP Can Help

    Every year, the diet and fitness industry makes millions - much of it coming from the purses and pockets of people who have already - often over many years - spent considerable time, money and energy trying to lose weight, to learn to love exercise, to become fitter and live healthier lives. The truth of it is, that for many of us, diets and exercise programmes don't work. At least not in the longer term. For sure, whilst we are earnestly following them we notice our dress or trouser size dropping, and the fact that it becomes easier to take the stairs rather than the lift.Once (and, for some of us, before) we reach our goal weight/fitness levels, however, we relax, take our eye off the ball and soon are back to square one - overweight, unfit and unhappy about it. More and more people are finding that, for them, NLP can offer a safe, sustainable way of achieving their healthy living goals - of losing weight and keeping it off, of eating healthily and of fitting exercise into their already busy schedules. This is because NLP can help you
  • Identify and really associate with your personal fitness/healthy living goals so that they are truly inspirational for and personal to you
  • Retrain your brain - changing your beliefs so you think about food and exercise differently. For some, this will include changing how you think about yourself ( for example, a number of lifetime dieters self sabotage their efforts by holding a firm, but unacknowledged, belief that 'I can't stay thin')
  • Help eliminate 'problem' foods from your diet
  • Identify and deal with secondary gain - for some of us, part of us wants to lose weight/be fitter etc - and another part wants things to stay as they are because that has some payoff - or secondary gain for us
  • Focus on long term lifestyle changes rather than short term fixes.
Is it safe?
A key consideration when embarking on any healthy living or weight loss programme is is it safe? In the context of weight loss, exercise and health living a reputable and ethical NLP Practitioner will
  • Check whether you have any medical or physical condition which means that you should consult a medical doctor before embarking any programme designed to change your eating habits, help you lose weight or increase your levels of physical activity
  • Take a personal history both to help them plan how to work with you most effectively and to identify whether there are underlying themes which might suggest that specialised medical, nutritionist or similar support would be helpful
  • Help you frame and work towards your goals ways which respect your body. One consequence of this is that it may be easier than you think to make the changes you identify as being helpful. Another is that it's unlikely that you'll experience what some diets offer - i.e. that weight will drop off you. It isn't a quick fix diet or exercise programme.
Using NLP to help you achieve your healthy living goals is about changing your attitudes and behaviours - safely..
Is it sustainable?
Most certainly. Many diets and exercise programmes fail for one or more of these reasons
  • They focus on a goal with a finite point (like a goal weight or dress/collar size). Once we reach that - we think we're done. So we take our foot of the pedal - and slowly, often imperceptibly, the weight starts creeping back on again
  • They 'work' by getting us to do things differently. But the difference isn't comfortable. So as soon as we've reached our goal we revert back to our old familiar and more comfortable ways
  • They focus on the symptom (excess weight, lack of energy) rather than the cause (beliefs/attitudes which, in turn, drive our behaviour).
NLP, on the other hand, focuses on
  • Goals which remain valid and motivational
  • Helping you make changes which are comfortable - so that it becomes easier and more comfortable to do this than to revert to your old habits. So that, even if you still have a target weight still lurking in the back of your mind, once you reach it - you're better able to maintain those changes that will help you sustain it
  • Dealing with the cause (underlying attitudes and beliefs) so that you can change your behaviours for long term success, rather than just temporarily getting rid of the symptom.
  So, as well as being about helping you achieve your healthy living goals safely, NLP can also help do this is a sustainable way.

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  Helen A Carter is a NLP coach and hypnotherapist who works, as part of Pure Serendipity, with clients to help them achieve exceptional results. To find out more about how we can help you achieve your healthy living goals visit us at http://pureserendipity.co.uk/?page_id=15 or go to http://pureserendipity.co.uk/?page_id=35 to request our free fact sheet which gives more detail about some of the NLP tools and processes that could help you achieve your weight and fitness goals.

  © Helen A Carter 2010 All rights reserved
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