Why Diets Don’t Work & How Hypnotherapy Can Aid Weight Loss

The word ‘diet’ has several meanings. One can go on a “diet” for medical reasons, such as the DASH diet or a diet to help with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. Most of us refer to diets as those fads that come around like Keto, the Mediterranean Diet, Atkins, and so on.

The fad types of diets are usually highly restrictive and more of a temporary way of eating to lose weight. Some diets can be quite dangerous if you stay on them for too long.

No matter what you decide to do for weight loss, NOTHING IS A QUICK FIX! It is something you have to do the work to achieve. You cannot expect quick results overnight (and besides, those are usually very dangerous and unhealthy). In comparison, when it comes to hypnotherapy for weight loss, what you are doing is merely making the suggestions to the subconscious mind to help in your weight loss journey.

Why Diets Do Not Work 

Yes, when you are on a diet, you will see results, but about 95% of those people who lose weight with dieting regain that weight back in 1-5 years. It’s not a practical way of living. Dieting, by definition, is a temporary food plan, and restrictive diets can lead to the diet-overeating or diet-binging cycle. This leads to your body going into starvation mode and slowing your metabolism, which makes it harder to lose weight.

Fad diets may lack essential nutrients, and don’t teach you about healthy eating. When you “finish” your “diet,” you end up boomeranging back to your unhealthy eating patterns that caused that weight gain in the first place. This is called yo-yo dieting.

Restrictive diets take the pleasure out of eating. We eat not only to fuel ourselves, but also to take pleasure in the taste of food as well. It’s all about the experience of cooking, dining, and eating.

These diets, with the frequent and compulsive weighing, tend to lead to eating disorders. Several studies, including a large one of 14 and 15-year-olds, discovered that dieting was “the most important predictor of a developing eating disorder. Those who dieted moderately were 5x more likely to develop an eating disorder, and those who practiced extreme restriction were 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who did not diet.”*

Another study back in 2001 analyzed weight-loss advertising. It was reported that “more than half of all advertising for weight-loss product made use of false, unsubstantiated claims.”**

Weight gain can be caused or triggered by early life trauma, or other mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. Emotional eating is a big cause in a lot of people’s lives, primarily women.

Hypnotherapy Can Aid You in Your Weight Loss Journey

Through the tool that is hypnosis, hypnotherapy can help you succeed with mindful eating habits and exercising. By finding the underlying cause of the unhealthy eating, weight gain, and emotional eating, a hypnotherapist can help you resolve or treat those by identifying triggers and disarm them. It enables you to separate food and eating from your emotional life.

Since hypnosis is tapping into the subconscious mind, I am using this tool to do two things at once: one, to help address any psychological troubles that may cause the unhealthy behaviour, and two, reprogramming the brain through the suggestion of healthy habits and mindfulness.

A sub-tool of hypnosis that I offer is the Virtual Gastric Band. Unlike the real gastric band, there is no surgery involved in this program. Through hypnosis, I will tell your brain that your body has a gastric band, which restricts how much food can be taken in while still being able to enjoy what you like, just in smaller portions and reshaping your relationship with food.

You are in a safe, supportive, relaxed environment with no pressure or judgment. There is no deprivation, misery, or hunger, because this isn’t a diet. It’s a remarkable long-term solution for you in your weight loss journey. Why not give it a try?

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*Golden, N. H., Schneider, M., & Wood, C. (2016). Preventing Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents. Pediatrics, 138(3). doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1649

**Wertheim, E., Paxton, S., &Blaney, S. (2009).Body image in girls.In L. Smolak & J. K. Thompson (Eds.), Body image, eating disorders, and obesity in youth: Assessment, prevention, and treatment (2nd ed.) (pp. 47-76). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.”