Scientific research at Tufts-New England Medical Center has provided irrefutable evidence that all diets work if you can stick to them. Atkins – low carb; The Zone – low glycemic index; Ornish – low fat; Weight Watchers – low calorie.
But researchers have also proven beyond a doubt that very few people can stick to any diet because of his or her appetite. So to be successful with a diet, appetite suppression is required.
Webster’s Dictionary defines “Appetite” as: “The desire for gratification of some want, craving, or passion.” So “appetite” is eating and drinking for relaxation and pleasure.
It’s a mistake to confuse hunger with appetite. Hunger is defined as “The body’s call for nourishment.” In other words, when the body needs fuel, that’s when you feel bona fide hunger. By that differentiation, it is not possible for anyone to “be hungry” if they are overweight.
However, it is possible for you to have feelings that you interpret as “hunger.” And the stomach contracting in expectation of being fed causes those feelings.
When you were a little baby and you got upset, your mother would put a bottle into your mouth to calm you down. You would get distracted, become relaxed and often fall asleep. That scenario was repeated thousands of times so that your unconscious mind was programmed: When something goes into your mouth, you get relaxation and pleasure from it.
Now that you are fully grown, if you feel tense or anxious, you crave something in your mouth for relaxation and pleasure – food!
People Also Get Cravings and Urges Because Of Conditioning.
When you connect consuming food with any other behavior, the other action will trigger cravings for food and a compulsion to eat. This is called a conditioned response. For example: If you eat when you watch a movie, you will automatically get an urge to eat each time you go to the movies.
What About Compulsive Overeaters Who Eat Because Of Emotional Reasons?
We define a compulsion as an “irresistible impulse.” One of the presuppositions of NLP is: All behaviors are driven by a positive intention. In other words, our unconscious mind will only motivate us into behaviors that benefit or protect us in some way. In NLP terms, we say that being fat is a behavior when it provides a positive outcome or intention.
By now you are probably wondering what the possible positive outcomes of being fat could possibly be. The list of possibilities is as long as the list of people who have an appetite that is out of control. But I’ll give you a classic example: A person gets their heart broken in a relationship. So to protect the self from getting the heart broken again, the unconscious motivates the self to become fat to keep the self out of relationships and prevent another broken heart.
A big secret to suppressing your appetite is called reframing. With an NLP six-step weight loss reframe, we respect the fact that the subconscious is pushing us to consume our food for relaxation and pleasure. And if we are eating compulsively because being fat is protecting us, we respect that also.
In an NLP six-step reframe we compromise with our unconscious. In the case of eating for relaxation and pleasure, we ask our subconscious to assume the responsibility for making us substitute other behaviors. The alternate behaviors must be as effective and available at providing the same relaxation and pleasure. But they must also be more consciously acceptable to us. When the subconscious is motivating us into alternate behaviors that provide the relaxation and pleasure that we require – we lose our appetite on this score.
If you are a compulsive overeater we do an additional reframe. We ask your unconscious mind to assume the responsibility for substituting new behaviors in place of being fat. These new behaviors must be as effective and available at providing the same benefits and protections. But they must be actions that are more consciously acceptable to you. When your subconscious is motivating you into alternate behaviors that provide the same outcomes that you require, you lose the strong urge to overeat.
As far as feeling cravings because of conditioning (conditioned responses), we utilize various NLP and hypnotic techniques that erase or “extinguish” those conditioned responses. That breaks the connection between the behaviors, and eliminates the urges and feelings of compulsion.
Once your appetite has been eliminated and all of your compulsions to overeat have been dealt with, you can easily stick to any type of healthful diet indefinitely so that it becomes a permanent lifestyle change.
Weight control and compulsive eating can be a complex topic. I can only broach the surface of it in this article. You can locate additional articles on this topic in the hypnosis article library on my website.