1. Diets don’t work.
Maybe this is obvious, but if diets really worked you would only need one in your entire life. The reality is that diets are a short-term fix, like putting a Band-Aid on a cut when the bleeding is internal. Diets don’t solve the real problem.
2. You’ll probably gain weight.
Not at first, in the beginning you will lose weight. But studies have shown that in the long term, dieting is a reliable cause of weight gain. That’s right, even if you’re overweight you’re better off never dieting.
3. Diets make you miserable.
Calorie deficits make you grumpy. Nutrient deprivation makes me grumpy. I think there are better ways to spend our time, how about you?
4. Diets screw up your metabolism.
When you lose weight too quickly, you’re bound to lose some muscle. Also, when you dramatically decrease your calorie intake, your body adjusts to this lower level and learns to use less energy. These two strikes against your metabolism mean that when you go back to your old eating habits (if you’re lucky and don’t over compensate for your starvation by eating more, like most people) then you will store more calories as fat than ever before.
4. Diets make you a buzzkill.
Friends and family with restrictive diets ruin it for everyone. If you won’t even pretend to eat or drink what everyone else is having in celebration you make people uncomfortable in at least two ways: 1) they can tell you aren’t having as good a time as they are, which isn’t fun, and 2) they feel judged being less virtuous than you. Suffer on your own time.
5. Diets destroy your relationship with food.
Diets set you up for a feast or famine mentality, where you oscillate between barely eating anything and binging on 12-packs of deep-fried bacon-stuffed cupcakes. You can’t win.
6. The food tastes horrible.
Eating bad tasting food won’t kill you, but it’s hard to argue that you’re really living either.
7. Diets are hard.
Diets take lots of time, energy and self-discipline. They aren’t easy to keep up, and they’re nearly impossible to maintain. Since they don’t work, this is particularly unfortunate.
8. They’re temporary.
Even if you can stick out a diet and meet your weight goals, you know that as soon as you go back to your old habits the pounds will return (and probably bring some friends). So if it isn’t going to last, what’s the point exactly?
9. They cost money.
Not all diets are expensive, but chances are high that if you start one you will invest in a book or program, and probably special foods as well. It’s true that good food costs money, but do you need to pay extra to suffer and gain weight?
10. There’s a better way.
All the above inconveniences might be acceptable if weight loss is very important to you and there are simply no other ways to achieve it. But that isn’t true. Small, customizable lifestyle changes can transform your body and your health.
The changes are slower and much less dramatic, but they last because they are permanent. Losing a simple 2 lbs a month (.5 lb/week) will set you down almost 25 lbs in one year. More important, for most people a shift to healthier eating greatly improves quality of life. Not only do you get healthier and lose weight, the food is amazing and you discover a world of flavors and food culture you never knew existed.
Diet vs. Dieting
We all know what it means to “go on a diet.” When you are dieting (the verb) you temporarily change how you eat–sometimes in ways that are very extreme–for the purpose of losing weight or achieving another immediate goal, like “detox.”
But we also use the word diet to describe normal, everyday eating patterns such as a “healthy diet” or “vegetarian diet.”
Failing to distinguish short-term and long-term eating behaviors is a serious problem though, because in reality most of us confuse these methods and try using short-term strategies to achieve goals that can only be met with a long-term approach. And describing and correcting this fallacy is almost impossible when the terminology we use is the same for both.
Dieting Is Temporary
To be clear, there are a few cases where dieting (short-term) can be beneficial. Sometimes an athletic event or other performance requires temporary weight loss or a special training program. But if your goal is long-term health or permanent weight loss, you won’t find much success with this approach.
Sure you can lose weight if you go on a diet. In fact, you can lose weight on almost any diet (I’m still skeptical of the cookie diet, but I would not be surprised if someone has lost weight on it). What you must remember is if your changes are temporary, so will be your success.
Worse, most temporary weight loss plans encourage rapid weight loss that ultimately destroys muscle and lowers your metabolism. This makes future attempts at weight loss even more difficult and may result in a net weight gain, once you have fallen off the bandwagon. In other words, you achieve the opposite of your goal.
The Maintenance Illusion
Deep down you probably know all this. Yet still we love to rationalize this behavior by telling ourselves that once we lose the weight, then we will switch to a healthier diet. We tend to associate “healthy diets” with weight maintenance, and we keep this idea in the back of our brains for the mythical time when we finally achieve our perfect, ideal bodies. But this strategy is backwards.
Habit
To lose weight and keep it off, to prevent chronic diseases and stay fit and active into old age, we need to permanently change our daily eating habits. We must learn to make healthier choices and gradually shift our behaviors to those of a healthy, thin person.
To change our bodies we must change our habits. And habits are created in our minds. We need to stop thinking of dieting as a way to achieve permanent weight loss. Instead we need a term that emphasizes our set of personal habits we adopt for long-term good health.
Healthstyle
This is the word I am choosing to describe the healthy habits that fit our own individual styles. One of the wonderful things about health and weight loss is that there are countless ways to get there. And what works for someone may not work for you. Healthstyle is your customized path to health that suits your personal tastes and lifestyle. Most importantly, Healthstyle emphasizes habits and long-term health, not painful diets and temporary weight loss.
By Darya Rose
Mind-body medicine is on the verge of transforming modern healthcare. During the last thirty years, scientists have begun to explore the interconnections between mind and body and how these are linked to our innate healing capabilities. As this evolution takes place, mind-body modalities will secure their place among the many complementary-alternative therapies that can be effective for health maintenance and healing.
Using the power of suggestion and trance states, hypnosis delves into the deepest levels of the mind. The result: the improved behavioral habits and treatment of a wide variety of health conditions. Today, close to fifteen thousand doctors combine hypnotherapy with standard medical treatments. It is estimated that 94 percent of patients benefit from hypnotherapy, even if it is only linked to improved relaxation.
Hypnosis can benefit many psychological and physical disorders including habit control (behavior modification for nail-biting, smoking, stuttering), weight management (reprogramming eating habits), pain control (e.g., back pain, arthritis, chronic pain, migraine), stress and anxiety reduction (reduce stress and help put life events in perspective), phobia elimination (e.g., reduce common fears), creativity (remove blocked potential), goal-setting (set and achieve attainable goals), sleep improvement (improve sleep onset and sound sleep), and motivation (increase confidence). In addition, it is often used for numerous other health conditions including gastrointestinal problems, respiratory conditions, anxiety, and some dental-related problems such as anxiety or as part of a pain-management protocol.
Early Hypnosis References to hypnosis have existed for thousands of years. Ancient literature, mythology, and scriptural writings contain mention of consciousness and crude forms of hypnosis. From the scientific perspective, early reference of altered states and the influence of magnetic fields dates back to the time of Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) and later, to Swiss mesmerist Charles Lafontaine and Austrian theorist, Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer (1733 -1815).
However, the title, “Father of Hypnosis,” belongs to English physician, Dr. James Braid, MRCS (1795-1860). Although hypnosis was initially rejected by medical authorities, Braid eventually made it a respectable medical practice. Braid’s successful findings eventually attracted the attention of Sigmund Freud, and C.J. Jung, both of whom briefly explored its uses as a therapeutic tool.
Modern Hypnosis In 1933, Clark Hull (1884-1952) helped move hypnosis into the realm of psychology. In 1955, the British Medical Society officially recognized hypnosis as a legitimate medical procedure, and in 1958, the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association followed suit.
With the progress and acceptance came the influence of American psychiatrist, Milton H. Erikson (1901-1980). Erikson believed that we all have the resources necessary for change within us. It is the hypnotherapist that helps the client to awaken these latent potentials by providing the client with options. As a result of this perspective, many professionals consider hypnosis the induction (application) of a naturally occurring trance state.
Hypnosis versus hypnotherapy Having treated more than 30,000 patients with hypnosis, Erikson sought to distinguish the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy is seen as the process that follows hypnosis. Therefore, many hypnotists are not hypnotherapists. Training in mental health makes the distinction between the two types of professionals. Stage hypnosis, which is performed for entertainment purposes, is neither therapeutic hypnosis nor hypnotherapy.
Clients may experience hypnosis differently, depending on technique and the clients’ personal psychologies. Some people experience intense awareness, others profound relaxation. The instructional words of the hypnotist may be clear, but at other times barely audible. For some individuals, the hypnotist’s voice may seem to fade in and out. Eriksonian work indicated that the client is always free to alter the hypnotic experience and come out of trance at will.
The Practice of Hypnosis One major benefit of hypnosis is that it can provide results in a relatively short period of time. As compared to psychoanalysis and behavioral therapy, hypnosis is a shorter form of therapy that can be highly effective for a number of problems.
In hypnosis, the practitioner is the facilitator. He or she assists the client to reach a state of hypnosis. Five conditions are vital for successful hypnosis. They are:
- a trained hypnotist
- rapport between the hypnotist and subject
- a comfortable environment that is free of distraction
- a willingness of the client to be hypnotized
- the client’s motivation to overcome the problem for which he is seeking assistance
The practitioner’s role is to act as a guide, helping the client make personal changes. The hypnotist encourages imagination since mental imagery assists the client in bringing about the positive changes he or she is seeking. For example, an overweight person with poor eating habits may visualize herself going through the process of making healthier dietary and lifestyle choices, and finally, seeing her desired result and achieving her goal—better health, improved vitality, and a slim, toned body. This process can expand the client’s awareness and ultimately, reprogram her habits from negative to positive. In more therapeutic settings, hypnosis can be used to understand underlying motivations or to identify past events or experiences that may be connected to current problems. Part of the session may also include posthypnotic suggestions to help the client make ongoing successful changes.
Generally, a hypnosis session will last from one hour to ninety minutes. The number of sessions required will usually range from six-to-twelve sessions, once a week. However, this may vary according to each client. An individual can also be taught methods of self-hypnosis. In either case, hypnosis is a learned skill.
Common Areas of Concern Many fears and false notions exist about hypnosis. The image perpetuated by the media is that the hypnotist has some mysterious knowledge. This is not true. Hypnosis is not a magical or secret phenomenon. It is simply a skill the client learns. As a state of relaxation and concentration, it allows the subconscious mind to be more readily accessible. By developing hypnotic ability and with the help of a trained hypnotherapist, individuals can experience improved states of inner awareness and greater self-mastery.
Surprisingly, we have all experienced spontaneous hypnotic-like trances. If you’ve ever experienced daydreaming, staring into a flickering fire with your thoughts a thousand miles away, or becoming so absorbed in reading or watching TV that you fail to notice everything around you, you have experienced a hypnotic-like trance. A simple example of our human suggestibility is the success of television advertising. When we’re in an actual hypnotic trance, we can be even more suggestible.
The vast majority of people who engage in formal hypnosis remember everything that occurs. They know what is being said and what is happening. They can hear the telephone ring and background noise and activity. And they know they can come out of hypnosis. Contrary to some beliefs, only a very small number of people experience amnesia. Although this could occur with very deep states of hypnosis, most hypnosis is done at a lesser-depth trance, where people tend to fully remember everything.
Special Precautions Many conditions treatable by conventional means can also be managed with hypnosis, but it is not a cure-all. Although hypnosis is generally a safe practice when used by a qualified practitioner, caution must be applied in its use.
If an individual has a medical or psychiatric condition, a physician should first be consulted to determine if hypnosis is an option. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hypnosis should not be performed on patients with psychoses, organic psychiatric conditions, or antisocial personality disorders.
Many patients may also be poor candidates for hypnosis due to the type and severity of their condition. In many, the individuals may be unable to reach the proper depth for the posthypnotic suggestions to be effective.
Training and Credentials In most states, hypnosis and hypnotherapy are not licensed professions. However, several types of trained hypnosis professionals do exist throughout the country. Lay hypnotists are people trained in hypnosis. They may hold a certification, but lack psychological or healthcare training. In contrast, clinical hypnotists and hypnotherapists generally have hypnosis training, hypnosis/hypnotherapy certification and graduate level education or higher in either a mental health field or medicine.
By: Joan Friedrich
