Holistic weight loss: Hypnosis helps

Swimming with your kids, but not going into the pool because you are ashamed of your body. Not nice at all and all the more reason to take a look at holistic weight loss, so you do get to enjoy time with your child to the fullest without worrying about how you look.

With holistic weight loss, you go beyond just counting calories or exercising more to slim down. You look more at the bigger picture to help yourself lose weight.

So what does the bigger picture mean?

You also look at the mind and soul to help you lose weight. This includes looking at your mental health and getting a better connection with yourself, such as the connection between body and mind, to feel better.

Mindfulness for holistic weight loss

For example, mindfulness can be very important in holistic weight loss. In fact, through mindfulness, you can become much more aware of how food affects you.

For example, an acquaintance of mine once ate a salty cookie when she normally doesn't, immediately afterwards she felt restless and uncanny. This feeling she just went and cleaned herself off.

But while cleaning, she pondered, "Is this really because of that manufactured cookie? Are all those plastics having this effect on my mental health? That I feel weird right away?"

After all, if you're not as in touch with your body, you can completely overlook the influence food has on your mental state. If you do notice that influence, it makes it much easier to leave unhealthy (fattening) foods out of the equation in the future.

After all, you don't want that unpleasant feeling anymore.

Enhancing mindfulness with hypnosis

As a hypnotherapist, you can help people have that mindfulness. For example, you can use exercises to find out if the person has ever noticed that eating unhealthy foods actually made him or her feel worse. In fact, it may very well be that the person was not aware of it at the time, but the subconscious stores an awful lot of information.

With the regression technique, for example, you can help people bring out that information and make new connections in the brain. This then helps people be more aware of the negative impact of certain foods on their mental health, making it easier for them to abandon them.

In the process, with smart post-hypnotic suggestions, you can also help clients become more observant about the influence of food and what it does to them. So that the positive and negative effects are clearer and people can more easily make good choices that help them lose weight.

Holistic Nutrition

Slimming can be done in many ways and there are all kinds of diets, but with holistic nutrition it is important to eat foods that help your body and mind move forward.

There are also those who feel that if you do take a holistic approach to nutrition, you can also look at the impact of certain foods on the environment.

For example, many people become vegan because they believe it is better for the environment than eating meat. I once heard from an acquaintance that as far as meat is concerned, the best thing for the environment is to eat chicken and leave other meat out. Because we can make protein from the meat of chicken better than from plants. A chicken eats less than we would eat plant to make protein from it, than if we eat chicken to make protein from it.

Soy, for example, is again not good for the environment[1].

Many fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders also swear by chicken for their health.

But back again to holism for yourself. For example, if you want to lose weight, but you may also have other problems, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, then it is good to adjust your diet accordingly[2].

In that case, for example, you will start eating fewer fast carbs or salt.

Perhaps you have trouble sleeping? If so, you can pay attention to magnesium in foods to promote relaxation. Or take chamomile tea before bed.

So you're not just looking at weight loss for your nutrition, but also any other things you want to improve and can then explore the extent to which nutrition can play a role in that.

Being able to eat anything through hypnosis

Now this is often easier said than done, because what if you don't like vegetables? Or if you're just addicted to chocolate?

Then nutrition in a holistic way is sometimes a bit tricky. The good news is that hypnosis can also be used to change your perception of taste.

In healthcare, this technique is also used to help children take medications they don't like.

A hypnotherapist helps people find food "tastier" with visualizations that also address smell and taste.

In addition, a hypnotherapist can help people shift their focus from foods they should eat less of, to foods they should eat more of.

For example, a green smoothie can also be very tasty and refreshing.

Also, the suggestion, "I'll postpone eating this cake," can help people take sugary foods only on cheat day.

Holistically looking at movement

Then, of course, you have exercise which helps you lose weight. Again, you can look at this in a holistic way. You can feel, when do I need exercise and when do I need relaxation?

Exercise can be used for more than just burning calories. It can make you stronger, more flexible and mentally healthier.

Research shows that a holistic view of exercise helps people get active again. This not only helps with people's fitness, but is also good for people's self-confidence and sense of "I can do this"[3].

So when you get started with exercise, look at what you want to achieve with it.

Want to not only lose weight, but also feel better? Then walking in nature can be good for you. This also helps you reduce stress [4]. The nice thing is that you have beautiful walking routes in natural areas all over the Netherlands. Fun to do on the weekend!

Want to be able to think better? Funnily enough, that's when strength training comes in handy. This helps you to perform (brain) tasks better and can even reduce white brain cell atrophy (death of white brain cells). Researchers now actually also want more research on strength training and what it does against Alzheimer's or dementia [5].

So exercise is good for much more than just losing weight and experiencing the positive effects of it.

So you can look at things other than weight loss and what forms of exercise help you do this. For example, some people combine walking with pilates (kind of strength training) or yoga.

I myself really like crossfit, which combines strength training with cardio because you are so intense with it. It feels great to see yourself getting stronger or staying strong (I'm getting older, so at some point keeping your strength is the goal).

Meanwhile, as with nutrition, you can also look at your choices and the effect on the environment. For example, a normal bicycle puts less strain on the environment than an electric bike, and normal cycling can feel more holistic as a result.

Nice exercise through hypnosis

There can be all kinds of reasons why you are not moving holistically or too little right now. Motivation is one of the complaints you often hear.

You may also suffer from pain that makes you prefer not to move, or even makes you unable to do certain movements at all.

In either case, hypnotherapy can help people.

The case of pain is perhaps the most interesting, as exercise is also often seen as the solution to chronic pain (such as in the back). Hypnotherapy can help people reduce pain in a variety of situations[6], making it easier to exercise anyway.

Consider, for example, pain relief if you have fibromyalgia.

Holistically looking at your body

We have now been mostly concerned with ways to approach losing weight in a more holistic way, but perhaps you can also look at your body in a holistic way.

Your body is more than a thing that is fat or thin.

It is the tool you use to move through the world and what is with you all your life.

A simple exercise that any hypnotherapist can recommend for self-compassion and a better connection and holistic view of your body is a gratitude exercise.

For example, you can make a list of all the things you are grateful to your body for.

For example:

I am grateful for my body