Health & Wellbeing

How To Lose Weight Through NLP

If you're trying to lose weight you'll know how difficult it can be to stay motivated to stick to your diet and keep exercising. We've teamed up with NLP expert Andy Austin to show you how to use neuro linguistic programming to change the way you think about food and exercise, and then give you some simple practical tips to make the most out of your new-found will power . Enlarge

How To Lose Weight Through NLP

If you're trying to lose weight you'll know how difficult it can be to stay motivated to stick to your diet and keep exercising. We've teamed up with NLP expert Andy Austin to show you how to use neuro linguistic programming to change the way you think about food and exercise, and then give you some simple practical tips to make the most out of your new-found will power .

Step 1: Change the way you think about food

NLP can help reduce your appetite by making you understand the triggers that make you eat. The average person's appetite and cravings for food are caused by two unconscious programmes:

Firstly, when you pair eating with any other behaviour, the other behaviour will trigger cravings for food. This is called a conditioned response. For example, if you eat when you watch TV, you will automatically feel hungry each time you sit down to watch TV.

The other trigger is tension. When you feel anxious, you feel compelled to put something into your mouth for relaxation. This is the result of programming that you received as an infant. When you got cranky, your mum put a bottle in your mouth. .

Change these triggers by creating a picture of these times when you snack in your mind. Once you have done this, before you reach for a snack ask yourself what you want to do instead. This might be drinking a glass of water or going for a walk.

Now imagine seeing yourself, dissociated, doing this activity. Make this image of your future self so that it is compelling to you then bring it slowly over the top of
the picture of you wanting to snack.

Step 2: Change the way you think about exercise

Exercise is a key factor in losing weight - and it gets a lot easier to exercise if you enjoy the physical activity. Start by thinking of the various times in your life when you felt motivated and eager to do something physical, whether it was dancing at a wedding, or playing sport as a kid. As you create this mental image, your unconscious mind will connect the feeling of excitement and eagerness to the thought of exercising. And then get out there and exercise!

Step 3: Put it into exercise

So, you have made the decision to lose weight and used NLP to change the way you think about food and exercise. Next you need to write down your goals. Make them realistic then pin them to your fridge so you can't forget them. Get support from your friends or family - tell them what you're trying to do and see if you can talk them into trying to lose weight too.