More calories with your caffeine madam?

Do you wrestle with food choices and weight issues? If so, the sad reality is that you are far from being alone in this struggle.

In my hypnotherapy practice in Wimbledon, I see many clients for whom this is a significant problem. For a lot of those seeking help to manage their weight, they have been using food to alter their mood or to feel better about something’ if only for a short time.

Emotional eating or self-medicating with food or drink is nothing new of course, but modern marketing methods definitely don’t help. Only yesterday on a BBC news programme, the problem of retailers and restaurateurs ‘upselling’ calorific foodstuffs was featured. Upselling is the practice of offering bigger portions of food or drink or sweet treats such as cookies or cakes when customers are ordering or paying. Unsurprisingly some companies, who are involved in this profit-boosting exercise, speak of personal choice. I agree individuals are responsible for their own decisions and the consequences of those decisions, but being prompted to buy a muffin (472 calories)* or a cookie (389 calories)* when you simply wanted a coffee (latte with whole milk, 299 calories), makes it all too easy.

The constant search for a solution that can be purchased, either in the form of a diet plan, a slimming club membership or a course of therapy, is exhausting and expensive. Most clients wanting to change their relationship with food try hypnotherapy after they have tried everything else. This is a great shame as it is often effective when other approaches have proved to be unsuccessful for a client.
Hypnotherapy can help to resolve some of the underlying issues that lead to self-soothing with food. As hypnotherapy works by harnessing the power (and co-operation) of the unconscious mind, it has a lot of advantages over deprivation diets. These restrictive diets often fail when stress or life challenges result in the individual  ‘falling off the wagon’.

Food often serves a purpose that is unrelated to nutritional sustenance. The type of food chosen when an individual is stressed, upset, angry or lonely will give a big clue to the person’s eating issues. Food is not a friend and neither is it an enemy, it is just food. And food is fuel.

If you are using food for comfort or to fill a gap in your life, (rather than your belly) why not get in touch. Hypnotherapy is a pleasant and effective therapy which might change your life as well as your waistline!

*STARBUCKS ® Autumn 2017 Beverage Nutrition Information*