OK, it’s that time of year again. Although actually, it seems that any time of year is a time of year to screen programmes about how to diet.

My Big Fat Diet Show is Channel 4’s latest offering and I have to say that, rather than annoy my partner by shouting at the TV, I did just switch it off after about ten minutes. But ten minutes was more than enough.

The show is described by the programme-makers as an “interactive diet along” hosted by Supersize versus Superskinny presenter and “serial dieter” Anna Richardson.

Well, that’s a good start then, isn’t it. Someone who describes themselves as ‘a serial dieter’ surely isn’t the best person to show people how to be the weight and shape they want to be permanently? Or am I missing something?

There’s more. Richardson is accompanied by six “diet divas”, a group of women who will be dieting along with her.

So, hey, now you can be a diva of the diet, girls. Whoo-hoo. What fun. Let’s all go on one together. It’lll be such fun. (Sorry. I will do my best to keep my sarcasm at bay.)

Over the next two weeks, these women will ‘try to drop a dress size’ (don’t even get me started on ‘trying’ to do something versus just doing it) and, by eating a 1200-calories-a-day diet, they will lose weight. At the end of the two weeks, they will introduce more calories. It’s safe, easy and it’s a great TV show. Ta-da.

Over at Channel 4’s promotional web site for the programme Anna Richardson tells us more about why she describes herself as a ’serial dieter:’
She says:

‘I’ve just done three series of Supersize vs Superskinny, and in series one, my job was to investigate and immerse myself in the world of extreme diets. So I started off that series back in 2007 at 11 and a half stone. Every week for eight weeks, I had to try a different approach. So week one, I had to try the apple diet, week two I tried diet pills, week three I tried surgery. I tried everything going. Over the course of about a year and a half, I successfully lost two stone. I have, over the years, tried every single diet going, and for the first time in 20 years, I have found my own way of eating, that has made me really quite a successful dieter.’

Now, pardon me, but if I am not mistaken, in the course of her investigations for Supersize, Richardson discovered that hypnotherapy was actually the single most helpful method that she used to change her eating habits. Oh, yes, here is my article on that very programme, right here.

Because in that programme, which aired in February 2008, Richardson worked with London-based hypnotherapist, Marisa Peer, to get some marvellous results. In fact, so highly did she recommend hypnotherapy as a means of letting go of unhelpful habits and emotions around food and eating that I had a deluge of phone calls after the programme aired.

So why, now, is Channel 4 churning out the same old boring nonsense about diets – when, in fact, we know from its very own programming that diets are not an effective way of losing wieght and that making changes to the way you think about food and practising, every day, a mindset of healthful eating is the very best way to help people to feel and look good? It seems cynical in the extreme.

Here are Anna’s final words on the subject, again from the programme web site:

‘But 1200 calories doesn’t sound like much. It’s okay to do that for two weeks?’

‘Yes, it’s absolutely safe to do that for two weeks. It’s meant to be a kick-start. You can safely lose a few pounds in that time. After that, yes, of course you increase your calories, but you do it in a healthy way.’

Ahem. Excuse me?

The thing that most people I work with know how to do is to go on a diet for a couple of weeks/months/years and then come off the diet and struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. Of course, you will lose weight if you follow a very rigid restricted eating plan and do some exercise, but few people can hope to maintain that plan for very long. And it’s certainly not a very healthy or enjoyable thing to be doing with your precious life.

Why not give people some information they don’t yet know? Why not give them something new? Why not give people the benefits of your own investigations into healthy ways to lose weight by working with a hypnotherapist to help people to understand how to get a powerfully healthy, happy, focused mindset, Channel 4?

Grrrr…

My advice: forget ‘diet-along.’ Instead, follow the celebs, who seem to have discovered what really works. Follow the example of Lily Allen and Sophie Dahl and work with an experienced hypnotherapist to make some permanent changes, healthy changes that you can maintain and enjoy.

If you want to drop a dress size, start with dropping the diet mentality and get yourself a new way of thinking.

Tags: diet, My Big Fat Diet Show, weight loss
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It’s a litte quiet on the news front in the world of hypnotherapy and hypnosis, right now. So rather than bringing you the usual highlights from the latest hypnosis research and stories, I thought I would write about something that is very close to my heart: how to have the weight and shape you want.

One of the most common reasons for people to choose to work with me is because they are fed up with diets that don’t work. I am very used to hearing the words, ‘Sophie, you are my last resort.’

And I completely understand that. Most people I have worked with have tried every celebrity diet, consulted nutritionists, read countless books, even bought very expensive supplements and generally imposed dull, boring ways of eating upon themselves in an attempt to shift the pounds. It is only after years of yo-yo dieting that they begin to realise, ‘Hang on a minute. I need to do something different here.’

And that’s where hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis comes in.

It’s the way that we think about food, eating and our bodies that changes everything. My You Can Have the Weight and Shape You Want programme is not a diet but simply a system of learning to use the power of your subconscious mind to enjoy the variety and flavour of healthy foods and regular exercise, but here is the interesting thing…

When I’m working with people, I often find that in the first week or so, they are so used to following diets and eating plans that they want me to tell them what to eat every day. Or they put themselves on a self-imposed diet of eating quick convenience diet foods, those specially packaged products on the supermarket shelves, unsatisfying stuff with ingredients that are closer to cardboard and polystyrene than actual food. And then they find themselves feeling hungry and longing for a chocolate bar.

Are you on a self-imposed diet?
I think we are all so used to reading about and hearing about the latest diet – and the food that is ‘naughty’ and that we must not allow ourselves to eat – that we think that diets and self-deprivation are the way to lose weight successfully and permanently. It makes me so cross to flick through a magazine in a waiting room or walk past a news stand and see all the hypnotic images of this ‘hot diet’ or that ‘bikini body plan.’ Grrrr…

And, of course, much of this is sandwiched between airbrushed images of models who actually don’t look like that in real life. More grrrrr… Was it Cindy Crawford, one of the ’80s supermodels, who once said, ‘It takes five people and a photographer to make me look like this. I don’t get out of bed looking this way.’ She felt it was important that women knew that.

You may have guessed that I feel passionately about this subject. In my teenage years and early 20s, I struggled terribly with my body-image. I remember a particular ‘light-bulb’ moment when I realised that I was never going to look like Cindy Crawford in the pages of Marie Claire. Why? Well, for a start, because she is over 6′ tall and I am just about 5′ 3″. Almost. If I stand up straight.  8-)  And that was a liberating realisation for me.

Love your body… yes, really…

From that point on, I have been gradually learning how to love my body for all its little foibles and fluctuations. You know, holding an imaginary gun to my head and screaming at myself, ‘Do not eat that chocolate’ wasn’t really very motivating. And it certainly wasn’t much fun.

This is celebrity bikini-shot season. Please, please, women everywhere, I urge you to be kind to yourself. And men. These days, there seems to be a little more pressure on men too. Although, if you are a man, you can always choose to aspire to models of successful men such as Michael McIntryre rather than Brad Pitt, of course. There seems to be a somewhat wider range…

Your brain

How we think about our own bodies and other people’s bodies and how we think about ourselves is so bound up in our ability to choose and really enjoy healthy, nourishing food and exercise. Our brains are the most important element of healthy eating.

Here is a celebrity story that I came across on the ‘Now!’ magazine web site. It’s the story of ex-EastEnders star, Natalie  Cassidy, who has dropped from a size 16 to a very healthy and toned size 8.

You have to look carefully for the key message of the story. It is hidden amongst the adverts for slimming supplements and pics of ‘celebrity bodies.’ But the message is simple and clear.

How did Natalie lose the weight? She says:

‘I changed everything. It was more about exercise than diet. I cut out rubbish. I cut down on alcohol, too – even though I love white wine – and laid off savoury stuff. Cheese, crisps and dips were my downfall… Over the years I’d dabbled with exercise, but I’d never stuck to anything. I hate being all red-faced and sweaty in the gym, so I always preferred to do DVDs at home.’

Ah. But here’s the thing. I can’t help wondering how many people have bought Natalie’s best-selling fitness DVD and are now feeling like failures because it is still lying in a drawer?

Natalie’s key message seems to be: Eat healthily and do regular exercise consistently… in your way, a way that you feel comfortable with. Which may not be a DVD. It might be walking, running, the gym, horse riding, rebounding. But the important thing is to do something.

Stories like Natalie’s are inspiring and might compel you to begin to do something differently in your own life. But I think it is so important to do it in your way. The way that is right for you. And you may need some support to make that happen.

The only ‘rule’ that matters
It’s time to roll out my all-time favourite concept from NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming): ‘There is no failure. Only feedback.’

Stop beating yourself up for what you haven’t done, or didn’t do ‘right,’ for falling ‘off the wagon’ or ‘letting yourself down.’ Think about what you have learned from your experiences and from what didn’t work for you so that you can use that feedback to do things differently in the future.

There is only one way to achieve the weight and shape you want. Your way. And that’s the way that works best for you. If you don’t know what that is, maybe it’s time to chuck out the celebrity diet books and the diet ‘rules’ and begin to find out?

Tags: celebrity diets, hypnosis, weight loss
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