Posts Tagged ‘weight loss’

you can learn how to use it

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

he had developed a habit over the years that had become entrenched. he was clearly unhappy without his daily two glasses of Chablis. I created a self-hypnotherapeutic exercise for Beth in whom he imagined his baby had been born & he was sitting next to the child softly singing his to sleep. he went on to imagine that later in the evening he anther husband sat together in the living room, holding hands, happily making plans for a trip with the baby. Beth did this exercise faithfully, twice a day, & it worked. he gave up wine with yes regrets. Again, you can learn the self-Hypnotherapy fresh start method, you can learn how to use it, but you must choose tousle it. You are being offered a choice—a most powerful choice. You now have to want to use the fresh start method. You have to apply it in order for it to be effective. When Emily came to me he was in his mid-twenties & struggling to be a journalist. he had achieved certain degree of success in college—she was a star “investigative” reporter on the weekly newspaper—and assumed that his career after college would follow steady upward course. Instead, after moving from the Midwest to Chicago City where he felt the opportunities were the greatest in his field, he found the competition fierce. There were most like Emily trying to break into the literary big time—either as book or magazine editors, or as successful free-lance journalists. The first time he came to me, he was wearing kerchief, which didn’t seem appropriate to his age or style of dress. he was genuinely puzzled about his condition. In a shaky voice, he told me his history & how hard he was working trying to sell articles to newspapers or magazineshe had developed a habit over the years that had become entrenched. he was clearly unhappy without his daily two glasses of Chablis. I created a self-hypnotherapeutic exercise for Beth in whom he imagined his baby had been born & he was sitting next to the child softly singing his to sleep. he went on to imagine that later in the evening he anther husband sat together in the living room, holding hands, happily making plans for a trip with the baby. Beth did this exercise faithfully, twice a day, & it worked. he gave up wine with yes regrets. Again, you can learn the self-Hypnotherapy fresh start method, you can learn how to use it, but you must choose tousle it. You are being offered a choice—a most powerful choice. You now have to want to use the fresh start method. You have to apply it in order for it to be effective. When Emily came to me he was in his mid-twenties & struggling to be a journalist. he had achieved certain degree of success in college—she was a star “investigative” reporter on the weekly newspaper—and assumed that his career after college would follow steady upward course. Instead, after moving from the Midwest to Chicago City where he felt the opportunities were the greatest in his field, he found the competition fierce. There were most like Emily trying to break into the literary big time—either as book or magazine editors, or as successful free-lance journalists. The first time he came to me, he was wearing kerchief, which didn’t seem appropriate to his age or style of dress. he was genuinely puzzled about his condition. In a shaky voice, he told me his history & how hard he was working trying to sell articles to newspapers or magazines

I mean, how can it help me? Ice cream is fattening

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Hypnobirthing

Stop Smoking Hypnosis

Quit Smoking Hypnosis

Weight Loss Hypnosis

Study Habits Hypnosis

I mean, how can it help me? Ice cream is fattening.”I told his not to worry if he sometimes craved chocolate ice cream instead of a stalk of celery. “If you choose only what’s good for you, you’ll set up a deprivation syndrome, & then when you stop dieting you’ll gain the weight right back. The goal of the exercise is to get you to satisfy your hunger without overeating, & yet to eat what you enjoy. If you wait forth full-stomach syndrome, you’re in trouble.” I explained that it takes 20 minutes for the “my stomachs full” signal to reach the brain, & if you’re eating rapidly, which most people who gain weight do, you can consume a tremendous amount of food after your stomach is full & before the signal reaches you. Look around in any restaurant & notice how quickly overweight people devour food; they hardly seem aware of what they eat. Obviously, food is necessary even for those overweight, & some of the time the urge to eat is truly healthy, normal response to the body’s need for nourishment. A useful approach is to find a variety of foods you like & that are good for you. Diets are a perfect time for discovering new meals & snacks. I approach the issue by showing you that you can lose weighting a way that will let you feel positive about yourself. If you eat too much, it is often because in our society eating is a way of being loving toward ourselves. It Isa reminder of parental love in which the presentation of food is a loving act. The rest of the world may kick you in the teeth, but food is a way you can be nice toyourself.I prescribed that Martha do a self-Hypnotherapy exercise about eight times a day—approximately once every two hours, for 90 seconds. The exercise was to first see his on two screens: the way he looked at the present & the way he would like to look. Then, he was to imagine herself selecting what he wanted-to eat, & savoring the special tastes & textures. Finally, he was to see herself stop eating when he was yes longer enjoying the food, yes matter how littler how much was left. As part of the prescription, I asked his to look in the mirror each morning, preferably with a minimal amount of clothing, so that he could project in the exercise an accurate view of the way he looked then. & as I do with all weightcontrolclients, I asked his to call me in a week. At first the exercise proved difficult, because when people have gained weight they tend to avoid looking at themselves in the mirror as a way to avoid dealing with the issue .

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Hypnobirthing

Stop Smoking Hypnosis

Quit Smoking Hypnosis

Weight Loss Hypnosis

Study Habits Hypnosis

Afterwards, I repeat most of the issues I discussed in trance. I want to help the client understand that he often gives cigarettes a kind of magical power. Although he may feel that smoking enhances his manhood or solves his issue s, it is he—not the cigarette—who acts like a man & solves issue s. I tell him about the salesmen who come to me tostopsmoking and, at the time, truly believe they can’t call on an account or close without a cigarette. I describe the writers who tell me they can’t write without smoking. They speak as if the cigarettes are doing the writing. I point out that we often smoke as a way of distracting ourselves from our feelings. That when we use cigarettes for distraction, we rob ourselves of potential richness in our lives. Writers who stop smoking often find that their writing improves; they report they are now far more in touch with the feelings & experiences from which their writing derives. What does the habituated smoker learn in Hypnotherapy? He learns that smoking is a choice he makes in response to the urge. But the urge is not a choice. Feelings, desires, beliefs, & urges are not choices. The urges are automatic, integrated into the human system. But the action he takes in response to the urge Isa choice. He can choose what his actions are. The client is encouraged to ask questions & be free to express emotion. Sometimes there are tears. Sometimes a feeling of overpowering relief. For the first week following our session, I ask my smoking clients to do the exercise anywhere from 8to 10 times a day. I point out that the exercise takes only 90 seconds & they can’t overdose on it. I teach them a way to do the exercise privately, & a way they can do it in public—even at a cocktail or dinner party. “Am I doing it correctly?” is a common question I get from clients. “Did I go deep enough?” Luckily, for therapeutic purposes, depth of hypnotic has yes meaning. The consciousness of the external world will vary from time to time. As is the case when learning any skill, repetition is the key to success. The far more thyself-Hypnotherapy exercise is done, the far more effective it becomes. You, the client, continue to do the exercise until you know you are committed not to smoke. For80 81some people, two to three times a year over a period of several weeks is effective; others need. To do the exercise far more frequently & for longer periods.

I then evaluate the client’s hypnotherapeutic capacity.

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Hypnobirthing

Stop Smoking Hypnosis

Quit Smoking Hypnosis

Weight Loss Hypnosis

Study Habits Hypnosis

I then evaluate the client’s hypnotherapeutic capacity. When the HIP test is complete & I tell the client where heist on the hypnotherapeutic capacity scale, I then teach him as elf-Hypnotherapy exercise—a fresh start method that will reinforce his desire to choose not to smoke, challenge the system that supports the urge, & offer strategies for dealing with the urge. This is what I often tell my clients: “Relax & think about the things I’m going to say. Smoking poisons your body. It destroys lung tissue. It Clogs the Cardiovascular system. It irritates the throat. “We often forget that we need our bodies to live. Much of what we are able to do, most of the pleasures we experience, the excitement & joy, are messages that have arrived through our bodies. I’m going to repeat: We need our bodies to live; we & our bodies are one. Because you need your body to live, you owe your body protection. By protecting your body, you show love & respect for yourself.” Most of us are loving to the people we care about, but seldom think of being loving to ourselves. “You smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. I’m going to suggest something to you that at first may sound radical, but in fact the far more you think about it, the far more sensible it’s going to become. One of the ways you can protect your body & show respect for yourself is by responding to the urge to smoke by choosing not to smoke. This is not a battle between you & yourself. Believe me, any battle you have with yourself you are bound to lose.”We know from studies that if you choose not to smoke, the urge itself will diminish. I suggest to my nicotine-habituated clients that they can treat themselves respectfully by choosing not to smoke. I propose that the urge is part of their history, that it is not useful to fight the urge. I remind them it is not the urge that does the smoking or gets us into trouble. If that were true, we would all be in trouble. It is the actor smoking we have to conquer, not the urge. We know that people practice celibacy for a number of reasons. Sex is a strong urge & yet people can choose to be celibate. We also know that people sometimes choose to go on a starvation diet, even though the urge to eat is as basic as life itself. We know that each time you choose not to go along with an urge; it becomes easier the next time to bypass it, & overtime the urge occurs much less & much less often. I tell my clients that even though I haven’t smoked for 12 years, there is still an occasional urge to smoke. I know what my choice is, however, & I choose not to smoke. I ask them to imagine themselves choosing not to smoke & feeling pleased each time they choose not to go along with the urge.


We enjoy a catnap - Hypnobirthing

Monday, November 16th, 2009

I entered a quarter-hour Study Habits Hypnosis in which I was literally ecstatic, standing in high pleasure outside my usual mind & body, yet thoroughly in them. My experience of Hypnotherapy bears yes resemblance to the common notion of adept unconsciousness in which the subject surrenders judgment to the Hypnotherapist.

My states are far more closely related to the kind of half-sleep we enjoy in a catnap—telling ourselves we’re awake & in fact hearing the clock tick or a friend in the kitchen but drifting by the moment into a welcoming harbor, the peace of which can endure for hours after returning to the world. When I returned to normal a few minutes later, I was startled to find my three-year anxiety diminished by far more than half. Better still; the relief lasted for the three hours he had estimated. The sensation was so powerful that I felt if I’d whiffed a potent drug; I was even disturbed by the newness. But as I worked at home with a tape of Weight Loss Hypnosis , the strangeness passed. & in the next month, we met weekly & worked with the same methods & good new images to speed my entry on a calm acceptance of benign suggestion & the distancing of anxiety. Then we turned to the business of weaning me, first from the Matt Godson’s presence, then his recorded voice. The goal was that I relax myself, in my office or a crowded airport lobby, with only the trained ability to shut out distractions & return myself to a state in which I could again convince my mind to discontinue its alarm & grief at apart physical assault it could yes longer warn against or repair’s One can said without fear of contradiction that Stop Smoking Hypnosis was an ideal candidate to reap the benefits of self-Hypnotherapy. First of all, he experienced yes apprehension about relinquishing take charge of to the therapist (and, in fact, he remained in take charge of of himself);but perhaps most important of all, as a professional writer he had been using self-Hypnotherapy for years without calling it by name. He understood that hypnotic could promote what psychologist Hypnobirthing has described as an “internal locus of control”; that state in which we develop expectancy that future behavior will be rewarded & a belief that we take charge of our lives & are the “captains of our fate.” Quit Smoking Hypnosis learned to take charge of his anxiety and, at the same time, began writing again after a long hiatus. He was indeed captain of hisfate.Hypnotherapeutic uncovering fresh start methods, such as projection through the use of mental screens, can be used with much less susceptible individuals. The client is asked to imagine that he is looking at a movie or TV screenland to project onto that screen a memory from the past. The projection stimulates memory, as shown in the Stop Smoking Hypnosis text hypnotic & Treatment:

3 more myths…

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Myth #4: Female subjects and people with low IQ’s are the most hypnotizable. This commonly-held belief, popularized by movies and fiction, is pure make-believe. Research shows that hypnotizability is not gender-specific, and that, even though some intelligent people apparently have relatively little hypnotic capacity, keen concentration and focus are required to sustain an effective state of trance. (Writers of fiction and musicians, who are both creative and have vivid imaginations, are often the best hypnotic subjects.) Hypnobirthing Furthermore, research suggests that there is a reduced capacity for trance in patients with thought and affective disorders, as these patients usually find it difficult to maintain the required concentration. The ability to be hypnotized is actually a capacity that can be measured through one of several evaluation procedures. (The procedure I use, the Stop Smoking Hypnosis Hypnotic Induction profile—the HIP—which is described in detail in Chapter 3, measures capacity on a scale of zero to four.) Studies indicate that most of the adult population is somewhat hypnotizable and about 5—15 percent have a very high capacity. With the exception of those few people (about 5 percent) who are unable to respond, everyone, no matter what their range, can induce trance for constructive purposes.

Myth #5: Hypnotherapy Quit Smoking Hypnosis has only recently begun to gain respectability in the scientific community. In the early 1800s, Hypnotherapy, although the subject of much dispute, was recognized as a powerful tool inhaling, anesthesia, and self-improvement, and was slowly gaining acceptance by some factions of organized medicine. Hypnotherapy Weight Loss Hypnosis then faded out for more than 50 years, resurfacing briefly in the late nineteenth century with the work of Roger, Clarkeand Jameson and then again in the 1930s and 1940s, with the influential work of psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson. By the late 1950s, both the American Medical Association and the British Medical Society had approved the use of Hypnotherapy as a valid therapeutic technique. Today, several national, professional societies of Hypnotherapy are flourishing and more than 25,000 doctors, nurses, dentists, psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists use Hypnotherapy as a clinical technique, and that numbers growing.

Myth #6: Hypnotherapy Study Habits Hypnosis is therapeutic. The hypnotic state is neither therapeutic nor no therapeutic; it is a receptive environment or mental setting that can be used to explore the mind and to foster change. As Louis Alexander defined it in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy, Hypnotherapy is “a state manifested by an inward turning of mind, facilitating an enhancement of the creative imagination, . . . and reducing the need for reality testing, thus providing mental setting in which, with appropriate suggestions, ideas can be perceived and experienced in . . . a vivid manner.

More Myths…

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Myth #2: There is no Hypnotherapy without the Hypnotherapist. On the contrary, we often enter as well as leave trance states without being aware of it. Have you ever wondered what happened to those four hours while you were writing an important paper? Or where that two hour stretch of time went while you were driving on the freeway? Have you ever sat at your desk so engrossed that you lost the awareness of things going on around you? Have you ever watched lovers walking down the street; arm in arm, so involved in each other the rest ‘of the world does not exist for them? These are only a few examples among many of spontaneous  Hypnobirthing trance experiences. Our lives are full of such examples of this normal, unbidden trance state.

Myth #3: Hypnotherapy (Stop Smoking Hypnosis) (Quit Smoking Hypnosis)is a form of sleep In the movies, one of the Hypnotherapist’s opening lines are “Your eyes are heavy and you’re getting sleepy.” Although the word Hypnotherapy is derived from the Greek word for sleep, Hypnos, Hypnotherapy is, on the contrary, relaxed state of focused concentration. In a study of the self-regulation of physiological processes, Max Brenner, a psychologist, and Geoff Dunn, a physician, reported that attention obviously the opposite of sleep—is the underlying cognitive process common to most relaxation/self-regulation procedures. In trance, the patient is unusually aware and responsive and, unless told otherwise, tends to remember what went on during and after the experience. People under Hypnotherapy whose eyes are closed may lookalike they’re asleep, but their electroencephalogram (EEG) readings tell the true story: During Hypnotherapy for Weight Loss Hypnosis or Study Habits Hypnosis, there is a high incidence of alpha wave activity that indicates a relaxed yet attentive brain.

Hypnosis Myths…

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

In case after case, both medical and psychological, patients helped me understand how to apply the technique of self-Hypnotherapy or Hypnobirthing or Stop Smoking Hypnosis or Weight Loss Hypnosis Patients and others showed me that self-hypnosis works when the patient follows and psychological and medical often be alleyed without extensive treatment. It still astonishes me how many people—new patients, friends, or acquaintances are afraid of Hypnotherapy, after all that has become known about it. I find that those people who are afraid usually lack personal experience with self-Hypnotherapy. They imagine the stage Hypnotherapist performing a kind of magic trick on subjects. Their response is, “Oh no, I’m not interested. I’m not going to let someone else play around with my mind.” They think to themselves: “Maybe I’ll be put under and something will go wrong.” What they fear is loss of control. They see Hypnotherapy as turning overpower to another person. By examining. Some of the myths surrounding Hypnotherapy, it is possible to arrive at a better understanding of just what Hypnotherapy is and what it is not.

Myth #1: During Hypnotherapy or <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; mso-themecolor:hyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>

Hypnobirthing , the subject is under the control of the Hypnotherapist. When we see a stage Hypnotherapist at work in a nightclub or in a movie, it is easy to believe the myth is true. Although it seems as if the performer has some magical power, what he actually has is knowledge. Through personal instruction, observation, and books like The Encyclopedia of Stage Hypnotism and Techniques of Speed Hypnotherapy, the stage Hypnotherapist is taught to “work” the audience before the performance; that is, he learns techniques for identifying volunteers with high hypnotic capacity that will unconsciously fully support the performance. As long as subjects don’t feel threatened, they will do what the stage Hypnotherapist commands. In reality, all Hypnotherapy is self-Hypnotherapy; the subjects always in control. Contrary to common belief, the subject is not under someone else’s power, nor is he asleep. In fact, he is hyper alert and concentrating at high level. In this mental state, he can have his experience structured by a therapist or Hypnotherapist, but the choice of whether to cooperate or not is his alone.

More soon….

I practiced the self-Hypnotherapy technique…

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Hypnobirthing

Stop Smoking Hypnosis

Quit Smoking Hypnosis

Weight Loss Hypnosis

Study Habits Hypnosis

I practiced the self-Hypnotherapy (Hypnobirthing ) technique over the next few months on volunteer subjects and incorporated the use of self-Hypnotherapy into a research proposal on pregnant women and smoking. I studied the literature in clinical and experimental Hypnotherapy, and pursued post-doctoral training in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Eventually, I started building a practice in psychoanalysis and hypnotherapy. Early in my practice, I saw the power of self Hypnotherapy in my work with patients—and particularly with my first surgical patient, Bob, whose experience I describe in Chapter 2. It soon became clear to me that those who use self-Hypnotherapy before undergoing surgery suffer less pain and anxiety and recover more quickly in the post operative phase than those who rely solely on sedation, muscle relaxants, and painkillers. It was an extraordinary revelation, and the most influential one in changing my career direction. Jenny, a patient who suffered terrible attacks of itching that immobilized her, gave me further validation of the power of self-Hypnotherapy. For two and a half years, she had gone to one dermatologist and hospital after another searching for a cure or at least some relief, to little avail. Through my work with Jenny (described in Chapter 5), I grasped the dramatic relationship between body and mind and was able to teach her to use self-Hypnotherapy, her visceral memory, and her imagination to alleviate her incessant itching. Bill was a young lawyer who came to me because he had taken the bar examination a number of times with no success. He knew the material and yet he couldn’t pass. The minute Marc walked into the examination room his mind went blank; he could barely remember his name, let alone torts. Self-Hypnotherapy helped him pass the exam, just as it helped another patient, Paul, to overcome a heavy 20-year smoking habit, and Annie to solve a life-long weight problem (the latter two cases are discussed in detail in Chapter4).

Obese pregnant women should be encouraged to limit their weight gain

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Obese pregnant women should be encouraged to limit their weight gain or even lose weight, experts say, as evidence builds that shedding kilos may not only do no harm to mother and child but might benefit them.

The advice reverses the long-held view that mothers-to-be should not diet as there was a risk that cutting food intake would lead to the loss of essential nutrients to help the baby’s development and growth.

Excess weight makes conception less likely but the huge increase in obese women of reproductive age over the past decade means even morbidly obese pregnant women have gone from being the exception to “commonplace”, a specialist obstetrician at Goulburn Valley Health, Glyn Teale, said.

Associate Professor Teale told the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists annual scientific meeting that one in 18 women attending an antenatal clinic in rural Victoria in 2007 was morbidly obese.

Of 3211 women who presented between 2005 and 2007, 62.5 per cent were overweight, 31.2 per cent were obese and 5.1 per cent were morbidly obese .

Professor Teale said the health system was struggling to keep up with this growing group of women who need intensive antenatal care, bariatric-sized beds and who are difficult to physically care for in labour.

Ultrasound scanning is more difficult in obese women, meaning foetal anomalies are less likely to be picked up.

Their chance of having a vaginal birth is less than 50 per cent, yet a caesarean section is not a straightforward alternative as obese people have a much higher risk of potentially deadly complications after any surgery.

“We’ve always had concerns about weight loss or lack of weight gain during pregnancy but the latest evidence suggests this may be quite sensible,” he said.

Women are recommended not to gain more than 12 kilograms during pregnancy but an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Auckland, Lesley McCowan, said obese women should limit weight gain to between 0 and 6 kilograms.

“We can’t be afraid to address the issue so that women who start pregnancy very overweight can set goals and limit their weight gain because it will significantly reduce the risks to mum and baby,” she said.

Annabel Campbell, who gave birth to Freddie four months ago, managed her weight during pregnancy with pilates and exercise sessions four times a week, and a sensible diet. But the former dancer with the Australian Ballet said even with the activity, her weight gain ballooned to 17 kilograms in the last few months.

“I put on a lot of weight even though I was eating sensibly and exercising regularly, but I could never have imagined dieting. But I don’t like to think what would have happened if I wasn’t as active,” she said.

A personal trainer, Nathan Maurice, who runs pre- and post-natal exercise classes, said the main role of exercise during pregnancy was to prepare for the birthing process and set the body up for recovery.

“If you wanted to lose weight during pregnancy, it would have to be nutritionally based, but it is imperative that you consult a nutritionist who would take your personal situation into account,” Mr Maurice said.

“It is essential that you supply proper nutrients to the baby - it’s not something you can gamble with by going on the latest diet.”

Birth Hypnosis

Hypnobirth

Weight Loss Hypnosis

Diet Hypnosis

Birth Hypnosis

Hypnobirth

The skinny on diet pills

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

According to a recent study conducted by the University of Michigan, approximately 25 percent of girls seeking to lose weight turn to diet pills. Unfortunately, many of these girls will end up disappointed, or worse, sick.

Diet pills are not very effective in promoting long-term weight loss because they act on immediate sources of weight gain instead of focusing on fat loss. Additionally, the energy-increasing ingredients such as ephedra and caffeine cause several harmful side effects, including mild to severe anxiety, bloating, stomach cramps, headaches, nausea, light-headedness, heart palpitations, high blood pressure, blurred vision and insomnia.

So why do people keep using these products? Initially, they seem to work. Diet pills promote quick weight loss, fooling the consumer into thinking that they will continue to lose weight if they continue with the product, and instilling a fear that the consumer will gain weight if he or she stops taking the pills.

So how do the products work? First, they make you lose water weight. Several pills include diuretics that they promote as “cleansing” or “flushing out” the body. Reduced water weight will make someone appear smaller and may even accentuate muscle tones, but that is only because the individual is on the verge of dehydration. Upon rehydrating, none of this weight loss is maintained.

Secondly, diet pills increase energy, reducing the need to eat. When you have tons of energy and can accomplish anything, you don’t pause for food to refuel. This energy usually comes in the form of high dosages of caffeine, ephedra or guarana, all of which increase heartbeat and blood pressure and lead to anxiety, lightheadedness and headaches as well as a large variety of other uncomfortable symptoms. As college students, it is important to note that stimulants of any type may initially increase focus but when consumed in such great quantities can reduce the brain’s ability to remember or process information effectively.

Thirdly, the pills suppress appetite. Diet pills fool your body into thinking you don’t need to eat, so you avoid food and lose weight. The problem with this is that it alters the body’s natural hunger symptoms. Once the pill regimen is stopped, hunger can come back even more ravenous than before, causing weight gain. Altering the body’s ability to regulate food intake can also lead to other eating disturbances and possibly eating disorders.

Still, stores like General Nutrition Center (GNC) promote the sale of these products and claim that they are completely safe. Curious about what a sales person might say about the pills, I visited the GNC in the Galleria this past Sunday and spoke with a salesperson there.

The two most popular weight-loss pills among men and women are the Vitapak Energy supplements and Hydroxycut pills; the salesman said he assumed they are the most effective, as they are the two products that both men and women consistently come back to buy.

The Vitapak Energy packets are individual packets of approximately six vitamins, a few of which are designed to “promote fat burning” and “increase metabolism.” Due to their harmless effects, and packaged with other recognizable vitamins, the ginseng and other energy boosting ingredients are well-hidden in an earthy and natural-looking way, promoting them as “safe” for the body.

On the other end of the spectrum, Hydroxycut Products look like they are right out of a commercial, with pictures of svelte men and women on the cover and promises of reducing weight by a certain poundage in a said number of weeks. Hydroxycut contains loads of caffeine (300 mg per serving), and the salesman warned of possible dehydration but claimed that otherwise they were entirely safe.

The problem with claiming supplements are safe is that no higher power regulates what is sold and consumed, since dietary supplements do not need to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

There is one exception to the rule: Alli. Alli is the only diet pill currently on the market that has been approved for usage by the FDA. Alli was approved because it works only in the digestive system, avoiding many of the dangerous health side effects of other pills. Instead of speeding up metabolism, Alli prevents the digestion and absorption of dietary fat (approximately ¼ of what is consumed) so that this does not affect body composition but instead bypasses digestion and heads straight for elimination.

While this may seem like a free pass to eat all the fries and burritos you want, it is extremely important to realize that while on the Alli regimen, strict adherence to a healthy diet is essential. In fact, the pills come with manuals on healthy eating, exercise tips and lifestyle changes that promote weight loss.

Those using Alli as a quick fix will be disappointed, as it is not intended as such. Failure to adhere to a healthy diet while on the pills will result (according to the Alli Web site) in loose stools, frequent stools/diarrhea and excess gas with oily residue. This is a product that should only be taken with your doctor’s advice or recommendation and is typically used by severely overweight patients, not college students looking to drop five pounds by formal season.

When it comes to weight loss, there is no quick fix. No shake, bar or pill is going to shed pounds the way a healthy diet and increased exercise will. Weight loss is all about decreasing calorie intake and increasing energy output, i.e. burning more calories than you eat.

In order to effectively lose pounds of fat, most health professionals recommend combining daily aerobic and weight training exercise with healthy diets of around 500 fewer calories than usual; this should amount to one to two pounds of healthy weight loss per week. As always, please seek professional advice from a doctor and nutritionist if considering embarking on a new workout or diet plan to promote weight loss.

Katie Holmes on “Detox Diet” to Prepare for Pregnancy

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Katie Holmes is allegedly on a “detox diet” to prepare to get pregnant with her second child with husband Tom Cruise. Sources say Holmes’ diet was the reason behind her and Cruise’s absence from the Academy Awards as the herbal drinks and purification procedures left her too tired to attend.

weight loss hypnosis

“Katie has almost rid her body of toxins but sometimes it makes her lethargic. Tom’s encouraging her to stick to the diet because they are hoping to conceive baby number two,” says a source.

The couple are already parents to 2-year-old Suri. Cruise also has two adopted children with ex-wife Nicole Kidman, who is rumored to be pregnant with her second child with husband Keith Urban.

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Obese teenagers carry same risk as smoking 10 cigarettes a day

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Source: The Guardian

Overweight teenagers run the same risk of an early death as people who smoke regularly – and the risk increases substantially with very fat adolescents.

Teenagers who are clinically obese have the same risk of premature death as someone who smokes more than 10 cigarettes a day. An investigation of 45,000 men whose health was monitored for 38 years has found that being overweight at the age of 18 is equivalent to being a regular smoker in terms of the overall risk of dying relatively early in life from preventable diseases.

Men who both smoked and were overweight as teenagers were likely to die even earlier than those who fell into just one or other of the risk groups. But the study did not find any evidence to suggest that smoking and obesity combined to produce even greater risks when found together.

Martin Neovius of the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, who carried out the study published in the British Medical Journal, said: “It shows the importance of measures to reduce obesity in adolescents. A lot of people are dying from preventable deaths.

“I think we should be looking at what we can learn from the anti-tobacco campaign in terms of obesity. There are some who argue that being overweight – but not clinically obese – is harmless. No, it is not harmless because we found that a being an overweight adolescent is equivalent to smoking up to 10 cigarettes a day.”

Overweight is defined as having a body mass index – a measure of body fat based on height and weight – of between 25 and 30, whereas being obese is defined as having a BMI of more than 30. Being overweight at 18 increased the risk of an early death by just more than a third, while being obese more than doubled the risk. The risk of premature death also increased with the number of cigarettes smoked, with heavy smokers at more than double the risk of dying relatively early in life compared to non-smokers.

The study also found that men who were seriously underweight at 18 also had a higher risk of a premature death and this risk also increased with the number of cigarettes they smoked.

Tips for losing weight after pregnancy

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Pregnancy news: Obesity, smoking bad, and how to lose the weight after

Obese mom tied to higher infant mortality

Babies born to obese mothers are more likely to die, particularly in their first week of life, than are babies born to moms of normal weight. A study from Creighton University School of Medicine looked at medical records from more than 4,000 babies who died and 7,000 surviving babies. Of the babies who died, 8.8 percent had obese mothers, compared to 5.9 percent of the surviving babies.

Researchers found that babies of obese women were at higher risk of death no matter how much weight they gained during pregnancy, but moms who gained a pound or more a week were nearly three times more likely to have a baby who died in the first year of life. The second-highest risk group was obese women who gained the least amount of weight during pregnancy, who had a 1.75 times great risk of infant death than normal weight women.

The same pattern was also seen in overweight women, with those who gained the most weight having the highest risk followed by those who gained the least.

Obesity a problem for teen moms, too

Teenage mothers who are obese when pregnant have a similar risk of pregnancy complications as do obese adult women, a report in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology says. Researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, looked at 458 births to teen mothers, many of whom were African American.

The girls who were obese before getting pregnant were four times more likely than thinner girls to develop gestational diabetes and were about four times more likely to require a Caesarean section, about the same rate as older women who are obese during pregnancy.

Smoking while pregnant cuts baby’s blood flow

Most people know that smoking while pregnant isn’t a great idea, and new research shows that doing so limits blood flow to the baby, which could slow his or her growth. It’s been known for half a century that smoking while pregnant often leads to lower birth weights, but it wasn’t known why.

Researchers at Gentoffe University Hospital in Hellerup, Denmark, studied 266 pregnant women and found that the smokers had babies who were shorter, had smaller heads and weighed less than the non-smokers’ babies.

Smoking was associated with a 47 percent reduction in a protein that helps blood flood and blood vessel relaxation, as well as an 18 percent reduction in levels of HDL or good cholesterol in the blood of the fetus.

Whether you were of normal weight or overweight before getting pregnant, most new moms are interested in losing some weight after delivery. But it’s important when trying to lose weight after having a baby to be patient with yourself and not compare yourself to celebrities who seem to lose their baby weight in a flash (who’s taking care of their kids when they’re spending six hours a day in the gym, anyway?).

Instead, don’t diet, because it will make you more stressed than you already are caring for a new human; eat foods full of nutrition; breastfeed if you can (definitely don’t try to cut calories if you’re breastfeeding, by the way); drink a lot of water; get some exercise; and try to get some sleep, OK?

Health Scares Reduce Smoking but Not Waistlines, Survey Finds

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Published: February 10, 2009

Smokers are three times more likely to quit if they get a wake-up call in the form of a heart attack, stroke, lung disease or cancer diagnosis, a new study has found.

But obese and overweight people lose two to three pounds at most after being diagnosed with a serious illness like heart disease or diabetes, according to the same report. The study, which looked at weight loss only in people under age 75, was published on Monday in The Archives of Internal Medicine.

It’s not entirely clear why heart disease would motivate patients to quit smoking but not to slim down, but the author of the paper noted that many health plans don’t cover weight-loss programs, with the exception of bariatric surgery, while many businesses and local health departments offer free or low-cost smoking cessation programs.

“People really are open to changing their behaviors after a health event, and this could really be a window of opportunity,” said study author Patricia S. Keenan, assistant professor of health policy at Yale School of Medicine. “I’m not sure the health care system is capitalizing on it, in terms of giving people the support they need to make these changes as they go forward.”

To do the study, Dr. Keenan analyzed data from the Health and Retirement Study, a survey containing detailed health information about middle-aged and older adults collected every other year between 1992 and 2000. The data included information about 20,221 overweight or obese people under age 75 and about 7,764 smokers.

While only about one in 10 smokers who hadn’t been diagnosed with a serious illness quit cigarettes, almost one-third of smokers who had had a stroke or were diagnosed with cancer, heart disease or lung disease quit, the study found.

When smokers were diagnosed with two serious diseases, they were six times more likely to quit than other smokers, the study found.

Obese people lost very little weight after most diagnoses, though they lost up to half a point from their body mass index after finding out they had diabetes, the study found.

“One of the reasons they may not have found a big weight loss is because physician counseling alone is not going to impact weight loss,” said Sherry Pagoto, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who co-wrote an editorial accompanying the paper. “The evidence for behavioral weight loss treatment suggests an intensive program is necessary.”

She added, “If there is a window of opportunity for weight loss, we’re missing it.”

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