Recently there was a news story about a scientific study which concluded that eventually 9 of 10 American men and 7 of 10 American women will become fat, or in politically correct terms, overweight or perhaps “waistline challenged”. We have known for years that excess body weight and its more extreme form – obesity – were major problems, but the findings of this study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, indicate that these problems may be even more severe than we have thought. Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel is quoted in Yahoo News as saying that the study shows “we could have an even more serious degree of overweight and obesity over the next few decades.”
The true costs to the world of global obesity are unknown, but they are doubtless staggering. For the obese individual the costs are not confined to an unattractive bodily appearance. More threatening in the longer term are the seriously adverse health ramifications. For example, obesity is associated with a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and some cancers. And while the greatest negative consequences are reserved for obese or substantially overweight individuals, those whose weight problem is more moderate are also subject to negative consequences, and those consequences include a negative impact on both the quantity of life and quality of life. Specifically, just being moderately overweight raises the risk of sleep apnea and raises cholesterol and blood pressure, which are well known contributors to heart disease.
A Mayo Clinic researcher, Mark Vander Weg, is quoted on Yahoo as saying that the study’s conclusions “add to a growing body of evidence that makes it increasingly apparent that more effective prevention and treatment strategies are urgently needed.” Now I assume no pun was intended by the phrase “growing body of evidence.” More seriously, he is absolutely right: we need better prevention and we need better solutions for people for whom prevention is no longer an option and we need them urgently or the costs to society and the many affected individuals will become even greater.
In another article (“Rapid Personal Change”), I made reference to techniques of personal change and their common applications. One of the common applications, as you might have guessed by now, is Weight Loss; or better stated: the healthy loss of excess body fat. Your body weight includes your bones, your muscles, your tendons, etc. but you don’t want to lose those because they are good things. Excess fat, however, is useless and indeed harmful. And that is what you want to lose or avoid gaining. So healthy weight loss is fat loss, but for simplicity we’ll just call it weight loss.
Now if enough factors are present, there are various approaches that will work to some degree for weight loss. There are two approaches, however, that I believe provide the greatest degree of lasting success for the greatest number of people. Before getting into some details, let me provide you with a little background.
If you are like most people you have tried to lose weight, and/or make other positive changes, a number of times. And, again like most people, you have been unsuccessful a majority of the times, perhaps meeting with mixed results upon occasion but not enjoying substantial and lasting success. Why?
Most people try to lose weight, or make other improvements by changing their CONSCIOUS thinking. But the two biggest drivers of behavior are: (1) SUBconscious thinking – that is, the beliefs and images we unwittingly internalized years or decades ago — and (2) the degree of balance versus disruption in the body’s energy system. If the subconscious mind’s deeply implanted beliefs and images, for examples, “I am meant to be fat” or “I am unpopular with the opposite sex,” do not serve us, then we need to change them in order to live healthy, harmonious, and happy lives. But you cannot change them by relying primarily on the conscious level of thought. That would be analogous to trying to rid your garden of weeds by clipping the weeds but leaving the roots in place.
To make effective and lasting improvement, you need to deal with the roots. And you do this either by balancing bodily energy flow through a technique called EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques; or by working directly at the subconscious level through hypnosis, which is a mind energy state. Ideally, for lasting weight loss or other major personal changes, you would do both, that is, a combination of EFT and hypnosis (although either can work well by itself). Whether working at the subconscious level of thought or working on the body’s energy system or both, the goal is to root out your old negative beliefs and images and supplant them with new and empowering ones. That will lead naturally to the behaviors and the results you want. And that is what today’s premier coaching services and products do, and that is why they work so very well.
Hypnosis is actually a natural and beneficial human phenomenon and nothing weird or spooky like Hollywood falsely depicts it. EFT, whose founder is Gary Craig, is a newer kid on the block, although the basis for it can be traced back to ancient Chinese medicine. Both of these powerful techniques are effective for healthy weight loss. Both also have numerous other common applications with high success rates.
Gary Patrick is an author, speaker and mind-body coach. He is the founder of Rapid Results. His interest in both fitness training and hypnosis began in his teenage years. At first, Gary Patrick engaged in self-study to learn hypnosis. Since then he has studied with master hypnotists Ormand McGill, Paul McKenna, Gerald Kein, Jerry Valley, and Tom Nicoli. In recent years, he has become more and more interested in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). EFT works well on a variety of challenges, often more quickly than anything else. When EFT is combined with hypnosis, they become a powerful double whammy for positive change. Gary Patrick has studied in person with Gary Craig, the founder of EFT. His lifelong quest for learning has led him from high-school drop-out to Ph.D., from Certified Personal Trainer to Certified Anti-aging Professional, and from Certified Hypnotist and Certified NLP Practitioner to Advanced EFT Certificate holder. He mixes these modalities together to provide each client with a unique, individually-tailored approach. Visit Gary at [http://rapidresults.biz].
