…Should Never Start With A Diet…
…And what truly works when you want real, lasting transformation.
“I’ve always been the big one. Since I was a kid. The one who hides in oversized clothes and avoids mirrors. Being slim? That’s just not me. No matter how I try and what I do, the weight always comes back”.
That’s how Simone, my client, a smart, caring, exhausted 42-year-old mother of two described her relationship with her body in our first session.
She didn’t lack motivation. She didn’t lack intelligence or knowledge. She lacked belief. The belief that lasting change was possible for her and that lean body is available to her.
Simone didn’t hate herself, but she had learned to live as if she were stuck in a body, an identity, and a life that would never quite be hers to improve. As if it was always meant to be this way.
She’d tried diets. Countless times. Keto, paleo, atkins, intermittent fasting, you name it. She has done them all. Lost weight. Gained it all back and more.
Felt hope. Then shame. Then desperation.
And it seemed the vicious cycle she was stuck in, was growing stronger and stronger with each and very attempt. With no way out. “I don’t think I’ve ever truly believed I could be one of those women who’s just… comfortable in her skin and feels easy around food” she told me. “I just assumed I’d always be the ‘before photo.’”
And she’s not alone.
Here’s the truth: Weight loss doesn’t begin on your plate. It begins in your mind and more specifically, in your subconscious.
Up to 80% of our behaviours are subconsciously driven (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). Deep, hidden beliefs can steer us into emotional eating, self-sabotaging, and quitting plans, often without us realising why.
Diets Only Treat The Symptom, Not The Root Cause.
You’re not overeating because you lack discipline, most often you’re doing it because your brain has been conditioned to use food for comfort, safety, or distraction.
You can’t willpower your way out of decades of conditioning. That’s where Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH) comes in.
What Is CBH & Why It Changes the Game for Good
CBH stands for Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy and it’s one of the few therapeutic approaches that speaks to both your conscious mind and your subconscious programming at the same time.
It combines two clinically proven modalities:
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT is often called the “gold standard” in modern psychology and for good reason. It helps you identify and challenge the unhelpful thought patterns that keep you stuck in self-sabotage, shame, and learned helplessness.
In practice, CBT teaches you how to:
- Notice your automatic negative thoughts (e.g., “I’ve already messed up, I might as well binge”)
- Replace them with more compassionate, realistic ones (e.g., “One meal doesn’t define me. I can reset.”)
- Build behavioural strategies that align with your goals without perfectionism or guilt
It’s like learning a new language: the language of self-support, not self-criticism. But here’s the catch: you can’t think your way out of everything. Because many of your habits aren’t happening on the surface.
Clinical Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy works at the subconscious level, where your core emotional beliefs, learned reactions, and automatic habits live.
Think of it like this:
- If CBT helps you rewire your thoughts,
- Hypnotherapy helps you rewire your operating system
During hypnotherapy, you enter a calm, focused state (a bit like meditation or flow) where the mind becomes more receptive to change. In this relaxed state, we can:
- Uncover the emotional root of certain behaviours
- Install new beliefs that feel safe and believable (e.g., “I don’t need food to soothe me”)
- Practice new behaviours in your imagination, so your brain rehearses success before it happens
Because the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between imagination & reality, these sessions are often described as deeply powerful, even life-changing.
“I felt like something inside me finally shifted,” one client said after her second session.
“Like the part of me I’ve been fighting for years was finally heard and let go.”
Why CBH Works When Everything Else Fails
Traditional weight loss programs focus on food and willpower. CBH focuses on you, your thoughts, beliefs, identity, habits, and emotions.
It bridges the gap between the understanding what to do, creating a feeling that you are capable of doing it and crating a habit of consistency and actually following through with ease.
As a result, you stop fighting yourself, and stop relying on short-term motivation.
Eventually you start building a sustainable relationship with food, your body, and your mind, from the inside out.
This method enables you to rethink and feel differently, making motivation sustainable, not forced.
Inside Simone’s Journey: From Shame to Self-Trust
When Simone arrived at her first session, she didn’t want another weight loss plan. She reached the rock bottom of diets. She wanted a relief. Clarity. A way out of the emotional fog she’d been living in.
“I feel like I’m constantly managing guilt. Guilt about my body. About eating. About not doing enough but being exhausted anyway.”
Sessions 1–2: Surfacing the Hidden Beliefs
We began with the foundation: unearthing her unconscious thoughts and emotional loops. Simone was shocked by what surfaced when we slowed down and really listened to the internal dialogue that had shaped her body and food story for years.
Thoughts like:
“If I lose weight, people will expect me to be confident and I’m not.”
“If I become attractive, I’ll lose control.”
“My family were all big women. It’s not safe or allowed for me to be different.”
“Success just isn’t for people like me.”
These weren’t just thoughts, they were rules her nervous system had been obeying for decades. CBT is incredibly helpful to challenge those core beliefs.
Sessions 3–4: Hypnotic Rewiring
In hypnosis, we gently bypassed her inner critic and accessed the emotional root of those beliefs. This is where the real shifts began.
We worked with imagery, metaphor, and emotional anchoring to install new neural pathways beliefs that weren’t just intellectually true, but emotionally safe.
New subconscious narratives began to form:
“I am allowed to succeed without guilt.”
“I am no longer carrying other people’s shame and no longer living their stories.”
“My body is mine to care for, not punish.”
“I can be visible without being vulnerable.”
Simone described these sessions as “deeply calming, like speaking directly to the part of me I usually try to drown out with food.”
Sessions 5–6: Cognitive Resilience & Habit Healing
With the emotional roots softened, we moved into reshaping behaviour but without the pressure, perfectionism, or punishment Simone was used to.
She started:
- Checking in with her body before reaching for food
- Reframing slip-ups as data, not disaster
- Swapping self-shame for self-curiosity
- Practicing “pause power” a few deep breaths before making food decisions
One day, she messaged after lunch:
“I just realised I stopped eating halfway through my plate… because I was full. I don’t think I’ve done that in years.”
Sessions 7–8: Embodying a New Identity
In our final sessions, we worked on anchoring her new sense of self.
Not “the fat one.” Not “the failure.” But a woman in process and in power.
We visualised her future. We role-played confidence. She wore bright lipstick to session 7.
“I’m not dieting anymore,” she said.
“I’m just… living differently. And it feels like me now.”
What Changed
- 6 kg weight loss over 3 months, without counting, restricting, or obsessing
- Emotional snacking dissolved, she simply didn’t need food to cope anymore
- Sleep improved, thanks to nightly hypnotherapy audio sessions
- Clothes changed, brighter colours, tighter jeans
- Mindset transformed, inner dialogue more positive, she stopped calling herself lazy or fat
“For the first time in my adult life I feel like I’m not trying to fix myself I’m finally supporting myself.”
Research Confirms It Works
A recent clinical study published in 2022 found that individuals with obesity who received hypnotherapy alongside standard nutrition education experienced significantly greater improvements in eating habits compared to those who received education alone.
After eight months:
- Nearly 68% of the hypnotherapy group had normalised their eating behaviour, compared to just 11% in the control group
- Participants reported reduced impulsive eating, improved control over cravings, and less emotional reactivity around food
- They also achieved measurable weight loss, lower BMI, and reduced hunger sensitivity without extreme dieting or exercise protocols
These results highlight what many in therapy already know:
- Changing how we eat starts with changing how we think and feel.
- Hypnotherapy is one of the few tools that can speak directly to the part of us that drives those behaviours, the subconscious.
- A meta-analysis combining hypnosis with CBT found that individuals lost more weight than 60–80% of those who received CBT alone (Milling et al., 2018).
Plus, Better Sleep & Better Hormone Balance
Many clients, including Simone, use brief self-hypnosis recordings nightly. Not only does this reinforce subconscious change, but it also improves sleep, balances hormones like leptin and ghrelin, and reduces cravings.
What might this mean for you?
If you’re…
- Tired of relying on willpower
- Frustrated with diets that don’t last
- Fed up with emotional eating
- Ready to stop fighting yourself
Then maybe you need an approach that works with your mind, not against it.
When your subconscious starts supporting your conscious goals, then everything changes. You suddenly realise that you don’t lack discipline.
You just need a smarter strategy that speaks to both head & heart.
References
- Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54(7), 462–479.
- Erşan, S., et al. (2020). Effects of hypnotherapy on weight loss and serum leptin levels in obese patients.
- Leonard S. Milling, M. C. Gover, & C. L. Moriarty. (2018). Meta-analyses: Hypnosis with CBT vs CBT alone enhanced outcomes.
- Rousseau, A., Poitou, C., Nolden, C., Meunier, H., Bouillot, J. L., Ciangura, C., & Oppert, J. M. (2022).
- Effectiveness of hypnosis in normalizing eating behavior in obese patients: A randomized controlled trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 115(2), 409–420.
