See Food Diet

We have locusts in our staff room. If we have biscuits or cakes on the staff room table which we frequently do they literally disappear within hours or even minutes sometimes. If you suffer from the inability to waste food as discussed before and need a dustbin then our staff table will oblige!

A study in America put sweets on the desks of the secretaries in either a clear or a white jar with a lid. The jars were the same in every way and each night after the secretaries had gone home the jars were refilled after taking note of how many had been eaten. The secretaries that had clear jars had eaten an astonishingly 77% more calories than those with the clear jar. This would have added 5ilbs in extra weight over the year! How often do you just mindlessly see food (I include biscuits, sweets etc) and just eat it because it’s there. No checking in with your body as to whether it need refuelling or not? Is this random eating of your piling on the pounds or is it making you weary during the day as your body works hard to process the random junk you shove in with no thought?

On the plus side you are less likely to overeat if you are well hydrated. My clients will see that I keep a pint glass in my desk. Not filled with a pint of bitter, I hasten to add, but a pint of water. I always have a 2 litre bottle of water near me and you will be asked if you would like a glass. This is not only to be polite but I find that I can see how likely someone is to be dehydrated by how much they drink or not during our session and whether this needs to be in their hypnotherapy recording. We often mistake the signs of dehydration for hunger so instead of reaching for a biscuit reach for a pint of water.

Top tips:

1. Keep a pint glass on your desk or at your workstation and you will drink much, much more that if you have a small glass. In another study the military found that soldiers drank 81% more water when the water jugs were put on the mess tables as against on a side table. Very important when to be dehydrated could be fatal.  You will be less tired and less likely to reach for a quick sugar ‘fix’.

2. If you have ‘junk’ foods lying around or inside your fridge or a cupboard you frequent, you are having to say ‘no’ mentally so much more often. Each time you see the food you have to make a decision. So put away the ‘junk’, change the cupboard or put to the back of the fridge. The chocolate in my fridge is on the top shelf in the door with a plastic cover over it as it’s where the eggs should be.  I know it’s there but I do not see it every time I open the door.

Back in the office though, my hiding places have been scouted out!! Fireproof locked cupboard perhaps?

Stop Eating in Front of Your Computer to Lose Weight

SeeSaw.com has conducted a survey on eating habits and found that tree-fifths of people are eating their evening meal in front of their computer. I could have saved them the money on this research as it’s all too common and not just for evening meals. The main culprit is lunch, with virtually all my clients who are office based eating lunch whilst on the computer.

To really enjoy your food and be aware of your body’s natural signals to stop eating you must concentrate on your meal. Enjoy the taste, the smell, the textures, the colours! Give some respect to your food and your body by taking time to nourish yourself without distraction.

Take a break from work or the PC and you will come back refreshed. Enjoy a conversation with your family or friends. This will slow your eating and help you to notice when you have had enough and can stop. Remember its all waste, whether you waste it in the waste bin or waste in on your waist.

What Makes You Fearful? Weight Loss Fears

Trekking through the jungle alone didn’t make me fearful, a venomous snake crossing my path made me jump but didn’t make me fearful but eating street food did make me fearful. How weird is that, the thought of getting sick from unhygienic food made me cringe as opposed to getting lost or bitten.

What makes you fearful with regards to your health?

I have heard many different fears expressed by clients regarding food and their personal self image. Despite the abundance of food that we have available to us many still have a deep rooted fear that there won’t be enough at the next meal s so have to eat everything available then and there. Still others have the fear of punishment within them from childhood if they do not clear their plate.

Saddest of all is those who fear unwanted attention by the opposite sex should they become slim. These behaviours stem from previous experience and have become deeply embedded in the unconscious mind. Hypnosis helps to make sense of these fears and free you from them so they stay where they belong, in the past.

Holiday Food and Making Choices

And there it was! The golden arches of McDonalds in Panama!! It never ceases to amaze me where this company has got to despite revolutions and poverty, it is everywhere. Finally back from my Central America travels the only tummy upset was the day I got home when all I had eaten for 24 hours was airline food. 

The staple food of Central America is gallo pinto, fried white rice and kidney beans and this is breakfast, lunch and dinner for many.  Being from the affluent west with dollars to spend I was privileged to have choice and ate very, very well most of the time. My gallo pinto was accompanied by meat or fish with a smoothie of fresh fruits to drink.  Eating was a pleasure when food is simple and fresh. In Nicaragua they say that no-one has to go hungry as there is always fruit on the trees. What an amazing attitude from people with so little yet with a welcoming and friendly spirit.

This beautiful little girl was selling mangoes by the roadside instead of being in school.

Travels in third world countries really help you focus on how much we have in this country and be eternally grateful for our ability to choose our destiny.
What are you grateful for today? What choices do you have?

Holiday Eating

My holiday travelling through Central America is nearly here. I set the goal and off I go.  With my interests in food, I will be looking at what the local people eat and sampling new cuisine. There is nothing worse than the sight of a McDonalds when I am abroad and seeing how many tourists will go there because they know what to expect. No sense of adventure or experimentation.

Having said all that my family did draw the line at eating Guinea Pig in Peru, but really couldn’t!

I will inevitable be thinner when I come back because of all the trekking but hope to avoid tummy upsets by taking large doses of probiotics before I go and whilst there. That is not a recommendation it just works for me really well. If I can make my digestive system super strong before I go then I am less likely to suffer.

I’ll let you know what curiosities I find so long as I do not spend too much time bouncing off the walls after sampling all the coffee out there. What caffeine does to your body is another story

Allow Your Body to Rest

Another point on snacking- I have always said you should allow your body to rest and it does not need to be processing food all the time. It’s great to be backed up by medical  research at the  Metabolic Medicine Department at Glasgow University. It was found that snacking puts stress on the liver and the pancreas as blood sugar levels stay higher during the day. Unless you are a diabetic your body is very good at regulation it’s blood sugar levels and eating regular meals with a gap of about 4-5 hours is ideal.

Eating early in the evening and allowing your body to digest before bed will aid sleep. Your body needs to rest and relax, not be processing some enormous great meal.

These are the behaviours of slim people and with Hypnotherapy I will help your unconscious mind to model this behaviour. One of the first significant changes my clients generally see if that they are no longer snacking between meals and are reawakening the feelings of real hunger in their body. How great is that? How do I help you do this? Click here

http://www.warrclinic.co.uk/index.php?p=1/43/0

The Big Fat Truth About Low Fat Foods

Did you see this programme? It’s so good to see someone backing up all I tell clients. The presenter who normally eats a very healthy diet preparing her meals herself ate nothing but low fat prepared foods for a month. The result; very tired, bowel habits totally disrupted and she put on 3lbs. She was also constantly hungry.

Low calorie drinks will contribute to weight gain and it shocks my clients when I give them the research that has been done.  In the programme some of the ingredients were shown to make wallpaper paste and were extracted from duck feathers. Yuk!

In  a previous life I was a meat buyer for Sainsbury’s and I can tell you I am very picky about what I give my children to eat. Less is defiantly more when it comes to quality and your health.

So stop fooling yourself with low fat rubbish and you will not only lose weight more easily but will be healthier and probably have more money in your pocket!