Tip 1 – Be your own friend

What would happen if you criticised your friend all day long, saying things like: why did you eat that, you are fat and ugly, you will never lose this weight, and how can you be so out of control?

Your friend would not be very happy and over time these words may have a negative effect on their self-esteem.

You wouldn’t say the above things to anyone else would you? So why are you saying them to yourself? Your brain listens to what you are saying to yourself and acts accordingly; it’s time to start treating yourself as if you were your own best friend.

I doubt one decides on purpose to put on excess weight. Gaining weight is often a subconscious learnt behaviour usually caused by outside influences. Over the ages, food has been thought of as a gift, mainly because of its scarcity in the past. Think about it. Almost all ceremonies include some kind of food, or maybe one is conditioned as a child to eat everything served to him or possibly one used to be given sweets as treats. Because of such events, over time the subconscious brain may have worked out that food equals either reward or comfort. This is why diets often do not work in the long term because the subconscious is so much more powerful than the conscious mind.

The good news is that subconsciously learned behaviours can be rescripted. Start to think of gaining a healthy body as a gift to yourself as you have done nothing wrong. Being mean to yourself will only hinder your progress.

Tip 2 – Pink elephants

Imagine your child took 99 steps, he slips and sits down. He says crossly: “I’ve totally lost it! I may as well forget this whole idea of ever walking!”

You would think that was silly right? As though all that other progress never happened. But that is exactly what people do with weight loss.

You lose weight, maybe three or four kilos or maybe much more. But you slip, have a bad day or a ‘weak moment’ and you eat something you think you should not have. And what do you tell yourself? ‘Now I’ve completely lost it!’ I might as well really binge!

If I ask you not to think about pink elephants, for example, what do you think of? You think of pink elephants in order not to think about them. The same happens if you totally ban certain foods. We all eat more than we should of the wrong kind of thing now and then.

When becoming slim, allow yourself some leeway, build in the occasional pink elephant or treat. That way you aren’t being too harsh on yourself and your brain will appreciate it.

Kimberly Stapleton is a counsellor and hypnotherapist.