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Lose weight permanently with NLP -neurolinguistic programming as the key to weight loss 

Alex Fitwell

LOSE WEIGHT PERMANENTLY WITH NLP – NEUROLINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING AS THE KEY TO WEIGHT LOSS

Losing weight with the power of your own thoughts can work with a powerful weapon called NLP – Neurolinguistic Programming. Sounds like software for your PC – but it’s a technology that has many fans around the world and is incredibly powerful to achieve the things you want. How, for example, to lose weight permanently or get fitter, etc.

What is NLP? 

With NLP you can “manipulate” your subconscious. It is a psychological reprogramming made up of very powerful techniques. With NLP you can support yourself in ANY goal achievement. Neuro = brain and nervous system, Linguistic = the language of the brain and Programming = initiate future actions.

When it comes to losing weight, the main things you can do with NLP are:

NLP goes to the cause of the obesity or the extra fat. If we eat too much and feel “externally controlled” and repeatedly have problems sticking to a diet or gaining weight again after being externally controlled because we “cannot do it on our own”, then this is just a symptom.

Most people know extremely well what they should eat, what sport they should do, and yet one thing is lacking: their weight-loss mindset!

NLP was “developed” in the 1960s. It did this by modeling the techniques of successful therapists and analyzing how they worked. In principle, NLP was part of the first stream of personality development. Until then, the only investigations were practically why someone was “mentally ill” or “ticked” differently. In the context of the so-called “Human Potential Movement”, which examined the human potential in relation to self-optimization and self-realization, neuroliguistic programming was then “discovered”.

NLP techniques are used in many areas. Be it in sport, education, business or as a coaching technique. This is only because reprogramming our subconscious is so powerful.

Working with the subconscious is so important because it makes up around 90-95 percent of our mind – whereas the conscious, what we can really control, only makes up around 5-10 percent. Your subconscious is really in control, so to speak. The subconscious is responsible for ensuring that our brain can process the myriad of information that pours down on us every day. On the one hand, it wants to put everything in drawers in order to classify it. This happens with the help of existing world views, beliefs, values ​​and attitudes towards things. Everyone perceives the world individually. If 5 people look at a single apple, there are actually 6 apples.

Put simply, our brain develops so-called programs from recurring activities. Getting up in the morning, going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, getting dressed, etc. are always the same actions that we try to change with the normal “willpower” only with relative difficulty, once they have picked up speed and delivered for a while.

You can imagine it like an elephant with a rider on it. If the elephant (your subconscious) wants to run to the left, then the rider (your consciousness) can only steer against it by force. You then notice this as the effort you feel when you continue to try to persevere in the diet with willpower.

Specifically, you can think of NLP as a set of tools that aim to create your mind, your behavior, your way of thinking and your personal reality. The aim is to influence them positively in order to support you in achieving your goals.

Permanently losing weight with NLP 

The fact that we regularly overeat, sometimes feel controlled by others and are downright forced to eat, almost equated with an addiction, is due to the fact that we often learned in childhood to compensate for certain feelings or states with food. The child is “brave” at the doctor, then they get a pack of gummy bears, etc.

We like to keep this up in adulthood. You feel sad, come on let’s eat ice cream. In addition, there is a certain form of satisfaction per se after ingestion. Released hormones such as dopamine, serotonin and a reduced stress level when hunger is satisfied leads to joy and satisfaction and relaxation.

Our brain then learns very quickly and the next time “negative” feelings arise, such as loneliness, sadness, fear and the like, then you repeat the program that helped you the last time to reach the desired state of mind again and you reach for food.

However, the NLP techniques applied correctly are extremely effective for permanent weight loss. This is precisely where you start. That things that come from your past can be replaced so that from now on you can no longer be held back by old experiences such as separation of parents, teasing at school or other things.

This is how you start

At the beginning it always makes sense to carry out an analysis of the current situation. That means once to determine where you currently stand in your life. Your weight and the fact that you are gaining or losing weight is a direct result of your habits, your routines, and the sum total of your overall lifestyle.

Translated, this means: the food you eat, the frequency of your meals, the way you eat, how often and with what stress you move, how you see the world and what you think every day determine how your body determines how your body works look to whether you are successful or not and whether you are comfortable or not.

I would like to give you an example so that you can understand how deep-seated beliefs and experiences that are stored in your subconscious can get in the way of your goals.

For example, when you were a teenager, you were teased for having smaller breasts. Then you gained weight, your breasts grew, you finally felt feminine, like your friends. Now you subconsciously think that if you lose weight, your breasts will get smaller. You associate that with a certain pain because you think back to the teasing. And you will subconsciously retain everything that keeps your “mass”.

This deep anchoring in relation to your weight must first be loosened so that you can reduce your weight much more relaxed and, above all, permanently.

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL?

Tip: Write down your goal weight, not the number of pounds you want to lose. Always focus on the result that will come in the end.

WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES?

Find the connection between your values ​​and your goal! If one of your values ​​is freedom, eating well can make you feel free. If your worth is security, then a healthy weight can give you confidence and the assurance that you are in control of your life. Of course, if your value is health, then a healthy weight and diet are key to realizing that value in your life.

WHAT DOES YOUR ENVIRONMENT HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

Think about your family, your children, your partner, your friends.

What will these people say to you when you lose weight and eat healthily!

How will your lower weight affect these?

WHAT ARE YOUR SPEECH PATTERNS LIKE?

Above all, it is also about speaking to yourself. It can be loud, but also in the form of thoughts. Each of your thoughts sends a message into our body. Your body then moves / behaves as your thoughts have commanded.

If you say about yourself or say to yourself that you “can’t lose weight anyway”, that you “are a lazy person”, that “everyone in your family is fat” or that you “can’t do it anyway”, then you are all the messages that your thoughts send into your body. And they become your identity.

If, of course, you have gained weight again and again in recent years after dieting, then these defeats that you have experienced confirm exactly this belief about yourself and thus a new reality arises for you. The reality that you “can’t lose weight”.

Here again an example from the animal kingdom fits. In the case of elephants in captivity, a chain and a stake are attached when they are “small animals”. The animals then grow and the stake would actually be very easy to pull out due to the body weight and strength and the animals could flee. However, they are not aware of their size and strength. They have a reality within them that tells them: “If I try to walk away, I get stuck on the chain and if I walk over the resistance of the chain, it hurts.”

As a result, the elephant will no longer try to pass over the resistance of the chain. He doesn’t even try, or only now and then occasionally, but not with 110%. This is exactly what classic yo-yo dieters do. They try again and again, but expect failure anyway and don’t give 100%. We also like to be right and if our belief is “I can’t lose weight”, then our subconscious will do everything to fulfill it.

Pay attention to your thoughts as they become words. 

Pay attention to your words because they become actions. 

Pay attention to your actions because they become habits. 

Pay attention to your habits as they become your character. 

Take care of your character because it becomes your destiny. 

The NLP techniques

TECHNIQUE 1: ANCHORING

Anchoring is one of the basic techniques in NLP. With an anchor you can evoke a certain emotional state at the “push of a button”. An anchor is an internal or external stimulus that creates an emotional state in the episode.

That may sound abstract at first, but we humans all have existing anchors – but mostly we don’t know that they are. Do you know it when you hear a song and are immediately put back in a situation. Or you smell a smell and think straight of Christmas. There are different anchors, depending on the sense addressed: visual (sight), auditory (hearing), kynesthetic (sense of touch, feeling), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste) etc. intensely experienced (for example a very romantic moment with your partner and the said song was playing). And that can be enough to make these feelings available again and again, even after many, many years.

The effect of an anchor is completely individual. If you smell biscuits, you might think of Christmas, your brother thinks of a movie, your father thinks of a slap in the face because he secretly nibbled biscuits, etc. You can also use existing anchors and add consciously created anchors. The goal is to shift you from a bad state (often also called lower self) to a better state (often also called higher self) so that you can stick to your goal.

Set anchor:

  1. Create an intense emotional state
  2. Anchor the emotional state
  3. Pattern interruption: Break State
  4. Testing anchors
  5. Future pace

Create an intense emotional state

Find a situation in your life in which you felt the way you would like to feel in certain situations. When did you experience the state of feeling that you would like to feel? The context doesn’t have to have anything to do with the current topic. For many women, for example, it is the moment after the birth, when you have your child placed on your chest. For others, it’s getting a good grade in school, finishing a sporting competition, feeling like after a roller coaster ride, feeling in love, etc.

It’s best to use as many things as possible to remind yourself of them. The right song comes while you imagine it again, you chew the same chewing gum to put yourself in the shoes of yourself, even put on the same clothes again if necessary. And then you dive into the movie from your past. You are welcome to close your eyes for this.

The anchoring

And now you come to the actual process of anchoring. You have returned to your old state thanks to memories and visualization. Now you look for a touch or a behavior, a movement that you anchor. You can build on several pillars.

For example, you can touch a specific part of the body. I think body anchors are great. When choosing songs, it’s best to choose songs that aren’t everyday radio classics. IMPORTANT: the part of the body should be different from places that you often touch in everyday life or the touch itself has to be different. For example, pinching instead of petting, etc.

You then carry out this touch just before the emotional state in which you put yourself is at its highest. The goal is that when you press the part of the body again, you can evoke exactly these feelings again.

Pattern interruption – Break State

Now you consciously get out of this feeling. To do that: Steph up, talk to someone about the weather and just tell yourself: The weather today is so and so.

Testing anchors

Now we test the anchor by repeating the touch on the part of the body that you have just anchored. The anchor is successfully set when you notice how your feelings are going in the positive direction again. This won’t always be completely extreme at first, and you can practice it multiple times to reinforce it. Successful athletes practice it until they vomit. Until it works so safely that you can call it up in extreme situations, for example at an exciting derby. You often see certain movements of these professional athletes shortly before an important shot, throw or something similar. This can be, for example, pulling on the earlobe. A cross, etc.

Future pace 

This completes the anchor technique. Let’s take a look into the future. You envision a situation in the future where you might want to try out your new anchor. For example, you always reached for chocolate when you were in a bad mood, because you weren’t in a good mood and had the feeling that it increased your mood. Now you want to lighten your mood so that you no longer feel the need to eat the chocolate.

The visualization will help you again. Imagine the future situation and dive in. Then you apply your new anchor and press / touch the part of the body that you have chosen. Then you will feel how DIFFERENT the situation would then be, how you can react differently, how you are in a better mood and no longer feel the pressure to reach for chocolate, for example, but treat yourself well with a glass of water.

Example anchoring while losing weight

Think of a day or situation when you felt slim. You close your eyes and picture it correctly. You can also see if there is a place in your body where you can feel this particularly. Can you name the feeling (strong, mild, tingly, warm, rustling). Change your posture, how did you sit back then. Did you hear noises What did other people say to you? What did the sky look like? Have you been to a certain place Do whatever can help you get back into the situation.

Then just before the feeling is strongest, you use the anchor described above (e.g. pinch your wrist, etc.). Then you check as described above.

The goal is then that you can reach for your anchor shortly before a chocolate attack and it will be back.

Is the visualization not working so well for you? Here are the facts about how it works:

The psychologist Dr. Richard Suinn discovered in 1981, with the help of an EMG electromypraphy device, that skiers, that skiers who simply imagined the movement of skiing, were already sending impulses into the muscles that were almost identical to the impulses that actually occurred during real skiing.

For top athletes, visualization is one of the most important mental techniques that they train in order to be successful. You already play successful competitions in your imagination. “If you can imagine it, you can do it too!”

3 steps to visualize:

  1. Imagine a picture of you in the future, e.g. create an ideal version of yourself in the future – the ideals Steph in my case, what does this person look like?
  2. Add color, smells, haptic sensations, what kind of clothes does this person wear, what exactly does they look like?
  3. Now there are also feelings. (How does it feel if what you have in mind were already reality? What would this person say to themselves? What would others say to the person?)
  4. Imagining this ideal version of yourself for 30 seconds each morning and evening can make a huge difference and connect you to your goal.

TECHNIQUE 2) MAKING THE ATTRACTIVE UNATTRACTIVE

Imagine a sugary drink or candy that you extremely enjoy eating. Now focus on the negative properties of this food. Imagine the sugar in it that makes your mouth sticky, the tooth decay that develops on your teeth, how your stomach becomes sticky when you put so much sugar in and how the sugar gets into your cells and becomes fat cells or like yours Cells that cause cancer.

TECHNIQUE 3) Make healthy eating attractive

Here we are doing exactly the opposite. The things that are healthy and that we should eat best, we have to make really attractive. Let’s imagine a salad. Salad is great for losing weight because it has a lot of volume and very few calories. You don’t even have to cook it, just wash it briefly, pluck it roughly and put some dressing on it.

And with every leaf of lettuce you eat, you get leaner, your body gets more energetic and you get fitter. The fat in your body is starting to melt. When you introduce yourself, say: “Mmmh, delicious!”. For example, just start saying that you really like to eat salad from now on. Make this your new reality.

TECHNIQUE 4) PHYSIOLOGY / POSTURE

We can change our emotions through our movement. It’s not for nothing that the US has motivational speaker Tony Robbins, who jumps on a trampoline before going on stage. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy found in 2014 that our body language physically changes the chemical makeup of our brain. She coined the term “power posing”. This posing alone increases the testosterone level, which gives us power and lowers our cortisol level. Cortisol is the stress hormone.

Here you can walk through the room with your head and shoulders bowed and then do the same again with your chest swollen in front of proud, your head held high and smiling. Which automatically feels better? You only changed your posture!

TECHNIQUE 5) AFFIRMATIONS

Affirmations are statements that describe a future state. They should support your subconscious positively by speaking out. It might sound silly when you think about saying certain sentences out loud to yourself over and over again, but at the end of the day, that might make the difference between the successful ones and the unsuccessful ones!

You can also use affirmations on the subject of “losing weight” perfectly to anchor your goals repeatedly in the subconscious. It is important that you always formulate without the words “not” and “no”. For example, “I am slim”, “I lose weight every day”, etc.

You are assuming that what you wish has already happened. Instead of saying: “I want to lose 10kg!” tell you: “I now weigh 60 kg!”

Here I have put together 23 weight loss affirmations for you: 

TECHNIQUE 6) THE ABER TECHNIQUE

The word BUT is like an eraser – it erases part of the sentence that comes before the word and reinforces the part of the sentence that comes after it.

Here are two examples: 

Woman: I’m not going to date you, you’re taken. 

Man: Yeah, I’m taken, BUT we can meet on friendly terms

Customer: The laptop is very expensive. 

Seller: Yes, that’s right, the laptop is expensive, BUT it has significantly better parameters than the competition and has a 5-year guarantee. 

This technique is always about first confirming the reality and then adding an element that should be remembered by the person you are talking to or yourself.

For example, you can say, “It is difficult to lose weight, but others can do it too!” 

TECHNIQUE 7) IMAGINE IT – The Imagine Technique 

The phrase “imagine it” does not arouse resistance in people. Therefore, you can use it to “plant” ideas and possible solutions in your head – that sounds totally negative. But as long as you decide what to plant, you don’t need to worry!

An example would be: 

“Imagine how much appreciative looks you will get for your new character.”

“Imagine the envious looks of your competitor.”

etc.

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