Thanks everyone!
It's going well....I had a night out on Friday but kept drinks to diet lemonade and vodka. I'm finding the gym every day hard going - and its making me feel guilty for not spending enough time with Bella, but I've bought a weights bench and some dumbells so when I cant go I can still do the weight resistance workouts he advises in his book.
I had my "all you can eat/eat whatever you want" day on Sunday this week and we went to the Pan-Asian restaurant in Cardiff Bay, Cosmo.
It was lush! But I actually only had a small plate of different starters, one small plate of mains and a jelly - when I normally wouldn't have stopped eating! That's all I had to eat on Sunday too!
I'm hoping I've lost .....but I've given up on weighing! I'm not going to weigh now until May 15th.
I've taking 3 "before" photos but I wasn't brave enough to have them taken in my swimming costume! But i've got LOADS to lose, so my next lot of photos could be in a swimming costume!
Abz, with the 50lbs - its 50lbs of "fat" so I've had to have my percentage of body fat measured at the gym and then have it done again for this challenge in 12 weeks. So I might only lose like 30lbs in actual WEIGHT but you end up loosing fat but building muscle because of the exercise and weight training so that's why my target is 50lbs of FAT. It's quite confusing! So I've left them in charge of the figures etc and my personal trainer at the gym will tell me how I'm doing!
I'm quite excited! It's hard going and I'm starting to realise that I'm struggling to lose weight for 3 main reasons:
1) I'm addicted to food
2) I've failed so many diets so many times I don't "believe" that I can BE thin - I cant visualise myself thin at all - therefore I probably won't succeed at weight loss until I can!
3) I'm a comfort eater!
Recognising these things should now help me to lose weight. After recommendation I've even booked a session with a hypnotist. My friend has lost 5 stone in the last 7 months through seeing one and she was the same as me - trying to lose weight for ages but always failing. She even still eats chocolate cake, pizza, steak and chinese!
He just taught her how to listen to her body and only eat when she is genuinely hungry and stop when she's full.
Sounds easy! lol!
I've explained to him that I am an emotional eater, addicted to food and lack will power - but have strong motivation, and that my main problem is that I can't "think myself thin".
He's told me that he can help me in the following ways:
"By changing your unconscious habits, you can change the results you get. Hypnotherapy is an easy way to start to change old patterns of thinking and acting that have stopped you being the size and shape you want. Statistically-speaking, diets don't work. They end in failure for many people. How you eat and how it affects your body weight depends on many factors. For example:
Hypnotherapy and NLP affects subconscious factors such as family training, mood/emotions, habits and exercise level. Diet programs alone are unable to do this. Even diet programs that include exercise programs may not in themselves work for people in the long run.
Most people who come to see me have tried several "diets" that have failed to help them achieve the results they desire. They have tried exercise programs too, which may not have worked either. It usually means that clients will come to me feeling frustrated because of past failures. The good news is that, with hypnotherapy, you can start to get different results now. We can remove the subconscious programming that is getting in the way of your success.
Using hypnotherapy, specifically our NLP, EFT and HNLP system, we can remove the old programming that is causing you to eat out of habit, emotions, family training and increase your level of exercise. I do this through the use of hypnotherapy and teaching you self-hypnosis so that you can continue to reinforce continued success for the rest of your life, or work on almost anything you want to work on in the future (i.e. Self-esteem, Confidence, Motivation, Stress Management, etc.).
In addition to doing hypnosis I also do some education. Part of my program involves teaching our clients about the secret language of feelings and how tell "genuine" hunger from "emotional" hunger.
TESTIMONIALS:
“Hi Richard…I just wanted to let you know that I have already noticed better eating habits since seeing you. I’ve amazingly started to eat the fruits and veg that I didn’t like before. I even managed to eat a tomato. I even stopped eating crisps and chocs, which were my downfall. In fact I can’t stand them anymore! I’ve started exercising and generally feel better. Thank you!”
- James Llewellyn
“I feel more relaxed and happy. I am not so tense now either. I haven’t even touched chocolate or crisps – and that’s just after one session. I even see fruit and veg in a different way (and I only ate junk food before!). I can’t wait to have some veg now! Your hypnotherapy was so calming Richard: it takes you to another world.”
- Collette Beazer
Helen, 52, a customer services manager for Barratt Homes, says: “I’d never done anything like this before. The first time I felt self conscious. You see these stupid television programmes where people run around and do things under hypnosis.
“At the end of the first session I came out feeling totally relaxed. You are conscious throughout and totally aware of everything that’s going on. You aren’t totally out of it.
“I was told to put my fork down between each mouthful. I’m a fast eater but in the third week of hypnotherapy I realised I had started putting my knife and fork down and going slower, but not deliberately.
“I’m not a gullible person. Normally my will power would have gone by now but I’m in my fourth week, I don’t feel like I’m on a diet and I’ve lost 10lb without any effort. “He suggested I’d refuse junk food and eat healthier. My weakness is cakes but I found I didn’t want them. “You need motivation but the hypnotherapy helps you keep it.”
I'm excited now! I'm waiting for him to get back to me with a price for the sessions and then I'm going to book my first one for the beginning of March!
I AM GOING TO SUCCEED THIS YEAR! AND I'M GOING TO DO IT WITHOUT WEIGHING ALL THE TIME!
Hope you're all doing well!
Speak soon xxxx