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Losing Weight And Loving Your Own Body By Patrick Wanis

Secrets To Losing Weight, Being Thin & Loving Your Body. Also get Patrick Wanis’ audio program to lose weight now

Over forty billion dollars a year is spent on losing weight and given that over sixty percent of the adult population in the US is overweight or obese, it seems, the weight loss formulas are obviously not working. Even Oprah struggles with weight issues and so many people experience the yo-yo weight syndrome or are simply confused by the extraordinarily conflicting and confusing information about the right diet, exercise or supplement to take.

So what is the answer? And what does it take for you to feel good about your body?

“Many years ago, I was performing stage hypnosis. That means using hypnosis to create shows, comedy and entertainment for audiences around the world. At the end of one show in Cozumel, two ladies from Texas approached me and for those of you in the audience who are from Texas or those of you who know people from Texas then you appreciate how forthright and upfront they really are; they just speak their minds; they tell you what they want. So these ladies told me what they wanted.

They wanted me to hypnotize them together to help them to lose weight. But they were very clear about how they wanted it done. They wanted me to hypnotize them to eat less sugar, eat less fat and exercise more. Now I was just beginning in the studies of the uses of hypnosis so I didn’t know too much about this, other than, well “let’s give them the suggestions and see what happens.” So I hypnotized the two ladies at the same time and I gave them the suggestions “eat less sugars, eat less fats, exercise more.”

Well three months later, one of these two ladies invited me to Texas, to Dallas, to perform for her a private show and she was very wealthy and successful and she had a huge mansion. When I arrived at the airport, I didn’t recognize her. I looked at her and I said, “Wow! I wouldn’t have even known who you are.” And then I said, “How’s Susan?” And Cathy said to me, “Oh she hasn’t lost a pound. She’s still exactly the same.”

And at that very moment I started thinking to myself, well that’s strange. Why did it work for one lady but it didn’t work for the other? I knew they were both hypnotized. So eating less sugar, eating less fat and exercising more worked for one lady but it didn’t work for the other. What was the missing link? Well that got me started on a quest to find out what really determines our success; what really determines whether we can or can’t lose weight; what really determines not just yo-yo diets but the motivation behind either losing weight or not being able to lose weight. So let me share with you another case study.

Still in Cozumel, a lady approached me to hypnotize her to lose weight. Now while she was hypnotized she revealed to me that 12 years earlier, she had had an affair and she became pregnant. Her husband who was an alcoholic at that time had already forgiven her because he said, “I know who I was. I know how bad I was. I know I wasn’t there for you. I forgive you.” The problem, though, was she hadn’t forgiven herself. So under hypnosis, she said that she felt guilty and ashamed. She revealed that she was punishing herself and she didn’t want to be attractive again in case she was tempted to stray.

Let me share with you one more case study.

Another lady asked me to help her because she put a lot of weight on recently and she didn’t know why. During our initial conversation, it became clear to me the real reason why she had put on excess weight. Her husband hadn’t worked in quite a while. She was working longer hours to cover the bills while looking after her two young children. So she was angry. She was resentful towards her husband. She was punishing her husband. In her mind, he wasn’t pulling his weight. He wasn’t sharing the responsibilities. And so, therefore, she thought that he had no right to enjoy her body or to be intimate with her. In other words, she had become overweight to turn him off, to deny him the pleasure of sex, to punish him and to put up a wall between her and him.

Yet another client of mine was exercising daily, counting calories, following a strict diet, attending a nutritionist and she still had no success. Nothing had changed.

Based on all of these cases, it was apparent and obvious that excess weight had many different causes; causes that are much deeper and go beyond simply the need for diets and exercise. So over the years, after working with many different clients of all ages, backgrounds and types, I have learned that excess weight has many different causes.

So let’s look at all the many different possible causes behind extra pounds or an out-of-body shape. And the causes I’m referring to are the emotional causes. We might even refer to them as emotional benefits. Although you might say to me, “Are they real benefits?” Yes, they can be benefits to the individual.

So I’ll call your attention to the screen. And the first one is, blocking out the world and avoiding intimacy. In other words, those extra pounds, that out-of-body shape can serve as a subconscious way to block out the world; to keep people away. It prevents you from getting close to other people.

So for example, it was actually a friend of mine; a very beautiful, very special, very intelligent, very gifted, very talented woman and I brought it to her attention that she was like a princess living in a castle. But she locked herself up in the castle and she’s up in that tower and all around her castle is that mote; all that water that prevents people from getting in. That castle wall and the mote is the weight. It’s the excess weight. Now why did she want to do that? Primarily because she’s really religious and doesn’t want to have sex before marriage; because she was afraid of getting close to people; because she was afraid of intimacy, afraid of rejection which leads us to the next bullet point — avoiding competition and the fear of failure or rejection.

Let me elaborate on this point. Women will understand this immediately. Some women when they don’t think they’re good enough will simply give up. Now it’s true that men who have a lot of testosterone tend to be very competitive. They become assertive. They can be aggressive. Testosterone pushes men to action and also pushes them to compete. But that’s very different to the kind of competition that women will choose to engage in because women are always in competition with each other. So if a woman doesn’t think she’s good enough, she doesn’t think she’s pretty enough, she doesn’t think she’s beautiful enough, she may simply decide to give up on life so she avoids the competition.

Number three: You recall the example I gave earlier — the excess weight, that wall around you can also serve as a subconscious way, a symbolic way to reduce the temptation to stray or cheat. So if I feel ugly, if I feel fat, if I feel undesirable then there’s less chance that I’m going to either tempt other people to pursue me or that I’m going to feel tempted to stray or cheat.

Number four: A person can induce or influence his or her mate to be overweight to diminish that mate’s temptations. Now let me explain this a little clearer. This is about control. This is about the power struggle where the insecure men may say to his girlfriend, his wife, his partner, “Oh you’re old. You’re ugly. Who would want you?” And those sort of putdowns not only destroy and lower a person’s self-esteem and self-confidence and self-worth but they can then lead to the partner giving in and allowing him or herself to become overweight to please their partner.

Number five: An overweight person may induce his mate to be like him or her. That means the overweight man may feel so bad about himself, so insecure about himself that he may influence or persuade his partner to be like him, to become overweight. And you’ll say, “Well wait a minute, how does the overweight person control the partner?” It’s not about the overweight person controlling his or her partner; it’s about the partner giving in, trying to please, trying to gain the acceptance and the approval of the overweight person.

Number six: Those extra pounds, that out-of-shape body can also serve as a subconscious way to ease a spouse’s insecurity. So that means a woman might feel that her husband or her partner was so insecure that therefore she allows herself to become overweight or she doesn’t take care of herself as a way of easing her partner’s insecurity. On the flipside, the total opposite can occur and what I mean by that is, think of the woman who says she would never marry an extremely handsome man because of the fear he might stray. At the same time, a man who’s married to a woman that’s overweight might actually feel more secure about himself thinking that he doesn’t have to worry about her running off with another man.

Now I appeal to you please take note of the next point, self punishment. That’s the concept that — I don’t deserve to be thin and happy. Now this again relates to what I call the law of deservedness. You get only what you subconsciously believe you deserve and no more. If you get more than what you subconsciously believe you deserve, you sabotage it or push it away.

So the concept of not feeling good enough, of lacking something, of something being wrong with you doesn’t just relate to your weight, your size, your shape, or your health. It affects every area in your life. So if you truly subconsciously believe that you don’t deserve to be thin and happy then guess what? You’re never going to be thin or happy.

Number eight: Punishing your spouse by being overweight and unattractive. We call the case I mentioned earlier, the wife who wanted to punish her husband because she didn’t think he was pulling his weight because he wasn’t trying hard enough to get a job and because she was full of resentment towards him. So if she said, “I’m not enjoying my life. I’m not going to let you enjoy it either. I’m not enjoying what’s going on here. You’re not going to enjoy it either.” So she punishes him and says, “You’re not going to enjoy my body and you’re not going to enjoy sex between us.”

Number nine: Eating to satisfy an inner emptiness. This is when, in the middle of the night, we open up the fridge and we’re looking for something. We’re not really hungry. We’re not actually physically hungry. We’re emotionally hungry. Usually what we’re hungry for is love, approval, validation, recognition, support, encouragement and prayers.

And the last one, resentment and anger. We’re going to be talking a lot today about that; about the emotional issues that hold us back.

Now it’s true that some people do have poor metabolism but most times that’s due to stress and poor sleep. Sometimes people just need motivation because they’ve lost hope and given up on life maybe due to rejection, a breakup, a divorce, even a job loss. Now ultimately, all of the things we’ve talked about so far point to one central cause of excess weight. That’s the emotional baggage; emotional issues at a subconscious level; emotional issues that determine your self-image, your self-worth, your motivation, how you feel about yourself and of course, your resulting happiness. Negative emotional issues also create stress that damages your body and leads to all types of issues with weight. In other words, do you believe that you deserve to be thin? Do you believe you deserve to be happy? Do you believe that you deserve to be loved? Do you believe that you are good enough to love others?

Now I know this might sound strange but I sincerely believe that our greatest hidden desire is not to be loved but rather to love other people. In other words, I believe our greatest hidden desire is actually to express love.

And what prevents us from expressing love?

When we don’t think we’re good enough to express our love, when we don’t think that our love is worthy of being given to someone else, when we think that there’s something wrong with us. We’re not special. We’re not good enough. We feel guilty. We feel ashamed. We feel bad about ourselves. When we feel that way we don’t want to express love to anyone else because we think it it’ll be rejected because we think that we’re not good enough and therefore the love that we wish to express isn’t good enough.

And what we’re going to be doing today is helping you to like, love and accept yourself because when you can like, love and accept yourself is when you’ll actually be able to successfully make the changes you want in your life. That’s when you’ll be able to successfully get your body back into its natural shape; to feel good about yourself; to feel good about expressing your body; to feel free about expressing who you are on every level — mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and sexual…

In other words, do you believe you deserve to be thin and happy and what would happen if you were thin? What would your life be like? Do you truly think it would be better or do you feel that you should continue punishing yourself? Do you feel guilty? Do you feel ashamed? Are you scared of something?”

The final word
Very few of us truly understand the powerful link between our emotions, thoughts and our physical body. From all of my work with clients, I have found that negative emotions and stress are often the primary causes of most illnesses, weight gain and the overall inability to enjoy life and all of the wonderful things it has to offer. As we remove those fears, judgments and all other negative emotions and beliefs, we set ourselves free to have a healthy body and to feel confident and proud of that body.

In the next part of this series, I will share with you the eight key strategies to lower and remove stress from your life. If you want to learn more about stress (its effect on your health, common causes, signs & symptoms, and how it causes food cravings and belly fat), click here to listen to my free 20-minute audio.

Contributors

Patrick Wanis
Originally from Australia, Patrick Wanis PhD, is a Celebrity Life-Coach, Author and an Expert in Human Behavior & Relationships, and Clinical Hypnotherapist with a PhD in Health Psychology. Wanis has been featured on FOX News, MSNBC, CBS, the Montel Williams Show, Cosmo magazine, Dating on Demand, Mike and Juliet show, XM & Sirius radio, E! TV, VH1 and American Media mini books. Wanis is the first person ever to do Clinical Hypnotherapy on national television. Wanis coaches and works with various celebrities and is recognized as is one of the top experts on relationships, sexuality, communication, body language, human motivations, persuasion, success and personal development. WGN Chicago and Syndicated TV show, “The Daily Buzz” anointed him “The Woman Expert” and FOX News pronounced him “A voice for women.” Over five million people have read Wanis’ books in English and Spanish. www.patrickwanis.com.

Patrick Wanis’ “Secrets to Losing Weight, Being Thin and Loving Your Body!” audio program is available now.

This is an archived copy which was published on Date.info – Monday, January 10th, 2011

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