If you‘ve been desperately trying to lose weight, you may have heard of losing weight with hypnosis.

If you did, you’ve also probably heard about the different results people get working with hypnotherapy.

All in all, some people transform their bodies, mindset, and lifestyle with hypnotherapy and they love it. But there is another group of people who try hypnotherapy just to find out that it’s not working for them.

What makes the difference in the results when working with hypnosis to lose weight?

And most importantly, how can you improve your success in losing weight with hypnotherapy?

What determines the success of hypnosis for weight loss?

·      Commitment to the hypnotherapy process

If you are expecting someone -like a hypnotherapist- to come and save you and do everything for you, be ready for a big disappointment. Hypnotherapy is actually a process of commitment and a significant amount of change. 

Think of hypnotherapy for weight loss as a long-term practice that will change you internally which will reflect on your body. Therefore, your long-term commitment to the process and belief in hypnosis is one of the most important key indicators of success with hypnosis.

·      Willingness to change lifestyle

Think about it, there are many toxic habits that you may be practicing daily that contributes to weight gain. Some people eat their emotions while others forget to eat all day altogether. Without changing these small unhealthy habits, it will be very difficult to lose weight and keep it off in the long term.

Hypnotherapy can support you during these difficult changes and help you find internal motivation by altering your subconscious beliefs about these everyday habits. But if you think that weight loss with hypnosis happens with a simple suggestion from your hypnotherapist like “From now on, your body will lose weight and you will never overeat again”, most likely, you won’t be moving much forward.

·      Patience and being open to small but steady progress 

Usually, quick fixes don’t lead to long-term transformations. Losing weight with hypnosis is one of these processes. Hypnotherapy is a process of small, incremental changes rather than quick and simple fixes.

If you expect to quickly lose 10-20 pounds with hypnosis, this may not be the best path for you. But if you are open to losing 1.5-2 pounds a week while you are changing your habits and creating a lifestyle that supports a healthy body, you are right on track with hypnotherapy.

·      Being ready to process the emotional stuff 

Since I’ve been helping my clients to lose weight with hypnotherapy, I noticed one common pattern: Emotional trauma. 

Seems like most people who are dealing with a significant amount of excess weight (30+ pounds) for a long time tend to have a history of emotional trauma that is somewhat covered by the weight issue.  

In some cases, the weight acts as a subconscious protection, distraction, or symbol of buried emotions such as shame, guilt, hurt, or sadness. Therefore, if we really want to get to the bottom of the weight problem, we may need to dig deep and help process the emotional trauma.

Hypnotherapy is an excellent way of processing and integrating negative emotions and events. However, the person’s attitude and openness towards this process are very important. For example, if you are not ready to face or talk about these uncomfortable issues, your weight loss experience with hypnosis may not be as successful as you wish.

How successful is hypnosis for weight loss?

Unfortunately, still, there aren’t a lot of research studies conducted to understand hypnotherapy’s effectiveness on weight loss. Most of the evidence is based on case studies and individual results.

One remarkable case study that was published in 2014 reported that hypnobehavioral therapy helped 60 obese women to improve weight, BMI, body image, and eating behavior.

Another study that was done with 8 obese adults and 3 children showed that with the help of hypnotherapy, participants were treated successfully, eventually avoiding the surgery.

Aside from research studies about hypnotherapy’s effectiveness for weight loss, I can tell from my experience that, hypnotherapy can help with a successful and long-term weight loss journey about 75% of the time. After all, there is a significant portion of commitment and willingness on the individual’s side, on top of the hypnotherapist’s guidance.

How long does hypnotherapy for weight loss take? 

Hypnotherapy is a very personal form of subconscious therapy. This means everyone will have a unique experience and results. In other words, it is very difficult to determine exactly how many sessions you will need to lose weight with hypnotherapy.

However, it’s fair to expect to lose weight with hypnotherapy in multiple sessions. This is because there are a lot of lifestyle changes, self-image improvement, and emotional processing happening to lose weight effectively. All these take time and require incremental changes.

A healthy weight loss is about 1.5 to 2 pounds a week. Usually, hypnotherapists can have package programs for weight loss or they can give an estimate based on their experiences. Working with me for losing weight with hypnotherapy, the process can take anywhere between 5 to 12 sessions. However every hypnotherapist will be different, and so will their process.

Final words 

The weight loss process can be slightly more complex than just the weight issue itself. Changing your subconscious beliefs about food, eating, your self-image, and emotions can help you transform your relationship with yourself and your body. One of the greatest ways to do this easily is hypnosis.

Knowing how the process of hypnosis for weight loss goes can help elevate stress and worries about the journey!