Tag Archive for: Health

Weight Loss is Seldom About Weight

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Weight Loss

“Truth is Beauty” photo by Jennifer Morrow

Of all the things I help people with in my hypnotherapy practice, it seems that weight loss is the most difficult. 

I don’t really advertise it. When someone calls me for weight loss, I tell them that it is going to be a minimum of eight sessions.  I want to make sure they are serious.

Because weight loss is rarely about food and weight.

I was recently asked by the amazing Lauren Herrera of Pilates Barbell Club in Pasadena to be a contributor to her Triple Fat Loss Formula Program. (Click here to see outtakes of a video we made.)

She posted a blog post with words that carry uncommon wisdom and leave no doubt in my mind that she “gets it” when it comes to weight loss and fitness. Here’s a little of what she wrote:

“Food issues” and losing weight are rarely about the food or the weight.

Our interaction with food and our reliance on self-acceptence through a number on the scale or tag on our clothing perpetuates a never ending battle of self-hate, deprivation of food, insane exercise regimens (over-doing cardio, or actually doing an ‘insane’ workout) encompass the never-ending cycle of diet, binge, repeat. Or worse, diet, workout like a nut, get injured, then binge out of depression and defeat and then repeat.

If it’s not about the food, than what is it about?
Well, YOU. And everything that makes you UNIQUE, WONDERFUL, TALENTED and LOVABLE. Even if you don’t see it.

Weight loss is about being ok with and accepting yourself.

 

Lauren’s ideas about weight loss reflect an enlightened approach because they speak to the reasons why weight loss can be so hard.

The reason weight loss can be so difficult is because very often food is used to soothe negative emotions such as stress, low self worth, worry, anger, and  emotional pain such as loneliness and depression . It’s hard to see these emotions as part of the cause of being overweight when so much attention is on comparing one’s body to the body on the latest cover of  Whatever Magazine. Or, focusing on the latest diet or work out fad.

Furthermore, weight loss can be sabotaged by what is known as “secondary gain”. This is a situation where subconsciously, there is more advantage to keeping the weight than losing it.

For instance, after the loss of a relationship and the resulting heartbreak,  a woman may desire to lose weight, but be unable to do so no matter how hard she tries. This can be a fear based protective mechanism to avoid attracting another relationship and the emotional pain that may result. This is almost impossible to see in one’s self without some help. But if you can see it, then you can deal with it through compassion and love for yourself to heal and move forward.

This blog post is not about how to achieve weight loss, it’s simply food for thought (no pun intended) if weight loss is one of your goals.

A very helpful question to ask yourself in your quest for weight loss is “What am I hungry for?” We are all hungry for love, attention, happiness, acknowledgement, and acceptance. Once we can identify our deep seated human needs, then we can begin to work on getting those needs met. If we can’t identify our needs, we will find a way to ease the pain of the lack of them, be it through, food, alcohol, drugs, sex or work.

The intention behind weight loss should be to honor the gift of our bodies through physical fitness and health. Start with that in mind and everything else will follow. Like Lauren says:

Truth is our attractiveness will fade with age. But, our ability to be independent, self-reliant and MOBILE when we are pushing 75 is the bigger picture. Enjoying the 100 year lifespan we are projected to have is what it’s about for me.

Me too. Hope to see you in 2060.

Ted

Quit Smoking: Tips, Tools and Tricks

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quit smoking

I read a funny quit smoking joke by Conan O’Brian: “The CDC says that it’s graphic anti-smoking TV ads have have helped over 200,00 people to quit. Not quit smoking, quit watching television.”

But if you are a smoker, and want to quit smoking, you know that quitting smoking is no joke. It can be very hard.

The dangers of smoking are well known. Since May is  National Health and Fitness Month, I’d like to provide some tips to help you quit smoking. If you don’t smoke but know someone that does, please forward this to them.  It might just save their life.

Some people are able to quit smoking on their own, but research show that the best way to quit is through evidence based smoking cessation technologies and programs. Seventy percent of smokers will attempt to quit smoking without using a program and 9o percent will relapse. (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.)

Ready to quit smoking on your own? Here are some tips to increase your chances.

  • Have a plan. To quit smoking, you must be prepared. Pick a goal date when you will smoke your last cigarette and start your life as a non-smoker. Between two weeks and 30 days from today.
  • Get a physical. Be aware of any health problems that may exist. It’s better to know. Make sure it’s ok for you to exercise.
  • Get regular exercise. Get your health back.  Walking is a great way to start, riding a bike or doing exercise videos at home. Exercising will also help you deal with negative feelings that may arise in your first days of quitting.
  • Prepare to quit. If you smoke over a pack a day, give yourself two weeks to prepare your mind to quit smoking. If under a pack, give yourself a week. Adjust if necessary and based on your intuition and experience. During your preparing to quit period:
  • Write down all the reasons why it’s so important for you to quit smoking. The more emotional, the better. (“I don’t want my kids to watch me die of lung cancer” for example.) Write your reasons down on a few 3×5 cards and carry them with you. Put them up where you will see them. Read them several times a day.
  • Change your diet. Since nicotine acts as an appetite suppressant, you don’t want to gain a bunch of  weight after you quit smoking. (Very common after folks quit smoking.) Start to eat three healthy meals a day with healthy snacks in between. Increase protein and reduce refined carbs.
  • In your preparation period, start to scramble your smoking pattern. For instance, if you smoke in your left hand, start smoking in your right. If you like smoking on the front porch, change your smoking spot to some uncomfortable place like out by the trashcans. Stop buying cartons and buy one pack at a time, changing brands each time you buy a pack. Start cutting cigarettes in half.
  •  FIND REPLACEMENTS. In my opinion, this is the number one secret to successfully quit smoking. There are many reasons people smoke: to ease boredom, reduce stress, relax, as a reward, or simply because it’s a habit. Of course, there is the addiction component as well. Find things to replace  smoking with and have them ready on your quit day. Some examples:
    1. Find ways to stay busy to keep from being bored. At work instead of a smoke break, take a short walk.
    2. Keep your mouth busy using sunflower seeds in the shell, gum, sugar free suckers or hard candy, licorice, carrot sticks, celery sticks, pretzels, flavored toothpicks. Some people say that putting a Listerine slip in their mouth takes away the urge. Drinking milk works too.
    3. Keep your hands busy with a stress ball, or an object you can keep in your hand like a pen or small stone.
    4. Drink lots of water.
    5. Take a Vitamin B supplement to help with stress.
    6. Deep breaths.
    7. Use the nicotine patch,  gum or prescribed smoking cessation meds if you need to, they are much more effective when used in combination with the techniques I’m giving you here.
  • Use affirmations. Use positive self talk such as “I am free!” or “I can do this” or “I am in control” or I’m worth taking care of ” or “I am healthy, happy and free from addiction.” Make it a habit to say them several times a day.
  • ON YOUR QUIT SMOKING DAY: Tell everyone what you are doing to make yourself accountable. Pick your quit day carefully; a day when you have time to focus on your goal.
  •  After you quit smoking, avoid drugs like alcohol and marijuana which can decrease your motivation. I suggest giving them up at least for the first month of being a non smoker, longer if they are major triggers that make you want to smoke. If coffee makes you want to smoke, cut down or eliminate it for a while.
  •  Get lots of sleep. You body needs energy to heal.
  • Get your teeth cleaned. 
  • Get your car washed and detailed if you smoked in your car.
  • Avoid situations that will tempt you. Stay away from bars and parties where people will be smoking. Ask those close to you to refrain from smoking in front of you.
  • Give yourself a reward. Have a plan to get a massage after 30 days of smoke free. Or take a trip. Or buy something for yourself.
  • DON’T KID YOURSELF! Don’t even think for a second that you can have “just one” after you quit. Chances are you can’t. “Just one” can undo all of your hard work. Begin to see cigarettes for what they are: a deadly poison that you want to stay away from.

Hypnosis was found to be more than twice as effective as quitting “cold turkey,” and over
three times as effective as nicotine replacement therapy, according to a a study presented October 22, 2007 at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

I offer a four session “Freedom From Smoking Forever” ® program using hypnosis and hypnosis recordings for listening  at home.  Research shows that using hypnosis to quit smoking can be up to 66% effective when 4 or 5 sessions are used in a 6 to 12 month period.

Your health is the most precious thing you have. If you are ready to quit smoking and want more information about my smoking cessation program, you can request a free consultation by clicking here.

Ted A. Moreno
Certified Hypnotherapist

How to Release Negative Emotions Quickly and Easily

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In an hour hypnosis session, the hypnosis part is only about 20 minutes. The remainder of the time I’m talking with my client, getting information, setting goals, and teaching them various techniques to add to their transformation toolbox.

One of the most valuable tools that I teach almost every client is EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. EFT is in my experience  quite effective for quickly letting go of negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, anger, and sadness. It can also be used for physical problems as well.

In this short video I teach how to do EFT. It’s simple, easy and effective. To learn more about EFT go to www.emofree.com.

 

The Power of Chiropractic

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This week’s newsletter features an article written by guest author Dr. Kyle Umland, Doctor of Chiropractic. In addition to being my  chiropractor, he is a  friend and trusted health advisor. I’ve been getting regular chiropractic adjustment for most of my adult life, and I often recommend chiropractic to my hypnotherapy clients. If you are interested in finding out what chiropractic can do for your health maintenance, I recommend you call Dr. Kyle, a very knowledgable and extremely competent chiropractor. Tell him Ted sent you.

The Power of Chiropractic

Do you brush your teeth regularly?  I hope you do.

You brush those teeth so they don’t decay.

You also exercise and eat well to maintain your health.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, so they say.

So let me ask you, what are you doing on a regular basis to take care of the most important organ in your body, your nervous system? Nothing? Well let’s change that. Your nervous system is where you live. It is where all your healing comes from.

  We’ve all been taught to judge our health based on symptoms. Got a symptom? -take a drug to mask the symptom, now everything is OK, right? WRONG!

You must understand that symptoms are your body’s attempt to tell you that something is wrong. Symptoms are your friends. Your body is designed to have symptoms, so that you know when something is wrong with your body.

If you were driving down the street and the oil light lit up on your dashboard, would you ignore it? Put a piece of tape over it so you don’t have to look at it? That’s exactly what taking a drug is like. But when your engine runs out of oil then you have a BIG problem!

Much of Western medicine is about treating symptoms, not addressing the cause of the symptoms. Medicine is great for acute care but an absolute failure for chronic degenerative disease which is what 95% of what medicine is treating.

 What’s sad is that as more and more people take drugs to relieve symptoms, it’s probable that more people will die an early death. If the body is telling you it’s sick by presenting a symptom, and you cover up those symptoms with drugs, then it becomes easy to ignore a sick body. I call it “Better living through chemistry!” But it’s not. Here is a chilling fact: From The Journal of the American Medical Association addressing the subject of unintended side-effects of properly prescribed, properly administered medications. The authors estimate deaths from such events to exceed 106,000 deaths per year in 1994. This makes drug reaction deaths the fourth leading cause of death in the country. That was in 1994. Imagine how many more are dying now that drug use continues to escalate. Your health should not be based on symptoms. A lot of people have no symptoms, and feel great but are not healthy. They can feel great one day and drop dead of a heart attack the next day; that was their first symptom! Magic Johnson feels and looks great but is he healthy? No, he is infected with HIV. True health is defined as your body, your total body, working at 100% function, and 100% of the time. So if it is obvious that taking drugs won’t make you healthy, what is the answer to achieving health?

 The answer is to take care of the cause of the symptoms and to help your body heal itself. All healing starts in the nervous system. That’s what the power of chiropractic is all about.

Chiropractic is powerful because you live inside your nervous system. Long before you get cancer, heart disease, long before you get any kind of a disease process manifesting as a symptom, the blueprint for that disease process is always created in the nervous system. This interference to the nervous system comes from stress, particularly emotional stress. How many of us have any stress in our lives on a regular basis? All of us. So it is vital to get adjusted regularly to clear this interference.

 If you were, God forbid, diagnosed with cancer today, consider that you didn’t get cancer yesterday or last week or the week before or the year before. The origins of this cancer may have started years ago. You don’t go from perfect health one day to perfect death the next day. Something breaks down in your body.

 When you get an adjustment it changes the patterning of the nervous system. That’s what makes chiropractic powerful. If you have a strong nervous system, (and I believe that the only way you get a strong nervous system is by seeing a chiropractor regularly) your body will maintain and heal itself. If you get your neck adjusted and your headaches go away, well that’s a great side effect of chiropractic. But if you get your neck adjusted and the nerve channels open up and the blueprint for the cancer that was going to come out in your physical body five years from now is eliminated, what’s that worth? It’s priceless.

 Here’s another reason chiropractic is powerful: if you have a strong nervous system, then you have a strong immune system. The immune system is the end organ of the nervous system. That’s why seeing a chiropractor regularly is the one of the smartest things you can do to add years to your life and life to your years.

Chiropractic doesn’t heal you, you heal yourself. The adjustment takes away interference from the nervous system which “turns on” your healing power.

 With regular chiropractic adjustments, you’re not making a decision about today’s back pain, headaches etc. You’re making a decision on where you want to be in 10, 15, 20, or 30 years from now.

Do you want to be alive and enjoying life with your friends and family years from now? Going out, traveling, playing sports, having fun? Or do you want to be laid up in some hospital or nursing home, or even worse, pushing up daisies at the cemetery?

 My work as a Chiropractor is not to get you out of back pain. (although it is a great side effect – most of the time your pain will get better!) My job is to keep you from being a customer over at the hospital. My job as a Chiropractor is to teach you about your body and keep you alive. As your Chiropractor, my  job is to help you live long and strong!

 I’m not trying to scare you but I’ve got to tell you the truth. You can read this article and choose not to make chiropractic a part of your lifestyle or even explore the possibility.  However, stress, toxins in the air, water and food, and the degenerative process of aging will take their toll on your body and possibly overwhelm its ability to heal itself. If your nervous system and immune system are not on full power, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t want you to look back 10 years from now and say, “I should have made chiropractic a part of my lifestyle.”

 Please help me in my mission to change the world one person at a time. Getting regular adjustments will reconnect body, mind and spirit and increase your health and vitality. By helping people get healthy and off drugs we will make the world a better place to live for all of us. Share this information with your friends and loved ones and start getting adjusted!

 Yours for health,

Kyle Umland, D.C.

626.345.0441