There's no question that weight reduction is tricky. Virtually every person who has a concern about their weight has lost and gained many times. As I prepare for the January weight reduction sessions, I am excited and thinking about people's journeys with weight reduction. We have seen seen excellent results with hypnosis, but transpersonal hypnotherapy is not just about shedding the pounds, it's about improving body, mind and spirit.

Through hypnotherapy, we go to the root cause and work through the cause(s) of our excess eating. Our subconsious minds know everything about us from the day we were born. Our current habits began long before we were even aware that something unusual was going on. When we work through our past issues, we can create lasting change and in turn, gain better control over our habits and our lives.

I will share my own story. I must say that I have had many hypnosis sessions - I often volunteer for students to "practice" on me - but I work on different topics in each session.

What I like best is that once I've made a change, it's been permanent. When I became a hypnotherapist, I was gaining approximately 2 pounds per month. While I wanted to lose weight, my first goal was to stop gaining weight. Through hypnosis, I stopped gaining almost immediately. For me, other changes came step by step.

Very early in the process, I gave up any and all desire for soda and fast food. I never set goals for these things or made a conscious change, but I no longer wanted these things. While I've always enjoyed walking and have done aerobics since college, I began waking up early and exercising at least 4 days a week and often 6 or 7 days a week. I have excercised regularly for several years now.

Over time, I added meditation and various energy exercises to my routine and as I did, I stopped eating most frozen and prepared foods. I prefer to eat freshly prepared foods, fruits and vegetables.

The first result was that I stopped gaining weight every month. The second visible result was that I lost about 20-25 inches from my body even though the actual weight loss was just 8-10 pounds. In addition to the life-style changes that I've made, I also stopped needing anxiety medication.

Working through hypnosis allows us to make permanent and lasting changes. Our subconscious minds know what we need and help us to make beneficial changes.

Kids are some of my favorite clients! The have great imaginations and hypnosis is all about imagination and being able to imagine different ways of doing things, responding or reacting. Children generally respond well and the appointments are a lot of fun. Kids giggle and wiggle during the sessions and still have great results.

Children can learn to calm themselves down through deep breathing and can learn to do exercises such as changing the channel in their minds with a remote control. For example, whenever a certain thought comes into their head, they change the channel on their (imaginary) remote and think about something else. In the office, we help them to create the new channel that is full of things that are fun or that they love.

What I appreciate most is that the parents are looking for alternatives for their children. I offer reduced rates for all children's appointments because I know that parents have already given a lot of time and money to the situation before they discover hypnosis and I want parents to spread the news about the benefits of hypnosis.

When parents ask about follow up visits, I always ask them to make sure the child wants to come back. Some of these kids have seen so many different people for their concerns that I am careful not to make visits to me feel like a chore. I want the visits to be fun. I also hope that children who don't want to come right now, may remember hypnosis as an option when they are old enough to make their own decisions.

Medical and mental health concerns require a referral from a physician. In my opinion, we are living in the perfect world when the medical community and the alternative practitioners can work together.

I attended a weight loss seminar with Andy Austin a few weeks ago. Andy is bold and brave and pushes the limits - he is known for offending people, but getting great results. At lunch time, Andy asked us to cut our lunch in half and throw the rest in the trash. Most of the class members were outraged. They were angry and disgusted and had VERY strong feelings about the assignment. Since the class, I have told people about the assignment and those people became extrememly angry without even doing it. The point of the exercise was to realize how emotionally tied we are to food. Most people are not eating to fuel their bodies. They are eating for other reasons, but they also have strong beliefs that finishing that candy bar, that icecream or that bag of chips rather than throwing it in the trash will save a starving person somewhere or save the money that they already spent on the item.

I've read that the rate of lasting weight loss from traditional weight loss centers is approximately 7%. After witnessing the strong emotional ties that we have to food, I am surprised the % is so high. Lasting weight loss is difficult to achieve without going to the root cause and working through the connections and perceptions that we developed as very young children. The words our parents said remain alive and well in our subconscious minds. Hypnosis can address our subconscious beliefs and associations and we can change these beliefs to more mature ones that fit our adult lifestyles. These changes lead to lasting results.

I went to a seminar about hypnosis and pediatric IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Robert Hughes did a FABULOUS job of training us. There are studies comparing traditional therapy and calming music to hypnosis for children who have had IBS for some time with little to no relief.

Traditional therapy had approximately a 50% rate of improvement with the majority of the 50% improving somewhat. Hypnosis had a 90%+ success rate with the majority of the 90% improving to a level of virtually gone rather than somewhat improved.

This is my summary of what Robert showed us, but the studies showed beyond a statistical doubt that hypnosis can provide significant relief to pediatric IBS.

Robert is doing wonderful work! We know how effective hypnosis is. It's time to let the world know!