NLPCoaching.com Contest 2015 – Elizabeth Terry

Losing Weight Can Be Easy as One, Two, Three with NLP!

When I met Kelly at the end of August, she came very willingly on the recommendation of her husband. An effervescent, immensely attractive 40 something lady in the holistic health business with her super healthy husband, she told me ‘life is generally wonderful’ and really chided herself for having problems with her weight.’ I feel ridiculous’ she said, especially because of her business focus, indicating that she had so many things going for her and shouldn’t be struggling with this issue. After a ‘wonderful’ childhood and early family life, she started putting on weight post marriage and pregnancies, finally losing the ‘baby fat’ after her fifth child. Her marriage was going south and when she had had enough of the physical and emotional abuse, she threw in the towel in 2005 and divorced her first husband. That is when the weight really started to pile on!

Now ten years later, remarried to the love of her life, sitting in my living room office, Kelly tipped the scales at over 200lbs. Her lively chatter was interspersed frequently with ‘shoulds’ and feelings of guilt about not being a good enough Mother to her children. Expressing the need to ‘look hot for her husband’, she seemed quite proud to say that ‘I am not disciplined about life’ and ‘I don’t do 8 hours of sleep’, justifying her night owl behaviour due to her husband’s late night study schedule.

She shared her Food Journal with me – I had set her tasking to keep a log of everything that she put into her mouth for the week before coming to see me, indicating the time and the associated feelings she was having just before eating. It showed no regular eating times nor patterns of consumption’ sort of like a children’s grab bag with frequent late night eating and loads of sugary foods. Kelly told me that despite the fact that she had all the outfits and gear to start her work-out regime, she couldn’t start since she got to bed too late and besides, she was still suffering from post-Chick-V pain in her feet which of course seemed to be worse in the early morning. Despite all of this and her fear of failure to reach her desired goal, she had made the decision that she HAD to make a change and was highly motivated to make this happen! This was an important cue since no change can happen without commitment to do whatever it takes!

In our first session we talked a bit about the Conscious and Unconscious Mind and the fact that often negative emotions and limiting decisions and beliefs about oneself, get embedded in the Unconscious from an early age. These often end up unconsciously driving our behaviour throughout our lives, unless we decide to get rid of the stuff that doesn’t serve us and take steps to reprogram our mind! I explained also the importance of self-discipline and being at ’cause’ (taking full responsibility) not only as regards to food and drink but also our lifestyle generally, particularly the importance of sleep and exercise and living a balanced life. Essentially, our outer world mirrors our inner world! She GOT it!

Kelly and I agreed that she would continue to keep her Food Journal throughout our engagement, which she told me was a difficult task, however it was making her much more conscious about what she was actually eating, obviously a good thing! We also agreed that she would set herself a deadline to go to bed before mid-night and not to make excuses about her husband’s schedule! Creating order and balance was a target!

By the second session, Kelly was feeling more energized and had recognized that getting more sleep really did have a positive impact on her well-being. The Values Elicitation exercise for Health and Fitness revealed that most of Kelly’s values were around looking good for external approval and not for her own sense of health and well-being.

It was now time to start Time Line Therapy ® to release the key negative emotions and limiting beliefs’ this was an exciting experience for Kelly, as she had not realized that she had so much buried beneath the surface; uncovering angry feelings towards her mother due to her ‘absence’ while she was growing up, feelings of unworthiness, and a belief that she was actually ‘lazy’ and ‘couldn’t keep it up’ Little by little, like peeling the layers off an onion, the negative feelings began to be released, leaving her lighter and more positive with every session.

The use of Mapping Across, proved extremely effective in eliminating Kelly’s craving for chicken as well as the SWISH pattern for visits to the desert section of the buffet line, whilst on her weekend working trips spent in holiday resorts! Kelly was thrilled with the results which had the added benefit of motivating her still further.
Added to the Food Journal tasking, Kelly also commenced an extensive goal exercise, focusing not simply on Health and Fitness but also identifying other areas of importance like Career – uncovering a strong desire to start a Foundation for Abused Women!

By the fourth week, Kelly had started exercising using a one-mile walking work-out and was feeling physically stronger ‘her feet were not aching as much and certainly were no longer an obstacle to exercising’ going to bed at 10:00pm and getting 7-8 hours of sleep per night was also having a positive effect on her energy level and ability to better regulate her eating habits with a more structured schedule! Things were definitely looking up!

In the final session, I checked on her Health and Fitness Values again and found that some of them had changed – Kelly’s number one value was now, ‘Being healthy and loving myself, making health and fitness a priority’ with ‘a clean body temple’ being in the top 5! Additionally, all her ‘away-from’s were gone! Kelly was now 100% focused towards her values! In seven sessions, Kelly was now glowing with confidence, sure that she could reach her goal of losing 100lbs within 12 months with her new disciplined and structured approach to her life! To quote her:

“Even though I sort of doubted the programme in the beginning, I was impressed after the 1st session. After every session, I had amazing breakthroughs that made me excited to do my homework and get to the next session. My life changed after NLP. I stopped eating chicken and in fact my entire eating habits have changed. I have challenged myself to losing 2 lbs weekly and have met that goal since. I walk or run a mile daily…when before NLP, exercise was pretty much non-existent! I received more from the programme than one bargained for as I am closer to my mother … a relationship I struggled with before. My entire lifestyle and how I view life on a whole has changed positively. I am happy, confident and loving life.”

Awesome! Losing weight really can be as easy as one, two, three, with NLP! 🙂