Poo and prickly yellow balls....

So, I visited Hypno lady for my second session a week or two ago. We briefly discussed how the first week had gone, and how I had found keeping the food diary so far.

She looked it over, and said that I have made a good start, despite having had a chip shop dinner one of the nights, and a few pieces of cake here and there! In fairness, I was chuffed to bits with my good start which may make you (and me) realise actually how much I do normally shove down the old cake hole every day.

So - what had changed in the last week? - my first session hadn't actually been a 'session' so to speak, just an information gathering session for the Hypno lady. Maybe it was just because I had decided that I was going to give it a good go this time. So the chip shop dinner, was still a lard-fest, but the small sausage, partial portion of chips and day-glo mushy peas I had, was certainly better than the usual pie or large fish, all my chips and a curry sauce, oh and maybe a slice of bread, and a can or two of pepsi to wash it down. The cake was also instead of the chocolate and crisps I usually consume, and was home made. HOME MADE, damn it - that doesn't happen very often. And the best bit - there was still some in the cupboard three days after I made it. Result - I hadn't scoffed it all - yeah!

****BODILY FUNCTION WARNING****** if you are offended by them, you may not wish to read any further, you have been warned!

So the second session, began - Hypno Lady asked me whether I felt ready for some regression hypnotherapy, I settled into my comfy chair, put my feet up and began. She talked the usual hypno chat - relaxing me good and proper, then she asked my subconscious to come to the fore, so that I could work out when the life of fat began. She told me that I was in a posh library, where I could see a volume of 34 books, and each one represented a year of my life - she wanted me to choose one of the volumes and tell her what was in it.

I have to say, at this point, I was so relaxed my leg had fallen off the foot rest, and made me jump, but this question really perplexed me. I could see the books clear as day, but I couldn't bring myself to pick one out. Then I felt as though I was spinning in a swivel chair with an elusive thought, like a cloud floating around above my head. Then after much thinking (and face pulling, like me badly acting a 'thoughtful pose') the cloud and I collided, and BAM, I reached for volume 9.

Hypno-lady asked me what was in volume 9, and I told her that it was when we moved to America, and when I went, almost overnight, from being a normal sized, well actually painfully thin child, to putting on weight in a pretty continuous momentum there forward!

So I explained how prior to us moving to the States, my mom had been worried about me as I had lost a lot of weight and constantly had the trots. The GP over here said there was nothing wrong. When we got to America, we had to have a full medical before we were allowed to go to school, and when my mom mentioned how I had been, the doctor poked and prodded my stomach and said that I needed to go to hospital. Apparently I had an impacted gut, and if it had perforated, I could have died!

Anyway I try not to think about my hospital experience, as despite it not even being an overnight stay, it really traumatised me and obviously the combination of being a 9 year old, being poked and prodded in the bottom area, is not something I want to relive, however, Hypno Lady asked me to talk her through what had happened, and probably for the first time ever, instead of remembering snippets of the event, I told her in much greater detail than I'll share here, what had happened, I could recall a lot more than I ever had thought.

Anyway Hypno Lady and I discussed it while I was 'under' and we seemed to get to the 'bottom' *aherm* of the matter, and it seems that, to cut a long story short, I overeat in part, to keep myself regular, and therefore avoid the impacted gut scenario again. This is backed up by the fact that if I do ever get constipated, and thankfully it's not something that happens regularly, I almost panic, ridiculous eh?

She then went on to ask adult Emma to revisit little Emma in the hospital and assure her that things would be ok, and that a healthy diet would help to maintain the 'flow' so to speak. She then asked me what the panic/fear aspect of the whole situation looked like, she asked me to give it a colour and a shape. The first thing that came to mind was a yellow prickly ball - no idea why. She then asked me which part of my body held it, and I said my shoulders. She then took me through a relaxation exercise and got me to exchange the yellow prickly ball for something more relaxing - a different colour, I chose purple. She talked me through this, getting me to imagine it smoothing away the yellow prickly ball and replacing it with the relaxed purple instead and then.....

3,2,1 and I was back in the room and in a little bit of shock, you see I had always kind of known that the whole trigger factor for my weight gain had been around this time, simply because I had gone from being skinny to podgy, almost over night, but I had never found out which aspect of that experience was the 'thing'.

It is a very strange experience being hypnotised, I am sure it's probably different for everyone, dependant on your susceptibility, but for me, it's extremely gruelling. I don't come out of it feeling relaxed - I am while I'm having it, but I am exhausted afterwards, I feel like my brain has had a massive workout, and I am usually absolutely knackered, but I also feel like each week a little lighter, not in physical mass, hopefully that will come soon, but in mind, like something I locked up a long time ago is being let go a bit each week, and that is a nice feeling to have.

So, my homework is to maintain my food diary, which I am doing, and am noticing a definite reduction in overall food consumption, although I still may not be eating the 'perfect diet' as such. Then in my next session will be a general relaxation hypnotherapy session and some questions around where, why and what I eat, in preparation for the hypno-band sessions to start, then it's the actual 'op' but more about that next time. xx

Hypno?

Hello all, my sincere apologies for not sticking to my word and writing about my ongoing exploits. To be honest, I haven't felt inspired - mainly because I had begun down the slippery slope of beginning to give up....yet again!

Enter stage left, my mom, with an interesting email. My mom, like me, has been in a battle with her own weight (since she was about 30), she has probably tried every diet known to man, and has had varying successes, but she never gives up, and is always on the look out for the next breakthrough in the world of fat, and she came across an article on the hypnoband.

Now, I won't try and explain it all in detail, but suffice to say a therapist hypnotises you to believe that you have had a gastric band fitted, and therefore as your subconscious tends to control these bad eating habits, it to believes that you can now only eat small amounts, and should help you to consume less.

If you want to read more on it, there's plenty of info on the internet.

As you know I had already had several CBT sessions, which I felt had only scratched the surface of my eating problems , but had helped me to deal with a couple of issues that I didn't even really know were issues, small insignificant things that are just part of daily life, but that were being blown up into something larger by my obsessive thinking, and being fed by an assortment of nice cakes etc.

Anyway, the hypnoband looked interesting, and after some research (done by my mom) we located a lady - lets call her Hypno lady, who offers not only hypnoband, but, general hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and CBT.

I went to see her last week, and talked for a couple of hours, while she looked into my background. I told her all about the CBT that I have already had, and she has given me diet sheets to start with.

My next session is on Tuesday, and I am having regression hypnotherapy, not the sort where maybe I was Florence Nightingale, or Queen Victoria in a previous life - but just regression to a point where, and I quote ...'your subconscious thinks it would be helpful to go back to'...

I have to say I am a little apprehensive about this - I have no idea where my pesky subconscious will take me to, but hopefully after this session, Hypno Lady will know what direction to take with me, whether that be continuing with CBT, trying hypnotherapy or getting the hypnoband 'fitted' but whatever that may be - I'm back on board, and trying again!

xx