If fruits and vegetables help you lose weight, could you hypnotist me to like fruits and vegetables?
There is a wonderful new program in New York City where doctors are prescribing fruits and vegetables to obese or overweight patients.
Here is an excerpt on the article as it appeared on NPR’s online segment, The Salt:
(New York City) Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs and Health Commissioner Thomas Farley launched the program…to give at-risk families greater access to healthy foods.
Under the program, obese or overweight patients can be prescribed Health Bucks redeemable for produce at local farmers markets.
Health Bucks are a part of the city’s initiative to make locally grown produce available to low-income New Yorkers. The vouchers are accepted at more than 140 New York City farmers markets.
The Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program is meant to benefit whole families and communities at a time. Patients in the program receive $1 in Health Bucks per day for each person in their family for a period of at least four months. Each month, patients check in with the hospital to have their prescriptions renewed, and their weight and body mass index evaluated. They also receive nutritional counseling.
I applaud this program, but have one concern: if you have not grown up eating vegetables there may be a misconception that they inconvenient and puzzling “how do I prepare them?” or worse, “I hate vegetables.” When a client comes in for hypnosis for weight loss, they usually don’t have fruits or vegetables in their daily diets. To remedy this, we hypnotize them to enjoy the benefits of eating these foods so they naturally crave them.
How does that work?
The subconscious mind is programmable while in a relaxed and focused state as is the case with hypnosis. In this state, the brain naturally creates responses to visuals and thoughts. Think for a moment how the thought of lemonade on a hot day affects you. That sensation was created from a memory of drinking the lemonade on a hot day and it quenching your thirst while at the same time you also may have been with someone special or it was the first time you tasted it and you enjoyed with sweet/sour combination. All of those sensations where occurring while you were perhaps relaxed and kicked back which creates the state of mind that more easily imprints all of the experience so that now the thought of lemonade is very pleasant and enjoyable.
A hypnotist creates all of this spontaneously in a session. But it is just as natural as drinking lemonade on a hot summer day with your feet up sitting next to someone very dear to you. If your mind is already creating feelings and sensations then that is what we use to also assist a person in enjoying fruits and vegetables…we paint a very desirable picture in hypnosis and so when a person thinks of a vegetable instead of YUCK they get YUM.
Eating fruits and vegetables for weight loss works.
From the NYC project: Bronx resident Tammy Futch says her family has seen positive changes since starting the program.
“My son lost 40 pounds [being on] this program,” she says, “and also I lost weight doing it with him. … I have four other kids also doing the program.”
If you feel you could lose weight if you could just love those fruits and vegetables, hypnosis could be the way to do that. What others say about weight loss with hypnosis.
If fruits and vegetables help you lose weight, could you hypnotist me to like vegetables?