As NLP Coaches or Therapists, we are not nutritionists and we are not personal trainers. We do not give advice about food or exercise – but we are interested in both of these. We do not create a health regime or a plan of action to lose weight, but people seek our help to do just that – lose weight. And, with the use of NLP – most people are very successful at this endeavour!
It has been said that when it comes to losing weight, its 80% food and 20% exercise. We’d actually like to change those stats a little. We think its 30% psychology and mindset, 50% food and 20% exercise. You see, the mindset of a person makes a tremendous difference on overall results, the amount of time it takes to lose weight and the ability to keep it off.
And, while we are interested in what someone eats and how they move their body – our reasons for wanting to know these things are different than why a nutritionist or personal trainer might want to know. As an NLPer, you will want to know this information because a person’s behaviours are the most important information you can find out. This is because a person’s behaviours is directy correlated to a person’s beliefs and values. And a person’s beliefs and values answer the question “Why”. “Why can’t I lose weight?”, “Why do I eat when I’m stressed”, “Why am I not motivated to go to the gym”. The answers are simple – because you have beliefs and values aligned with your current behaviours.
When you are trained in NLP, you will then have the tools to address, realign and transform these beliefs and values – therefore transforming behaiours and habits at the same time.
Everything happens first at an unconscious level – all of our patterns of emotion, belief and behaviour stem from this unconsciousness. Logic, reasoning and logical thinking; the way most people try to figure out their behaviours are not unconscious. I’ve never met a person who was able to successfully logic themselves into long-term weight loss.
And, everyone is different. Not one person’s ‘why’ is exactly like someone else’s. And, most of the time, the beliefs we hold onto that create unwanted behaviours and habits have absolutely nothing to do with weight.
One of our favourite examples is about a young woman who desperately wanted to lose weight and had done everything to do this. Every fad, every program, every gym, every everything – and she would lose weight. Science doesn’t lie, energy in, energy out. But she couldn’t keep it off. We worked with a few NLP timeline processes that help us to track back a pattern to beliefs we have.
This woman went back in her unconscious memory to a movie of a young girl who was 2-3 years old. The girl was frightened and felt lost – she wanted to know “what’s going on” and the message she kept hearing from her parents (who interestingly were separating around this time) was “You’re too little you can’t handle it, when you are bigger you can handle it”. Now, the unconscious mind is very literal and it takes everything literally and personally. If her parents did reply with this message, ultimately they would have meant “You are too young, when you are older you will be able to handle this” – but that isn’t how her unconscious mind filtered it, is it?
No. Her unconscious mind filtered it based on ‘too little’ meaning size. After clearing this belief from the past, the woman started to identify all the times in her life when she was stress-free and she could easily lose weight. However, if even a little stress came her way she couldn’t “handle it” and she would put on weight. Her unconscious mind had created a belief that she had to be “bigger” to handle things.
None of this had to do with food. But, it had everything to do with her pattern of losing weight. We used NLP to change that belief, change her behaviours around stress, give her new outlets to handle stressful situations, and she was able to lose weight. And, more importantly, keep it off.
With your NLP skills, you will be able to uncover beliefs in any area of life that might be holding you back from attaining your desired state. And if weight loss is a goal of yours, you’ll be able to find your own beliefs that may get in your way and transform them so your behaviours align with your goals. With NLP, weight loss can be easy!
Maybe we’ll change the stats to 50% psychology and mindset, 40% food, 10% exercise!
