Another day, another article in the press about bariatric surgery – the umbrella term for weight loss surgery. This prompted me to refer to the UK official NHS website for their latest guidelines on weight loss surgery: it made interesting reading.
There is a lot of information about what the various surgical procedures are – gastric bypass, gastric band, sleeve gastrectomy – risks, results, “life after weight loss surgery” and so on.
An NHS Psychological Assessment will determine whether:
you have any mental health conditions or emotional problems that could prevent you sticking to your lifestyle plan after surgery
you’ve developed unhealthy patterns of eating, such as binge eating, that could cause problems after surgery
you have realistic expectations of what life will be like after surgery.
Nowhere, as far as I could see from the NHS website, does it offer any advice or suggestions about addressing any of these issues prior to surgery.
Under the heading “Psychosocial effects of (weight loss) surgery” , it states:
“It’s also common for a person to experience a worsening of mood when their weight stabilises, typically two years after surgery. This is often because many people realise that problems that existed before surgery, such as money worries or difficulties at work, are still there.”
I am not denying that bariatric surgery can, and has, helped a lot of people. But my point is that, without addressing the underlying emotional reasons / issues that cause someone to hold onto that excess weight in the first place, it is like putting a sticking plaster over a festering wound and expecting to wound to heal all by itself: it’s not going to happen.
I have worked with lots of clients who have been holding onto varying amounts of excess weight. One of the these was a 
lovely lady who weighed around 23 stone when she came to see me. She had been through the full NHS programme leading up to bariatric surgery, and had done all that was asked of her. When the time came, she was refused surgery because she was still too obese. This is the classic Catch 22, isn’t it – someone needs surgery because they are obese, and yet because they are obese, they can’t have surgery due to the risk to their heart with the anaesthetic and stress to the system. I worked with this lady for a few months, as we peeled the layers off the emotional onion, getting closer and closer to the real person at the core. Many issues were dealt with along the way. She laughed, she cried, she uncovered “stuff” that had been locked away for years and years. There is no magic wand here; she did not lose 10 stone in a couple of months. But her whole persona changed. She re-discovered who she really was, and she liked that person very much. With her new-found confidence, she re-joined her slimming club and was frequently Slimmer of the Week and Slimmer of the Month. She changed her eating habits and the food she cooked for her family – and they all enjoyed the new way of eating! Did she have a hypnotic gastric band fitted? No, because she no longer felt the need for one.
People hold on to excess weight for many reasons: abuse in childhood or bullying at school; a broken relationship or loss of a loved one; even termination of a pregnancy or a baby lost at childbirth. The weight is used as protection or comfort or both. There is a particular logic I have repeatedly come across in women that runs as follows: when I was slim, I was attractive, and I attracted a man. That man hurt me. I don’t want to be hurt any more, so I will make myself less attractive, then I won’t attract another man.
I use a blend of clinical hypnotherapy, past life regression, spirit release and soul retrieval work to get to the real root causes of holding on to excess weight. Many of the clients who come to see me have only ever come across these concepts on my website or when they have talked to me. They frequently say, “Jude, this is all a bit out there.” It probably is to them, but to me it is totally normal, and the results speak for themselves. We find past lives where they have starved to death, and have passed with the thought, “I will never go hungry again.” We find spirit “passengers” with a sweet tooth – once they have been moved on, the obsession for cakes and biscuits vanishes. We uncover the trail of trauma and events that have caused fragments of the soul to split off and be stuck in time: we find these fragments, we leave behind all of the negative emotions and bring them home. We talk with the excess weight and find out how it’s feeling: angry? fed up? bored? We find out what we need to do to help it shift. We thank it for doing its job so well, and we give it permission to leave. Does that all sound whacky to you? Probably. But it works.
And then – only then, when the festering wounds have been completely cleared out, cleansed and healed – will I talk with the client about a hypnotic gastric band. If he or she still wants one, that’s fine, it can be done. Without invasive surgery, without anaesthetic, and without any if the risks listed on the NHS website such as internal bleeding, a blood clot inside the leg (Deep vein thrombosis) or a blood clot or other blockage in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).
If you are holding on to excess weight and if you feel the time has come to tackle it, give me a call on 07597 020 512 or email me on:
judy@effective-hypnotherapy.co.uk .
I work from Vinings Natural Health Centre, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, and I would be happy to talk through any aspects of weight loss: totally free and totally confidential.