You've decided it's time to lose some weight. A lot or a little, it doesn't really matter. What's important is your decision. Your decision shows you care about you and you want to be healthy and fit, and maybe, just maybe, you want to feel more attractive than you do right now.

And so, full of good intentions you've managed to resist temptation, but life doesn't feel that exciting right now. The initial enthusiasm is dissipating a little. The weight isn't dropping off as fast as it was. You know this is the pattern of weight loss but that slowing down of the weight coming off makes the whole process seem more effortful. While the pounds were falling off it was easy to stay motivated, but one pound in a whole week, it's hardly worth the effort. I'm wasting my time, but no I must be strong and stick at it.

?and this TV program is boring; and now they're eating; there's some chocolate in the fridge; now it's the adverts; more food; I'm bored; chocolate; must resist? and so it goes?

Once that thought of chocolate (and for chocolate you can substitute any forbidden item that you've decided will be ok to keep some supplies of - because others need them, because it would be a waste to throw them away, because I'm going to give myself a treat when I've lost so much weight?) enters your mind the only way you can get rid of it is to eat some chocolate. If you try to ignore that thought, it just gets stronger and louder. It just stays there burrowing away like a grub in an apple, filling your mind until you give in because it has so much more power than you do.

At least this is pretty much what you tell yourself. This is how you make eating the chocolate ok - I'm weak-willed, I couldn't resist, I have no will-power, the thought was too strong. Truth is, you wanted some chocolate and the only way you could give yourself permission to eat it was to make it more powerful than you so you just had to give in to it. If a thought about eating a piece of arsenic wandered into your mind (and, heaven forbid there was some arsenic in the house) you wouldn't have the least problem dismissing it - because you don't really want it. If the thought wandered into your mind about eating faeces, again no problem, dismissed easily. But chocolate? you want that, so you kid yourself it's too powerful and that makes it ok.

This is a game.

It's the game of pretending to lose weight. It's the game of being able to tell people you are on a diet but too weak-willed to resist chocolate. And because there will be other people you know going through exactly the same thing it's like being a member of some select group. It's like being special.

But you do really want to lose weight because you don't like the way you look and you don't like the size of clothes you have to buy. You just don't want to have to stop doing anything you enjoy in order to achieve what you want. You want something for nothing. Nothing wrong with that I hasten to add, I like gifts too. And if that were all it was there wouldn't be much of a problem. But there's another part of your mind that knows that something for nothing is a cheat. Something for nothing deprives you of a sense of accomplishment, a sense of achievement. Feeling a sense of achievement as a result of overcoming a difficulty on your own is what makes life worth living.

The difficulty is your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind isn't on board with what you are wanting to achieve. It isn't aligned with your greater will. Whenever your subconscious mind isn't aligned with your greater will, you will experience self-sabotage. Like with the Chocolate Thought, like with wanting something for nothing but not allowing yourself to have it because it's cheating.

Whenever your subconscious needs re-alignment, hypnosis is the tool to use. Hypnosis doesn't remove your sense of achievement or accomplishment. What it does do is to facilitate your enjoyment of eating healthily, and resisting the 'wrong' foods. It helps you to feel good about yourself during the process so that you are not so concerned about the speed of weight loss, but more concerned with learning to enjoy creating a healthy diet for yourself. Hypnosis for weight loss isn't actually about dieting, it's about changing your view of you and re-aligning your deeper drives and beliefs so you don't have to fight or resist any thoughts. They will most probably not be there to resist, but if they are you'll simply and effortlessly ask yourself the question, in response to the thought, is eating chocolate right now in alignment with my intention to lose weight. A simple question to which you can answer honestly. But if you still want the chocolate you will just choose to eat it. No fight no battle, you'll just be aware that you're doing something that isn't consistent with what you want, but that right now that's what you're going to choose.

This approach removes guilt. Guilt drives weight accumulation. As soon as any food isn't forbidden, your desire for it will lessen or disappear.

Michael J. Hadfield MBSCH is a registered clinical hypnotherapist. You can experience his unique style on a range of hypnosis CD's and tapes at http://www.hypnosisiseasy.com Here you can also obtain treatment for a variety of problems and explore his approach to health, healing, and hypnosis.