As Promised, a Technique to Resolve "Overliking" of Specific Foods
Just one of the conditioned factors that must be eliminated to finally solve overweight/obesity
In the previous post I did my best to explain that the reason 98% people, after losing weight, put the weight back on (and more) is that they’re forced to revert to conditioned thoughts, feelings, and behaviour around food, because unconscious processing beats conscious willpower pretty much all the time, every time. This is not a simple fix, and there is not one single thing we can do about this, but it’s certainly possible and relatively straightforward to one by one eliminate every bit of that conditioning and thereby totally eliminate overweight/obesity for the majority of people. And it’s usually quite quick.
So today is just the first little step.
I’m going to explain the actual technique first (one of several, for different types of conditioning) because I appreciate you might want to get straight to it. I’ll add the explanation in the next post (along with a demonstration video and some before and after videos) so you can see this is valid and not just something I’m dreaming up or pulling out of my ass. Hopefully aspiring psychologists and counsellors will understand this and start to implement it in their practices - together we can do a lot of good here.
Make sure you’ve subscribed so you get the notification that it’s up, and do your friends and colleagues a favour and let them know (if you click the button you’ll see the little gifts I’ve set up to say thanks).
The “Kill Cravings” Technique
It’s a dramatic name and you don’t actually need to have a “craving” or “addiction”, merely a habit of eating too much of one specific thing, like: chocolate, biscuits, pasta, bread, cheese, or whatever. This technique isn’t designed for more habitual, situational, or emotional eating - there are others for that which I’ll share in the next several posts.
If you’d like to be a “VIP guinea pig” for a video before and after to help other people master this technique, just use the referral button below and then DM me. You don’t actually have to appear on the video, just your voice will suffice if you like.
In this techniqe we create two different conditioned responses, physically, using fingertips to knees. On one knee you create a conditioned response which triggers the same feelings as, for example, chocolate, and on the other knee you create a conditioned response which triggers a sense of utter revulsion (note, not fear or pain, just strong revulsion). We then sequentially combine these two conditioned responses and the result is that now when we think of the “overliked” food we have zero interest in it, and perhaps even feel slightly nauseous.
But don’t worry, any feeling of discomfort disappears quickly usually within a day or two, and what you’re left with is a sense of neutrality: you could eat it or not eat it and either way it doesn’t really matter to you. Deep down, you are no longer in any way controlled by that food.
The Importance of Precision (See the video below to get Jackie’s result when applied the right way)
Confession: this technique come from Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) a deservedly debunked set of hypotheses which have been mostly comprehensively disproven as utter bullshit. However there are just a few (extremely few) NLP techniques which align well with sound theory and practice of behavioural psychology and this is one of them.
There are three things to remember in setting up these conditioned responses, which I’ll now refer to as creating “triggers”: precision, precision, precision!
Set the trigger in the same physical location on your body, with the same intensity, with the same duration, at just the moment you are coming toward the “peak” of the feeling you wish to trigger.
Make sure you touch exactly the same spot (you could use a chalk mark, or a spot on a seam, or even a freckle) with the same intensity (a stronger touch does not mean it sets “harder”!) and for exactly the same time duration.
The reason we set triggers as we are coming into the peak of a state, rather than actually at the peak, is that internal states (feelings or emotions) tend to drop away very quickly once the peak of the state is actually reached. Do you really want to trigger “dropping away”? Then make sure you set your trigger as you are coming into the peak of the state.
Setting Up
We are going to set two physical touch triggers: one which triggers feelings that match your feelings about a certain food, and one which triggers feelings that match your feelings about something which disgusts you. Then we are going to collapse these two triggers into each other.
The result of this, if done correctly, is that when you think about the food, or are presented with it, you’ll now feel something ranging between neutral and disgust. Don’t be concerned if you feel real disgust for the food you used to go ape over – that feeling will fade back within a few days and become quite neutral. You will still enjoy that food, guilt free, but it will no longer control you.
To set the trigger, you need to get into a relaxed position with your fingertips poised to touch your kneecap as you approach the peak of the feeling you want to trigger. (There is nothing magical about kneecaps, you could use ear lobes, or just touch fingertips together and it would work just as well. The only reason I might prefer kneecaps, apart from convenience, is that I suspect there is a greater “gut” effect simply because of the specific nerve paths involved.)
Sit relaxed with your forearms resting along the tops of your legs, heels of hands resting just above your knees and fingertips poised to anchor the two feelings. The reason you set up this way is to make it more certain that each time you touch against your kneecap it will be in exactly the same place, for exactly the same duration, with exactly the same intensity/pressure. (You may like to close your eyes to aid your concentration, or you might find that you can concentrate better with your eyes open.)
***
Exercise
Treating a Chocolate Addiction
(Note: you’ll need undisturbed time and maybe even a friend to help pace you through the steps.)
Step 1:
Imagine eating a specific type of chocolate; eg Cadbury Dairy Milk, or Mars Bar, or Classic Tim Tam. (It must be a specific item to work properly. By the time you’ve treated 3-5 specific types of chocolate in this same way, the effect will generalise across all chocolate. However, if you treated just “chocolate” generally it would be unlikely to be as effective because each type of chocolate may be a separate conditioned response.)
As you feel yourself really getting into all the sensory stuff around eating chocolate (the smell, the first bite, the mouth feel, the smoothness, the meltingness, etc) bring your fingertips to your knee (for about 2 seconds). Then raise your fingertips from your knee and quickly “break state” by opening your eyes and concentrating on something neutral (eg looking out the window at something, counting backwards from 20 by 3’s, thinking of a flower, etc).
Repeat this process twice more, each time “breaking state” after setting the trigger.
Step 2:
From a neutral state, not thinking about chocolate, now bring your fingertips to your knee in the same way as before, (ie, without trying to think of the chocolate). If you have been successful, you will immediately feel the same effects as if you were thinking of the chocolate and this will probably be quite definite physical feelings: a feeling in the stomach or chest area, salivation, a “smiley” feeling, perhaps. If you have been successful, you can move on to step 3. If not, Steps 1 and 2 must be repeated. There’s no point continuing if the conditioned response isn’t there.
In working with quite literally many hundreds of people, I’ve not seen anyone this didn’t work for. So if it doesn’t work for you, it’s almost certain that you’re not doing it correctly, and might need some help to get it right. Hopefully the videos will help.
Step 3:
Imagine something so disgusting to you that there is no way you would put it anywhere near your mouth. Some people use food that they hate, and almost every nurse we’ve ever taught this technique to has used the thought of sputum. Imagine this thing very vividly, the more intense the better, and even imagine what it might taste like!
As you begin to feel the disgust, bring your other fingertips to your other knee (for about 2 seconds). Then raise your fingertips and quickly “break state” as before.
Warning! Warning! Do not use things you are afraid of, or things which are linked to real life sadness or distress. Do I need to spell out why? We absolutely do not want to trigger genuine fear states because of the risk of distress, and in any case progress with the WeightChoice method I’ll be sharing here is not about “walking over broken glass”, or “being courageous” in order to get the changes we desire. It is about investigating and developing easy, efficient, elegant ways to achieve change automatically and naturally.
Repeat Step 3 twice more, each time “breaking state” after setting the trigger.
Step 4:
From a neutral state, bring those fingertips to that second knee in the same way as before, without trying to think of the “disgusting” thing. If you have been successful, you will immediately get that same physical sense of revulsion without trying at all, and can move on to step 5. If not, Steps 3 and 4 must be repeated.
Step 5:
From a neutral state, fire the chocolate trigger by bringing your fingertips to your knee in the same way as before, and this time say to yourself “And put that over the top of it.” As you say the word “that” you bring your other fingertips to your other knee. Make sure you are firing the other trigger (ie, also touching the other knee) at the same time as you say the word “that”.
You may feel a sense of confusion or spaciness, or may even get a physical “butterflies” type feeling around the midline of your body. This is the sign that your conditioned response around that food is certainly collapsing and at this point say to yourself “That’s right.” Then raise your fingers from the “chocolate” trigger, and then, in a couple of seconds, raise your fingers from the “disgust” trigger and quickly break state by looking around and distracting yourself away from the process.
Repeat this process twice more, each time breaking state immediately afterward.
Step 6:
With the “disgust” trigger activated (touched) think of the specific chocolate and try to get interested in it. This should fail.
Step 7:
The big test. With the “chocolate” trigger activated (touched) think of the specific chocolate and try to get interested in it. This should also fail.
The Ultimate Test?
There is no test like reality - it saves us from kidding ourselves whether what we’ve done has worked.
OK, Just One Before and After Video for Now
Jackie was a lovely woman in my networking group who kindly offered to be a VIP guinea pig for the benefit of others, including kindly helping me to get the word out about WeightChoice. So you know what happened after this, Jackie took me aside a few months later at one of our networking get togethers to pull up her shirt and show me how she had to tighten her belt so much to keep her pants up. She was just “forgetting” to buy the hot chips now. It’s a pretty amazing feeling to lose weight accidentally, without even trying, especially when the process itself was such a laugh.
Go on, you know you want to :-) See you soon!