To lose weight, we need to change our eating habits. Most of us know what our bad habits are. It might be chocolate or takeaways, or just eating till we are stuffed. Hypnosis helps you to identify the problem habits and gets you to introduce good habits. But you might be eating to compensate for some emotional upset. Going on a diet is not going to help here, dealing with the upset is the place to start. A hypnotherapy session will begin by finding out if eating is the problem, or whether it is a symptom of an emotional disturbance. When you feel emotionally strong, then you are in a good position to think about changing your eating habits.

When the time comes to focus on your eating behaviour, when you have decided what changes you want to make,  these decisions are embedded in your subconscious through hypnosis. So if you are trying to cut out chocolate, your subconscious alerts you to this helpful decision, and keeps you out of the shop and encourages you to say no. Little by little this becomes normal behaviour and eating chocolate is something you just don't think about any more.

It means you are not needing to use your willpower all day long - which would only result in a big binge anyway. And as I have blogged before, willpower is always in very short supply.

In the Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep explains to Ann Hathaway that her choice of a blue sweater (not blue, cerulean) was not her own personal choice, but the result of the decisions by hordes of designers and marketers. Our eating choices are similarly directed. We are not on our own when making food choices.

There are lots of psychologists and neuroscientists helping the food industry to get us to make their choices. At its most simple, the smell of the bakery wafts at the supermarket door making us feel hungry. Hungry people shop more. All that delicious food waiting for us in Marks and Spencer. Just waiting to be eaten. Beautifully packaged and tempting us as we shop after work, when we are hungry.

But when we know how the all-pervasive food environment with all the little cues and triggers to eat combines with the reward systems in our brain to encourage us to eat, then we can at least start to make active food choices.

I have blogged before about the the concept of ‘food reward’ involving the brain’s mesolimbic reward circuitry (as in addictions). And I have blogged about the importance of the prefrontal cortex part of the brain -  the hard- working area that does all the decision-making and is involved in  motivation, impulsivity and self-control. My approach is to help you to avoid buying the foods that trigger this mesolimbic reward system and to protect you from the huge array of eating encouragements that bombard us through the day. In the house is in the mouth.

I am delighted that recent research by Bradley Applehaus and colleagues from the Rush University Medical Centre, Chicago, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, supports my approach. They agree that you can help yourself by not making yourself face temptation every day. And they agree that it helps to avoid situations that weaken your self-control, such as all-you-can-eat buffets, where variety stimulates overeating.

Of course, each client is different. And so these ideas need to be presented in a way that fits your concerns. Another point the researchers raise is that the goal of being slim again is a long time in the future and it is hard to focus on long-term goals in our busy lives. They agree here with Peter Gollwitzer that focusing on those short-term goals will help lead to the long-term outcomes.

It is just not a matter of willpower. It is not a lack of moral fibre. It is not about buying special foods. It is about understanding how our own lifestyles and workloads interact with our brain circuitry and the obsogenic environment. And then what actions we can take to reduce the risk, making it easier for us to behave in the ways which will help us to take control of our eating. In a sustainable and automatic way. Come and see me and get back in charge. Read my longer article.

To lose weight, we need to change our eating habits. A crash diet might help in the short term, but we can't eat like that for months on end. Most of us know what our bad habits are. It might be chocolate or takeaways, or just eating till we are stuffed. It may be because we are troubled in some part of our life. Hypnosis helps to identify the problem areas and then helps you introduce good eating habits so you can manage your weight for the long-term.

Rather than be thinking about food all day in order to try to reduce the amount you eat, hypnosis embeds decisions about eating in your subconscious, so that new behaviours become automatic, with no effort. If you are trying to cut out chocolate, your subconscious alerts you to this helpful decision, and keeps you out of the shop and encourages you to say no. Little by little this becomes normal behaviour and eating chocolate is something you just don't think about any more. If you are unhappy, then hypnotherapy can help you to feel more positive and optimistic.

It means you are not needing to use your willpower all day long to help you to limit your eating - which would only result in a big binge anyway.

We tend to believe that a failure of willpower - when we are trying to give up overeating, or smoking, or doing an unappealing task like cleaning someone else's car - is a failure of character. It is not.

Willpower (also called self-control and referred to in academic texts as ego) is always in very short supply. Even making a small decision or a small effort depletes it (known as ego depletion.). Roy Baumeister and colleagues identified that willpower relies on a supply of glucose to the brain. That is one of the reasons you shouldn't go food shopping when you are hungry - you will just load the trolley with all those things you are trying to avoid!

It also means that when you are trying to do things where willpower or self-control are needed, such as trying to change your eating behaviour, doing your tax return or making any decisions, you need to be sure you are not also doing something else which takes your energy. So don't try to lose weight at Christmas, because you will be faced with so many opportunities to eat and drink that your self-control gets depleted. And if you have a big task to achieve, that will use up your supply of willpower.

So, if you wish to focus on changing your eating behaviour, then make small changes - little and often. That way you limit the choices you have to make and your willpower will not be overwhelmed.

Willpower is managed in the pre-frontal cortex part of your brain. This is the bit that deals with planning, proper social behaviour and other elements of "executive function".

Baba Shiv Professor at Stanford University, shows in his research that the prefrontal cortex is pretty fragile, so demonstrating why and how willpower is so feeble. Like Baumeister, Shiv's research shows that even small efforts can deplete willpower.

But willpower can be developed. If you practice doing things that are a bit uncomfortable or a bit unpleasant, then you will strengthen your willpower. Shiv suggests that the prefrontal cortex can be compared to a bicep muscle. Exercise it and it will develop and strengthen.

This could be consciously improving your posture. Or regularly tidying up after yourself, or doing the filing, or phoning your mother, or writing that letter. Avoiding procrastination generally. So if you face up to and do moderately unpleasant things, you will find that your willpower will increase. And you will be able to accomplish the goals that you desire. Like losing weight.