Steven Gurgevich - The Self-Hypnosis Diet: Use Your Subconscious Mind to Reach Your Perfect Weight

W ith an epidemic of obesity facing Americans today, it is vital to return our country to good health. Throughout my years of exploring alternatives to allopathic medicine, I have seen time and time again how significantly medical hypnosis can impact our health by allowing us to tap into our subconscious minds. Steven Gurgevich, Ph.D., and Joy Kettler Gurgevich are friends and colleagues I have known for many years. We work together at the Program in Integrative Medicine that I direct at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Now they have combined their unique and masterful skills in medical hypnosis and behavioral nutrition to show people how to achieve a healthy lifestyle and maintain healthy weight. And it all begins by accessing the potential of the subconscious mind.

Life in America today is not so conducive to these goals. The vast majority of Americans are dependent upon the automobile for transport to work, school, and shopping. This discourages built-in physical activity that helps maintain normal weight. In Japan, China, and much of Europe, people still walk or bike to work and buy fresh, high-quality foods from shops within walking distance. In contrast, the food that is cheapest and most accessible in America is also the least nourishing. The combination of minimal physical activity and unwholesome foods has led our nation to its present epidemic of obesity. More than 65 percent of Americans are overweight and 30 percent are obese.

I believe the key to abating this epidemic is to begin grassroots education that encourages people to take personal responsibility for their good health and well-being. The ideas and suggestions introduced by the Gurgeviches in The Self-Hypnosis Diet are exactly what is needed to turn the tide.

When I was in medical school, I realized the importance of nutrition and exercise to good health, and in my work with patients and through the books I write, I try to share this knowledge with others. It is a pleasure to work with colleagues like Steve and Joy, who integrate and expand upon my ideas through their respective areas of expertise to lead others to success.

This book is different from all other weight loss books because it focuses on the power of the mind to create a lifestyle that normalizes weight. The Self-Hypnosis Diet covers all the influences that cause weight-gaining behaviors to develop. These include family patterns in childhood, emotional triggers for eating and weight gain, and obstacles inherent in each person, such as taste preferences, an inclination toward physical activity, willpower, self-love, and confidence. The artful use of the power of belief and the mind-body connection is woven with positive hypnotic suggestions on the accompanying trancework audio to reveal and undo patterns learned in the past.

You will find suggestions in the trancework to replace past patterns with lifestyle choices that promote healthy weight and manage hunger effectively. These use the subconscious minds ability to accept what is imagined as real, greatly lessening the perceived stress of changing to healthier habits.

An important feature of The Self-Hypnosis Diet is the use of self-hypnosis to facilitate changes in behavior and attitude that let you seemingly eat what you want and keep your perfect weight. By creating the healthy lifestyle outlined in these pages and the trancework, you will discover that you are eating what you want and maintaining a healthy weight. This is because you have mindfully chosen to replace unwholesome foods and weight-gaining behaviors with moderate portions of nourishing foods and physical activities that keep your body vibrant. The mental sense that you can eat without restriction or dieting powerfully reinforces your commitment and motivation without causing feelings of lack or deprivation.

Overweight and obesity create many health risks. It is important to remember that obesity is totally treatable. The remedy will not be found in the quick fix of a fad diet or magic supplement. Instead it involves enduring habits of wise nutritional choices and physical activity.

The Self-Hypnosis Diet is not a diet at all. The Gurgeviches recommend not being a dieter or restricted eater. They base this recommendation on research that has conclusively shown dieting to be less effective for weight loss than changing behaviors to achieve health.

People have difficulty losing weight because it requires changing habits and behaviors. Making long-standing dietary changes may create internal discomfort, because old habits cling and usually resist change. The Gurgeviches supply the ingredient missing from most other diets and weight loss methods: the power of your mind to make changes more comfortable and effective. The Self-Hypnosis Diet combines the mind-body approach of hypnosis with techniques of behavioral nutrition to overcome resistance so that you can more rapidly establish the lifestyle that maintains the weight you want.

The Gurgeviches say that these methods will work for you because they work for them. They work for me also. We are mindful about making wise nutritional choices and exercising regularly in what has become our permanent lifestyle. You can learn to do the same. By creating positive lifelong habits, you can take your mind off dieting and begin to enjoy the healthy weight this lifestyle promotes.

Andrew Weil, M.D.
Tucson, Arizona
June 2006

How to Use This Program
Track 1 05:28 minutes

An Introduction to Self-Hypnosis
Track 2 14:30 minutes

Clearing the Past

Track 3 14:36 minutes

Release from Craving and Temptation

Track 4 08:02 minutes

Rehearsal for Healthy Eating and Exercising

Track 5 10:33 minutes

Create and Sustain Your Perfect Weight

Track 6 16:00 minutes

Setting Your Intention

Track 7 03:17 minutes

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

GLORIA STEINEM

W hen we were very young children, most of us played our days away, absorbing the bits and pieces of the world around us. We sang songs, danced, rode bicycles, were enchanted by our favorite stories, and delighted in our favorite foods. We all have memories of aromas wafting through the air, pulling us away from our play, tempting us briefly back into the kitchen, a reminder of our hunger. We dreamed at night and pretended by day, playing make-believe games of castles and kings, when everything was perfect, and we were the stars of the show. That is what most of us did when we were very young children.

Then we grew up. Now, it seems as though the world is absorbing us, and our childish delight in food is plagued by guilt or frenzied schedules, or just disinterest. Our youthful play has turned into frantic driving, endless e-mails, and plasma screen addiction. Our weekends, at best, promise a walk or maybe an hour at the local fitness center. The strong, energetic bodies of our youth are laden with pounds and more pounds of exhausting extra weight.

The Self-Hypnosis Diet is about playing and pretending again, relearning the delights of our youth, and peeling off the tiring extra weight once and for all. Within the chapters of this book, you will learn about the mind-body connection and self-hypnosis, and how they can be utilized to create the energetic body you want, the healthy body hidden inside. You will learn how pretending, which is the simple word for self-hypnosis, can turn your wishes into reality, and you can once again become the star of your show.