News Articles » – BATTLE OF THE BULGES

Boca Raton Times

AUTHOR HELPS PEOPLE WIN
BATTLE OF THE BULGES

OK, it’s going on eight weeks since New Year’s and we’ve hit a brick wall with those darn resolutions.
Remember, we were going to start eating healthier, exercising more and shedding some of those excess pounds? Oh well….
What’s needed here is some motivations. A boost of willpower. And a way to make it all work.
Enter Rena Greenberg, who wrote a book about all of this called “The Right Weigh: Six Steps to Permanent Weight Loss.” Since 1989, she’s been conducting weight loss seminars at more than 75 hospitals in the U.S., for which she charges fees starting at about $70 to tell folks how to do it. She also sells audio tapes to go along with her program.
Rena brought her seminar to Boca Raton Community Hospital a few weeks ago, and my interest was piqued when I noticed the work “hypnotism” in the invitation. In my mind, I pictured somebody swinging a pocket watch in front of my face, slowing chanting, “You are losing weight, you are losing weight.”
Not quite.
Rena isn’t a medical doctor; she’s certified in hypnosis and in boifeedback by professional groups in those specialties. She says her interest in diet and health stems from the fact that in her 20’s, she was addicted to sugar, overweight and exhausted.
She says she overcame obstacles and became a healthy adult by learning how to lose weight from the inside out. Think thin and you’ll be thin is her mantra.
“People have to change the way they think about food subconsciously, “ Rena told the two dozen people at the seminar.
“That way, they’d naturally making healthier choices.”
In other words, my brain likes it a lot better when I munch on a stack of chocolate chip cookies instead of celery sticks; I feel more fulfilled and happy.
Rena’s program aims to help me remove this feeling of pleasure from eating tasty (and fattening) foods like chocolate chip cookies and subconsciously moving them into a category in my mind where I feel pain. So I won’t want to eat those cookies any more.
The motivation for this mental refocus is provided by hypnosis, a state of deep relaxation. Thoughts and suggestions made to a person who is hypnotized tend to have a lasting effect on their behavior.
It worked for Janice Holden of Boca Raton, who attended one of Rena’ seminars five years ago and has since lost 140 pounds. “I’ve been able to change my lifestyle. The helpful suggestions…made this program very reinforcing.”
Rena says hypnosis is a powerful natural state that can help people make healthier choices about the food they eat and start exercising more. She calls it a “mental massage” that won’t work unless the person wants it to.
To get started, she provides seminar attendees with an audiotape they are to listen to every day for 30 days. That’s typically how long it takes to break a bad habit, she says, adding people also utilize a form of her program to stop smoking.
Nobody’s there to hypnotize you. Participants learn how to put themselves into a hypnotic state and Rena says many have found themselves able to accomplish goals they’ve been aiming at for years with this motivational boost.
Sounds to me like it might be worth a try.