The Intelligencer Reprogramming subconscious saboteur has advantages Hypnosis is becoming more accepted as a weight –loss tool—as well as an alternative approach to combating many other ailments. Debbie Wewer admits she was a junk-food junkie. “I just ate so irresponsibly – junk, junk, junk,” says the 46 year old Jamison resident. Fast-food stops, including regular treks to nearby Dunkin’ Donuts, were a mainstay. Then, something changed for her. She’d pass on the Tropicana Orange Coolatta or the vanilla cream-filled doughnut. Now, she eats breakfast, having a bowl of cereal each morning. And her meals are chock full of healthful fruits and vegetables. And she’s started to supplement the change in her diet with a regular exercise regime, working out at a gym five or six days a week. So is it any wonder she’s dropped almost 35 pounds in nearly four months? But Wewer’s new outlook on life may not be all tied up in a plain, common-sense approach to weight loss. Part of her attack on weight gain involved going into a state of deep relaxation and focusing on pleasant mental images of herself. In plainspeak, she was hypnotized. Hypnosis isn’t relegated to just comical parlor tricks anymore. It’s increasingly being used by health professionals to provide relief for a wide variety of mental health, as well as medical, ailments: everything from sleep problems and smoking cessation and pain management and dermatologic or intestinal disorders. When it comes to losing weight, certified hypnotherapist Rena Greenberg uses hypnosis to help her clients reprogram their way of subconscious thinking to help them with their goals. “Consciously, we want to be healthy, fit and at an ideal weight,” says Greenberg, author of the newly released book “The Craving Cure” (McGraw Hill, $16.95) and speaker at a weight control seminar scheduled for Wednesday at The Health and Wellness Center by Doylestown Hospital in Warrington. But eating habits, along with our self-perception, are controlled by our subconscious. “Over time,” she says, “the subconscious mind may have been programmed to reason, ‘Oh, I feel bad, I’ll have a cookie and feel better,’ so that negative program kicks in and it sabotages your willpower, or the conscious part of your mind.” Instead of lusting after that cookie and giving in to it, through hypnosis, Greenberg “plants a seed” to create a new picture in her clients’ minds – one that leads to making more healthful choices in food, as well as creating a positive self-image. The cookie will still be there but it won’t be calling as loudly. Wewer, who attended one of Greenberg’s seminars in March, says the practice has helped her with more than just a steady weight loss. Her entire attitude on life has changed. “Before, I felt like I was a mess,” recalls Wewer, who put on about 60 additional pounds in about three years from stress and the loss of her father to Lou Gehrig’s disease. The program, along with logging onto Greenberg’s Web site for additional reinforcement got her to take stock of her life. “I really did an inventory of myself – not only on the outside, but the inside of me,” she says. She got motivated and made near-daily workouts a priority. She’s staying away from the junk food (OK, there’s an occasional Weight Watchers’ snack cake if she really feels the need). And the autoimmune problems she has – she suffers from lupus – have improved. The pounds melting away are a bonus, she says, to the overall improved feeling she has about herself. “I feel so good about everything I’m doing,” she says with enthusiasm. “It’s so amazing to me.”