Believing you can do it is half the battle. In “The Right Weigh” author Rena Greenberg shows how to change the way we think about food and exercise and achieve permanent weight loss through hypnosis.

Think it could never work?

Carol Henderson of Warren begs to differ.

The 46-year-old mother of two lost 60 pounds since attending one of Greenberg's hypnosis seminars at St. John Macomb Health Center in February 2005 – and is hoping to shed another 30 before it's all over. Now, she only occasionally listens to the 20-minute taped messages Greenberg sends home with program participants.

But when she first started, she listened each day as directed.

“I'd been overweight just about all of my life,” said Henderson, a safety worker at the Roseville Post Office. “I reached 45 and all of a sudden I felt really old. I knew I needed to get myself in better shape.”

Greenberg said the book stands apart from other diet books in that it addresses the mind/body/spirit connection.

“It tackles the problem from all areas we need to address it,” she said. “Typically, books just tell you what to eat and what not to. Sound advice, but if we could just do it, we would.”

At her seminars, Greenberg uses her soothing voice and a dimly lit auditorium to relax participants and tap into their subconscious. In this setting, she and others believe the suggestions she makes about healthy eating, exercise and self-perception have a greater chance of sticking. The tape she sends home reinforces those messages—until they sink in.

In turn, Greenberg's book further reinforces the message with exercises that empower readers to break old mental programs that keep them from succeeding.

One example, Greenberg recommends for readers is writing down the benefits of reaching their weight loss goals.

“Take a moment to fantasize about how much better your life will be when you're free of food addiction and its consequences.”

The point is to help people get motivated from the inside—and stay motivated, Greenberg said.

Nancy Belaj, 42, of Chesterfield Towsnip went to one of Greenberg's hypnosis seminars in November 2002 and lost 50 pounds over the next 10 months. She recently regained 15 back partly because of steroid treatments and returned to one of Greenberg's seminars for a refresher.

“I like the idea that you can go back and it doesn't cost anything,” Belaj said.

“After that first session back in '02, it was late and we were hungry, so we stopped at Taco Bell,” Belaj said. “I took most of the insides out of the tortilla and ate just that, leaving all the carbs. For about 1 second, I wanted another, but stopped myself.

Belaj said that although she made a conscious effort to eat better by reducing carbs, increasing fruits and vegetables, drinking more water and exercising—hypnosis gave her the motivation to stick with it.

Greenberg developed the Right Weigh program in an effort to beat her own addiction to sugar. Since then, she has shared it with more than 100,000 people through private and public hypnosis sessions in Florida , New York and Michigan . Her new book explains the approach in depth and offers plenty of tips for staying on track.

While Greenberg used the plan to lose and maintain a 20-pound weight loss, she still listens to the tapes to stay motivated.