Setting and achieving goals for yourself is a very important part of this programme. So, what’s the best way of doing this?

Firstly, goals should not be too big. If you’re currently over 31 stone (440 lb/200 kg), it’s unwise to set an initial goal of reaching 11 stone (154 lb/70 kg). It will feel almost impossible and therefore very unlikely that you will be able to achieve it. Break your goal down to something more manageable and believable. As you reach the first stage you will find that you have much more faith in your ability to lose weight, and this helps keep you motivated as you move towards your ultimate target.

Don’t forget to reward yourself when you attain your goals. Celebrate your success! This can be a simple ‘pat on the back’ or you may want to go out and buy yourself a new outfit.

People trying to lose weight are often prone to catastrophic thinking. They’re on a diet and meet a friend for coffee. The cakes in the display are tempting and they buckle and have one. This then causes them to panic and the entire experience then becomes an absolute disaster in their mind. They then go on to escalate their thinking to tell themselves that they are failures… What’s the point?… They might as well give up… It’s all so hopeless… and they then go down into a destructive spiral. Not once will they have thought, ‘Okay, that was delicious and now I’ll go back to my healthy eating programme.’

Always make sure you keep perspective and focus on the bigger picture. One cake is not the end of the world if you have just managed three weeks of healthy eating. Practise challenging your thoughts. You have many hundreds of thoughts during your day that you never act on, so why can’t you do the same with thoughts about food?

If a thought about chocolate comes into your mind, then stop and consider what is really happening. You may have a belief that you are addicted to chocolate. The reality is you just have an obsessive mind and don’t know how to stop it! Ask yourself, ‘Do I really need this chocolate?’ Unless you’re hungry, the answer is ‘No’, so brush the thought away and go and do something else. This could be making a cup of tea, patting the dog or phoning a friend – anything so that you forget about the chocolate. You will find that the thought has disappeared and you stay on track with your eating.

Remember that you have been thinking in these ways for a long time so it takes practice to learn new behaviours.

Discover true motivation

What are your beliefs about physical fitness and wellbeing? Do you have opinions about people who put great store in taking care of themselves physically? You can bet you do. There is space on the next worksheet, http://your7simplesteps.com/book12 for you to tune in, listen and write out your own beliefs. Also, while taking the time to really listen to your beliefs, can you identify whose voice or attitude they are mimicking?

Here are some examples of beliefs clients have shared.

Take your time to explore what you really think about the kind of people who exercise regularly. What are your beliefs about joining a gym, turning up in your gym kit and taking part in physical exercise? If you have any negative opinions and feelings about these kinds of people, then you will be resistant to getting fit. Whose voice do these negative thoughts remind you of?

Blocks to wellbeing

Motivation increase with EFT

You can use EFT to clear your resistance to exercise and to increase your motivation to get fitter and healthier.

Use aspects of your blocks to wellbeing to compose an EFT script to clear your beliefs. Download and print out the EFT script template below if you want to formally compose your set-ups to increase your motivation. Alternatively, you can focus on your beliefs about exercise, or even your thoughts about the kind of people who regularly take part in exercise, and just begin tapping.

Remember tapping is a kind of ad-libbing or stream of consciousness, and a whole tapping round only takes under a minute, so there is no need to be hung up about making your set-ups ultra perfect. Also, the whole act of tapping encourages you to get in touch with your underlying feelings. Focus on your feelings about exercise and allow yourself to really feel your emotions so that they have a high SUD rating. Begin to see whether you can track back those feelings, following the thread of familiar feelings to take you back to earlier memories or events.

As we have mentioned previously, working with EFT can feel a lot like peeling back the layers of an onion, and if you are willing to just see where the process will take you, it is a powerful tool for revealing core events and memories that block you in the present day. You may begin with a set-up similar to one of the two below that feels fairly neutral, and see where it takes you.

‘Even though I think exercise is really boring, and I just don’t have the time to do it, I really do want to embrace good health so I’m ready to think of this differently.’

Repeat the set-up three times, or:

‘Even though I know I’ll feel healthier if I do some exercise, I’m not designed for any exertion and I’m just not going to do any!’

Repeat the set-up three times.

Tap a couple of rounds on ‘Exercise is really boring’ as your reminder phrase, or ‘I’m not designed for any exertion’. Really listen to yourself saying the words, and explore how you feel below the surface of your words. Pause and breathe. Is that it? Is there something else half-hidden and unacknowledged just beneath the surface? If you can’t get in touch with whatever it is that is blocking you, then you can tap a couple of rounds where you just take a breath as you tap on each point and see what else comes into your conscious mind. Perhaps a memory or event will begin to come into sharp focus, and then you can tap a round or two of EFT on that aspect.

Give yourself time to explore all aspects of your blocks to motivation to exercise until your SUD rating is down to zero and you are able to go to the gym or take up a physical activity of your choice.

Increase your metabolism with EFT

What level is your metabolism functioning at right now? Let a number simply pop into your mind, or simply guess. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t 100 per cent accurate as we are only looking for a number that we can use later for a benchmark.

Now you can proceed with the first round of tapping. Start at the Karate chop point, or the sore spot (see page 28) and say:

‘Even though my body runs at only … per cent, I deeply and completely love and accept my body without judgement.’

Repeat this statement three times.

Next, tap around on all the EFT points and repeat ‘running at only … per cent’.

Now tap again on the Karate chop point or the sore spot and say:

‘I choose to release anything and everything that slows my body down and I deeply and profoundly love and accept my body.’

Repeat this statement three times.

Then, tap on all the EFT points and repeat:

‘Choosing to release anything and everything that slows my body down.’

Take a deep breath and then continue by tapping on the Karate chop point, or the sore spot, and saying:

‘I now choose to repair everything that slows my body down and I deeply love and accept myself without judgement.’

Repeat this statement three times.

Then, tap on all the EFT points and repeat:

‘Choosing to repair everything that slows my body down.’

Now take a new reading.

Keep repeating this process until you reach a number you’re comfortable with.

Don’t try to get your metabolism to work at 100 per cent on the first attempt.

Do a few rounds, perhaps once a week, as this will allow your body to adjust gently and easily into its new state.

Release blocks to physical wellbeing with PSTEC

Does it feel overwhelming when you think about finding the time, or the necessary energy, to include regular exercise in your already busy life? Does it feel nigh on impossible to come home after a long day, and conjure up a nutritious meal for yourself? Does the idea of looking after yourself feel like the last thing you want to think about, at the end of a daily to-do-list that is already far too long? Is it a mystery to you how other people juggle the demands of their busy lives, and still have quality time left for themselves?

First, it will help enormously if you clear those feelings. When you are feeling overwhelmed, it is very difficult to even imagine how things can be different. Set yourself a SUD rating (see page 23), and run the PSTEC click track (see page 186) as you think about all the things you are expected to do in your busy day. Allow yourself to fully feel any resentment or anger that you have stuffed down inside yourself. Keep listening to the click track until you feel clear.

To ensure practical space in your life so that you can be a higher priority in your own life, you may need to review your own expectations. This could be how you are around the house, or in your job. It’s time for you to put your health and wellbeing first, so it’s helpful to let go of any unrealistic expectations you may have. The aim is not to worry quite so much if your house isn’t always immaculate, or to feel relaxed about leaving work on time some evenings instead of staying late just to prove your dedication to the job.

Clear any anxiety you experience when you think about having a house that’s slightly more untidy; or putting your coat on to leave work on time. Practise being healthily selfish by saying ‘No’ to a few duty, or boring, social engagements so that you have more time for yourself. Run the click track as you imagine these anxiety-inducing scenarios.

Also use PSTEC on the anxiety you feel when you imagine hearing yourself say ‘No’ to people, or to situations that leave you with no time to take care of yourself. Set a SUD rating for the anxiety in each situation at the outset, and make sure you get the intensity on all your scenarios right down to zero.

Formal exercise in a gym is certainly not to everyone’s taste. What is the feeling you experience when you think about going for a brisk 30-minute walk? Is it dread? You can radically reduce dread by choosing a new activity that really appeals to you, or reviving a leisure activity you previously enjoyed. If you can combine exercise with something you enjoy, or might learn to enjoy doing, you will be much more likely to keep at it. If the thought of exercise, or taking up a physical activity, still feels abhorrent to you, then use the click track (see page 186) to clear your resistance.

Imagine yourself having to go for a walk. Or going to the gym. Or walking on that dusty treadmill that has been stored in the garage. What are the negative feelings? Write down as many as you can think of on the Blocks to wellbeing worksheet (page 148, http://your7simplesteps.com/book12), and give each an SUD rating. Begin working with the click tracks on the ones with the highest intensity-score, until they are all down to zero. Soon you’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about.

If you hate the thought of having to spend time cooking a meal from scratch using real food, then clear the emotions that you are feeling. If you have children, think about encouraging them to help with meal preparation. A client of ours has three children and now has the children chopping up the vegetables at dinner time. It’s fun for them as they now enjoy the time together as a family. If the children are a little older, maybe you could encourage them to take turns in preparing an evening meal. They learn to cook, and you have a break! Find a way that works for you.

Brent’s story

As told to the authors and included here with Brent’s permission.

‘When I signed up for therapy I was already on the waiting list for a gastric band operation. Major abdominal surgery was something I really wanted to avoid, so this programme really felt like my last-ditch attempt to get my weight under control.

‘At the initial consultation, I weighed in at 24 stone and one pound (337 lb/153 kg). A week later, when I came for my first therapy session I topped that with an additional half a stone (7 lb/3 kg) for good measure. Those extra pounds were a classic “Last Supper” response, coupled with the fall-out from the celebrations for my 58th birthday.

‘Clearly, I had a long way to go. I was under no illusions that my weight was causing me problems, but I was obviously not in the right frame of mind to fully focus on doing anything differently. Basically, I was disappointed in myself that I’d got myself in this state and felt pretty disgusted with myself for letting it happen. I had gone from being a well-built, strong athletic type of guy to someone who was classed as morbidly obese with painful joints, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnoea. And, I felt like I had let all of that happen to me.

‘All those negative opinions of myself are just great ways of beating myself up and keeping me stuck. Little by little I was able to let go of that self-blame and begin to do things differently.

‘I’m a bloke so I like goals and structure. The first thing I did was set myself staged, with dated targets, towards my key goal of getting my weight down to 19 stone, 9 pounds (275 lb/124 kg). That wasn’t an arbitrary weight by the way. That was the weight I needed to achieve to get myself out of the morbidly obese category as defined by the NHS [the UK’s National Health Service] BMI (body mass index) measurement. I had to work hard to clear my self-doubts and to keep focused. When I began I was pretty overwhelmed and certainly didn’t feel confident that I could make those changes happen. There were many two-steps-forward-and-one-step-backwards as I made progress towards my goal. For me, I really appreciated the hypnotherapy, and visualising myself achieving my goal weight really helped me to get there. In all, it took me just under a year to get down to the 19 stone 9 pounds target.

’The key for me appears to be a sort of mindfulness – not only during eating, but in keeping these issues, the decision to put my health first, the intention to be accountable to me, in the frame on a daily basis. This is what is difficult, because it is the opposite of what I have done all my life: putting personal issues on the back burner, but it is so good, and so successful, when I do it. And when you’re on a roll success breeds success.

‘I achieved my steadiest, most reliable, incremental, week-upon-week, weight loss when I listened to the hypno-recordings every day; kept a food diary; worked together with my wife to plan out the week’s menu in advance; and we shopped for our meals and snacks so that everything was available in the kitchen. The food diary’s weekly tally of my drinking prompted me to face up to, and then radically cut down, my alcohol consumption. That has stayed down ever since, as has switching regular take-away dinners for more home-cooked meals.

’I’d had a long belief that the “Bs” were responsible, and that cutting out Bread, Butter and Beer would do the job! However, just trying to cut out those with no mental support framework had in the past just been doomed to repeated failure, with each pound or stone off followed sooner or later with two back on! Now, the lowered carb diet that worked, and is mostly still working, for me does not demand forgoing butter – but, of course, the less I have the better (as Betty Botter might have said). Obviously Bread is out along with rice, pasta, chips, etc, and again, as my knees only allow me to perform limited exercise, Beer has to be off the menu.

‘The quality of my mental support framework comes and goes. I find I am supported firstly by success and by personal relationships, the hypnotherapy CDs, and some sort of personal happiness index – what a list of variables.

‘That might make it sound as though my weight loss was all down to practical factors, but of course key to all of this was me getting my head around the idea, the actual possibility, of me being able to lose the weight and that’s what I did in the therapy sessions. I had so much doubt at my own ability to make a difference in my own life that for that first year I carried on attending the hospital appointments for the gastric band procedure, just in case I failed. I actually kept those appointments all the way up to when I no longer met the NHS’s qualifying guidelines for surgical intervention. I had disqualified myself by no longer being fat enough!

‘I found I really struggled to stay focused when I took on a couple of property renovations and my life got very busy and stressful. It became all too easy to let my health priorities take a back seat while I focused on working hard. I began making poor food choices, often eating on the run. That whole mañana thing of “I’ll take care of myself tomorrow” had definitely been a bit of a theme for me for years, and had got me into the mess I’d already found myself in. Being busy again, and under pressure, triggered me into those old patterns of behaviour of not taking care of myself. The therapy sessions helped me realise I could make other choices for myself, that I mattered, and that taking care of myself mattered too.

‘The four to five stone [56-70 lb/25-32 kg] I reduced my weight by had many welcome health benefits. The practice nurse at my GP [General Practice] surgery ran the statistics and said I had improved my life expectancy by 20 per cent. All of the readings from my regular blood tests were hugely better. My sleep apnoea had reduced from 40 interrupts per hour to initially 11 interrupts per hour, and now I keep meaning to return the breathing assistance machine to the hospital as I never need to use it at all, which of course is wonderful.

‘I had a health scare last year driving back down to the south of England from Scotland with my wife. A few hundred miles into the trip I felt that tell-tale tightness in my chest and my heart was pumping nineteen-to-the-dozen. It was very scary. We were in a part of the country that we barely knew and had to make our way to the nearest hospital, where I was admitted for tests. I was eventually diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, a heart condition characterised by irregular heart beats which can lead to an increased risk of stroke, or even heart failure. I can’t tell you how immensely pissed off I was. I had done everything I was told to do – eaten more healthily, cut down on the booze and lost weight and then – sod’s law – this should happen to me. I felt all over again that my body had let me down. I know it’s not rational but it’s how I felt. I was back in that abyss thinking that I had allowed this to happen to me, that it was all my fault. It took a while to haul myself back up and really recognise that the weight I had lost had probably made the difference from being here today or not.

‘I had got complacent, I guess. I thought I had done enough, but I have decided now I’m ready to lose the next chunk of weight. I’ve set a new weight-loss target. I’ve gone back to keeping a food diary and listening to the hypno-recordings every day. I want to build on the positive health improvements I’ve already gained and I’m keen to have more of the same. I’m talking to my wife about my plans as I know how well I can do when she and I work together, and she always loses some weight too so everyone’s a winner!

‘I understand now that I deserve to be well and happy and that no one can do that for me, except me, and I truly want that and I’m willing to work for it.’