Discover your pause button

GMB is a weight loss therapy using techniques such as self-hypnosis and cognitive behaviour therapy.

CRAVINGS, force of habit and emotional eating come into play when trying to lose weight. Gastric Mind Band is a therapy which aims to help people re-establish normal eating patterns, through techniques including self-hypnosis and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT).

Devised by husband-and-wife hypnotherapist team Martin and Marion Shirran, who’ve also written Gastric Mind Band (Hay House), it eschews calorie-counting and food deprivation in favour of tactics such as a mental ‘pause button’, self-hypnosis and visualisation, and recognising the difference between hunger, craving and desire to change eating habits for life.

Here are some of the key principles of GMB:

MENTAL PAUSE BUTTONS: An important part of GMB therapy, mental ‘pause buttons’ are used to freeze time before people put ‘dodgy food’ in their mouths.

“It’s to get people to stop and think about the consequences,” explains Marion. “They stop for a few seconds and visualise themselves going ahead and eating the bar of chocolate or whatever, and then they fast-forward to a few minutes later and remind themselves how they’ll feel if they give in to that craving. Then they come back to the present and see themselves in the alternative scenario of recognising that they don’t need to eat that food, and fast-forwarding to how good they’ll feel about themselves for having resisted the temptation.”

SELF-HYPNOSIS: The Shirrans say that self-hypnosis, involving deep relaxation, visualisation, and reinforcement of the positive changes you’re trying to make, is key. It involves choosing up to three ‘positive thoughts’, like reminding yourself how bad you feel about overeating. Then self-hypnosis is achieved by slowly counting down, deep-breathing, releasing muscle tension and picturing yourself in a place where you feel at ease, like a beach or in the countryside.

Once deeply relaxed, you envisage your thoughts as they’d be in a year’s time if you don’t change your eating habits, and also as they’d be if you did make positive changes. Finally, there’s a new set of positive thoughts, with the long-term rewards of being slim and healthy outweighing the instant gratification from bad eating habits.

MINDFUL EATING: To get the most out of food, the Shirrans recommend eating slowly, and enjoy the taste, texture, smell and appearance of the food. And they insist that eating healthy food slowly tastes a lot better than eating unhealthy food slowly. “It doesn’t mean you have to eat healthily 100% of the time — nobody’s perfect,” says Marion. “It’s about getting the balance right and enjoying everything in moderation.”