99 of 101 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The REAL way to weight loss through positive and healthy changes, February 10, 2007
This review is from: The Self-Hypnosis Diet: Use the Power of Your Mind to Reach Your Perfect Weight (Hardcover)
I have successfully lost weight in the past being mean to myself, hating my body, and punishing myself with very low calories, forbidding any fun, and hard workouts. In the end--I still wasn't happy, or happy with my body, and I even injured my knee pushing too hard in a workout.
The Gurgeviches offer a better way. I love this program. I teach yoga, and these 'self hypnosis' sessions closely resemble guided relaxation and yoga nidra. As proof: today, in line at the grocery store, I picked up the new dark chocolate bar. After a few moments, I put it back! That's HUGE! It's the little things, like really learning to listen to yourself and 'eating whatever you want while reaching and maintaining your perfect weight'.
I work at a health food store, and people constantly spend up to $100 on pills, hoping they'll find the magic one that effortlessly melts the pounds from their body, and in the meantime putting some potentially dangerous stuff in their bodies. Try a healthier, more positive way! With this program you will end up LIKING yourself as well as looking and feeling healthier, which is what it's all about.
Warning: you might just get the magic solution! It really is wonderful to make some of these small choices, like forgoing a candy bar without being deprived. It's a change of paradigm, or just a different way of thinking about food and our relationship with it. I am learning to want the best for myself. Americans can definitely learn more in this department!
The book suggests you read the first three chapters, then you can begin using the cd and finishing the book. It has wonderful inspirational quotes, and background into the history and research behind self-hypnosis. It even has a foreword from Dr. Weil, whose name will tell you it's not a bunch of smoke and mirrors. The cd has about 7 tracks, 1 instructional then five of different hypnosis sessions (i.e. exploring our history with food, a rescue rememdy for cravings, etc.) The last track is a powerful, positive message about setting intentions. It's all very 'yoga-like' in a way, too, so if you love yoga, you'll find this book very familiar in many ways.
Carrie
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39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Buy this for the CD, September 25, 2007
This review is from: The Self-Hypnosis Diet: Use the Power of Your Mind to Reach Your Perfect Weight (Hardcover)
I've bought hypnosis self-improvement tapes before and soon abandoned them. I was too impatient! This time I've discovered that persistence and repetion is the key. You really can change your subsconscious "tapes" but it is not a quick process. Just hang in there, and repeat, repeat.. As to this book and CD set, I did not find the book very enlightening. If you are completely new to the subject, perhaps you will. However, the CD is GREAT! Mr. G. has one of the most soothing voices I have ever heard from a hypnotist. He does not do very lengthly inductions, which I like. He also has another set of three CDs on Self-Hypnosis for Weight Loss that doesn't come with a book. Those CDs are different from the one that comes with this book and are just as good. If you are really serious, I recommend buying them as well. Good Luck!
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49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It Simply Makes Dieting Easier, February 19, 2008
This review is from: The Self-Hypnosis Diet: Use the Power of Your Mind to Reach Your Perfect Weight (Hardcover)
Before I was hypothyroid never had to worry about my weight, so becoming hypothyroid was a major rude awakening. Where before I could lose weight by cutting out a few sodas and chips each week, after my thyroid problem started, I not only couldn't lose weight, I actually gained weight following stringent diets. It was awful. I was so relieved when I finally was able to start losing weight again, by optimizing my thyroid function, changing what I ate, and adding in supplements and appropriate exercise (an approach I've outlined in detail in my book,
The Thyroid Diet: Manage Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss). But that doesn't mean that I don't work at this every single day. I always have more to lose it seems, because it's easy to gain, holidays and wintertime can be setback periods, and I'm by nature not an athletic or active person. So weight loss and management is a lifestyle for me, not just something I can do once and forget about!
So, with all this in mind, I have to say that s Steven and Joy Gurgevich's book/CD, The Self-Hypnosis Diet, is a resource that I consider pretty much indispensable, no matter what type of diet you are following -- helping make any diet successful -- whether you're following my Thyroid Diet, or you're doing Weight Watchers, or Ediets, or low-carbing it, South Beach, or making up your own diet as you go.
I've been using this book and companion CD for more than a year, and I consider it absolutely essential to my ongoing diet and weight loss efforts. Dr. Gurgevich is a member of the faculty at the University of Arizona's College of Medicine, where he is the Director of the Mind-Body Clinic and teaches mind/body medicine to physicians. Dr. Gurgevich is very much the real deal, and he has created an incredible, effective approach.
When it comes to diet and weight loss, I only recommend books or products
that I have personally tried and found helpful. I'm a diet product guinea pig for thyroid patients, and believe me, I've tried some pretty wacky things along the way. Most of the things I try I never even bother to write about. Why? Because they don't work, and they're just trying to rip us off!
But this is different. Quite simply, the Self-Hypnosis Diet does work. It helps make the connection between what you WANT to do, and what you DO! You know that feeling -- you're shoveling a cookie in your mouth and thinking, "Why am I eating this when I want to lose weight?" Your goals and desires are not translating into action. Somehow, after you read the Self-Hypnosis Diet, and listen to the accompanying CD, if you're like me, you'll find yourself acting the way you WANT to when it comes to diet and
exercise. Instead of sabotaging yourself, you end up supporting yourself, and making decisions that are good for you. It makes it easier to be on a diet.
I know something like self-hypnosis doesn't sound like it's for everyone. It sounds woo-woo or "holistic-ballistic!" But it's actually very straightforward...by learning to relax and make a true mind-body connection, you get your weight loss goals synched up with your behavior.
An interesting aside: When I first started with the Self-Hypnosis Diet, my best friend kept asking me what I was doing, as she thought I was looking great. I gave her a copy -- she didn't need to lose weight (she doesn't have a thyroid problem, lucky her!), but she wanted to try to stop eating chocolate and eat more veggies. After a few weeks, she had gotten rid of her raging chocolate cravings, and was craving salads. And she told me she had the weirdest side effect. She stopped smoking of all things, something she'd wanted to do for years and had given up hope on!
Mary Shomon, Thyroid Patient Advocate and Author
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