Losing weight after having a baby

Written by Al, my loving husband, who has witnessed the change in me since starting the hypnosis CDs ~ truly amazing!

When Dotti lost her weight in 1998, I often pestered her with the question, “What made you lose weight this time?” I had watched her struggle for so many years trying to lose weight, and each time her weight ended up worse off than it was before she started. This time, she suddenly stopped floundering, and started doing everything just right: she wrote down everything that she ate; she exercised religiously; and she always ate within her targeted limits. The weight fell off from her quickly and in a few months she was at goal; over 100 pounds lighter than the 245 pounds that she had started at. Why?

Dotti didn’t know why. I knew this information was critical, because her motivation was the heart and soul of her success. Where did it come from? More importantly, could it be reproduced?

At the time I was mostly just curious, because Dotti was at goal and looked like she would remain there for good. Her journey seemed rock solid and her resolve seemed unshakable. But things changed.

Dotti held steady at her goal weight for over 3 years. Then one day early in 2002, Dotti took a fall and damaged her knee. She found that she was very restricted in her activities, because she couldn’t do any exercise without causing more pain.

In May of that year Dotti quit smoking. The method that she used to quit was hypnosis. I was completely amazed by what happened. Dotti went into a room filled with people and sat down. A man stood up at the front of the room and talked to them for about an hour, and Dotti walked out of the room a non-smoker. She has not even wanted a cigarette since!

To put that in perspective, I quit smoking in 1998, and it was the hardest thing that I have ever done. I had worked at it for decades to finally break the habit off. To this very day, at times a cigarette will “call my name.” It was an intense struggle all the way for me. So, when I saw Dotti lay down a 2 to 3 pack a day habit and literally NEVER LOOK BACK, I was flabbergasted.

A little while before Dotti quit, our best friends, Jim and Tammy, also used hypnosis to quit smoking. So, by this time I was a believer that hypnosis could certainly work.

Quitting smoking was an awesome step for Dotti’s future health! I was (and I am) very proud of her for taking it. Few people would have the courage to face what Dotti faced over the next several years. She was the webmistress of a huge weight loss web page, in the spotlight for her weight, and she just quit smoking, without ever even considering starting again.

As happens with most heavy smokers who kick the habit, Dotti started gaining weight. She couldn’t exercise because of her knee, and the battle of the scale was on. In August, seven months after her fall, Dotti ended up having knee surgery. Her inability to exercise for all of that time added even more difficulty to her struggle to not gain weight.

As the scale crept up, it was not an even gain. She had the tools to fight it, and she tried her best, but it just kept increasing. All at once my question of where her motivation had come from was no longer academic. It was becoming more and more important.

In 2005 Dotti started the year at 210 pounds. She wanted to have her weight down for the DWLZ conference in the spring. She tried her hardest to work the program and get things moving. She fought, and she struggled; and she dragged the scale down to just over 200 pounds by the conference. Then during the few days of the conference she sadly gained it all back. For the next several months her weight just kept going up. She was 223 pounds, only 22 pounds down from her highest weight ever, when she discovered a hypnosis program called “Enjoying Weight Loss”.

Dotti sat down and went through the hypnotic sessions on the CDs and immediately turned things around. Suddenly, it was just like she was back in 1998. The change was just as abrupt as it had been when she quit smoking. One moment she was out of control concerning her weight, not able to hold her focus for more than a day or two. The next moment she was rock solid in control, doing everything just right.

Since that first hypnosis session, Dotti has not had a single day where she has gone off her eating program. Even when she was in the hospital having shoulder surgery, she wrote down all of the food she ate, and she did not go over her eating limit at any time. It is hard to describe the phenomenal change that I saw in Dotti.

Before the change, whether it was out of frustration, or a mental self-defense reaction, Dotti was actually hostile to things that she knew would help her in her weight loss journey. Weighing every day (or even weekly) was absolutely out of the question, and writing her food down, even when she attempted it, was pure drudgery for her. There was a continual internal battle going on, with part of her wanting to do things right, and the other part hating the idea of being on program.

After the hypnosis session all of that changed. Suddenly, both Dotti’s conscious and her subconscious were in sync, and every part of her being was in tune with her journey. Instead of being afraid to weigh, Dotti is happily calling me up at work in the morning to tell me what her daily weigh-in results are. She keeps her journal always available, and she tracks everything that she eats. She is drinking her water and writing it down.

I am writing this on October 2nd, and Dotti has dropped 13 pounds in just over 2 weeks. But to me that is not the most important part of this. What is really amazing is the fact that Dotti is 100% committed to her weight loss program, and is as strong in her resolve to remain on program as I have ever seen her. And after watching her in 1998, that is saying a lot!

While we still do not know where the 1998 focus Dotti had came from, we know exactly where this latest focus originated! If Dotti ever has to renew her resolve in the future, she can just reach into the CD box and pull out another dose of focus to help her remain on program.

Question, by a Zonie: I’m wondering how the hypnosis cd’s are working for Dotti after a year of using them and if she still does?

Answer, written by Al: This is a post that I wrote in response to a question in the Men’s Forum on our Message Board, but I thought it might be useful here as well.

Dotti is still doing great with them. She has consistently held the line against gaining, and she has lost or maintained each week since she stated using them. The only two places where she didn’t have a weigh-in showing a loss or maintain was on the week of the shoulder surgery, and the week after our recent Alaska cruise.

After the surgery she went up on the scale for one week, but then showed a much bigger loss the next week. That was clearly a case of water weight, and surgery related retention, because it all went away and her chart shows her right back where she would have been the next week, as if she never had the surgery.

On the cruise, she didn’t weight at all when went got back home that first week, and had her weigh-in the next week. It was a maintain with the week before the cruise, and now, a week later she showed another half pound loss!

Dotti was creeping up, and up, and up before she started using the CDs. I believe that she would have been 245 lbs again right now if she had not started using the CDs. She just couldn’t hold her focus for more than a couple of days at a time. Since then, we have gone through some very challenging weeks with plenty of opportunity to gain weight (I certainly did) and she didn’t.

Above is Dotti’s graph for year one of using the CDs.

It was watching Dotti before she started using the CDs that makes how she has been doing afterwards appear so miraculous. I was there, and I can tell you that seeing her go through the cruise like she did and still be down a half pound today, is just amazing: with the chocolate extravaganza, and the food everywhere on the ship 24 hours a day, which we could have for free; and it was great food! (If I had just thrown caution to the wind and had whatever I wanted during that cruise, I could have easily put on 15 or 20 pounds. There was that much food available that I would have loved to have eaten.)

Each week she faces something new and different it seems–some new challenge to get past–but she has been as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar on her commitment to her journey. It has been going on for more than a year now, and that test of time is the most solid proof of what the CDs have done, and continue to do for Dotti.

She does still listen to the CDs from time to time, but she doesn’t need to listen every day, or even every week any longer. When she has something challenging coming up, she will listen to them. (e.g. when we went down to our little Coon Family Reunion she listened to some of the tracks on the way down with her IPOD — using her headphones to make sure the driver, that would be me, didn’t hear them which would have been a real safety hazard.) Or if she feels like she needs a boost in her focus she will listen to them again. For Dotti, they have been extremely effective.

A bit of background for Dotti and I: for decades we both knew that, while we had the same two difficult problems (smoking and weight gain) for Dotti the smoking was a smaller problem and the weight was a bigger one, while for me it was the exact opposite. Dotti went to one hypnosis session and she quit smoking 4.5 years ago. She has never even wanted a cigarette since then. (That was nothing short of miracle to me.) The reason that she only needed one session was twofold in my opinion: The task was much simpler to define in her head: never, ever, have a cigarette again. You don’t have to pay attention, or monitor just having a few cigarettes. There are no shades of gray. Either you completely quit or you don’t. Period. The second reason was what I said before, smoking was a serious problem, but it was not as central to her being as weight gain was. In any case, she has not had a single cigarette since May of 2002. (Hurray for Dotti!!!) And she has not needed any further hypnosis sessions to reinforce her non-smoking status.

With weight control, we are looking at something that is far more complicated. You can’t just never eat again. You have to monitor what you eat, and you have to eat every day. You have to eat food that you like (if you are going to do this for the rest of your life) and some of that food will have more calories than celery or carrots. It is a process that goes on day after day, and it will never be a totally “autopilot” process.

Each day is a new one, with a new commitment to your journey. That is why the CDs have been so helpful to Dotti, rather than just a single session would have been. When she needs to recharge her focus on her journey, she can and does. For over a year she has taken one step after another along the right path!!! She is down 38.5 pounds so far and only half a pound away from her half-way-back-to-goal mark. (And she is 60.5 pounds down from where she was in 1997 before she started her journey.)

My hope is that the CDs will be as effective for you as they have been for Dotti. From what I have read, about 90% of the people in the world are capable of getting some benefit from hypnosis. For some it is nearly like magic because it works so well (Dotti’s smoking quit was astounding to me), but for most it is something that works over time, by consistently using it when you need it.

Hypnosis does not do it for you. You still have to do it yourself. But it does help your inner voice and mind to join you as an ally, rather than being an enemy that sabotages your journey by telling you how hopeless it all is, so why don’t you just give up. When your inner mind is on your side on your journey for controlling your weight, your battle is suddenly one that you can win. And that is what Dotti has been doing for over a year by using the CDs.

By using the CDs, I think that nearly everyone (at least 90% of people) can derive some help for their journey. The help will come in the form of a mental change where focus and commitment are strengthened so they can remain OP much easier.

The journey will not run itself. And the CDs do not do it for you. But they will help you to be able to run it yourself successfully. You are still the architect of your own success. Hypnosis is only a tool to help you build that edifice; you will still have do the actual work.

Dec 31, 2007 – Update by Dotti ~ I’m in my 3rd year using Dr. Roberta’s “Enjoying Weight Loss” hypnosis cds and I have to tell you, they remain to be one of my most important tools on my Journey. Of course, when I don’t listen to the CDs they don’t help me but when I do listen to the CDs on a regular basis I am the best I can be On Program.

Dr. Roberta’s “Enjoying Weight Loss” hypnosis cds help me stay focused on my Weight Watcher Program. They also help me stay positive and reinforce my strong desire to make it to my goal weight.

The first year I used Dr. Roberta’s “Enjoying Weight Loss” hypnosis cds I lost 43 lbs. Unfortunately life sent me off track and I gained most of that weight back. How many of us have done that? As soon as I take the focus off me and my Journey, my weight goes back up. Of course, during those times I am not following Program or listening to Dr. Roberta’s “Enjoying Weight Loss” hypnosis cds.

I am now back on Program, although at a standstill at this moment, and Dr. Roberta’s “Enjoying Weight Loss” hypnosis cds continue to be part of my Program. We all know if the mind is not in the right place neither will your Journey be.

If you are struggling on your Journey or just starting out, Dr. Roberta’s “Enjoying Weight Loss” hypnosis cds are a great tool for continued focus, success and motivation.

Good luck on your Journey. I’m rooting for you.

July 2, 2009 – Update by Dotti ~ Hi everyone! I’m still here and I’m still listening to my “Enjoying Weight Loss” Hypnosis CDs. They continue to be the driving force to keep me motivated, focused and positive on my Lifetime Journey. I’m doing well and am back at weekly meetings and weigh-ins. I’m losing very slow but that’s okay – for now. I’ve just finished a move to Spokane, WA and am still in the ‘moving in’ process but it’s all coming together. I love living near my son again, and my best friend Tammy.

I need to update my Journey section soon too. Thank you all for your support and well wishes on my Journey. They mean the world to me.

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