Self hypnosis for weight control is far superior to willpower because self hypnosis works whereas willpower is little more than a sham and a myth.

There were about two-and-a-half tons of hungry dieters in the room the night Clarice Wright threatened to eat a bug. It was a warm evening in July and my Red Rocks Campus weight control group was meeting in a corner of the field house.

This particular group had just begun a week or two earlier so the self hypnosis was only beginning to kick in for some of them. They were all hungry.

I had been conducting sessions like this for a couple of years (and continued conducting them until I left the college a few years later). These were years in which a lot of funny things happened, but this particular episode sticks in my memory with unusual clarity.

It was warm inside the field house so I had opened the doors leading outside to let in some fresh air. I was holding forth on that evening's instruction to the group when a large black beetle made its appearance. It came ambling in through the open door and headed across the floor between the seated group and where I was standing.

First one and then another person's attention was drawn to the beetle. Pretty soon everyone in the room was watching it. I stopped talking and watched it, too. Silently. Fifty or 60 eyes watched that courageous little beetle march slowly across the floor. When it was about three-quarters of the way across it evidently remembered something it had forgotten, turned around, and headed back the way it had come. All eyes moved with it. It was as if we were spectators at a very, very slow tennis match.

I didn't want to say or do anything to break the spell. This was worth playing out, waiting to see what was going on in their minds. Everyone seemed oblivious to the fact that I had shut up—a rarity in itself—and that we were all entranced by a bug walking across the floor.

This went on for what seemed a long time, although it was probably no more than half a minute or so. Then Clarice Wright calmly said to the bug, "You'd better get out of here before someone eats you."

That did it! Everyone cracked-up. We were all laughing so hard it was quite a while before we could regain our composure and get back to business.

The incident naturally led to a discussion of willpower, of being hungry and trying to resist the temptations of doughnuts, ice cream, fried chicken, and whatever else happened to be someone's particular weakness.

Eunice Carlson was one of the "early takers" for whom the self hypnosis was beginning to take hold. She said her whole process of bringing the subconscious mind into alignment with her conscious desires was known around her house as her fat-be-gone program.

Everyone laughed again. It does not sound funny now, but it was hilarious when Yoo-neese—that's the way she pronounced her name—said it. Maybe the beetle brought some kind of humor contagion with it because we were all pretty silly the rest of the evening.

Yooneese's epithet stuck and the group was known informally from that night on as the Fat-Be-Goners. This of course became shortened to 'Goners and in a strange way contributed to the mystique of the group. That and the beetle tale became enduring fantasy themes around the campus.

Yooneese, Clarice—just about everyone, in fact, who ever went through the 'Goners program—had tried dieting many times in the past. On those occasions when they did manage through Herculean efforts to lose a little weight it would just came right back again when the dieting ended. And dieting must always end sooner or later, which makes it an inappropriate method of long term weight control.

The original pounds that come back at the end of dieting are often accompanied by friends. This is very discouraging, as you know if you have ever experienced it. It makes you feel like something must be wrong with your body. I lost count of the number of times I heard, "I think I got a metabolism problem," or "Something's wrong with my thyroid." It never was, of course, but it just seems sometimes like something has to be malfunctioning. Surely the human body should not be so damned obstreperous.

Many people find, after a little enlightenment, that their beliefs—about eating, gaining weight, and everything else related to food and their bodies—to be either wrong or inadequate. This makes it impossible to reach or sustain weight goals. But once you get onto the right track, everything gets a lot easier. I have also lost track of all the times someone said later, "I can't believe how easy this is."

You may have heard a lot about metabolism imbalances, genetic factors, and even light-deprived pineal glands causing overweight. The fact is, most overweight is the result of simply eating too much and exercising too little. That is worth knowing but it does not really get us anywhere because the fundamental, underlying cause of most overweight is not whatand how muchwe eat but whywe eat so much of what we do. The whyis psychological, or mental, and the fact that some of us have eating disorders is prima facie evidence that eating behavior is for the most part beyond conscious control. Otherwise we would have to say that fat people are either stupid or ignorant, or both.

Most of the overweight people I have known were not stupid. Not by a long shot. That leaves ignorance. But in this day and age a person would have to be really stupid to remain ignorant of the fact that over-eating, or eating the wrong things, leads to overweight. And even if it were a matter of ignorance, then it follows that a little information about nutrition would go a long way toward enabling them to drop the weight and keep it off. But you and I know it does not work that way.

Few things are more discouraging to someone who is overweight than to hear a physician, friend or relative say, "Just don't eat so much!"

As if it were simply a matter of willpower! Do yourself a favor and FORGET ABOUT WILLPOWER! (There I go, yelling again. Sorry.)

Willpower, I'm afraid, is a cruel hoax. It does not exist. What passes for willpower—behavior that gives the appearance that a person has willpower—is simply behavior allowed by the subconscious mind because it agrees with the conscious desire.

Fortunately, self-hypnotic suggestion is a good way—about the only consciously driven way, actually—to bring the subconscious into alignment with conscious desires. It changes the subconscious mind and makes you want to eat less and exercise more. If you don't want to eat, you won't eat.

Combined with dietary knowledge, self hypnosis is the perfect way to lose weight and keep it off.

Sometimes self hypnosis goes beyond these psychological factors and actually causes changes in metabolic functioning, setpoints, fat cravings and so on. That is, self hypnosis sometimes mediates physiological functioning. In such cases a person who previously was not losing weight at, say, 1200 calories a day suddenly begins to lose weight without further reduction in calorie intake; sometimes people can even eat more and maintain control of their weight because the body's methods of dealing with food have shifted gears.

The subconscious mind has the ability to make physiological changes. Sometimes it makes drastic changes in bodily functions. There are, for example, 13 hormone-secreting glands in the body and each of those glands has been shown at one time or another to be under subconscious control. And things under subconscious control are things we can influence with hypnosis and suggestion.

I have no doubt—and some very recent research supports this—that there is one or more hormones which are under direct or indirect control of the subconscious, and which can make the body flush itself of fat. We still don't know how to quickly and easily turn this function on at will except with highly undesirable drugs (such as amphetamines) that have serious side effects. But it is do-able in many cases with the correct and diligent application of self hypnosis.