Magic Imaginary Weight Loss Surgery Is Magic!
I ran across this hilarious article in the always-reliable and utterly trustworthy very serious newspaper, the Daily Mail: a woman in London decided that she wanted to lose weight, and that weight-loss surgery was too risky, but that she would pay a hypnotherapist to trick her into believing she had!
At Joh’s first session with the hypnotherapist, she was asked to talk about her bad relationship with food.
But by the fourth session she was being talked through a gastric band op as though she was really going through the surgery.
To help with the illusion, special equipment pumped out the smells of an operating theatre and a recording of surgical tools being picked up and put down was played. Joh says: “When they actually come round to the final session and the therapist convinces you you’re having the op, it’s so realistic you actually believe you are lying in that operating theatre.
Yes, I’d pay money to be made to believe that I am lying on an operating table. The clink of the surgical tools is also a very nice touch.
So she goes through this imaginary operation, and suddenly, she is free!
“Now that I think I have a band I’ve cut my portion size in half. My mind thinks my stomach is tiny so I feel full much quicker. It’s also caused me to stop snacking on junk as I simply don’t feel like eating it anymore.”
Now that I think I have a band? She’s aware that she doesn’t actually have a band, so I am confused about how she can say that she thinks she has a band. Is she unsure as to whether or not the band exists? Has the line between fact and fiction been so mystically blurred that right becomes wrong and up becomes down and gastric bands lie down in the box with Schrödinger’s cat and play canasta? I guess I don’t understand how you can be perfectly aware that you do not actually have a band around your stomach, and not decide you can eat whatever you want because that band doesn’t exist. But I guess I am missing the entire point of magic imaginary weight loss surgery.
Anyway, she was a U.K. size 18, and now she is a U.K. size 12, she looked awesome both before and after and I am glad she didn’t actually get weight loss surgery to lose only 56 freaking pounds. And I am off to go get imaginary magic PhD, so that I think everyone should call me Dr. Fu.
Posted by jenfu
Filed under: Diet Talk Warning, Humor, International, Media, Science, Weight Loss, WLS
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true story: when i clicked the website i thought her before picture was her after picture. that woman did not need to lose weight. (not that she doesn’t look great now, too)
LOLOL! Any post that references Schrödinger’s cat is ok in my book. This is brilliant. If she’s sane enough to wonder that she might be crazy, then she’s might end up successfully thin? Is that how it works, or am I using the wrong metaphor. Is there a correct metaphor for stupidity? Ach! knotty thought puzzle make brain hurt!
Well, at least she had the sense not to let some Dr. eviscerate her or stick electrified fondue stakes into her brain. Ouchy!
Wow. This is… bizarre. Really bizarre. I’m going to have to take a little more time to wrap my head around this one. Wow.
Haha, I want an imaginary PhD too!
The bit about canasta with The Cat made me have to cover my mouth to stop from laughing out loud in the office.
I gotta say, though, I can see how it works. She may have just needed that tiny bit of subconscious support-almost like an excuse to cut her portion sizes, an excuse to get past her own mental block-even if she consciously knows it’s not there. And hey it worked for her. Good for her! I agree she looked great before, but it’s also good that she didn’t go to the expense of surgery for 56 lbs.
The mind is a strange and mysterious place.
Sigh . . . could someone tell me why, if people have to go to such lengths to trick themselves into losing weight, the prevailing belief is still that “thin” is the healthiest natural state for everyone?
And this is slightly off topic, but I can’t help but remember this (paraphrased) line from a Terry Pratchett novel (Lords and Ladies, maybe):
“A cat shut in a box can be said to exist in three simultaneous states: alive, dead, and pissed off.”
Hopefully, nobody will tell this woman about the complications from the surgery, the people who require reversals, and those who gain weight back.
Because if they do, well, she’s bound to yo-yo, due to the awesome powers of suggestion.
Actually, she probably yo-yo anyway.
Oh, THANK YOU for the laugh!!!!
I tried hypno-therapy for the delivery of my first child. After the first couple hours I was screaming (literally!) for the epidural.
Guess the magic imaginary WLS wouldn’t work for me.
Darn.
I can tell you from experience, not to have the band. I have it. I have had it for almost 7 years. I have not lost the weight. I haven’t had a reversal. But every doctor that I talk to wants me to have a more radical WLS. So not going there. Why, if this didn’t do it.
And I didn’t need to be hypnotized to think I had weight loss surgery. I just throw up a lot all on my own, with the band.
Hypnotism only works if you believe it works. She’s talked herself into believing so it works for her.
Well, she may buy into “thin is healthy”, but at least she didn’t get her stomach cut open!
Loved Shrodinger’s Cat…
I am off for my magic imaginary shipwreck on a magic imaginary deserted island with George Clooney. After that, I am going in for my magic imaginary lobotomy so I won’t have to read any more testimonials about how great life is after X pounds lost.
Reminds me of that fad diet where you would smell this scent, which smelled like a cross between a skunk and something dead, and then eat your meals. Was supposed to curb your appetite and make you eat less.
A friend tried this so I took a whiff…all it did was make me puke… :) Oh wait…it worked then, right? LOL
Oh, why do I feel the Daily Mail is the National Enquirer of the UK?
Wonder if this magic will make me believe I have a job making gobs of money, living with Adonis and he cleans house?
That is hilarious. I wonder how else this could be applied?
How about bills?
I just have to imagine that all my bills are paid and voila! no more debt and phone ringing off the hook with pesky collectors?
SIGN ME UP
This makes so much nonsense it makes me want to beat small kittens. ….No scratch that, I’d rather beat small children.
The hypnosis clearly DOES have a magical effect: she states that she could not go swimming with her son before the treatment. So besides losing weight she’s GAINED A SKILL!
(I bet the hypnosis did address some mental block stuff, I’ve had hypnotherapy for PTSD and it was surprisingly effective.)
PS – I kind of want to rename my cats Heisenberg & Schrodinger. Don’t think my husband would go for it though.
The general rate of succeeder of these weight loss curricula which are forever competing with each other is more or less the one. And the most ironic part is that these programmes all expire at the one vault in wound of doing really tall necessitates. This bechances because the body gets accustomed to the rigorousness through which it is invest and alines itself to the new routine and the metabolic process slows down. You have to be brainier than nature to be able to trick the body into mislaying weight. Without coming this measure then you will invariably inquire why you cannot lose weight.
Hmmm… maybe.. I dunno
I haven’t ever read about this before. Where did you should happen to find all this info if you don’t mind me asking?