When slimming down really all is in the mind

Gemma Scott turned to hypnotherapist Dr Lindsay Howden for a virtual gastric band in her fight to shed some pounds

Blonde, petite and slim, she exudes good health and well-being - as the owner of a beauty therapy salon perhaps should.

However, Gemma admits that only last year she was fighting a losing battle to shift post-baby weight.

Dieting wasn't working and trying to fit in exercise between running her Remedy Rooms business, her home and looking after two children was becoming increasingly difficult. On top of that was her "savoury tooth" which meant she couldn't say no to pies and chips.

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It seemed her only option to get rid of the stone-and-a-half was a gastric band - not that she wanted to go under the surgeon's knife and pay around 8000 for the privilege.

So, instead, she turned to Dr Lindsay Howden, a former pharmacist turned hypnotherapist, for what is fast becoming one of the most successful weight-loss treatments around - a virtual gastric band.

Britain's obesity rates are rising and so is demand for gastric surgery, especially when celebrities like Fern Britton and Sharon Osbourne are examples of how well it can work.

But not everyone can afford to fork out thousands for such drastic treatment, which is where the virtual gastric band comes in.

"People do have to be in the right frame of mind if they want to lose weight and it's just the same when they come to me," says Dr Howden. "Some are put off hypnotherapy because they've seen a stage hypnotist in Spain, but it's nothing like that. It's a deep state of relaxation, but the person is in full control and knows exactly what's going on.

"I do ask a lot of questions first to make sure someone is suitable for hypnotherapy, and for the virtual gastric band, in particular. If someone very slim came to me for this, I would not treat them, but send them to their GP. But I don't ask someone how much they weigh, it's more about how much they'd like to lose, and what is realistic.

"I have been offering this technique for weight loss for around a year, and it's all been female clients who've come, and mostly women in their mid-30s who've had their children, although I have had a few young women who are very overweight. And I have to say, so far, the success rate is around 90 per cent after just two sessions. Clients lose the weight and keep it off."

The treatment basically consists of relaxing the client so Dr Howden can "speak to their subconscious mind" which is where, he says, the bad habits reside. He then shows them a very stylised picture of a stomach with a gastric band around it. Also on the picture there's a dial with numbers from ten to one, with one being the tightest setting.

"It doesn't even matter if they don't know where their stomach actually is anatomically," he says. "I ask them where they'd like the dial to be set. Some of them say they can feel a tightening in their stomach, others don't. I tell them to give it a week and see if they notice any changes. They come back saying they've lost weight, that they've eaten smaller portions, or not even some of the types of food they usually really like.

"In the second session, we do more aversion therapy, so if they like chocolate or crisps, then I get them to imagine the worst taste they can think of, so that's what they taste if they put such a thing in their mouth. Most people suggest liver or Brussels sprouts or cough medicine.

"I do offer a third session, and some come back for that, and that's to help them self-hypnotise if they feel they need a top-up.

"I expect people to lose between three and five pounds a week. Then, when they reach their target, the memory of the gastric band just disappears, but the bad habits have gone, so the weight doesn't go back on again."

Gemma Scott is testament to that. "I was carrying quite a bit of weight ten months after I'd had my second baby and I just couldn't get rid of the last stone-and-a-half which would bring me back to my pre-pregnancy weight," says the 39-year-old.

"I thought if I don't lose it now it's only going to get harder. When I heard about virtual gastric bands, I thought that would work for me. I had never been to a hypnotherapist before, but I wasn't nervous. The whole thing was very relaxing and you're aware of what's going on the whole time. I was shown an image of what a gastric band might look like around the stomach and I was asked how tight I'd like mine to be and when Dr Howden got to five, I said stop.

"I could actually feel a tightening in my stomach, which was the weirdest feeling. It was a kind of muscular feeling, as if something was inside me. I found then that when I was sitting down to a meal I couldn't finish anything, which was amazing as I was brought up to always clear my plate.

"Although I would leave more than half the meal on the plate, I wasn't feeling deprived. I then used smaller plates, so the portions got smaller, and I started making better choices.

"My weaknesses were pies and chips, and I just didn't want to eat them. Alcohol as well - a glass of wine just seemed like a glass of sugar."

That was last August and since then Gemma has lost 19lbs and kept it off. Today she tips the scales at a healthy 8st 4lbs.

And there's been another, surprising, side effect to the virtual band - she's found that while she used to hate running, she now really enjoys it.

"I still feel the band is there, but less so," she says. "There's definitely something at the back of my mind that stops me eating too much."

Dr Howden believes that everyone who is overweight knows they should lose weight, but underlying bad habits in the subconscious prevent them from keeping it off.

"We know we shouldn't overeat, but our subconscious is saying that it's OK.

"Why else do people take huge tubs of popcorn into the cinema? It's not because they're hungry," he says.

"Gastric band surgery is a major abdominal operation which a lot of people would probably want to avoid. And my view is that they don't have to go to Spain to hypnotherapy clinics and have TCP wafted around as if they're in hospital for this technique to work.

"It's about helping people fix their bad habits. I don't tell them what to do - they do it themselves."

n Virtual gastric band therapy is available at the Remedy Rooms, 66 St Stephen Street, Stockbridge, priced 80 per session. Call 0131-220 2045 Dr Lindsay Howden can be contacted on [email protected]

UNDER THE KNIFE

A gastric band is a plastic cord that goes round the stomach, making it artificially smaller.

Once the smaller stomach is full after a meal, food is digested slowly, impacting on a patient's appetite, meaning they can lose weight by eating less.

To qualify for a band, the person must have a body-mass index of 40 or more, or have a slightly smaller BMI together with a medical condition such as diabetes.

But the benefits of gastric band surgery were recently questioned after it emerged that for every three gastric bands fitted in the Lothians, one patient ends up having it removed.

The rate of reversals costs the health board thousands every year. It is understood the majority of people who have the band removed do so because of a medical issue, even though it is recommended that it remains in place for life.

Research has shown almost 90 per cent of people regain weight after it is taken out.

In Lothian, 29 bands have been fitted on the NHS since 2008, and nine have been removed.