Thursday, October 25, 2007

To to Incorporate Subway into a Hypnosis Session

So, I sit there listening to the group discuss weight woes. The tea pot has boiled the water hot and I have offered this small group of hypno-weight loss devotees each a cup of green tea (and it is not as if I am being uncivilized, there is skim milk, lemon, honey or even pure sugarcane to top it off). Yet, here I sit, drinking my green tea black, alone, while one drinks a diet soda, one has a large litter-like, disposable, fast food beverage, one has a loaded energy drink, and one, bless her heart (and praise be) has bottled water - with saccharine flavoring.

They are bonding over their common issue - the need to lose a few pounds and honestly, if they could just watch their diet a little more and say, well, exercise every so often they would all be in great shape. Yet, these are the stereotypes who seem to come to my weight loss hypnosis programs. As they continue their struggle, and a struggle it is, it beginning to sound like a commercial for Subway. My big but comes from having a nine to five that binds me to the chair and all those fries go straight to the butt. My love handles? I love the extra burger and side order of grease on my sandwich. And if I eat cottage cheese, won't the cottage cheese on my thighs be worse, cottage cheese is a cheese after all.

I am not sure which at this point really would be more helpful to them - twenty minutes trancing out to my voice or just playing with the new Subway site. It has more rapport and commonalities with them than my skinny-legged self. As they continue to bond and share the horror stories (and when the hurricane hit, I couldn't even get a candy bar at the convenience store), I actually pull up the site.

There is the familiar drive through. There is the hysterically appropriate "Burger Town" guy to take the order. As they talk, I click on the menu for an order of "badunkadunk but" and out comes the dripping sarcasm. The group, once chatty, now becomes very quiet. I click randomly on the menu for a dish of condescension. There is actually a moment when I feel guilty. The group looks appalled, faces war torn from fad diets and exercising binges.

"What are you doing?" one of them finally ask and I turn the laptop around and show them. They crowd around, and initially after a hair raising moment, smile, then laugh. One writes down the site URL. Ice broken. Luckily, the site also offers some good advice on healthy eating and exercise. Jared is their hero and I wonder briefly about the likeliness of him coming to hang out with us.

Now they are pumped, ready to go, all committing to this program. I wonder if I really even need to give self-esteem or decreasing craving suggestions during the hypnosis or perhaps sharing the site was enough. At first, I feel a little threatened. Why come to me when there is always a Subway down the street?

Then I realize what an interesting tool it makes. The session ends. They all say they feel so relaxed and inspired. They agree that after the next meeting, they will have lunch at Subway and then go power walking in the park.

Goodbye badunkadunk but.

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