IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
Former nurse uses hypnotherapy to help celebrity clients keep the weight off for good
New year, new Adele, to paraphrase an inspirational epigram of which we’re all no doubt thoroughly sick now. Actually, there’s nothing that new about the 31-year-old singer-songwriter but, according to reports, she “continues to show off her incredible weight loss” or, depending on where you source your news, has been “parading ” it on a beach in Anguilla. (A fan who reportedly met Adele on the Caribbean island told People the singer said she lost about 100 pounds.)
We could unpack the idea that a famous woman who’s lost weight is inevitably parading or showing off, rather than just, say, using her body to go about her business (or holiday). But, if you’re honest, aren’t you dying to know how she lost the weight in the first place? Not least because, nearly two weeks into January, your diet is already showing signs of strain.
No one wants to hear that Adele simply ate less and moved more. What we want is the story of a miracle diet or regimen, or of a guru who has worked some species of transformative magic. Fortunately, in Adele’s case, there might just be grounds to believe this. It’s been suggested the singer has worked with hypnotherapist Susan Hepburn in the last few months to achieve her dramatic weight loss, having been known to work with her in the past. Hepburn has been linked to a string of celebrity clients, but is known for being discreet and refuses to discuss the people she works with.
She won’t say if she has recently worked with Adele, but she can confirm that her combination of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy has helped many clients lose vast amounts of weight, and keep it off.
“It’s not a diet,” she stresses. “I change (my clients’) mindset, to boost their confidence and self-esteem. They just lose the emotional hole that makes them think of food the whole time.”
In practice, this means three sessions with Hepburn, at a cost of $500 each. She starts by what she calls getting their “storyline,” because “if they gain weight and can’t stop themselves, there must be something wrong.”
The former nurse from Yorkshire, who now practises in Harley Street, London, compares the process to fixing a computer. “I go into your brain and find out what’s making you eat all this food if you don’t want to, and I delete those defective files under hypnosis.”
She dismisses the idea of slow metabolism or genetic predisposition to weight gain. “No one’s born predestined to have a weight issue,” she says. “It’s a learned behaviour. I change the mindset (of the client) by hypnotizing them. They lie down or sit down in a comfy chair, I massage them with my words and, as soon as they’re hypnotized, I go into their subconscious and say to them, ‘I’m going to find the first time in your life when you had something to eat when you weren’t hungry but felt better emotionally. I’m going to find that time and pull it out.’
“So you cut out all links with eating for boredom, comfort, tiredness.”
She also teaches her clients to embrace exercise rather than see it as a chore; to view it as an essential part of their life, rather than an optional extra.
“I ask them to see themselves in front of a mirror, and they can see their tiny waist all neat and narrow, their flat, toned stomach and midriff, and I tell them their whole body is toned and lean and strong and healthy.”
This process she records and asks them to play it back daily.
“The weight does not creep back, it’s permanent,” she says.
Back in the late 2000s, she helped the singer Lily Allen slim down from a size 14 to a size 8. Other former clients are said to include
Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Ferguson and Nigella Lawson. But although weight loss is Hepburn’s main field, she also tackles smoking and drinking. Adele is reported to have sought her help to quit smoking in 2014.
Hepburn’s weight-loss sessions include instructions to drink water to flush out toxins, to make healthier food choices and avoid snacking between meals most of the time.
“I emphasize most of the time because this isn’t a diet, it’s about having a normal, healthy relationship with food,” she says. “It’s about not being deprived.”
Her clients are also asked to keep a food and emotions diary, listing on one page what they have consumed and, opposite, how they’ve been feeling. She teaches portion control, the importance of healthy choices and of getting quality sleep.
“Everyone knows what’s healthy and what’s not healthy,” she says. “I say have whatever you want, but in moderation. Moderation means finding that stop button.”