When the scale tips beyond our desired weight, a fresh exercise routine can undoubtedly get us back on track, but certified hypnotist Julie Nise warns, “Workouts have to match your personality, not how much you want to lose.” It’s common for individuals to jump into a diet or aggressive workout program that is not sustainable for their own personality and patterns.

“If someone wants to lose weight, a typical pattern is to have this great goal, then develop a plan that becomes overwhelming emotionally. Then, quite naturally they try to distance themselves from the overwhelm and end up dropping the plan. From there they go into another pattern of guilt and beating themselves up because they ‘didn’t finish it’,” she explains.

Nise opened Robertsdale Hypnosis to give Baldwin County a different way to lose weight for good—one that feels good in the process. “Hypnosis is the very best tool I know of to get control of your mood, emotions and state of mind, and 80 percent of people wanting to do hypnosis, want to do it for weight loss,” says Nise, who has more than 14 years of experience and is a senior trainer for the Master Hypnotist Society.

She believes hypnosis is successful because it is designed to first take pressure off of the individual so that they gain confidence and improve self-esteem. “Secondly, rather than relying on a long list of rules or things you should and shouldn’t do, hypnosis relies almost exclusively on your imagination and emotions to motivate and compel you forward into achievement and success.”

Nise requires interested individuals to schedule a free 30-minute screening before accepting them into the program. “They have to demonstrate that they are sincere about their decision to change. Hypnosis is not something done to you—you can’t look to me to do everything—it only supports the decision that you make.”