Men’s Health Week: Can hypnotherapy cure emotional eating?

In the lead-up to Men’s Health Week, Joanna Wane talks to Richard Kellow about emotional eating and the virtual gastric band

Boarding school can leave psychological scars in some unexpected ways. For Ross, an Auckland
engineering manager, it may have contributed to his near-fatal heart attack last year.

Feeling strangely “uncomfortable” one morning, he drove to his local medical centre and was rushed by ambulance to hospital, where a 95 per cent blockage was found in one of his coronary arteries. While he’d been dawdling in the shower at home, death was barely a whisker away.

Ross, who asked for his surname not to be used for privacy reasons, was discharged with a stent in place and strict instructions to adopt a healthier lifestyle. A series of post-op cardiac rehabilitation sessions helped set him on the right track. But it wasn’t so much what he was eating but how he was eating, according to his wife, Michele.

“He was a hoover!” she says. “I’d make dinner and put his plate on the table; by the time I’d got back to the kitchen with my plate to sit down and eat with him, his plate would be empty. Then he’d do the dishes and literally lick the pots clean. You couldn’t open a packet of biscuits because before you knew it, they’d all be gone. I was always telling him to slow down and chew his food. He’d just put it in his mouth and swallow, so his brain never had the chance to register that he was full.”

It was Michele who read about hypnotherapist Richard Kellow and his “virtual gastric band” technique, which addresses emotional eating and the subconscious triggers that can underly an unhealthy relationship with food.

And it was Michele who suggested her husband’s bad habits might have their roots in his years at boarding school, where boys were served a hot main meal at lunchtime and quickly learnt to bolt it down as fast as possible.

“Then there’d be a mad rush to get seconds,” says Ross, who remembers always feeling hungry. “You don’t have snacks at boarding school.”

Later, through his working life, he’d bring in a huge packed lunch each day and have polished it off by mid-morning – his subconscious mind still tuned to the existential threat of imminent starvation.

Disordered eating nearly always has an emotional basis and is often linked to an issue from the past, says Kellow. And in a showdown between emotion (the subconscious mind) and logic (the conscious mind), emotion will always win. Being overweight can also provide a sense of protection psychologically.

One of his hypnotherapy clients who’d previously been hospitalised with a serious medical condition subconsciously associated slimness with ill health. Another with an irrational focus on food scarcity (like Ross) remembers planning to run away from home as a child and loading up a backpack with supplies.

“That need to always have a stack on hand just stuck with him, even as an adult man with a good job who was never going to run out of food.”

Still viewed as slightly woo-woo, hypnotherapy is typically a last resort for most people when it comes to managing weight loss, stress and related health issues, such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. It certainly was for Richard Kellow.

Fifteen years ago, he was living in London and working long hours in a high-pressure finance role during the Global Financial Crisis – drinking, smoking and demolishing entire blocks of chocolate in a single sitting.

“I thought I was enjoying the job but my life was very destructive and it took a while for me to realise that,” he says.

In the end, it was the upheaval of a relationship break-up and no longer being able to fit into his clothes that forced Kellow to acknowledge his life was a bit of a mess. However, when it came to shedding some weight, nothing stuck: the Atkins diet, calorie counting, intermittent fasting, a gym membership. Will power.

By the time he saw an advertisement online for hypnotherapy, it felt like there was nothing to lose. A year later, he’d stopped smoking, was dealing better with the stress of his job and had lost 30kg.

In 2012, Kellow moved to New Zealand and flipped career, retraining as a clinical hypnotherapist and setting up his own practice in Auckland. A certified “virtual gastric band” practitioner, now based in Rotorua, he uses a technique pioneered in the UK to aid weight loss as an alternative (or occasionally as an adjunct) to bariatric surgery.

Designed as a kind of circuit-breaker to disrupt ingrained habits, the process uses the metaphor of a gastric band that’s “fitted” during hypnosis to help people stop craving food and feel satisfied by smaller portions.

Clinical studies on the long-term efficacy of hypnotherapy for weight loss are limited, but a 2018 meta-analysis found it was an effective intervention for obesity when combined with cognitive-behavioural therapy. Another randomised controlled trial saw improvements in satiety, quality of life and inflammation in people who practised self-hypnosis alongside a traditional programme of diet and lifestyle changes.

“Food can be so controlling and thinking about food takes up a lot of brain space,” says Kellow, who saw a spike in demand for online hypnotherapy sessions during lockdown, due to an increase in anxiety and comfort eating. “It’s about taking the main focus away from the number on the scales and making sure somebody can feel good within themselves, and confident and in control of the choices they’re making. I facilitate it, but really it’s you driving the change.”

Men are notoriously poor at managing their health and asking for help, says Kellow, but that’s changing. When he first opened his hypnotherapy clinic, the vast majority of his clients were women. Now, more than a third are men. Most are more widely focused on improving their overall health rather than losing weight, although that’s typically one of the side benefits. Kellow thinks men have become more conscious of managing their mental health, too.

Ross, who was initially sceptical about hypnotherapy, now sees it as a tool that helped reframe his mindset in a way that made the transition feel effortless. A year on, he walks 4km with the dog most days, has dramatically upped his water intake, eats far smaller portions and no longer craves coffee or petrol-station pies. He’s also dropped a jean size.

Michele says she and her daughter used to be so worried Ross would have a second heart attack that they’d panic if he didn’t answer his phone. She’s been “gob-smacked” by the changes in his behaviour.

“Food used to be a driving factor. Now it’s just not in his psyche anymore.”

Research is continuing to show that diets don’t work, says Ross, who’s talked openly with friends and colleagues about the lifestyle changes he’s had to make. In the months following his recovery, a contractor he worked with died from a heart attack after experiencing some symptoms but not following up with his doctor.

“You’ve got to share your experience with as many people as you can,” he says. “Men are a bit stoic and that’s what needs to change by raising health awareness levels, like Pink Ribbon for breast cancer.”

Men’s Health Week: How the odds are stacked against you

Men’s Health Week is a global campaign that runs June 10-16. Statistics quoted on the website show men are on the back foot right from the start. To assess how well you’re doing with your own health routine, take the What’s Your Score survey at menshealthweek.co.nz.

Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior feature writer in the NZ Herald’s Lifestyle Premium team, with a special focus on social issues and the arts.