Calling all those who are a bit fat, greedy and lazy: there is a way to get thinner without giving anything up, taking anything up, and it isn't surgery – not real surgery anyway. The "virtual gastric band" is a new hypnotherapy treatment available at the Lifehouse spa in Essex, and a quick-fix for anyone who loves KFC and doesn't want to do Zumba.
I check in with a mate who wants to lose weight but is stubbornly anti-diet and exercise-averse.
While I swim in the beautiful swimming pool of this stylish new spa hotel, which opened in December in the village of Thorpe-Le-Soken, she goes into a treatment room with hypnotherapist Tom Barber. Two and a half hours later, she emerges, dazed and emotional.
"Virtual gastric band" isn't just another name for weightloss hypnosis. It turns out to be more literal than that.
"He actually got me to visualise going through a gastric band operation," she recalls afterwards. "Saying things like, 'You are now being wheeled through the hospital on a trolley... the nurses are friendly... you feel happy... now the knife is cutting into your stomach...'".
As well as "experiencing" the band being fitted and tightened so she feels full, she visualises her ideal body and they discuss eating habits.
She is a veg-refusenik, normally excited only by curry, but in the swanky lounge she stares at a decorative bowl of green apples with a murderous look: "This is weird... but I keep thinking how good they look!" She scares me at dinner too, by ordering a salad. She has never ordered salad in her life. And she doesn't even finish it! Plus the menu is fantastic, very modern.
The therapy works on an unconscious level, putting you more in tune with what your body really needs. You eat what you want, but you should want healthier food, and to eat less.
Over the weekend, we go cycling to Frinton-on-Sea and do fitness classes (a fun outdoor bootcamp, "playtime" in the gym). The treatment list is very wide-ranging, featuring everything from food intolerance testing to crystal healing with a lady called Moon. I ring my friend two weeks later – and: "It works!" she says. "It works!" She's lost six pounds! Without even trying.
• A 2½-hour session of virtual gastric band hynotherapy at the Lifehouse spa (01255 860050, lifehouse.co.uk) costs £395pp. Stay from £175pp per night including a body treatment. Guardian readers can bring a friend for half price until December 2011
