SAN DIEGO -- Imagine if you could pass up a temptation like chocolate cake or banish cravings for fat-laden foods forever.

Gloria Sobel has lost hundreds of pounds over her lifetime and gained it all back, except this time.

"I didn't diet. I just changed," Sobel said.

Sobel lost her weight for good when she began seeing Dr. Brian Alman, who teaches self-hypnosis.

"As soon as you accept yourself as you are, losing weight and keeping it off ... will follow," Alman said. "Everybody knows that overeating is emotionally eating."

Alman said that in a matter of moments he can teach a person how to handle those emotions in a way other than overeating.

"It's tapping into the most powerful natural pharmacy in the world between your ears," Alman told 10News. "Nobody can you give you the ability to lose weight, this can only come from inside you."

Whenever one of Alman's clients feels overwhelmed, he has them concentrate on their breathing instead of reaching for a piece of chocolate cake.

"Just by changing your breathing, the craving will stop," said Lorna Kooiker, who lost 131 pounds using self-hypnosis. Alman said, "Self-hypnosis moves you from self-judgment to self-acceptance."

He said positive suggestions that a person makes in a "relaxed, focused state of mind" are acted on much more powerfully than in a "normal waking state."

Alman said anyone can learn self-hypnosis, even a high-energy television anchor like 10News' Carol LeBeau.

Alman taught LeBeau how to concentrate on four different parts of her breathing: the inhale, the pause before exhaling, the exhale and pause again.

LeBeau said she found herself in a relaxed, almost trance-like state.

"You are learning to quiet your mind," Alman told LeBeau.

"I can tell you that I was completely relaxed on the exhale. That was marvelous right there," LeBeau said.

The self-hypnosis gives Alman's patients enough self-control for his patients to deal with their emotions without using food.

"Overeating can be a way of taking care of ourselves, but now I have a walk on the beach," said one of Alman's patients.

Alman is a world-renowned clinician, trainer and author who has helped thousands of people loss weight through self-hypnosis.

His techniques are in his best-selling books "Self-Hypnosis" and "Keep It Off."

Kaiser Permanente's Positive Choice Wellness Center is also sponsoring a free workshop all day Nov. 30 at Torrey Pinse State Beach. The workshops are open to public.