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Anyone who's had to keep themselves going through a 15-mile run in the middle of summer or dead of winter understands that mental motivation is a pivotal part in determining whether you'll finish that long run or not. No matter how well-tuned your legs are, if you don't think you can run that far, you probably won't.

As I've struggled to advance my own training on my path to running a marathon this fall, I haven't been able to determine if it's my body or my head holding me back. I asked myself all the key questions to determine whether I'm over-training -- I'm not. And I know I'm uninjured so I've decided my stumbling block is mostly mental. Aside from giving myself half-hearted pep talks, I wondered if there was another mind-trick I could use to help me out of this performance slump. Could hypnosis be the answer or is that complete crazy talk?

The word hypnosis always conjures images of a creepy, bearded therapist waving a watch to send someone into a trance-like state. From there, the person, under the spell of the therapist, might either cluck like a chicken or assassinate politicians. Despite its shady representation in popular culture, however, hypnosis is a widely-accepted, highly-successful technique that has been proven to help people quit smoking, lose weight and improve athletic performance.

It was with a fair amount of skepticism that we told you about Lily Allen adopting a bizarre-sounding weight loss scheme known as Hypno-Dieting, but according to reports, it was not only successful in helping her drop two dress sizes over the past year, but it also helped her give up her hard-partying, alcohol-swilling ways. Impressive, no?

So what's the deal with this 'hypno-dieting' anyway? We imagined a Freud lookalike swinging a stopwatch and chanting 'you are getting sleeeeeeeeeeepy,' ala some bad TV movie -- let's hope it's a bit more sophisticated than that. But while Lily's Hypnotist Susan Hepburn wasn't giving away any tricks of the trade, she did say this on the process: "During sessions, I taught Lily to favour healthy, low-fat meals instead of junk food. And to see that alcohol isn't a confidence booster, it's just extra calories that sabotage your efforts to get a good body."

Wow. It sounds so simple. And it obviously works. But at over $450 a session, you might want to stick to Weight Watchers. Or America Takes It Off. Click on the badge below for the skinny on this program.

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Here at That's Fit, we're always telling you to run far, far away from any sort of fad diet. You know, the ones that promise a quick fix but don't ultimately seem healthy or sustainable. But do some of them actually work? British Journalist Anna Richardson recently tried three quick fixes -- Hypnosis, the Maple Syrup Diet, and a Raw Foods regime. Here's what she has to say:

• On Hypnosis: "By the end of the [treatment,] I feel lighter, happier and, for the first time in years, in control of food. I want to eat healthily, and have no problem refusing fatty or sugary meals. And I've lost 3lb! ... [it] addressed my emotional relationship with food and made me realise I often eat when I am feeling emotionally vulnerable."

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Alex Lenkei, a 61-year-old hypnotist, opted against using any traditional anesthetic for his recent surgery, choosing instead to send himself into a hypnotic trance for the duration of the surgery.

He was able to hear the cracking of his bones and the surgeon asking for a saw -- he could even hear the surgeon "hammering away at the bone" with a hammer and chisel. He could feel the doctor "pulling and manipulating" him, but felt no pain.

Much of the medical community is quite interested in this, as studies have shown that using less anesthetic can reduce the time patients spend in the hospital and speed healing. Additionally, many patients are nervous about using an anesthetic, and while they might not opt for using hypnosis only, it might help to calm them and allow a lower dose of anesthetic to be used.

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I caught a minute of ABC's The View on Tuesday and learned that co-host Whoopi Goldberg is trying to quit smoking. Good for her.

"I want to be done by December 15," Whoopi told her audience. A wise plan, considering smoking damages nearly every organ in the human body, is linked to 10 different cancers, and accounts for 30 percent of all cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. Yet one in four Americans still light up.

Smoking is by far the leading risk factor for lung cancer. And it is far more dangerous for women than men. Now wrap your head around this fact: The nicotine found in cigarettes is as addictive as heroin. If that's not reason enough to stop smoking, I don't know what is.

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Losing weight and changing your unhealthy habits means changing your way of thinking to a certain extent, but how far would you go? Brit popstar Lily Allen has resorted to hypnotism to lose weight, according to the Daily Mail. And it's working -- she's gone from a size 10 to a size six, despite her insistence that she's happy to set a good weight example for celebrities.

Apparently, when she's under hypnosis, the hypnotist works are implanting healthy habits into the mind of the client -- stuff like eating lots of fruits and veggies, going to the gym regularly and eating organic. Then, when the person is awake, their mind automatically tries to follow these healthy habits. Supposedly.

Allen's hynotherapy sessions aren't cheap -- £300 per hour-long session -- so it makes more sense to see a nutritionist and/or personal trainer. What do you think?

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If you suffer from chronic backaches, cognitive behavior therapy -- the talk therapy that helps change thoughts and behavior -- may be what finally helps you feel better, says a new analysis of 22 studies in the journal Health Psychology.

The problem with this: Most people will have the same reaction as my father. He almost fell off his chair when I suggested that he go TALK to someone about his back pain. The claim though, is that cognitive behavior therapy targets how you think about your pain, so you develop a sense of control and recognize what activities or stressors aggravate your problem.

Also on the list of helpful strategies: Biofeedback, hypnosis and self-relaxation training. These techniques help relieve muscle tension, so you feel your pain less.

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Hypnotism: some people swear by it, and some people think it's a load of junk. For those who sincerely believe it has helped them to quit smoking or lose weight, who's to argue, right? Well hypnotist John Morgan has an interesting take on the whole thing, he says "hypnotism doesn't really even exist."

But wait a minute....he's a hypnotist.

Yeah, I read through the entire article and although I kinda get his point, I still think he's being a little hypocritical. His take on the issue is that it's impossible for one person to make another person do anything, but what a person can do is hypnotize themselves. He says hypnotism is just a suggestible frame of mind, and that the key to real success with anything is to truly change to a new way of doing things.

So I'm buying that last part about changing to a new way of doing things, but I'm not sure I'm on board with the logic.

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British researchers have discovered that subliminal messages do indeed register in the brain -- even when people don't realize they've even seen them. Most people aren't surprised by this I'm sure, as subliminal messages have been around forever, although mostly in comedies and as a joke it seems. Will this new study mean a sudden flush of subliminal advertising? Messages of that nature are banned over in the U.K., but not here in the U.S. That's a little scary.

But I don't think subliminal messages are all bad, if they're used for good that is. Kind of like hypnosis -- if they flash on TV "You are energetic. You feel like working out now" in the middle of one of my couch potato sessions that could be a good thing.

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Hypnotherapy has a range of different reputations, from the old fashioned idea of some guy asking you to keep your eyes on the swinging pocket watch to the more modern stories of people using hypnosis through their doctor to quit smoking. Hypnotherapy has come a long way, and today it's officially recognized as a viable way of treating certain problems like pain, weight loss, gastrointestinal issues, smoking, and other addictions.

However, hypnotherapy is not a guaranteed cure, and it's almost always used in combination with other treatments. But if you think you'd like to try it, it's recommended you go through one of the two recognized hypnotherapy associations: the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis or the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. Both of these groups require their hypnotherapists to be clinically licensed, which means they'll be better able to recognize and deal with medical issues, as opposed to just your average hypnotist on the street.

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I've heard of using hypnosis to quit smoking, but this is a new one for me: using hypnosis to lose weight. It makes sense, really, because if hypnosis is successful in breaking an addiction, it could be used to break someones addiction to food, right?

A hypnotist will delve deep into the subconscious of his or her patient to unravel deep set thoughts and beliefs regarding food. Does it sound like a load of hooey to you? Apparently it works, and the hypnotist quoted in the article claims that 100% of her patients have lost weight. Whether they've kept it off is another question.

What do you think? Effective dieting strategy or a scam?

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A host of recent clinical trials show that those with chronic low back pain have less problems after psychological interventions like hypnosis, relaxation or biofeedback.

"The largest and most consistent effect was a reduction in pain intensity," Dr. Robert D. Kerns, who led the analysis, told Reuters Health. "This is good news for persons with pain and for providers who struggle to find effective and sustained approaches for reducing unnecessary pain and suffering of the lower back."

Generally the purpose of psychological therapy is to help patients learn to leave with the pain. The fact that such treatment actually reduces pain comes as quite a surprise.

Low back pain is a significant problem in the United States, affecting 15 to 45% of adults annually and at least 70% of adults over their lifetime.

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