Clock towers fell out of fashion when police found that hypnotherapists had been using the giant timepieces to make citizens say “good morning,” or “good evening,” at systematic intervals throughout the day. Submit to the powers of hypnosis with today’s Groupon: for $149, you get three one-hour gastric-band weight-loss hypnotherapy sessions at Burlington Hypnosis (a $330 value).

Clinical hypnotherapist and TV show host Paul Gustafson ties his ethereal puppet strings to receptive minds in one-hour sessions that gently tug at the subconscious, with the ultimate goal of curbing emotional eating and promoting long-term weight loss. In three steps designed to break the negative cycle of weight mismanagement, Paul aims to convince clients that they have actually undergone gastric band surgery—a serious operation that reduces the size of the stomach and thus sends triggers to the mind to crave less food and feel satiated more quickly. The first session guides clients through the pre-operation experience, which involves reducing nutritional intake and coming to terms with memories of painful Operation board game losses. The next session transitions to the procedure itself, planting positive images in clients’ thought-gardens and exhuming their emotional closets of all skeletons and hidden candy bars. Finally, a follow-up session helps ensure diminished appetites and reinforces the need for continued improvement.

Paul draws on 10 years of hypno-combat with issues such as insomnia and substance abuse to sweet-talk nervous gatekeepers and travel straight into the subconscious for quick results. At the conclusion of the program, newly lean-minded individuals receive a CD or mp3 recording of each session and learn how to hypnotize themselves—a skill that proves useful in continuing weight loss and dining with in-laws.