The diet industry makes millions every year telling people what (not) to eat. New regimes appear all the time, claiming to be the definitive solution to excess weight. The failure rate for some is equalled only by their faddiness. The cover of Paul McKenna's book I Can Make You Thin (Bantam Press, 2005) proclaims a seventy percent success rate. So what makes it stand out from the rest?
Painless Weight Reduction
"How would you like to eat whatever you want and still lose weight?" asks Mckenna on the first page of the book. This seems too good to be true – how can you possibly slim down this way? The key is in changing how, not what you eat.
Diets, says McKenna, make food forbidden and actually lay down the foundations for compulsive eating. His system is based on getting you to mimic the eating habits of naturally thin people. How many times have you despaired about a lucky friend or colleague who can seemingly eat everything in sight and not gain a pound?
Four Golden Rules
This weight loss system relies on four golden rules, which are simple and painless to follow:
- When you are hungry, eat.
- Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
- Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful.
- When you think you are full, stop eating.
Stop and consider these rules for a moment. Compare them to the complex and sometimes stringent impositions demanded by traditional diets.
Emotional Eating
"I am convinced that after diets, emotional eating is the number-one cause of obesity in the world," says McKenna. Because of this, overweight people tend to be less aware of signals of satiety (the feeling of fullness) than thinner people. He has devised the Hunger Scale, an indispenable tool to combat this problem. When you are hungry, rate your hunger on a scale of 1 to10 (1 being physically faint, 10 nauseous). If you are responding to emotional, rather than physical hunger, using this tool will help you see this.
Lose Weight With NLP
The I Can Make You Thin system uses neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to support people in their efforts to change their eating habits. Whole books have been written explaining what NLP is, but in a nutshell, it is creating a positive mental mindset to achieve life-enhancing changes. As Britain's leading self-help guru, Paul McKenna is nothing if not optimistic. "If you are overweight it's not your fault ...once you learn to re-programme your mind, it will be ...simple to develop new habits of thinking and acting that will guarantee your success."
He uses NLP techniques to increase motivation to exercise, to stamp out cravings and to visualise a better future. The book comes with a free mind-programming CD that he advises you play daily. This feels like a relaxation CD and lasts about thirty minutes.
90 Day Success Journal
The I Can Make You Thin 90 Day Success Journal (Bantam Press, 2006) is the accompanying partner to the weight-loss guide. Every day of the 90 days has motivational quote and inspirational thought, as well as a tick list (I ate when I was hungry, I listened to the CD, and so on). It also has a space for you to write down your own thoughts.
This system is also available on audio CD, and he regularly leads weight-loss seminars. For more details, go to www.paulmckenna.com
Harriet Morris - I started my career in education in 1995 as a secondary (high school) languages teacher, with a B.A. degree in French from Manchester ...
