Paul McKenna: 'I Can Make You Thin'
- February 10, 2009 4:12 PM |
- By Your Voice
If you're like most Canadians, you probably made a few resolutions as 2008 faded into 2009. One of them may have been to lose a few pounds.
Again, if you're like most Canadians, you've either given up or forgotten about those resolutions - or dropped one diet for another.
Depending on whose figures you believe, the North American diet industry does in excess of $35 billion US in business every year. Yet our waistlines continue to get bigger.
Paul McKenna, Britain's best-selling non-fiction author, says diets are evil.
"There's a better case for banning diets than banning smoking," he writes in his book I Can Make You Thin.
McKenna says diets fool your body into storing fat as your body reacts to a drastic change in your eating habits. Instead, he advises:
- Eat when you are hungry, but separate "emotional" hunger from real hunger.
- Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
- When you do eat, eat slowly. Enjoy every mouthful to the fullest.
- Learn to fight cravings.
McKenna hosted a television series with the same name as his book on TLC. His celebrity clients include Ellen DeGeneres, David Bowie, Daryl Hannah, Simon Cowell and Courtney Love.
McKenna took your questions on achieving a healthy body weight.
Read his answers below.
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Comments (19)
Hi
I agree with you about diets and the "eat what you want" suggestion but find that I frequently "want" sugar and this is rarely satisfied with fruit or other more nutritious substitutes. Is there a possible genetic prediposition to choosing or needing sugar, similar to an addiction?
thanks
E
I saw only one episode of your tv show and loved it (I still remember how seeing what you eat can cause you to eat more.) Will it be on air again or is it available for purchase in Canada.
Paul McKenna replies:
Yes, it was a study conducted in Switzerland that showed that when people were blindfolded, they ate 25% less than when they could see – in other words, when they weren’t looking at the food, but were instead totally concentrating on the taste and texture, they actually ate less.
The programme won’t be airing again. However, you can get my 6 DVD set (similar to the TV show, but better) from my website.
Mr. Paul. There is nothing new about what you are telling us about how to get thin. Prophet. Muhammad mentioned all that 1400 years ago. If you don't believe me, please read and you will be surprised. Do you have something new to tell us about?
Hello,
I am a very overweight 31 year old male and have been heavy as long as I can remember. I have a major problem controlling my eating and think I am obsessed with food.
Could you suggest techniques I could use to help me control my cravings, control my portions, and change my focus and attitude on food/eating to a more healthy one? When and where will your show be airing again in Canada?
Paul McKenna replies:
Yes, all the techniques are in my book and the acompying hypnosis CD will help you to change the way you thank and act around food.
All the decisions about what, when and how much you eat take place in your mind. Your mind is like a computer – it has its own software which helps you to organise your thinking and behaviour. Having worked with all sorts of people with different problems over many years, I have learned that almost all problems stem from the same cause – negative programmes running in the unconscious mind.
My book comes with a powerful mind programming CD that will fill your unconscious mind with positive willpower. While you become absorbed in to a natural state of relaxation, I will reprogramme your computer – your unconscious mind – so that you will change the way that you think about food and feel better about yourself. I will give you suggestions that will help you change your behaviour, eat better, speed up your metabolism and escape from the fixation with food.
It’s best to listen to it when you have about half an hour where you can safely relax completely. As you listen to it regularly, you will re-enforce all the changes you are making. In fact it will make it much easier to stick to the golden rules I share with you in this book.
The latest research in to the effectiveness of these and similar techniques has shown that listening to this CD over and over again, every day, will dramatically enhance your ability to lose weight. You don’t have to believe it, only use it!
I'm a student and obviously with limited funds so I am without a gym membership. Can you recommend a good resource such as a home video, website, or book on how to get fit with minimal, low-cost equipment (I live in a small space). I'm looking to tone, and some weight training as well.
Paul McKenna replies:
Our bodies are made with muscles that are designed to be used. Because lots of us work at desks and travel by car, bus and train, we don’t use our muscles as much as our ancestors used theirs. We have inherited all the healthy genes for fitness and a fast-burning metabolism, but we’ve fallen out of the habit of using them as much or as often as we could.
In an interesting study, researcher and author Dr. James Hill discovered that the average number of steps taken per day by women between the ages of 18 and 50 was only a little over 5000. (For men, the average was closer to 6000 steps a day). Even more intriguingly, the study revealed that people who were overweight took 1500 to 2000 fewer steps a day than those who maintained a healthy weight.
Think about that for a moment – only 2000 extra steps a day can make the difference between being overweight and being slim! That’s about the distance it would take for you to walk four city blocks. The more steps you take, the more calories you use up, and the increased speed of your metabolism from those extra steps will continue to burn away your fat while you rest or sleep.
While some doctors recommend you maintain at least 10,000 steps a day, I have known people to make remarkable strides with their weight loss by increasing their step count as high as 20,000 a day.
If you’d like to figure out how many steps you already walk each day, you can purchase a simple pedometer (step counter) at almost any sporting goods store for a couple of dollars. Just attach it to your clothing when you get started in the morning and find out how many steps you currently take in a typical day. Aim to increase the number of steps by 2000 a week until you hit a comfortably maintainable target.
I'm not sure how to know when I feel full. Do you have any tricks to stop me from eating everything on my plate and know when I feel full? I try to eat slowly, but it still doesn't seem to work.
Paul McKenna replies:
This is a common problem. People that have dieted for years have starved and binged and as a result have de-sensitized themselves to the messages from their stomach. However, when we eat consciously we can begin to notice the message from our stomach that it’s full and stop eating.
So, your theory is I can eat anything I want, slowly, until I feel full? What about a bag of potatoe chips? I eat a bag, feel full, then what? Doesn't that make me fatter?
Just how does this theory work?
Paul McKenna replies:
Firstly it’s not it’s not a theory it’s a fact that when you eat consciously you eat significantly less, supported by scientific research:
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7681458.stm.
2. ‘Mindless Eating’ Brian Wansink.
Eating consciously doesn’t just mean eating slowly it means eating without distractions, no TV, no magazines, no computer. You focus on the food and nothing else!
You chew each mouthful of the food about 20 times to re-set the muscle memory of your mouth so that it becomes a natural automatic habit then to eat slowly. Chewing helps your body to digest your food better.
The idea that potato chips are some how a ‘bad’ thing to eat is the mentality of dieting. Every thin person I know eats potato chips and all the foods that diets make forbidden, chocolate, fries, pizza, etc. They just don’t eat them to excess, because they eat consciously.
Also naturally thin people have faster metabolisms that’s why they eat these foods, but the reason their metabolisms are faster is because they haven’t slowed them by years of dieting.
The good news is that your metabolism is completely variable. The techniques in my book will show you how to speed it up.
Is it true that if you exercise regularly but cut out too many calories that your body goes into starvation mode and your metabolism drops? If so, how does a person figure out how many calories he or she needs to fuel their exercise program but still lose weight?
Thanks!
Paul McKenna replies:
Yes, it is true. Figuring out how many calories is the mentality of dieting. Please read my book, use the CD and all will become clear.
Thanks
Why is it you condemn diets, yet propose a set of guidelines (also known as a diet)? 2 of your 4 (abbreviated I hope) suggestions are feel good ones, probably intended to sell books. The other 2 are 1 where an arbitrary distinction must be made, and 1 that is a suggestion with no means to accomplish it. Your book even has a claim in the title designed to sell books. You condemn the diet industry, yet embrace it's weasel tactics readily. What gives?
Paul McKenna replies:
Perhaps if you were better informed you wouldn’t be making such statements. The Collins English Dictionary defines a diet as follows; a specific allowance or selection of food, especially prescribed to control weight…”. The Merriam Webster Medical Dictionary describes a diet as; “the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person…for a special reason”.
By any intepretation a diet is an external calibration. My approach is completely internal. Therefore not a diet.
The reason myself and a fast growing proportion of the scientific community condemn diets is because, not only are they ineffective in helping people lose weight long term (9%). A considerable proportion of dieters end up gaining more weight following a diet.
My success rate is far superior to diets (71%).
The suggestion that I have used "weasel tactics" to sell books is offensive and false. My book offers more than just the title suggests, in addition to weight loss strategies, its objective is to change readers' relationship with food and increase self-esteem.
I fully expect to be attacked for my controversial approach to weight loss, so your comments come as no surprise.
I am very much in agreement with what you say, but is it wise to tell people to throw out low-fat, low-sodium foods and eat whatever they want? Most things are dripping with ingredients that are demonstrably bad for health, most notably fat and salt.
Paul McKenna replies:
Indeed. It seems to me that many of the "weight loss" clubs are not really in the weight loss business, they are in the food business. Their business model is reliant upon you buying their "low fat" meals. Most naturally thin people don’t eat "low fat" meals. If you like them go ahead and eat them, but I have never met anyone who actually likes them.
I am 45 years old and have had trouble losing weight since I hit my 40s. It takes me longer to feel full, I crave more fat in my diet, and I'm not sure if it's menopause or what. What do you suggest for keeping weight off at a later age? And if it's menopause does that affect my weight gain/loss?
Paul McKenna replies:
I suggest you try my system. Many people in their 40s have had success with it. If you truly crave food that has a lot of fat in it, you can eat it, provided you eat it consciously.
If you suspect you are eating for emotional reasons, then the CD that comes with the book will help you to re-calibrate your emotional signals so that you feel significantly better in yourself and don’t need to eat to change how you feel.
Can I lose weight and build lean muscle at the same time? An experienced personal trainer told me that I cannot as the body needs the calories to build muscle and one cannot be on a calorie-deficit diet while building lean muscle. Thxs!
What is the best weight loss plan for post menopause women? Our bodies are so different and I know have special needs especially since the weight all settles in the tummy area. Help?
Are you suggesting that the "diet industry" (and by extension our "consumer culture") has defined food as a product? And, as a result, that weight loss can only be achieved by no longer looking at food in a purely utilitarian manner -- as something that simply must be consumed?
If so, then the "treat food and eating as an organic relationship" may not be the most original argument but beating up on the diet industry while doing so is definitely an admirable trait.
Paul McKenna replies:
Food must be consumed to live. However, I am suggesting that the diet industry is in part responsible for the western World’s obesity problem. By continual starvation the body slows metabolism and therefore it becomes easier to gain weight.
Some aspects of my approach are not original, the overall system is.
I am suggesting that overweight people need to reestablish their natural relationship with food.
I have been working on losing weight, working out at least five days week on a elliptical machine and/or walking one hour. I have tried the Atkins diet have gained weight. Now I am only eating green salads and still am gaining weight. What am I doing wrong?
Paul McKenna replies:
You are starving your body and have slowed your metabolism to such an extent that you no longer need to eat much to gain weight. Don’t beat yourself up about this, millions of people have also done it.
Please try my system. If will fly in the face of what you have been told in the past, it doesn’t work for everyone, but it does work for most people most of the time.
How do I stop from eating when I get depressed?
Sometime I scarf down everything in sight just to make myself feel better. I know it's not healthy, but I can't help myself.
Paul McKenna replies:
I am convinced that after diets, emotional eating is the number one cause of obesity in the world. Many times people eat because they are bored, or lonely or miserable or tired or any one of a hundred emotional reasons, none of which have anything to do with physical hunger. If you eat based on emotional hunger, your body will never feel satisfied by food. This is why many people think that they never feel full – they never get the signal to stop eating because they were hungry for emotional fulfilment.
An emotion is a bit like someone knocking on your door to deliver a message. If the message is urgent it knocks loudly; if it’s very urgent it knocks very loudly; if it is very urgent and you don’t answer the door, it knocks louder and louder and louder until you open the door or it breaks it down. Either way, the emotion will continue to come up until it’s done its job. As soon as you "open the door" by listening to the emotional message and taking appropriate action, the emotion will simply go away.
The good news is that with this new understanding, you don’t have to be a victim anymore. In future if you are tempted to go and eat a snack, stop and ask yourself this question:
Am I really hungry or do I just want to change the way I feel?
If it turns out that what you actually want is a change in the way that you feel, no amount of food will work as well as applying the simple techniques in this book and on the mind programming CD.
One Additional Thought:
I am continually surprised at the number of women (and occasionally men) I work with who realize that their initial weight gain coincided with a traumatic incident from the past, ranging from episodes of sexual abuse to seemingly innocuous teasing leading to embarrassment in front of their peers.
While the techniques in this book and on the mind programming CD will help, they are not intended as a substitute for professional guidance. If you suspect this could apply to you, speak to your doctor and ask them to recommend an appropriate therapist.
First off, I'm not really overweight but would love to drop 10 pounds, like most people.
It seems that my body is preprogrammed to be 145-150 pounds. At 5'4", it's a bit too big for my liking. I've tried working out. I've tried eating three sensible meals a day. I've tried cutting flour and potato from my diet. I've tried just about everything. (And not just for a week or two, by the way).
The ONLY time I got down to 130 pounds was during my divorce when I constantly ate like a pig and just kept dropping weight even after I'd lost what I wanted.
Now I'm happy and right back up to 148 pounds again. What am I missing?
The past year and a half I've put on about 35 pounds, partly due to medication I was taking. I have however stopped taking it, after consulting my doctor first, but this was almost one year ago and the weight hasn't dropped. I eat healthy (all my friends/co-workers and my roommate all comment on this), yet I can't seem to lose weight. I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full, I take my time to eat, when I think I'm hungry I drink a glass of water first. I exercise 3 times a week for 1 to 1.5 hrs, I walk often, I'm doing everything right. So why is the weight staying? Could it be a combination of foods I eat that react this way? Could I be allergic/intolerant to certain foods and this is the reaction? Who should I get in touch with to try and solve this problem: dietician, nutrionist, naturopath? Please help, I'm at the end of my rope!!
I need to know what exercises to do and foods to eat in order to lose 2 pounds a weak. In a HEALTHY manner. No purging or any crazy goofy thing like that. It is possible, right?