Paul McKenna on TLC - I Can Make You Thin

Have you seen this guy?  I think he’s awesome.  Unfortunately, he stole my idea.

For a long time now, I’ve had this idea that WHEN I become rich one of these days, I would finance these elaborate advertising campaigns including newspaper and magazine ads, websites, and info-mercials with my newest weight loss idea.  All of those mediums would be just as flashy and attention grabbing as all of the other diet fad crap that’s out there today (taking a shot at them of course). 

Then, after I got people all excited about possibly finding the answer to their chubby troubles, I would reveal that the answer was painfully simple:  To NOT stuff your face (eat slower), not obsess about eating “health” food if you don’t enjoy it, to address your underlying emotional issues that are causing you to overeat in the first place, and to exercise.

In other words: no tricks, no crazy foods, no pills, no radical ideas.  Just get your butt off the couch, and stop eating so much.

The bottom line is, the easiest and simplest ideas are the ones that work.

So Paul McKenna has basically found this great formula on his TLC show.  When you first start watching it, you feel like you’re watching an info-mercial.  He talks real fast, he has a British accent, and he keeps saying he’s going to “show the audience at home” some amazing things.  Being the great consumer that I am, this formula gets my attention. 

You’ll probably get cheesed out by the super excitement of the studio audience.  But you have to look past that to appreciate the simple ideas that Paul is trying to convey.  He calls them his “4 Golden Rules”.

Rule #1 – When you’re hungry, Eat.

Rule #2 – Eat what you want, not what you think you should.

Rule #3 – Eat CONSCIOUSLY.

Rule #4 – When you think you are full, STOP eating.

Most people would see these rules and think they are stupid and common sense.  But what makes these rules great in their simplicity, is that they are not common sense, because people don’t follow them!  Most people don’t stop eating when they are full, they stop eating when their plate is empty (unless they get seconds).  We have this strange, overwhelming urge to finish our plates because our parents told us to.  “There’s children starving in Africa!” they would say.  The more you think about the idea that if you don’t eat everything on your plate that you are wasting food, the more ludicrous it sounds.  The food is already prepared, if you didn’t want to waste it, you shouldn’t have put so much on your plate.  You should learn to put less on your plate, and if when you finish that you really are still hungry, then you can get a little more.

Also, people don’t eat when they are hungry, they wait until it’s “TIME TO EAT”.  Our culture has managed to define specific eating times for our meals so strongly, that our metabolism suffers for it.  So if you’re hungry at 3pm, but you make yourself wait until 6pm to eat dinner because it’s “bad” to snack, you’re most likely going to eat too much for dinner because you’ve starved yourself.  You’re going to s-l-o-w down your metabolism because you’ve starved yourself until meal time.

You’re also going to probably eat it too fast.  That’s what rule #3 is talking about.  Paul says that eating “consciously” means focusing on your food, not having distractions while you’re eating, paying attention to how the food tastes and how it makes your body feel, and putting your utensils down while you’re chewing.  If while you’re chewing, you’re getting the next spoon or fork full of food ready to shovel into your mouth, you’re probably not eating consciously.

Lastly, rule #2 says to eat what you want.  “WHAT?  You mean I don’t have to eat my South Beach Diet frozen dinner?  I can have a cheeseburger?”  Yup, that’s what he’s saying.

His thinking here is that as long as you stick to the other rules of eating slowly, and make sure you tune into your body’s signals like when it tells you you’re full, you can give into your cravings.  When you follow the rules, you probably won’t overeat.  This is a big part of what got you to gain weight, and keep it on. 

The other point that this rule is trying to make, is that when you keep buying foods that you don’t really like because you think you’re supposed to eat them, you can’t make yourself like them.  When you eat foods you don’t enjoy, it makes you think more about the foods that you’re not supposed to have.  Soon you begin to obsess over them, and just food in general, and you’ll probably end up binge eating from time to time.  When you’re thinking about food all of the time, you want to eat even when you’re not hungry.  So basically, go ahead and have the nachos, just don’t have as much as you would have before.

Besides the rules, he uses a few techniques like helping you associate a negative emotion with your junk food cravings…  and some other mental exercises that seem a little strange, but it’s all about changing the way your mind thinks about food.

I can only regurgitate his teachings so much, so just check out this video, and go to his website.