I can make you thin??

After several years of queuing up at one slimming club or another and developing experience as a coach about what really motivates people to make changes I decided it was time for something radically different. No more calories, points, shakes, ‘syns’ and fads, what would really work in the battle of the bulge that won’t budge??  So, on 19th February 2011 I attended an event deliberately designed to draw in the hopeless dieter professing’ I CAN MAKE YOU THIN!!!’ courtesy of Mr Paul McKenna.

Welcome to the simplest yet apparently most effective system. Just four golden rules:

1.     When you are hungry go and EAT

2.     Eat what you want, not what you think you should

3.     Eat Consciously, (slowly) enjoying every mouthful

4.    When you are full, STOP eating

To the naturally slim reader this sounds like common sense right?  Essentially, it is. However those of us who have been brainwashed into believing the dieting mantra of thousands of books, clubs and shakes haven’t quite got there. We have instead gladly handed over lots of money, temporarily shifted some of those illusive pounds before getting disheartened, fed up, stopping the ‘plan’ and gaining it all back! Oh the joys of the calorie count…Paul McKenna’s mantra suggests that ‘dieting is a lesson in how to get fat and feel like a failure’. I concur.

What did this event teach me? Firstly, the golden rules as above – the most important of which he states is slowing the eating pace down to about ¼ of the usual speed. This is about getting in touch with your ‘physical hunger’ and recognising that weight gain is not, I repeat not, about the food! It is about habits we develop over time that are unhelpful. Bored, upset, sad, happy, stressed – if you link emotions to eating, things get out of sync.

It isn’t so easy in reality to shift these habits, but Paul McKenna’s event lightens the mood on this issue. It is ok to laugh at the habits developed and to seek support to change them. His books all come with a hypnosis cd called the ‘mind programming technique’. The cd is relaxing and helps reinforce the positive messages from the event to help you feel good about yourself and embed the above principles. (You don’t have to attend a live event to benefit from this).

Having attended the event and listened to the cd I am feeling great! I have found myself eating less but actually enjoying food instead of feeling guilty. I am recognising when the hunger signals kick in, when I am full and I have stopped berating myself every time I dare to tuck into something really tasty and usually forbidden!

As a coach, I am already aware of the importance of setting specific goals and visualising success. Therefore I am a fan of anything that helps with that. Paul Mckenna – I am a fan.