I Can Make You Thin
By Paul McKenna
Book Review of "I Can Make You Thin"
A New Approach to Losing Weight
This is the second book that I have reviewed for this website by Paul McKenna, the renowned NLP practitioner and hypnotist (the first one being Instant Confidence). Whilst the first one has some positive aspects, of the two this is certainly the one which I would recommend more whole heartedly. In this book, Paul McKenna sets out a novel approach to trying to lose weight and backs it up with some useful and interesting practical ideas and tips in a clear and eay to understand way.
McKenna indicates in the heading of Chapter 1 of the book that he is going to provide "Something Truly Different" and in my view he lives up to this claim. He sets out an approach to losing weight which, incredible as it seems, allows you to eat what you want. How can this be?
Fundamental Beliefs about Eating Habits
The answer I think is that McKenna's approach is underpinned by two fundamental beliefs about eating habits. I would characterise these beliefs as being
(1) The belief that most people who experience problems in keeping their weight at a healthy level do so because they eat as a response to emotional needs rather than genuine hunger.
(2) The belief that our bodies contain an inner wisdom which will appropriately regulate the amount and type of food that we eat if we place sufficient trust in our natural bodily response to hunger to allow this to happen.
The first of these beliefs, at least, would be shared by many of us who acknowledge that we might find ourselves tempted into 'comfort eating' or eating at times of stress or anxiety or excitement.
The Hunger Scale
What McKenna does is essentially to suggest that we seek to change our eating habits so that instead of eating in response to emotional needs, we eat when we are hungry. He therefore provides tools to enable you to work out when you are hungry (for example a 'Hunger Scale' which you can use in any individual situation to assess how hungry you are on a scale ranging from being so in genuine need of food that you are physically faint to, at the other end of the scale, being so overfull with food that you are nauseous).
Allowing Yourself to Eat
In contrast to the self denying strictures of many diets listing forbidden foods or specifiying calorie limits, McKenna sets out 4 principles to follow under his programme for losing weight:
- Eat when you are hungry
- Only eat what you want, not what you think you should
- Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful
- Stop when you think your body is full
Of these principles he suggests that if you only focus on one of them it should be on the third principle: "Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful". His suggestion is that if you eat too much you are doing so in response to emotional needs (and may not actually be paying much attention to the quality or taste of the food as you eat - just gulping it down). Therefore by actually paying attention to your food, savouring it and concentrating on it, you are refocusing your mind and energies in the rightful place - on your food instead of emotional needs. This makes me think of the comparison of a wine taster who savours, tastes and appreciates wine as compared to a heavy drinker who just drinks as much as possible for intoxication but may become too drunk to appreciate the taste.
Overcoming Emotional Eating
McKenna's book includes a chapter devoted specifically to helping you to recognise when you might be eating in response to emotional needs rather than genuine needs (emotional hunger is sudden and urgent whereas genuine physical hunger is gradual, he suggests) and to putting in place strategies to help you address those emotional needs by better means than eating - indeed he suggests that eating does not really deal with the emotional needs adquately anyway. A strong element in his analysis is the view that often overeating may be related to low self esteem and he provides exercises such as one called "The Friendly Mirror" to help you think about yourself in a more positive way.
Weight Loss is Not Dieting
Paul McKenna's book advocates an approach to losing weight which is completely different from approaches which involve going on a strict diet - he argues that such approaches don't work in the longer term and are likely to end up in you putting back on any weight you have lost and possibly more, and then feeling worse about yourself. The book is full of useful strategies to try out, has an approach which is simple to try out and possibly avoids some of the potential pitfalls of more conventional 'dieting' approaches - such as the potential health risks of depriving the body of essential foods or the potential emotional highs and lows of your weight going down and then up again.
CD for Weight Loss
Accompanying the book is a a CD for you to play to help reprogramme your mind to enable you to focus on the healthy way of eating and losing weight that McKenna argues for. I listened to the CD whilst I was eating my dinner - this is not recommended in the book! - and to my astonishment found that I ended up having left half of my large meal on the plate, because my body no longer felt like eating it. Maybe this speaks for itself but if you want to find out more, then click on the image below.
To Find out further details and Purchase "I Can Make You Thin" through Amazon.co.uk click on the image below:
David Bonham-Carter, the Founder of Life Coach Tips, and writer of this Review is a Life Coach and Stress Consultant with over 15 years of professional experience in the field of personal change management. He founded this directory of life coaching articles in order to bring life coaching ideas and techniques to a wider audience. To find out more about the particular life coaching services David himself offers, please go to: Life Coach David Bonham-Carter.
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