Paul McKenna "I Can Make You Thin!"

boddy

Ive just received my copy of Beyond Chocolate and looking forward to starting it tonight. Ive got the PM book and the cd on my ipod. I m bad at not listening to it every day. I put it on last night when I went to bed and the only bits I heard was the beginning and the end where he tells you to wake up. I was shattered from work though. Got myself a pedometer to measure my steps. I do walk a lot though and have figured its what I eat and how I eat thats the problem.

Honey39

Day SIX: Nearly over, and this was another tough day. I did really well today though, and ate consciously and deliberately through the day. I find this evening very very hard, because I associate relaxation and time off with eating. I feel this tug to binge, but I haven't done so today (so far!), and am determined not to go down that route.

I went shopping, and it was fabulous to buy a few items that are exquisite, tasty, full fat and delicious. I bought a Thai Green Curry, some salad, a luxury fish pie and summer fruit pudding. I've had about a 1/4 of the curry, half of the salad, and an 1/8 of the pudding. Not intentionally, but this whole blooming act of stopping when you're full it mind blowingly good.

I hope this is not TMI, but I am delighted because I've followed it for six days, and haven't binged/purged once. For that alone, it's the best thing ever. I feel so free on this, it really gets to the heart of my issues.

I've been listening to the CD as I eat, and it generally takes me twenty minutes - I skip the first four minutes of going into a trance. Anyway, I know it's unconventional, but it seems to work really well for me. I found that whole plugging in the headphones and lying down for 25 minutes a bit, well, dull. But to hear it as I'm eating: wow, that really reinforces the message, more than I would have expected.

Like I said, I have big issues with food. This is the best I have ever felt around food - nothing feels forbidden, good or bad. It's just food. I found with weight watchers I was still over-eating far too much, just on lower points. Here, it's about LISTENING to your body. I have such a long way to go, so am resolved to follow this for ninety days no matter what. If I slip up, and I fully expect I will, I am not going to 'start again Monday' - I am just going to keep going with the journal and recording here.

I hope no one minds me posting daily updates here! If it helps, I have spent a LOT less money on food, so that's a great positive

Bayblue

Honey39 wrote: »

I have such a long way to go, so am resolved to follow this for ninety days no matter what. If I slip up, and I fully expect I will, I am not going to 'start again Monday' - I am just going to keep going with it

That's the way I am doing it too. Today was not a good day, I woke up feeling bad with a headache, the kind that always seems to make me want to eat sugary things so I knew that I was in for a challenge.

I overate a bit today, well when I say that I mean I probably ate what a non dieter should eat in one day so it's not like '3 big macs and 2 cream cakes binge type' terrible more that I didn't concentrate and follow the rules. I don't really worry about it though, and crucially it's not going to make me say 'the hell with it-I've failed so I may as well give up' as I might have done in the past.

And I second the advice given in this thread about the scales. I was weighing myself a bit too frequently, so then I restricted myself to once a week. However I found that even that was slightly demoralising me, especially I think because I had been talking to people who are doing ww and other diets, reading other threads and obviously I was comparing myself to them. Don't get me wrong I'd love to lose a steady 3 pounds a week, be fabulous, but this plan doesn't quite work like that, it is slower for most people I think. Not ideal I know, but then again, the way I look at it it took me years to get to 12 stone something so I can hardly expect to lose 3 stone in a few weeks can I? I 've got to be reasonably kind to my poor old bod!

It's also hard not to be influenced by other peoples ideas about losing weight and dieting. My mum bless is quite supportive and she's happy I'm trying to lose weight but even so we ended up almost having an argument the other night all because she said that I shouldn't be eating butter! Madness- falling out over a foodstuff! But to be fair, I can see where she's coming from. It's hard to explain quite what I'm doing, in some ways following a points or diet plan would be easier. I still like it though, and I think (hope) that I will carry on using at least one or two of the ideas in this eating plan for the rest of my life.

Anyway, press on folks, as PMK says. I am going to finally sort my wardrobe tomorrow and throw out my biggest 'fat' clothes. Not that there are that many, I hated buying anything when I was bigger and the thing I am most looking forward to is a shopping spree (how shallow! ).

jomo70

Well just coming to the end of my second week, and I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow...fingers crossed, I know you're not meant to!!, its gone quite well so far. But I'm seriously thinking of going to a hypotherephist(sp) as somebody I know has just used one (for a different problem) and recommends him, I just don't want to fall off the wagon, (it definatly wouldn't be the first time)........ God I hate being this big!!!

Honey39

Day 8: Well, I have to confess, I did fall off the wagon last night and had a mini-binge on Sunday night. BUT - I have spent ages today analysing what happened, what triggered it, why I did it, how I felt etc. And I'm not telling myself I am a failure and am giving up (that's why this is still Day 8, lol). I've worked out what I need to do:
Plan activities for the weekends - by about 4 on Sunday I knew I wasn't going out again, and I just felt lonely and empty (emotional overeating)
Do the aversion therapy on crisps - they are my trigger food
Eat when hungry - I think I didn't eat enough yesterday before 4
Try the tapping exercise (I didn't do that)

To cheer myself up and remotivate myself, I weighed myself this morning although I know that wasn't on the programme, and I've lost EIGHT POUNDS! That really helped me to get back to following ICMYT with determination, and I won't weigh myself again until Day 15 etc.

I have been trying to focus on the positive rather than the negative, which was for almost all of last week, I followed his advice with no problem. And I loved doing it, I feel 'normal' around food, and like this whole world of delicious tasty food opened up. I'm learning things, such as if I'm consciously eating, then I much prefer strongly spiced/flavoured food. The bland pizza is actually pretty dull and chewy; when I'm bingeing and wolfing food down, I don't actually register the 'taste', if that makes sense.

I'm oversharing here, but I do want to keep an honest diary somewhere of my ninety days on this programme. I think it's a way of stabilising my attitude to food and my bulimia. I've always been hugely torn about which to tackle first - bulimics are meant to be thin, not obese! So there's not much advice about it. Instinctively I feel that his advice to eat anything, eat consciously, eat when hungry, stop when full is absolutely right.

I also feel my self-esteem improving. I had the courage to stick up for myself with an awful guy I have an on/off relationship with (I know, I'm really being horribly honest here!). I suspect that I use food to dull things, and smother emotions. I'm kind of worried that if I do experience them, I won't be able to deal with them, but so far that's not happened. I've been angry and upset in the evenings, but then I feel really calm and happy the next day, like I've dealt with it and processed it, rather than crammed food on top of it.

Anyway, good luck to everyone else following this programme - I hope you're finding it as interesting as I am!

Bayblue

I'm finding it somewhat difficult to reconcile this plan with being money saving at the same time. I find that I want to have the best of every food, stuff that I ate before, when I wolfed thing down seems to taste bland and tasteless. Also, before if there was something that I say I bought to try and didn't really like that much I would not throw it away, that would have been wasteful. Instead I would have eaten the rest of the pack over a few days and not bought it again.

Tonight I realised that I had bought the wrong chocolate mousses, they are called GU or something, the ones I bought had a different texture to the ones I like and tasted so funny that not only did I throw it after a couple of spoonfuls the others swiftly followed it too! I have been struggling for days with Special K with berries having thought it would make a change from my usual beloved Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, but they really do remind me of cardboard with dried strawberries, soooo.... in the bin they went.

It seems that after a month or so on the plan I have finally almost totally eliminated all food that I think that I should be eating and am eating everything that I enjoy. Hopefully by doing this I will get back on track with the money saving, and barring a couple of mousse type shopping errors, I won't have to throw stuff away any more.

Bitsy_Beans

Well done Honey on the 8lbs lost!
I have no urge to weigh myself which is odd because I've never felt like that before. I have had a few days where I've eaten too fast (but not bingeing or to the point of feeling too full) but I've snacked a couple of times without thinking if I am really hungry. I can only put it down to my manic week last week and just feeling so tired and drained. Feel better today and am happy to get back on track. So not going to post any weight loss updates because I am not going near the scales but I have a positive attitude about food etc and for some reason reading Beyond Chocolate has helped that.

I am really pleased you guys keep posting your updates. I think it's good to share our experiences, even if you think they are silly I certainly don't.
Hope you don't waste anymore food Bayblue. I have come to the conclusion that I don't really like milk chocolate anymore. Having tried dark (and it's not even 70%) when I've eaten stuff like Dairy Milk really slowly its too sweet and actually doesn't taste as nice as I thought it did. Now that IS a revelation!!!

luc24

Hi iv finally got thru all this thread after 3 days reading it when i can lol, im so happy i've found a forum where this system is being discussed as i've only been able to find really old threads up to this one!

I've been doing the system properly for 5 days, and seriously its almost like an epiphany, my relationship with food has never been so good.
i do have a little problem tho,which appeared last nite and made me not so happy!! for the last 6 years i have done weightwatchers on and off, must have joined about 100 times, and now after reading paul mckenna's book everythin just seems to have fallen into place, no matter how many times i got to goal, i always got bored and all the weight went back on and more because i was basically eating what i was told rather than what i liked. anyway my prob is yesterday i followed the rules completely, and in the evening i started thinking about what i had eaten and then stupidly i thought il just add up the points to see if it would be within weightwatchers points because afterall i do know i lose weight when i follow that.

Well i added them up and it came to 21points which is less than what i would be 'allowed' on ww, but what happens if what i eat today or tomoro is way over the ww points? its hard to explain but im eating what i want, stopping wen im full but because im eating more or richer foods than i would on ww i feel like im going to have trouble eating exactly what i want because in the back of my mind il b thinkin well this is way over ww points so how can i be losing weight?
does anyone know where im coming from?my boyf thinks i shud just completely ignore how many points everythin would be, and forget ww altogether, its just very hard when i'v been on and off it for so long if ya get me?
thankyou for reading all that!
xx

Bayblue

luc24 wrote: »

anyway my prob is yesterday i followed the rules completely, and in the evening i started thinking about what i had eaten and then stupidly i thought il just add up the points to see if it would be within weightwatchers points because afterall i do know i lose weight when i follow that.

Well i added them up and it came to 21points which is less than what i would be 'allowed' on ww, but what happens if what i eat today or tomoro is way over the ww points? its hard to explain but im eating what i want, stopping wen im full but because im eating more or richer foods than i would on ww i feel like im going to have trouble eating exactly what i want because in the back of my mind il b thinkin well this is way over ww points so how can i be losing weight?
does anyone know where im coming from?my boyf thinks i shud just completely ignore how many points everythin would be, and forget ww altogether, its just very hard when i'v been on and off it for so long if ya get me?
thankyou for reading all that!
xx

Hello luc

I totally understand what you're saying about the ww points. I think what you're doing is understandable and probably second nature after following ww plans for so many years. Your boyfriend is right, it's not the correct way to go about the PMK but you and the rest of us are trying to change years and years conditioning of how we think about food and dieting and that won't happen overnight, or even in a few days. Don't be so hard on yourself. Perhaps you could try just not counting the points for today, when I was trying to NOT weigh myself I I just said to myself 'I won't do it this morning' knowing full well that I wouldn't want to do it later in the day and I eventually hid the scales somewhere where they are not so accessible. Could you somehow 'lose' your points calculator?

However , whatever you do as I said before don't be too critical of yourself. I don't think that we'll get rid of this instinct to categorise food, as modern women I think that it's somehow in our DNA. I find that even slim and healthy women talk of food being good or bad and know the points and calories, I know a whole family who all practically live off ww food because the mum thinks that it's 'healthier' than other fresh food. Even my 72 year old mother talks of butter as if it's crack cocaine sometimes, and I want to say 'er mum, what did YOU put on bread for the first forty years of your (slim and never been overweight) life then??'.

Like I said, it's almost part of the way we are to think like that, I'm not immune I admit that when I ditched the Special K for the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes one of the reasons was that the calories in both were virtually the same.

Well done for getting this far, and well done to Honey for the 8lb loss. Keep going folks, I don't think that I'll have any trouble today, as I'm off to have my tooth drilled at the dentist ....

Serena51

I got this today and thought I'd share:

Pass the BUTTER PLEASE...

This is interesting .. Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings

DO YOU KNOW the difference between margarine and butter Both have the same amount of calories.


Eating margarine can increaseheart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.


Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.


Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only because they are added!


Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.


Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years ..



And now, for Margarine..

Very high in Trans fatty acids.
Triple risk of coronary heart disease ..
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold..
Lowers quality of breast milk.
Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.

And here's the most disturbing fact..... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but one molecule away from being PLASTIC

This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and

anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it

it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weenie microorganisms will not find a home to grow.

Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast ?

Much better to have a little butter than all those chemicals. I think this better than ww who make a lot of money with their ww meals and force us to think low fat. To make things low fat they add chemicals, perhaps a little of natural fat would be better.