The Paul McKenna Thread Number 12. A Simple Title, for Simple Weight Loss and All amongst Friends!!

[Solo]

Welcome to thread 12 of the Paul McKenna's I Can Make You Thin weight loss system.

The Golden Rules that will aid you on your journey with our like minded support system are:

1. Eat what you WANT
2. Eat when you are HUNGRY
3. Eat CONSCIOUSLY
4. STOP eating when you are satisfied and full

This weight loss system is about re-educating your body; learning to listen to it and in doing so losing weight and inches. After all, eating a meal is not a competition, it's about enjoying what you are putting in your mouth, but not feeling bloated and uncomfortable (or guilty) afterwards!
Many people have issues around food. Many of us have been brought up by the 'clear your plate' parents of yesteryear which leave us feeling guilty if we leave even the smallest morsel of food, but we are working through this guilt or any other hang up we may have, and we are learning to leave a bit on the plate; return to it another time if we really want to or even feed it to the dog or the bin!
So!! forget diets; they may work for a while, but they aren't permanent solutions. This is a new way of living for your brand new life!! Let's get lighter for those summer clothes!

The Paul McKenna system really works and is easy to maintain.

I've C&P'd our previous threads links as they are helpful.

Here are the book choices on AMAZON which is all you need to get started! they aren't compulsory, but they do help! it's something to refer to and listening to the cd's can really focus you.

This is the tapping technique EXPLAINED - this can be useful to combat cravings.

You don't have to buy the book and CD, but we have found that they do help and somehow they keep you on track, so it would probably be a good investment and will cost you far less than a couple of trips to WW or SW meetings, so do consider having them in your life.

Please feel free to join us, whether it's 10lbs or 10 stones you want to lose.
We are friendly, supportive and successful, but we're not hungry ~ NO we're not!!! so come on in and start living your new life today and make 2013 your year to drop a dress size or several...if we can get into a smaller size for summer, just think how we could look for next Christmas!

Very - I think that it happens to a lot of us. Life has a habit of getting in the way.

The beauty of Pauling is that you don't have to start again tomorrow. You can restart straight away if you think you have gone wrong. If you over eat, just don't eat again until you are hungry and you are back on track. Simples

Only of course it doesn't feel simple. I think the temptation is to still think that you have to wait until tomorrow to start again and to continue making the same mistakes that sent you off course so that the whole day goes wrong iyswim.

Sorry I haven't been back on here. I have been so busy and just haven't had the chance to re-read the book and get going with pm! On my next day off (prob Thurs) I will have a good read, listen to the cd and focus on ME! :)

Hi cupcake I think I need to concentrate

Oops! Really do need to concentrate....

... on me for a bit. Still haven't listened to cd yet, had a massive tea and have just sat and scoffed two bits of cake. I think a big problem I have is going for hours without food and then getting so hungry I eat loads. Was up for a few hours in the night with my youngest and then had a really busy day at work. Tiredness doesn't bode well for mindful eating, at least not for me.

Thank you for concern (so sorry can't remember who and am on phone so is difficult to scroll back and see) but both the marriage and the money problems are really complicated (are these things ever easy?!)

Will listen to paul tonight, and will take some snacks with me tomorrow so I don't wolf loads when I do get to eat a meal. I find it so soothing and reassuring to know that every episode of eating is an opportunity to do so calmly and mindfully. I might not do it much, but I know it's there!!

Thanks for be

Bloody phone!!!

I just wanted to say thanks for be

Be

The sugar from the cakes is clearly affecting my hand-eye coordination.... Thank you for being here and sharing so much, it's really helpful and I'm going away now!!

Hitallu sorry your so tired. Going tired and hungry does stop mindfulness doesn't it cause you go beyond normal hunger onto * got to eat now' .

oh yeah i second, no third that, tiredness is my trigger to eat shite & too fast. it's like it makes my body go into crisis mode in which calm & mindful doesny exist! just seeking sugar to keep going. also the leaving it too long thing, especially when you're busy, then get a chance & inhale a whole chicken in 2.9 nanoseconds

cheers bbb that's a nice way to put it, yes the waiting until tomorrow to restart is definitely a diet mentality. i had a lovely mindfulness teacher who once said "there is no time like just now. why not just do it now & take it from here?" she was talking about me considering giving up smoking but i wanted to sit down & have a fag while i thought about it LOL!! (did manage in the end hurrah!) but with eating it's annoying when i genuinely don't remember until i've finished, i've done the "what do i really want thing" & then suddenly i come to & i've finished, having mindfully noticed about 3 intermittent mouthfuls...

Hi back to Rules and Very (and everyone else too)! Nice to be part of a thread which is moving quickly

Interesting thoughts about mindful eating being harder if you're tired/stressed. There's studies proven that stress affects hormones which regulate hunger too apparently. I know when I'm tired I definitely subconsciously reach for sugary foods more for a lift. I think sugar triggers me to start a splurge phase for some reason too as well as garlic bread, crisps, dip, pizza...

I, personally, find it hard to only 'eat when I'm hungry' at the moment as I'm so busy at home and work. I may be at the right hunger stage when I'm in a meeting and by the time lunch time comes I'm well past that. My lunchtime varies so my body can't adjust to a pattern. This was one of the problems I had last time, I completely killed my appetite. Sounds good but ignoring hunger/making myself eat when I wasn't hungry was against all the golden rules and meant that it became easier to over indulge too! Maybe if I stuck with it longer it would sort itself out though?

My other difficulty is eating exactly what I fancy when I'm already cooking 2 different meals for DDs and DH... Any tips on that?

I can't remember exactly but I think I lost about 3/4 - 1 stone last time. Hoping for at least 2 stones this time. Got a wedding in October to aim for...

Tiredness is such an issue for me, I get huge sugar cravings when I'm sleep deprived which just blows any kind of hunger signal out of the water.

Tinwe - I don't take the rule as 'eat exactly what I fancy', because it is too hard to plan life that way, for me.
To me it means that I should be eating things that I like and enjoy eating, rather than ryvita and cottage cheese because that is perceived as healthy and I think I should eat it.

tinwe what a bugger about the meeting timings etc, that's got to be hard. can you nip out to the loo/ go to a water cooler & surreptitiously eat a handful of nuts? i always keep some in my handbag, but the only meeting i've been to is parent council & i think work ones would be in a different league! but i did reach fainting point in that & just rustled in my bag & got me nuts: i felt a bit awkward but then didny care cos i felt physically better.
WRT cooking, i just cook for everyone what i fancy, or maybe vary one bit of it that's no too tricky eg. last night everyone had fish in breadcrumbs with tatties & veg, but i had a salmon fillet instead...

interesting about the stress & hunger & hormones, i saw a thing about a study which showed fatter people don't release the "full" signal hormone nearly as much as thin, & thus found it easier to go on & overeat... so all we need to do is get thin & then apparently it'll be easier to stay thin (with this WOE)

Veryberry - I think the noticing thing is supposed to be helped by eating with the TV off and no distractions but how many of us manage to do that? We have children and partners around, colleagues even if we eat at work. If I am home by myself it has been my habit for years to catch up on the news over lunch so even then I am not focussed on my food.

I do wonder if I did, whether I wouldn't just give up eating altogether due to the boredom of it all.

Seriously, if I focussed on my food, I might well notice what I am eating but I think my problem then would be not rushing to get it over and done with.

I suppose really it goes back to what you were saying about making it ingrained - you perhaps don't have to be so mindful if you able to notice the signs subconsciously and stop eating automatically. I find that every hard to achieve though. I think we all do which is why we aren't all steadily losing weight over a period of months and celebrating our successes then leaving the thread in our size 12 jeans never to return. It should be simple, the rules are simple even, but overriding years of conditioning takes a long time.

Tinwe - I think a lot of us find that our bodies fall into a pattern of being able to eat at regular times. It does take a while though. That doesn't help if you are in a meeting and hungry and your normal eating time passes but then it isn't every day so I think we have to cut ourselves some slack and think perhaps we will do better come the next meal. In the meantime I suppose being very conscious not to overeat when you can eat is the key.

WRT to eating what you want when it may not be what everybody else wants, again I think you have to use common sense to adapt the rules a tiny bit. It isn't often that you only want one thing. Whatever the rest of the family are having may not be what you really, really want to eat but so long as it is enjoyable then it isn't against the rules to eat it if you are hungry. I think you have to be practical about it or it isn't going to work. Eating because it is dinner time even if you aren't even peckish and eating things you don't much want as well would be pointless but there is a compromise to be had.

I was just pondering it really. I suppose it is like any practical skill - the rules and procedures might be simple but there are a multitude of ways of applying them. If you take driving for example. If you want to turn a corner you are supposed to check your mirrors, signal your intention and then do the manoeuvre. Really simple, not in the least bit ambiguous but still, when we come to do it, there are a multitude of ways of applying those rules and making exceptions. It isn't as easy as it seems. In the end we do it automatically and most of the time sticking to rules. I think the Pauling rules are a bit like that too really. Really simple but the application takes practice and judgement.

Oh dear. Rambling again.

I only came to the computer to pay a bill.

Hello everyone Welcome Tinwe and SirClench your lordship are we worthy??

The wedding was great fun and the sun shone!!! It was stressful though (they were doing it on a budget which had to be enlarged because the original reception venue double booked [shocked]) and 'cos DD2 had her 30th b\day the next day so we've shopped a bit tooo much!!

Ref. The blood type I know I go on about it and Veryberry kindly explained it for me so from now on I'll keep me trap shut unless someone asks okay BBB??? Interestingly I needed Paul Mc to actually lose weight it's not meant to be a specific weight loss diet; it's for health, I just like to help.

DH is happy to ignore me so don't take any notice!!

Although I will say that Paul Mckenna says don't eat something if it makes you ill he also talks about obsessive weighing being unhelpful; that wasn't me BBB BTW

Welcome back pp! Glad the wedding went off ok in the end, especially the weather. I would look into compensate about the venue! As if she had to pay more because they double booked?!

I get what you mean about the blood type diet. It's the same with me being GF - that helps my health but only Pauling that helps me lose weight. It's about the difference between what you eat and how/why you eat IMO.

Hi Ladies....Ali are you back on track yet after the bbq?
Tin I find that if I don't want what I cook for everyone then I just have something I want......when ive cooked I don't always feel like eating. Bit like BBB. I make sure I always have all the foods I like in the house....cheeses, breads, oatcakes, olives, salad leaves, lovely chocolate biscuits, Terrys chocolate orange (omg I love them so much) and I can always manage to cobble something I fancy together. By having the foods "I " like in the house I never feel deprived cause if I want them they are there. Once I got used to that I never felt the need to overeat them again.
pp glad the wedding went well in the end and what lovely weather for it. Couldn't ask for more. !
BBB thanks for all the helpful advice you keep giving on this woe. It really helps to keep me focused on the long term goal of being able to eat normally.

hello, newbie here. I fitted my gastric band on Sunday, having read the book & learnt the Havening thing.

I'm a low carber, with portion control issues, who falls off the wagon too often, so I thought a bit of extra hypno help might be the way forward.

So far, so good - although I'm going to have to change the time I listen to the CD because it leaves me WIDE AWAKE - like really, really wide awake! So not going to listen tonight, but will set my alarm for half an hour early tomorrow & listen then.

I also don't feel full after a few mouthfulls, but I do feel full after a smaller portion of food & have no desire for pudding or to snack before meals. Should I be concerned that I don't feel full after a few mouthfulls?

HiPost.....ooooo this is a difficult post to answer. Welcome first . We do the 4 golden rules....eat what you want, when your hungry, eat consciously and stop as soon as your full. If your low carbing and dieting then not sure how the Hypno CD will work really. Thing is on it he tells you to eat what you want and he is very anti diets. If your just wanting to do the Paul McKenna way then it works well but its not a quick fix, its for life and we are all doing are best to practice this way. All of us (and I think I speak for all....forgive me if im wrong) do not diet as it has screwed our heads up in the past and we have finally managed to get off that merry-go-round. But sometimes we fall off and we just get back on. This thread is Paul McKenna I Can Make You Thin but there is another thread that is for the PM Gastric Band www.mumsnet.com/Talk/big_slim_whatever_weight_loss_club/1656704-I-had-my-hypno-gastric-band-fitted-by-Paul-McKenna-last-night here which you might want to have a look at. Some ladies started that thread with the intention of continuing their diets and doing the band thing but they have all dropped out now as it didn't work for them cause they were still in diet mode. Pop and have a look though if you want. Those left on it are all doing the band cd as back up but still following the 4 golden rules but no diets.

Thanks for your really helpful reply Rulesgirl. I low carb partly because I have IBS and am wheat intolerant and partly because I'm anti processed foods.
My dieting problems are portion control, boredom eating but mostly portion control!
This is why I'm hoping the 4 golden rules will help and the gastro band might help me regain that full sensation.
I wasn't sure where to post but it seemed there was a lot of collective knowledge here. I may lurk if that's ok.

Hello ladies. Welcome back ppeat. I am glad the wedding went off OK and you certainly seem to have been lucky with the weather. Looks like that is summer over and done with and you had the best of it!

Can I just say that I don't want to fall out of the blood type diet. Of course anybody would be absolutely right to avoid eating things that made them ill. If you are gluten intolerant then don't eat gluten. My problem is that the blood type diet is marketed as a diet and although I now can't find the introduction page (can't imagine why Amazon have changed the preview pages but it seems they have) they call it a diet and we are specifically not doing diets. It just seems to me that of course you will lose weight if you cut out things from your diet. If I cut out gluten, even though I am not intolerant, I will lose weight too because I will have greatly reduced the number of calories I consume. It has nothing to do with my blood group or whether I am able to eat wheat or whatever, it is just calorie cutting so it feels out of place to me. It was getting to the point where I didn't bother posting on the thread because it seemed to have given up focusing on Pauling which is a shame.

I really do recommend Judith Wills and Escape the Fat Trap for Life. She takes a very balanced view of diets and the diet industry as a whole. She sees through the marketing spiel and gets to the nub of diet claims - it is very interesting. She also talks a lot about diet mentality and the tyranny of fat and skinny, ie. how we are sabotaging ourselves by living as fat people (keeping cupboards full of food, worrying constantly about the next meal etc) or skinny people (constantly calorie counting or buying diet food and pursuing an ideal body that we won't ever have). She is very much about eating natural whole foods and avoiding anything to do with traditional diets as most of us are.

For the record I think she gives Pauling a 4 out of 5 so we are OK.

PostBellum ....it will be very interesting to see how you get on and I hope its successful. Keep on the thread .

and PostBellum no it doesn't matter it your not full after a few mouthfuls as long as you continue to check in with yourself after each mouthful as to how you feel. Sometimes we will be hungrier than at others.
I will have a look for that book BBB. Sounds interesting. I have to say though that for me I do keep my cupboards full and always have the foods I most like. If I know that the foods I want are in my cupboards then I never feel I cant have them and conversely don't often want them anyway....but I do know they are there which to me helps to overcome the need to ever overeat in the first place. It was important to me years ago when doing mindful eating to always have a supply of foods that I liked kept separately from the family so if I wanted them I knew they were there and they were the foods that were the opposite of the diet food I had grown up to believe were right for me. When you have what you want you usually don't want it so much lol !!!!

Morning all Postbellum once you're used to listening to your body, chewing each mouthful 15 to 25\30 times (depending on the food of course!) and being fully conscious of it. you'll find that you get the fullness feeling faster. Sitting down properly and not dashing about straight after the meal helps too (I know that's easier said than done when you're a busy person though ).