And then, months and months later, I read the book with the same name. A few days after that, I spoke with Paul McKenna on the phone, and both events left me startled. I liked what he wrote and I liked what he had to say even more. I agreed with his views on dieting and obesity and emotional eating. I wanted to try his method, listen to the accompanying hypnosis CD, give a copy to my mom. I was, it's safe to say, startled out of my skepticism.
Paul McKenna's concept about how to safely, sanely lose weight is not radical or new. If you've ever read Intuitive Eating -- a book (that's just been re-released in CD format) based on the idea that we will eat healthier foods and portions if we release the shoulds of dieting and follow our gut instincts about what our bodies need -- you will recognize the compelling, clear pitch to stop dieting, stop self-blaming, and start trusting your own body.
It also needs to be noted that McKenna's book has a lot of pop science. There are few key studies cited repeatedly. This can be seen in two ways. First, the book is meant to be a quick read so you can get started right away. There's enough factual information to justify the program, but nothing that you will get lost or bored when you really want to get on with it. On the other hand, if you want detailed scientific research or lots of new studies, this won't give you that kind of textbook or ground-breaking information.
Here's the thing, though: Maybe we know too much about fat storage and calorie counts anyway. Maybe there are too many studies broadcasting conflicting health information every week. Maybe it's time to set that all aside, stop (literally) buying into the diet industry, and get back to eating basics.
At least that's what Paul McKenna's advocating, and now, I think he is on to something much saner, simpler, and realistic than much of the pre-packaged, diet pill/formula/meal kit/weekly meeting/shakes and powder/fat gram obsessed madness. One of my favorite lines from his book is his response to women telling him they want to look like models in magazines. "So do the models in magazines," he quips, reminding us that it is unproductive and unkind to compare ourselves to "something that doesn't exist." Instead, he suggests we ask how we are getting better.
McKenna's program requires reading the book, following those four rules, and listening to the CD. There are some distraction exercises to help curb cravings that seem like they'd make you so self-conscious you'd forget about the bag of chips in the pantry (but hey, whatever works). No recipes, no mandatory workouts, no counting. He says it is about reprogramming those old thoughts that have gotten us into such poor eating behaviors and trusting that our bodies are smarter than any diet. As he said to me, "What have you got to lose? There's no willpower involved, just some instructions. What have you got to lose but weight?"
After I read I Can Make You Thin, I had a bunch of questions for Paul McKenna. Here's what he told me about how he knows his program works, why he thinks failing at a diet does not mean you've failed as a person, and how texting might contribute to bad eating habits.
Your program includes four golden rules -- to eat when you are hungry, eat what you want rather than what you think you should, to eat consciously and enjoy your food, and finally, to stop eating when you are no longer hungry. These rules go against the grain of almost every diet on the market. What's been the hardest part for people you've worked with in going from dieting to your program?
The dieting mentality is so ingrained. We've been told that some foods are bad, and what I am saying flies in the face of what's been told for a long time. Diets don't work. Most people lose weight but eventually gain more back. And now a lot of diet clubs are saying they are a "way of life" when they are really just companies trying to sell food. Lots of people are frightened they will fail or they will fail again. They don't want to be let down or can't afford to feel like they've let themselves down again.
In your book, you say that removing the blame from gaining weight is necessary to moving on and to being healthier and maybe even thinner. You write, "So relax, you are not crazy, you are not broken, and you are not a bad person. You have simply developed some very unproductive habits." Are operating on the extremes of self-deprivation and overindulgence some of those unproductive habits?
The mindset of starvation through dieting is unproductive. If you starve, you will binge. Most of the time, if you restrict yourself greatly by dieting, you will eventually binge. You will go to real extremes on either end. In the process, people who do this over and over have slowed metabolism. Their bodies think there is a famine and go into survival mode. The body gets really efficient at storing fat. This is why you might lose weight while you are starving, but will gain weight as soon as you begin eating -- or binging -- again. On a bigger scale, so many people participating in starvation diets for decades has contributed to obesity in the United States.
We have to break out of this mindset and the conditions of dieting that are so ingrained in our thoughts. We need to stop worrying that if we can't stick with a diet like this that we don't have willpower. What is willpower? Who has it? What so many people now are doing -- and what is reinforced by reality TV shows where people are weighed and exercise for hours and hours a day -- has made them obsessed with their weight and the scale. It has put them in a psychological prison. My program is about reprogramming the thoughts, not about creating more miserable but thin people.
For the moms out there, how can we translate all this to our family table? Is this helpful for teaching our kids healthy eating, too?
Kids learn by example. You can tell a child things but they learn by watching mummy.
The mother is the most important person in the family. Most things in the family come back to her. So mothers tend to put everything ahead of themselves. This is a false economy. If mothers can put themselves first in this, everyone wins.
One way to do this is to set the pace of eating. Eat slower at the table. When you eat slower, you will eat less. Put your fork down in between bites. Some mothers make this into a game [with their kids] and this is a good example of families using the system. Everyone puts their knives down, chews twenty times, and keep this going until you begin to feel full. Then you stop. Mothers will influence children to eat slower, and that's just one example, one way.
You ask people to give up scales. You also ask them to envisions specific goals, like losing a certain number of pounds or looking great naked. How do you suggest people track their own successes along the way?
Basically, if your day can be determined by tiny movements of a needle [on a scale], there's a bigger problem than eating. Most people need longer periods of time in between stepping on the scale. You can wean yourself off scales and off of the mindset.
That will sound like crazy talk to a lot of people. But people get wrapped up in a number. Those daily numbers are not accurate. If you weigh yourself over two to four weeks, you have a much more accurate reading.
As for the goals, you've got to tell yourself what you DO want. Overweight people often don't focus on those positive things, just staying focused on the failures. The mind doesn't process negation well -- if you say, "I'm going to try not to think of elephants" then what will happen? You will only think of elephants. Instead, focus on what you want to get better.
What if someone isn't intentionally starving themselves, but in their busy lives, they forget to eat or just get used to not eating certain meals. What's the danger in that?
This is a huge problem. They may not be trying to starve themselves, but they are. And they will probably go overboard at some point or at the next meal. I would rather people get back in tune with their bodies, to feel general hunger pangs again, and then to go eat.
Speaking of recognizing hunger signals, we had a good conversation on Shine about a study that showed women have much stronger brain responses to foods they crave when they are hungry. What differences have you seen in men and women who are ditching dieting and readjusting their behavior to eat when they are hungry and stop as soon as they are full?
Clearly, hunger and eating is a much bigger issue for women. There is so much social pressure for women to confirm to stereotypes, and this is much greater for women than men. The torment of being overweight for many women is one part health and one part self-image.
The body image and self-image part is clearly emotional. You also say in your book that trauma is at the root of a lot of people's weight gain. How do the emotional and extreme issues of how we see ourselves, as well as traumatic events of our past, interfere with losing weight?
Firstly, there are a lot of people, especially women, who suffer from eating disorders. My program isn't a cure for eating disorders. The structure is helpful in resetting the relationship we have with food and ourselves, and that can help people with eating disorders begin to trust themselves with food again. And really, being overweight and being really underweight is the same problem.
And second...Look, everybody changes the way we feel by external things, whether it is shopping, drinking, sex, gambling. Food is a drug of choice for the western world. And everyone has some kind of trauma. One way to escape the stress of that grief is food.
If you are changing how you feel with food, you're not eating because you are hungry and so you will never get full.
I think that people can reduce the feeling of being emotionally overwhelmed by listening to [the guided CD included with the book]. If you listen regularly, you can learn to soothe without food and feel good much more of the time.
Our lives are not only busy, they are hyper-programmed with texting, IMing, emailing, and instant everything. Does living like this play a part in how we eat, in being overweight, and in how we see ourselves?
We live in an instant gratification culture. Why shouldn't we want to gratify ourselves instantly? It's lovely. Sometimes.
The magic pills, potions, and therapies...We want to fix things and be done. We want to fix people and be done. One example of this is the band surgery. This works for a lot of people. Unfortunately, emotional eaters often override the benefits of the surgery because the emotional part of the eating hasn't yet been resolved.
If you let your metabolism adjust, it is very unlikely to slam back down.
What do you think about Paul McKenna's anti-diet weight loss ideas? Could you can the diet mentality? Would it work for you?
Paul McKenna's book and more about his program is available here.
