Feeling conflicted.. need some guidance please!

[LightRaven]

Hello everyone.

I decided to take Ayleigh to the bookstore on Friday night.. I needed to pick up a book for the book club in one of the other subsections on minimins and Ayleigh loves books. So as we are walking by the front window, I see a book called " I can make you thin" by Paul McKenna. i've seen his name thrown around in a different section before and thought, "Oh, I know that name" but I really didn't read the thread.

So we are in the fiction section looking for "Sea Glass"... and of course they don't have it... but a rather large woman had entered the isle and Ayleigh goes "Look Mommy... it's... Mommy!" And I knew that what she saw in this woman, she saw in me too. :cry: And just the night before, she was patting my tummy and said "mommy's got a big tummy!" That's my fault, because I always used to tickle her belly saying "Look at this big tummy.. look at it!!"

So i said to her, "Is that your mommy?" and she looks at the lady and goes "Nooooo, you're my mommy!" and gives me a hug. I know she wasn't trying to hurt my feelings and she loves me for who I am. But it really took my breath away :cry:

So... we are walking around the book store and I stumble upon this book again.. "I can make you thin" and I decide to buy it.

I've almost finished reading it, and have started the "hypnosis" CD last night. There are 4 golden rules so far... to eat when you are hungry.. because your body is telling you it needs fuel.. to eat what you want.. not what you think you should eat... to eat conciously and slowly.. and to stop when you are full. He's got alot of interesting research as to why diets don't work. One in particular was a study done during one of the world wars.. where there was food rationing.... it was basically a semi starvation diet and this study found that people would horde, steal and lie to get more food. And even when the food rationing ended and people could eat freely... people still horded and binged on food... and ate 8 times as much as they normally would and continued to do so for a long time.

The thing is....during the food rationing period, they rationed out 1500 calories a day.. which is more than MANY diets out there.. including slim fast.

Much of this book makes sense to me. Especially the constantly thinking about food all the time part. I have obviously has success with slim fast.. I lost 3 lbs this past week... but I am always hungry. And I am constantly ... CONSTANtLY thinking about food. I get so hungry during the day that my brain gets fuzzy.. I make mistakes at work.. and sometimes i get dizzy.

I would like to try this "non-diet".. but I am feeling alot of confliction. It's making me anxious. I don't want to abandon slim fast.. or this forum,... you guys are so great.. but I am really sick of being hungry... I'm wondering if I could combine the two? i dunno.. I need some guidance please....:cry:

LR

 

[KD]

I can really understand you dilemma.

The thing is....during the food rationing period, they rationed out 1500 calories a day.. which is more than MANY diets out there.. including slim fast.

I've done a fair bit of research myself about these types of diet trials. The main one is the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. Interestingly, they class semi-starvation as 1800 calories. Well...that happens to be the maintenance level of the majority of ladies, so I guess they were doing one heck of a lot of exercise! 1500 calories is usually an amount that suits most people for weight reduction.

Moving on...there are probably just two main problems with dieting. One is the phsyiological side effects with the problems of leptin and other hormones which drive us to overeat when we are tying to undereat.:sigh:

The other is the psychological problems.

Either way, you can actually get past both of these with losing weight very slowly. To reduce the chances of any leptin disturbances, it's recommended that you aim for just losing 10% of your body weight over a period of 6 months, then maintain it for 6 months. The following year...repeat etc.

Of course, many of us have tried losing weight slowly and found it very difficult to get the head around.

Anyway, I can feel me going into a major ramble thread...so moving on again quickly

It looks like you have a lot to lose, and slimfast is about 1200 calories I think. This may be too low for you at the moment and you should be able to lose weight on a fair bit more than that.


You really don't want to be hungry, and I would advise that if this is happening, make sure that you are eating plenty of protein in your meal. Also add almonds They lower GI and really help hunger.

Or, of course you can go the non-dieting way.

At the end of the day, you need to do something that you feel can do happily.

sorry...bit of a mished mashed reply. Maybe you could join the Paul Mckenna thread which is around somewhere for more advice :hug99:

 

[clairefatface]

Hi hun, well firstly I hope I speak for us and say that even if you did stop sf in favour of something else there is no rule to say you have to leave the board....I for one would still love chatting to you.
I think you know in your head that you want to go down this other route, but your looking for some reasurance its the right thing to do. All you can do is give it a fair crack at the whip...if it doesnt feel right to you then you can always re-start sf.
My little boy did something similar to me a few weeks ago, he patted my tummy and said 'mummy your tummy is really big' well it reduced me to tears. Out of the mouths of babes as they say. They have no idea how hurtful they can be, and they dont mean it. They are probably the one group of people who truly dont care what you look like, they just love their mummy - big or small. But none the less that was one of the things that spurred me on to loose weight, i thought i dont want my kids thinking iam fat, and being ashemed or embarrased about my size....so here i am doing something about it, and so are you my lovely...so try and not worry babe.
Keep us posted on what you do...sorry if this makes no sense or is a complete ramble...hope it has helped even a little bit.

 

[LightRaven]

THanks for the advice and support KD and Claire. I would like to try this non-diet, but it's almost as if all his advice and rules go against every single diet book I've ever read.. and I've read alot. It's not that it doesn't make sense or I think it's wrong, it just that.. the biggest thing that I'm having issues with is he is basically giving me permission to eat. And I'm having a hard time with that.

I am attempting today to do both. Keeping his rules and advice in mind.. and staying on slimfast.. except eating when I do in fact get hungry instead of trying to last hours and hours. I packed a few slim fast snacks, as well as my own snacks, all under 100 cals, so I'm hoping that while I am satisfying my hunger, albeit temporarily because they aren't proper meals, I'm not adding too many additional calories to affect the slimfast part too much. and hopefully this will keep me from becoming ravenous when I get home in side and wanting to tear apart the fridge.. and then continue to eat when I'm full....

:8855:

I'll have to find that other thread later to see what everone else's take is on Paul McKenna as well.

LR

 

[lucyjo]

Hi,

I know where you are coming from. The trouble with diets are that they not a true reflection of real life. We just become so obsessed with every calorie and that makes us think about food all the time and that is just not right.

It would be so lovely to just eat the right amount and not put on weight but the trouble is, speaking for myself, I just don't seem to stick to eating the correct amount( ie What I need rather than what I want ) all the time. Hence the need for diets and the almost inevitable creep of weight gain once we have reached our goals. Serious mind training is needed and I think a lot of diets don't even go there.
I have a friend who did Lighter Life, where you have a VERY low cal diet plus counselling to help you through your food issues. She didn't take the counselling seriously and put on the 5 stone she lost within 6 months, what a waste of an awful lot of money.

Paul Mckenna is quite popular here, I have always thought I don't need to spend money for someone to tell me to eat less. But do you know what? perhaps I do!!

Good luck and let us know how things are going.

§

 

[LightRaven]

The CD so far has been good... It took me a min though to get over his accent and the sexy way he lowers his voice throughout the CD. I think I cracked up for about 5 mins before I could take it seriously. :8855: It reminded me of the Right Said Fred "I'm too Sexy" song!

i finished the book, but have to go back tonight and do alot of the visualization projects he has. It's hard to concentrate on things like that when your 2 year old is runing around like a lunatic. :8855:

LR

 

[Flubber68]

Hi Why not keep with SF and still listen to PMcK's cd at night? THEN when or if you feel ready to stop SF, mentally you will be ready to eat 'normally'
You will have to forgive me as I am a PMcKenna fan. After smoking heavily from 13yrs til 37 yrs old I used his 'I can make you stop smoking' book and CD I used them for 2 weeks before quitting and haven't had a ciggy since (3 years ago this week actually!! GO ME )

Good Luck !

PS. I would listen to it in bed once your 2 yr old is in bed You really need undisturbed time for visualisation/self hypnosis

 

[LightRaven]

Hi Flubber... I am sort of doing that now, as I don't want to give up on SF because I am having success.

Maybe I'll have to check out his quit smoking book too. I've been smoking for about 10 years now.. I have a prescription for Chantix sitting in my wallet, but haven't filled it because it's REALLY expensive and my health insurance doesn't cover it (go figure).

LR

 

[jolie19]

Thanks lightraven and all for the thread, it was a great motivation for me. As you say hypnosis cd works if you stick to and listen when it's quiete as flubber mentioned, the voice/accent on the cd i got is very easy to understand and very relaxing as well. I feel great now after a week and I'm now a believer, thanks to you all!!!!

 

[LightRaven]

I'm glad it's working for your Jolie.

I haven't been listening to the CD as much as I should.. things have been a little bit too busy around here. By the time I go to bed.. I just want to sleep.. not listen to the CD for 25 mins. :8855:

LR