Tips

I'm gonna share with you Paul McKenna's tips on losing weight. This is from the show "I Can Make You Thin" that aired last Sunday on TLC. There's gonna be 4 more episodes in the coming weeks so I'm gonna watch those too.

There are 4 golden rules to follow:

1. When you're hungry, EAT!
2. Eat what you want, not what you think you should eat.
3. Eat consciously.
4. When you think you're getting full, STOP eating.

Sound crazy right? But here's the logic. When you're dieting, you usually starve yourself. What happens is, your body then thinks that there's not enough food supply so it goes into storing mode, meaning, it becomes efficient in storing fat to help you get through the "famine". That means your metabolism slows down.

With his technique, you're essentially retraining your body not to store the fat, but instead boost your metabolism. The key is rule no. 3 - eat consciously. This can be a bit hard since we've been "trained" since we were kids to eat fast and finish what's on your plate. He calls it the Clean Plate Club. But with rule no. 3, you do the opposite. In fact, if you can eat with your eyes closed, do it. It removes the need to clean your plate. So what you do is, after putting a spoon/forkful of food, put down the utensil, put your hand down. Sit on your hand if you have to. Then chew your food slowly, really taste it. He says chew it 20 times. When you're done, take another spoon/forkful, put it down and chew slowly. This is help you notice when your stomach is telling you that it's full. When you eat fast, there's not enough time for that message to reach your brain, that's why we tend to eat more than we need to. Once you feel that you're getting full, stop eating. If you get hungry 1o minutes after, go eat! As long as you don't forget to do rule no. 3. Oh and also, no distractions while you're eating - no TV, no reading - so you can really concentrate on eating.

With regards to rule no. 2, he said to toss out anything that you don't like, even if you THINK you should be eating it. Only keep food that inspire you. As long as you follow rule no. 3, you won't be over-eating.

Eating slowly is hard especially if you're a fast eater. I got bored yesterday from chewing ... hehehe. But I didn't finish what I put on my plate. I got hungry a bit later so I had a bite from my leftovers. I hope I get used to this and maybe see some results.

Now I know why Finn can't seem to put on some weight ... he's such a slow eater!