I’m only 1 pound away from my target weight and I have 1 week left on my original 6 month plan. I am amazed how Diet Power has kept me right on track all the way through the 6 months. Week after week the weight loss has followed the plan within a pound all the way down. By every measure possible this is the best diet I have followed. Definitely recommended.

Here are some stats….

Of course, the end of the diet isn’t really in sight — as the main thing that I’ve learned is that I must continue the diet indefinitely. It will just be a weight maintenance plan instead of a weight loss plan.

I notice that “I Can Make You Thin” is popping up all over the telly now it’s the new year. As a result the site traffic to my old entries on Paul McKenna is going through the roof. Hello everyone!

Like any other “fad”, I didn’t succeed in following the approach for more than a couple of months. The weight loss was good for the first few weeks and then quickly plateaued at which time the motivation died away. I tried getting back into it several times, but I couldn’t get going again. Maybe if I had had the face to face Paul McKenna treatment it would have worked much better!

For the past 15 weeks I have been following a diet based on Diet Power, which is working much better than any diet for the last 8 years. I definitely recommend it.

An update of this years health kick is well overdue, so here is a very quick one.

I have built up the swimming again to the whole mile and I have managed to cut out any rest breaks. I am constantly amazed at how the body adapts so quickly to a regular exercise regime. It only taken 3 weeks of going 3 times a week to build up from about 40 lengths to 64 lengths and resting every 16 lengths to not needing a rest at all.

I am still following Paul McKennas “I can make you thin”. On the whole, it is proving to be quite easy to follow again. I am eating far less and exercising. My face is looking a bit thinner in the mirror and my clothes feel a little looser. My actual weight change is unknown since I am avoiding the scales.

How am I doing? Mediocre. I am following rules 1, 2 and partially 3. Rule 4 is proving to be more difficult this time. Extra effort will commence soon.

Breakfasts are much lighter, sometimes just a yogurt. Lunches are about 50% of the calorific content I was having, but the main meal of the day is still being consumed with much gusto.

I have watched episode 2 of PMcK’s ICMYT on Sky One tonight and am very sceptical on the TFT idea. Perhaps I should sit in my open plan office tapping various parts of my body tomorrow, hmmmm.

Oh, did 1250 metres of front crawl on Sunday. Nice. Our Sales Director is challenging our major supplier to the Swimathon in March, so I must keep up the training.

• Rule 1: When you’re hungry, eat. Don’t wait until you are starving before eating, as this will cause problems with “starvation mode”, and bad metabolic consequences.

• Rule 2: Eat what you want. If you do this then you are less like to crave the forbidden.

• Rule 3: Eat Conciously. This is the biggy. Eat slowly taking notice of every mouthful. If you do this you will enjoy your food, and then you will notice….

• Rule 4: When you’re full, stop eating. Don’t worry about leaving food on your plate, don’t worry about getting hungry 10 minutes later (see rule 1).

That’s the deal. Simple isn’t it? There are more considerations to help with long term commitment, and I’ll write those up in the next day or two.

Quite a lot of “experts” seem to say that the only true path to long term weight loss is to change your life style, not to follow a restrictive diet.

Unfortunately, most of the information out there is based around dieting, and the lifestyle advice they give is “simply follow the diet for the rest of your life, and you won’t put the weight back on”. Somewhere, I have an Atkins for life book – no hope!

Of course, being restrictive diets (which most of them are; calorie restrictive, fat restrictive, carbohydrate restrictive) they require a very substantial commitment to become a new lifestyle.

The main difference that Paul McKenna brings to our dining table is that he isn’t giving us a diet to follow, and then suggesting we make that diet our new lifestyle. He is saying “I have observed thin people, and they have a different relationship with their food. I can teach you how to have the same relationship with food”.

In addition, he has noticed that overweight people that have become “serial dieters” create even worse habits – such as allowing themselves to get extremely hungry before eating, and then eating until bloated.

His “four golden rules” are simple techniques which enable us overweight people to emulate thin people in their eating habits – and with a bit of “mind programming” from his CD, it becomes less conscious and more automatic.

I stopped trying to follow his CD 7 months ago, after losing something like 22 lbs in 5 months, I have put back on about 5 lbs. This isn’t great, but nowhere near as bad as the “bounce back” after trying other diets – hey, you can put 5lbs back on in a week when you stop doing Atkins.

So, if you want to lose weight in the long term, change your lifestyle – and you don’t need to become an overnight fitness freak, or persuade yourself that all your favorite foods are evil. You can just start following four simple rules.

Last night, the first episode on Paul McKenna Can Make You Thin was aired on Sky One.

The show will be following a studio audience for four weeks while Paul introduces them (and us at home) to the principles in his book. The main golden rules were presented in Pauls usual bright and humorous manner.

I logged my weight on the web site, and I imagine that as the shows go on Paul will say how many stone his registered audience weighs like he did with the studio audience last night. I was actually quite surprised that I had only put on half a stone since I stopped trying to follow the program, and I am still half a stone lighter than before I started on the “I can make you thin” approach. UPDATE: I used the wrong numbers here, I lost 22lb in 5 months (January to May 2005) and have put back on 5lb since then.

Rubbish!

The online consultation feature is a chat room – with nearly 600 people on it and constant bleeping and pinging as users join and leave the room. I was on for 5 minutes, and there was not a single message apart from join and leave messages. Junk. I hope Sky sorts it out for next week.

Update from Sky Ones web page…

Huge Apologies….
Due to the enormous number of users logging on to join tonight’s webchat with Paul McKenna (the largest response skyone.co.uk has ever had), we experienced severe technical difficulties.
We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused and will be rescheduling this webchat for a later date.
Many thanks for your patience,
www.skyone.co.uk

Yes.

I’ve reread the book, got the four golden rules embedded in my skull and am ready to go. The only thing that I haven’t managed to fit in is listening to the CD again, this will have to be done tomorrow. I am wondering whether to weigh myself to guage how well I am doing. I really don’t see the point, and it doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the “I can make you thin” approach. It just seems silly not being able to say “Yes, I lost 3 stone”!

The karate lesson yesterday was quite tough. No point taking it easy, I suppose. I am feeling sore in a few places as a consequence.

Swimming today was quite good, I did a half mile straight off. I intend to ramp it up to a mile over the next couple of weeks. My new goggles I got for Christmas were excellent.

This weekend will see a restart in my attempts to control my weight.

I found Paul McKenna “I Can Make You Thin” very easy to follow last year, and I still don’t really know why I fell off the wagon. So, I will be restarting it, hopefully inspired and motivated by the new TV series on Sky One, imaginatively called “Paul McKenna Can Make You Thin”!!

Also, I will be restarting a more serious drive toward physical fitness by increasing my swimming sessions back to three times a week ready for this years Swimathon.