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My four golden rules to help you lose weight: Forget dieting - just listen to your body, says PAUL McKENNA

Published: 17:44 EST, 29 December 2013 | Updated: 07:07 EST, 30 December 2013

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Four Golden Rules: Your digestion will begin to work better and you'll feel more energised and relaxed

When I suggested 15 years ago that diets were a waste of time — and that the key to weight loss was in the mind — I felt like a lone voice in the wilderness.

Now there’s an army of doctors who agree.

Researchers have shown that 70 per cent of people who diet actually end up heavier than they were before.

And, recently, a study at Yale, one of the leading universities in the U.S., concluded that obesity should be treated as a behavioural problem.

Indeed, every person I’ve ever met with a serious weight problem has dieted their way to obesity.

How? Well, when people are continually counting calories, avoiding carbs or whatever the diet demands, they’re essentially starving themselves.

And the moment they stop dieting, their poor, starved bodies go into overdrive to fight back against months of deprivation.

In other words, dieting slows the metabolism and puts the body into starvation mode.

As soon as you stop severely restricting the amount you eat, the body tries to recover from starvation by laying down fat.

So when I see fat on a person’s body, I see not only layers of frustration and anger, but years of dieting and getting bigger.

Diets, I passionately believe, have had their day. For the past 15 years, I’ve advocated a different approach — and two independent studies have verified that it works for seven out of ten people who use it.

With my new approach to emotional eating, I believe we can make the success rate even higher.

You don’t have to buy low-fat chemical substitutes for real food. There’s no guilt, no calorie-counting, and there are no forbidden foods.

All you need to do is use this system, which is a process of psychological and behavioural change, and listen to signals from your body.

Today, we’re going to look at my four Golden Rules for losing weight gradually, naturally and healthily.

If you’re serious about wanting to shed extra weight, I’d like you to follow them deliberately every single day — and, in a little while, they’ll become habitual.

Your digestion will begin to work better and you’ll feel more energised and relaxed.

And that, in turn, will help you to learn from your emotions and experience them differently.

GOLDEN RULE 1: WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY, EAT!

Real hunger builds up gradually. It's clear, persistent and physical

Not sure whether you’re hungry or not? Then you’re not really hungry.

Real hunger builds up gradually. It’s clear, persistent and physical.

It’s not the feeling you get when you walk past a restaurant or a sweet shop.

Nor is it a response to being upset, to fear, to embarrassment, to boredom or to anger. Real hunger is a simple physical feeling in your stomach, which is worth waiting for.

It means that your food is really necessary, so you can enjoy it to the full.

And because your body truly wants it, it tastes better, too.

GOLDEN RULE 2: EAT WHAT YOUR BODY WANTS

Wild animals seek out the foods they need to get the right quantities of vitamins, minerals, salts, proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

They don’t think about it; they just follow their instincts. Our bodies have the same instincts — but, unfortunately, our thought processes are so fast that we often let them override slower, less articulate signals.

So, if you pass a picture of a hamburger and suddenly think ‘Oh, I’m hungry’, that’s your brain’s reaction to the associations evoked by that picture. In fact, your body may not be hungry at all.

You need to take a few moments to check what your body really wants. Do you really feel genuine hunger in your belly?

The important thing is to trust the wisdom of your own body. When you tune into this, you’ll not only eat less overall, but you’ll also find yourself eating differently and making healthy food choices.

Above all, don’t use food for its side-effects, such as comfort and distraction, regardless of what nourishment your body actually needs.

GOLDEN RULE 3: ENJOY EVERY MOUTHFUL

The moment that any aspect of eating isn't fully enjoyable, simply stop

The principle of conscious eating has been investigated by more than a dozen scientific studies all around the world.

All of them have shown that it reduces the amount people eat.

But in my book, that’s not quite enough. It’s vitally important that you also enjoy every mouthful. So, the moment that any aspect of eating isn’t fully enjoyable, simply stop.

And don’t try to do anything else. Don’t watch TV, read a book, browse the net, drink alcohol, solve crossword puzzles, drive a car, walk down the street or make phone calls. Just eat and NOTHING ELSE.

When you focus your consciousness completely on the process, every single time you eat, three things happen.

First, you eat less. As you take time to experience and enjoy your food fully, you end up eating more slowly. That means you approach your satiety point — the feeling of fullness — more slowly and you notice it more easily, so you stop eating sooner.

Second, you make new food choices. As you become more aware of your response to food, you’ll find that your tastes change and you gravitate towards foods with a greater variety of flavours and textures.

People who eat swiftly and unconsciously tend to eat foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt. Why? Because the tastes are so brash and bold that they’re noticeable in spite of the fact that you’re not giving the food your full attention.
Third, because you’re paying more attention to your eating, really noticing everything about how it feels and tastes, you enjoy your food more. That will naturally slow down your eating and reinforce the habit of eating slowly.

Chew each mouthful of food 20 times — yes, 20. Use that time to savour it like a gourmet and enjoy the texture and flavours to the full.

The body, however, is so good at automating processes that it’s very common for people to use only a very small part of their consciousness when they eat.

And that habit of unconscious eating is how people lose track of their body’s natural weight-control system in the first place.

This rule breaks the habit of unconsciousness by resetting your relationship with food. It respects the wisdom of your body, and lets you hear the signals it’s sending you about what you really need to eat and how much.

So always sit down and pay attention to your food, even if you’re just having a snack or a bar of chocolate.

GOLDEN RULE 4: STOP WHEN YOU’RE FULL!

A feeling of satiety is your body’s natural signal that you’ve had enough food.

Emotional eating, however, is not controlled by hunger or satiety — it’s just an activity to mask emotions.

Therefore, it causes people to ignore the signals. If they’re stressed, distracted or eating on auto-pilot, they can easily miss them. If they’re eating to change how they feel, they may not have been hungry in the first place.

People who emotionally overeat may also have completely forgotten what the satiety signal feels like because they’re so used to ignoring it. They’re the ones who don’t stop until they feel stuffed or uncomfortable or have a pain in their stomachs.

In the modern, developed world, we’re continually presented with more food and more opportunities to eat than we could possibly need — so knowing when to stop eating is a vital skill. If we don’t relearn this skill, we’re literally killing ourselves with too much food.

So, stop eating as soon as you even think you’re full. Wait a few minutes. If you genuinely feel hungry again after five minutes, then eat. If not, don’t. It really is that simple.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP

Psychologists have discovered that people who prayed before they ate ended up consuming less food.

In short, prayer helped these people to lose weight.

Now, I’m very much of the opinion that a person’s religion — or lack of it — is their own business and not mine. But this study on prayer didn’t explore people’s faith or beliefs.

Giving in

On January 1, 2012, 2.6 million people started diets, but five days later studies found that 92 per cent had given in to comfort eating

Of course, the very word ‘prayer’ seems indelibly linked with religion. But, at the most basic level, prayer is asking for help from some source other than your own conscious mind.

People pray to different gods, to saints, to gurus, to stars, stones or ancestors.

Whomever or whatever they pray to, many requests are the same: please do something extra to help, beyond what I can achieve on my own.

So I looked at the study on prayer and experimented with its basic structure, which is asking for help from something other than your conscious mind. And I discovered that it works even if you don’t know whom or what you’re addressing.

If, before you eat, you ask for help from someone or something beyond your conscious self to eat consciously, enjoy your food and stop when you’re hungry, you’ll be more successful.

Try it. Every time you eat, just before you go to put anything in your mouth, ask for the help to eat mindfully from someone or something beyond you.

As you get used to doing this, you’ll gradually relax.

That in turn helps you eat more slowly, which helps you both to enjoy your food more and stop eating when you’re full.

AND FINALLY . . .

Emotional eating has caused you to eat foods which you don't need at times when your body didn't need it

By its definition, emotional eating is randomly related to the real nutritional needs of your body.

It has caused you to eat foods which you don’t need at times when your body didn’t need it.

And when your eating patterns are irregular, you’re more likely to eat snacks, which just adds to the body’s confusion.

I suggest, therefore, that you do a little experiment and see if you can discover an eating routine that suits your body.

It could be three meals a day, but it doesn’t have to be.

For example, some people eat little and often; others eat one big meal and one small one.

Lifestyle changes mean that it is unusual for a family to sit down and eat together at the same time every day. Plus, more people live on their own and eat out frequently.

Many fit their eating around a busy schedule of work, study, leisure and family commitments, so the time of day at which they eat is constantly being shifted.

I meet mums at my seminars who make a real effort to ensure their children eat regular, healthy meals but never actually get to sit down, relax and eat properly themselves.

Often they just snack from their children’s plates. Their children are well nourished, but the mothers’ diets suffer and they end up putting on weight.

There’s another common problem. Although we’re surrounded by advertising, restaurants, street food, shops and takeaways — all constantly trying to sell us food — it’s more and more difficult to eat well. There are simply too many choices.

Taking charge of your eating again will stop you being a victim of corporate advertising.

You may well eat less than before, but every single mouthful will be enjoyable.

Of course, old habits can die hard if you’ve been eating without thinking for years.

If you need extra help, my new book contains a CD with a track called Listen While You Eat — which you should play at least once a day.

Extracted from Freedom From Emotional Eating by Paul McKenna, to be published by Bantam on January 2, £12.99.

DO THIS SIMPLE EXERCISE WHENEVER YOU FEEL GREEDY

At first, it can be difficult to untangle emotions that have been suppressed by emotional eating

I would like to show you a very effective exercise that brings your attention quickly into your body.

Whatever is happening, whatever you’re feeling, it’s a way of pausing and refreshing yourself.

It allows you to slow down your emotional experience and start to make sense of what you’re feeling.

At first, it can be difficult to untangle emotions that have been suppressed by emotional eating.

But this exercise clarifies your attention so you can begin to sort them one at a time.

Practise it every day for a week, then return to it whenever you want. It’s particularly rewarding to do it whenever you feel an impulse to over-eat.

1. Sit on a chair with your feet flat on the floor.

2. Pay attention to your feet. Notice the feeling of your shoes, socks or whatever you’re wearing. Feel your heel and the ball of your foot on the floor. Notice what you feel in your toes. Feel the whole of both feet.

3. Now, saying the number ‘one’ to yourself in your head, take a slightly deeper in-breath and pull that awareness up to your knees. Notice your ankles and shins and calves and all the way up to your knees, so you are aware of the whole of your lower legs. Carry on breathing normally.

4. When you’re ready, say the number ‘two’ to yourself and with a slightly deeper in-breath pull your awareness up to your waist, so that you can feel all of your legs and your thighs and bottom resting on the chair. Carry on breathing normally. Your awareness may travel up the skin and soak inwards, or up the bones and spread outwards. Either way is fine.

5. Next, say the number ‘three’ to yourself and, with a slightly deeper in-breath, pull that awareness up to your shoulders. You may be more aware of one part of you than another. That’s fine. Let your awareness soak through the whole of your body. Carry on breathing normally.

6. Next, with the number ‘four’ and another in-breath, pull that awareness up from your neck over your chin, your cheeks, your ears and your eyebrows to the very top of your head. Carry on breathing normally and notice a gentle, overall feeling in the whole of your body. You may feel tension or emotions in some places — just let your awareness spread through those places and continue through every part of you.

7. Then, with the number ‘five’, and this time a slightly deeper out- breath, double your awareness down from the top of your head to your shoulders. Let it pass over your forehead, through your head, over your face and down your neck to your shoulders.

8. Next, with the number ‘six’, and again a deeper out-breath, double it down to your waist, running like a ripple through your torso, along your arms to your fingertips and down to your waist. Carry on breathing normally.

9. With the number ‘seven’, and again a deeper out-breath, double it down to your knees, soaking through your thighs to your knees.

10. Finally, with number ‘eight’, and again a deeper out-breath, double it down to your feet, through your shins, calves, ankles and toes to the soles of your feet.

11. Sit there for a little while and notice the feeling of the whole of your body, just as it is.

10 STEPS THAT HELPED ME BEAT THE BLUES

Not so long ago, I got very down. I’d been working very hard, a relationship had finished and I’d suffered a number of bereavements. The world looked grey and empty.

In the end, I had help from a friend of mine, Genpo Roshi — a Zen meditation master.

He helped me to realise there was a part of me that had tried to ignore the fact I was becoming depressed. I’d created stress by denying my true feelings.

But when I accepted that my feelings of sadness were real and belonged to me, I was able to feel real grief — and, gradually, the grief became more manageable.

Many of us similarly disown, marginalise or squash down those parts of us that are too uncomfortable to handle.

So Genpo has created a beautiful and simple technique to release those emotions safely and carefully — which I’ve since used many times with other people.

It’s particularly useful for emotional over-eaters, who have often suppressed painful or uncomfortable emotions.

EMOTIONAL BALANCING

1. Close your eyes and place your hands in front of you, slightly apart, palms up.

2. Invite your unconscious mind to identify an emotion that is ‘disowned’, and imagine placing it on your left hand. If you find that difficult, imagine holding a little parcel in that hand that contains the emotion within it.

3. Invite the ‘disowned’ emotion to communicate to you what it wants to say.

4. Listen to whatever comes up.

5. When it’s finished communicating, find the opposite of this emotion (for example, if it’s anger, find peace).

6. Imagine that feeling sitting in your right hand. Let yourself experience it as strongly as you can.

7. Now, move your attention to just above your head and keep it there.

8. With your attention above your head, experience the two emotions at the same time. Keep your attention just above your head so it feels as if you’re looking down on both feelings and experiencing them simultaneously.

9. Remain like this for as long as you need, until you feel a stable and secure sense of balance, which includes your attention and both your emotions. This can take several minutes.

10. When the balance is established, relax and drop your hands. This process allows the emotions to recalibrate and co-exist peacefully. Each one is then available, when necessary, to guide you and inform you.