I have always been a bit sceptical but curious about hypnosis. I suppose it has a lot to do with trust and being able to relax. I was quite confident before I listened to the CD that I would be ok, as I had trust in Paul McKenna. I listened to the CD a few weeks ago so it is not really fresh in my mind what actually happened and because you are in a sort of hypnotic state even straight after listening to it I wasn’t 100% sure what had been said. Being under hypnosis means that messages can be sent to your subconscious that will make you act or think in a different way.

One thing that I must stress for anyone that is contemplating listening to the CD and maybe are a bit sceptical, you are conscious all the way through….just very relaxed. You can hear what is going on and if for what ever reason you needed to break off from the CD you can just get up. When you do finish the CD you feel very awake and alert, not sleepy or anything like that.

Anyway on the CD Paul Mckenna speaks in his usual soft, calm voice and at times. All you have to do is follow the instructions that he tells you to do such as counting down. The counting down part I suppose like our reader suggests is just a way to get us to allow Paul’s suggestions to get into our subconscious. I can’t quite remember what happened during this part as I was so relaxed, but I remember that Paul was reaffirming the details of the book and the SkyOne show. At the end of the CD Paul starts to bring you back into the real world and you wake up fine.

The CD did help me in the early weeks and there were times that I found myself doing something that wasn’t part of the Golden Rules and I found that I heard Paul reminding me of what I should be doing. I really need to play this CD again and perhaps do it each day for a few days to really get the messages into my subconscious again.

I knew that I wouldn’t be surprised by what I saw, as I know that I haven’t been following all of the golden rules. I find the eating what your want when you are hungry really easy…. but I keep neglecting to eat my food consciously and therefore I am finding that I am eating alot more than I was doing in the early weeks.

A few weeks ago on Day 16 I cheated a bit by weighing myself. After the first 2 weeks on the Paul Mckenna diet I had lost 5 pounds which I was really pleased with as I knew it was going to be a slow and steady weight loss. But it was probably around the second week that I started to get a bit complacent and not putting the diet as priority anymore. So this morning when I got on the scales I was still 17 stone 9lbs. Plus I went out last night for a few beers so felt a bit bloated! So I still have lost the 5 pounds and managed to keep it off. It would have been disasterous if I had put any weight on, but I hadn’t.

I must get back on track and get back to how I was in the first few weeks of the diet where I was eating consciously and listening to my body. I am determined to succeed!

On Saturday I went to by niece’s 2nd birthday party and that involved kids party food… you know sausage rolls, sandwiches, sausages on stick, biscuits and cakes. Not what I would call a proper meal. But then again, even though it was hard to eat consciously with young kids raving about around you, I didn’t stuff myself as much as I would have done a few weeks ago before I started on the Paul McKenna diet.

I then arranged for a family meal at my house in the form of a huge Chinese take away. This was a big treat for everyone, all 10 of us, as we haven’t had a Chinese meal together for years. I really just couldn’t help myself having 2 helpings as the food was gorgeous. I think we all felt that we had eaten too much when we had left the table.

This week though I am determined to follow the Golden Rules strictly and make sure that I don’t mess this week up. I don’t know whether me having some failings is helping any of the Diet Trials readers? Maybe it makes you feel better when you slip up to know that someone else is also making a few mistakes. Paul McKenna did say that he would expect a few mistakes to be made, but the crucial thing is not to feel really guilty about them, but to know that your shouldn’t have really done it but then to move on with a fresh day.

So the test will find out whether the rules of the Paul Mckenna diet will change my outlook on having a MacDonalds. I reckon that the reason that the meal does not fill me is because I always eat a MacDonalds really quickly. It’s just something about opening the box up and smelling that juicy burger, you just can’t help stuffing it in as fast as humanly possible. So I will eat my next MacDonald consciously making sure that I smell my food and chew it properly and slowly, taking into account all of the flavours and textures that are part of each bite.

I strongly suspect, knowing that my meal portion sizes have been reduced by eating consciously that the MacDonalds will be able to fill me up if I eat it conscioulsy. I am more concerned to find out what a MacDonalds really tastes like. You are certainly more aware of salt levels in food when you chew it a lot…so I may even find myself being totally put off eating a MacDonalds!

Last night I went out to the pub for a few drinks as on a Thursday we have a baby sitter which allows me and my wife to have a night out. We were hungry when we got to the pub and we often eat there on a Thursday. I scoured the menu for a meal that would satisfy my hunger and the only thing that kept jumping out at me was haddock and chips. I just had to do it.

They were delicious… plus the bonus being for the fat levels in the meal, (even though that fat isn’t an issue on this diet) that they were freshly made at the pub with real potato chips (none of these frozen chips). It wasn’t a greasy meal which I think would put me off a bit now that I am eating consciously. Anyway they were gorgeous and I remembered to follow all of the Golden Rules of the diet. It’s great being able to eat what you want and know that you will be losing weight in a steady and controlled way.

I’m not too sure how I will achieve this yet but I know that I have to keep myself busy and motivated. I think the main thing that I have to do is keep myself into a routine that is similar to a normal week day, so I suppose this means getting up before 9am and having breakfast. Then this will mean that the rest of the day in terms of meal times will fit in with my hunger and the kids.

Also what I need to do is go out for part of the day somewhere so that I’m not just roaming around the house in search of food. I’ll perhaps take the kids on an adventure. An adventure to my kids consists on having a walk to the river and exploring the woods. All good fun though. I’ll have to make sure I give the bread to the ducks and not be tempted to have some myself!

Anyway back to the point of this post. I am still getting used to the fact that I do not need to put so much food on my plate as I would normally do as by eating consciously you do get full quite quickly and then you have to stop eating. Last night was a classic example. We had gone to Marks and Spencers and treated ourselves to an easy meal. What we bought we would have normally eaten in one go but we decided to half it and have the rest tonight. Looking at my plate, I was slightly worried that this wouldn’t fill me up let alone even touch the sides as I was quite hungry.

By eating consciously and slowly I still get surprised as to how little my body actually needs to keep me going. Once I had finished my meal I was full… there was not quite enough on my plate to be able to leave some, which you are meant to try and do, but I still think that this is a waste of food. The only problem is which caused quite a bit of amusement while I ate last night was that when you start a meal you struggle to chew your food a lot as it is very hot and it can burn your mouth if you’re not careful…. then towards the end of your meal it has gone cold and is not too appetising.

Perhaps I should stick to having salads or something that is cold from the start. Or perhaps the whole conscious eating rule is only successful since you stop eating thinking you are full, but it is actually because eating food that has gone cold is fairly awful!

I’m not sure that this is because I am eating consciously and really enjoying the taste of my food, but I find it really hard to work out what I really want to eat. Before starting the Paul McKenna diet I used to eat pretty much anything. Now I fancy certian foods, like yesterday I really could have eated a Hard Rock Cafe Pulled Pork sandwich and fries… but the nearest Hard Rock is about 30 miles away.

I have gone off foods that I would normally love such as currys and pizzas. It just takes me longer mulling around the supermarket trying to tempt myself into buying food that I want to eat.  I have though been able to stay well away from chocolate as I don’t really want to eat that anymore either. Very strange??

As I was up late, breakfast was more like lunch and lunch was more like an afternoon snack. Not sure that my lunch was actually needed though? I did though find that I had more motivation and energy and volunteered to take the kids into town to get a hair cut and and buy a few bits. We live about three quarters of a mile from town and it’s not a bad walk really. So off I went.
It was a real bonus for me as the kids were on best behaviour and I really enjoyed the little outing we had.

Normally at weekends we will have family meals but you then have to fit in with the kids and when you have delayed all of your other meals I was not particularly hungry when we sat down at around 6pm for a meal. I still managed to eat consiously though which is really working and enabling me to make sure I am not eating too much.

The problem with January in my house is that we still have a huge bag full of chocolate bars that were collected up from the dozen or so selection boxes that the kids got for Christmas. It’s just too tempting when there is so many goodies in the cupboards. I probably should skip a few chapters of Paul McKenna’s book and get to the part about craving and comfort eating.

They help to remind me that I am actually on a diet but they give you a bit of a lift. There are visualisation exercises to do but when I get the email at work I feel like a bit of a prat going deep into my imagination…so I save these to do at home. You do feel a bit stupid doing the mind exercises but it does work. Just imagining how you would feel in 3 weeks after you have lost some weight, and how you would feel when you have reached your ideal weight. It is all about getting that feeling of happiness in the way you look, to inspire you to carry on.

I actually went back to the pub at lunchtime, mainly to pay for the food that we forgot to pay for last night, but ended up staying for lunch as I was hungry. Paul McKenna says it is important to eat when you’re hungry so I was following the rules. Again I ate slowly even though at times it was really difficult not to shovel it in like normal, but I managed it. I ended up leaving half of my lunch. The chef there is going to start wondering what’s wrong with his cooking soon!