Diet Trials : Paul McKenna

It’s not very often that we in the UK get to try something out before the USA, whether we are talking technology or pharmaceutical… but with Acomplia we are ahead of the field. Acomplia has been available in the UK since June either online or prescribed my your doctor. As many of the Diet Trials readers have shown, taking Acomplia is straight forwards with minimal side effects and best of all it actually works to help with weight loss.

As the USA has an obesity problem worse than the UK it is clear why people are trying to buy it from the UK to send to the USA. There has been though a clamp down by the US Customs and if you are in the USA there is a risk that your shipment of Acomplia will get seized, as in the USA, Acomplia is still an unapproved drug. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still have to give Acomplia the green light before it can be prescribed in the USA.

This is something that I am trying at the moment.

I have for the past few weeks been back on the Atkins diet in a vain attempt to slim down a bit for when I go away at the weekend. I must say that I have tried to be strict with what I am eating but sometimes it’s hard to cope.

For instance what do you do if you are out visiting a stately home (like you do with your family on a weekend) and it gets to lunchtime. The only food available to eat in the cafe/restaurant is the typical snack food such as sandwiches, crisps, cakes etc. So the other weekend I slipped up. Yes, I should have taken some food with me but I’m not that organised. I have also been having the odd glass of white wine in the evening as it’s been so hot, which probably isn’t helping. I am though in ketosis so it must be working.
So anyway it was suggested to me that some of my excess weight may be caused by water retention. This does occur in the female side of my family, so maybe it happens to me as well. So yesterday I started taking water tablets, cautiously at first as I was slightly apprehensive. Anyway yesterday I needed to go to the toilet a few more times than normal and lost 4lbs. maybe then I do need to get rid of my excess water?

I am feeling very pleased with myself this week as I have passed the month stage of not smoking and I am heading towards 5 weeks. I generally feel so much better for not smoking and I am glad that I am no longer dependant of cigarettes. I have stopped before about 7 years ago but I didn’t remember it to be as difficult as it has been. But I suppose it’s like severe pain, your body doesn’t let you remember how much it hurt.

The first 3 weeks were hard, and there was one time that I was in the pub and got really desperate for a cigarette that I nearly bought some or at least borrowed one from a friend. Thankfully I didn’t which made me stronger that I had managed to cope. The next time in the pub it didn’t really bother me as much…it got to the stage where the smell of smoke is more disgusting than appealing.

So all in all doing well. I have also noticed, which you do when you stop smoking and deny when you do smoke, is how bad smokers smell. Their clothes and breath…and to think that’s what I used to smell like.

Well I have got passed the 2 week mark on the no smoking front, and I am on Day 15.

I challenged myself last night when we went to the pub. This is probably the worst place to go if you have stopped smoking to go to your local pub where there are people drinking and smoking. I always associate having a drink with having a cigarette…the two just go hand in hand as it were.

Anyway surprisingly I was fine and both myself and my wife didn’t feel like we really needed a cigarette, which was really good. It’s also quite a boost when you tell people that you have stopped smoking and they automatically give you some support. What I found last time when I gave up smoking about 8 years ago was that you become a real anti smoker and are the first one to preach to smokers about what a disgusting habit it is.

I also bought the Allen Carr, quiting smoking book, but didn’t get a chance to read it as one of my friends who works in the next door office building saw it and borrowed it to see if he could quit. So we shall see if it works because I don’t need it now, I am just very interested in what sort of thing he says in the book.

So how has the no smoking gone?

It is Day 12 today and so far so good…. sort of. I’d forgotton how hard giving up smoking can be at times. Generally I am finding it OK, but there are certain times of the day that I have the craving for a cigarette.

I must admit that I did crack momentarily at the weekend, but I was in Germany and had just watched England get knocked out of the World Cup Quarter finals. But after a couple of cigarettes late at night that was enough for me to realise that I didn’t want to carry on the next day.

The main problem for me is the time when I am at work and need to have a break from my computer. Before I would go outside with one of the lads who also smoke and have a cigarette. This would enable me to think of what I needed to do next and to clear my head a bit. Almost allow me to organise the next part of my day. My life at the moment is a bit stressful as well since I am having my kitchen ripped out and replaced so my house is a bit upside down. But I am proud that it’s Day 12 and I have only lapsed momentarily. It will get easier I know it.

One of the Diet Trials readers, has just mentioned to me that to help stop smoking the Allen Carr book works. Even though I have stopped I am tempted to buy it all the same. My sister in law went to one of his seminars to support a friend who wanted to give up and ended up giving up herself the next day. Powerful stuff.

I posted an article back in February about a new wonder drug called Acomplia or Rimonabant and how it was near to getting approval.

It was released yesterday that Britain was the first country in the EU to be granted a license for Acomplia. Acomplia is meant to be able to reduce body weight by up to 10% and targets the parts of the body that control appetite, weight and energy use. It works by suppressing the appetite and therefore you reduce what you eat.

They are expecting that the drug will cost around £55 per month for the treatment and this could cost the NHS billions. At the moment Acomplia will only be available privately at first. Acomplia is manufactured by Sanofi Aventis and they believe that the cost of providing Acomplia to the obese population is far less than the cost the governments already have to spend on obesity.

The trials of Acomplia / Rimonabant have been very successful and a quarter of those tested lost over 10% of their body weight, and half of them lost more than 5%.

I could do with some Acomplia, not only to lose weight but it is also meant to help you give up smoking. Can you imaging the UK in 10 years time, all these non smoking, slim beings….marvellous.

My body is probably going crazy wondering what is happening to it. Firstly at the beginning of the year I start dieting and trying to train my body to follow the Golden Rules set out by Paul Mckenna, then I try to do a bit of crash dieting by going on the Atkins Diet for a while.

A few weeks ago I started to go to the gym to help me get some exercise to try to lose some weight but also in an attempt to get healthier, then on Friday, I stopped smoking!

So this is Day 5 without a cigarette and so far I am doing ok. I can’t say that it’s easy, nor can I say that it’s something that I really wanted to do. But having given up smoking before I know you always feel this way in the first few weeks. I had smoked for most og my adult life, then 7 years ago stopped before my wife and I decided to have kids. I only started again a couple of years ago as I found that when I was going to conferences that the crowd was very heavily into to smoking and after a few beers you get the urge. I would then smoke at conferences but not at home, until I make the mistake of coming home once with a few packets of cigarettes I had left over. So that ended up with my wife starting smoking again.

It has been on my mind for a while now to stop smoking especially when the kids are asking why we smoke and then they go off and pretend to smoke candy cigarettes. Not good when this sort of thing happens, plus there are all the health implications involved with smoking. Also I have to pay double the amount of life insurance against my mortgage value because I smoke!

I have not found it too bad so far apart from the fact that I seem to be doing the usual thing of substituting cigarettes for food…. it started off with mints and now I seem to be eating much more. I will have to get this under control very soon but my trip on Thursday to the World Cup will delay this for a few days, but once I get back from Germany I will sort the eating out.

I was back at the gym yesterday morning and it is something that I am really starting to enjoy. I am very motivated now to get fit and healthy, and I am finding that a combination of various diets and the extra exercise is helping me. I suppose when you start nearing the 40 mark you need to buckle down and think about making sure you that you have a good 30 years ahead of you to enjoy all the benefits of working hard.

The trip to the gym on Friday may be a difficult one after the England vs Trinidad & Tobago, especially if we win. We are closing work early so that we can all go up to the pub to watch the match… Come on England!

Well…. it’s been a while since I have posted anything on my blog… mainly due to the fact that I haven’t been up to much on the diet front really.

But in the last few weeks I have been making an effort to eat more healthily, and having the hot weather helps as I am never very hungry when it’s sunny. I am trying to have a fruit salad for lunch at least three times a week and on an evening I am having just meat and salad. I am feeling much better for it too, and have much more energy.

Today I have started as well going to the gym. Hopefully this will be a regular 2 or 3 times a week thing for me and for motivation I am going to the gym with my local pub landlord who also wants to shed a few excess pounds. No doubt tomorrow after my work out in the gym today I will be suffering! The one thing that I have always had a problem with when I have dieted before is the exercise part of it, and I have been saying for years that I need to get myself to a gym regularly. It is definately much easier to say it than actually do it. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

I started the diet again on Monday… still bearing the Paul McKenna diet in mind but using the Atkins again to lose some weight fast. I know it’s not the best way to go to keep the weight off long term but it makes me happier when I can see the weight coming off quickly.

On Monday I was 17 stone 8 pounds, and this morning I am 17 stone 2 pounds. So not bad to lose 6 pounds in 3 days. This is all down to just eating scrambled egg for breakfast, a salad for lunch and a low carb meal in the evening. I haven’t found either that I am hungry between meals which is good as that always gets me. I plan to stick to this for a few weeks now.

The lowest I have been this year is 17 stone 1 pound which was a few weeks ago. I was so close to getting below the 17 stone mark and being 16 stone something. My target weight is still 15 stone, and I started the year at being 18 stone. We are nearly 4 months into the year and I am happy with my achievements. I am not too happy about the yo-yo dieting that I have been doing but I am having to fit the dieting in with work, travelling around the world, socialising and family life.