Based on a quick bit of research on the web I have worked out that on a normal healthy diet I should be consuming between 2000 – 2500 calories a day, a maximum fat intake of 65 grams, max carbohydrate of 300 grams (this seems a lot when you have previously been on the Atkins diet and stuck to 5 grams of carbs each day to start with), Max salt 2.4 grams, and a recommended fibre intake of 65 grams.

So how does my Mcdonalds lunch fair against these recommendations? ….

I would normally have at Mcdonalds a quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, and a large chocolate milkshake.

So my Quarter pounder with cheese has 516 calories, 26.7 grams of fat, 37.5 grams of carbohydrate, 2.75 grams of salt, and 3.7 grams of fibre.

My large fries has 450 calories, 22.5 grams of fat, 56.7 grams of carbohydrate, 0.93 grams of salt (hmmm doubt that, the amount of extra salt they throw on the fries), and 6.3 grams of fibre.

Then to finish off the chocolate milkshake has 516 calories, 13.1 grams of fat, a whopping 85.3 grams of carbohydrate, no salt, and no fibre.

So my lunch consisted of 1482 calories, 62.3 grams of fat, 179.5 grams of carbohydrate, 3.68 grams of salt, and 6.3 grams of fibre. This meal would not really satisfy my hunger and fill me up but it certainly has taken a large portion of the recommended daily intake figures. Now that I have worked this out I feel a lot stronger about staying away from the Mcdonalds in the future.

There is a fish and chip shop in town that has started to do breakfasts and will deliver your order when you like. The menu is pretty standard with sandwiches with various fillings choosing from bacon, egg, sausage etc, then they do a standard breakfast and a “belly buster” breakfast. The belly buster breakfast comprises of 2 sausages, 2 eggs, 3 rashers of bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomato, hash browns and black pudding, followed with toast and tea/coffee….all for about £3.50. Normally I would have gone for one of these especially since a couple of the lads were proving their manhood by having one.

I ordered a bacon and egg sandwich, which arrived and I really enjoyed. Then one of my friends who works on the same business park came over beaming as he had ordered me a belly buster breakfast (not knowing that we had already ordered and eaten). I was really pleased with myself as I turned the free breakfast down even though I got the usual “Go on, go on!”.

Before I started thinking about what I eat with the Paul McKenna diet, I would have had no hesitation at all to eat the belly buster even though I had just had a sandwich. It just goes to show that the Paul Mckenna diet theory is working on me. Afterwards I didn’t feel any desire to have the extra breakfast as I knew that I wasn’t hungry and didn’t need to eat it.

There are lots of Body Mass Index Calculators on the web that make it easier for you to get your BMI. Check out this site to calculate yours.

So I am 6′ 1″ and currently 17 stone 9 pounds (or 247 pounds). My BMI is 32.6. If you are 30.0 and above you are classified as obese. Great! To get to the level of being Overweight, and having a BMI of between 25.0 and 29.9, I need to be 16 stone 3 pounds. To get to the “normal” weight level I need to be 13 stone 7 pounds. Now to me if I was 13 and a half stone I would look really ill.

Paul Mckenna made a very good point about self image, that if we critisise ourselves every day for the way we look, then all of these comments start to add up. We have to reverse this habit by creating a positive self image. He said what we need to do to start this, is when we feel ourselves wanting to say “I’m so fat and ugly” when we look in the mirror, we have to say it in a stupid voice, therefore you can’t take it seriously.

What you must therefore start to do when you look in the mirror is not to say all the bad points that you used to be able to see but, “I accept my face, I accept my chin, I accept my stomach, I accept my legs etc etc”. You must say this in an assertive voice and you will start to feel better about yourself and accept your body.

There are also other ways to improve your self confidence such as to imagine that you are inside the body of someone you aspire to, then look in the mirror. Imagine how they feel when the look in the mirror each day. One thing we must remember is that even though celebrities have very toned, trim bodies, who is to say they like themselves and have a great life. It is just how they are portrayed when they walk down the red carpet. In reality most of the top celebrities are messed up. You have to also imagine a time that you have been paid a compliment and remember how happy and confident you felt.

This is all to do with making sure that when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror that you must associate good memories and good positive feelings with who you are, rather than putting yourselve down all of the time. I’m certainly going to give this a go.

The body’s brain is a very important factor why we suddenly have the urge to eat. If we have the overwhelming urge to eat something sweet or stodgy it is the brain that is urging us to eat foods high in carbohydrates so that it will cause the brain to release serotonin which will help us relax and feel calm. It is a vicious circle as the brain will crave certain high carb foods which will make us feel better due to the chemical released, but then we will want that feeling again.

Another chemical that is released is dopamine, the brain’s pleasure chemical, which causes us to have the great urge for ceratin foods as this can become quite addictive. This sort of answered the reason why I can eat a large bar of Dairy Milk chocolate in one go, totally unconsciously. I am obviously making myself feel better by doing this. It is something I have never really thought about before in this way, but I do have cravings in this sense.

We will never run out of food in reality but this is something that we reveal to our bodies when we go on a diet. Whenever I have gone on a diet, the last couple of years it has been the Atkin’s diet off and on, I have always found that once I stop dieting the weight comes back on and normally more. This is due to the body changing the way it handles the food. If it believes that there is a shortage of food it will take more fat out of the food consumed and make sure it is stored away for a later date. Great.. if only you could tell your brain that actually there is plenty of food, but you have chosen not to eat as much. How much easier would that be?

So how difficult will it be to change the way I think about food to be able to make my self thin… without a diet. Certainly sounds impossible…