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 would normally not have thought twice about it but when I thought about what I actually wanted to eat I knew that my body didn’t really want fish and chips…I just thought I did. I opted for a walk in to town and a sandwich from my local Deli shop. I found that I enjoyed the walk and my lunch. So I have done well today in enjoying the bit of exercise and doing my fat intake some good by not getting drawn into fish and chips.

I simply got up this morning, my wife was already dressed, so I commented to her if her clothes felt any looser on her. To be honest she is thin anyway, but reckons that she needs to lose just half a stone to lose that bit of weight that she isn’t happy with. Plus I suppose that if you only normally weigh 8 and a half stone, an extra half a stone is similar to me putting on another stone. Anyway her clothes did feel more comfortable on her. She then asked if my clothes felt any better on me… but for some reason I have decided that I am just going to be a slob at work so I have only been wearing tracky bottoms and t-shirts so it’s hard to tell.

Then I get the “Well, why don’t you just weigh yourself then?” remark…. the temptation was there then. I was pretty much convinced that I wouldn’t have lost anything…but at the back of my mind I really hoped that I had lost some or else what would I do next if this diet that makes so much sense wasn’t working for me. But Paul McKenna said not to weigh yourself…hmmm I wonder why, is it because his diet doesn’t actually work and he’s just trying to get enough book sales from the SkyOne show before people realises he’s a fake?? Or was it so that you stop yourself being obsessed about every ounce and pound?
Anyway to my surprise I was down to 17 stone 9lbs, which I am very pleased with. I may only have lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks but if this is a lifestyle change that I will stick to, it will enable me to lose weight gradually and keep the weight off long term. Whenever I have been on diets before, most recently the Atkins diet, you do get fast weight loss but you know that it can’t be healthy for you and certainly isn’t maintainable without the lifestyle change as well.

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.

Often people who are overweight and not happy about how they look, also have low self esteem. They then help themselves feel better by eating more, therefore suffering from emotional eating. It’s a vicious circle that I want to get out of. I wouldn’t class myself as a particularly big emotional eater but I do suffer from a poor self image. I am certainly not what Paul McKenna classes as a binge eater and I don’t have the midnight feast that some of the people had on the show.

He used a technique that has been proven to be successful in treating fears and phobias, and the same technique can be used to gain control over food. It is to do with the direction that desire travels in your body and then to reverse the cycle. For instance if you see a chocolate cake the desire starts in your stomach and moves up into your mouth. This can be represented as a clockwise circle in red, spinning inside your body. Yeh I know this all sounds a bit wierd. The theory is that this red clockwise circle of desire continues spinning, but taking control you move it out of the body. You have to sort of spin your hand around with the motion of the circle. Then to regain control and to stop the binge eating you change the circle to blue and make it spin in the opposite direction. Therefore taking the desire from your mouth back to your stomach where it all started. By spinning the blue wheel faster and faster this surpresses the desire. This is an alternative technique to the tapping one that Paul McKenna shown everyone last week.

One thing I have found is that the more people I explain the diet to the more confident in the diet I become. This probably has something to do with people’s reactions to the Golden Rules. It’s as if when the penny drops with them that what we are being taught by Paul McKenna has to work, I grow in strength. I am now just waiting to be able to weigh myself to see how quickly this diet will work and get me down to mt target weight.

I was also pleased with myself today as I have avoided going to the Deli for a few weeks as I had got into a habit of buying the same amount of food. Normally a large sandwich, a pork pie and a bit of cake, which I would have no problem before the diet eating for lunch. Today I knew that a sandwich would be enough for me and it was.