The Times
London, UK
8 January, 2007
Paul McKenna reprogrammed my mind to change my long-term food habits
Sarah Vine
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Paul McKenna. I’d seen his television show, in which 300-odd fatties had lost astonishing amounts of weight, and been impressed. I’d perused his publicity, which is rather intense and a little earnest. But I’d never seen him in the flesh.
I knew a little about the theory of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), though, and I also knew several people who claimed to have benefited hugely from it, whether for smoking, weight loss or that other common modern problem, fear of flying. Of course, being an opinionated bossy-boots, I rather assumed I’d be above his fancy mind-games. How wrong I was.
The first thing to say about McKenna is how charming, not to mention good-looking, he is. Of course I have no objective way of telling whether I truly believe this, since he may well have NLP’d me into thinking it. But it doesn’t matter, because for what he does to work, you have to like him — and the sound of his voice — a lot.
Our session began with me explaining my situation: whenever I go on a diet I lose weight easily enough. The problem is that as soon as I take the brakes off, ie, resume “normal” eating habits, I put it all back on again. My natural weight appears to be 10-15kg (1½-2st) heavier than I should be. I’ve spent the past ten years of my life wrestling with the same problem – and it’s the lard that seems to be winning.
He listened, extremely attentively. Then he explained his theory. Thin people, he explained, eat differently from fat ones. Fat people spend all day thinking about food, fantasising or worrying about it. Then, when they finally get down to the eating bit, they stop thinking altogether. They wolf it down almost unconsciously, absorbing calories unthinkingly.
Thin people, on the other hand, almost never think about food — until they’re hungry. At which point they eat. But they do so slowly, deliberately and, most importantly, consciously. Which means that they stop as soon as they’ve had enough — unlike fat people, who continue long after their body’s basic calorific need has been satisfied.
It’s not so much what you eat, then, it’s how you eat that matters. And that is what McKenna aims to change. Ultimately it’s about re-programming your mind so that you eat more slowly, savour your food more and learn to stop when you’re full. A bit like that old thing of counting to ten when you are in danger of losing your temper with someone.
But first McKenna wanted to deal with a few self-loathing issues. Low self-esteem gets in the way of most things in life, and if you’re prone to comfort eating like I am it can be a vicious circle. He made me stand in front of a full-length mirror. Then he asked me to describe all the things I disliked about myself. So I started with my hair and carried on, apace, all the way to my toes.
Then he did the most extraordinary thing. He repeated the whole lot back to me, but in a very silly, mocking voice — a sort of Donald Duck voice. It made me laugh; it also reduced my worries to what they are: ridiculous irrelevances. Of all the things we did in my meeting with him, that has stayed with me the most. Now, when- ever I start to navel-gaze, I hear McKenna taking the mickey. It’s very liberating — and it also stops me from feeling sorry for myself, and comfort eating.
We did some aversion therapy, which involved me confessing my biggest food weakness (toast and Marmite) and him making me substitute feelings of longing and deliciousness with feelings of repulsion. This was so successful that I began to feel physically sick. From now on, somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain, toast and Marmite will always be associated with cat fur-balls.
Finally, he hypnotised me. I was slightly dreading this. In the event, though, I really enjoyed it. It was incredibly relaxing, like having a really good (mental) massage. I was conscious throughout, although my perception of time was somewhat warped (I felt I’d been under about ten minutes; in fact it was more like 20).
I left McKenna’s office feeling refreshed, excited, slightly bewildered and clutching a copy of his self-hypnosis CD, which I was to listen to every day for the next three months. I was also faintly wary of what might happen when I next came into contact with food.
The following few days were remarkable. I found myself chewing my food more slowly, savouring each mouthful, putting my knife and fork down in between bites, and generally doing all the things we had talked about. I also had a wonderfully liberating feeling of powerlessness, as though McKenna’s hand were still on my shoulder, stopping me from raiding the biscuit tin or reaching for that extra potato.
The CD took a bit of getting used to. McKenna has this mellifluous, transatlantic drawl on it (not evident in real life) and there’s a lot of whale song and generally annoying New Age tinkling. However, after a week of listening I got used to all that, and really began to enjoy my sessions. As the effects of McKenna the person began to wear off, McKenna the CD took over, and night after night, at 7.05pm (just after I’d put the children to bed and before cooking supper) I’d spend 25 minutes effectively meditating on becoming less fat.
Since seeing McKenna, my weight has very slowly and very steadily fallen. I’m down 10kg, with five to go. To be honest, if I never kick the last five, I’m not going to worry too much.
The important thing is that I, and not the lard, appear to have the upper hand. Sure, there are times when I revert to my bad old ways, but when that happens I just plug in my iPod and download another fix of McKenna whale song, after which I feel much better.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspa...2533746,00.html
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It's not what you eat but how you eat...
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