Anyone else see "I Can Make you Thin"?

[abrannan]

I caught this show on TLC earlier this week. Essentially, it's a season-long review of Paul McKenna's book (Also titled, I can make you thin). The presentation is a little cheesy/infomercially, but it looked interesting enough to Season-pass on my Tivo.


The first episode, he presented his 4 Golden rules to eating:


1. Eat when you are hungry - Do not starve yourself, it encourages your body to store fat (Survival mode, as I've named it elsewhere on this site).

2. Eat what you like - Eating needs to be an enjoyable experience, so eat the foods you like, not the foods you feel you *should* eat

3. Eat Consciously - This is the biggie, and the toughest part of the golden rules. Basically, when you are eating, you should be focused only on eating. No TV, no computer, no driving, etc. Put your knife and fork down between each bite, and chew slowly, savoring the experience of the food. The theory here is that slowing down your eating will give you body time to signal that you are full, and focusing on eating, you'll be better able to "hear" the full signal from your body

4. When you are full, stop eating - Simple enough, right? Break the habits of the "clean plate club" and listen to your body instead of your eyes. To illustrat this, he took a group of people at a diner. On day one, they had breakfast (a basic "grand Slam" type with eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast). Day one, all of the cleaned their plate. On Day two, he had them put blindfolds on to eat, and they ate about half as much as the day before, because they were going by their stomachs, not their eyes.


So all in all, nothing really groundbreaking, but that's not a bad thing. A lot of the things he said reverberated with me and my habits around eating, so I'm going to watch a bit more of the show, which promises to cover cravings, and motivation. I'll try to post recaps of the show as I remember, or if there's something particularly interesting.

[SSC]

I did catch the program, and if I may, I might shed a little bit of insight on each of his main points.

1. Eat When You Are Hungry - This is a pretty good rule, because it's always good to keep your metabolism up. The consensus I generally hear for the average person is once every 1.5 (if trying to maintain weight or gain it) to every 2.5/3 hours or so. Everyone's heard the concept of keeping the metabolic rate up, so I won't dwell on it too much. I will say, though, that if I ate when I was hungry I'd have a steak and pile of vegetables sitting in front of me for 16 hours a day, so don't take it TOO literally.

2. Eat What You Like - Yes and no? As long as a person is eating foods that are generally good for them, and provide nutritional components as well, sure, eat what you like. If what you like is mashed potatoes with gravy, a side of mac-n-cheese, and some ice cream to finish it off, then this rule isn't quite as good.
A lot of people I know steer away from fruits, because of the carb-cutting crazy that's still abundant for whatever reason in today's dieting suggestions. Well, this is bad. Eat lots of fruits, veggies, whole-wheat and grain breads, and of course, meats. Scientists are finding more and more benefits of slightly heightened protein consumption compared to the 50ish grams a day they originally suggested. Anyway - as I've said before, a cheat meal once a week or so (depending on what you do as far as exercise and clean dieting are concerned all the other days,) isn't too bad, but try not to get too carried away with your Get-Out-of-Jail Free Day.

3. Eat Consciously - This is probably the best rule of the bunch, really, IMHO. I recently saw a show (not sure which) about a study conducted on people in a movie theatre. They were all given stale popcorn to eat, and they all ate it, and some even got refills. Afterwards, the camera crew and movie theatre staff confronted the people and explained to them what happened. They gave them some of the popcorn they had, and some real popcorn. The difference, (from what the viewer could see,) was immense. The people didn't even realize how un-good their version of the popcorn was. In other words - when you eat meals, make sure you try to focus on your food and the way your body feels when you eat it, instead of, as said, watching television, movies, driving, etc.

4. When You're Full, Stop Eating - I have a personal difference in my lifestyle from this rule, but for the average person, this is a great rule. I think it really ties into #3, because when you're concentrating on your food and how your body feels, you'll be much more aware of the limits of your appetite. One general tip I can give, (that I think was in Abrannan's post?) is to eat slower. The slower you eat, the more likely you're going to be feel fuller. I can't remember any scientific reason for this, and I'm not going to find a link, but it may be something interesting to try.

[xstatic]

I saw the program on tv while I was flipping through the guide the other night but the title looked kinda cheesy so I didn't turn it on. I actually prefer to watch that show on BBC You Are What You Eat. It's motivating for me to watch all the crap that those people eat and what has happened to their bodies. Scare tactics. Gotta love em!

[abrannan]

shescreamedclaudio said:

I will say, though, that if I ate when I was hungry I'd have a steak and pile of vegetables sitting in front of me for 16 hours a day, so don't take it TOO literally.

Well, that's okay, according to his program, as long as you follow the other golden rules as well. I think you'd find that you wouldn't have that pile for as long as you think if you're eating consciously and stopping once sated.

2. Eat What You Like - Yes and no? As long as a person is eating foods that are generally good for them, and provide nutritional components as well, sure, eat what you like. If what you like is mashed potatoes with gravy, a side of mac-n-cheese, and some ice cream to finish it off, then this rule isn't quite as good.

And actually, again, combined with the other golden rules, it's not that bad. High fat foods are a) filling, so if you're eating consciously, you're liable to stop sooner; and b) largely unsatisfying, so again, eating consciously turns you off of those foods earlier. He even mentions in the show that you're liable to find your tastes changing as you pay more attention to the senstions and flavors of eating. He used fast food as an example. Fast food is almost universally high sugar and high salt, which, especially if eaten quickly, gives you a sort of "high" (Well documented in Supersize Me). But if you really start paying attention to the food you're eating, and slow it down a bit, you'll find that the food is highly unsatisfying, even repulsive to some.

4. When You're Full, Stop Eating - I have a personal difference in my lifestyle from this rule, but for the average person, this is a great rule. I think it really ties into #3, because when you're concentrating on your food and how your body feels, you'll be much more aware of the limits of your appetite. One general tip I can give, (that I think was in Abrannan's post?) is to eat slower. The slower you eat, the more likely you're going to be feel fuller. I can't remember any scientific reason for this, and I'm not going to find a link, but it may be something interesting to try.

Basically it has to do with how long it takes your body to process the "full" signal. From what research I've read, it can take up to 20 minutes for your body to signal "I'm full" from the time you finish eating.

[dancingbear]

xstatic said:

I actually prefer to watch that show on BBC You Are What You Eat.

That is a good show. I'll try to catch this one too, but I don't know.