I Can Make You Thin, Episode 5

There’s another weight loss show, following the immense success of The Biggest Loser series. Where that show is more about hardcore fitness, and strict adherence to healthier eating, TLC’s “I Can Make You Thin” is about transforming your mind, and the weight loss will follow.

Host Paul McKenna comes across sort of like a TV magician in his presentation, but that’s a part of his self-help zeal. It’s certainly uplifting, and even funny at times. McKenna has four golden rules for eating:

1. When You’re Hungry, Eat!
2. Eat What You Want (Not What You Think You Should).
3. Eat Consciously.
4. When You Think You’re Full, Stop.

It sounds painfully simple, and number two even seems ridiculous on the surface. But in reality what he means is, eating shouldn’t be about punishment.

Episode five of I Can Make You Thin aired Sunday night. The theme centered around confidence and self-esteem. The show talked about the scientific reasoning for why overweight people are stuck in a rut. Basically, when you visualize yourself as “I am fat,” then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since “I’m fat” I can’t do certain exercises, etc. But when the visualization is tweaked a little, to “I am not at my ideal weight” the person sees themselves as being able to change because the real you is the healthy version.

McKenna went through one of his self-help techniques, this time addressing the little voice in your head that says mean things about you. His theme tends to be that you take the negative element and you visualize it in a completely different way, thus transforming your habit.

Last week, it was visualizing the nastiest thing you could think of eating when you are about to give in to your comfort food. So, maybe you see worms instead of spaghetti. Eventually, you begin to associate those foods with the nasty substitute.

In this week’s episode, he took a pretty comical approach to defeating the negative voice in your head: change it to a comical/goofy voice. So, every time you hear that voice you can’t take it seriously. On the surface, it seems like these techniques are sort of ridiculous. But what it’s all about is transforming your involuntary habits.

One particularly striking case was Bevin the lawyer. Here was an attractive woman, who if you were to look at her you would figure maybe she could lose 15 pounds or so. But, she acted like she needed to lose 150. Her self-esteem was what held her back. When McKenna taught her how to transform her negative thoughts, she began to look at herself in the mirror differently.

The results best illustrated what Paul McKenna’s approach is all about: Losing weight is a byproduct of transforming your self-worth. Bevin even said that the 12 pounds that she lost came as a byproduct to her new self-confidence.

Towards the end of this week’s episode of I Can Make You Thin, McKenna took the audience and viewers through an exercise centered around the phrase “I accept myself.” If you can sum up the positive approach that Paul McKenna espouses with one phrase, this is it. You need to work on your mind before your waistline.

Paul McKenna’s techniques are certainly unconventional. He doesn’t talk about specific dietary measures, other than how you approach eating mentally. In fact, he doesn’t tell people that any food is off limits. But, if you follow his golden rules, you can eat sensibly and anything in moderation. The weight loss will follow.