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The first episode of I Can Make You Thin aired last night on TLC here in the US. The program was popular in the UK although it’s hard to discern how popular due to marketing hype. I was excited about watching it. Beforehand, I didn’t think it would necessarily help me lose weight but I thought it was a great idea and could help a lot of overweight people.

The two hardest parts of eating healthier are focus and motivation. My hope was that this show would give some no-nonsense direction and weekly motivation to people. And although I disagree with some of what was promoted during the program I think it did these two things well.

Background

The host is Paul McKenna. In the United Kingdom he is a best selling non-fiction author, a hypnotist, and a television personality. I’ve never heard of him. After a little research after the program I found he has wrote several personal development books often involving hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming. If it sounds like a pseudo-scientific-approach to self-help, I agree, but I think that when it comes down to helping people the results are all that matter. His credentials are outlined on Wikipedia including some dubious information on his Phd.

The first show in the series presented McKenna’s “Four Golden Rules” and the other shows are supposed to further outline his “weight loss method”.

1. When You Are Hungry, Eat
2. Eat What You Want, Not What You Think You Should
3. Eat Consciously
4. When You Think You Are Full, Stop Eating

Details and my opinion of each:

1. When You Are Hungry, Eat

I think McKenna does a good job here sucking people in and making them like him. The studio audience, made up of primarily obese adults, loved this rule. At times the cheering and laughing was too much and it seemed a lot like an infomercial. As regular followers of this blog can guess this recommendation to eat when you are hungry has to do with metabolism. If you are not eating for long periods of time your body reacts by drastically slowing down your metabolism. Eat small meals every two or three hours is what I and a lot of books recommend. Although Paul didn’t hammer this home too much but I’m sure he will in later shows is that one should not eat if they are not hungry. I think it was noted that next week (March 22) would talk about emotional eating which I’m guess will deal with this point.

2. Eat What You Want, Not What You Think You Should

The overacting audience cheered and pumped their fists with this one and it bordered on repulsive. But if that is what it takes to make Americans healthy, then so be it. The idea here, which I feel he didn’t reiterate enough, was that if you bar certain foods you will do nothing but crave them. And that he thinks you can eat whatever you want as long as you obey the third rule and eat in moderation. I hope he modifies this in later shows but the way he presented it I doubt he will. He coached a woman in her house and helped her throw out the food she didn’t like which included green beans and other healthy foods so that she could eat “pizza and macaroni and cheese”. I don’t necessarily disagree with this because the main reason people are fat in America is they eat too much but anyone who has read nutrition articles knows there are some foods that are simply not healthy. If someone took McKenna’s advice and ate a diet of primarly refined sugar what would happen? They would be hungry every 30 minutes — and follow rule one — and develop diabetes is what would happen. If they eat nothing but french fries and butter? They would get clogged arteries from the trans fats.

I guess what I can really take from this “rule” is that a healthy diet doesn’t necessarily have to exclude your favorite foods. And by doing so it could be easier to stay motivated.

3. Eat Consciously

I thought this tip was very good and well presented. It is something I and many other have a problem with. Leo at zenhabits.net wrote an excellent article about this last year. Eating slowly lets you enjoy food more and gives your stomach a chance to send the signals that tell you you are full before you’ve overeat. McKenna says to put your utensils down after each bite or if, for example, eating a sandwich put it down as you chew. This is great advice. He reassured viewers that at first it would feel very awkward which is how I feel about eating very slowly. McKenna likened it to getting off the freeway — you don’t realize how fast you were going until you are forced to slow way down. I am going to try to put this advice in action this week although most of my meals are protein shakes where this doesn’t really apply — I have a set amount of calories I want to consume and the stuff doesn’t exactly taste great.

4. When You Think You Are Full, Stop Eating

Another good piece of advice which ties all three things together. Although it is not mentioned, there was a study which analyzed American versus French woman. French woman, on average, are much thinner. The researcher found that the French women simply ate a lot less, they ate until they were not hungry instead of until they were full. McKenna’s advice doesn’t go as far as to say “eat until you are not hungry” though, he says to eat until you are full as long as you are doing it slowly. And if you are not sure if you are full you should guess, whatever that means. I think he should have said “if you are not sure, then you are full” but I suppose he is playing good cop so he went the more rosy route. Despite the difference in semantics I agree with this notion. A lot of Americans were raised thinking it was a sin to not clean their plates and that alone has transferred a lot of food from the trash can to our bellies and thighs.

Final verdict
Although I disagree with some details of his tips I think the show is fabulous. It is not trying to sell anything — at least not yet. I hope it works for people, even just a few would be great. Instead of watching people lose weight on transformation shows this one targets the viewer and has to be one of the more useful things to watch on television today.