What Paul McKenna teaches in this book is that diets don’t work and whilst your head isn’t in alignment with your desire to be thin, everything is going to work against you. Telling yourself how fat you are and how much you hate yourself simply reinforces in your unconscious mind the word ‘Fat’. In fact that is all it hears and it will fight you tooth and nail to hold on to that keyword fat, as it believes that is what you want, as it is the only word you ever utter in front of the mirror.

Paul explains this in much more depth than I could ever hope to here, but hopefully it gives you the general gist that if you ever want to hope to lose weight and keep it off longterm, you must stop dieting. The key to weightloss is first and foremost what is between your ears.

What also sets this book apart is the CD that comes with it – listen to this at least once a day and it strengthens and supports what you have read in the book. One woman featured in the book, Maureen, lost a total of 18 stone using the CD. I find this absolutely inspiring and you can learn more about this method here.

Many of us are brought up from childhood where we have been told they we are not allowed to leave the table until we finished all the food on our plate. While this was done generally with the best intentions in mind it is not the way that we should look at eating. You don’t need to eat everything that is on your plate.

If you’ve had enough to eat you should stop whether there is more food available or not. You shouldn’t need to get rid of food as these days it is no longer necessary to be concerned with keeping the food fresh as it was in the past. Stop eating and put that excess food into the refrigerator where you can eat it tomorrow.

If you are constantly finding there is additional food left when you are satisfied then you need to reduce the quantities that you are cooking or making available for your meals each day.

It is better to have a little less than too much.

Don’t feel obliged to eat all the food that is placed before you when you’re eating out. Even then you should only eat to feel comfortable and not feel full.

For most people it is a habit to eat everything that is on their plate and this belief has been drummed into them from childhood. Now is a good time to reverse that train of thought.

Where possible put the food on your plate that you intend to eat at any particular meal and then take that plate with the food to the table. This will encourage you to put limits on the amount of food that you will eat. Having additional food available at the table only encourages you to eat more. If it is not in sight you are less likely to feel the need to eat it.

There are many different reasons why people become overweight.

It is not as simple as saying that overweight people just eat too much because there can be any number of psychological reasons that make people want to eat more.

Emotional triggers such as stress, sadness, depression and so on can all make a person want to eat more food.  This is due to the fact that there are certain chemicals in the brain that are linked to both mood and hunger.

Many people associate eating with various different emotions and for this reason they choose to eat more food to make themselves feel better, or happier, or more comforted.

If you feel that this is the reason for your weight problem then it is probably better to get those issues resolved first by seeing a specialist rather than trying to attack the food problem first.

For a lot of people it is habit to over eat and behavioral modification will be the key to weight loss success in these cases.

One of the easiest ways to change your eating behavior is to eliminate any temptations. This is best done at the supermarket by not actually buying foods that are going to cause you a problem.

By not having these low value foods in the house you won’t be tempted to eat them because they won’t be there and this will encourage you to eat better foods and in doing so change your behavior patterns.

This process is made considerably easier if all members of the household will help towards achieving the goal of better eating.

If you do the shopping then you will be able to determine what food is purchased and this will help to make your weight loss easier, and in doing so it will help the nutrition of all members of the household.

It is so make it easier to get by and to stick to a weight-loss program if you have the support of your friends and family.

You could be doing them a favor by getting them involved in your weight loss program particularly if living in the same household where everybody begins to eat better quality foods.

Those people who have the support of others around them when trying to lose weight have a huge advantage over anybody going it alone.

You can encourage one another to get out and exercise together and make a social occasion rather than something that you would prefer not to do.
Go walking in a park or swimming at the beach to exercise and when doing this with friends and family it can be a fun time.

If you are using resistance training as part of your weight loss program then it is good to have a training partner to help spur you on to better performances and also in the event of using heavy weights to be there for the safety as a spotting partner.

More often than not more than one person in the household will be overweight because eating habits tend to depend a lot on the foods that are purchased each week so getting everybody involved in the weight-loss program will generally see the purchase of better foods and all members of the home can have an overall change in attitude towards food for the whole household.

It can be extremely difficult for the person losing weight if there are people around them who appear to be eating all and sundry as they like with little concern for their own weight.

Many weight loss experts suggest that surrounding yourself with people who don’t have a weight problem and eat good wholesome meals all the times will actually help to encourage you to change your eating habits and fall more into line with what they regard as normal.

That four letter word ‘diet’ brings about all sorts of different emotions in people and more often than not those emotions tend to be negative. To most people a diet is a struggle. It is something that they would rather not have to do. People only do on diets because they know that they have to do something about their weight and their health. It is a choice made out of necessity.

As soon as you believe you are on a diet you also become aware of the fact that you are going to get off it again and what do you expect will happen when you get off the diet that is helping you to get in shape?

For most people getting off a diet means reverting back to their former lifestyle and that is the lifestyle that got them overweight in the first place.

What you really should be doing is not dieting but making lifestyle changes because lifestyle changes are something that you can continue with forever. If you make lifestyle changes that result in healthy body weight then you will maintain that body weight for as long as you maintain that lifestyle. It is not something that you will get off at the end of achieving a result. A lifestyle is a way that you intend to live for the long-term and that is how you will remain in good shape for the long-term.

How often do you hear people saying that they are on a diet? And the next minute they are no longer on the diet.

What they should be saying is; I have made lifestyle changes and the result of those changes have been a reduction in body fat, an increase on my energy levels and an overall improvement in health.
That is what lifestyle changes can do for you and it is something that short-term diets rarely achieve.

The surprising fact is that many conditions can be improved by visualization and weight loss is one of them. It works like this: you keep a vision in your mind of how you want your body to look, and subconsciously you will begin acting in a way that will go in that direction. You become much more positive about your body, more accepting of your diet or fitness regime, and you will reach your weight goals more quickly and easily.

Effecting change through visualizing desired outcomes has become more and more acceptable in recent years. Psychologists do not understand exactly how it works but clearly the mind and body are not as separate as we often believe. It seems that if you truly want something it is more likely to happen – provided of course that it is something that is possible, and within your control. Visualization helps us to truly want to lose weight by creating a clear and happy picture of our fitter bodies. Without this we can often put psychological traps in our own path.

Many people who are overweight believe they cannot lose weight. Sometimes you may say it out loud, or hear friends say it about themselves. For other people this belief stays in the subconscious. But it is sure that it influences our behavior. Someone who believes it is impossible for her to lose weight will be constantly battling her own negativity when she is trying to diet. Her mind will be constantly telling her there is no point dieting, she cannot lose weight so she should just go ahead and eat everything she wants. Visualization is the strongest technique that we can use to overcome these negative thoughts and impulses.

If you are plagued by negativity either from your own mind or from the reactions of friends and family to your diet, go ahead and visualize yourself at your desired weight as often as you can. It works on the same level as all those negative voices and can annihilate their influence like nothing else can.

It is important to practice every day – morning and evening if you can. You just need to take a few minutes in a quiet place and keep an image in your mind of your body at its ideal weight. Some people can do this easily, others need some help. If you have a photograph of yourself at your ideal weight in the past, you may find it easier to look at that. Or use a photo from a magazine but cut off the person’s face. You need to visualize your own body, but thinner.

You can also visualize from the inside. Close your eyes and let your awareness focus on a part of your body – for example, your right thigh. Imagine it slowly becoming thinner in your mind’s eye. Then move to the other thigh, and on through the body. It may help to start at the feet and move up towards the head, or vice versa.

As you go about your work or daily chores, think of yourself as already at your ideal weight. Create your own affirmations and repeat them often, always in the present tense (”I am glad to be flexible, fit and slim”, not “I will …”). Enjoy the feeling of having a positive self-image. Over time, this will help you to keep to your weight loss plan. You will find that fatty foods are less attractive and exercise is more enjoyable.

While your weight loss will of course be gradual, the wonderful thing about visualization is that it gives you a new body image right away. Use visualization and weight loss to make you happier right now, today!

The more difficult you make your diet the less likely you are to stick to it and succeed.

If you are constantly having to think about your diet throughout the day and keeping account of all the foods that you eat and the calories that you are counting then it becomes very difficult to maintain for the long-term and eventually those types of diets result in failure for most people.

By keeping your weight loss program simple you are going to achieve a lot better results because it allow you to get on with enjoying everyday life without having to think about food and cutting back on your food for all of your waking hours.

Even mention of the word diet has negative effects for many people because it immediately places restrictions on their lifestyle.

There are enough things to contend with in modern day life without having to constantly keep a track of what you’re eating although you do need to be aware of the types of food and the portions that you are consuming because this is what determines whether you gain or lose weight.

Healthy weight loss can be achieved quite simply by just reducing by small amounts the portions that you have at each meal even if you don’t change the types of foods you are eating.

This is generally the best way for people to start dieting as it doesn’t require anything that is too difficult and too hard to maintain for enough time to see results.

Once people see results from the weight-loss program then there is an incentive to carry on and do better and particularly if these results have come about by using simple techniques that haven’t burdened the enjoyment of life.

Before you start on any diets consider the consequences and how it will impose on your life and whether you have the type of personality that will allow you to maintain what is required for that particular program.

Once you realize that most weight problems are related to bad habits you will understand that if you can eliminate these bad habits weight loss will follow.

The first step in the process is to determine what your bad habits are. Look at the times when you tend to overeat and see if you can understand what triggers these reactions.

If you can eliminate those triggers and you can only do that by determining what they are in the first place then you will find it a lot easier to sort out your eating problems.

You should also look at the types of food that you go for during these times as often they will be comfort foods and more often than not these comfort foods are of very low nutritional value and due to that fact they will stimulate overeating.

By simply changing your comfort foods, with those that are of a higher nutritional value you will still be satisfying your needs by eliminating the negative side effects that are associated with poor food.

As most things that we do in life are habitual we rarely think about the actions we take as we go about our daily routines on autopilot. Unfortunately everything we do throughout the day includes both good and bad habits and it is those bad habits that are causing the damage.

As we age, more and more aspects of our life become habitual and it becomes more difficult to realize we have these habits and even more so to get rid of them particularly if we have had them for a long time.

With a bit of personal analysis you will quickly become to notice the various different things that are leading up to your eating and weight problems.

If you only target one of these habits at a time it becomes a lot easier to make the changes and often changing one habit can have a positive affect on many other habits. The process certainly becomes easier the more you do it in and by concentrating more on that area rather than the food itself you will find that weight loss is not such an overwhelming part of your life.

The sooner you start on the path to reaching your weight loss goals the sooner you can enjoy all the benefits of better health and well-being from the reduction in body fat that you will be able to achieve.

If you have been considering a weight loss program for some time, or you have been on other weight loss programs in the past and have not succeeded to date, then today can be the day that you decide to change your way and give yourself improved health for the rest of your life.

Even the smallest change that you can make today will be the first step to a new you.

If nothing else, decide to drink enough water today to remain hydrated and accept that alone as your first step towards improving your health and reducing your weight to more acceptable levels where you can feel happy about your body.

The start of any weight loss program can be the smallest change in direction in your life. What is the most important factor is actually making that change and taking that first step.

Doing that today could be the breakthrough that you need to push yourself to better things.

Nobody even needs to know that you have started on a weight loss program because the change will be minimal and very often talking about doing something stops people from actually doing it. Energy can be wasted in words whereas action will change your life.

The fact that you are reading this information means that you have either taken action already or you are still anticipating taking the action that you know is needed. For your own health and well-being today is that day.

The quality of your life in the future can very well depend on the action that you take right now.

There are many different reasons why people become overweight.

It is not as simple as saying that overweight people just eat too much because there can be any number of psychological reasons that make people want to eat more.

Emotional triggers such as stress, sadness, depression and so on can all make a person want to eat more food.  This is due to the fact that there are certain chemicals in the brain that are linked to both mood and hunger.

Many people associate eating with various different emotions and for this reason they choose to eat more food to make themselves feel better, or happier, or more comforted.

If you feel that this is the reason for your weight problem then it is probably better to get those issues resolved first by seeing a specialist rather than trying to attack the food problem first.

For a lot of people it is habit to over eat and behavioral modification will be the key to weight loss success in these cases.

One of the easiest ways to change your eating behavior is to eliminate any temptations. This is best done at the supermarket by not actually buying foods that are going to cause you a problem.

By not having these low value foods in the house you won’t be tempted to eat them because they won’t be there and this will encourage you to eat better foods and in doing so change your behavior patterns.

This process is made considerably easier if all members of the household will help towards achieving the goal of better eating.

If you do the shopping then you will be able to determine what food is purchased and this will help to make your weight loss easier, and in doing so it will help the nutrition of all members of the household.