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“I Can Make You Thin” by Paul McKenna - A Review

Monday, May 5, 2008

This is the first full book review I have ever done on this blog. I am delighted that it is a review for this book, because “I Can Make You Thin” makes an historic contribution to weight loss and being naturally thin, and also to the entire field of self-help.

“I Can Make You Thin” - Paul McKennaFor almost 2 years now I have been handing this “I Can Make You Thin” book and ‘mind-reprogramming’ CD to every patient who comes to me to lose weight, or who is caught up in the mentality of diets, scales, cravings, or overeating.

At the risk of making this book seem overly simple, here are Paul McKenna’s 4 golden rules…
1. When you are hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you want (not what you think you “should”.)
3. Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful.
4. When you are full stop.

I’ve seen other reviews that dismiss the 4 rules as just obvious common sense. I’m not sure what common sense they really mean since the rules conflict with the majority of weight loss approaches around. Rule 2 in particular certainly disagrees with the ‘common sense’ that I was taught as a medical doctor.

Even if the rules are common sense, McKenna needs to be given great credit for showing people HOW to live these habits. Hopefully you are buying this for the results, not just to have a fun read and a relaxing, new-wavy listen.

Yes, the title of “I Can Make You Thin”, the pose McKenna has on the front, and the text on the back are bit over the top, but the inside is less so. The book is refreshingly thin :), jargon-free, and entertaining.

McKenna’s style also incorporates techniques such as tapping (TFT), hypnosis and NLP . Hypnosis is what first made Paul famous, and I’ve seen NLP Practitioners review this and say they knew all of these tricks before. In NLP terms Paul is saying that the Golden Rules are the “model” for being “naturally thin”. Just knowing all the techniques won’t help if you have the wrong model.

Importantly, you don’t need any of these techniques to apply the 4 golden rules and lose weight.

Most people can go the book & CD, discover the Aha moments, and get started on transforming their relationship with food and their weight straight away.

There might be a group of people that could eat according to the 4 rules and not be thin, but I agree with what Paul says. For myself, I’m yet to meet such a person.

I have counseled people who thought it didn’t work for them, but it turned out they hadn’t gotten the rules into their behavior, so here are some extra pointers…

  • Just listening to the CD over and over doesn’t seem to be enough. The book plays a big part too. Expect to re-read the book at least once. You can succeed without the CD, so if it doesn’t suit you, no sweat.
  • Don’t add more rules. Extra rules almost always conflict with the four golden rules. Must eat breakfast? No. Just eat when you are hungry. Have to eat only fresh food? Check you really want to eat it, and whether you might want to eat anything else a bit more. Etc, etc.
  • Having trouble visualizing? Just act ‘as if’ you are visualizing, or on the CD just leave it to Paul.
  • Don’t make exercise the focus. Improved fitness will improve your chances of living longer, but unfortunately the best research evidence is that exercise doesn’t help much in losing weight. Keep to the four rules, which are all about food and getting back in control.
  • If you have a question or a difficulty, the answer is somewhere in the book. The information truly is comprehensive (unlike watching YouTube videos or reading this review.) Indeed this updated version covered the two or three remaining gaps I had found before, including the extra chapter which covers self-sabotage.

In summary, McKenna is not the only person to propose this way of eating, but his is the most accessible version I know about. His is also the most likely to reach out from the page and permanently change your thinking and your behavior, and thereby your weight.

You can buy his measly book just to prove Paul wrong :)

——————————–

So that is my review of “I Can Make You Thin” by Paul McKenna.

Here’s what I would like you to do.

—> Do you think this review is helpful?

- Please go to the copy of this I have put up at Amazon, find the bottom of the review where it says “Was this review helpful to you?”, and click YES.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1PV64QBGLB4H6/

—> Want to buy this book?

- US Amazon only has second-hand copies so this link is to Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/059306092X

- If you’re in Australia I have copies of this book for Aust$30 + $5 postage and handling (includes GST) or, as I mention in the review I supply them for free to people who come to see me.

You can phone my office on 08-8362 5500 for more details, or send $35 direct to PayPal@-you know the drill to take this bit out-DrMartinRussell.com with name, address and the name of the book.

Obesity, weight and food is an incredibly important self-help area. I cannot recommend Paul McKenna’s “I Can Make You Thin” strongly enough.

As with all self help, it’s now over to you.

-Dr Martin Russell

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Filed in EFT, Hypnosis, Health, Weight Loss, Consulting, Life & Death, Self-esteem, Therapy, Counselling, Foundations, Success | Comments (12)

Lily The Pink

Saturday, April 19, 2008

People say that your adult life is shaped by your childhood experiences.

Now I have my own young children I begin to recall all sorts of nursery rhymes, songs and tunes I haven’t heard for ages. What effect did they have on me I wonder?

I’m not sure that my mum singing “The Purple People-Eater” greatly influenced my future development, but just recently I’ve been getting a song stuck in my head called “Lily The Pink”.

So with a bit of hunting in Wikipedia I find that “Lily The Pink” is an English drinking song based on “Lydia Estes Pinkham (February 9, 1819 – May 17, 1883) who was an iconic concocter and shrewd marketer of a commercially successful herbal-alcoholic “women’s tonic” meant to relieve menstrual and menopausal pains.”

The traditional “Lily The Pink” has verses like these two…

Peter Whelan
He was sad
Because he only had one nut
Till he took some of Lydia’s compound
Now they grow in clusters ’round his butt.

And Uncle Paul
He was terribly small.
He was the shortest man in town.
So on his body he rubbed medicinal compound,
And now he’s six foot, underground.

I have a sanitized version stuck in my head, and this was a hit in the UK just before I was born.

Maybe this was the start of my upbringing to becoming a medical sceptic?

All I can say is that anytime someone tells me they have found a medicine or natural cure that seems to work on anything and everything, then this song pops into my head (the full original lyrics are below the video)



Chorus:
We’ll drink a drink a drink
To Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink
The saviour of the human race
For she invented medicinal compound
Most efficacious in every case.

Verses:
Mr. Frears
had sticky-out ears
and it made him awful shy
and so they gave him medicinal compound
and now he’s learning how to fly.

Brother Tony
Was notably bony
He would never eat his meals
And so they gave him medicinal compound
Now they move him round on wheels.

Old Ebeneezer
Thought he was Julius Caesar
And so they put him in a Home
where they gave him medicinal compound
and now he’s Emperor of Rome.

Johnny Hammer
Had a t-t-terrible s-s-stammer.
He could b-barely speak a word.
So they gave him medicinal compound,
And now he’s seen, but never heard.

Auntie Millie
Ran willy-nilly
When her legs, they did recede
And so they rubbed on medicinal compound
And now they call her Millipede.

Jennifer Eccles
had terrible freckles
and the boys all called her names
but she changed with medicinal compound
and now he joins in all their games.

Lily the Pink, she
Turned to drink, she
Filled up with paraffin inside
and despite her medicinal compound
Sadly Picca-Lily died.

Up to Heaven
Her soul ascended
All the church bells they did ring
She took with her medicinal compound
Hark the herald angels sing.

Oooooooooooooooo Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ll drink a drink a drink
To Lily the Pink the Pink the Pink
The saviour of the human race
For she invented medicinal compound
Most efficacious in every case.

The original and complete vinyl recording is here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ETDp6xzJko

-Dr Martin Russell

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Doctors And Empathy

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Have you heard the joke?

When is the time to get empathy from a doctor?

Before they’ve gone to medical school.

Boom. Boom.

Well actually it’s not a joke at all. It’s a researched fact, and not a very funny fact either.

Evidence has been building that shows a steady decline in empathy in doctors as they go through their medical training. The latest one came out just last month…

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/03/24/prsb0324.htm

It is quite staggering.

Empathy is the ability to feel and respond to what someone else is experiencing.

Doctors are most empathic when they have first been chosen for medical school.

From this point on their ability to be empathic declines. Even once they become registrars it continues to fall away.

I’m not yet aware of research that shows when this trend stops, or begins to reverse. Perhaps at some point it does.

Not surprisingly females on average have more empathy than males, but it makes little difference in medical school.

The proportional drop during training is the same.

Except for alcoholism, some prescription drug addictions, and completed suicide (presumably they have better knowledge about how to succeed if they attempt it) doctors are generally healthier than the average population.

So for self help, empathy may not be very necessary.

But if you want empathy from a doctor you might have to hunt a bit more than you would expect. No joke.

-Dr Martin Russell

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Antidepressant Ups And Downs

Saturday, April 5, 2008
“There have now been six meta analyses in the last decade showing little difference between antidepressants and placebos, yet this is not commonly recognised in clinical practice.” - Medical Observer April 4 2008 pg 31

So says Professor Gordon Parker of the Black Dog Institute in Australia, who has long been a critic of “depression” as being too broad a label for what is going on in particular individuals. He is particular keen that treatment, including antidepressants, must be tailored much more specifically.

Professor Parker points out that the popularity of antidepressants was full of ups and downs even before the culture-shifting release of the antidepressant Prozac…

“The first antidepressant drug (the tricyclic drug Imipramine) was ‘discovered’ a little more than fifty years ago.

The manufacturers, Ciba-Geigy, did not wish to take that drug to market as their analyses indicated that there were insufficient depressed people in the world for the drug to return a profit, and it was only after strong protest advocacy in the United States (by consumers) that it was released [my emphasis].

When we consider the sales of antidepressants over the last decade, that judgment by Ciba-Geigy may seem inexplicable. But “depression” in the middle of the twentieth century essentially comprised severe expressions of “biological depression” (psychotic or melancholic depression) that resulted in a percentage of people being hospitalised, generally in asylums as few general hospital psychiatry units existed.”

The last 50 years of psychiatric thinking has been an enormous rollercoaster ride through society and the ride isn’t looking like ending any time soon.

All I can say is, hang on!

-Dr Martin Russell

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For Adelaideans

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

This self help website attracts readers worldwide, from the US, Canada, Australia and UK, along with about 30 other countries so far. This is the main value of this site.

A few of my readers come from Adelaide, South Australia, where I have my solo counselling practice.

There are some things I can offer locally that I can’t yet do world-wide, so I would like to invite my Adelaide or South Australia readers to get specific local updates.

I will be able to provide access to other aspects of my self help/counselling work, including…

  • Local Adelaide presentations I’m currently doing on why almost all the weight loss methods around today don’t work in the long-term. [Hint: it’s probably NOT your fault. The methods themselves are flawed.]
  • How I fixed my every backache, knee pain, neck twinge, headache, and more, over the past 5 years… without pills, braces, physiotherapists or chiropractors, and all for less than $100.
  • AND, a special offer for an appointment with me at no cost to you. Currently my standard consulting fee is $206 for a 45-minute session (as I am a GP, Medicare Rebates and Safety Net do apply), but as a reader of this blog I would like to offer you - or someone you know - a complete session on me.

You can get all the details by entering your name and email address here…

Full Name:
Email Address:

NOTE: To keep the disruption of the rest of my practice appointments to a minimum this offer is for April only. Also, with school holidays in Adelaide this month my practice will be closed for one week for time with my family, so I suggest you phone my office as soon as you receive the email after you sign up.

-Dr Martin Russell

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The Strange Behavior Of Anorexia - Part 2

Thursday, March 27, 2008

I ended Part 1 of this series by asking when someone might WANT to have anorexia.

When might you actually want to be repulsed by the thought of eating food?

Put another way, could anorexia ever be “useful”?

Well it is a standard question that I have asked of every so-called problem that I have been told about or come across over the years.

In what way might the presenting problem or symptom or complaint actually be “useful” to the person?

How might depression be useful, or phobias, grief, alcoholism, self-sabotage, low self-esteem, narcissism, or whatever?

This is where you get the idea of “secondary gain”.

Secondary gain is when there is a second or hidden motive for an action. For example being sick can also be a way of avoiding dealing with an issue, as in a child not wanting to go to school or a worker not wanting to face their boss.

This is often implied as a bad way to deal with things.

We’re meant to be upfront, have no secrets, face our fears, not keep hidden agendas.

However the reality is that humans are complex, and being indirect in going after an outcome is an important choice to have.

Some things are quite well dealt with in a secondary way.

Could there be some useful but secondary gain in having anorexia perhaps as a way of attracting sympathy, gaining attention, getting control of emotions of fear or anger, etc etc?

I suppose yes.

Every problem can have secondary gains.

Personally however I don’t think these questions generally lead to useful therapy. When I have explored secondary gains they have often opened up really fascinating stories with many twists and turns, but in the end the problem is no better for having done so.

Secondary gain inevitably happens, but it almost always remains secondary.

Let’s go back to the question with a different emphasis.

WHEN or WHERE might a particular problem be useful?

In the case of anorexia I have only one suggestion for a context.

If I was drifting on a small life raft in the middle of the ocean for days or weeks, and all I had to eat was food that I knew to be contaminated and fatally poisonous, then in this extremely limited situation I could imagine being much happier to have anorexia.

Instead of wishing I had food or being tempted to eat the poisonous stuff around me, I would be happy that I finally had no one pressuring me to eat. Bliss!

But most people with anorexia are not stranded at sea with poisonous food, so in Part 3 I will move on to what else might be going on.

-Dr Martin Russell

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Are You Game?

Friday, March 21, 2008

Enough passive reading of psychology and self-help ideas.

Let’s get you interactive in your learning.

First to this one…

http://www.dothetest.co.uk

Next, let’s get you even more active. This one has you clicking buttons, not just watching…

http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?page_id=117

Did you know this post will be disappearing soon, so you better hurry and check these out.

Happy learning!

-Dr Martin Russell

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Self Help For Your Financial Future

Sunday, March 16, 2008

This website is about taking what I do in my counseling practice and bringing it out to a wider audience.

It also gives me a chance to cover topics that I only rarely get to mention for people who come to see me.

One such topic is self help for your financial future.

If you are going to help yourself in your psychological outlook, your physical health, and your ability to contribute to the world, you need to take care of your own financial future.

I’m no expert in the financial area, but many people who have come to me with the diagnosis of “Depression” have one of their biggest depressing worries as finances.

Almost always I find that their finances are in fact depressing. They aren’t making it up, their finances are actually bad. They are in fact going backwards and/or bankrupt, or they have no ability to create safety and stability into the future.

My take is that with the aging of Western populations, and the extensive systems of welfare and healthcare support, and with the spending of successive governments on largely short-term outcomes rather than thinking over many generations, the world’s financial future is very bleak.

You can be seeming to do very well for yourself, but the world can still swamp you.

See my post about the cost of health care turning into the entire government budget by 2026-2032.

http://www.drmartinrussell.com/why-help-yourself/

Be Darwinian, or Richard Dawkinsian, about it.

But if you are serious about self help, don’t bury your head in the sand.

If you want a wake up call then take the time to watch the 2008 Predictions videos, in particular the last one with Mike Maloney, at…

http://www.RichDad.com

This information is for more than just 2008. They are the next 5-15 years predictions.

-Dr Martin Russell.com

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Depression Solutions… Can You Help?

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

With the recent studies showing antidepressants to be far less effective than previously reported, this leaves a big gap in the field.

What can take the place of antidepressants?

What solutions are already out there for depression?

What books, courses, websites, resources of any type are there for “curing” people who have been given the label “Depression”?

I’d like to know of ones you think work, and any you don’t think work as well, with enough details for me to find the resource, and what thoughts you have about it.

Yes. Self promotion is allowed. If you’ve got something good enough then great!

It will be interesting to know whether there is anything that might fill the therapeutic vacuum.

You can put your thoughts as a comment below.

Much appreciated.

-Dr Martin Russell

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