Useful information about your new lifestyle change
chantel111184
Posts: 124 Member
This was written by Paul mckenna
Copied from this website
http://www.itv.com/lorraine/lifestyle/happy-new-you-catch-up/diet-catch-up/the-four-golden-rules-july/
As he was on lorraine this morning.
I thought that it might be useful for some if not all of us on our new lifestyle journey to read as i have learnt a few new things i didn't know. Hope it helps in some way.
Happy New You
The four golden rules
1 - When you are hungry, EAT.
Why would anyone eat if they weren't hungry?
Because it is simply a habit. Many people are so desensitized to their body's messages that they've forgotten how to pay attention. Real physical hunger is different to emotional hunger (which we will deal with later). Physical hunger comes on gradually. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly, when you feel bored or upset. If you starve youself you will end up bingeing. That's how your body gets thrown off balance. In future when you feel physical hunger, eat! When you starve yourself your body goes into ‘survival mode', it slows your metabolism and your body starts to store fat. When you eat when you are truly hungry you tell your body there will always be enough food and your metabolism is likely to speed up.
The Hunger Scale
Take a few moments right now to look at the hunger scale and tune in to your body. How hungry are you right now? Each person is different, but as a general rule, you want to eat whenever you notice yourself between 3 and 4 on the scale - that is when you are fairly hungry, but before you become ravenous. If you wait until you get down to one or two your body will go into starvation mode and you'll end up probably eating more than your body needs and storing the excess as fat. Ideally, you'll want to stop eating at right around 6 or 7 on the hunger scale - when you are feeling pleasantly satisfied or full but not yet stuffed or bloated.
The hunger scale
1 - Physically faint (red zone)
2 - Ravenous (red zone)
3 - Fairly hungry
4 - Slightly hungary
5 - Neutral
6 - Pleasantly satisfied
7 - Full
8 - Stuffed (red zone)
9 - Bloated (red zone)
10 - Nauseous (red zone)
From now on never go into the RED areas!
Of course, if you have been a serial dieter you may be so used to overriding your body's signals that you may at times ‘forget to eat' until you're ravenous or keep eating until you're full or even stuffed before noticing it's time to stop.
If you think this might be you, practise tuning in to your body once an hour until you begin to notice differences between different points on the scale. The more you practise tuning in to your own hunger, the sooner you'll be able to recognize your body's subtle signals long before your stomach growls and your brain starts to get fuzzy.
2 – Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
As soon as you tell yourself to not eat certain foods, (usually because you've been told they're bad for you), you upset the natural balance of your relationship to them. Rather than wanting it less, that ‘forbidden food' instantly becomes more attractive to you. The inner battle between your positive intention and your resistance to being controlled (even by yourself) can be exhausting. As you begin to make peace with food and learn to listen to the wisdom of your body, you experience freedom from the tension and guilt that comes from NOT following your intuition.
Also, as you stop resisting and start to follow your natural intuitions about what to eat when, you may notice your tastes changing. You may even find yourself naturally attracted to the very foods you're ‘supposed' to be eating now.
So in future eat what types of foods you want and not what you think you should.
(If you need to avoid certain foods for medical reasons, such as diabetes please consult your Doctor)
3 – Eat CONSCIOUSLY and enjoy every mouthful
People that are overweight often shovel food in to their mouths as quickly as possible in order to get high from the happy chemicals we release in our brains when we eat. Unfortunately, because they are eating unconsciously, they never notice the signal from their stomach that lets them know that they are full. So they keep on stuffing their faces, expanding their stomachs and putting on weight.
The problem is that even though they feel temporarily high from cramming in lots of food, they feel fat and guilty afterwards. In fact, they feel so bad that they repeat the whole ritual of unconsciously stuffing themselves again in order to anaesthetize the bad feelings they just created!
Here is perhaps the single most important key to success with my system:
You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want. So long as you fully enjoy every single mouthful.
I cannot emphasize this enough. Put the knife and fork down whilst you are chewing your food and really enjoy it - savour the taste, and enjoy the wonderful textures and sensations as you thoroughly chew each mouthful of food at least 20 times!
If all you did for the next two weeks was to slow your eating speed down to about a quarter of what it used to be and chew each mouthful thoroughly, you will find it easy to leave food on your plate.
4 - When you think you are full, STOP eating.
The natural design of the human body is to eat when we're hungry and stop when we're satisfied, but many of us are conditioned to eat until we think we're full - or even worse, until whatever food we put on our plate is gone. When you've eaten enough, your stomach sends a signal - a sensation that says "I'm satisfied - that's enough." Most people experience this gentle, clear, satisfied sensation in their solar plexus (the area below your rib cage but above your stomach).
Of course, if you miss this warm feeling of satisfaction when it first occurs, you'll notice that each subsequent bite of food becomes a little less enjoyable than the one before. The more you pay attention to it, the more obvious it becomes. If you are not sure whether you are full or not, just guess. You will soon find it becomes easier to tell.
Can it really be this simple?
Yes! Let's review the four elements of the system:
1. Eat whenever you are hungry
2. Eat only what you want, never what you think you ‘should'
3. Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful
4. Stop when you even think your body is full
Copied from this website
http://www.itv.com/lorraine/lifestyle/happy-new-you-catch-up/diet-catch-up/the-four-golden-rules-july/
As he was on lorraine this morning.
I thought that it might be useful for some if not all of us on our new lifestyle journey to read as i have learnt a few new things i didn't know. Hope it helps in some way.
Happy New You
The four golden rules
1 - When you are hungry, EAT.
Why would anyone eat if they weren't hungry?
Because it is simply a habit. Many people are so desensitized to their body's messages that they've forgotten how to pay attention. Real physical hunger is different to emotional hunger (which we will deal with later). Physical hunger comes on gradually. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly, when you feel bored or upset. If you starve youself you will end up bingeing. That's how your body gets thrown off balance. In future when you feel physical hunger, eat! When you starve yourself your body goes into ‘survival mode', it slows your metabolism and your body starts to store fat. When you eat when you are truly hungry you tell your body there will always be enough food and your metabolism is likely to speed up.
The Hunger Scale
Take a few moments right now to look at the hunger scale and tune in to your body. How hungry are you right now? Each person is different, but as a general rule, you want to eat whenever you notice yourself between 3 and 4 on the scale - that is when you are fairly hungry, but before you become ravenous. If you wait until you get down to one or two your body will go into starvation mode and you'll end up probably eating more than your body needs and storing the excess as fat. Ideally, you'll want to stop eating at right around 6 or 7 on the hunger scale - when you are feeling pleasantly satisfied or full but not yet stuffed or bloated.
The hunger scale
1 - Physically faint (red zone)
2 - Ravenous (red zone)
3 - Fairly hungry
4 - Slightly hungary
5 - Neutral
6 - Pleasantly satisfied
7 - Full
8 - Stuffed (red zone)
9 - Bloated (red zone)
10 - Nauseous (red zone)
From now on never go into the RED areas!
Of course, if you have been a serial dieter you may be so used to overriding your body's signals that you may at times ‘forget to eat' until you're ravenous or keep eating until you're full or even stuffed before noticing it's time to stop.
If you think this might be you, practise tuning in to your body once an hour until you begin to notice differences between different points on the scale. The more you practise tuning in to your own hunger, the sooner you'll be able to recognize your body's subtle signals long before your stomach growls and your brain starts to get fuzzy.
2 – Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
As soon as you tell yourself to not eat certain foods, (usually because you've been told they're bad for you), you upset the natural balance of your relationship to them. Rather than wanting it less, that ‘forbidden food' instantly becomes more attractive to you. The inner battle between your positive intention and your resistance to being controlled (even by yourself) can be exhausting. As you begin to make peace with food and learn to listen to the wisdom of your body, you experience freedom from the tension and guilt that comes from NOT following your intuition.
Also, as you stop resisting and start to follow your natural intuitions about what to eat when, you may notice your tastes changing. You may even find yourself naturally attracted to the very foods you're ‘supposed' to be eating now.
So in future eat what types of foods you want and not what you think you should.
(If you need to avoid certain foods for medical reasons, such as diabetes please consult your Doctor)
3 – Eat CONSCIOUSLY and enjoy every mouthful
People that are overweight often shovel food in to their mouths as quickly as possible in order to get high from the happy chemicals we release in our brains when we eat. Unfortunately, because they are eating unconsciously, they never notice the signal from their stomach that lets them know that they are full. So they keep on stuffing their faces, expanding their stomachs and putting on weight.
The problem is that even though they feel temporarily high from cramming in lots of food, they feel fat and guilty afterwards. In fact, they feel so bad that they repeat the whole ritual of unconsciously stuffing themselves again in order to anaesthetize the bad feelings they just created!
Here is perhaps the single most important key to success with my system:
You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want. So long as you fully enjoy every single mouthful.
I cannot emphasize this enough. Put the knife and fork down whilst you are chewing your food and really enjoy it - savour the taste, and enjoy the wonderful textures and sensations as you thoroughly chew each mouthful of food at least 20 times!
If all you did for the next two weeks was to slow your eating speed down to about a quarter of what it used to be and chew each mouthful thoroughly, you will find it easy to leave food on your plate.
4 - When you think you are full, STOP eating.
The natural design of the human body is to eat when we're hungry and stop when we're satisfied, but many of us are conditioned to eat until we think we're full - or even worse, until whatever food we put on our plate is gone. When you've eaten enough, your stomach sends a signal - a sensation that says "I'm satisfied - that's enough." Most people experience this gentle, clear, satisfied sensation in their solar plexus (the area below your rib cage but above your stomach).
Of course, if you miss this warm feeling of satisfaction when it first occurs, you'll notice that each subsequent bite of food becomes a little less enjoyable than the one before. The more you pay attention to it, the more obvious it becomes. If you are not sure whether you are full or not, just guess. You will soon find it becomes easier to tell.
Can it really be this simple?
Yes! Let's review the four elements of the system:
1. Eat whenever you are hungry
2. Eat only what you want, never what you think you ‘should'
3. Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful
4. Stop when you even think your body is full
0
Replies
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I follow those rules!! I actually bought his book and read the whole thing and using those rules plus this site has helped me. I don't eat as much as I used to and only eat when I'm hungry and not bored.0
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Paul Makenna started my lifestyle change. i got his hynosis tape and it makes sense. if im hungry i eat and if im not then i dont.
i dont need to finish my plate if im full or pile it up if im starving. after a while it becomes a little voice in your head when you reach for a snack you ask yourself " am i even hungry" then you put it down.
) 0 -
I am going to follow these rules i need to eat more slowly as thats probably the only problem i have is that i eat to fast. Reason for that is i hate cold food lol. But i'm working on it.0
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I've read to book too - although I didn't bother with the CD!
I like some of his thinking (I like that fact that his observations of people who are 'naturally thin' shows the reason they are is because they unconsciously observe the 4 golden rules)
I also like that fact that he is very anti the diet industry and thinks diet is a dirty word LOL! It's true as soon as you deny yourself something / give up something you develop and unhealthy obsession with it...
However If I ate exactly what I wanted all of the time I'd never lose weight and on that he falls down.
I love veg, salad, leane meats, new potatoes, but I am sorry I also love pizza, steak, chips. Yes most of the time I choose the healthy option but his princple of 'eat what you want not what you think you should' always seemed crazy to me really. because given the choice 9 times out of 10 I'd probably go for the croissant as opposed to the fruit and yoghurt or I'd go for the jacket potato with cheese and beans as opposed to the chicken salad...0 -
I find the problem with the "eat when you're hungry" rule is that I often don't notice I'm hungry until I start feeling ill.0
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I've read to book too - although I didn't bother with the CD!
I like some of his thinking (I like that fact that his observations of people who are 'naturally thin' shows the reason they are is because they unconsciously observe the 4 golden rules)
I also like that fact that he is very anti the diet industry and thinks diet is a dirty word LOL! It's true as soon as you deny yourself something / give up something you develop and unhealthy obsession with it...
However If I ate exactly what I wanted all of the time I'd never lose weight and on that he falls down.
I love veg, salad, leane meats, new potatoes, but I am sorry I also love pizza, steak, chips. Yes most of the time I choose the healthy option but his princple of 'eat what you want not what you think you should' always seemed crazy to me really. because given the choice 9 times out of 10 I'd probably go for the croissant as opposed to the fruit and yoghurt or I'd go for the jacket potato with cheese and beans as opposed to the chicken salad...
Thats so true0 -
Bump for later0
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This is quite good.
Thanks0 -
Some very good stuff here...like it!0
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Bump0
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RE: #4... I say "eat until you don't feel hungry anymore", not FULL...though I will be first to admit I am not good at doing this, I know I do better when I do. If I am "Full", it's too late, lol.0
This discussion has been closed.
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