1,063 of 1,075 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"I Can Make You Thin" - Review, January 10, 2009
This review is from: I Can Make You Thin: The Revolutionary System Used by More Than 3 Million People (Book and CD) (Hardcover)
For almost 3 years now I have been handing this 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.
I am *delighted* that this version of "I Can Make You Thin" is finally available on Amazon.com rather than having to hunt it from the UK site. The long wait is over!
At the risk of making this book seem too 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 "I Can Make You Thin" reviews that dismiss the 4 rules as just obvious common sense. I'm not sure what common sense they can really mean since the rules make a mockery of the majority of get thin / lose weight 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 coverpages are a bit hypey, but the inside is less so. The book is refreshingly thin :), jargon-free, and entertaining.
McKenna's style also involves techniques such as tapping (TFT/EFT), 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 geewiz psych techniques won't help if you have the wrong model as I suspect most NLPers do.
More 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 book alone truly is comprehensive (unlike watching YouTube videos or reading this review.) Indeed the updates have covered the two or three remaining gaps I had found before, including the extra information for self-sabotage issues.
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 :)
Oh and then come back here and add your own review. Let people know what your results have been, whatever they are. No one book/CD can fit everyone but "I Can Make You Thin" deserves way more reviews here on Amazon from people just like you who have been wondering if this might just be what you need.
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182 of 184 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do yourself a favor, January 20, 2009
This review is from: I Can Make You Thin: The Revolutionary System Used by More Than 3 Million People (Book and CD) (Hardcover)
If you're reading these reviews, what you really want to know is: does it work? YES!!!! Buy it, read it, do it. Listen to the CD religiously. Watch the pounds melt away and enjoy the change in your life. You've been looking and waiting for a magic pill, well the magic is here, just not in the form of a pill.
I'm a 60 year old mex-am. raised on the border on a high fat diet, yet I was thin (5.0 ft. & 98 lbs) until I hit 40. A traumatic experience threw me into a depression and I steadily gained (and lost and gained through diets) weight until I hit a high of 144. Last year at this time I had managed to start the year at 134. The weight gain made me even more depressed and I was in a vicious cycle. Then around this time last year I heard a commercial announcing McKenna's upcoming T.V. show. I was desperate for change and thought it sounded too good to be true, so I googled McKenna and wound up on the Amazon site in the U.K. and read a ton of reviews just like this one. Sounded good. Then I saw the T.V. show. It made sense. But what really struck me were the PEOPLE doing the testimonials. Not all had reached their goal weight yet, and yet there was a radiance that they all exuded that made me jealous. These were no teary eyed testimonials as I'm used to seeing with say Richard Simmons or any of the other lose weight infomercials. These were happy people, not hyper, not hysterical, just calm, happy in their skin, with an "all's right in the world" attitude. There was no dichotomy of the fat me and the thin me, or the old me and the new me. It was just that's where I started, here's where I am. For me this has been the real gold in Paul's system and losing weight is just the cherry on the cake. He enables you to love yourself once more, right now, right where you are, not tomorrow when you "lose the weight" as a type of self reward.
So I spent about 60 dollars to get the book w/CD from the U.K. the last day of March of last year (2008). It's the best thing I've ever done for myself. It was money well spent. I'm now at 120 lbs, that's 14 lbs lighter than last year at this time, but I no longer obsess about the weight. I know I'm losing and it's on auto pilot now. I can lose faster if I follow rule #1 more religiously, that's the hard one for me. You see, rule #1 says: Eat when you're hungry. But that's not permission, it's a command. In other words, don't let yourself get ravenous, because then you lose all control. After decades of skipping meals and starving myself, it's hard to make that a priority. But when I do, I lose faster. I might as well tell you that rule #3 is also hard. It says: when you eat, do nothing else but eat. I'm used to eating at the computer, in front of the t.v. and while I'm on the phone. BUT if YOU follow his rules to the letter, YOU WILL LOSE THE WEIGHT. And the best part for me, is that I've made peace with me. I can love myself again just as I am, right here, right now. And that attracts positive people like flies to honey. You can pick me out in a crowd, because I'm the one that radiates joy and confidence. Isn't that worth 15 bucks? (for me, it was worth the 60)
P.S. re: the one star rating on this book. If you read the review, you'll see that the person never even tried Paul's method. Yep, if you don't try it, it's absolutely not going to work for you.
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