The FastDay Forum

I have a friend who has just bought this book comes with C.D. She is thinking of running it along side the 5.2.. I have read the reviews and I must say they are very good...Interested if any out there has read the book with any success..Sorry if there is a topic already on this..I couldn't find one..

I haven't tried this one but have used his I can make you Thin book and cd, which I found useful at the time, but haven't listened to the cd for a while. His mantra in the last book was - Eat when you are hungry, eat what you want to eat and stop when you feel full, which alongside eating more thoughtfully and slowly and learning to recognise when you do feel full, does work.

I'm not sure how the eat when you feel hungry works on a fast day

Hope this helps a bit

Thanks SianS..I will watch her progress and report !!! I do know at least 3 people who stopped smoking using his books..It's all very interesting..x

I'll be interested to find out too. The cd from the other book was all about feeling good about yourself, visualising yourself the way you want to be...all nice warm fuzzy stuff, very relaxing too if you have 25 mins to lie down in a quiet room

I'll be honest, I'm dubious. I've used his I can make you thin book and it didn't work. I am of course curious about the gastric band hypno book but never got round to buying it, so it'll be interesting to hear about anyone else's results.

I watched "I can make you thin" when it was on telly a few years ago and it really worked for me, lost weight easily. Unfortunately I let old habits creep back in. I did get the hypnoband book and CD but it didn't work at all this time. There were a couple of things during the hypnosis bit that distracted me so that's probably why it wasn't effective. I do try on non-fast days to follow the "golden rules" though and found his suggestions to deal with cravings very useful (to the point that I nearly retched in Tesco when I saw chocolate pudding ).

Let me be clear:

Intermittent fasting as a weight loss strategy is a WOE aimed at achieving weight loss through lowering caloric intake. It is based in science and has credible clinical research supporting its safety for most people and efficacy for weight loss.

Hypnotherapy for weight loss is psuedoscience nonsense practiced by charlatans, quacks and quick buck merchants. It's no more valid than the hundreds of emails I've received offering me secret herbs to increase the size of my junk. My view, save your money.

Further, I'd rather you didn't tell us about the results of combining 5 2 and Mr McKenna's wonder cure because, if you are doing 5 2 right alone, the results will be that you lose weight. I don't want a single person coming here to go away thinking that McKenna had anything to do with your weight loss when it's really down to intermittent fasting. There are other forums available for people looking to indulge in delusional beliefs regarding the power of hypnotherapy.

I get your point TedE,If I report my friends progress DO NOT READ IT,Simple however if it helps any one out there fair enough!! Point Taken.. As I said I know of 3 smokers who quit after reading his book & C.D Whats your thoughts about that..Stopping smoking is just as hard as losing weight!!I was only making a comment!

If Paul McKenna can help controll/help with eating habits alongside this WOL I don't see a problem at all..

Ditto Janey47 Funny Thing Is I am Not doing It.. Just thought I would mention it if it helped anyone out there Thank You x

TedE, have you read any of McKenna's books? Probably the most valuable aspects of his WoE have nothing to do with hypnotherapy (which does work effectively for many people, placebo effect or not). Your reaction strikes me as similar to that of some people to 5:2 who didn't actually watch the documentary or read the book ("that's ridiculous, you'll go in to starvation mode etc etc").

Leonie, I'd be very happy to hear about the results. I suppose a downside could be that since it's supposed to reduce consumption at each meal, combined with 5:2 it could potentially create too much of an overall low calorie intake?

Thank You Campanula, I appreciate your comments..I am only curious..My Friend will not join the forum ,It's not for her so I thought I would see how she's go and report her progress I agree with your comments, Watch this space !!! Thank You x

I agree that to combine hypnosis with 5:2 would make it difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of either; you wouldn't know which was working to lose the weight. But, hypnosis does work. I know personally of a male hypnotherapist who underwent stomach surgery without any anaesthetic, chatting to the surgeon during the operation! I have used hypnotherapy for pain relief myself, and found it very effective.

I get your point TedE,If I report my friends progress DO NOT READ IT,Simple however if it helps any one out there fair enough!! Point Taken..

I pointed out a fundamental issue with your proposed reports on your friend's progress for the purpose of making sure that people reading this thread were aware of that issue. Thanks for your suggestion that I don't like it, don't read it, but that really doesn't fix the fundamental issue.

My main concern is that people coming here to discuss intermittent fasting are not mislead regarding the efficacy of hypnotherapy. If you do post about the results, perhaps you should do so with the caveat that "We don't know how much of my friend's weight loss is down to intermittent fasting and how much is down to Paul McKenna, it is entirely possible that the weight loss is solely down to intermittent fasting only."

TedE, have you read any of McKenna's books? Probably the most valuable aspects of his WoE have nothing to do with hypnotherapy (which does work effectively for many people, placebo effect or not).

No, I must admit I have never read any of McKenna's books, nor had I heard of him before his post. I generally don't waste my time paying attention to self appointed weight loss gurus, especially celebrity weight loss gurus.

I must admit I know basically nothing about his WoE. I am more responding to he fact that Mr McKenna's promotional materials claim that "Paul McKenna's Hypnotic Gastric Band is a psychological procedure that can help to convince the unconscious mind that a gastric band has been fitted, so the body behaves exactly as if it were physically present."

HAHA, I know people who've had a real gastric band fitted, I wonder if Mr McKenna's virtual gastric band includes some the side effects inc reflux and vomiting up bread products.

Seriously though, anyone willing to make such ludicrous and outlandish claims regarding the efficacy of hypnosis deserves a wide berth and makes me question the value of his work as a whole. He may make some good points about sensible eating practices, in which case, they are only that and there are hundreds of better ways to get that advice.

Your reaction strikes me as similar to that of some people to 5:2 who didn't actually watch the documentary or read the book ("that's ridiculous, you'll go in to starvation mode etc etc").

Completely wrong, I am on the side of reason, logic and evidence so far as hypnotherapy by CD goes, the starvation mode crowd is on the side of ignorance and knee jerk reaction.

I have had many people tell me "oh that's not safe", "your metabolism will shut down", "you'll go into starvation mode and gain weight". I have been able to respond to them, citing peer reviewed clinical and empirical research, that IF is safe for most people and effective (eg Vardy, Harvie etc).

On starvation mode, I've been able to say to them that the earliest this has ever been found to happen is after 3 days of total fasting, and even then it was only an 8% drop in metabolic rate, which is hardly going to cause you to pack on pounds: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3661473 . I would also follow this up by telling them some clinical trials have found that your metabolic rate increases by up to 10% during fasts of 36-48 hours in duration http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2405717

On the other hand, you would be hard pressed to rebut someone who says that Mr McKenna's method is not an effective way of losing weight with credible evidence. In preparing this response, I have had trouble locating credible research on hypnotherapy because there is so much self serving crap put out by professional hypnotherapists. At best what I have found is that one method of in person hypnotherapy (aimed at stress reduction) combined with dietary advice was better than another method of in person hypnotherapy (aimed at lowering caloric intake) combined with dietary advice or a control group of dietary advice alone. HOWEVER, "the benefits were small and clinically insignificant". Hardly a ringing endorsement of hypnotherapy. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9539198

I have found no credible scientific research that confirms that prerecorded hypnotherapy is even remotely effective in weight loss.

As I said I know of 3 smokers who quit after reading his book & C.D Whats your thoughts about that..Stopping smoking is just as hard as losing weight!!I was only making a comment!

I agree that to combine hypnosis with 5:2 would make it difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of either; you wouldn't know which was working to lose the weight. But, hypnosis does work. I know personally of a male hypnotherapist who underwent stomach surgery without any anaesthetic, chatting to the surgeon during the operation! I have used hypnotherapy for pain relief myself, and found it very effective.

SPOILER ALERT: it was the intermittent fasting.

I am sure many people can say "I know so and so and they did this and that with hypnotherapy." Good for them, but that does not establish that any particular method of hypnotherapy is valid, effective, safe or advisable. In this regard, the plural of anecdote is not data.

I will say that my brief search through credible sources seemed to suggest there is some promise in hypnotherapy for pain relief, but the jury is definitely still out. On smoking it appears there is no evidence that hypnotherapy is more effective than any other intervention or no intervention at all http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20927723 .

TedE

I have no intentions of arguing the rights and wrongs of this debate but I would like to just add that the NHS offers various alternative therapies including acupuncture and hypnosis. Both of these are available through my G.P. surgery, I have benefited personally from acupuncture and have friends who have also benefited from hypnotism. This is not an endorsement of either procedure but I have no doubt that both therapies work for some people and not for others, just as chemotherapy has a success and failure rate. We are all different and if something works for one person, even by the placebo effect, then that is fine by me. I personally believe that homeopathy is ineffective but others are convinced that it has helped them and, in my book, that is good enough.

I would have no problem reading about another persons experience of hypnotism and weight control on this site, let's face it we discuss everything on here from birth to death and most things in between. This for me, is primarily a support forum and I will continue to support whatever choices my fellow 5:2ers make as long as nothing they are doing is dangerous, illegal or fattening.

Ballerina x