Lol O Donnell 55, library assistant, Stockton-on-Tees
The easiest bit is eating slowly. I ve eaten too fast since I was a kid, and I think lots of people make that mistake. I ve tried calorie-counting and Carol Vorderman s detox plan but I always put the weight back on afterwards.
Paul McKenna teaches you that you can t just cut out foods because then you ll crave them all the more.
I already feel different. Within a week I ve stopped thinking about food all the time; I m going longer without it and I ve cut out snacks.
It s a complete life-change.
I did feel a bit silly doing the tapping at first, but you just have to do it when no one is looking. When I saw the aversion technique where you imagine something horrible mixed in with something you like I thought it couldn t possibly work; it just sounded like words.
But I do feel now that I just don t want crisps. I wasn t a pushover by any means, but then I did it and was unwillingly converted.
I have been a housewife for the past two years but before that I was an aerobics instructor and owned my own dance school.
I never had a weight problem as I was very active, but since I moved to Germany all that has changed.
I find a few of Paul s instructions hard to follow as I like to eat and do something else at the same time, such as watch TV or read, but I have managed to become more active and also to eat slowly as advised. I also practise visualisation, picturing myself 10kg (22lb) lighter every day.
The first time I was made aware of Paul s programme, as printed in The Times and online last week, was last year when he appeared on TV. I liked his approach to losing weight because it was different from any other that I have read or heard about in the past (on most diets I always gained all the weight back again).
I bought his book I Can Make You Thin when I was feeling very depressed, not getting out much or being active.
Now I want to get up every morning and cycle or even just dance with my iPod (to increase the number of steps I take, as he advises) and I find that I want to put on make-up and get dressed instead of sitting in my tracksuit or pyjamas all day. I feel that I can do this I know I can.
I will finish his programme (I am off to South Africa for a holiday in April and want to be 10kg down) and I find it very easy to follow; when I get results I will still make sure that I continue with Paul s tools to lose weight.
My problem is due to not being active enough and overeating out of boredom, and Paul s system has shown me that I am an emotional eater. Even while I am eating and breaking every rule I hear Paul s voice in my head. Now, though, I feel in control.
Zoe Sullivan, 39, lives in Hereford
I read Paul s weight-loss programme in The Times last week and already I m finding it absolutely fabulous. I have tried many ways to lose weight calorie-counting, WeightWatchers, eating less. I became fed up with being so obsessed by food when doing the first two, and having started Paul s five steps I see that those kind of diets are doomed to failure because they make you even more obsessed with food, so when you stop or stray the weight piles back on.
I found Paul s tapping exercises very useful and I can now take or leave the sweets on my desk they have stayed sealed for two days and counting! I now have the willpower to say No thank you, I m full and the wonderful thing is that, unlike other diets, Paul s programme actually allows me to snack.
Despite this, in a mere two days the full bloating sensation vanished, and since I started to chew 20 times and slowly I have realised that I don t like the taste of chocolate.
How fabulous is that? Paul has revolutionised the way in which I think about losing weight. As a serial dieter I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and, having wondered how my mother and sister stay so thin, I realise that they eat exactly as Paul describes on the Times podcast ie, when they are hungry.
Two weeks ago I weighed 12st stone (76kg); I now weigh 11st 8lb (73kg) and don t feel as if I ve been on a diet . Neither do I have to wonder whether I will continue dieting it s not a case of continuing; this is a whole new relationship with food, a new way of life and the fat me is going for ever.
Paul is fantastic and I wish I had discovered him years ago I am confident that by my 40th birthday in August I will no longer be ashamed of my body.
Thank you, Paul.
My husband had tried Paul McKenna two years ago, lost 6in (15cm) from his waist and bought me the Easy Weight Loss DVD. I was 16st (102kg) but I said that it wouldn t work for me.
Then one day I was trapped on the sofa because the cat was on my lap, and my husband stuck the DVD on. As I watched it I thought: this all makes sense eat slowly and stop when you re full.
I tried it in a half-hearted way, as whenever I d dieted before (including WeightWatchers, where I even got down to 8st 3lb), I d always put the weight back on.
This time I noticed results in just a few weeks, although I didn t notice the change in my attitude towards food for a while.
I didn t find that I needed to watch the DVD every day. After a few weeks I watched it again and read the book.
I started doing the exercises nothing strenuous, just increasing the number of paces I took each day, as Paul described in The Times last week. Then I started walking on the treadmill. On my 52nd birthday I had got down to 10st (63kg) and ran a 10km race.
I am now 9st (57kg) and in October I ran my first half-marathon.
It s a year later now and I just can t imagine the weight going back on. I eat what I want the only thing I have cut out is crisps, which I did using the aversion therapy technique; I went to a weight-loss seminar in February and I really didn t think it would work, but a couple of weeks later I noticed that I didn t want crisps any more.
This programme really changes your attitude towards food but, more importantly, towards yourself.
I had tried Weight Watchers and the diets that you find in magazines, eating low-fat foods and taking more exercise. Sometimes it worked to start with but then I always put the weight back on.
Last year I read Paul s book I Can Make You Thin, which is a longer version of the weight-loss steps in The Times last week. I lost 3st (19kg) between Easter and October and I ve kept it off. I was a size 18/20 and now I am size 12/14.
There was nothing hard about this method, as you don t really do it you just enjoy it. I noticed immediately that I was eating more slowly, and within a week I had lost weight. Now I just eat whatever I fancy.
The only thing is that I have to carry a bit of food with me at all times, because you have to eat when you re hungry. You have to follow Paul s advice closely and do it every day to begin with because you need to reinforce it. I have recommended it to loads of people.
My daughter, 13, watched me lose weight in front of her eyes and now she uses Paul s methods herself. If she is full, she just puts down her fork and stop eating. You can eat what you want, though I always eat chocolate with tea, and tonight I ll probably have a little pasta with bacon and tomato sauce you re not restricted.
Food isn t an issue now. I feel so free.
Anna Dagnall, 49, lives in London
I started Paul McKenna s Stop Smoking programme last June and have not had a cigarette since.
Because his steps have been so successful, I read The Times every day last week because I thought that if he had succeeded in stopping me smoking (I started when I was 18), then no doubt he could succeed in helping me to do anything.
I read his motivation steps with interest and will start following some of the tips. What I liked about all of his advice was that he encouraged us to concentrate on small steps rather than becoming overwhelmed by focusing on the final goal.
I thought that his analogy of a child trying to walk, for example, was wonderful. It is the little steps that are important. I also liked being reminded that failure is an attitude, not an outcome.
The most helpful message that Paul had for me when I was trying to give up smoking, which he reiterated in The Times last week, was that he cannot help you to do anything unless you want to do it. I did have cravings for cigarettes for months, but his exercises in curtailing them worked just! and eventually the cravings disappeared altogether.
I also found his use of visualisation very powerful. By helping me to associate cigarettes with things that I find disgusting, and repeating exercises that helped me to do so, he created in me a strong reaction against smoking. Now I find the smell of cigarettes nauseating and when I tried to have one recently, out of pure fascination, I vomited.
Helenice Oliveira, 42, mother of two
I have listened to Paul McKenna s CD every night since last Saturday; I have read all his steps and listened to the Stop Smoking podcast. I must say that as a result I feel happier, calmer and much more centred; I am enjoying life and feel more in control. Thanks to his tips on motivation I am full of energy, which I wasn t before.
I really rest when I go to bed, and wake up ready for anything. I smile all the time and it is easier to transform my thoughts from negative to positive. Before this I was depressed (I have tried psychotherapy but not with much success) and had no motivation for 70 per cent of my day; now I am up and jumping 85 per cent of the time and rarely feel sad.
I also want to stop smoking and have been listening to his podcast to help me. Whenever I listen to it I start feeling sick at the thought of smoking and also feel guilty, which is a good start.
My husband and I were most interested in your articles in The Times.
We have had dreadful nights for months and months. He is president of our local Rotary Club and after club evenings is awake for most of the night. I am a bad, light sleeper anyway.
Interestingly, we both sleep better away from home, but as soon as we return it s back to staying up for hours.
We started the sleep programme on Tuesday after being away for a few nights and Geronimo! we had seven or eight hours sleep almost every night.
The thought of the alarm clock was horrid at first as we are both retired, but now I am back to my early-morning swims instead of lying in bed until 9 or 10am. Thank you.
The tip that really stood out when I read it in The Times last week was the one about insomnia, saying that you must not sleep during the day at any cost.
I suffer from both insomnia and sleep apnoea and by 5pm I am always exhausted because I haven t slept for more than two or three hours a night in years. But the combination of Paul s relaxation CD that I received in The Times last Saturday and his tips on how to help myself has genuinely changed my life. I am now sleeping for up to six hours a night, which is unheard of.
The CD is wonderful; it tells you how to relax and listen to your breathing, and it has really helped with my apnoea. At the beginning he tells you that every time you listen to it, it will sound different. I didn t believe him at first but it does.
I had, of course, heard of Paul Mckenna before last week but I had never followed any of his programmes. He also says that if you can t sleep you should get up and do something boring. I usually lie in bed no matter what and stubbornly try to sleep, but next time I struggle to get to sleep I ll know that I should get up and iron, sweep, wash the floors, do anything that bores me, because it is his belief that you can bore yourself to sleep.
I have felt more awake this week than I have in years and it really has changed my life. I have to care for my youngest son, who suffers from autism, and I am also a voluntary worker for the Learning Disabilities Federation based in North Tyneside. For the first time I have the energy to deal with my job and my family and I feel much happier only last night I was told by colleagues how well I looked.
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