Page 41 of Paul McKenna's book – I Can Make You Thin discusses the ‘Camel’ theory of weight-loss-failure. It states that if you starve yourself your body naturally thinks there is little food about and stores the food you do eat, when you eat, as fat. On page 43 P goes on to illustrate ‘The Hunger Scale’ which marks from 1-10 degrees of hunger from Physically Faint to Nauseous. P suggests that if we wait until we are at the Ravenous/Physically Faint stage of hunger [1-2 on the ‘Hunger Scale’] before we eat then our bodies will go into ‘starvation mode’ and you will eat more than your body physically needs and storing the excess as fat…now here’s the thing…a friend of mine has been trying to put weight on for years with no success…and the other day we were discussing the ‘McKenna Method’ of weight loss, [I’m overweight] ‘Eat what you like only when you are hungry’…and then she said if she ate only when she was hungry she would never eat! I didn’t say so at the time but this is a classic Universal Quantifier [wrong use of never]. So that is the easy bit. Now the next thing is trying to inspire her that she will not ‘waste away’ if she does not eat 2-3 times every day. I am going to suggest to her that she waits till she is really hungry before she eats – so that when she does eat she will eat more than she needs and subsequently put on weight!
Any thoughts would be welcome.

Jangchub

I would be inclined to ask her how she knows when to eat. Presumably she does eat - so what are her cues, if not actual hunger? I am also wondering if there is some significant degree of dissociation present here? If she is implying that she never notices hunger then there could be quite a disconnect between her awareness and her physical body. WOrth exploring?

In terms of practicalities of weight gain, if she has been attempting to put on weight without success what exactly is she consuming to attempt to achieve this? If she increases her calorie intake above her expenditure then she MUST gain weight. Them's the sums! I had a similar 'problem' to hers many years ago in my late teens. I believed that I would simply be unable to gain weight as the amount of solid food required to achieve this was simply beyond my appetite. I started to increase my consumption of milk as a pint of milk contains several hundred calories and it is easy enough to knock back a liquid. The results were dramatic. It may be that your friend does not like or cannot tolerate milk but some form of liquid, calorie dense weight gain product should be available to match her tastes and requirements.

Also, I am a little curious as to her reasons for wanting to gain weight?

Don't know why, but I just get the sense there is missing information here and I hope that the above suggestions might enable you to recover it.

...thanks Damian. My friends cues for eating are meal 'times' and this is where I think she is going wrong as she, as I said, is not really hungry. What PM is pointing to is that if we only eat when we are Slightly to Fairly Hungry then we shall lose weight - which is brilliant for people who want to lose weight. What came to me was that the theory could be used to put on weight if the person ignored set meal times and waited till they were very hungry, then they would eat a bit more than they needed and subsequently put on weight. In an ideal world it would be great to talk about this to the person that inspired PM with this theory and look at their research.


Thanks for your feedback J

What came to me was that the theory could be used to put on weight if the person ignored set meal times and waited till they were very hungry, then they would eat a bit more than they needed and subsequently put on weight.

I too feel that is right. McKenna's method is basically to reach a kind of "bodily" balance through awareness. The body has its own natural, healthy rhythm regarding storing energy as fat, as well as keeping it ready for use. This influences the body weight as well. McKenna's method is not just for people who want to lose weight. I think there is too much focus into losing weight using the method. But, IMO, it is basically about achieving a healthy balance.

Vivek.