If any of you guys are following Paul McKenna's new show, I Can Make You Thin then you may have heard something about a Tapping Technique for cravings. I know that people follow the show religiously but I can't help but laugh when watching it.
Most recently a co-worker filled me in on McKenna's eight-step (yes, eight steps) technique for getting rid of cravings and wow, what a technique it is. I'm not sure this would work for my cravings other than confuse the heck out of me. Personally, I like your ideas for curbing cravings better than this interesting approach. However if you want to learn it then read more.
The Tapping Technique:
- I want you to get the biggest desire for a food that you can right now. If you don’t have a big enough craving, put this technique to one side and come back to it when you’re really feeling it.
- Focus on this craving for a moment, and when you’ve thought of that I’d like you to rate your desire for a food on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest. This is important, because in a moment we want to know how much you’ve reduced it.
- On a scale of 1-10, how strong is your craving? Remember, if you’re not really craving a bite (i.e. your craving is not at least a 7), come back to this technique later.
- Now take two fingers of either hand and tap about 10 times under your collarbone while you continue to think about eating.
- Now tap under your eye ten times.
- Now tap under your collarbone again.
- Place your other hand in front of you and tap on the back of it between your ring finger and your little finger. Continue to think about your desire for food as you do this and each of the steps which follow:
- Close your eyes and open them.
- Keep your head still, keep tapping and look down to the right then down to the left.
- Keep tapping and rotate your eyes round 360 degrees clockwise, and now 360 degrees counterclockwise.
- Remember to keep thinking about the food you were craving as you do this!
- Now hum the first few lines of "Happy Birthday" out loud.
- Count out loud from 1 to 5.
- Once again hum the first few lines of ‘Happy Birthday’ out loud.
- Stop and check – on a scale from 1 to 10, what number is your craving at now? If it hasn’t completely gone yet, just repeat this sequence again until it does.
Anyone tried it? If so, I'm dying to hear if it works so share you stories below.
Goldsign
Vera Wang
Skechers
I'd love to see one of my coworkers doing this!
1as for me, I'll have a glass of water to curb the craving.
2WHAT A JOKE....
3Seriously? This man suggests tapping as a weight loss method? This sounds beyond ridiculous, and I can't imagine how foolish I'd feel doing this in front of people.
I think I'll just stick to diet and exercise.
4Seriously, now? What happened to the good ol' drink some tea or wait 20 minutes and re-assess? This just seems cryptic, especially the 'hum happy birthday' part.
5Basically you just do something to take your mind off of the craving. Why does this guy need a fancy 8-step approach for something so straightforward?
6Maybe he figures you'll distract yourself for long enough for the craving to go away... kind of like a wait-20 minutes, but with a lot more randomness.
7what monday said . . . don't cravings usually go away in 20 mins? It'll take yout that long just to figure all this out.
I'm going to create the "spin on one leg" diet and get filthy rich
8I watched this episode, and the tapping technique wasn't actually so much about curbing cravings as it was about controlling emotional eating. So, those times when you had a horrible day at work, or got a phone call from your ex, and you feel like diving into a package of Oreos, you're supposed to do this. The points where tap are supposed to soothe you, because they're acupressure points. The counting and singing are meant to make your right brain and left brain work alternately, like exercise I guess?
I'm not sure I believe the whole acupressure thing, but when you're angry or upset, I could see how doing this could calm you down and reassess what you're about to eat. I see it more like a distraction from what's got you emotionally wound up. Sure, if you're at home, you could just do some jumping jacks or punch a punching bag to work off the frustration, but if you're at work or in your car where doing exercises isn't feasible, you could easily do this tapping thing. Maybe excuse yourself to the bathroom if you're at work, though.
9My mother told me about this technique a LONG time ago. It's not exclusive to this guy I don't think. I don't know - I only just heard of him for the first time yesterday. Anyhow, it's such obvious BS, but I can see how someone who is desperate to loose weight by any means would fall victim to this idea.
10if anything it makes me want to eat MORE just to prove him wrong! ha, just kidding
11diddnt he apparently help Ellen stop smoking?
12you guys are being ridiculous....as a thin person i always look to ways to eat healthy and have been following this show to see weather its worth it to recommend to my overweight mom who lives overseas. The tapping technique is basically a do it yourself accupuncture technique which he adopted from psychologists. Rather than laugh at overweight people who are trying something new to loose weight we should encourage them to find what works for them.
His previous episode about his golden rules make sense to anyone who is thin and eats rather than starve:
Eat when hungry
Eat conciously
Eat what you want (cuz we all know about bingeing)
And when full stop.
Honestly i see him as a guide for getting on track rather than a laughing matter.
13oh, thank goodness. i thought this was going to be about tap dancing.
14As a thin person who eats and exercises, gimmicky things don't work. Accupressure (which is what this is, not accupuncture) is fine, stress release is important and essential to weight control, so is sleep, exercise, etc. but why all the steps? Why ONE set series of anything? I'm not a dieter, a fan of self-help books, a watcher of reality or talk shows but people don't have to adhere to rules to be "healthy", there's no reason to get caught up in the details of right or wrong.
15I saw him on Ellen and though what a quack but ellen said he cured her of smoking through tapping.
The only thing I'm tapping is my fork for seconds!
16Did anyone ever watch that show "Rich Girls" with Ally Hilfiger? Her and her best friend had this "third eye" meditation for getting rid of headaches or something where they'd tap their imaginary third eye 21 times to get rid of it. They swore by it. This story reminds me of that.
17It seems silly but tapping is a lot better than doing something like not eating or over exercising. If taking the time to figure out if someone really actually needs food at that moment, why not? I wouldn't do this myself though, but then again I'm not really an emotional eater. A bit of a boredom one though, but I haven't eaten out of boredom for a while.
18For real?
19ok everyone he does not say tapping cures is the "key to weight loss" he simply introduces it as a way release some of the common feelings that lead to overeating. Of course like everyone else he teaches that weight loss is achieved through eating properly and excercise. Im not trying to convince you guys of anything I am just amazed at how judgemental the comments have been considering people have found this succesful. In my opinion do what works for you....
20Ha! Yet another person trying to cash in on a weight loss gimick.
21What?!? I've been curious about what his advice was going to be, I've only had the patience to watch through "Eat when you're hungry". I guess accupressure and distracting yourself could help control cravings. But why not take that few minutes and just take a short walk outside? That way you can distract yourself, and get your body moving too.
Now I'm off to grab a slice of pizza left over from free lunch, it's my afternoon snack.
22It's called EFT. Emotional Freedom Technique.
http://www.emofree.com
Not actually all that crazy.
23I tried it!
24and I still was my Xao Pho Noodles.
want*
25A lot of people sound very dismissive of this, and I admit it sounds silly, but so do a lot of things if you don't try them honestly with an open mind. Accupuncture, reflexology, aromatherapy, reiki . . . the list goes on and on.
Ultimately, if it works for someone even just for the placebo effect (or Dumbo feather, as I like to call it), who are we to laugh at them?
26Ok just for fun i tried it because there was cheesecake sitting right next to the watercooler and lets face it, while i am a health nut, I am a sucker for cheesecake. So i sat at my desk and went through the steps - looked and sounded like an idiot - rolled my eyes and said whatever this is stupid i am getting water, and walked by the cheesecake without temptation.
Something worked. I dont think i will swear by it or buy the book. But there might be something to it, even if merely a distraction.
27A friend's uncle practices tapping/EFT. It's never worked for me but her dad stopped biting his nails after being tapped.
28That is alot of work to get over a chocolate craving. LMAO
I agree confusing.
29this guy and this show is absolutely ridiculous. i can not believe he is being taken seriously
30I saw this show on TLC and the guy seems a bit on the flaky side. He told people to not eat any food that didn't "inspire" them and only eat what you like. Sorry, but even if spinach doesn't "inspire" me, I'll still pick that for a salad because it's good for me. That tapping technique is absolutely f-ing ridiculous. You'd need to write it down to be able to follow it without getting confused. Knowing me, I'd get all flustered and wouldn't do the tapping thing right or something and I'd just eat the damn cookie anyway. I like MY technique for dealing with cravings: Chew a piece of gum, drink some water, or take a walk. Works for me.
31This is a common technique used by therapists to help people take control of involuntary emotional responses (ie, phobias). It has really helped some people, but I think it is more of an issue if you believe that it will work. However, it is based on some accupressure points.
32I couldn't do this. My OCD would drive me crazy. I'd be there forever, totally forgetting about the food. And I need to eat more anyway lmao.
33Oy!
34This "tapping" is TFT or Thought Field Therapy developed by Roger Callahan PHD. This is cutting edge treatment used by psychologists to help people overcome emotional distress, phobias, anxiety, stress, compulsions and addictions. His book is " Tapping the Healer Within".By tapping you inflence the body's bioenergy fields located along energy meridians. Eastern Medicine has practiced similiar treatment for years i.e. acupuncture and applied kinesiology.
35If you truly believe in this scam, it could work.
36It's all about control and belief you have in the likelihood that this silly technique could work. Sounds to me like it's some sort of meditation, and that obviously has benefits as well. If I were to do something like this, I'd really rather just think really hard about why I had this craving, and whether or not I should actually go for it. People are so silly, really.
Um, what?!
37I'm searching for a way to link this to Scientology.
38I have lost 10 pounds by following Paul McKenna's 4 Golden Rules since January. It's been a slow loss but completely worth it considering I usually only stick to a diet for a week or so. It's been working for me but I honestly don't use the tapping technique, I just follow the Golden Rules. I love Paul, though. This is the best "diet" I have ever been on!
39I watched the show for the first time last night and was very impressed that these techniques are actually helping people achieve their weight loss goals. Being familiar with EFT and NLP it made prefect sense to me that these tools could help not only reduce cravings but essentially change one's self-image. Which is what change is all about. Before dismissing the idea consider trying it for yourself. I have tried both techniques for other areas in my life and guess what? They work great! You will never know how good it feels to be free of your own self-destructive habits unless and until you employ techniques and strategies that not only work, but work with so much less pain, delay and deprivation. Just my two cents!
40It's clearly not going to hurt anyone to give this a try, so why be so negative about it? I get just as upset at the next reasonable person when I see 'scam' diets, doctors, techniques, etc, but this is a from a free tv show (I doubt anyone is subscribing to cable just for this show), the technique doesn't cost anything to try, and it's not going to physically harm anyone. If it works for some people, more power to them.
41If this works for people then more power to them. I saw the program and tried the tapping, it seemed to work. I don't know if it is accupressure or distraction but whatever works is good. His rules are great, that is how thin people eat and it is how we all need to eat. It is easy to make fun, be skeptical and laugh but this is working for a lot of people.
42I saw this guy on TV, and tried the technique he explained. I didn't buy his book or send him any money. I've only done the technique three times but, for whatever reason, I am craving much less garbage, and have switched overall to more healthful(whole grains, veggies, fruits) foods, in reasonable serving sizes. When I do eat a sugary snack, I am able to keep it to a minimal amount, instead of eating an entire box of cookies or an entire bag of candy, as I was doing before.
Perhaps I was willing to try this technique because I have been successfully treated with acupuncture, for some extrmely serious medical problems, in the past. It's possible that it works because I believe--and, by the way, this is the entire basis of Western medicine anyway. All those expensive, serious-side-effects-laden pharmaceuticals we all take only have to work just a little bit better than the placebo effect in order to get approved by the FDA--but to paraphrase an obscure poet, There are more things in heaven and earth. . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
43Who knew fighting cravings was so simple
44I am completely amazed at the nasty throw-off remarks and narrow-mindedness! I've used McKenna's technique for curbing my cravings for candy and it's worked like a dream!
The tapping technique is a method of retraining your mind to react to a feeling in a different manner.
I believe that someone asked for input on if the technique really worked, not for useless remarks from people who don't know anything about it.
The techniques WORK if you apply them (and, yes, if you believe that they will). Who cares if he didn't invent them! He's bringing something to a new audience.
Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that it has no validity.
45i think this works in the exact same way as the "put a butterknife in a glass of water and drink it" method for getting your hiccups to stop -- distraction. even if it's just a new method of distraction, who cares, as long as it's working for someone?
46I did this the first time to prove it wrong and have a good laugh. Guess who was wrong? Now when I feel a craving or a habitual eating urge, I tap it out. Crazy but effective. Maybe because I'm too weak minded???
47This does work! It helped me get back to my bodies natural instincts and listen to them! The tapping technique is good for any stress and if you do alittle research or buy the book you will realize it's not as crazy as the beginning poster is raving about.
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