Helen McCarthy - How to retrain your appetite : lose weight for good, eating all your favourite foods

I have been talking to patients about Appetite Retraining. This simple message has had amazing results already! Several patients have also noticed the benefits of the positive acceptance of how they feel, tuning into and trusting their deeper sensory mechanisms extending beyond their dietary habits. It took a fraction of the time to discuss and did not feel like a finger-wagging exercise on my part.

Dr Ashish Bhatia
NHS GP

In a world of soaring obesity, and no consensus on the best diet to follow, Helens approach is invaluable to help our patients adopt sensible eating habits. I have used it on a personal and professional level.

Dr Lynn Thompson

NHS GP

Dr Helen McCarthys individualised approach helping people struggling with weight loss and eating issues is truly unique and highly effective. I have recommended her to many of my general practice patients and only ever received excellent feedback. I have been wishing for her to write a book for a very long time in order to help bring her approach to a much wider audience.

Dr Wolfgang Walter,
NHS GP, acupuncturist and Integrative Medicine Specialist

I am very grateful for the way in which Dr Helen has completely transformed my approach to food. Im no longer frightened by biscuits and chocolate. I can have biscuits in the house and leave them which I couldnt do before. I dont feel fat any more and I feel proud of myself; its liberating.

Carys, aged 62, politician

Im now more relaxed around food and no longer feel it controls my life. My confidence has increased a lot and Im a lot happier than I was before. I didnt feel like I was on a diet because Appetite Retraining isnt based on calories or measuring things. Conventional diets only work short-term; this approach works more slowly but for your whole life.

Zoe, aged 26, medical receptionist

I was drinking far too much. My doctor told me that the drinking was causing steady weight gain, and that the weight was contributing to pain in my knees. It got to the point where my wife threatened to leave me unless I cut down dramatically. Appetite Retraining has changed my mindset and since losing over a stone, I dont feel any pain in my knees. I feel better in myself and can wear shirts I havent worn for years.

Gareth, aged 41, factory manager

Now I can stop eating when Im full. If I have an evening where its a bit of a struggle, I have a rational conversation in my head. Im thinking more about what Im eating and find I can manage feeling hungry in the afternoon. My fitness has improved and I get much less heartburn. What works for me is eating three times a day, which I didnt do before. I enjoy my meals and now feel the right weight.

Richard, aged 42, business manager

Losing weight is never easy, but with Appetite Retraining my husband and I can still go out for really nice meals. Retraining your appetite means not eating unless youre hungry so you do eat less, but you dont get extremely hungry in effect, calorie counting and Appetite Retraining come to the same thing of eating less, but calorie counting is harder and no fun.

Clare, aged 54, scientist

Im amazed how much less Im eating. It makes such a difference knowing that you can indulge in alcohol, pastries and chocolate from time to time without feeling guilty. We have learned to eat less food which means our food bill has been reduced considerably. I can honestly say that losing this weight has been a straightforward exercise with no suffering.

Rob, aged 57, solicitor

I had been trying for years to lose the extra pounds that kept creeping on and never managed to shift them. With Appetite Retraining something just clicked.

Anna, aged 52, writer

For Gerard, Betsy and Edward

Im Dr Helen McCarthy, The Appetite Doctor. Welcome to my groundbreaking Appetite Retraining Programme, which will enable you to throw away your diet books and instead achieve permanent weight loss by changing your eating habits.

Losing weight is hard however you do it. And, for many, the hardest part is keeping the weight off after reaching their goal. Ive heard many people talk about regaining weight after dieting as though its a personal failing. Its not. Regaining weight is inevitable if the way you eat on a diet is unsustainable. Appetite Retraining is a whole new approach to weight loss that focuses, from the word go, on making it easy to stick to your goal by replacing old unhelpful eating habits with new ones that allow your body to lose weight naturally.

When you lose weight by adapting your eating habits, the change is permanent and it is easy to keep the weight off. And although it is hard work, undoing unhealthy eating habits is achievable. This book shows you how. We start with where you are now, identify the ways you eat out of tune with your body, anticipate what mental blocks might get in your way and make changes one step at a time.

When it comes to the psychology of eating and weight loss, I know what Im talking about both professionally and personally. After gaining a B.Sc. degree in Experimental Psychology at Durham University, I spent five years at Oxford University doing a doctorate in the psychology of eating disorders. After that I trained as a Clinical Psychologist in the NHS. Working in an exciting and inspiring NHS Clinical Psychology department, I learned about working with people who have mental health problems, from anxiety to depression to eating disorders, and how to try to help them. Eventually I moved to private practice and am now an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Throughout the 29 years since I qualified, what Ive loved most of all is putting whats known from the academic study of psychology into practice to help people overcome their problems.

Ive lived and breathed the psychology of eating and weight loss since beginning work on it in 2011. Thousands of hours work in mainstream Clinical Psychology and more recently in the psychology of eating and appetite, Appetite Retraining is a distillation of everything Ive discovered the result of thousands of hours of reading and helping people to use psychological techniques to return to eating in tune with their body.

www.theappetitedoctor.co.uk

One hot afternoon in the summer of 2011, my client Megans final session of treatment was coming to an end. At the age of 40, Megan had developed bulimia nervosa, which had been triggered by trying to lose weight using a very low calorie meal replacement programme. I had treated her bulimia successfully using cognitive behavioural therapy.

Megan was relieved and delighted to have made such a positive recovery and thanked me as she left the room. On her way out she turned and said, I just wish I could lose another stone in weight. I was stunned. I had been able, as a Clinical Psychologist, to help Megan overcome a serious eating disorder, but I had no idea how to help her simply lose a stone. Not least because I was a stone and a half heavier than I wanted to be and my own (albeit half-hearted) attempts to lose weight hadnt got very far.