June 2020 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

[Mark Cooper]

josietheschnauzer - I'm assuming the question regarding antibiotics is in reference to supporting beneficial bacteria in the digestive system? I don't think any dietary changes from MWL are required for promoting gut flora. This newsletter discussing Beneficial Bowel Bacteria provides Dr. McDougall's overview. Here is a post from Jeff answering a question about antibiotics. And this post indicates probiotics are not necessary or required in most cases.

The beneficial bacteria proliferate in the digestive system of someone following this program as they love to live off the by-products of the digestion of fruit, vegetables, whole grains and beans. One does not need to eat fermented foods or raw foods for this to occur.

laurag - Headway, indeed! That is great! Congratulations on breaking through that plateau!

[Mark Cooper]

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's weigh-in and seeing everyone's reports! Friday is this group's weigh-in day, and participants have until noon pacific time (19:00 UTC) on Saturday to post a report of their result for the week. Reports posted outside that window of time won't be included in the summary that I compile for Saturday evening. This group is all about changing patterns of behavior, so it seems reasonable to me to expect those who choose to participate in the weekly weigh-in to honor that time frame for reporting. In addition to reporting your weight change in pounds, more importantly, please be sure to evaluate your behaviors within the context of the MWL 10-Point Checklist, if you please. I will respond to everyone's reports in a cumulative post on Friday evening and Saturday evening, and the summary for the week will be posted Saturday night.

For more information on why participants are recommended to weigh themselves once a week, check out this excellent and thorough article from Jeff - To Weigh or Not to Weigh

Wishing all the best to everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow!

[carwex]

Hi MWL's,

Always gratifying to read about MWL participants who are fulfilling their goals through this discussion board and the MWL principles.

This week I lost 1.3 pounds after a gain last week. The solution of course was that this week I followed the MWL 10 point principles assiduously.

One thing that has helped me personally is that I no longer shlepp a lot of veggies and fruits from the store. During lockdown I started to get a little crazy about going to supermarkets. We dont have a car so I started to order online from a supermarket which is not within walking distance but has wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables. Not crazy about the frozen stuff. Once a week the kitchen fills with this produce and I have to use it up before the next weekly delivery. I dont even plan, just order whats in season and therefore less expensive. Even though my husband complain that it is more expensive. (Think of what we spend when we are not eating healthily) I say better on fruits and vegetables than other sorts of expensive junk.Then when meal time comes, I open the fridge, pull it out, prepare, cook, eat. The less time it takes to "think" about getting it all together, the better off I am.

I have also gone off a lot of beans for a while because of flatuence. I love beans but i think too many may be hard on the digestion and in our plan we get to treat both grains and legumes as starch so there is room for adjusting the ratio between them.

I am staying with this feed for a while longer and when I stop losing weight I will take it as a sign from above that I should transfer to the maintenance board maintained by Lidzie.

Thank you for all your help.

[josietheschnauzer]

I am curious about antibiotics because I am on one since Monday. I have a skin rash on both legs and the doctor prescribed an antibiotic which is working on the leg rash problem. I do not remember being on an antibiotic as an adult--penicillin as a child. So I was wondering what if any vegetable I should concentrate on. Sauerkraut is too high in sodium I believe and would not fit the MWL guidelines. Thank you.

[josietheschnauzer]

Mark, I am sorry. Please ignore my previous post. I didn't comprehend the information from Jeff you included for me. I must be tired. I don't need to eat anything except my normal MWL food for the antibiotic. Isn't that great! Thank you.

[Abe]

Weight Change: 0 lbs.

MWL Points:

1. Start meals with soup or salad.
2. Follow 50/50 plate volume.
   I had two or three meals this week that were predominantly starch, rather than 50/50. This seems to happen when I am working a lot, and do not have the luxury of sitting around eating salad or soup for a long time.
3. Eliminate sugar and salt.
4. Eliminate animal based foods.
5. Eliminate higher fat plant foods.
6. Eliminate oil.
7. Eliminate higher calorie dense foods.
8. Do not drink your calories.
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don’t starve yourself and don’t stuff yourself.
   I get an A+ for not starving myself. I no longer eat to the point of being overstuffed, but perhaps I could try eating less to see if I could be satisfied given more time to register the food already consumed. I enjoy eating and being full. I have really made some improvements in this area, but maybe not enough to lose those final 20 pounds.
10. Avoid being sedentary.

[josietheschnauzer]

Weight Loss .2
My weight returned to where it was two weeks ago. Last week I gained .2. This week it went away! I am back to a weight loss of 20 pounds since starting MWL and the Corona Lockdown. I have lost over 90 pounds since becoming a McDougaller. At one point I gained back about 20 pounds (2018-2019) by eating vegetable fat . I attended the 10 Day Live in Program in August 2019 and lost it all by November/December 2019. Now I have lost another 20! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.--Yes, I love my soup!
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert. Yes, I love my greens now. I ran out of kale and bought two bags yesterday
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them. [color=#0040FF]Not a problem unless I eat out. I hope they don't add salt to steamed vegetables. I will ask next time.[/color]
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). Save the animals and the oceans! Prevent heart disease and cancer
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). None.
6. Eliminate any added oil. NO OIL!
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e. bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit. None
8. Don’t drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). None
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don’t starve yourself and don’t stuff yourself. Taking a walk after I eat dinner. Sometimes saving my fruit until after I walk. Works! Eating Less and Still Full.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily. Exercise an hour day

[jan_npr]

Weight change: down 0.4 lbs

Well I must say I'm happy to record a loss after a topsy turvy week. Didn't do as well with my checklist feeling sorry for myself with a health concern (as reported in Jan's daily mwl journal). Feeling healthy again now!!

A 10-POINT CHECKLIST FOR MAXIMUM WEIGHT LOSS (MWL)

1) Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.  
2) Follow the 50/50 plate method 2) Choose fruit for dessert.
3) Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts.  because my blood pressure has been good I've been using more salt. Affecting my weight I expect.
4) Eliminate all animal foods
5) Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). off track for a couple of days during illness; my hunger cravings weren't ill haha
6) Eliminate any added oil.
7) Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products, puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.
8 ) Don’t drink your calories
9) Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full.   Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.
10) Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily I love a good medical excuse to take it easy but I'm feeling better and will be back trying to do better with exercise next week

[Ren1999]

Ren1999

I aced the following:
#3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9
I walked ½ hour 5 days a week.
I usually graze all day, so didn’t have a meal to do soup/salad in front of. Same with 50/50 plate.

I started at 157 three weeks ago. Last week I was 156 and this morning I am 157.4.

I am used to this i.e. not losing being able to lose weight on a diet. As a post-menopausal woman, I feel that the fat is cemented around my middle – almost impossible to remove…

Yes, I have known about this way of eating for over a year and agree with the theories, but I think that as a post-menopausal female, mostly sedentary (except for my ½ hour of walking) I need to eat very little.

The other theory I have is that I am a spiritual practitioner and it is terribly embarrassing that I still have this attachment ie to wanting to lose weight - the sub-attachments of which are to vanity, comfort, competition – there are a myriad of them.

Truly I think, that if I just truly let go of the attachment, the weight would probably just fall off.

[AnnetteW]

June start weight - 156
June 12 - 154 (down 2 lbs)
June 19 - 153 (down 1 lb)


1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. still plating my food, though if I have a salad I eat it first, no soup in the summer

2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert. doing well with this, except for breakfast I have some berries or fruit

3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them. I've greatly reduced the salt, but not eliminated it, I can't imagine eating beans with no salt, but I'm using much less

4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). Check!!!

5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).I continue to work on this. I did rebel one afternoon and eat a bunch of almonds. But I've stopped the soymilk. We had a small amount of tofu in a stirfry one night, but it really was used as a condiment. Oh and some avocado in homemade sushi. Um...this is still my most difficult area to deal with.

6. Eliminate any added oil.Check !!!!

7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit. Pretty good, but did have dates on the day of the almond binge

8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).Doing fine with this and have continued to have no alcohol

9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.I still feel like I overeat.

10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).I have continued to walk daily, though some are shorter walks, as my feet will hurt (due to a foot surgery I had), I'm doing some weights too

I'm definitely eating a few too many fruits, but summertime fruits are so yummy. Mentally I become a bit of a basketcase, wanting to throw in the towel, but then I have a talk with myself and pull myself back up. My belly definitely feels flatter. I know I struggle with weightloss, I do no like the little bit of discomfort it gives me. It's like my body can feel when it is in a deficit and does everything it can to make me eat something. It's not a belly feeling. Sometimes I really get tired of thinking "oh, I need to add a vegetable to this dish"...and I enjoy eating my veggies.

On to next week.

[Miss Kim]

Last weigh-in: 169 (2 weeks ago)
Today's weigh-in: 167
Change: -2lbs

I just got home last night. Brought my son home with me, since he is able to ride in the car now. He is healing from his injury, but still needs assistance. My husband was thrilled to have me home after being gone for 2 weeks.
I'm very proud of myself for the 2 lb loss.
Followed # 1,2,3,6,8,9,10.
#4 had a few chicken cilantro pot stickers (steamed at my son's)
#5 had some avocado on my tacos this week.
#7 had 2 corn tortillas
This lifestyle of eating is feeling more normal, regular. There were a few days after work where I walked into the kitchen hungry and thought about eating a flour tortilla or something like that, and then I remembered there was watermelon in the fridge and I ate that instead.
Thanks everyone for your posts, they are very encouraging. The support is so helpful.
Kim

[chaz01]

Weight Change
Week: +2.4 lbs
June: - 2.2 lbs
Year: -66.8 lbs

Yikes! I had a big weight loss last week for no real reason, so I was kind of expecting a setback, but I was hoping for something a little less severe than that. In actuality, I was excited when I hit 70lbs total loss for the year early in the week! But after that, my weight has gone steadily up ever since. This is the first week this year that I've reported a gain on my Friday weigh-in's, so I'm a little disappointed that streak is over, but I knew it would come eventually.

Other than the results, I thought I had a very good week. I had two social events where we ate out, but I thought I did a good job of minimizing the out-of-plan eating at those events. One area I could do better is drinking my calories, especially in these months where it's more tempting to reach for a cold beverage outside of water. But overall I mainly ate the same foods and meals that got me here, so I'm hoping this is just a temporary weight fluctuation and not a trend. I also had a really good week physically and set a couple "year-to-date personal best" for my jogging/running program.

Which brings me to a question, Mark. I know I've read that when exercising, it's possible to build more muscle mass (which is good, but adds body weight) to counter-act your fat loss so that even though you've lost fat lbs, it might not show up in the scale. I've never worried too much about that scenario as I've always have (and still have) much more fat to lose than muscle to gain. But I've been wondering if, as my fitness level continues to improve, if that could possibly be a reason for my slower rate loss the last two months (even though I'm mainly doing cardiovascular workouts)? For what it's worth, and I'm not sure it's a whole lot, but my bathroom scale somehow calculates your body fat %, and even though my total weight has gone up, it is reporting a 1% drop in body fat percentage (I have no clue how it arrives at this body fat number). In any event, I was just wondering at the McDougall program if they ever see weight gain due to exercise counteract fat loss?

Hope everyone else is having a good week! Stay safe, and Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there!

Chuck

[NateKruse]

Height: 6' 5"
03 January 2020 weight: 276.6 pounds.
29 May 2020 weight: 225.6 pounds.
05 June 2020 weight: 222.2 pounds.
12 June 2020 weight: 220.4 pounds.
19 June 2020 weight: 217.4 pounds.
Change this week: -3.0 pounds.
Change this year: -59.2 pounds.

I fully expected to gain weight this week. I have been eating mountains of air-fried French fries with the homemade nacho "cheese" sauce, jalapenos, and salsa. Sometimes twice a day!

I bought 16 pounds of bananas on Friday and single-handedly finished them by Thursday morning. A decent amount of those were even as chocolate nice cream. I also ate over 4 pounds of oranges throughout the week. Maybe there is a chance that this is water weight or something. We will see what the number on the scale says next week. Your results may vary!

In an attempt to cut down on the nearly constant banana eating (but mostly because my supply ran out), yesterday I started eating baked sweet potatoes with some frozen berries as a snack. I'm hoping the starch will be more filling and will keep me from snacking on fruit every 25 minutes. The snacking was probably a form of procrastination while working from home. My motivation and focus seem to be cyclical. This week was one of the low-focus weeks.

I have been adding less and less of the garlic salt to my food. My vegetable soup tastes fine without it and I smother my fries in so much sauce that I wouldn't be able to taste the salt on the fries anyways. The cheese sauce has replaced the ketchup so my sugar consumption is down as well.

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.100%
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert. 90%. Still room for improvement by having less starchy vegetables.
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them. 60% Still using canned vegetables with sea salt.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). 100%
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). 100%
6. Eliminate any added oil. 100%
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit. 100%
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). 100%. One gallon of water every day.
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself. 100%
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).100%. 45 minute morning walk with the dog and a 45 minute workout every day.

[rlechols]

Weight last week: 150.0 lbs
Weight this week: 150.0 lbs
Loss of 0 lbs

This was another good week for me compliance-wise. I am not perfect, but the places where I sometimes don't achieve all 10 MWL guidelines are lack of including something, not a lack of excluding something, if that makes sense.

1) Start with soup/salad/fruit: I made a large pot of minestrone soup which I used throughout the week. I won't say I was 100% on this, as sometimes I'm not that hungry and just eat my 50/50 plate, but for most dinners I did start with soup or salad. Breakfasts always start with fruit and lunches are almost always a big spinach salad with some starches thrown in (usually a combination of no salt canned corn, brown rice, and some sort of bean/lentils).
2) Follow 50/50 plate method and fruit for dessert - check.
3) Reduce/eliminate added sugar/salt - I only use these at the table and attempt to buy no/low sodium canned products.
4) Eliminate animal foods - check.
5) Eliminate higher fat plant foods - check.
6) Eliminate oil - check.
7) Eliminate higher calorie dense foods - check.
8 ) Don't drink your calories - check.
9) Eat when hungry and stop when full - check.
10) Avoid being sedentary - check. I continue to do strength training/toning exercises every morning, 5 days a week, for about 30 minutes and am taking a 4 mile walk 6-7 days a week.

Some thoughts about the week: I really am not snacking much at all, except for after my walk, I always eat a piece of fruit. I got braces (Invisalign) a few weeks ago and now have rubber bands, so taking everything out, brushing, and putting everything back in stops any mindless snacking...everything is planned! I also eat my fruit for dessert right after dinner and then don't eat anything else before bed. I haven't been hungry between meals much, I make sure and eat adequately to get me through until my next meal most of the time, except once this week when I was busy with work and didn't want to stop when I was so close to finishing, and ended up not having lunch until after 2pm...I think that, in combination with being hot at night and tossing and turning (lack of quality sleep), caused me to get a migraine that afternoon. It wasn't pretty, and taught me a lesson in not letting myself get too hungry.

Now that I have finally hit a normal BMI (which I truly wasn't sure was possible for me), I would like to lose 5 more pounds as sort of a buffer zone, but I honestly don't know how much more I can realistically lose. I just plan on continuing with MWL and focus on my exercise routine and being fit and seeing what happens.

Next week on Wednesday we are flying out West (from Ohio to Utah) to be with some family members for 2 weeks. We are, of course, taking every precaution possible to stay healthy while we fly. But another challenge will be staying at my mother in law's house. I am borrowing a friend's Instant Pot so I can cook my own meals, and I plan to be very frank with my MIL and tell her I will fend for myself so she doesn't have to stress about what to feed me. She shows love by cooking for us, so it might be a bit of a challenge. I just plan on being upfront and honest with her and tell her how much we appreciate her. My omnivore husband will eat whatever she fixes, so hopefully that will appease her. Also, I will probably not have access to a scale, but plan on checking in on Fridays while I am there. Perhaps I can borrow a scale. We will see.

Happy Father's Day to all the men out there! I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

[GreenFroG]

Hello everyone,

Starting weight: 159.2

I recommitted on Monday to the program, so today is my first weigh in. I read the MWL guidelines, and a lot of the posts this week, which has really helped me to be motivated. I am ready to start doing the work. I looked at my weight from May of 2017 where I was 170 pounds, the heaviest I have ever been. I have stayed around 155 pounds since January 2019 and then have gone back up to 159 in the past two months. I am still trying to figure out my goal weight, but think I have about 20 pounds to loose. I will have to do a little more reading.

Since Monday...

Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert.
Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.
Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). Have been putting flax seeds on my oatmeal; didn't think of this as seeds until I read some of the posts.
Eliminate any added oil. have to start making my own hummus.
Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e. bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit. Had a couple of pieces of whole wheat bread with that hummus
Don’t drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don’t starve yourself and don’t stuff yourself. Have to work on not eating past full.
Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).

Observation: I have to reach for the veggies when I snack instead of hummus on toast! I made the Bean and Corn soup for this week and a big batch of spicy salsa for my salads, so I am starting the week feeling a little more prepared. The work begins!