Hi All,
Give yourselves a big pat on the back for a week of focused effort and determination.
I'm hoping to hear a bit more about how each of you are finding the program, specifically the food portion of your adherence? We all know that the closer we come to the recommended guidelines, the better our health and weight loss will be. As
Dr McDougall says
It's the food.
If I were to answer the question
How did you do this past week?, I could answer it like this, quite honestly:
I don't understand why I didn't lose weight this week. I didn't eat any oil, dairy or meat. I avoided nuts, except for a bit of peanut butter, one time. I stuck to fresh fruit, whole grains and plenty of soupsThis somewhat shallow description could make it sound like I did better than I really did. I may even
think that I did better than I did if I were to not take a closer look.
Most of the time we all know when we aren't doing our best work, but it can be easy to not realize how far we've fallen without periodic examination of the nitty gritty details. I've just decided (right now*) that I will reflect through my adherence level for the past week, using the 10 item list that the previous facilitator, Debbie, put together.
This will give me a more accurate view of how I'm doing, as long as I'm honest with myself. Additionally, I'm not able to create an artificially compliant picture by pre-planning the reflection to occur after a set period of time (like, for example, my
October challenge, where knowing that I would be reporting nudged me to maker better choices than I possibly/probably would have) and then fall prey to thinking my recent adherence actually reflects my longer term pattern.
(This isn't an act of contrition here, just an honest look at a real snapshot in time of why my weight loss has stalled....gulp...confession time hehehe)
Debbie wrote:
Program outlined in the MWL book, page 60.
1. Eliminate All Animal Foods
No problems to report here. Zero animal products consumed
2. Eliminate All Oils
Ditto
3. Eliminate All High Fat Plant Foods: Nuts, Nut Butters, Seeds, Seed Butters, Avocados, Coconut, & Olives.
I ate PB on toast one evening, 3 slices (after all of the kids made the kitchen smell delicious with their own toast...just some context
...I know, I know.)
4. Eliminate All Flour Products
See above, which then also led to a couple of bowls of high fibre/oil-free cereal and almond milk. All in all I probably added an extra 1000 calories to that day. That's when I managed to catch that slip and put a stop to it.
5. Eat Whole Grains and Potatoes
Check and check. Many, many potatoes eaten.
6. Eat Legumes
Same here, legumes were in most of my meals. Mary's
Moroccan Red Lentil Soup (minus the orzo), my
favourite chili recipe, potato leek lentil soup, etc.
7. Make Green & Yellow Vegetables One-Half to One-Third of your meal
FAIL! Though I snacked on raw veggies daily, I can't say that I made them anywhere near 1/3-1/2 of my plate per meal...out of 7 dinners and 7 lunches (where I would tend to have veggies) I would say that 4 meals met that requirement. My meals were starch, soup or stew and fruit for the most part.
8. Eat Uncooked Foods
I do love raw veggies as snacks! I get at least 2 servings of raw veggies a day.
9. Restrict Fresh Fruit to No More Than Two Servings a Day, and Avoid Dried Fruit, Fruit Puree, and Fruit Juice
I'm happy to say that I ate no dried fruit (Take that you sneaky prunes!), but I haven't been limiting my fruit consumption and probably eat triple that amount of fresh fruit recommended.
10. Use Simple Sugar Sparingly
I averaged 4 tsps a day.
The other major problem that I can identify is an active
Cram Circuit. I haven't been focusing on that issue lately, and know that having a cut-off time to stop eating each evening really works for me.
So there you have it. I am not losing weight because I am not
really following the
MWL Guidelines. I am fooling myself into believing that I am on certain days, but most days I realize I'm following the regular McDougall program.
I'm still spinning my wheels, and maybe this happens to some of you too. If you aren't losing any weight, and you still have a ways to go, take a closer look at what you're eating.
The good news is that I'm not gaining weight, and am maintaining a 90+ pound loss. I carried those pounds around for more than 20 years. I mention this so that people who don't know my past have a bit of perspective. This diet really works to help you lose weight, but adjustments may need to be made the closer that you get to your natural healthy size. Some of us, okay me, are a bit stubborn with making those additional changes consistently, but I'll get there. That's why I just keep at it...swallow my pride about this issue, allow myself to be vulnerable to negative feedback by oversharing and continue to be as open and honest as my ego can tolerate. Like a particularly difficult math problem, keep your pencil to paper and eventually you will figure it out. 2 + 2 will always equal 4, much like keeping your calorie density low enough will always lead to weight loss in someone who is overweight. However some of us will always complicate things a bit and add 5 to -1 to get there instead. So be it, the problem still gets solved!
We will all have slightly different minimal adherence requirements to reach our own personal goals. I continue to prove to myself that I
need to have a much closer adherence level to meet mine, while eating to satiety.
What level of MWL adherence do you think you're attaining? What level of regular McDougall program? (I tend to use the metric of percentage of calories from on plan foods as a quick descriptor). More importantly how happy are you with your progress?
I wish you all a wonderful week of reflection and chopping and cooking and eating and enjoying life!
Amy
Here are the results for the third week in June:Next Weigh-In is on Friday, June 22nd, 2018Total group loss reported in 2018: 256.2 pounds
June 2018 Weight Loss Group :: Monthly Weigh-In Results
Total group loss in January 2018: 54.7 pounds
Total group loss in February 2018: 49.3 pounds
Total group loss in March 2018: 52.5 pounds
Total group loss in April 2018: 26.9 pounds
Total group loss in May 2018: 50.8 pounds
Total group loss in June 2018: 22 poundsWeek ending 06/15/2018: 9 participants reported a total loss of 8.3 pounds
---------------------------------------
Moonlight - 1.0
Svenja - 5.0
---------------------------------------
Total gains: 6.0
--------------------------------------
VegSeekingFit - 2.8
Rosey - 1.7
Victw - 0.8
Squealcat - 0.4
Arewethereyet - 1.2
Jobet - 1.4
Chumly - 6.0
---------------------------------------------
Total losses: 14.3
---------------------------------------------
Total group loss in June 2018: 22 pounds
Week ending 06/15/2018: 9 participants reported a total loss of 8.3 pounds
Week ending 06/08/2018: 10 participants reported a total loss of 3.4 pounds
Week ending 06/01/2018: 18 participants reported a total loss of 10.3 pounds
*(right now was actually Friday night when I wrote this)
[Edited to add participants]