Post to October MWL Weigh-In Group Saturday, 10/2/21 for 10/1/21 tally:
Weight change +/- in lbs: + 3.2 (Had been up 8 earlier in the week.)
1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.----No.
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.----The days I was "on", I had 50/50.
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.----Some good days + some bad.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).----Had dairy some days.
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).----Had in-shell peanuts 2 times this week.
6. Eliminate any added oil.---Some days good, others not. The added oils were in store-bought items. I don't have any cooking/eating oil or margarine in the house.
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.----No. Had flour products some days.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).----100% success...whoo-hoo, finally a category on the checklist I succeeded at 100%!
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.----Unfortunately this past week had several days of thinking, "I'll re-start tomorrow.". Because of this, I did get stuffed at times because don't you know, I just had to finish up some bad "foods".
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).----7 out of 7 days of walking as fast as I could for a good 20+ minutes. Some days it was a 20+ minute walk plus walking as I shopped for 15-45 minutes. Pain + discomfort still limit the speed at which I can walk, but have made made vast improvements, thank God!
Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
In the last few hours I have had an epiphany, + because of it am very excited about my future MWL journey, + have great hope that I will be successful so that I finally conquer my too often horrible patterns of behavior when it comes to eating, my morbidly obese body weight, + my very scary declined health. But 1st...
Last week I truly thought I'd start/re-start as I said I would. So I had some days of basically 100% compliance only to have others that were basically totally off-plan.
I am not willing to give up this fight. I was exposed to + successfully followed Dr. McDougall's way of suggested eating decades ago. I have tried other things (still all vegetarian) from that time, but I still keep coming back to the belief that Dr. McDougall's recommendations are the best + the most doable for a lifetime.
So I have found my "home", my anchor of how I will eat. And a few months ago, as some of you know, I went whole-heartedly into following MWL + with great success. I was not perfect, as I did at times have rice (+ corn) cakes, no-oil whole wheat bread (+ 1 time sesame seeds in + around the bread), + no-oil fake meat as part of birthday celebrations. But other than that, going from my memory now, I did not consume any non MWL items.
So when my slip started, 9/4, it was with potato chips + a vegan BOCA burger (no bread) for Labor Day + I got right back on track. My weight went up 1 day, but was back to the original weight the day after.
But then I let the fact that I had the potato chips + BOCA burger "eat" away at me...falling into that perfection mentality was my biggest downfall...my old trusted enemy showed up + I slowly but surely bought the 'ole lie hook, line, + sinker.
In the last 24 hours I carefully read the MWL Orientation + MWL Guidelines again. I have deeply thought + prayed about everything. This may seem stupid, + I can see how many could think, "Duh--wasn't this obvious from the beginning?!". But sadly, no. The main thing is that it all came together now, + now I feel like I can long-term successfully move forward in my MWL journey.
Oh boy, I have to post this in 10 minutes, so I hope I convey this well.
As I've mentioned in the past, crazy but true, I have dealt with a perfection mentality with my eating--it does not make sense as I am the 1st to say that I am not a perfect person, nor will I ever be this side of heaven. But yet why do I think I can be eat perfectly ALL the time? (Please know I am NOT saying this as a license to eat off-plan!)
So even though I wasn't 100% MWL when I started 7/13/21, I at least still ate pretty much healthy things--not chips, cheese, cake, etc.. So I was able to mentally handle those things because I also never over-ate them. Again, not saying it was okay as it was not MWL...this is probably more wordy than it could have been had I written sooner + could have edited--I apologize.
Anyway, I now realize that what Dr. Lisle has said for years really applies to me. If I'm going 100% strong, great! But at times when I slip, it's okay to be the tortoise + not the hare. So in essence I will no longer be on-plan or off-plan. This is what I do. I eat + follow the MWL Guidelines....sometimes not perfectly, but that is a part of life.
Not proofread.
-----------Additional post:
P.S. Still haven't read/proofread what I just posted above, but I just wanted to add that I ordered a microwave. We haven't had 1 for probably at least 20 or more years. My main reason for ordering it is so that I can nuke potatoes so that, no matter how crazy busy + demanding my schedule is (+ it is!), I can always have a delicious + healthy potato within 10 minutes. I also plan to nuke veggies so that I can have 50/50 plates + bowls.
Last night I drove a couple towns away to a store that sells cans of no salt added sliced beets, sliced carrots, + spinach. By tomorrow I plan to get to Wal-Mart to buy cans of no salt added green beans, + bags of frozen kale, broccoli florets, cauliflower, + Potatoes O'Brien.
In the last couple days I bought an array of hard winter squashes, 1 bag of Russets, 2 bags of Yukon Golds, bell peppers, red + green cabbages, fresh onions + garlic, organic salad greens, organic grapes, organic bananas, + some new Sistema containers to have food prepped.
I was not kidding when I said I am planning on succeeding...I know at times it'll be a rocky road (lol--yeah, like the ice cream), but I am willing to fight hard to not ever again have such a lapse.
Also, I cannot guarantee because of time constraints + lack of great Internet access, but starting Monday, 10/4, I'm hoping to do the 10 point checklist daily (sans weighing) in my journal.
Thank you, Mark, Jeff, wildgoose, all fellow MWL Participants, + of course Dr., Mary, + Heather McDougall (not that I think they read this, but I am still very grateful to them!)!